warmed. I'm not asking much of you, and you'll be no deeper
in the mire when you answer. If you don't--well, there's plenty of wood
here. Will you tell me what I want to know, or shall I light the fire?"

Still no word from Hicks. MacRae bent and raked the match along a flat
stone.

"Oh, well," he said indifferently, "maybe you'll think better of it when
your toes begin to sizzle."

He thrust the flaring match among the shavings. As the flame crept in
among the broken willows, Hicks raised his head.

"If I tell you what become of her, will you let me go?" he proposed
again. "I'll quit the country."

"You'll tell me--or cook by inches, right here," Mac answered
deliberately. "You can't buy me off."

The blaze flickered higher. I watched it, with every fiber of my being
revolting against such savagery, and the need for it. I glanced at
Piegan and Bevans. The one looked on with grim repression, the other
with blanched face. And suddenly Hicks jerked up his knees and heaved
himself bodily aside with a scream of fear.

"Put it out! Put it out!" he cried. "I'll tell you. For God's
sake--anything but the fire!"

"Be quick, then," MacRae muttered, "before I move you back."

"Last night," Hicks gasped, "when we pulled into the gorge to camp, she
jerked the six-shooter out uh Lessard's belt and made a run for it. She
took to the brush. It was dark, and we couldn't follow her. I don't know
where she got to, except that she started down the creek. We hunted for
her half the night--didn't see nothin'. That's the truth, s'help me."

"Down the creek--say, by the great Jehosophat!" Piegan exclaimed. "D'yuh
remember that racket in the water this mornin'? Yuh wait." He turned
and ran down-stream. Almost instantly the smoke had swallowed him.

MacRae stood staring for a second or two, then turned and scattered the
fire broadcast on the sand with a movement of his foot. He lifted his
hat, and I saw that his forehead and hair was damp with sweat.

"That was a job I had mighty little stomach for," he said, catching my
eye and smiling faintly. "I thought that sulky brute would come through
if I made a strong bluff. I reckon I'd have weakened in another minute,
if he hadn't."

"Ugh!" I shuddered. "It gave me the creeps. I wouldn't make a good
Indian."

"Nor I," he agreed. "But I had to know. And I feel better now. I'm not
afraid for Lyn, since I know she got away from _them_."

Piegan, at this moment, set up a jubilant halloo