Helen, and as Ainley
walked away a look of deep thought came on the girl's face.

Was it true, she asked herself, that he was afraid of the pursuit of
revengeful Indians? She remembered the sledge which she had seen
following behind, a sledge accompanied by only two men, and the evident
anxiety it had occasioned her chief captor, and one thing fixed itself
in her mind with all the force of a conviction, namely that whatever
Gerald Ainley thought about these men behind, her captors knew nothing
whatever about them; then she remembered the revelations made by the
half-breed. He had owned that he had attacked the cabin and captured
her for a price, a great price paid by a man who loved her. Was that
man Gerald Ainley? It was an odd coincidence that he should have been
waiting just where he was, which was quite evidently the place where
the half-breed had been making for. His words of greeting made it clear
that he had been expecting to meet her, but in that case how did it
come about that he knew she was in the neighbourhood? Was he indeed the
man to whom the half-breed was looking for the price? If so, why had he
so ruthlessly shot down the men who were his confederates?

Instantly an explanation that fitted the facts occurred to her. He had
shot down her captors in order to conceal his connection with them and
with the attack upon the cabin. She remembered the man whom she had
seen, and her odd fancy that he was a white man, and recalled her
lover's conviction that no bodily harm was meant to her, though the
same was not true of himself, and a very deep distrust of Gerald Ainley
surged in her heart; a distrust that was deepened by her recollection
of the policeman's story of the forged bill, and the sheet of foolscap
which had been in her lover's possession.

But of this distrust she gave no sign when Ainley approached her,
bearing food and coffee. She accepted the situation as if it were the
most everyday one in the world; and she listened to the few words that
he had to say, with real interest.

"We shall resume our march in twenty minutes or so, Helen, but as I
said, in an hour or so, we shall be beyond pursuit. Then, when we have
camped, you shall tell me the story of your adventures."

"Yes," she answered quietly, "and you shall tell me exactly how you
came to find me."

"That is a long story," he answered with a slight frown, "but you shall
hear it all in good time. It has taken me months to find you, and I