alment. The buildings were discovered, and men called out loudly
and were answered from half a dozen points out on the tundra. They could
hear running feet and sharp commands; some were cursing where they were
entangled among the nigger-heads, and the sound of hurrying foes came
from the edge of the ravine. Alan's heart stood still. There was
something terribly swift and businesslike in this gathering of their
enemies. He could hear them at his cabin. Doors opened. A window fell in
with a crash. Lights flared up through the gray mist.

It was then, from the barricaded attic window over their heads, that
Sokwenna's rifle answered. A single shot, a shriek, and then a pale
stream of flame leaped out from the window as the old warrior emptied
his gun. Before the last of the five swift shots were fired, Alan was in
the cabin, barring the door behind him. Shaded candles burned on the
floor, and beside them crouched Keok and Nawadlook. A glance told him
what Sokwenna had done. The room was an arsenal. Guns lay there, ready
to be used; heaps of cartridges were piled near them, and in the eyes of
Keok and Nawadlook blazed deep and steady fires as they held shining
cartridges between their fingers, ready to thrust them into the rifle
chambers as fast as the guns were emptied.

In the center of the room stood Mary Standish. The candles, shaded so
they would not disclose the windows, faintly illumined her pale face and
unbound hair and revealed the horror in her eyes as she looked at Alan.

He was about to speak, to assure her there was no danger that Graham's
men would fire upon the cabin--when hell broke suddenly loose out in the
night. The savage roar of guns answered Sokwenna's fusillade, and a hail
of bullets crashed against the log walls. Two of them found their way
through the windows like hissing serpents, and with a single movement
Alan was at Mary's side and had crumpled her down on the floor beside
Keok and Nawadlook. His face was white, his brain a furnace of sudden,
consuming fire.

"I thought they wouldn't shoot at women," he said, and his voice was
terrifying in its strange hardness. "I was mistaken. And I am
sure--now--that I understand."

With his rifle he cautiously approached the window. He was no longer
guessing at an elusive truth. He knew what Graham was thinking, what he
was planning, what he intended to do, and the thing was appalling. Both
he and Rossland knew there would be some way of sheltering Mary