The girl dropped heavily into her chair and buried her face in her arms.

“And now I know,” she sobbed, “that I have not even begun to pay!”

Suddenly she leaped to her feet and, dashing around the table placed herself between Lapierre and Chloe, who had listened white-lipped to her words.  Once more the voice of the Louchoux girl rang through the room—­high-pitched and thin with anger now—­and the eyes that glared into the eyes of Lapierre blazed black with fury.

“You have lied to her!  But you cannot harm her!  With my own ears I heard your words!  The same words I heard from your lips before, upon the banks of the far-off rivers, and the words are lies—­lies—­lies!”—­the voice rose to a shriek—­“the white woman is good!  She is my friend!  She has taught me much, and now, I will save her.”

With a swift movement she caught the carving-knife from the table and sprang toward the defenceless Lapierre.  “I will cut your heart in little bits and feed it to the dogs!”

Once more the hand of Big Lena wrenched the knife from the girl’s grasp.  And once more the huge Swedish woman fixed Lapierre with her vacuous stare.  Then slowly she raised her arm and pointed toward the door:  “Ju git!  And never ju don’t come back no more.  Ay don’t lat ju go ’cause Ay lak’ ju, but Ay bane ’fraid dis leetle girl she cut ju up and feed ju to de dogs, and Ay no lak’ for git dem dogs poison!”

And Lapierre tarried not for further orders.  Pausing only to recover his hat from its peg on the wall, he opened the outer door and with one sidewise malevolent glance toward the little group at the table, slunk hurriedly from the room.

Hardly had the door closed behind him than Chloe, who had sat as one stunned during the girl’s accusation and her later outburst of fury, leaped to her feet and seized her arm in a convulsive grip.  “Tell me!” she cried; “what do you mean?  Speak!  Speak, can’t you?  What is this you have said?  What is it all about?”

“Why it is he, Pierre Lapierre.  He is the free-trader of whom I told you.  The man who—­who deceived me into believing I was his wife.”

“But,” cried Chloe, staring at her in astonishment.  “I thought—­I thought MacNair was the man!”

“No!  No!  No!” cried the girl.  “Not MacNair!  Pierre Lapierre, he is the man!  He who sat in that chair, and whose heart I would cut into tiny bits that you shall not be made to pay, even as I have paid, for listening to the words of his lips.”

“But,” faltered Chloe, “I don’t—­I don’t understand.  Surely, you, fear MacNair.  Surely, that night when he came into the room, carrying the wounded policeman, you fled from him in terror.”

“MacNair is a white man——­”

“But why should you fear him?”