"Turn round and put your hands behind you," said the policeman.

Imbrie defiantly folded his arms.

Stonor smiled. "If you resist my orders," he said softly, "there is no
need for me to hold my hand.--Put your hands behind you!" he suddenly
rasped.

Imbrie thought better to obey. Stonor bound his wrists firmly together.
He then led Imbrie a hundred yards from their camp, and, making him sit
in the grass, tied his ankles and invited him to meditate.

"I'll get square with you for this, old man!" snarled Imbrie. "You had
no right to tie me up!"

"I didn't like the style of your conversation," said Stonor coolly.

"You're damn right, you didn't! You snivelling preacher! You snooper
after other men's wives! Oh, I've got you where I want you now! Any
charge you bring against me will look foolish when I tell them----"

"Tell them what?"

"Tell them you're after her!"

Stonor walked away and left the man.

Clare still stood in the same place like a carven woman. She waited for
him with wide, harassed eyes. As he came to her she said simply:

"This is worse than I expected."

"The man is not right in his head!" said Stonor. "There is something
queer. Don't pay any attention to him. Don't think of him."

"But I must think of him; I can't escape it. What do you mean by not
right?"

"A screw loose somewhere. What they call a case of double personality,
perhaps. It is the only way to reconcile what you told me about him and
what we see."

Clare's glance was turned inward in the endeavour to solve the riddle of
her own blind spot. She said slowly: "I have known him somewhere; I am
sure of that. But he is strange to me. He makes my blood run cold. I
cannot explain it."

"Do not brood on it," urged Stonor.

She transferred her thoughts to Stonor. "You look utterly worn out. Will
you sleep now?"

"Yes. We won't leave here until morning. My horse must have a good
rest."

"You'd wait for him, but not for yourself!"

"Tole ought to be along in the morning to help pack, and to guard the
prisoner."

Before Stonor had a chance to lie down, Imbrie called him. There was a
propitiatory note in his voice.

The trooper went to him. "What do you want?" he asked sternly.

"Say, I'm sorry I riled you, Sergeant," said Imbrie with a grin. "I was
a bit carried off my feet by the situation. I'll be more careful
hereafter. Untie this damned rope, will you?"

Stonor slowly shook his head. "I think we're both better off with a
little distance between us."

Imbrie repented of his honeyed tones. His lip curled back. But he made
an effort to control himself. "Aren't you afraid your spotless
reputation will suffer?" he asked, sneering.

"Not a bit!" said Stonor promptly.

Imbrie was taken aback. "Well--can I speak to my wife for a minute?" he
asked sullenly.

Stonor observed, wincing, how he loved to bring out the word "wife."
"That's up to her," he answered. "I'll put it to her."

Returning to Clare, he said: "He wants to speak to you."

She shrank involuntarily. "What should I do, Martin?"

"I see nothing to be gained by it," said Stonor quickly.

"But if, as you say, in a way he's sick, perhaps I ought----"

"He's not too sick to have a devil in him. Leave him alone!"

She shook her head. She was gaining in firmness. "It won't hurt me to
hear what he has to say. It may throw some light on the situation."

"I doubt it," said Stonor. "His object is to raise as much dust as
possible. But go ahead. If he's insulting, leave him instantly. And
don't let him know what I suspect him of."

She went, and Stonor walked up and down in the grass in a fever until
she returned. She was with Imbrie some little time. Stonor could not
guess of what they talked. Clare's white composed face, and Imbrie's
invariable grin, told him nothing.

The instant she came towards him he burst out: "He didn't annoy you?"

She shook her head. "No, he seemed quite anxious to please. He
apologized for what he said before."

Stonor said, blushing and scowling: "Perhaps you do not care to tell me
what you----"

"Certainly!" she said, with a quick look. "Don't be silly, Martin. It
was just what you might expect. Nothing important. He asked me dozens of
questions as to what we did down the river."

"You did not tell him?"

"How could I? Apparently he is greatly puzzled by my condition. He seems
not fully to believe, or at least he pretends not to believe, that I
cannot remember. He tried to work on my feelings to get you to liberate
him. And of course he was most anxious to know what he was wanted for. I
told him I could not interfere in your affairs, that's all."

Stonor nodded.

"Martin," she said, with the withdrawn look that he had marked before,
"I cannot remember anything, yet I am conscious of a deep resentment
against this man. At some time in the past he has injured me cruelly, I
am sure.--Yet I told you I had injured him, didn't I?" She passed a hand
across her face. "It is very puzzling."

"Don't worry!" he said cheerily. "It's bound to be made clear in the
end."

"You wish to do all the worrying, don't you?" she said, with a wry
smile.

He could not meet her dear eyes. "Worry nothing!" he cried. "I only have
one idea in my mind, and that is to get some sleep!" He bustled to get
his blankets.

They awoke him for the evening meal. After eating, he inspected his
camp, sent Clare to bed, moved Imbrie closer, instructed Mary to keep
watch that he did not succeed in freeing himself, and went back to sleep
again. Mary was to call him at dawn, and they would take the trail at
sunrise.

In the middle of the night he was brought leaping to his feet by a cry
out of the dark: a cry that was neither from wolf, coyote, nor
screech-owl. Wakened from a deep sleep, his consciousness was aware only
of something dreadful. Outside the tent Mary ran to him: her teeth were
chattering with terror: she could not speak. Clare crept from her tent.
Both women instinctively drew close to their protector.

"What was it?" Clare asked, tremblingly.

A shriek answered her; a dreadful urgent cry of agony that made the
whole night shudder. It came from a little way down the trail, from the
edge of the woods perhaps, not more than a quarter of a mile away.

"A human voice!" gasped Clare.

"A woman's!" muttered Stonor grimly.

Again it shattered the stillness, this time more dreadful, for they
heard words in their own tongue. "Don't hurt me! Don't hurt me!" Then a
horrible pause, and with added urgency: "Help! Help!"

"By God! English words!" cried Stonor, astounded.

"Go to her! Go to her!" cried Clare, urging him with her hands.

On the other hand, Mary, falling to her knees, clung to him, fairly
gibbering in the extremity of her terror.

Stonor was suspicious, yet every instinct of manliness drew him towards
these cries. Under that pull it was impossible to think clearly. He
shook Mary off, and started to run. He took three steps and pulled
himself up short.

"Look at Imbrie," he muttered. "Strange he hasn't wakened."

It was true the prisoner still lay motionless, entirely covered with his
blanket.

"It's a trick!" said Stonor. "There could be no English woman near here.
It's a trick to draw me out of camp!"

"But none of the Kakisas could speak English," said Clare.

"I don't know," muttered Stonor, in an agony of indecision. "My first
duty is here. Look at Mary. She thinks it's a trick."

Mary was lying on the ground, muttering a Kakisa word over and over.

"What is it?" Stonor harshly demanded.

"Spirits!" she gasped.

Stonor turned away, flinging his arms up. "Good God! Ghosts again!" he
cried, in exasperation.

The dreadful cries were raised again. "Help! Help! He's killing me!"

"I can't stand it!" cried Clare. "I must go myself!"

"Stay where you are!" commanded Stonor. "It is too strange a thing to
happen so close to our camp if it was not staged for our benefit!"

Just the same, it was not easy for him to hold himself. When the cries
were raised again a deep groan was forced from him:

"If I only had another man!"

"Go! Mary and I will be all right!" said Clare.

"Don' go! Don' go!" wailed Mary from the ground.

Stonor shouted into the darkness. "Come this way! Help is here!"

The cries were redoubled.

Imbrie suddenly awoke, and rolled clear of his blanket. "What's that?"
he cried, with an admirable assumption of surprise. "A woman's voice! A
white woman! Why don't you go to her?"

It was a little too well done; Stonor felt partly reassured.

Imbrie appeared to be struggling desperately in his bonds. "For God's
sake, man!" he cried. "If you won't go, cut me loose! I can't stand it!"

"I am sure now," said Stonor, in a voice of relief. "This was what he
fixed up with Myengeen this morning. I ought to have been prepared for
it. Mary, help me make up the fire. A blaze will help chase the
horrors."

"Oh, you coward!" taunted Imbrie. "If I had my hands free! This is the
famous nerve of the police!"

Stonor could afford to laugh at this. His courage was tried.

The voice came with a fresh note of despair. "He's taking me away! He's
taking me away! Oh, come! come!" Sure enough the sounds began to recede.

But the spell was broken now. They were only conscious of relief at the
prospect of an end to the grim farce.

"Damn clever work here," said Stonor. "She says the very things that
ought to pull the hardest."

"Where could they have got the English words?" said Clare.

"Search me! It's another mystery to add to what's facing us."

Meanwhile the flames were beginning to lick the twigs that Mary placed
with trembling hands.

"If we make a big fire won't it reveal us to them?" said Clare
nervously.

"They won't shoot," said Stonor contemptuously. "Stage business is more
their line; conjure-tricks."

Imbrie, seeing that the game was up, had given over trying to taunt
Stonor, and lay watching them with an unabashed grin. He seemed rather
proud of his scheme, though it had failed.

"Can I smoke?" he said.

"Mary, fill his pipe, and stick it in his mouth," said Stonor.

They heaped up a big fire, and at Stonor's initiative, sat around it
clearly revealed in the glare. He knew his Indians. At first Clare
trembled, thinking of the possible hostile eyes gazing at them from
beyond the radius of light, but Stonor's coolness was infectious. He
joked and laughed, and, toasting slices of bacon, handed them round.

"We can eat all we want to-night," he said. "Tole will be along with a
fresh supply to-morrow."

Imbrie lay about fifteen paces from the fire, near enough to make
himself unpleasant, if not to hear what was said. "Mighty brave man by
the fire," he sneered.

Stonor answered mildly. "One more remark like that, my friend, and I'll
have to retire you again from good society."

Imbrie held his tongue thereafter.

Clare, wishing to show Stonor that she too could set an example of
coolness, said: "Let's sing something."

But Stonor shook his head. "That would look as if we were trying to keep
our courage up," he said, smiling, "and of course it is up. But let Mary
tell us a story to pass the time."

Mary, having reflected that it was her own people and not ghostly
visitants that had made the hideous interruption in the night, had
regained her outward stolidity. She was not in the humour for telling
stories, though.

"My mout' too dry," she said.

"Go ahead," coaxed Stonor. "You know your own folks better than I do.
You know that if we sit here by the fire, eating, talking, and laughing
like a pleasant company, it will put respect into their hearts. They'll
have no appetite for further devilry."

"Can't tell stories," she said. "Too late, too dark, too scare. Words
won't come."

"Just tell us why the rabbits have a black spot on their backs. That's a
short one."

After a little more urging Mary began in her stolid way:

"One tam Old Man him travel in the bush. Hear ver' queer singin'. Never
hear not'ing like that before. Look all round see where it come. Wah! he
see cottontail rabbits singing and making medicine. They mak' fire. Got
plenty hot ashes. They lie down in those ashes and sing, and another
rabbit cover them up with ashes. They not stay there ver' long for cause
those ashes moch hot.

"Old Man say: 'Little brothers, that is wonderful how you lie down in
those hot ashes without burning. Show me how to do it.'

"Rabbits say: 'Come on, Old Man. We show you how. You got sing our song,
only stay in ashes little while.' So Old Man begin to sing, and he lie
down, and they cover him with ashes. Him not burn at all.

"He say: 'That is ver' nice. You sure got ver' strong medicine. Now I
want do it myself. You lie down, and I cover you up.'

"So rabbits all lie down in ashes, and Old Man cover them up. Then he
put the whole fire over them. Only one old rabbit get out. Old Man catch
her and go put her back, but she say: 'Pity me, my children soon be
born.'

"Old Man say: 'All right, I let you go, so there is plenty more rabbits
bam-bye. But I will cook these nicely and have a feast.' And he put more
wood on the fire. When those rabbits cooked nice, he cut red willow bush
and lay them on to cool. Grease soak into those branches; that is why
when you hold red willow to the fire you see grease on the bark. You can
see too, since that time, how rabbits got burnt place on their back.
That is where the one that got away was singed.

"Old Man sit down waitin' for rabbits to cool a little. His mouth is wet
for to taste them. Coyote come along limpin' ver' bad. Say: 'Pity me,
Old Man, you got plenty cooked rabbits, give me one.'

"Old Man say: 'Go along! You too lazy catch your dinner, I not help
you!'

"Coyote say: 'My leg broke. I can't catch not'ing. I starving. Just give
me half a rabbit.'

"Old Man say: 'I don't care if you die. I work hard to cook all these
rabbits. I will not give away. But I tell you what we do. We run a race
to that big hill way off there. If you beat me I give you a rabbit.'

"Coyote say: 'All right.' So they start run. Old Man run ver' fast.
Coyote limp along close behind. Then coyote turn round and run back very
fast. Him not lame at all. Tak' Old Man long tam to get back. Jus'
before he get there coyote swallow las' rabbit, and trot away over the
prairie with his tail up.

"That is the end."

Stonor laughed. "That's the kind of story I like. No cut and dried
moral!"

Mary never could be got to see anything funny in the stories she told.
Just what her attitude was towards them the whites could not guess.

"Give us another about Old Man," Stonor went on. "A longer one. Tell how
Old Man made medicine. A crackerjack!"

Clare looked at him wonderingly. If he were aware of the weirdness of
their situation no sign betrayed it. The crackling flames mounted
straight in the air, the smoke made a pillar reaching into the darkness.
Fifteen paces from Stonor lay his prisoner, staring unwinkingly at him
with eyes that glittered with hatred; and from all around them in the
darkness perhaps scores of their enemies were watching.

Mary stolidly began again:

"It was long tam ago before the white man come. The people not have
horses then. Kakisas hunt on the great prairie that touch the sky all
around. Many buffalo had been killed. The camp was full of meat. Great
sheets hung in the lodges and on the racks outside to smoke. Now the
meat was all cut up and the women were working on the hides. Cure some
for robes. Scrape hair from some for leather----"

The story got no further. From across the little stream they heard a
muffled thunder of hoofs in the grass.

Stonor sprang up. "My horses!" he cried. "Stampeded, by God! The
cowardly devils!"

Imbrie laughed.

Stonor snatched up his gun. "Back from the fire!" he cried to the women.
"I'm going to shoot!"

He splashed across the ford, and, climbing the bank, dropped on his
knee in the grass. The horses swerved, and galloped off at a tangent.
They were barely visible to eyes that had just left the fire. Stonor
counted seven animals, and he had but six with Imbrie's. On the seventh
there was the suggestion of a crouching figure. Stonor fired at the
horse.

The animal collapsed with a thud. Stonor ran to where he lay twitching
in the grass. It was a strange horse to him. The rider had escaped. But
he could not have got far. The temptation to follow was strong, but
Stonor, remembering his prisoner and the women who depended on him,
refused to be drawn. He returned to where Clare and Mary awaited him at
a little distance from the fire. Meanwhile the horses galloped away out
of hearing into the bush beyond the little meadow. Imbrie was still
secure in his bonds. Stonor kept a close watch on him.

They had not long to wait before dawn began to weave colour in the sky.
Light revealed nothing living but themselves in the little valley, or
around its rim. The horse Stonor had shot still lay where he had
dropped. Stonor returned to him, taking Mary. The animal was dead, with
a bullet behind its shoulder. It was a blue roan, an ugly brute with a
chewed ear. It had borne a saddle, but its owner had succeeded in
retrieving that under cover of darkness. The man's tracks were visible,
leading off towards the side trail.

"Mary, whose horse is that?" Stonor asked.

She shrugged and spread out her hands. As she had been living at Fort
Enterprise for years, and saw her own people but seldom, he had no
choice but to believe that she did not know. They returned to Clare.

Stonor said: "I shall have to leave you for awhile. There's no help for
it. I'm expecting Tole Grampierre this morning, but I can't tell for
sure how fast he will travel, and in the meantime the horses may be
getting further away every minute. If you are afraid to stay, I suppose
you can come with me--though I may have to tramp for miles."

Clare kept her chin up. "I'll stay here. If you have to go far I'd only
be a drag on you. I shan't be afraid."

The harassed policeman gave her a grateful glance. "I'll leave you my
revolver. There's no use arming Mary, because I couldn't ask her to fire
on her own people. I do not think there is the slightest danger of your
being attacked. If the Indians, seeing me go, come around, pay no
attention to them. Show no fear and you are safe. If they want Imbrie
let them take him. I'll get him later. It only means a little delay. He
cannot escape me up here."

"You must eat before you start," said Clare anxiously.

"I'll take cold food. Can't wait for hot bread."

As Stonor started off Imbrie cried mockingly: "So long, Redbreast!"
Stonor doubted very much if he would find him on his return. But there
was no help for it. One has to make the best of a bad situation.

After traversing the little meadow the stampeded horses had taken to the
trail in the direction of Fort Enterprise. Stonor took heart, hoping
that Tole might meet them and drive them back. But, reliable as Tole
was, of course he could not count on him to the hour; nor had he any
assurance that the horses would stay in the trail. He kept on.

The horses' tracks made clear reading. For several miles Stonor followed
through the bush at a dog-trot. Then he came to another little open
glade and saw that they had stopped to feed. He gained on them here. A
short distance further he suddenly came upon his bay in the trail, the
horse that had carried him to Swan Lake and back. As he had expected,
she was hopelessly foundered, a pitiable sight. He regretfully put a
bullet through her brain.

Near here the remaining horses had swerved from the trail and turned
northward, looking for water perhaps. Stonor pinned a note to a tree,
briefly telling Tole what had happened, and bidding him hasten forward
with all speed.

Stonor followed the hoof-prints then through the trackless bush,
painfully slow going over the stones and the fallen trunks, with many a
pitfall concealed under the smooth moss. After an hour of this he
finally came upon them all five standing dejectedly about in a narrow
opening, as if ashamed of their escapade and perfectly willing to be
caught.

Mounting Miles Aroon, he drove the others before him. To avoid the risk
of breaking their legs he had to let them make their own slow pace over
the down timber, and it was a sore trial to his patience. He had already
been gone two hours. When finally he struck the trail again he saw that
his note to Tole was still where he had left it. He let it stay, on the
chance of its bringing him on a little quicker. He put his horses to the
trail at a smart pace. They all clattered through the bush, making
dizzying turns around the tree-trunks.

As he approached the little meadow by the Meander his heart rose slowly
in his throat. He had been more anxious for their safety than he would
let himself believe. As he came to the edge of the trees his eyes were
ready to leap to the spot where he had left his charges. A shock awaited
them. Of the three little tents there was but one remaining, and no sign
of life around it. He furiously urged his horse to the place.

Mary and Clare were gone with Imbrie. The camp site was trampled by
scores of hoofs. The Indians had taken nothing, however, but the two
little tents and the personal belongings of the women--an odd
scrupulousness in the face of the greater offence. All the tracks made
off across the meadow towards the side trail back to the Swan.

CHAPTER XIV

PURSUIT

Stonor sat down on a grub-box, and, gripping his bursting head between
his hands, tried to think. His throbbing blood urged him to gallop
instantly in pursuit. They could not have more than two hours' start of
him, and Miles Aroon was better than anything they had in the way of
horse-flesh, fresh into the bargain. But a deeper instinct was telling
him that a little slow thought in the beginning brings quicker results
at the end.

Even with only two hours' start they might make the village before he
overtook them, and Imbrie might get away on the lake. A stern chase with
all the hazards of travel in the wilderness might continue for days;
Stonor was running short of grub; he must provide for their coming back;
above all it was necessary that he get word out of what had happened;
Clare's safety must not depend alone on the one mortal life he had to
give her. Hard as it was to bring himself to it, he determined to get in
touch with Tole before starting after Imbrie and the Kakisas.

To that end he mounted one of his poorer horses and galloped headlong
back through the bush. After ten miles or so, in a little open meadow he
came upon the handsome breed boy riding along without a care in the
world, hand on hip and "Stetson" cocked askew, singing lustily of
_Gentille Alouette_. Never in his life had Stonor been so glad to see
anybody. His set, white face worked painfully; for a moment he could
not speak, but only grip the boy's shoulder. Tole was scared half out of
his wits to see his revered idol so much affected.

All the way along Stonor had been thinking what he would do. It would
not be sufficient to send a message by Tole; he must write to John
Gaviller and to Lambert at the Crossing; one letter would do for both;
the phrases were all ready to his pencil. Briefly explaining the
situation to Tole, he sat down to his note-book. Two pages held it all;
Stonor would have been surprised had he been told that it was a model of
conciseness.

    "JOHN GAVILLER and Sergeant LAMBERT, R.N.W.M.P.

    "While returning with my prisoner Ernest Imbrie, suspected of
    murder, at a point on the Horse Track six miles from Swan
    River, a band of Indians from Swan Lake drove off my horses,
    and while I was away looking for them, rescued my prisoner, and
    also carried off the two women in my party. Am returning to
    Swan Lake now with four horses. Suppose that Imbrie reaching
    there will take to the lake and the upper Swan, as that
    provides his only means of getting out of the country this way.
    Suggest that Mr. Gaviller get this through to Lambert
    regardless of expense. Suggest that Lambert as soon as he gets
    it might ride overland from the Crossing to the nearest point
    on the Swan. If he takes one of his folding boats, and takes a
    man to ride the horses back, he could come down the Swan. I
    will be coming up, and we ought to pinch Imbrie between the two
    of us. The situation is a serious one, as Imbrie has the whole
    tribe of Kakisas under his thumb. He will stop at nothing now;
    may be insane. The position of the women is a frightful one.

                         "MARTIN STONOR."

Stonor took Tole's pack-horse with its load of grub, and the breed tied
his bed and rations for three days behind his saddle. Stonor gripped his
hand.

"So long, kid! Ride like hell. It's the most you can do for me."

Eight hours later, Stonor, haggard with anxiety and fatigue, and driving
his spent horses before him, rode among the tepees of the village beside
Swan Lake. That single day had aged him ten years. His second coming was
received with a significant lack of surprise. The Indians were
ostentatiously engaged at their customary occupations: mending boats and
other gear, cleaning guns, etc. Stonor doubted if such a picture of
universal industry had ever been offered there. Dismounting, he called
peremptorily for Myengeen.

The head man came to him with a certain air of boldness, that slowly
withered, however, under the fire that leaped up in the white man's
weary blue eyes. Under his savage inscrutability the signs of fidgets
became perceptible. Perhaps he had not expected the trooper to brave him
single-handed, but had hoped for more time to obliterate tracks, and let
matters quiet down. Many a dark breast within hearing quailed at the
sound of the policeman's ringing voice, though his words were not
understood. The one determined man struck more terror than a troop.

"Myengeen, you and your people have defied the law! Swift and terrible
punishment awaits you. Don't think you can escape it. You have carried
off a white woman. Such a thing was never known. If a single hair of her
head is harmed, God help you! Where is she?"

Myengeen's reply was a pantomime of general denial.

Stonor marched him back of the tepees where the Kakisas' horses were
feeding on the flat. He silently pointed to their hanging heads and
sweaty flanks. Many of the beasts were still too weary to feed: one or
two were lying down done for. Stonor pointed out certain peculiarities
in their feet, and indicated that he had been following those tracks.
This mute testimony impressed Myengeen more than words; his eyes bolted;
he took refuge in making believe not to understand.

Stonor's inability to command them in their own tongue made him feel
maddeningly impotent.

"Where is the woman who speaks English?" he cried, pointing to his own
tongue.

Myengeen merely shrugged.

Stonor then ordered all the people into their tepees, and such is the
power of a single resolute voice that they meekly obeyed. Proceeding
from tepee to tepee he called out likely-looking individuals to be
questioned out of sight of the others. For a long time it was without
result; men and women alike, having taken their cue from Myengeen,
feigned not to understand. Such children as he tried to question were
scared almost into insensibility. Stonor began to feel as if he were
butting his head against a stone wall.

At last from a maiden he received a hint that was sufficient. She was a
comely girl with a limpid brown eye. Either she had a soul above the
Kakisas or else the bright-haired trooper touched her fancy. At any
rate, when he looked in the tepee, where she sat demurely beyond her
male relatives, she gave him a shy glance that did not lack humanity.
Calling her outside, he put the invariable question to her, accompanied
with appropriate signs: where was the white woman?

She merely glanced towards the mouth of the creek where the canoes lay,
then looked up the lake. It was sufficient. Stonor gave her a grateful
glance and let her go. He never knew her name. That the Kakisas might
not suspect her of having betrayed them, he continued his questioning
for awhile. Last of all he re-interrogated Myengeen. He did not care if
suspicion fell on him.

Stonor coolly picked out the best-looking canoe in the creek, and loaded
aboard what he required of his outfit. Myengeen and his men sullenly
looked on. The trooper, seeing that a fair breeze was blowing up the
lake, cut two poplar poles, and with a blanket quickly rigged mast and
sail. When he was ready to start he delivered the rest of his outfit to
Myengeen, and left his horses in his care.

"This is government property," he said sternly. "If anything is lost
full payment will be collected."

He sailed down the creek followed by the wondering exclamations of the
Kakisas. Sailing was an unknown art to them, and in their amazement at
the sight, like the children they were, they completely forgot the
grimness of the situation. Stonor thought: "How can you make such a
scatter-brained lot realize what they're doing!"

Stonor had supposed that Imbrie would take to the lake. On arriving at
the brow of the last ridge his first thought had been to search its
expanse, but he had seen nothing. Since then various indications
suggested that they had between four and five hours' start of him. He
had been delayed on the trail by his pack-horses. The speed he was
making under sail was not much better than he could have paddled, but it
enabled him to take things easy for a while.

Swan Lake is about thirty miles long. Fully ten miles of it was visible
from the start. It is shaped roughly like three uneven links of a chain,
and in width it varies from half a mile to perhaps five miles. It seems
vaster than it is on account of its low shores which stretch back, flat
and reedy, for miles. Here dwelt the great flocks of wild geese or
"wavies" that gave both lake and river their names.

As he got out into the lake the wind gradually strengthened behind him,
and his canoe was blown hither and yon like an inflated skin on the
water. She had no keel, she took no grip of the water, and much of the
goodly aid of the wind was vainly measured against the strength of
Stonor's arms as he laboured to keep her before it. When he did get the
wind full in his top-heavy sail it blew him almost bodily under. Stonor
welcomed the struggle. He was now making much better time than he could
have hoped for by his paddle. He grimly carried on.

In order to accommodate the two women and their necessary outfit, Stonor
supposed that Imbrie must have taken one of the dug-outs. He did not
believe that any of the Kakisas had accompanied the fugitive. The
prospect of a long journey would appal them. And Stonor was pretty sure
that Mary was not over-working herself at the paddle, so that it was not
too much to hope that he was catching up on them at this rate. Thinking
of their outfit, Stonor wondered how Imbrie would feed Clare; the
ordinary fare of the Kakisas would be a cruel hardship on her. Such are
the things one worries about in the face of much more dreadful dangers.

It had been nearly six o'clock before Stonor left Myengeen's village,
and the sun went down while he was still far from the head of the lake.
He surveyed the flat shores somewhat anxiously. Nowhere, as far as he
could see, was there any promising landing-place. In the end he decided
to sail on through the night. As darkness gathered he took his bearings
from the stars. With the going-down of the sun the wind moderated, but
it still held fair and strong enough to give him good steerage-way.
After an hour or two the shores began to close around him. He could not
find the outlet of the river in the dark, so he drove into the reeds,
and, taking down his sail, supped on cold bread and lake-water and lay
down in his canoe.

In the morning he found the river without difficulty. It was a sluggish
stream here, winding interminably between low cut banks, edged with
dangling grass-roots on the one side and mud-flats on the other. From
the canoe he could see nothing above the banks. Landing to take a
survey, Stonor beheld a vast treeless bottom, covered with rank grass,
and stretching to low piny ridges several miles back on either hand. No
tell-tale thread of smoke on the still air betrayed the camp of the man
he was seeking.

He resumed his way. Of his whole journey this part was the most
difficult trial to his patience. There was just current enough to mock
at his efforts with the paddle. He seemed scarcely to crawl. It was
maddening after his brisk progress up the lake. Moreover, each bend was
so much like the last that he had no sense of getting on, and the
invariable banks hemmed in his sight. He felt like a man condemned to a
treadmill.

He had been about two hours on the river when he saw a little object
floating towards him on the current that instantly caught his eye
because it had the look of something fashioned. He paddled to it with a
beating heart. It proved to be a tiny raft contrived out of several
lengths of stout stick, tied together with strips of rag. On the little
platform, out of reach of the water, was tied with another strip a roll
of the white outer bark of the birch. Stonor untied it and spread it out
on his knee with a trembling hand. It was a letter printed in crooked
characters with a point charred in the fire.

    WE WELL. HIM NOT HURT CLARE ENY. HIM SCAR OF CRAZEE CLARE SLEEP
    BY ME. HIM GOIN CROST /\/\/\/\/\

                         FROM MARY]

A warm stream forced its way into the trooper's frozen breast, and the
terrible strained look in his eyes relaxed. For a moment he covered his
eyes with his arm, though there was none to see. His most dreadful and
unacknowledged fear was for the moment relieved. Gratitude filled him.

"Good old Mary!" he thought. "She went to all that trouble just on the
chance of easing my mind. By God! if we come through this all right I'll
do something for her!"

"Him scar of crazee," puzzled him for a while, until it occurred to him
that Mary wished to convey that Imbrie let Clare alone because he
believed that her loss of memory was akin to insanity. This was where
the red strain in him told. All Indians have a superstitious awe of the
insane. The sign at the end of the letter was for mountains, of course.
The word, no doubt, was beyond Mary's spelling. What care and
circumspection must have gone to the writing and the launching of the
note! It must all have been done while Imbrie slept.

Stonor applied himself to his paddle again with a better heart. After
two hours more he came to their camping-place of the night before. It
was a spot designed by Nature for a camp, with a little beach of clean
sand below, and a grove of willow and birch above. Stonor landed to see
what tell-tale signs they had left behind them.

He saw that they were in a dug-out: it had left its furrow in the sand
where it was pulled up. He saw the print of Clare's little common-sense
boot in the sand, and the sight almost unmanned him; Mary's track was
there too, that he knew well, and Imbrie's; and to his astonishment
there was a fourth track unknown to him. It was that of a small man or a
large woman. Could Imbrie have persuaded one of the Kakisas to accompany
him? This was all he saw. He judged from the signs that they had about
five hours' start of him.

From this point the character of the country began to change. The
river-banks became higher and wooded; there were outcroppings of rock
and small rapids. Stonor saw from the tracks alongshore that where the
current was swift they had towed the dug-out up-stream, but he had to
stick to his paddle. Though he put forth his best efforts all day he
scarcely gained on them, for darkness came upon him soon after he had
passed the place where they spelled in mid-afternoon.

On the next day in mid-morning he was brought to stand by a fork in the
river. There was nothing to tell him which branch to choose, for the
current was easy here and the trackers had re-embarked. Both branches
were of about equal size: one came from the south-east, one from due
east; either might reach to the mountains if it was long enough. Stonor
had pondered on the map of that country, but on it the Swan River was
only indicated as yet by a dotted line. All that was known of the stream
by report was that it rose in the Rocky Mountains somewhere to the north
of Fort Cheever, and, flowing in a north-westerly direction, roughly
parallel with the Spirit, finally emptied into Great Buffalo Lake.
Stonor remembered no forks on the map.

He was about to choose at random, when he was struck by a difference in
the colour of the water of the two branches. The right-hand fork was a
clear brown, the other greenish with a milky tinge. Now brown water, as
everybody knows, comes from swamps or muskegs, while green water is the
product of melting snow and ice. Stonor took the left-hand branch.

Shortly afterwards he was rewarded by a sight of the spot where they had
made their first spell of the day. Landing, he found the ashes of their
fire still warm; they could not have been gone more than an hour. This
was an unexpected gain; some accident of travel must have delayed them.
Embarking, he bent to his paddle with a renewed hope. Surely by going
without a meal himself he ought to come on them before they finished
their second spell.

But the river was only half of its former volume now, and the rapids
were more brawling, and more tedious to ascend. However, he consoled
himself with the thought that if they held him back they would delay the
dug-out no less. The river was very lovely on these upper reaches; in
his anxiety to get on he scarcely marked that at the moment, but
afterwards he remembered its park-like shores, its forget-me-nots and
raspberry-blossoms, and the dappled sunlight falling through the
aspen-foliage. It was no different from the rivers of his boyhood in a
sheltered land, with swimming-holes at the foot of the little rapids:
only the fenced fields and the quiet cattle were lacking above the
banks, and church-spires in the distant vistas.

Within an hour Stonor himself became the victim of one of the ordinary
hazards of river-travel. In a rapid one of his paddles broke in half;
the current carried him broadside on a rock, and a great piece of bark
was torn from the side of his frail craft. Landing, he surveyed the
damage, grinding his teeth with angry disappointment. It meant the loss
of all he had so hardly gained on the dug-out.

To find a suitable piece of bark, and spruce-gum to cement it with,
required a considerable search in the bush. It then had to be sewed on
with needle and thread, the edges gummed, and the gum given time to dry
partly, in the heat of the fire. The afternoon was well advanced before
he got afloat again, and darkness compelled him to camp in the spot
where they had made their second, that is to say, the mid-afternoon,
spell.

The next two days, his third and fourth in the river, were without
especial incident. The river maintained its sylvan character, though the
bordering hills or bench were gradually growing higher and bolder.
Stonor, by putting every ounce that was in him into his paddle, slowly
gained again on the dug-out. He knew now that Imbrie, irrespective of
Mary, had a second paddle to help him. It gave the dug-out an advantage,
especially in swift water, that more than neutralized its extra weight.

By evening of the fourth day all signs indicated that he was drawing
close to his quarry again. He kept on until forced to stop by complete
darkness. On this night the sky was heavily overcast, and it was as dark
as a winter's night. He camped where he happened to be; it was a poor
spot, no more than a stony slope among willows. He had done all his
necessary cooking during the day, so there was no need to wait for his
supper.

The mosquitoes were troublesome, and he put up his tent, hastily
slinging it between two trees, and weighing down the sides and the back
with a few stones. To his tent he afterwards ascribed the preservation
of his life. It was the simplest form of tent, known as a "lean-to," or,
as one might say, merely half a tent sliced along the ridge-pole, with a
roof sloping to the ground at the back, and the entire front open to the
fire except for a mosquito-bar.

His bed was hard, but he was too weary to care. He lay down in his
blanket, but not to achieve forgetfulness immediately; strong
discipline was still required to calm his hot impatience. How could he
sleep, not knowing perhaps but that one more mile might bring him to his
goal? Indeed, Imbrie's camp might be around the next bend. But he could
not risk his frail canoe in the shallow river after dark.

Stonor was on the borderland of sleep when he was suddenly roused to
complete wakefulness by a little sound from behind his tent. A woodsman
soon learns to know all the normal sounds of night, and this was
something different, an infinitely stealthy sound, as of a body dragging
itself an inch at a time, with long waits between. It seemed to be
slowly making its way around his tent towards the open front.

Now Stonor knew that there was no animal in his country that stalks
human prey, and he instantly thought of his two-legged enemy. Quick and
noiselessly as a cat he slipped out of his blankets, and rolling his
dunnage-bag in his place drew the blanket over it. In the faint light
reflected from the embers outside it might be supposed that he still lay
there. He then cautiously moved the stones aside, and slipped out under
the wall of his tent on the side opposite to that whence the creeping
sounds now came.

On hands and knees he crawled softly around the back of his tent,
determined to stalk the stalker. He felt each inch of the way in
advance, to make sure there was nothing that would break or turn under
his weight. He could hear no sounds from the other side now. Rounding
the back of his tent, at the corner he lay flat and stuck his head
around. At first he could see nothing. The tall trees on the further
shore cut off all but the faintest gleam of light from the river. A
little forward and to the left of his tent there was a thick clump of
willow, making a black shadow at its foot that might have concealed
anything. Stonor watched, breathing with open mouth to avoid betraying
himself. Little by little he made out a shadowy form at the foot of the
willows, a shape merely a degree blacker than its background. He could
be sure of nothing.

Then his heart seemed to miss a beat, for against the wan surface of the
river he saw an arm raised and a gun point--presumably at the dummy he
had left under the tent. Oddly enough his shock of horror was not
primarily that one should seek to kill him, Stonor; he was first of all
appalled at the outrage offered to the coat he wore.

The gun spoke and flame leaped from the barrel. Stonor, gathering
himself up, sprang forward on the assassin. At the first touch he
recognized with a great shock of surprise that it was a woman he had to
deal with. Her shoulders were round and soft under his hands; the grunt
she uttered as he bore her back was feminine. He wrenched the gun from
her hands and cast it to one side.

When she caught her breath she fought like a mad cat, with every lithe
muscle of her body and with teeth and claws too. She was strong; strong
and quick as a steel spring. More than once she escaped him. Once she
got half-way up the bank; but here he bore her down on her face and
locked her arms behind her in a grip she was powerless to break.

Jerking her to her feet--one is not too gentle even with a woman who has
just tried to murder one--he forced her before him back to his tent.
Here, holding her with one arm while she swayed and wrenched in her
efforts to free herself, he contrived to draw his knife, and to cut off
one of the stay-ropes of his tent. With this he bound her wrists
together behind her back, and passed the end round a stout trunk of
willow. The instant he stood back she flung herself forward on the rope,
but the jerk on her arms must have nearly dislocated them. It brought a
shriek of pain from her. She came to a standstill, sobbing for breath.

Stonor collected dead twigs, and blew on the embers. In a minute or two
he had a bright blaze, and turned, full of curiosity to see what he had
got. He saw a breed woman of forty years or more, still, for a wonder,
uncommonly handsome and well-formed. The pure hatred that distorted her
features could not conceal her good looks. She had the fine straight
features of her white forebears, and her dusky cheeks flamed with
colour. She bore herself with a proud, savage grace.

More than the woman herself, her attire excited Stonor's wonder. It was
a white woman's get-up. Her dress, though of plain black cotton, was cut
with a certain regard to the prevailing style. She wore corsets--strange
phenomenon! Stonor had already discovered it before he got a look at
her. Her hair had been done on top of her head in a white woman's
fashion, though it was pretty well down now. Strangest of all, she wore
gold jewellery; rings on her fingers and drops in her ears; a showy gold
locket hanging from a chain around her neck. On the whole a surprising
apparition to find on the banks of the unexplored river.

Stonor, studying her, reflected that this was no doubt the woman he had
seen with Imbrie at Carcajou Point two months before. The Indians had
referred to her derisively as his "old woman." But it was strange he had
heard nothing of her from the Kakisas. She must have been concealed in
the very tepee from which Imbrie had issued on the occasion of Stonor's
first visit to the village at Swan Lake. The Indians down the river had
never mentioned her. He was sure she could not have lived with Imbrie
down there. Where, then, had he picked her up? Where had she been while
Imbrie was down there? How had she got into the country anyway? The more
he thought of it the more puzzling it was. Certainly she had come from
far; Stonor was well assured he would have heard of so striking a
personage as this anywhere within his own bailiwick.

Another thought suddenly occurred to him. This of course would be the
woman who had tried to decoy him out of his camp with her cries for help
in English. At least she explained that bit of the all-enveloping
mystery.

"Well, here's a pretty how-de-do!" said Stonor with grim humour. "Who
are you?"

She merely favoured him with a glance of inexpressible scorn.

"I know you talk English," he said, "good English too. So there's no use
trying to bluff me that you don't understand. What is your name, to
begin with?"

Still no answer but the curling lip.

"What's the idea of shooting at a policeman? Is it worth hanging for?"

She gave no sign.

He saw that it only gratified her to balk his curiosity, so he turned
away with a shrug. "If you won't talk, that's your affair."

He had thrown only light stuff on the fire, and he let it burn itself
out, having no mind to make of himself a shining mark for a bullet from
another quarter. He lit his pipe and sat debating what to do--or rather
struggling with his desire to set off instantly in search of Imbrie's
camp. Knowing it must be near, it was hard to be still. Yet better sense
told him he would be at a fatal disadvantage in the dark, particularly
as Imbrie must now be on the alert. There was no help for it. He must
wait for daylight.

He knew that above all he required sleep to fit him for his work next
day, and he determined to impose sleep on himself if will-power could do
it. As he rose to return to his tent a sullen voice from the direction
of the willow-bushes spoke up in English as good as his own:

"The mosquitoes are biting me."

"Ha!" said Stonor, with a grim laugh. "You've found your tongue, eh?
Mosquitoes! That's not a patch on what you intended for me, my girl! But
if you want to be friends, all right. First give an account of
yourself."

She relapsed into silence.

"I say, tell me who you are and where you came from."

She said, with exactly the manner of a wilful child: "You can't make me
talk."

"Oh, all right! But I can let the mosquitoes bite you."

Nevertheless he untied her from the willows and let her crawl under his
mosquito-bar. Here he tied ankles as well as wrists, beyond any
possibility of escape. It was not pure philanthropy on his part, for he
reflected that when she failed to return, Imbrie might come in search of
her, and take a shot inside his tent just on a chance. For himself he
took his blanket under the darkest shadow of the willows and covered
himself entirely with it excepting a hole to breathe through.

He did succeed in sleeping, and when he awoke the sky was clear and the
stars paling. Before crawling out of his hiding-place he took a careful
survey from between the branches. Nothing stirred outside. Under his
tent his prisoner was sleeping as calmly as a child. Apparently a
frustrated murder more or less was nothing to disturb her peace of mind.
Stonor thought grimly--for perhaps the hundredth time in dealing with
the red race: "What a rum lot they are!" He ate some bread that he had
left, and began to pack up.

The woman awoke as he took down the tent over her head, and watched his
preparations in a sullen silence.

"Haven't you got a tongue this morning?" asked Stonor.

She merely glowered at him.

However, by and by, when she saw everything being packed in the canoe,
she suddenly found her tongue. "Aren't you going to feed me?" she
demanded.

"No time now," he answered teasingly.

Her face turned dark with rage. "You hangman!" she muttered savagely.
"You've got a hangman's face all right! Anybody would know what you are
without your livery!"

Stonor laughed. "Dear! Dear! We are in a pleasant humour this morning!
You believe in the golden rule, don't you?--for others!"

When he was ready to start he regarded her grimly. He saw no recourse
but to take her with him, thus quadrupling his difficulties. He did
consider leaving her behind on the chance of returning later, but he
could not tell what hazards the day might have for him. He might be
prevented from returning, and murderess though she were, she was human,
and he could not bring himself to leave her helpless in the bush. She
stolidly watched the struggle going on in him.

He gave in to his humanitarian instincts with a sigh. As a final
precaution he gagged her securely with a handkerchief. He wished to take
no chances of her raising an alarm as they approached Imbrie's camp. He
then picked her up and laid her in the canoe. She rolled the light craft
from side to side.

"If you overturn us you'll drown like a stone," said Stonor, grinning.
"That would help solve my difficulties."

After that she lay still, her eyes blazing.

Stonor proceeded. This part of the river was narrow and fairly deep,
and the current ran steadily and slow. Through breaks in the ranks of
the trees he caught sight from time to time of the bench on either hand,
which now rose in high bold hills. From this he guessed that he had got
back to the true prairie country again. As is always the case in that
country, the slope to the north of the river was grassy, while the
southerly slope was heavily wooded to the top.

He peered around each bend with a fast-beating heart, but Imbrie's camp
proved to be not so near as he had expected. He put a mile behind him,
and another mile, and there was still no sign of it. Evidently the woman
had not made her way through the bush, as he had supposed, but had been
dropped off to wait for him. After giving him his quietus she had no
doubt intended to take his canoe and join her party. Well, it was
another lovely morning, and Stonor was thankful her plan had miscarried.

The river took a twist to the southward. The sun rose and shot his beams
horizontally through the tree-trunks, lighting up the underbrush with a
strange golden splendour. It was lovely and slightly unreal, like
stage-lighting. The surface of the river itself seemed to be dusted with
light. Far overhead against the blue, so tender and so far away at this
latitude, eagles circled and joyously screamed, each one as if he had an
intermittent alarm in his throat.

In the bow the woman lay glaring at him venomously. Stonor could not
help but think: "What a gorgeous old world to be fouled with murder and
hatred!"

At last, as he crept around an overhanging clump of willows, he saw what
he was in search of, and his heart gave a great leap. Arresting his
paddle, he clung to the branches and peered through, debating what to
do. They were still far off and he had not been perceived. With
straining eyes he watched the three tiny figures that meant so much to
him. Unfortunately there was no chance of taking Imbrie by surprise, for
he had had the wit to choose a camping-place that commanded a view
down-stream for half a mile. Stonor considered landing, and attempting
to take them from the rear, but even as he looked he saw Imbrie loading
the dug-out. They would be gone long before he could make his way round
through the bush. There was nothing to do but make a dash for it.

They saw him as soon as he rounded the bend. There was a strange
dramatic quality in the little beings running this way and that on the
beach. Stonor, straining every nerve to reach them, was nevertheless
obliged to be the witness of a drama in which he was powerless to
intervene. He saw Imbrie throw what remained of his baggage into the
dug-out. He saw the two petticoated figures start running up the beach
towards him, Stonor. Imbrie started after them. The larger of the two
figures dropped back and grappled with the man, evidently to give the
other a chance to escape. But Imbrie succeeded in flinging her off, and,
after a short chase, seized the other woman. Stonor could make out the
little green Norfolk suit now.

Mary snatched up a billet of wood, and as the man came staggering back
with his burden, she attacked him. He backed towards the dug-out,
holding Clare's body in front of him as a shield. But under Mary's
attacks he was finally compelled to drop Clare. She must have fainted,
for she lay without moving. Imbrie closed with Mary, and there was a
brief violent struggle. He succeeded in flinging her off again. He
reached the dug-out. Mary attacked him again. Snatching up his gun, he
fired at her point-blank. She crumpled up on the stones.

Imbrie picked up Clare and flung her in the dug-out. He pushed off. All
this had been enacted in not much more time than it takes to read of
it. Stonor was now within a furlong, but still helpless, for he dared
not fire at Imbrie for fear of hitting Clare. The dug-out escaped out of
sight round a bend.

CHAPTER XV

UPS AND DOWNS

Stonor, raging in his helplessness, was nevertheless obliged to stop. He
found Mary conscious, biting her lips until they bled to keep from
groaning. Her face was ashy. Yet she insisted on sitting up to prove to
him that she was not badly hurt.

"Go on! Go on!" she was muttering as he reached her. "I all right. Don'
stop! Go after him!"

"Where are you hurt?" Stonor demanded.

"Just my leg. No bone broke. It is not'ing. Go after him!"

"I can't leave you like this!"

"Give me your little medicine-bag. I dress it all right myself. Go
quick!"

"Be quiet! Let me think!" cried the distracted trooper. "I can't leave
you here helpless. I can't tell when I'll be back. You must have food, a
blanket, gun and ammunition."

As he spoke, he set about getting out what she needed; first of all the
little medicine chest that he never travelled without. He laid aside the
breed woman's gun and shells for her, and one of his two blankets. The
delay was maddening. With every second he pictured Imbrie drawing
further and further away, Clare without a protector now. Though the
dug-out was heavier than the bark-canoe, he would be handicapped by the
devilish breed woman, who would be sure to hinder him by every means
within her power. Yet he still closed his ears to Mary's urgings to be
off. He built up Imbrie's fire and put on water to heat for her. He
carried her near the fire, where she could help herself.

As he worked a new plan came to him, a way out of part of his
difficulties. "Mary," he said suddenly, "I'm going to leave the canoe
with you, too, and this woman to take care of for me. I'll take to the
bench. I can cut him off above."

"No! No!" she groaned. "Leave the woman and take the canoe. You can come
back when you get her."

But his mind was made up. A new hope lightened his despair. "No! He
might get me. Then you'd starve to death. I don't mean to let him get
me, but I can't take the chance. I'll travel faster light. Even if I
don't get him to-day, he shan't shake me off. The river is bound to get
more difficult as he goes up. And it's prairie-land above."

He hastened to get together his pack: gun and ammunition, knife,
hatchet, matches, and a little cooking-pot; a small store of flour,
salt, baking-powder and smoked meat.

"Mary, as soon as you feel able to travel, you are to start down-stream
in the canoe with the woman. It is up to you to take her out, and
deliver her to the authorities. The charge is attempted murder. You are
to tell John Gaviller everything that has happened, and let him act
accordingly."

All this was said in low tones to keep it from reaching the breed
woman's ears. Stonor now dropped to his knees and put his lips to Mary's
ear. "Tell Gaviller we know for sure that Imbrie is trying to escape
over the mountains by way of the head-waters of the Swan, and to make
sure that he is intercepted there if he slips through our fingers
below."

"I onerstan'," said Mary.

He gave her a pull from his flask, and she was able to sit up and attend
to the dressing of her own wound.

In ten minutes Stonor was ready to start. He put on a cheery air for
Mary's benefit. Truly the Indian woman had a task before her that might
have appalled the stoutest-hearted man.

"Good-bye, Mary!" he said, gripping her hand. "You're a good pardner. I
shan't forget it. Keep up a good heart. Remember you're a policeman now.
Going down you're only about three days' journey from Myengeen's
village. And you'll have company--though I can't recommend it much. Keep
the gun in your own hands."

Mary shrugged, with her customary stoicism. "I make her work for me."
She added simply: "Good-bye, Stonor. Bring her back safe."

"I won't come without her," he said, and with a wave of his hand struck
into the bush.

He laid a course at right angles to the river. The floor of this part of
the valley was covered with a forest which had never known axe nor fire,
and the going was difficult and slow over the down timber, some
freshly-fallen, making well-nigh impassable barricades erected on the
stumps of its broken branches, some which crumbled to powder at a touch.
There was no undergrowth except a few lean shrubs that stretched great,
pale leaves to catch the attenuated rays that filtered down. It was as
cool and still as a room with a lofty ceiling. High overhead the leaves
sparkled in the sun.

It was about half a mile to the foot of the bench, that is to say, to
the side of the gigantic trough that carried the river through the
prairie country, though it required an amount of exertion that would
have carried one over ten times that distance of road. As soon as Stonor
began to climb he left the forest behind him; first it diminished into
scattered trees and scrub and then ceased altogether in clean, short
grass, already curing under the summer sun. Presently Stonor was able
to look clear over the tops of the trees; it was like rising from a
mine.

The slope was not regular, but pushed up everywhere in fantastic knolls
and terraces. He directed his course as he climbed for a bold projecting
point from which he hoped to obtain a prospect up the valley. Reaching
it at last, he gave himself a breathing-space. He saw, as he hoped, that
the valley, which here ran due north and south, returned to its normal
course from the westward a few miles above. Thus, by making a bee-line
across the prairie, he could cut off a great bend in the watercourse,
not to speak of the lesser windings of the river in its valley. He
prayed that Imbrie might have many a rapid to buck that day.

On top of the bench the prairie rolled to the horizon with nothing to
break the expanse of grass but patches of scrub. Stonor's heart,
burdened as it was, lifted up at the sight. "After all, there's nothing
like the old bald-headed to satisfy a man's soul," he thought. "If I
only had Miles Aroon under me now!" Taking his bearings, he set off
through the grass at the rolling walk he had learned from the Indians.

Of that long day there is little to report. The endless slopes of grass
presented no distinguishing features; he was alone with the west wind's
noble clouds. He came up on the wind on a brown bear with cream-coloured
snout staying his stomach with the bark of poplar shoots until the
berries should be ripe, and sent him doubling himself up with a shout.
Time was too precious to allow of more than one spell. This he took
beside a stream of clear water at the bottom of a vast coulée that lay
athwart his path. While his biscuits were baking he bagged a couple of
prairie-chickens. One he ate, and one he carried along with him, "for
Clare's supper."

At about four o'clock in the afternoon, that is to say, the time of the
second spell, he struck the edge of the bench again, and once more the
valley was spread below him. He searched it eagerly. The forest covered
it like a dark mat, and the surface of the river was only visible in
spots here and there. He found what he was looking for, and his heart
raised a little song; a thin thread of smoke rising above the trees
alongside the river, and at least a couple of miles in his rear.

"I'll get him now!" he told himself.

He debated whether to hasten directly to the river, or continue further
over the prairie. He decided that the margin of safety was not yet quite
wide enough, and took another line along the bench.

Three hours later he came out on the river's edge with a heart beating
high with hope. The placid empty reach that opened to his view told him
nothing, of course, but he was pretty sure that Imbrie was safely below
him. His principal fear was that he had come too far; that Imbrie might
not make it before dark. The prospect of leaving Clare unprotected in
his hands through the night was one to make Stonor shudder. He decided
that if Imbrie did not come up by dark, he would make his way down
alongshore until he came on their camp.

Meanwhile he sought down-stream for a better point of vantage. He came
to a rapid. The absence of tracks on either side proved positively that
Imbrie had not got so far as this. Stonor decided to wait here. The man
would have to get out to track his dug-out up the swift water, and
Stonor would have him where he wanted him. Or if it was late when he got
here, he would no doubt camp.

Stonor saw that the natural tracking-path was across the stream; on the
other side also was the best camping-spot, a shelving ledge of rock with
a low earth bank above. In order to be ready for them, therefore, he
stripped and swam across below the rapid, towing his clothes and his
pack on an improvised raft, that he broke up immediately on landing.
Dressing, he took up his station behind a clump of berry-bushes that
skirted the bank. Here he lay at full length with his gun in his hands.
He made a little gap in the bushes through which he could command the
river for a furlong or so.

He lay there with his eyes fixed on the point around which the dug-out
must appear. The sun was sinking low; they must soon come or they would
not come. On this day he was sure Imbrie would work to the limit. He
smiled grimly to think how the man would be paddling with his head over
his shoulder, never guessing how danger lay ahead. Oh, but it was hard
to wait, though! His muscles twitched, the blood hammered in his
temples.

By and by, from too intense a concentration on a single point, the whole
scene became slightly unreal. Stonor found himself thinking: "This is
all a dream. Presently I will wake up."

In the end, when the dug-out did come snaking around the bend, he rubbed
his eyes to make sure they did not deceive him. Though he had been
waiting for it all that time, it had the effect of a stunning surprise.
His heart set up a tremendous beating, and his breath failed him a
little. Then suddenly, as they came closer, a great calm descended on
him. He realized that this was the moment he had planned for, and that
his calculations were now proved correct. For the last time he threw
over the mechanism of his gun and reloaded it.

Imbrie was paddling in the stern, of course. The man looked pretty
nearly spent, and there was little of his cynical impudence to be seen
now. Clare lay on her stomach on the baggage amidships, staring ahead
with her chin propped in her palms, a characteristic boy's attitude that
touched Stonor's heart. Her face was as white as paper, and bore a look
of desperate composure. Stonor had never seen that look; seeing it now
he shuddered, thinking, what if he had not found them before nightfall!

Imbrie grounded the canoe on the shelf of rock immediately below Stonor,
and no more than five paces from the muzzle of his gun. Clare climbed
out over the baggage without waiting to be spoken to, and walked away
up-stream a few steps, keeping her back turned to the man. Her head was
sunk between her shoulders; she stared out over the rapids, seeing
nothing. At the sight of the little figure's piteous dejection rage
surged up in Stonor; he saw red.

Imbrie got out and went to pick his course up the rapids. He cast a
sidelong look at Clare's back as he passed her. The man was too weary to
have much devilry in him at the moment. But in his dark eyes there was a
promise of devilry.

Having laid out his course he returned to the bow of the dug-out for his
tracking-line. This was the moment Stonor had been waiting for. He rose
up and stepped forward through the low bushes. Clare saw him first. A
little gasping cry broke from her. Imbrie spun round, and found himself
looking into the barrel of the policeman's Enfield. No sound escaped
from Imbrie. His lips turned back over his teeth like an animal's.

Stonor said, in a voice of deceitful softness: "Take your knife and cut
off a length of that line, say about ten feet."

No one could have guessed from his look nor his tone that an insane rage
possessed him; that he was fighting the impulse to reverse his gun and
club the man's brains out there on the rock.

Imbrie did not instantly move to obey.

"Look sharp!" rasped Stonor. "It wouldn't come hard for me to put a
bullet through you!"

Imbrie thought better of it, and cut off the rope as ordered.

"Now throw the knife on the ground."

Imbrie obeyed, and stepped towards Stonor, holding the rope out. There
was an evil glint in his eye.

Stonor stepped back. "No, you don't! Keep within shooting distance, or
this gun will go off!"

Imbrie stopped.

"Miss Starling," said Stonor. "Come and tie this man's wrists together
behind his back, while I keep him covered."

She approached, still staring half witlessly as if she saw an
apparition. She was shaking like an aspen-leaf.

"Pull yourself together!" commanded Stonor with stern kindness. "I am
not a ghost. I am depending on you!"

Her back straightened. She took the rope from Imbrie's hands, and passed
a turn around his extended wrists. Stonor kept his gun at the man's
head.

"At this range it would make a clean hole," he said, grinning.

To Clare he said: "Tie it as tight as you can. I'll finish the job."

When she had done her best, he handed his gun over and doubled the
knots. Forcing Imbrie to a sitting position, he likewise tied his
ankles.

"That will hold him, I think," he said, rising.

The words seemed to break the spell that held Clare. She sank down on
the stones and burst into tears, shaking from head to foot with
uncontrollable soft sobs. The sight unnerved Stonor.

"Oh, don't!" he cried like a man daft, clenching his impotent hands.

Imbrie smiled. Watching Stonor, he said with unnatural perspicacity:
"You'd like to pick her up, wouldn't you?"

Stonor spun on his heel toward the man. "Hold your tongue!" he roared.
"By God! another word and I'll brain you! You damned scoundrel! You
scum!"

If Imbrie had wished to provoke the other man to an outburst, he got a
little more than enough. He cringed from the other's blazing eyes, and
said no more.

Stonor bent over Clare. "Don't, don't grieve so!" he murmured.
"Everything is all right now."

"I know," she whispered. "It's just--just relief. I'm just silly now.
To-day was too much--too much to bear!"

"I know," he said. "Come away with me."

He helped her to her feet and they walked away along the beach. Imbrie's
eyes as they followed were not pleasant to see.

"Martin, I must touch you--to prove that you're real," she said
appealingly. "Is it wrong?"

"Take my arm," he said. He drew her close to his side.

"Martin, that man cannot ever have been my husband. It is not possible I
could ever have given myself to such a one!"

"I don't believe he is."

"Martin, I meant to throw myself in the river to-night if you had not
come."

"Ah, don't! I can't bear it! I saw."

"My flesh crawls at him! To be alone with such a monster--so terribly
alone--I can't tell you----!"

"Don't distress yourself so!"

"I'm not--now. I'm relieving myself. I've got to talk, or my head will
burst. The thing that keeps things in broke just now. I've got to talk.
I suppose I'm putting it all off on you now."

"I guess I can stand it," he said grimly.

She asked very low: "Do you love me, Martin?"

"You know I do."

"Yes, I know, but I had to make you say it, because I've got to tell
you. I love you. I adore you. If loving you in my mind is wicked, I
shall have to be a wicked woman. Oh, I'll keep the law. From what I
told you in the beginning, I must have already done some man a wrong. I
shall not wrong another. But I had to tell you. You knew already, so it
can do no great harm."

He glanced back at Imbrie. "If the law should insist on keeping up such
a horrible thing it would have to be defied," he said--"even if I am a
policeman!"

"I tell you he is not the man."

"I hope you're right."

"But if I am not free, I should not let you ruin yourself on my
account."

"Ruin? That's only a word. A man's all right as long as he can work."

"Oh, Martin, it seems as if I brought trouble and unhappiness on all
whom I approach!"

"That's nonsense!" he said quickly. "You've made me! However this thing
turns out. You've brought beauty into my life. You've taken me out of
myself. You've given me an ideal to live up to!"

"Ah, how sweet for you to say it!" she murmured. "It makes me feel real.
I am only a poor wandering ghost of a woman, and you're so solid and
convincing!

"There! I'm all right now!" she said, with an abrupt return to the
boyish, prosaic air that he found utterly adorable. "I have exploded.
I'm hungry. Let's go back and make supper. It's your turn to talk. Tell
me how you got here in advance of us, you wonderful man! And Mary----!"
She stopped short and her eyes filled. "How selfish of me to forget her
even for a moment!"

"She was not badly wounded," he said. "We'll probably overtake her
to-morrow."

"And you? I thought I saw a ghost when you rose up from the bushes."

"No magic in that," said Stonor. "I just walked round by the hills."

"Just walked round by the hills," she echoed, mocking his offhand
manner, and burst out laughing. "That was nothing at all!" Her eyes
added something more that she dared not put into words: "You were made
for a woman to love to distraction!"

When they returned to the dug-out, Imbrie studied their faces through
narrowed lids, trying to read there what had passed between them. Their
serenity discomposed him. Hateful taunts trembled on his lips, but he
dared not utter them.

As for Clare and Stonor, neither of them sentimental persons, their
breasts were eased. Each now felt that he could depend on the other in
the best sense until death: meanwhile passion could wait. They made a
fire together and cooked their supper with as unconscious an air as if
they had just come out from home a mile or two to picnic. They ignored
Imbrie, particularly Clare, who, with that wonderful faculty that women
possess, simply obliterated him by her unconsciousness of his presence.
The prisoner could not understand their air towards each other. He
watched them with a puzzled scowl. Clare was like a child over the
prairie-chicken. An amiable dispute arose over the division of it, which
Stonor won and forced her to eat every mouthful.

She washed the dishes while he cleared a space among the bushes on top
of the bank, and pitched her little tent. The camp-bed was still in
Imbrie's outfit, and Stonor set it up with tender hands, thinking of the
burden it would bear throughout the night. Also in Imbrie's outfit he
found his own service revolver, which he returned to Clare for her
protection.

Afterwards they made a little private fire for themselves a hundred feet
or so from Imbrie, and sedately sat themselves down beside it to talk.

Stonor said: "If you feel like it, tell me what happened after I went to
hunt my horses that morning."

"I feel like it," she said, with a smile. "It is such a comfort to be
able to talk again. Mary and I scarcely dared whisper. You had been gone
about half an hour that morning when all the Indians rode down out of
the woods, and crossed the ford to our side. There were about thirty of
them, I should say. I did just what you told me, that is, went on with
my packing as if they were not there. For a little while they stood
around staring like sulky children. Finally one of them said to me
through Mary with a sort of truculent air, like a child experimenting to
see how far he can go, that they were going to take Imbrie back. I told
Mary to tell him that that was up to him; that he would have to deal
with you later, if they did. Meanwhile I noticed they were edging
between me and Imbrie, and presently Imbrie stood up, unbound. He took
command of the band. It seemed he had known they were coming. I was only
anxious to see them all ride off and leave us.

"Soon I saw there was worse coming. At first I knew only by Mary's
scared face. She argued with them. She would not tell me what it was all
about. Gradually I understood that Imbrie was telling them I was his
wife, and they must take me, too. I almost collapsed. Mary did the best
she could for me. I don't know all that she said. It did no good. The
principal Indian asked me if I was Imbrie's wife, and I could only
answer that I did not know, that I had lost my memory. I suppose this
seemed like a mere evasion to them. When Mary saw that they were
determined, she said they must take her, too. She thought this was what
you would want. They refused, but she threatened to identify every man
of them to the police, so they had to take her.

"One man's horse had been killed, and they sent him and three others off
to the Horse Track village on foot to get horses to ride home on. That
provided horses for Imbrie, Mary, and me. They made them go at top speed
all day. I expect it nearly killed the horses. I was like a dead woman;
I neither felt weariness nor anything else much. If it had not been for
Mary I could not have survived it.

"We arrived at their village near Swan Lake early in the afternoon.
Imbrie stopped there only long enough to collect food. We never had
anything to eat but tough smoked meat of some kind, dry biscuits, and
bitter tea, horrible stuff! It didn't make much difference, though.

"Imbrie told the Indians what to say when the police came. He couldn't
speak their language very well, so he had to use Mary to translate, and
Mary told me. Mary was trying to get on Imbrie's good side now. She said
it wouldn't do any harm, and might make things easier for us. If we
lulled his suspicions we might get a chance to escape later, she said.
She wanted me to make up to Imbrie, too, but I couldn't.

"Imbrie told the Indians to go about their usual work as if nothing had
happened, and simply deny everything if they were questioned. Nothing
could be proved he said, for he and Mary and I would never be found nor
heard of again. He was going to take us back to his country, he said. By
that they understood, I think, that we were going to disappear off the
earth. They seemed to have the most absolute faith in him. They thought
you wouldn't dare follow until you had secured help from the post, which
would take many days."

"What about the breed woman?" interrupted Stonor.

"She was waiting there at the Swan Lake village. She came with us as a
matter of course, and helped paddle the dug-out. Mary paddled, too, but
she didn't work as hard as she made believe. We got in the river before
dark, but Imbrie made them paddle until late. I dreaded the first camp,
but Imbrie let me alone. Mary said he was afraid of me because he
thought I was crazy. After that, you may be sure, I played up to that
idea. It worked for a day or two, but I saw from his eyes that he was
gradually becoming suspicious.

"At night Imbrie and the breed woman took turns watching. Whenever we
got a chance Mary and I talked about you, and what you would do. We knew
of course that the man was coming out from Fort Enterprise, and I was
sure that you would send him back for aid, and come right after us
yourself. So Mary wrote you the note on a piece of bark, and set it
adrift in the current. It was wonderful how she deceived them right
before their eyes. But they gave us a good deal of freedom. They knew we
could do nothing unless we could get weapons, or steal the canoes. She
went down the shore a little way to launch her message to you.

"Well, that's about all I can remember. The days on the river were like
a nightmare. All we did was to watch for you, and listen at night. Then
came yesterday. By that time Imbrie was beginning to feel secure, and
was taking it easier. We were sitting on the shore after the second
spell when the breed woman came running in in a panic. We understood
from her gestures that she had seen you turning into the next reach of
the river below. Mary's heart and mine jumped for joy. Imbrie hustled us
into the dug-out, and paddled like mad until he had put a couple of
bends between us and the spot.

"Later, he put the breed woman ashore. She had her gun. We were
terrified for you, but could do nothing. Imbrie carried us a long way
further before he camped. That was a dreadful night. We had no way of
knowing what was happening. Then came this morning. You saw what
happened then."

Stonor asked: "What did you make of that breed woman?"

"Nothing much, Martin. I felt just as I had with Imbrie, that I must
have known her at some time. She treated me well enough; that is to
say, she made no secret of the fact that she despised me, but was
constrained to look after me as something that Imbrie valued."

"Jealous?"

"No."

"What is the connection between her and Imbrie?"

"I don't know. They just seemed to take each other for granted."

"How did Imbrie address her?"

"I don't know. They spoke to each other in some Indian tongue. Mary said
it sounded a little like the Beaver language, but she could not
understand it."

"Where do you suppose this woman kept herself while Imbrie was living
beside the falls?"

Clare shook her head.

"If we knew that it would explain much!"

"Well, that's all of my story," said Clare. "Now tell me every little
thing you've done and thought since you left us."

"That's a large order," said Stonor, smiling.

When he had finished his tale he took her to the door of her tent.

"Where are you going to sleep?" she asked anxiously.

"Down by the fire."

"Near--him?"

"That won't keep me awake."

"But if he should work loose and attack you?"

"I'll take precious good care of that."

"It's so far away!" she said plaintively.

"Twenty-five feet!" he said smiling.

"Couldn't you--sleep close outside my tent where I could hear you
breathing if I woke?"

He smiled, and gave her his eyes deep and clear. There comes a moment
between every two who deeply love when shame naturally drops away, and
to assume shame after that is the rankest hypocrisy. "I couldn't," he
said simply.

She felt no shame either. "Very well," she said. "You know best.
Good-night, Martin."

Stonor went back to the fire. He was too much excited to think of
sleeping immediately, but it was a happy excitement; he could even
afford at the moment not to hate Imbrie. The prisoner watched his every
movement through eyes that he tried to make sleepy-looking, but the
sparkle of hatred betrayed him.

"You seem well pleased with yourself," he sneered.

"Why shouldn't I be?" said Stonor good-naturedly. "Haven't I made a good
haul to-day?"

"How did you do it?"

"I just borrowed a little of your magic for the occasion and flew
through the air."

"Well, you're not out of the woods yet," said Imbrie sourly.

"No?"

"And if you do succeed in taking me in, you'll have some great
explaining to do."

"How's that?"

"To satisfy your officers why you hounded a man simply because you were
after his wife."

Stonor grinned. "Now that view of the matter never occurred to me!"

"It will to others."

"Well, we'll see."

"What's become of the two women?" asked Imbrie.

"They're on their way down-stream."

"What happened anyway, damn you?"

Stonor laughed and told him.

Later, after a thoughtful silence, Stonor suddenly asked: "Imbrie, how
did you treat measles among the Kakisas last year? That would be a good
thing for me to know."

"No doubt. But I shan't tell you," was the sullen answer.

"The worst thing we have to deal with up here is pneumonia; how would
you deal with a case?"

"What are you asking me such questions for?"

"Well, you're supposed to be a doctor."

"I'm not going to share my medical knowledge with every guy who asks. It
was too hard to come by."

"That's not the usual doctor's attitude."

"A hell of a lot I care!"

Stonor took out his note-book, and wrote across one of the pages: "The
body was not carried over the falls." He then poked the fire into a
bright blaze, and showed the page to Imbrie.

"What have I written?" he asked, watching the man narrowly.

Imbrie glanced at it indifferently, and away again. There was not the
slightest change in his expression. Stonor was convinced he had not
understood it.

"I won't tell you," muttered Imbrie.

"Just as you like. If I untie your hands, will you write a line from my
dictation?"

"No. What foolishness is this?"

"Only that I suspect you can neither read nor write. This is your
opportunity to prove that you can."

"Oh, go to hell!"

"I'm satisfied," said Stonor, putting away the book.

Travelling down the river next morning was child's play by comparison
with the labour of the ascent. The current carried them with light
hearts. That is to say, two of the hearts on board were light. Imbrie,
crouched in the bow with his inscrutable gaze, was hatching new schemes
of villainy perhaps. Clare sat as far as possible from him, and with her
back turned. All day she maintained the fiction that she and Stonor were
alone in the dug-out. In the reaction from the terrors of the last few
days her speech bubbled like a child's. She pitched her voice low to
keep it from carrying forward. All her thoughts looked to the future.

"Three or four days to the village at Swan Lake, you say. We won't have
to wait there, will we?"

"My horses are waiting."

"Then four days more to Fort Enterprise. You said there was a white
woman there. How I long to see one of my own kind! She'll be my
first--in this incarnation. Then we'll go right out on the steamboat,
won't we?"

"We'll have to wait a few days for her August trip."

"You'll come with me, of course."

"Yes, I'll have to take my prisoners out to headquarters at Miwasa
landing--perhaps all the way to town if it is so ordered."

"And when we get to town, what shall I do? Adrift on the world!"

"Before that I am sure we will meet with anxious inquiries for you."

"Yes, I have a comfortable feeling at the back of my head that I have
people somewhere. Poor things, what a state they must be in! It will be
part of your duty to take me home, won't it? Surely the authorities
wouldn't let me travel alone."

"Surely not!" said Stonor assuming more confidence than he felt.

"Isn't it strange and thrilling to think of a civilized land where
trolley cars clang in the streets, and electric lights shine at night;
where people, crowds and crowds of people, do exactly the same things at
the same hours every day of their lives except Sundays, and never dream
of any other kind of life! Think of sauntering down-town in a pretty
summer dress and a becoming hat, and chatting with scores of people you
know, and looking at things in the stores and buying useless
trifles--where have I done all that, I wonder? Think of pulling up one's
chair to a snowy tablecloth--and, oh, Martin! the taste of good food!
Funny, isn't it, when I have forgotten so much, that I should remember
_things_ so well!"

Clare insisted that Stonor had overtired himself the last few days, and
made him loaf at the paddle with many a pause to fill and light his
pipe. Even so their progress was faster than in the other direction.
Shortly after midday she told him that they were nearing the spot where
Mary had been shot the day before. They looked eagerly for the place.

To their great disappointment Mary had gone. However, Stonor pointed out
that it was a good sign she had been able to travel so soon.

They camped for the night at a spot where Mary had spelled the day
before. Stonor observed from the tracks that it was the breed woman who
had moved around the fire cooking. Mary apparently had been unable to
leave the canoe. It made him anxious. He did not speak of it to Clare.
He saw Imbrie examining the tracks also.

This camping-place was a bed of clean, dry sand deposited on the inside
of one of the river-bends, and exposed by the falling water. Stonor
chose it because it promised a soft bed, and his bones were weary. The
bank above was about ten feet high and covered with a dense undergrowth
of bushes, which they did not try to penetrate, since a dead tree
stranded on the beach provided an ample store of fuel. Clare's tent was
pitched at one end of the little beach, while Imbrie, securely bound,
and Stonor slept one on each side of the fire a few paces distant.

In the morning Stonor was the first astir. A delicate grey haze hung
over the river, out of which the tops of the willow-bushes rose like
islands. He chopped and split a length of the stranded trunk, and made
up the fire. Imbrie awoke, and lay watching him with a lazy sneer.
Stonor had no warning of the catastrophe. He was stooping over sorting
out the contents of Imbrie's grub-bag, his back to the bushes, when
there came a crashing sound that seemed within him--yet outside. That
was all he knew.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LAST STAGE ON SWAN RIVER.

When Stonor's sense returned the first thing of which he was conscious
was Clare's soft hand on his head. He opened his eyes and saw her face
bending over him, the nurse's face, serious, compassionate and
self-forgetful. No one knows what reserves may be contained in a woman
until another's wound draws on them. He found himself lying where he had
fallen; but there was a bag under his neck to hold his head up. Putting
up his hand he found that his head was tightly bandaged. There seemed to
be a mechanical hammer inside his skull.

"What happened?" he whispered.

She scarcely breathed her reply. "The woman shot you. She was hidden in
the bush."

Looking beyond her, Stonor saw Imbrie and the breed woman eating by the
fire in high good humour. He observed that the woman was wearing the
revolver he had given Clare.

"She disarmed me before I could fire," Clare went on. "Your wound is not
serious. The bullet only ploughed the scalp above your ear."

"Who bandaged me?"

"I did. They didn't want to let me, but I made them. I sewed the wound
first. I don't know how I did it, but I did."

Imbrie looked over and saw them talking. "Let him alone," he said
harshly. "Come over here and get your breakfast."

"Go," said Stonor with his eyes and lips. "If he attempted to ill-treat
you in my sight I----"

She understood, and went without demur. Imbrie motioned her to a place
beside him and put a plate before her. She went through the motions of
eating, but her eyes never left Stonor's face. Stonor closed his eyes
and considered their situation. Frightful enough it was in good sooth,
yet it might have been worse. For as he lay quiet he felt his powers
returning. Beyond a slight nausea he was himself again. He thanked God
for a hard skull.

Meanwhile the breed woman was bragging of her exploit. She spoke in
English for the pleasure it gave her to triumph over the whites.

"He gave Mary his canoe and made for the bench."

"I know that," said Imbrie. "Go on."

"Well, as soon as Mary had bound up her leg she wanted to start. But her
leg got worse on the way. When it came time to spell, she had to untie
me and let me cook, while she kept watch over me with the gun--my gun
that Stonor gave her. It was at this place that we spelled. When we went
on, her leg kept getting worse, and soon she said we'd have to stop for
the night. So I made camp. Then she ordered me to come up to her and get
my hands tied, and patted the gun as a sort of hint. I went up to her
all right, and when she put down the gun and took up the rope, I
snatched up the gun, and then I had her!"

The woman and Imbrie roared with laughter.

"Then I just took her knife and her food, and went," the woman said,
callously.

"Damned inhuman--!" Stonor cried involuntarily.

"What's the matter with you!" she returned. "Do you think I was going to
let her take me in and turn me over for shooting at a policeman? Not if
I know it! I was charitable to her if it comes to that. I could have
taken her canoe, too, and then she would properly have starved. But I
left her the canoe and a piece of bread, too. Mary Moosa is fat enough.
I guess she can live off her fat long enough to get to Myengeen's
village."

"What then?" asked Imbrie.

"I just walked off up the river. She couldn't follow me with her leg.
She couldn't track the canoe up the rapids. All she can do is to go on
down."

"How did you know where I was?" asked Imbrie.

"I didn't know. I took a chance. I had the gun and a belt of cartridges.
I can snare fool-hens and catch fish. It was a sight better than going
to jail. I knew if the policeman got you he'd bring you down river, and
I figured I'd have another chance to get him. And if you got him I
figured there wouldn't be any hurry, and you'd wait for awhile for me."

"You did well," said Imbrie with condescending approval.

"Nearly all night I walked along the shore looking for your camp. At
last I saw the little tent and I knew I was all right. Then I waited for
daylight to shoot. The damned policeman turned his head as I fired, or I
would have finished him."

Imbrie dropped into the Indian tongue that they ordinarily used. From
his knowledge of the Beaver language Stonor understood it pretty well,
though a word escaped him here and there.

"What will we do with him?" he said.

"Be careful," she said. "They may understand."

"No fear of that. We know that Clare doesn't speak our tongue."

"Maybe the policeman speaks Beaver."

"He doesn't, though. He spoke English to them. I asked Shose Cardinal if
he spoke Beaver, and he said no. And when I pushed off I insulted him in
our tongue, and he paid no attention. Listen to this----"

Imbrie turned, and in the Indian tongue addressed an unrepeatable insult
to the wounded trooper. Stonor, though almost suffocated with rage,
contrived to maintain an unchanged face.

"You see?" said Imbrie to the woman, laughing. "No white man would take
that. We can say what we like to each other. Speak English now just to
torment him, the swine! Ask me in English what I'm going to do with
him."

She did so.

"Oh, I don't know," he answered carelessly. "Just tie him up, I guess,
and leave him sitting here."

"Tie him up?" she said with an evil smile.

"Sure! Give him leisure to prepare for his end."

They laughed together.

Stonor dreaded the effect of this on Clare. She, however, seemed to be
upborne by some inner thought.

"I know something better than that," the woman said presently.

"What?"

"Don't tie him up. Leave him just as he is, without gun, axe or knife.
Let him walk around until he goes off his nut or starves to death. Then
there'll be no evidence. But if you leave him tied they'll find his body
with the rope round it."

"That's a good idea. But he might possibly make his way to Myengeen's
village."

"Just let him try it. It's a hundred and fifty miles round by land.
Muskeg and down timber."

"But if he sticks to the river, Mary Moosa might bring him back help."

"She'll get no help from Myengeen. She's got to go to Enterprise for
help. Two weeks. Even a redbreast couldn't last two weeks in the bush.
And by that time we'll be----"

"Easy!" said Imbrie warningly.

"We'll be out of reach," she said, laughing.

"All right, it's a go," said Imbrie. "We'll leave him just as he is.
Pack up now."

Stonor glanced anxiously at Clare. Her face was deathly pale, but she
kept her head up.

"Do you think I'm going to go and leave him here?" she said firmly to
Imbrie.

"Don't see how you're going to help yourself," said he, without meeting
her eyes.

"If you put me in the dug-out I'll overturn it," she said promptly.

Imbrie was taken aback. "I'll tie you up," he muttered, scowling.

"You cannot tie me so tight that I can't overturn that cranky boat."

"You'll be the first to drown."

She smiled. "Do you think I value the life you offer me?" She held out
her hands to him. "Tie me and see."

There could be no mistaking the firmness of her resolve. Imbrie
hesitated and weakened. He turned to the breed woman questioningly.

She said in the Indian tongue: "What do you look at me for? I've told
you before that you're risking both our necks by taking her. The world
is full of skinny little pale-faced women, but you've only got one neck.
Better leave her with the man."

Imbrie shook his head slowly.

The woman shrugged. "Well, if you got to have her, fix it to suit
yourself." She ostentatiously went on with the packing.

Imbrie looked sidewise at Clare with a kind of hungry pain in his sullen
eyes. "I won't leave her," he muttered. "I'll take them both."

The woman flung up her hands in a passionate gesture. "Foolishness!" she
cried.

A new idea seemed to occur to Imbrie; he said in English: "I'll take the
redbreast for my servant. Upstream work is no cinch. I'll make him track
us. It'll be a novelty to have a redbreast for a servant."

Clare glanced anxiously at Stonor as if expecting an outbreak.

Imbrie asked with intolerable insolence: "Will you be my servant,
Redbreast?"

Clare's hands clenched, and she scowled at Imbrie like a little
fire-eater.

Stonor answered calmly: "If I have to be."

Clare's eyes darted to him full of relief and gratitude; she had not
expected so great a sacrifice. The brave lip trembled.

Imbrie laughed. "Good!" he cried. "Redbreasts don't relish starving in
the bush any better than ordinary men!"

The breed woman, on the verge of an angry outburst, checked herself, and
merely shrugged again. She said quietly in her own tongue: "He thinks
he's going to escape."

"Sure he does!" answered Imbrie, "and I'm the man who will prevent him.
I'll keep the weapons in my own hands."

True to his word he collected all the weapons in the outfit; three guns,
the revolver and three knives. He gave the breed woman her own gun and
her ammunition-belt, which she strapped round her; he kept his gun, and
the other two fire-arms he disabled by removing parts of the mechanism,
which he put in his pocket. He stuck two knives in his belt, and gave
the woman the third, which she slipped into its customary resting-place
in the top of her moccasin. Imbrie ordered Stonor to get up and strike
Clare's tent.

"He must be fed," said Clare quickly.

"Sure, I don't mind feeding him as long as he's going to earn it," said
Imbrie.

Clare hastened to carry Stonor her untasted plate, but Imbrie
intercepted her. "No more whispering," he said, scowling. "Eat your own
breakfast. The woman will feed him."

In half an hour they were on their way back up the river. They allowed
Stonor to rest and recuperate in the dug-out until they came to the
first rapid. Later, the policeman bent to the tracking-line with a good
will. This was better luck than he had hoped for. His principal fear was
that he might not be able to dissemble sufficiently to keep their
suspicions lulled. He knew, of course, that if they should guess of what
he was thinking his life would not be worth a copper penny. His
intuition told him that even though he was a prisoner, Clare was safe
from Imbrie while he was present, and he had determined to submit
cheerfully to anything in order to keep alive. He only needed three or
four more days!

So, with a loop of the tracking-line over his shoulder, he plodded
through the ooze of the shore, and over the stones; waded out round
reefs, and plunged headlong through overhanging willows. Imbrie walked
behind him with his gun over his arm. Clare lay on the baggage in the
dug-out wistfully watching Stonor's back, and the breed woman steered.
In the more sluggish reaches of the river, the men went aboard and
paddled.

When they spelled in mid-morning Imbrie and the woman became involved in
a discussion of which Stonor understood almost every word. They had
finished eating, and all four were sitting in a row on a beach with
great stones sticking up through the sand. Clare was at one end, Stonor
at the other. They were giving Stonor a rest as they might have rested a
horse before putting him in harness again.

The woman said impatiently: "How long are you going to keep up this
foolishness?"

"What foolishness?" Imbrie said sullenly.

"Letting this man live. He's your enemy and mine. He's not going to
forget that I shot at him twice. He's got some scheme in his head right
now. He's much too willing to work."

"That's just women's talk. I know what I'm doing. I've got him just
right because he's scared of losing the girl."

"All right. Many times you ask me what to do. Sometimes you don't do
what I say, and then you're sorry afterwards. I tell you this is
foolishness. You want the white-face girl and you let the man live to
please her! What sense is there in that? She won't take you as long as
he lives."

"If I kill him she'll kill herself."

"Wah! That's just a threat. She'll hold it over you as long as he lives.
When he's dead she'll have to make the best of it. You'll have to kill
him in the end. Why not do it now?"

"I know what I'm doing," repeated Imbrie stubbornly. "I'm the master
now. Women turn naturally to the master. In a few days I'll put this
white man so low she'll despise him."

The woman laughed. "You don't know much about women. The worse you treat
him the crazier she'll be about him. And if she gets a knife, look out!"

"She won't get a knife. And if my way doesn't work I can always kill
him. He's useful. We're getting up-stream faster than we would without
him."

"He's too willing to go up the river, I think."

"There's no help for him up there, is there?"

"I don't know. You'd better do what I say."

"Oh, shut up. Go and pack the grub. We'll start soon."

The woman went to obey with her customary shrug.

Stonor had much food for thought in this conversation. He marked with
high satisfaction that the way the woman spoke did not for a moment
suggest that Imbrie had any rights over Clare, nor that he had ever
possessed her in the past. Listen as he might, he could gain no clue to
the relationship between the two speakers. He hoped they might betray
themselves further later on. Meanwhile the situation was hazardous in
the extreme. There was no doubt the woman would soon wear Imbrie down.
If he, Stonor, could only communicate with Clare it would help.

Imbrie turned to Clare with what he meant for an ingratiating smile. "Is
your memory coming back at all?" he asked.

In itself there was nothing offensive in the question, and Clare had the
wit to see that nothing was to be gained by unnecessarily snubbing the
man. "No," she said simply.

"But you're all right in every other way. There's nothing the matter
with you?"

She let it go at that.

"You don't remember the days when I was courting you?"

"No," she said with an idle air, "where was that?"

He saw the trap. "I'll tell you some other time.--Redbreast has long
ears."

While Imbrie's attention was occupied by Clare a possible way of sending
her a message occurred to Stonor. The woman was busy at some paces'
distance. Stonor was sitting on a flat stone with his feet in the sand.
Carelessly picking up a stick, he commenced to make letters in the sand.
Clare, whose eyes never left him for long, instantly became aware of
what he was doing; but so well did she cover her glances that Imbrie
took no alarm.

Stonor, printing a word at a time, and instantly rubbing it out with his
foot, wrote: "Make out to scorn me."

Meanwhile Imbrie was making agreeable conversation and Clare was leading
him on sufficiently to keep him interested. Small as his success was, he
was charmed with it. Finally he rose regretfully.

"Time to go," he said. "Go get in your harness, Stonor."

The trooper arose and slouched to the tracking-line with a hang-dog air.
Clare's eyes followed him in well-assumed indignation at his supineness.

"He'll make a good pack-horse yet," said Imbrie with a laugh.

"So it seems," she said bitterly.

They started. Imbrie, much encouraged by this little passage, continued
to bait Stonor at intervals during the afternoon. The policeman, fearful
of appearing to submit too suddenly, sometimes rebelled, but always
sullenly gave in when Imbrie raised his gun. Stonor saw that, so far as
the man was concerned, he need have little fear of overdoing his part.
Imbrie in his vanity was quite ready to believe that Clare was turning
from Stonor to him. On the other hand, the breed woman was not at all
deceived. Her lip curled scornfully at all this by-play.

Clare's glance at Stonor, keeping up what she had begun, progressed from
surprise through indignation to open scorn. Meanwhile in the same ratio
she held herself less and less aloof from Imbrie. She, too, was careful
not to overdo it. She made it clear to Imbrie that it would be a good
long time yet before he could expect any positive favours from her. She
did it so well that Stonor, though he had himself told her to act in
that manner, was tormented by the sight. After all, he was human.

Once and once only during the day did Stonor's and Clare's glances meet
unobserved by the others. It happened as the trooper was embarking in
the dug-out preparatory to paddling up a smooth reach. Imbrie and the
woman were both behind Clare, and she gave Stonor a deep look imploring
his forgiveness for the wrong she seemed to do him. It heartened him
amazingly. Bending low as he laid the coiled rope in the bow, his lips
merely shaped the words:

"Keep it up!"

So long and so hard did they work that day that they were able to camp
for the night only a few miles short of the highest point they had yet
reached on the river. The camping-place was a pleasant opening up on top
of the bank, carpeted with pine-needles. The murmur of the pines
reminded Clare and Stonor of nights on the lower river--nights both
happy and terrible, which now seemed years past.

While supper was preparing Clare appeared out of her tent with some long
strips of cotton. She went unhesitatingly to where Stonor sat.

Imbrie sprang up. "Keep away from him!" he snarled.

Clare calmly sat down by Stonor. "I'm going to dress his wound," she
said. "I'd do the same for a dog. I don't want to speak to him. You can
sit beside me while I work."

Imbrie sullenly submitted.

After supper it appeared from Imbrie's evil grin that he was promising
himself a bit of fun with the policeman. But this time he was taking no
chances.

"I'm tired of toting this gun around; tie his hands," he ordered the
woman.

The night was chilly and they had a good fire on the edge of the bank.
It lighted them weirdly as they sat in a semi-circle about it, the four
strangely-assorted figures backed by the brown trunks of the pines, and
roofed by the high branches. Stonor safely tied up, Imbrie put down his
gun and lighted his pipe. He studied the policeman maliciously. He was
not quite satisfied; even in Stonor's submission he felt a spirit that
he had not yet broken.

"You policemen think pretty well of yourselves, don't you?" he said.

Stonor, clearly perceiving the man's intention, was nevertheless
undisturbed. This vermin was beneath him. His difficulty was to curb the
sly desire to answer back. Imbrie gave him such priceless openings. But
the part he had imposed on himself required that he seemed to be cowed
by the man's crude attempts at wit. A seeming sullen silence was his
only safe line. It required no little self-control.

Imbrie went on: "The government sets you fellows up as a kind of bogey.
For years they've been teaching the natives that a red-coat is a kind of
sacred monkey that all must bow down to. And you forget you're only a
man like the rest of us. When you meet a man who isn't scared off by all
this hocus-pocus it comes pretty hard on you. You have to sing small,
don't you, Redbreast?"

Silence from Stonor.

"I say you have to sing small, Redbreast."

"Just as you like."

"I've heard ugly tales about the police," Imbrie went on. "It seems
they're not above turning a bit of profit out of their jobs when it's
safe. Is that so, Stonor?"

"I hear you say it."

"You yourself only took me up in the first place because you thought
there was a bit of a bribe in it, or a jug of whisky maybe. You thought
I was a whisky-runner, but you couldn't prove it. I guess you're sorry
now that you ever fooled with me, aren't you, Redbreast?"

Stonor said nothing.

"Answer me when I speak to you. Aren't you sorry now that you interfered
with me?"

This was a hard one. A vein stood out on Stonor's forehead. He thought:
"I wouldn't say it for myself, but for her----!" Aloud he muttered:
"Yes!"

Imbrie roared with laughter. "I'm putting the police in their place!" he
cried. "I'm teaching them manners! I'll have him eating out of my hand
before I'm through with him!"

Clare, seeing the swollen vein, bled for Stonor, yet she gave him a
glance of scorn, and the look she gave Imbrie caused him to rise as if
moved by a spring, and cross to her.

As he passed the breed woman he said in the Indian tongue: "Well, who
was right, old woman?"

He sat down beside Clare.

The woman answered: "You fool! She's playing with you to save her lover.
Any woman would do the same."

"You lie!" said Imbrie, with a fatuous side-glance at Clare. "She's
beginning to like me now."

"Beginning to like you!" cried the woman scornfully. "Fool! Watch me!
I'll show you how much she likes you!"

Springing to her feet, and stooping over, she drew the knife from her
moccasin. She turned on Stonor. "Redbreast!" she cried in English. "I'm
sick of looking at your ugly face. Here's where I spoil it!"

She raised the knife. Her eyes blazed. Stonor really thought his hour
had come. He scrambled to his feet. Clare, with a scream, ran between
them, and flung her arms around Stonor's neck.

"You beast!" she cried over her shoulder to the woman. "A bound man!
You'll have to strike him through me!"

The woman threw back her head and uttered a great, coarse laugh. She
coolly returned the knife to her moccasin. "You see how much she likes
you," she said to Imbrie.

Clare, seeing how she had been tricked, unwound her arms from Stonor's
neck, and covered her face. It seemed too cruel that all their pains the
livelong day should go for nothing in a moment. Imbrie was scowling at
them hatefully.

"Don't distress yourself," whispered Stonor. "It couldn't be helped. We
gained a whole day by it anyway. I'll think of something else for
to-morrow."

"Keep clear of him!" cried Imbrie. "Go to your tent!"

"I won't!" Clare said.

"Better go!" whispered Stonor. "I am safe for the present."

She went slowly to her tent and disappeared.

Stonor sat down again. Across the fire Imbrie scowled and pulled at his
lip. The breed woman, returning to her place, had the good sense to hold
her tongue.

After a long while Imbrie said sullenly in the Indian tongue: "Well,
you've got your way. You can kill him to-morrow."

Stonor was a brave man, but a chill struck to his breast.

"I kill him?" said the woman. "Why have I got to do all the dirty work?"

"What do you care? You've already tried twice."

"Why don't you kill him yourself?"

"I'm not afraid of him."

"Maybe not. With his hands tied."

Imbrie's fist clenched. "Do you want me to beat you?"

The woman shrugged.

"You know very well why I don't want to do it," Imbrie went on. "It's
nothing to you if the girl hates you."

"Oh, that's why, eh? You're scared she'd turn from bloody hands! She's
made a fool of you, all right!"

"Never mind that. You do it to-morrow."

"Why not to-night?"

"I won't have it done in her sight. To-morrow morning when we spell you
make some excuse to take him into the bush. There you shoot him or stick
a knife in his back. I don't care so long as you make a job of it. You
come back alone and make a story of how he tried to run away, see? Then
I'll beat you----"

"Beat me!" she cried indignantly.

"Fool! I won't hurt you. I'll just act rough to you for a while, till
she gets better."

"That girl has made me plenty trouble these last two years. I wish I'd
never set eyes on her!"

"Forget it! Tie his feet together so he can't wander and go to bed now!"

Mary Moosa's little mosquito-tent was still in Imbrie's outfit, but the
woman preferred to roll up in her blanket by the fire like a man. Soon
the two of them were sleeping as calmly as two children, and Stonor was
left to his own thoughts.

It was a silent quartette that took to the river next day. Imbrie was
sulky; it appeared that he no longer found any relish in gibing at
Stonor. Clare was pale and downcast. After an hour or so they came to
the rapids where Stonor had intercepted Imbrie and Clare, and thereafter
the river was new to them. Stonor gathered from their talk that the
river was new, too, to Imbrie and the woman, but that they had received
information as to its course from Kakisa sources.

For many miles after that the current ran smooth and slow, and they
paddled the dug-out; Stonor in the bow, Imbrie guarding him with the
gun, Clare behind Imbrie, and the breed woman with the stern-paddle. All
with their backs to each other and all silent. About ten o'clock they
came to the mouth of a little creek coming in at the left, and here
Imbrie indicated they would spell.

"So this is the spot designed for my murder," thought Stonor, looking
over the ground with a natural interest.

The little brook was deep and sluggish; its surface was powdered with
tiny lilies and, at its edges, long grass trailed in the water. A clean,
grassy bank sloped up gradually. Further back were white-stemmed
aspen-trees gradually thickening into the forest proper.

"Ideal place for a picnic," thought Stonor grimly. As they went ashore
he perceived that the breed woman was somewhat agitated. She continually
wiped her forehead on her sleeve. This was somehow more reassuring than
her usual inhuman stolidity. Imbrie clearly was anxious, too, but not
about Stonor or what was going to happen to him. His eyes continually
sought Clare's face.

The breed woman glanced inquiringly at Imbrie. He said in the Indian
tongue: "We'll eat first."

"So I have an hour's respite," thought Stonor.

None of them displayed much appetite. Stonor forced himself to eat.
Imbrie glanced at him oddly from time to time. "He's sorry to see good
food wasted," thought the trooper. "Well, it won't be, if I can help
it!"

When they had finished the woman said in English with a very careless
air: "I'm going to see if I can get some fresh meat."

"She means me," thought Stonor.

She got her gun and departed. Stonor was aware likewise of the knife
sticking out of the top of her moccasin. Both Imbrie and the woman had a
self-conscious air. A child could have seen that something was afoot.
The woman walked off through the grass and was presently lost among the
trees.

Imbrie commanded Stonor to wash the dishes.

Stonor reflected that since they meant to kill him anyhow if they could,
there was nothing to be gained by putting up with further indignities.

"Wash them yourself," he said coolly.

Imbrie shrugged, but said no more.

Pretty soon they heard a shot at no great distance.

Stonor thought: "Now she'll come back and say she's got a bear or a
moose, and they'll order me to go back with her and bring in the meat.
Shall I go, or shall I refuse to go? If I refuse they're almost sure to
suspect that I understand their lingo; but if I go I may be able to
disarm her. I'll go."

Presently they saw her returning. "I've got a moose," she said stolidly.

Stonor smiled a grim inward smile. It was too simple to ask him to
believe that she had walked into the bush and brought down a moose
within five minutes with one shot. He knew very well that if there was a
feast in prospect her face would be wreathed in smiles. He was careful
to betray nothing in his own face.

Imbrie was a better actor. "Good work!" he cried. "Now we'll have
something fit to eat."

She said: "I want help to bring in the meat."

"Stonor, go help her," said Imbrie carelessly.

The trooper got up with an indifferent air.

"Martin, don't go!" Clare said involuntarily.

"I'm not afraid of her," Stonor said.

The woman forced him to walk in advance of her across the grass. The
thought of her behind him with the gun ready made Stonor's skin prickle
uncomfortably, but he reflected that she would certainly not shoot until
they were hidden in the bush.

When they reached the edge of the bush he stopped and looked at her.
"Which way?" he asked, with an innocent air.

"You can follow the tracks, can't you?" said she.

He saw that she was pale and perspiring freely. She moistened her lips
before she spoke.

Half a dozen paces further on he stopped again.

"Go on!" she said harshly.

"Got to tie my moccasin," he said, dropping on one knee and turning half
round, so that he could keep an eye on her. She gave a swift glance over
her shoulder. They were not yet fully out of sight of the others.

"Your moccasin is not untied," she said suddenly.

At the same moment Stonor, still crouching, sprang at her, taking care
to keep under the gun. Grasping her knees, he flung her to the ground.
He got the gun, but before he could raise it, she sprang at him from all
fours like a cat, and clung to him with a passionate fury no man could
have been capable of. Stonor was unable to shake her off without
dropping the gun. Meanwhile she screamed for aid.

Both Imbrie and Clare came running. Imbrie, circling round the
struggling pair, clubbed his gun and brought it down on Stonor's head.
The trooper went to earth. He did not altogether lose consciousness. The
woman, maddened, recovered her gun, and was for dispatching him on the
spot, but Imbrie, thinking of Clare, prevented her.

Stonor was soon able to rise, and to make his way back, albeit somewhat
groggily, to the creek. Clare wished to support him, but he stopped her
with a look.

When they got back to their camp Imbrie demanded with seeming
indignation: "What was the matter with you? What did you expect to gain
by jumping on her?"

"What did she take me into the bush for?" countered Stonor. "To put a
bullet through me?"

Imbrie made a great parade of surprise. "What makes you think that?"

"She's tried twice already, hasn't she? I saw it in her eye. She saw it,
too----" pointing to Clare. "You heard her warn me. She never shot a
moose. That was too simple a trick."

"I did shoot a moose," said the woman sullenly.

"Then why don't you bring some of it in and let's see it. You have your
knife to cut off as much as we can carry."

She turned away with a discomposed face.

"Oh, well, if you won't take the trouble to bring in the meat we'll go
without it," said Imbrie quickly. Stonor laughed.

As they were making ready to start Stonor heard Imbrie say bitterly to
the woman, in their own tongue: "You made a pretty mess of that!"

"Well, do it yourself, then," she snarled back.

"Very well, I will. When I see a good chance."

"This is only the 25th," thought Stonor. "By hook or by crook I must
contrive to keep alive a couple of days longer."

Above this camping-place the character of the river changed again. The
banks became steep and stony, and the rapids succeeded each other with
only a few hundred yards of smooth water between. Stonor became a
fixture in the tracking-line. He worked with a right good will, hoping
to make himself so useful that they would not feel inclined to get rid
of him. It was a slim chance, but the best that offered at the moment.
Moreover, every mile that he put behind him brought him so much nearer
succour.

That night in camp he had the satisfaction of hearing Imbrie say in
answer to a question from the woman:

"No, not to-night. All day he's been working like a slave to try and get
on the good side of me. Well, let him work. I've no mind to break my
back while I have him to work for me. According to the Kakisas we'll
have rapids now for a long way up. Let him pull us."

So Stonor could allow himself to sleep with an easy mind for that night,
anyway.

The next two days were without special incident. Stonor lived from
moment to moment, his fate hanging on Imbrie's savage and irresponsible
impulses. Fortunately for him, he was still able to inform himself from
the talk of the two. Each day they broke camp, tracked up-stream,
tracked and poled up the rapids, spelled and tracked again. In the
rapids it was the breed woman who had to help Stonor. Imbrie would stand
by smoking, with his gun over his arm. Stonor wondered at the woman's
patience.

At the end of the second day they found another soft sandy beach to camp
on. Stonor was so weary he could scarcely remain awake long enough to
eat. They all turned in immediately afterwards. Latterly Imbrie had been
forcing Stonor to lie close to him at night, and the end of the line
that bound Stonor's wrists was tied around Imbrie's arm. The breed woman
lay on the other side of the fire, and Clare's tent was pitched beyond
her.

Stonor was awakened by a soft touch on his cheek. Having his nerves
under good control, he gave no start. Opening his eyes, he saw Clare's
face smiling adorably, not a foot from his own. At first he thought he
was dreaming, and lay scarcely daring to breathe, for fear of
dissipating the charming phantom.

But the phantom spoke: "Martin, you looked so tired to-night it made me
cry. I could not sleep. I had to come and speak to you. Did I do wrong?"

He feasted his tired eyes on her. How could he blame her? "Dangerous,"
he whispered. "These breeds sleep like cats."

"What's the difference? It's as bad as it can be already."

He shook his head. "They have not ill-treated you."

"I wouldn't mind if they did. It is terrible to see you work so hard,
while I do nothing. Why do you work so hard for them?"

"I have hope of meeting help up the river."

She smiled incredulously. Stonor, seeing her resigned to the worst, said
no more about his hopes. After all they might fail, and it would be
better not to raise her hopes only to dash them.

"Better go," he urged. "Every little while through the night one or the
other of these breeds wakes, sits up, looks around, and goes back to
sleep again."

"Are you glad I came, Martin?"

"Very glad. Go back to your tent, and we'll talk in fancy until we fall
asleep again."

Stonor was awakened the next time by a loud, jeering laugh. It was full
daylight. The breed woman was standing at his feet, pointing mockingly
to the tell-tale print of Clare's little body in the sand beside him. A
blinding rage filled Stonor at the implication of that coarse laugh--but
he was helpless. Imbrie started up, and Stonor attempted to roll over on
the depression--but Imbrie saw it, saw also the little tracks leading
around behind the sleepers to Clare's tent.

No sound escaped from Imbrie, but his smooth face turned hideous with
rage; the lips everted over the clenched teeth, the ruddy skin livid and
blotchy. He quickly untied the bond between him and Stonor. The woman,
with a wicked smile, drew the knife out of her moccasin, and offered it
to him. He eagerly snatched it up. Stonor's eyes were fixed
unflinchingly on his face. He thought: "It has come!"

But at that moment Clare came out of her tent. Imbrie hid the knife and
turned away. As he passed the breed woman Stonor heard him mutter:

"I'll fix him to-night!"

That day as he trod the shore, bent under the tracking-line, Stonor had
plenty to occupy his mind. Over and over he made his calculations of
time and distance:

"This is the twenty-seventh. It was the fifteenth when I sent Tole
Grampierre back to Enterprise. If he rode hard he'd get there about noon
on the seventeenth. The steamboat isn't due to start up-stream until
the twentieth, but Gaviller would surely let her go at once when he got
my message. She'd only need to get wood aboard and steam up. She could
steam night and day too, at this stage of water; she's done it
before--that is, if they had anybody to relieve Mathews at the engine.
There are plenty of pilots. Surely Gaviller would order her to steam
night and day when he read my letter! Even suppose they didn't get away
until the morning of the eighteenth: that would bring them to the
Crossing by the twenty-second.

"Lambert, I know, would not lose an hour in setting out over the
prairie--just long enough to get horses together and swim them across. I
can depend on him. Nobody knows how far it is overland from the Crossing
to the Swan River. Nobody's been that way. But the chances are it's
prairie land, and easy going. Say the rivers are about the same distance
apart up there, Lambert ought to reach the Swan on the twenty-fifth, or
at the latest the twenty-sixth. That's only yesterday. But we must have
made two hundred or two hundred and fifty miles up-stream. The Swan
certainly makes a straighter course than the Spirit. It must be less
than a hundred miles from here to the spot where Lambert would hit this
stream. He could make seventy-five miles or more a day down-stream. He
would work. If everything has gone well I might meet him to-day.

"But things never go just the way you want them to. I must not count on
it. Gaviller may have delayed. He's so careful of his precious
steamboat. Or she may have run on a bar. Or Lambert may have met
unexpected difficulties. I must know what I'm going to do. Once my hands
are tied to-night my goose is cooked. Shall I resist the woman when she
tries to tie my hands? But Imbrie always stands beside her with the gun;
that would simply mean being shot down before Clare's eyes. Shall I let
them bind me and take what comes?--No! I must put up a fight somehow!
Suppose I make a break for it as soon as we land? If there happens to be
cover I may get away with it. Better be shot on the wing than sitting
down with my hands tied. And if I got clean away, Clare would know there
was still a chance. I'll make a break for it!"

He looked at the sky, the shining river and the shapely trees. "This may
be my last day on the old ball! Good old world too! You don't think what
it means until the time comes to say ta-ta to it all; sunny mornings,
and starry nights, with the double trail of the Milky Way moseying
across the sky. I've scarcely tasted life yet--mustn't think of that!
Twenty-seven years old, and nothing done! If I could feel that I had
left something solid behind me it would be easier to go."

Pictures of his boyhood in the old Canadian city presented themselves
unasked; the maple-foliage, incredibly dense and verdant, the shabby,
comfortable houses behind the trees, and the homely, happy-go-lucky
people who lived in the houses and sprayed their lawns on summer
evenings; friendly people, like people everywhere prone to laughter and
averse to thought. "People are so foolish and likeable, it's amazing!"
thought Stonor, visualizing his kind for the first.

The sights and sounds and smells of the old town came thronging back;
the school-bell with its flat clangour, exactly like no other bell on
earth--it rang until five minutes before the hour, stopping with a
muttering complaint, and you ran the rest of the way. There was the
Dominion Hotel, with a tar pavement in front that became semi-liquid on
hot days; no resident of that town ever forgot the pungent smell
compounded of tar, stale beer, sawdust, and cabbage that greeted you in
passing. And the candy-store was next door; the butterscotch they sold
there!

How he used to get up early on summer mornings and, with his faithful
mongrel Jack, with the ridiculous curly tail, walk and run a mile to the
railway-station to see the Transcontinental stop and pass on. How the
sun shone down the empty streets before any one was up! Strange how his
whole life seemed to be coloured by the newly-risen sun! And the long
train with the mysterious, luxurious sleeping-cars, an occasional
tousled head at the window; lucky head, bound on a long journey!

"Well, I've journeyed some myself since then," thought Stonor, "and I
have a longer journey before me!"

They spelled at ten o'clock, and again at three. "The last lap!" thought
Stonor, as they took to the river after the second stop. All depended on
the spot Imbrie should choose for their next camp. Stonor studied the
nature of the ground anxiously. The banks continued to rise steep and
high almost from the water's edge. These slopes for the most part were
wooded, but a wood on a steep stony slope does not offer good cover.

"Small chance of scrambling over the top in such a place without
stopping a bullet," thought Stonor. "If we come to a more favourable
spot should I suggest camping? No! for Imbrie would be sure to keep on
out of pure obstinacy. I might have a chance if I zig-zagged up the
hill. The worst part will be running away from Clare. Suppose she cries
out or tries to follow. If I could warn her!"

But Imbrie was taking very good care that no communications passed
between the two to-day.

They came to a place where a limestone ridge made a rapid wilder than
any they had passed on the upper river, almost a cataract. Much time was
consumed in dragging the dug-out over the shelves of rock alongside. The
ridge made a sort of dam in the river; and above there was a long
reach, smooth and sluggish. Imbrie ordered Stonor aboard to paddle, and
the trooper was not sorry for the change of exercise.

The sun was dropping low now, and Stonor little by little gave up hope
of meeting help that day. In the course of the smooth reach they came
upon an island, quaintly shaped like a woman's hat, with a stony beach
all round for a brim, a high green crown, and a clump of pines for an
aigrette. In its greatest diameter it was less than a hundred feet.

Coming abreast of the island, Imbrie, without saying anything in advance
of his intention, steered the dug-out so that she grounded on the beach.
The others looked round at him in surprise.

"We'll camp here," he said curtly.

Stonor's heart sank. An island! "It's early yet," he said, with a
careless air.

"The dug-out's leaking," said Imbrie. "I want to fix her before dark."

"There's no gum on the island."

"I have it with me."

Imbrie said this with a meaning grin, and Stonor could not be sure but