a shake of the head,
betook himself back through the avenue of lank trees to the Mission.
He was troubled.

The glowing eyes of Murray gazed out straight ahead of him. He sat
silent, immovable, it seemed, in the boat. That curious burning light,
so noticeable when his strange eyes became concentrated, was more
deeply lurid than ever. It gave him now an intense aspect of
fierceness, even ferocity. He looked more than capable, as he had
said, of driving his men, the whole expedition, to the "limit."

CHAPTER IV

ON BELL RIVER

It was an old log shanty. Its walls were stout and aged. Its roof was
flat, and sloped back against the hillside on which it stood. Its
setting was an exceedingly limited plateau, thrusting upon the
precipitous incline which overlooked the gorge of the Bell River.

The face of the plateau was sheer. The only approaches to it were
right and left, and from the hill above, where the dark woods crowded.
A stockade of heavy trunks, felled on the spot, and adapted where they
fell, had been hastily set up. It was primitive, but in addition to
the natural defences, and with men of resolution behind it, it formed
an almost adequate fortification.

The little fortress was high above the broad river. It was like an
eyrie of creatures of the air rather than the last defences of a party
of human beings. Yet such it was. It was the last hope of its
defenders, faced by a horde of blood-crazed savages who lusted only for
slaughter.

Five grimly silent men lined the stockade at the most advantageous
points. Five more lay about, huddled under blankets for warmth,
asleep. A single watcher had screened himself upon the roof of the
shack, whence his keen eyes could sweep the gorge from end to end. All
these were dusky creatures of a superior Indian race. Every one of
them was a descendant of the band of Sioux Indians which fled to Canada
after the Custer massacre. Inside the hut was the only white man of
the party.

A perfect silence reigned just now. There was a lull in the attack.
The Indians crowding the woods below had ceased their futile fire.
Perhaps they were holding a council. Perhaps they were making new
dispositions for a fresh attack. The men at the defences relaxed no
vigilance. The man on the roof noted and renoted every detail of
importance to the defence which the scene presented. The man inside
the hut alone seemed, at the moment, to be taking no part in the
enactm