d received no orders.

"Now," said Ned Trent, acidly, "I think this will stop right here.
You do not cut a very good figure, my dear sir," he laughed a
little. "You haven't cut a very good figure from the beginning,
you know. You forbade me to do various things, and I have done
them all. I traded with your Indians. I came and went in your
country. Do you think I have not been here often before I was
caught? And you forbade me to see your daughter again. I saw her
that very evening, and the next morning and the next evening."

He stood, still holding Galen Albret immovably in the chair,
looking steadily and angrily into the leader's eyes, driving each
word home with the weight of his contained passion. The girl
touched his arm.

"Hush! oh, hush!" she cried in a panic. "Do not anger him further!"

"When you forbade me to make love to her," he continued, unheeding,
"I laughed at you." With a sudden, swift motion of his left arm he
drew her to him and touched her forehead with his lips. "Look!
Your commands have been rather ridiculous, sir. I seem to have had
the upper hand of you from first to last. Incidentally you have my
life. Oh, welcome! That is small pay and little satisfaction."

He threw himself from the Factor and stepped back.

Galen Albret sat still without attempting to renew the struggle.
The enforced few moments of inaction had restored to him his
self-control. He was still deeply angered, but the insanity of
rage had left him. Outwardly he was himself again. Only a rapid
heaving of his chest answered Ned Trent's quick breathing, as the
two men glared defiantly at each other in the pause that followed.

"Very well, sir," said the Factor, curtly, at last. "Your time is
over. I find it unnecessary to hang you. You will start, on your
_Longue Traverse_ to-day."

"Oh!" cried Virginia, in a low voice of agony, and fluttered to her
lover's side.

"Hush! hush!" he soothed her. "There is a chance."

"You think so?" broke in Galen Albret, harshly. And looking at his
set face and blazing eyes, they saw that there was no chance. The
Free Trader shrugged his shoulders.

"You are going to do this thing, father," appealed Virginia, "after
what I have told you?"

"My mind is made up."

"I shall not survive him, father!" she threatened, in a low voice.
Then, as the Factor did not respond, "Do not misunderstand me. I
do not intend to survive him."

"Silence! silence! silence!" cried