e evening
of the fourth day, when they threaded the black-spruce swamp and pulled
wearily into the fort on Lac du Mort, Lapierre found a scout awaiting
him with the news that MacNair had headed northward with his Indians,
and that LeFroy was soon to start for Fort Resolution with the wounded
man of the Mounted. Whereupon he selected the fastest and freshest
dog-team available and, accompanied by a half-dozen of his most trusted
lieutenants, took the trail for Chloe Elliston's school on-the Yellow
Knife, after issuing orders as to the conduct of defence in case of an
attack by MacNair's Indians.

Affairs at the school were at a standstill. From a busy hive of
activity, with the women and children showing marked improvement at
their tasks, and the men happy in the felling of logs and the
whip-sawing of lumber, the settlement had suddenly slumped into a
disorganized hodge-podge of unrest and anxiety. MacNair's Indians had
followed him into the North; their women and children brooded sullenly,
and a feeling of unrest and expectancy pervaded the entire colony.

Among the inmates of the cottage the condition was even worse. With
Harriet Penny hysterical and excited, Big Lena more glum and taciturn
than usual, the Louchoux girl cowering in mortal dread of impending
disaster, and Chloe herself disgusted, discouraged, nursing in her
heart a consuming rage against Brute MacNair, the man who had wrought
the harm, and who had been her evil genius since she had first set foot
into the North.

Upon the afternoon of the day she despatched LeFroy to Fort Resolution
with the wounded officer of the Mounted, Chloe stood at her little
window gazing out over the wide sweep of the river and wondering how it
all would end. Would MacNair find Lapierre, and would he kill him? Or
would the Mounted heed the urgent appeal she despatched in care of
LeFroy and arrive in time to recapture MacNair before he came upon his
victim?

"If I only knew where to find him," she muttered, "I could warn him of
his danger."

The next moment her eyes widened with amazement, and she pressed her
face close against the glass; across the clearing from the direction of
the river dashed a dog-team, with three men running before and three
behind, while upon the sled, jaunty and smiling, and debonair as ever,
sat Pierre Lapierre himself. With a flourish he swung the dogs up to
the tiny veranda and stepped from the sled, and the next moment Chloe
found hers