The black eyebrows in the cold, white face drew to a line.  The gambler’s gaze, expressionless as a blank wall, met hers steadily.

“Why don’t you send for your friend Morse?” he asked.  “He’s in that business.  I ain’t.”

It was as though he had struck her in the face.  The eyes that clung to his we’re horror-filled.  Did there really live men so heartless that they would not lift a hand to snatch a child from a ferocious wolf?

West’s laughter barked out, rapacious and savage.  “She’s mine, jus’ like I said she’d be.  My damn pretty li’l’ high-steppin’ squaw.”

His partner looked at him bleakly.  “Oh, she’s yours, is she?”

“You bet yore boots.  I’ll show her—­make her eat outa my hand,” boasted the convict.

“Will you show McRae too—­and all his friends, as well as the North-West Mounted?  Will you make ’em all eat out of your hands?”

“Whadjamean?”

“Why, I had a notion you were loaded up with trouble and didn’t need to hunt more,” sneered the gambler.  “I had a notion the red-coats were on your heels to take you across the plains to hang you.”

“I’ll learn ’em about that,” the huge fugitive bragged.  “They say I’m a killer.  Let it ride.  I’ll sure enough let ’em see they’re good guessers.”

Whaley shrugged his shoulders and looked at him with cold contempt.  “You’ve got a bare chance for a getaway if you travel light and fast.  I’d want long odds to back it,” he said coolly.

“Tha’s a heluva thing to tell a friend,” West snarled.

“It’s the truth.  Take it or leave it.  But if you try to bull this through your own way and don’t let me run it, you’re done for.”

“How done for?”

The gambler did not answer.  He turned to Jessie.  “Unless you want your feet to freeze, you’d better get those duffles off.”

The girl took off her mits and tried to unfasten the leggings after she had kicked the snowshoes from her feet.  But her stiff fingers could not loosen the knots.

The free trader stooped and did it for her while West watched him sulkily.  Jessie unwound the cloth and removed moccasins and duffles.  She sat barefooted before the fire, but not too close.

“If they’re frozen I’ll get snow,” Whaley offered.

“They’re not frozen, thank you,” she answered.

“Whadjamean done for?” repeated West.

His partner’s derisive, scornful eye rested on him.  “Use your brains, man.  The Mounted are after you hot and heavy.  You know their record.  They get the man they go after.  Take this fellow Beresford, the one that jugged you.”

The big ruffian shook a furious fist in the air.  “Curse him!” he shouted, and added a dozen crackling oaths.

“Curse him and welcome,” Whaley replied.  “But don’t fool yourself about him.  He’s a go-getter.  Didn’t he go up Peace River after Pierre Poulette?  Didn’t he drag him back with cuffs on ’most a year later?  That’s what you’ve got against you, three hundred red-coats like him.”