“Sneaked in not half an hour ago, I saw her come out of the edge of the spruce.”

“From the trail that leads out over the plain?”

“Yes.”

Philip walked to the door.

“I’m going over to call on Thorpe,” he said, quietly.  “I may not be back for some time, Sandy.”

In the deep shadows outside he stood gazing at the light in Thorpe’s cabin.  Then he walked slowly toward the spruce.  He did not go to the door, but leaned with his back against the building, near one of the windows.  The first shuddering sickness had gone from him.  His temples throbbed.  At the sound of a voice inside which was Thorpe’s the chill in his blood turned to fire.  The terrible fear that had fallen upon him at MacDougall’s words held him motionless, and his brain worked upon but one idea—­one determination.  If it was Jeanne who came in this way, he would kill Thorpe.  If it was another woman, he would give Thorpe that night to get out of the country.  He waited.  He heard the gang-man’s voice frequently, once in a loud, half-mocking laugh.  Twice he heard a lower voice—­a woman’s.  For an hour he watched.  He walked back and forth in the gloom of the spruce, and waited another hour.  Then the light went out, and he slipped back to the corner of the cabin.

After a moment the door opened, and a hooded figure came out, and walked rapidly toward the trail that buried itself amid the spruce.  Philip ran around the cabin and followed.  There was a little open beyond the first fringe of spruce, and in this he ran up silently from behind and overtook the one he was pursuing.  As his hand fell upon her arm the woman turned upon him with a frightened cry.  Philip’s hand dropped.  He took a step back.

“My God!  Jeanne—­it is you!”

His voice was husky, like a choking man’s.  For an instant Jeanne’s white, terrified face met his own.  And then, without a word to him, she fled swiftly down the trail.

Philip made no effort to follow.  For two or three minutes he stood like a man turned suddenly into hewn rock, staring with unseeing eyes into the gloom where Jeanne had disappeared.  Then he walked back to the edge of the spruce.  There he drew his revolver, and cocked it.  The starlight revealed a madness in his face as he approached Thorpe’s cabin.  He was smiling, but it was such a smile as presages death; a smile as implacable as fate itself.

XXI

As Philip approached the cabin he saw a figure stealing away through the gloom.  His first thought was that he had returned a minute too late to wreak his vengeance upon the gang-foreman in his own home, and he quickened his steps in pursuit.  The man ahead of him was cutting direct for the camp supply-house, which was the nightly rendezvous of those who wished to play cards or exchange camp gossip.  The supply-house, aglow with light, was not more than two hundred yards