ts, on level ground and easy of
access. Its northern wall rose sheer up with the wall of Eagle Chasm,
with a torrent two hundred feet below that rumbled and roared like
distant thunder when the spring floods came. John Adare knew that this
chasm worked its purpose. Somewhere in it were the liquor caches which
the police never found when they came that way on their occasional
patrols. On the east and south sides of the Nest was an open, rough and
rocky, filled with jagged outcrops of boulders and patches of bush;
behind it the thick forest grew up to the very walls.

The forest people were three quarters of a mile from this open when
they came upon the trail of the lone caribou hunter. Where he had stood
and looked up at them the snow was beaten down; from that spot his
back-trail began first in a cautious, crouching retreat that changed
swiftly into the long running steps of a man in haste. Like a dog,
Kaskisoon hovered over the warm trail. His eyes glittered, and he held
out his hands, palms downward, and looked at Adare.

"The snow still crumbles in the footmarks," he said in Cree. "They are
expecting us."

Adare turned to the men behind him.

"You who have brought axes cut logs with which to batter in the doors,"
he said. "We will not ask them to surrender. We must make them fight,
so that we may have an excuse to kill them. Two logs for eight men
each. And you others fill your pockets with birch bark and spruce
pitch-knots. Let no man touch fire to a log until we have Josephine.
Then, burn! And you, Kaskisoon, go ahead and watch what is happening!"

He was calmer now. As the men turned to obey his commands he laid a
hand on Philip's shoulder.

"I told you this was coming, Boy," he said huskily. "But I didn't think
it meant HER. My God, if they have harmed her--"

His breath seemed choking him.

"They dare not!" breathed Philip.

John Adare looked into the white fear of the other's face. There was no
hiding of it: the same terrible dread that was in his own.

"If they should, we will kill them by inches, Philip!" he whispered.
"We will cut them into bits that the moose-birds can carry away. Great
God, they shall roast over fires!" He hurried toward the men who were
already chopping at spruce timber. Philip looked about for Jean. He had
disappeared. A hundred yards ahead of them he had caught up with
Kaskisoon, and side by side the Indian and the half-breed were speeding
now over the man-trail. Perhaps in