arold's eyes were gleaming.

XXIX

Harold saw fit to answer the door himself. He threw it wide open;
Virginia's startled glance could just make out two swarthy faces,
singularly dark and unprepossessing, in the candlelight. She
experienced a swift flood of fear that she couldn't understand: then
forced it away as an absurdity.

"We--we mushin' over to Yuga--been over Bald Peak way," Joe said
stumblingly. "Didn't know no one was here. Want a bunk here to-night."

"You've got your own blankets?"

"Yes. We got blankets."

"On your way home, eh? Well, I'll have to ask this lady."

Harold seemed strangely nervous as he turned to Virginia. He wondered
if this courteous reference to her was a mistake; could it be that she
would object to their staying? It would make, at best, an awkward
situation. However, he knew this girl and he felt sure. He half-closed
the door.

"A couple of Indians, going home toward the settlement on the Yuga," he
explained quickly. "They've come from over toward Bald Peak and were
counting on putting up here to-night. That's the woods custom, you
know--to stay at anybody's cabin. They didn't know we were here and
want to stay, anyway. Do you think we can put 'em up?"

"Good Heavens, we can't send them on, on a night like this. It is
awkward, though--about food----"

"They've likely got their own food."

"Of course they can stay. Bill can sleep on the floor in here--you
can take the two of them with you into the little cabin. It will be
pretty tight work, but we can't do anything else. Bring them in."

Harold turned again to the door, and in a moment the Indians strode,
blinking, into the candlelight. The brighter light did not reveal them
at greater advantage. Virginia shot them a swift glance and was
instinctively repelled: but at once she ascribed the evil savagery of
their faces to racial traits. She went back to her work.

Bill, sitting against the cabin wall, tried to make sense out of a
confused jumble of thoughts and impressions and memories that flooded in
one wave to his mind. His few hours of blindness had seemingly
sharpened his other senses: and there was a quality of the half-breed's
voice that was distinctly familiar. He had assumed at once that the two
breeds were Joe and Pete whom he had encountered when he first found
Harold. Why, then, had the latter made no sign of recognition? Why
should he repeat a manifest lie,--that they had been over