est police-post of your whereabouts, and once
the mounters start after a man, as I daresay you know, they follow the
trail to a finish."

"Oui, I know," assented the man quickly.

"Then unless you want to land in their hands in double quick time
you'll tell no one of the silly mistake you made just now, or--well you
understand."

The half-breed nodded, and thinking that he had gone far enough, Ainley
changed the subject.

"And now tell me, have you seen that girl I asked you about since you
saw her three days back?"

A thoughtful look came in the half-breed's face, and his unsteady eyes
sought the canoe lying at his feet. He thought of the white tent on the
river bank and of the man sleeping outside of it, and instantly guessed
who had occupied the tent.

"Oui!" he replied laconically.

"You have?" Sudden excitement blazed in Ainley's face as he asked the
question. "When? Where?"

The half-breed visioned the sleeping camp once more, and with another
glance at the stolen canoe, gave a calculated answer. "Yesterday. She
go up zee oder river in a canoe with a white man."

"Up the other river?"

"Oui! I pass her and heem, both paddling. It seems likely dat dey go to
Fort Winagog. Dey paddle quick."

"Fort Winagog!" As he echoed the words, a look of thought came into
Ainley's eyes. Helen would have heard that name as the next destination
of the party, and if the man who had saved her from the river was in a
hurry and travelling that way it was just possible that she had decided
to accompany him there. He nodded his head at the thought, and then a
new question shot into his mind, a question to which he gave utterance.

"Who was the man--I mean the man who was with the girl in the canoe?"

"I not know," answered the half-breed, trying to recall the features of
the sleeping man whose canoe he had stolen. "Heem tall man, with hair
that curl like shavings."

"Tell me more," demanded Ainley sharply, as an unpleasant suspicion
shot into his mind.

"I not know more," protested the half-breed. "I see heem not ver'
close; an' I travel fast. I give heem an' girl one look, cry bonjour!
an' then he is past. Vous comprenez?"

"Yes," replied the white man standing there with a look of abstraction
on his face. For a full two minutes he did not speak again, but stood
as if resolving some plan in his mind, then he looked at the half-breed
again.

"You are going up the river?" he asked.

"Oui!"

"Then I want you to d