ng into your eyes. And has not Jacques
told me of how you killed the _loup-garou_; of how you are hated by
Moncrossen, and feared by Creed?

"Do I not know that fire cannot burn you nor water drown? Did you not
beat down the greatest of Moncrossen's fighting men? And has not
Wabishke told in the woods, to the wonder of all, how you drink no
whisky, but pour it upon your feet?"

The girl spoke softly and rapidly, her face flushing.

"Do I not know all your thoughts?" she continued. "I who have sat at
your side through the long days of your sickness and listened to the
voice of the fever-spirit? At such times the heart cannot lie, and the
lips speak the truth."

She leaned closer, and unconsciously a slender, white-brown hand fell
upon his, and the soft, tapering fingers closed upon his own. A
delicious thrill passed through his body at the touch.

As he looked into the beautiful face so close to his, with the white
flash of pearly teeth in the play of the red lips, the eyes luminous,
like twin stars, a strange, numbing loneliness overcame him.

She was speaking in a voice that sounded soothing and far away, so that
he could not make out the words. Slowly his eyelids closed, blotting
out the face--and he slept.

CHAPTER XXIX

A BUCKSKIN HUNTING-SHIRT

The days of his convalescence in the camp of the Lacombies were days
fraught with mingled emotions in the heart of Bill Carmody.

Old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta treated him with cold deference, anticipating his
needs with a sagacity that was almost uncanny. She appeared hardly to
be aware of his presence, yet many times the man felt, without seeing,
the deep, burning gaze of the undimmed, black eyes.

Jacques, whom he had known in the logging-camp as Blood River Jack,
treated him with open friendliness, and as he became able to move about
the camp, taught him much of the lore of the forest, of the building of
nets and traps, the smoke-tanning of buckskin, and the taking and
drying of salmon.

During the long evenings the two sat close to the smudge of the
camp-fire and talked of many things, while the women listened.

But of the three it was the girl who most interested him. She was his
almost constant companion, silent and subtle at times, and with the
inborn subtlety of women she defied his most skilful attempts to share
her thoughts.

At other times her naive frankness and innocent brutality of expression
surprised and amused him. Baffling, revealing--she re