curing evidence against MacNair to be used in a court
of law. His plans for crushing MacNair's power included no aid from
constituted authority.

He noted with keen satisfaction that the girl's hatred for MacNair had
been greatly intensified, not so much by the attack upon her school, as
by the stories she heard from the lips of Indians who passed back and
forth upon the river. The posting of those Indians had been a happy
bit of forethought on the part of Lapierre; and their stories had lost
nothing in LeFroy's interpretation.

Lapierre contrived to make the succeeding days busy ones. By
arrangement with Chloe, a system of credits had been established, and
from daylight to dark he was busy about the storehouse, paying off and
outfitting his canoemen, who were to fare North upon the trap-lines
until the breaking up of the ice in the spring would call them once
more to the lakes and the rivers, to move Lapierre's freight, handle
his furs, and deliver his contraband whiskey.

Each evening Lapierre repaired to the cottage, and LeFroy at his post
in the storehouse nodded sagely to himself as the notes of the girl's
rich contralto floated loud and clear above the twang of the
accompanying guitar.

Always the quarter-breed spoke eagerly to Chloe of the proposed trip to
Snare Lake, and bitterly he regretted the enforced delay incident to
outfitting the trappers. And always, with the skill and finesse of the
born intriguer, by a smile, a suggestion, or an adroitly worded
question, he managed to foster and to intensify her hatred for Brute
MacNair.

On the sixth day after their departure, the scouts returned from the
Northward and reported that MacNair had travelled for many days across
the barrens, in search of the caribou herds. Followed, then, another
conference with LeFroy. The remaining canoemen were outfitted with
surprising celerity. And at midnight a big freight canoe, loaded to
the gunwale with an assortment of cheap knives and hatchets, bolts of
gay-coloured cloth, and cheaper whiskey broke through the ever
thickening skim of shore ice, and headed Northward under the personal
direction of that master of all whiskey runners, Louis LeFroy.

The next day Lapierre, with a great show of eagerness, informed Chloe
that he was ready to undertake the journey to Snare Lake.
Enthusiastically the girl set about her preparation, and the following
morning, accompanied by Big Lena and Lapierre, took her place in a
cano