of pine boughs and carried it away
with me there lay a flurry of litter that spoke volumes: for among it
was a corned-beef can that was no product of Skunk's Misery, where meat
meant squirrels and rabbits, and--a corked bottle of wolf dope! That I
laid gingerly aside till I had poked around in the rest of the mess, but
there was not much else there besides kindling. I got up to leg it for
the underground cave, blazing that I had missed Hutton and half hoping
he might be there,--but I dropped flump on my knees again, dumbfounded.

Underneath the displaced litter, stuck sideways in a crack of the log
floor, was a shiny, dirty white playing card. I pulled it out. And in
the narrow white beam of my electric lantern I saw the missing two of
hearts out of Thompson's pack!

I saw more, too, before I even wondered how one of Thompson's cards had
ever got to Skunk's Misery. The deuce of hearts was written on--closely,
finely and legibly--with indelible pencil. And as I read the short
sentences, word by word, I knew Thompson had never got to Caraquet,
never got anywhere but to the cave under the very lean-to I knelt
in--till he had been brought up from it, here--to be taken away and
drowned in Lac Tremblant, as a decent man would not drown a dog! And I
knew--at last--where Hutton and his gang were, and who Hutton was!

But I made no move to go underground to the cave to look for them. And
the only word that came to my tongue was: "_Macartney!_"

CHAPTER XIII

A DEAD MAN'S MESSENGER

For the written message on Thompson's lost card was plain. Macartney
was--Hutton! And Hutton's gang were just the new, rough men Macartney
had dribbled in to the La Chance mine!

It was Macartney--our capable, hard-working superintendent--for whom
Paulette had mistaken me in the dark, that first night I came home to La
Chance and the dream girl, who was no nearer me now than she was then;
Macartney from whom she had sealed the boxes of gold, to prevent him
substituting others and sending me off to Caraquet with worthless
dummies; Macartney I had heard her tell herself she could not trust;
Macartney who had put that wolf dope--that there was no longer any doubt
he had brought from Skunk's Misery--in my wagon; Macartney who had had
that boulder stuck in the road to smash my pole, by the same men who
were posted by the corduroy road through the swamp to cut me off there
if the wolves and the broken wagon failed; and Macartney who had been