skunk and in another a timber wolf. When he came in sight
of the rendezvous, he was late.

Jessie was not there. He waited half an hour in growing anxiety before
he went to meet her. Night would fall soon. He must find her while it
was still light enough to follow her tracks. The disasters that might
have fallen upon her crowded his mind. A bear might have attacked her.
She might be lost or tangled in the swampy muskeg. Perhaps she had
accidentally shot herself.

As swiftly as he could he snowshoed through the forest, following the
plain trail she had left. It carried him to a trap from which she had
taken prey, for it was newly baited and the snow was sprinkled with
blood. Before he reached the second gin, the excitement in him
quickened. Some one in snowshoes had cut her path and had deflected
to pursue. Onistah knew that the one following was a white man. The
points of the shoes toed out. Crees toed in, just the same on webs as
in moccasins.

His imagination was active. What white man had any business in these
woods? Why should he leave that business to overtake Jessie McRae?
Onistah did not quite know why he was worried, but involuntarily he
quickened his pace.

Less than a quarter of a mile farther on, he read another chapter of
the story written in the trampled snow. There had been a struggle. His
mistress had been overpowered. He could see where she had been flung
into a white bank and dragged out of it. She had tried to run and had
got hardly a dozen yards before recapture. From that point the tracks
moved forward in a straight line, those of the smaller webs blotted
out by the ones made by the larger. The man was driving the girl
before him.

Who was he? Where was he taking her? For what purpose? Onistah could
not guess. He knew that McRae had made enemies, as any forceful
character on the frontier must. The Scotchman had kicked out lazy
ne'er-do-wells from his camp. As a free trader he had matched himself
against the Hudson's Bay Company. But of those at war with him few
would stoop to revenge themselves on his daughter. The Blackfoot had
not heard of the recent trouble between Whaley and the McRaes, nor had
the word reached him that Bully West was free again. Wherefore he was
puzzled at what the signs on the snow told him.

Yet he knew he had read them correctly. The final proof of it to him
was that Jessie broke trail and not the man. If he were a friend he
would lead the way. He was at her heels be