y,"
she said quietly, and slipped out of the wagon before I could lift her
down. A sudden voice kept me from jumping after her.

"By golly," said Billy Jones, sniffing at my fore wheel. "Have you run
over a hundred skunks?"

CHAPTER VII

I FIND LITTLE ENOUGH ON THE CORDUROY ROAD, AND LESS AT SKUNK'S MISERY

I told Billy Jones as much as I thought fit of the evening's
work,--which included no mention of wolf dope, or shooting on the
corduroy road.

If he listened incredulously to my tale of a wolf pack one look at Bob
and Danny told him it was true. They had had all they wanted, and we
spent an hour working over them. The wagon was a wreck; why the spliced
pole had hung together to the Halfway I don't know, but it had; and I
let the smell on it go as a skunk. I lifted the gold into the locked
cupboard where Billy kept his stores. It had to be put in another wagon
for Caraquet, anyhow; and besides, I was not going on to Caraquet in the
morning. The gold was safe with Billy, and there were other places that
needed visiting first. There was no hope of getting at the ugly business
that had brewed up at La Chance through Paulette Brown, or Collins
either; since one would never tell how much or how little she knew, and
the other would lie, if he ever reappeared. But the wolf bait end I
could get at, and I meant to. Which was the reason I sat on one of the
horses I had sent over to the Halfway--after my one experience when it
held none--when my dream girl and Mrs. Jones came out of Billy's shack
in the cold of a November dawn.

"I'm riding some of the way back with you," I observed casually.

Paulette stopped short. She was lovelier than I had ever seen her, with
her gold-bronze hair shining over the sable collar of Dudley's coat. I
fancied her eyes shone, too, for one second, at seeing me. But there I
was wrong.

"I thought you'd started for Caraquet," she exclaimed hastily. "You
needn't come with us. There won't be any wolves in the daytime, and--you
know there's no need for you to come!"

There was not. Even if her voice had not so significantly conveyed the
fact that there was no bottle in her wagon this time, Mrs. Billy
Jones--to put a hard fact politely--was about the most capable lady I
had ever met. She was big-boned, hard-faced and profane; and usually
left Billy to look after the house while she attended to a line of
traps, or hunted bears for their skins. No wolves would worry the
intrepid and tho