s tongue about it. And in the middle of that pleasant thought
my dream girl spoke again, to herself this time: "Oh, I can't trust him!
I'll have to get hold of the gold myself--at least all I've marked."

On the top of her words a wolf howled startlingly, close by. It was
evidently the last touch on what must have been a cheerful evening, for
Paulette Brown gave one appalled spring and was gone, fleeing for the
kitchen door. I am not slow on my feet. I was in the front way before
she struck the back one. From the front door I observed the living room,
and what I saw inside it before I strolled in there made me catch my
breath with relief and comforting security for the first time that
night. Macartney could not have been out listening in the dark, if I
had. He sat lazily in the living room, talking to Marcia, with his feet
in old patent leather shoes he could never have run in, even if it had
not been plain he had not been out-of-doors at all. Marcia had
evidently not been spying either, which was a comfort; and Dudley was
out of the question, for he dozed by the fire, palpably half asleep. But
suddenly I had a fright. The girl who entered the living room five
minutes behind me had very plainly been out; and I was terrified that
Marcia would notice her wind-blown hair. I spoke to her as she passed
me. "You're losing a hairpin on the left side of your head," was all I
said. And much I got for it. My dream girl tucked in her wildly flying
curl with that sleight of hand women use and never even looked at me.
But the thing was done, and I had covered up her tracks for the third
time.

I decided to fire Collins before breakfast the next morning and get off
to Caraquet straight after. But I didn't; and I did not fire Collins,
either. When I went to the bunk house and then to the mine, where he was
a rock man, he had apparently fired himself, as Paulette had told him
to. He was nowhere to be found, anyhow, or Dunn either. I wasted an hour
hunting for him, and after that Macartney wanted me, so that it was late
afternoon before I could load up my gold and get off. And as I opened
the safe in Dudley's office I swore.

There were four boxes of the stuff; small, for easy handling; and if I
had had time I would have opened every hanged one of them. Even as it
was, I determined to do no forwarding from Caraquet till I knew what
something on them meant. For on each box, just as I had expected even
before I heard Paulette Brown say