, an' a breed girl over there. You
lookin' for better odds, Harv?" jeered the leader of the party.

"I never heard that a feller was any less dead because an Injun or a
girl shot him," the lank smuggler retorted.

"Be reasonable, Bully," urged Barney with his ingratiating whine. "We
come out to fix the red-coat. We figured he was alone except for Tom,
an' o' course Tom's with us. But this here's a different proposition.
Too many witnesses ag'in' us. I reckon you ain't tellin' us it's safe
to shoot up Angus McRae's daughter even if she is a metis."

"Forget her," the big whiskey-runner snarled. "She won't be a witness
against us."

"Why won't she?"

"Hell's hinges! Do I have to tell you all my plans? I'm sayin' she
won't. That goes." He flung out a gesture of scarcely restrained rage.
He was not one who could reason away opposition with any patience. It
was his temperament to override it.

Brad Stearns rubbed his bald head. He always did when he was working
out a mental problem. West's declaration could mean only one of two
things. Either the girl would not be alive to give witness or she
would be silent because she had thrown in her lot with the big trader.

The old-timer knew West's vanity and his weakness for women. From Tom
Morse he had heard of his offer to McRae for the girl. Now he had no
doubt what the man intended.

But what of her? What of the girl he had seen at her father's camp,
the heart's desire of the rugged old Scotchman? In the lightness
of her step, in the lift of her head, in speech and gesture and
expression of face, she was of the white race, an inheritor of its
civilization and of its traditions. Only her dusky color and a certain
wild shyness seemed born of the native blood in her. She was proud,
passionate, high-spirited. Would she tamely accept Bully West for her
master and go to his tent as his squaw? Brad didn't believe it. She
would fight--fight desperately, with barbaric savagery.

Her fight would avail her nothing. If driven to it, West would take
her with him into the fastnesses of the Lone Lands. They would
disappear from the sight of men for months. He would travel swiftly
with her to the great river. Every sweep of his canoe paddle would
carry them deeper into that virgin North where they could live on what
his rifle and rod won for the pot. A little salt, pemmican, and flour
would be all the supplies he needed to take with them.

Brad had no intention of being a cat's-paw f