efore her, leaning in just the right
attitude to receive upon his defenceless back the full force of the
blow, sat the man who had deceived her. For not until she had listened
to the low-voiced, impassioned words had she realized there had been
any deception. With the realization came the hot, fierce flame of
anger that seared her very soul. An anger engendered by her own wrong,
and fanned to its fiercest by the knowledge that the man was at that
moment seeking to deceive the white woman--the woman who had taught her
much, and who with the keenest interest and gentleness had treated her
as an equal.

She had come to love this white woman with the love that was greater
than the love of life. And the words to which this woman was now
listening were the same words, from the same lips, to which she herself
had listened beside the cold waters of the far-off Mackenzie. Thus the
Louchoux girl faced suddenly her first great problem. And to the
half-savage mind of her the solution of the problem seemed very simple,
very direct, and, had Big Lena not entered by way of the outer door at
the precise moment that the girl crouched with uplifted knife, it would
doubtless have been very effective.

But Big Lena did enter, and, with a swiftness of perception that belied
the vacuous stare of the fishlike eyes, took in the situation at a
glance; for LeFroy had already hinted to her of the relation which
existed between his erstwhile superior and this girl from the land of
the midnight sun. Whereupon Big Lena had kept her own counsel and had
patiently bided her time, and now her time had come, and she was in no
wise minded that the fulness of her vengeance should be marred by the
untimely taking off of Lapierre. Swiftly she crossed the room, and as
her strong fingers closed about the wrist of the Indian girl's upraised
knife-arm, the other hand reached beyond and noiselessly closed the
door between the two rooms.

The Louchoux girl whirled like a flash and sank her strong, white teeth
deep in the rolled-sleeved forearm of the huge Swedish woman. But a
thumb, inserted dextrously and with pressure in the little hollow
behind the girl's ear, caused her jaws instantly to relax, and she
stood trembling before the big woman, who regarded her with a tolerant
grin, and the next moment laid a friendly hand upon her shoulder and,
turning her gently about, guided her to a chair at the farther side of
the room.

Followed then a quarter