y came to steal hours by herself,
she would put on the red dress and do up her wonderful hair as she saw
it in the pictures of the magazines Pierrot had sent up twice a year
from Nelson House.

On the second day of Pierrot's absence Nepeese dressed herself like
this, but today she let her hair cascade in a shining glory about her,
and about her forehead bound a circlet of red ribbon. She was not yet
done. Today she had marvelous designs. On the wall close to her mirror
she had tacked a large page from a woman's magazine, and on this page
was a lovely vision of curls. Fifteen hundred miles north of the sunny
California studio in which the picture had been taken, Nepeese, with
pouted red lips and puckered forehead, was struggling to master the
mystery of the other girl's curls!

She was looking into her mirror, her face flushed and her eyes aglow in
the excitement of the struggle to fashion one of the coveted ringlets
from a tress that fell away below her hips, when the door opened behind
her, and Bush McTaggart walked in.

CHAPTER 20

The Willow's back was toward the door when the factor from Lac Bain
entered the cabin, and for a few startled seconds she did not turn. Her
first thought was of Pierrot--for some reason he had returned. But even
as this thought came to her, she heard in Baree's throat a snarl that
brought her suddenly to her feet, facing the door.

McTaggart had not entered unprepared. He had left his pack, his gun,
and his heavy coat outside. He was standing with his back against the
door; and at Nepeese--in her wonderful dress and flowing hair--he was
staring as if stunned for a space at what he saw. Fate, or accident,
was playing against the Willow now. If there had been a spark of
slumbering chivalry, of mercy, even, in Bush McTaggart's soul, it was
extinguished by what he saw. Never had Nepeese looked more beautiful,
not even on that day when MacDonald the map maker had taken her
picture. The sun, flooding through the window, lighted up her marvelous
hair. Her flushed face was framed in its lustrous darkness like a
tinted cameo. He had dreamed, but he had pictured nothing like this
woman who stood before him now, her eyes widening with fear and the
flush leaving her face even as he looked at her.

It was not a long interval in which their eyes met in that terrible
silence. Words were unnecessary. At last she understood--understood
what her peril had been that day at the edge of the chasm and