elf standing in the little living-room with Lapierre bowing
low over her hand. Harriet Penny was in the schoolhouse; the Louchoux
girl was helping Big Lena in the kitchen, and for the first time in
many moons Chloe Elliston felt glad that she was alone with Lapierre.

When at length she removed her hand from his grasp she stood for some
moments regarding the clean-cut lines of his features, and then she
smiled as she noted the trivial fact that he had removed his hat, and
that he stood humbly before her with bared head. A great surge of
feeling rushed over her as she realized how clean and good--how perfect
this man seemed in comparison with the hulking brutality of MacNair.
She motioned him to a seat beside the table, and drawing her chair
close to his side, poured into his attentive and sympathetic ears all
that she knew of MacNair's escape, of the shooting of Corporal Ripley,
and his departure in the night with his Indians.

Lapierre listened, smiling inwardly at her version of the affair, and
at the conclusion of her words leaned forward and took one of the slim
brown hands in his. For a long, long time the girl listened in silence
to the pleading of his lips; and the little room was filled with the
passion of his low-voiced eloquence.

Neither was aware of the noiseless opening of a door, nor of the
wide-eyed, girlish face that stared at them through the aperture, nor
was either aware that the man's words were borne distinctly to the ears
of the Louchoux girl. Nor could they note the change from an
expression of startled surprise to slitlike, venomous points of fire
that took place in the eyes of the listening girl--nor the clenching
fists. Nor did they hear the soft, catlike tread with which the girl
quit the door and crossed to the kitchen table. Nor could they see the
cruel snarl of her lips as her fingers closed tightly about the haft of
the huge butcher-knife, whose point was sharp and whose blade was keen.
Nor did they hear the noiseless tread with which the girl again
approached the door, swung wider now to admit the passage of her tense,
lithe body. Nor did they see her crouch for a spring with the
tight-clutched knife upraised and the gleaming slitlike eyes focused
upon a point mid-way between Lapierre's shoulder-blades as his arm
unconsciously came to rest upon the back of Chloe Elliston's chair.

For a long moment the girl poised, gloating--enjoying in its fulness
the measure of her revenge. B