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, G.o.d 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 on the floor beside him. Husky still had the sole use of the bed.

The cabin roof rang with a grotesque chorus of snores. Sam's gorge rose. The air was tainted. He looked at the rec.u.mbent figures with a curling lip. Was it hate that had awakened him? He had put up in silence with so much at their hands!

An oblique ray of moonlight struck through the window over his head, luring him like a song. He softly got up, and, gathering up his bed, went outside.

The pines were like a regiment of gigantic soldiers standing at ease under the sky and whispering together while they awaited the word of command. Their fragrance was like a benediction on the air. The moon, low down in the south-east, peeped between the trunks.

At the mouth of the creek where the little rapids poured into a quiet pool there was a bank of sand. This was the general washing-place of the camp.

Sam, thinking of the sand as a promising bed, made his way in that direction by the path they had worn. As he pa.s.sed around the house a shadow moved from behind a great pine and followed him, flitting noiselessly from tree to tree.

Sam sat down in the sand, nursing his knees. The mouth of the creek was the only spot along sh.o.r.e as yet wholly free of ice. He looked out over the lake through the opening. Under the light of the low moon the water was the colour of freshly cast iron.

Somewhere out upon it Bela was paddling, he thought, if she had not already reached home. His breast relaxed its guard against her a little. He believed she was a pretty fine sort, after all. Had he done the right thing to send her away? She was beautiful enough to make a man's arm ache for her now she had gone.

But on the whole he was glad she was gone. He did not realize it, but his hour had not quite struck. It was a wholesome instinct that made him fight against the overmastering emotions that attacked his heart.

He told himself he couldn't afford to look in that direction. He had work to do first. He had to get a toehold in this land. Some day maybe----

Drowsiness overcame him again. With a sigh he stretched out on the sand and rolled himself in his blankets. His breathing became deep and slow. By and by the coquettish moon peeped between the tree-trunks across the creek and touched his face and his fair hair with a silvery wand. Whereupon it was no longer a mere man; it was young Hermes sleeping beside the water. The shadow stole from among the trees above the sand-bank and crept down to his side. It knelt there with clasped hands. It showed a white face in the moonlight, on which glistened two diamonds.

By and by it rose with energetic action, and still moving noiselessly as a ghost, turned toward the lake, and clambering around the barrier of ice, dropped to the edge of the water on the other side.

Here a dugout was drawn up on the stones, well hidden from the view of any one on sh.o.r.e. She got in and, paddling around the ice, entered the mouth of the creek. Grounding her craft with infinite care on the sand, she groped for a moment in her baggage, then arose and stepped ash.o.r.e, carrying several long, thin strips of moose-hide.

CHAPTER X

ON THE LAKE

The three men sleeping on the floor of the shack suddenly started up in their blankets.

"What was that?" they asked each other.

"A shout for help," said Jack.

Joe sprang up and opened the door. Some confused sounds from the direction of the creek reached his ears, but he had not enough woodcraft to distinguish them from the legitimate sounds of the night.

The fire was black now. Big Jack struck a match.

"Sam's gone!" he cried suddenly.

Shand felt around the floor with his hands. "His blankets, too!" he added.

"Treachery!" cried Joe with an oath. "You wouldn't believe me before.

That's why he hid the guns. Come on, I heard something from the creek."

They pulled on their moccasins and, s.n.a.t.c.hing coats, ran out. Husky remained on the bed, cursing. At the creek-mouth the sand-bank was empty. The last pallid rays of the moon revealed nothing.

They were accustomed to come there many times a day to wash or to draw water, and the welter of foot-prints in the sand gave no clue. Finally Joe, with a cry, pounced on a dark object at the water's edge and held it up. It was Sam's neck handkerchief.

"Here's the mark of a boat, too, in the sand," he cried. "I knew it!

Gone together in her boat!"

"It was a man's voice I heard," objected Jack. "What for would he want to cry out?"

"Wanted to give us the laugh when he saw his get-a-way clear," said Joe bitterly. "Oh, d.a.m.n him!"

"As soon as it's light----" muttered Shand, grinding his teeth.

"What'll you do then?" demanded Joe.

"I'll get him!" said the quiet man.

"We have no boat."

"Boat or no boat."