forced,
less general. He hurried his steps.

In the shadow of the first canvas covered walls he knew what he would
find. Pushing suddenly open the door of one of the largest
bunk-houses, he faced an empty room, though the lamps were lit. In
another were two men instead of twenty, both lustily and unmusically
blowing mouth-organs. Further on three before a door were making the
noise of ten.

And then over the whole camp fell a sudden silence. In some strange
way all knew he was there. Some animal instinct--or was it a dim sound
from the corner of a near-by shack--made the foreman leap further into
the open. A knife whistled past his shoulder and thudded into a
door-sill across the way, where it stuck, quivering. Without
excitement he pulled his automatic and stepped into the light from the
open door. But he did not pause or turn.

The full course of the camp he paced, whistling lightly through his
teeth, and every ray of light he passed glinted on the barrel of his
pistol. Sheer defiance it was, but it succeeded. At the stables he
turned about and retraced the crooked street.

Reaching the edge of the camp, he quickened his pace and where the
shadows permitted ran swiftly up the slope to the grade. There he
paused to recover his breath. In response to his warble Tressa opened
the door. Conrad looked beyond her to her father and nodded.

"Almost empty," he said. "They're holding a pow-wow somewhere. Look
out for squalls. Better keep the doors locked these nights, and fasten
the windows so no one can get in."

"I'll lock the stable." The only menace Tressa could realise was the
stealing of the horses.

Conrad crept over the grade; but he did not drop down the path to his
shack. Instead he entered the bush. It was not so dark yet that he
could not make good speed, once his eyes became accustomed to it. The
northern bush was not thick, and the foliage failed to hide a
star-filled sky of wonderful brilliance that overhangs the earth
nowhere as in the Canadian West. By some bush-sense, aided by much
good luck, he kept straight ahead until he arrived above the camp. A
few minutes of search found him Koppy's shack. Though the door was
open and the light burning, no one was there. Conrad hurried on.

Even before he was conscious of assistance from his ears he knew he was
approaching a great gathering of men. He was picking his way as
carefully as he knew how, but he was no woodsman; now and th