must follow!"

"Oui! Oui!" replied Benard. "I haf heard of her. The factor at Fort
Malsun, he tell me to keep a bright look-out. Dere ees a reward----"

"We must get her!" interrupted Stane. "You must help me and I will
double the reward. You understand?"

"Oui, I understand, m'sieu. Dis girl she ees mooch to you?"

"She is all the world to me."

"Den we go, m'sieu. But first we feed an' rest zee dogs. We travel
queeck, after, vous comprenez? I will a meal make, an' your head it
will recover, den we travel lik' zee wind."

The trapper made his way into the still smouldering hut, and began to
busy himself with preparations, whilst Stane looked round again. The
darkness, and the figures lying in the snow gave the scene an
indescribable air of desolation, and for a moment he stood without
moving; then, as something occurred to him, he began to walk towards
the place where he had been struck down. Three figures lay there
huddled grotesquely in the snow, and to one of them he owed his life.
Which of them was it? Two of the dead lay with their faces in the snow,
but the third was on its back, face upward to the sky. He stood and
looked into the face. It was that of the man whom he had grappled, and
who had been struck down with the knife that he had expected to strike
himself. He looked at the other two. An ax lay close to the hand of
one, and he had no doubt that that one was the man who would have slain
him. The third one was his saviour. He looked again, and as he noted
the dress a cold fear gripped his heart, for it was the dress of a
woman. He fell on his knees and turned the body over, then he bent over
the face. As he did so, he started back, and a sharp cry came from his
lips. The cry brought Jean Benard from the hut at a run.

"What ees it, m'sieu?" he asked as he reached Stane who knelt there as
if turned to stone.

"It is a dead girl," answered Stane, brokenly--"a girl who gave her
life for mine."

The trapper bent over the prostrate form, then he also cried out.

"Miskodeed!"

"Yes! Miskodeed. I did not know it was she! She killed one of them with
her knife, and she was slain by the other."

"Whom I keel with the bullet!" For a moment Jean Benard said no more,
but when he spoke again there was a choking sound in his voice. "I am
glad I keel dat man! eef I haf not done so, I follow heem across zee
world till it was done." Something like a sob checked his utterance.
"Ah, m'sieu, I love dat girl. I sa