out the seal she had put on all our gold, or her
talking to Collins in the dark, for the question Dudley flung at me was
just what I had been expecting:

"You didn't see anything of Dunn or Collins between here and
Caraquet--or hear from Billy Jones that they'd gone by the Halfway?"

"No," I fenced with a bland, lying truth. "I saw two of our teamsters at
the Halfway!"

Dudley shook his head. "Not them--I knew about them! But Dunn and
Collins cleared out the day you left, and I thought----" he broke off
irrelevantly. "What the dickens possessed you to take Paulette with you
that night? She might have been killed--I heard you'd the dog's own
trouble on the road!"

That something inside me stiffened up. Whatever he'd heard, I was pretty
certain was not all; and I was hanged if I were coming out with the full
story of that crazy drive till I knew whether Paulette came into it. I
had no desire to talk before Macartney either, in spite of what he might
have found out, or guessed; no matter what Paulette might have been
mixed up in I was not going to have a stern-faced, set-eyed Macartney
put her through a catechism about it. Or Dudley either, for that matter.
I had no real voucher for the terms he and Paulette were on, except
Marcia's word; and Dudley was no man to trust not to turn on a girl.

"We shot a few wolves, if that's what you mean," I said roughly. "I
don't see why that should have worried you about Miss Paulette--or what
it has to do with Dunn and Collins!"--which was a plain lie.

"Few wolves! I know all about them!" Dudley retorted viciously. "Billy
Jones's wife came out with the plain truth--that you'd been chased by a
pack! And as for what Dunn and Collins had to do with my worrying about
the gold you carried, it's simple enough. They----" but he stopped,
chewing two fingers with a disgusting trick he had. "By gad," he looked
up suddenly, "I believe it was them the wolves were after to begin with,
Stretton--before they got started on you! And it wasn't what they left
La Chance for!"

"What d'ye mean?"

Dudley was chewing his fingers again, but Macartney answered with his
usual set-eyed openness. "The gold," he supplied. "I got an idea those
two deserters might have laid up beside the Caraquet road somewhere, to
wait for you and get it. I had trouble with them over some drilling the
morning you left; and when I went back to the stope after seeing you and
Miss Paulette off, they'd cleared out. They must