Stampede’s lips responded with an oddly quizzical smile.  “I knew that a long time ago,” he said.  “I guessed it that first night of storm in the coach up to Chitina.  I knew it for certain before we left Tanana.  She didn’t tell me, but I wasn’t blind.  It was the note that puzzled and frightened me—­the note she stuffed in her slipper.  And Rossland told me, before I left, that going for you was a wild-goose chase, as he intended to take Mrs. John Graham back with him immediately.”

“And you left her alone after that?”

Stampede shrugged his shoulders as he valiantly kept up with Alan’s suddenly quickened pace.

“She insisted.  Said it meant life and death for her.  And she looked it.  White as paper after her talk with Rossland.  Besides—­”

“What?”

“Sokwenna won’t sleep until we get back.  He knows.  I told him.  And he’s watching from the garret window with a.303 Savage.  I saw him pick off a duck the other day at two hundred yards.”

They hurried on.  After a little Alan said, with the fear which he could not name clutching at his heart, “Why did you say Graham might not be far away?”

“In my bones,” replied Stampede, his face hard as rock again.  “In my bones!”

“Is that all?”

“Not quite.  I think Rossland told her.  She was so white.  And her hand cold as a lump of clay when she put it on mine.  It was in her eyes, too.  Besides, Rossland has taken possession of your cabin as though he owns it.  I take it that means somebody behind him, a force, something big to reckon with.  He asked me how many men we had.  I told him, stretching it a little.  He grinned.  He couldn’t keep back that grin.  It was as if a devil in him slipped out from hiding for an instant.”

Suddenly he caught Alan’s arm and stopped him.  His chin shot out.  The sweat ran from his face.  For a full quarter of a minute the two men stared at each other.

“Alan, we’re short-sighted.  I’m damned if I don’t think we ought to call the herdsmen in, and every man with a loaded gun!”

“You think it’s that bad?”

“Might be.  If Graham’s behind Rossland and has men with him—­”

“We’re two and a half hours from Tatpan,” said Alan, in a cold, unemotional voice.  “He has only half a dozen men with him, and it will take at least four to make quick work in finding Tautuk and Amuk Toolik.  There are eighteen men with the southward herd, and twenty-two with the upper.  I mean, counting the boys.  Use your own judgment.  All are armed.  It may be foolish, but I’m following your hunch.”

They gripped hands.

“It’s more than a hunch, Alan,” breathed Stampede softly.  “And for God’s sake keep off the music as long as you can!”

He was gone, and as his agile, boyish figure started in a half-run toward the foothills, Alan set his face southward, so that in a quarter of an hour they were lost to each other in the undulating distances of the tundra.