Hauck nodded his head—­he kept nodding it, that cold glitter in his eyes, the steady, insinuating grin still there.

“Yes, he’s drunk,” he said, his voice as hard as a rock.  “Better come to the house.  I’ve got a room for you.  There’s only one bunk in here—­McKenna.”

He dragged out the name slowly, a bit tauntingly it seemed to David.  And David laughed.  Might as well play his last card well, he thought.

“My name isn’t McKenna,” he said.  “It’s David Raine.  He made a mistake, and he’s so drunk I haven’t been able to explain.”

Without answering, Hauck backed out of the door.  It was an invitation for David to follow.  Again he carried his pack and gun with him through the darkness, and Hauck uttered not a word as they returned to the Nest.  The night was brighter now, and David could see Baree close at his heels, following him as silently as a shadow.  The dog slunk out of sight when they came to the building.  They did not enter from the rear this time.  Hauck led the way to a door that opened into the big room from which had come the sound of cursing and laughter a little before.  There were ten or a dozen men in that room, all white men, and, upon entering, David was moved by a sudden suspicion that they were expecting him—­that Hauck had prepared them for his appearance.  There was no liquor in sight.  If there had been bottles and glasses on the tables, they had been cleared away—­but no one had thought to wipe away certain liquid stains that David saw shimmering wetly in the glow of the three big lamps hanging from the ceiling.  He looked the men over quickly as he followed the free trader.  Never, he thought, had he seen a rougher or more unpleasant-looking lot.  He caught more than one eye filled with the glittering menace he had seen in Hauck’s.  Not a man nodded at him, or spoke to him.  He passed close to one raw-boned individual, so close that he brushed against him, and there was an unconcealed and threatening animosity in this man’s face as he glared up at him.  By the time he had passed through the room his suspicion had become a conviction.  Hauck had purposely put him on parade, and there was a deep and sinister significance in the attitude of these men.

They passed through the hall into which he and Marge had entered from the opposite side of the Nest, and Hauck paused at the door of a room almost opposite to the one which the girl had said belonged to her.

“This will be your room while you are our guest,” he said.  The glitter in his eyes softened as he nodded at David.  He tried to speak a bit affably, but David felt that his effort was rather unsuccessful.  It failed to cover the hard note in his voice and the curious twitch of his upper lip—­a snarl almost—­as he forced a smile.  “Make yourself at home,” he added.  “We’ll have breakfast in the morning with my niece.”  He paused for a moment and then said, looking keenly at David:  “I suppose you tried hard to make Brokaw understand he had made a mistake, and that you wasn’t McKenna?  Brokaw is a good fellow when he isn’t drunk.”