his was exactly what Colina wanted. She warmed
toward him, and sat down.

"Ah! I can talk straight to you," she said. "The others act as if the
truth was too strong for me!"

"I know better than that," said Strange quietly. "You have the best
head of any of us."

"Except when I lose it!" Colina thought. She smiled at him more warmly
than she knew. A little flame that leaped up behind the man's eyes
warned her. "Would he ever dare!" she thought.

"How is your father?" asked Strange quietly.

She shrugged helplessly. "Still weak," she said, "but there has been
no return of fever. I have managed to keep the truth from him, but he
suspects if. I cannot keep him in his room much longer."

"Ah! It makes me mad when I think of him!" Strange muttered.

There was a silence between them. His sympathy was sweet to her. She
allowed it to lull her instinct of danger.

"What about the Kakisas?" she asked. "I gathered from Macfarlane's and
Dr. Giddings's careful attempts to reassure me, that they feared danger
from that source."

Strange smiled enigmatically.

"Surely the idea of an Indian attack is absurd," said Colina. "There
hasn't been such a thing for thirty years."

"I know the Indians better than any man here," said Strange. "One may
expect danger without being afraid."

"Danger!" cried Colina, elevating her eyebrows. "They would never
dare!--"

"Not of themselves--but with a leader!"

"Ambrose Doane?" said Colina quickly. Her intelligence instantly
rejected the suggestion, but self-love snatched at it in justification.
Wounded vanity makes incongruous alliances. "That would be devilish!"
she murmured.

Strange shrugged. "I can't be sure of what is going on," he said. "I
don't want to alarm you unnecessarily. But I have a reason to suspect
danger."

Colina turned pale. "Tell me exactly what you mean," she said.

"The Indians have learned by now how easy it was to seize the mill," he
said with admirable gravity. "It seems to me that to the Indian mind
looting the store will next suggest itself. We know they are incensed
against your father. His long weakness makes them bold."

"But these are merely surmises!"' cried Colina.

"There is something else. Their minds work obliquely. They never come
out straight with anything. I have received a kind of warning. It was
an invitation to spend the night with Marcel Charlbois down the river.
But it came from the other side."

"Why s