ake good our loss. Where's his
camp?"

From the distance of a stone-throw a heavy, raucous voice called,
"'Lo, Morse!"

The young man turned to the girl, his lips set in a thin, hard line.
"Bully West. The dog's gone back and is bringin' him here, I reckon.
Like to meet him?"

She knew the reputation of Bully West, notorious as a brawler and
a libertine. Who in all the North did not know of it? Her heart
fluttered a signal of despair.

"I--I can get away yet--up the valley," she said in a whisper, eyes
quick with fear.

He smiled grimly. "You mean _we_ can."

"Yes."

"Hit the trail."

She turned and led the way into the darkness.

CHAPTER III

ANGUS McRAE DOES HIS DUTY

The harsh shout came to them again, and with it a volley of oaths that
polluted the night.

Sleeping Dawn quickened her pace. The character of Bully West was
sufficiently advertised in that single outburst. She conceived him
bloated, wolfish, malignant, a man whose mind traveled through filthy
green swamps breeding fever and disease. Hard though this young man
was, in spite of her hatred of him, of her doubt as to what lay behind
those inscrutable, reddish-brown eyes of his, she would a hundred
times rather take chances with him than with Bully West. He was at
least a youth. There was always the possibility that he might not yet
have escaped entirely from the tenderness of boyhood.

Morse followed her silently with long, tireless, strides. The girl
continued to puzzle him. Even her manner of walking expressed
personality. There was none of the flat-footed Indian shuffle about
her gait. She moved lightly, springily, as one does who finds in it
the joy of calling upon abundant strength.

She was half Scotch, of course. That helped to explain her. The words
of an old song hummed themselves through his mind.

"Yestreen I met a winsome lass, a bonny lass was she,
As ever climbed the mountain-side, or tripped aboon the lea;
She wore nae gold, nae jewels bright, nor silk nor satin rare,
But just the plaidie that a queen might well be proud to wear."

Jessie McRae wore nothing half so picturesque as the tartan. Her
clothes were dingy and dust-stained. But they could not eclipse the
divine, dusky youth of her. She was slender, as a panther is, and her
movements had more than a suggestion of the same sinuous grace.

Of the absurdity of such thoughts he was quite aware. She was a
good-looking breed. Let it go at that. In