Nearer and nearer drew the unsuspecting figure of the girl.  The man noted the haughty, almost arrogant beauty of her, as the moonlight played upon the firm resolute features, framed by the oval of her parka-hood.  The next instant she paused in the shadow of his banskian, almost at his side.  Lapierre sprang to his feet and stood facing her there in the snow.  The smile of the thin lips hardened as he noted the sudden pallor of her face and the look of wild terror that flashed for a moment from her eyes.  And then, almost on the instant, the girl’s eyes narrowed, the firm white chin thrust forward, and the red lips curled into a sneer of infinite loathing and contempt.  Instinctively, Lapierre knew that the hands within the heavy mittens had clenched into fighting fists.  For an instant she faced him, and then, drawing away as if he were some grizzly, loathsome thing poisoning the air he breathed, she spoke.  Her voice trembled with the fury of her words, and Lapierre winced to the lash of a woman’s scorn.

“You—­you dog!” she cried.  “You dirty, low-lived cur!  How dare you stand there grinning?  How dare you show your face?  Oh, if I were a man I would—­I would strangle the life from your vile, sneaking body with my two hands!”

The words ended in a stifled cry.  With a snarl, Lapierre sprang upon her, pinning her arms to her side.  The next instant before his eyes loomed the form of Big Lena, who leaped toward him with upraised ax swung high.  In the excitement of the moment, the man had not noted her approach.  With a swift movement he succeeded in forcing the body of the girl between himself and the up-raised blade.

With a shrill cry of rage Lena dropped the ax and rushed to a grip.  Sounded then a sickening thud, and the huge woman pitched face downward into the snow, while behind her one of Lapierre’s outlaws tossed a heavy club into the bush and rushed to the assistance of his chief.  The others came, and with incredible rapidity Chloe Elliston was gagged and bound hand and foot, and the men were carrying her to the waiting sled.

For a moment Lapierre hesitated, gazing longingly toward the cottage as he debated in his mind the advisability of rushing across the clearing and settling his score with Mary, the Louchoux girl, whose unexpected appearance had turned the tide so strongly against him.

“Better let well enough alone!” he growled savagely.  “I must reach Lac du Mort ahead of MacNair.”  And he turned with a curse from the clearing to see an outlaw, with knife unsheathed, stooping over the unconscious form of Big Lena.  The quarter-breed kicked the knife from the man’s hand.

“Bring her along!” he ordered gruffly.  “I will attend to her later.”  And, despite the hurt of his bruised fingers, the man grinned as he noted the venomous gleam in the leader’s eye.  For not only was Lapierre thinking of the proselyting of LeFroy, who had been his most trusted lieutenant, but of his own disarming, and the meaning stare of the fishlike eyes that had prompted him to abandon his attempt to poison MacNair when wounded in Chloe Elusion’s room.