he answered eagerly.

"You fonny man, I think," she murmured sadly.

"Can't you see it?" he cried.

"No," she said. "But I goin' do what you tell me. I go to-night."

"Ah, that's right!" he said with a curious look of gratitude in his
pain-haunted eyes.

Bela waited for him to say more--but waited in vain. For herself she
would quickly have told him she loved him, had not her tongue been
tied by Musq'oosis's positive instructions. And so the unhappy silence
continued between them.

"Maybe somebody come this way," said Bela at last. "Mak' trouble. Come
up by my boat."

Sam shook his head. "I've got to go back to camp now."

"You not see me again. You got not'ing say to me?" asked Bela
despairingly. Her hand sought his.

Sam's instincts sprang up in alarm. "What could I say?" he cried.
"What good would it do? Good-bye!" Snatching his hand out of hers, he
retreated over the stones, refusing to look back.

* * * * *

When Sam entered the shack Joe faced him, scowling. "Where you been?"
he demanded.

Sam, in no humour to be meek, made the time-honoured rejoinder.

"I'll soon make it my business," retorted Joe. "With that, see?"
showing a clenched fist. "Have you been with Bela?"

Sam, because of the threat, disdained to lie. "Yes," he said coolly.

Joe whirled about to the others. "Didn't I tell you?" he cried
excitedly. "I heard her calling him. There's underhand work here. He's
hid the guns on us."

"Do you know where she's hid?" demanded Big Jack.

Sam did not feel any necessity of returning a truthful answer to this.
"No," he said. "She came on me when I was visiting my muskrat traps."

"You're lying!" cried Joe. "I'll smash you, anyhow, on the chance of
it."

Big Jack stepped between them.

"I'm running this show," he said grimly. To Sam he said: "I strike no
man without warning. I warn you now. This is a man's affair. We won't
stand no interference from cooks. You keep out. If you don't, God help
you, that's all!"

"And if he leaves you," added Joe, "I'll croak you myself with as
little thought as I'd pinch a flea!"

"Get the supper," said Jack.

Sam clenched his teeth, and did not speak again.

* * * * *

In the middle of the night Sam awoke in the shack with a weight on his
breast, and, sitting up in his blankets, looked about him. The dying
embers of the fire cast a faint light on the figures of his three
companions lying