"What's that?" asked Gregson, edging around him curiously.

Howland crushed the note in his hand and thrust it into one of his
pockets.

"A little private affair," he laughed. "Comes Gregson, let's see what
we can discover."

In the gloom outside one of his hands slipped under his coat and rested
on the butt of his revolver. Until ten o'clock they mixed casually among
the populace of Le Pas. Half a hundred people had seen Croisset and his
beautiful companion, but no one knew anything about them. They had come
that forenoon on a sledge, had eaten their dinner and supper at the
cabin of a Scotch tie-cutter named MacDonald, and had left on a sledge.

"She was the sweetest thing I ever saw," exclaimed Mrs. MacDonald
rapturously. "Only she couldn't talk. Two or three times she wrote
things to me on a slip of paper."

"Couldn't talk!" repeated Gregson, as the two men walked leisurely back
to the boarding-house. "What the deuce do you suppose that means, Jack?"

"I'm not supposing," replied Howland indifferently. "We've had enough of
this pretty face, Gregson. I'm going to bed. What time do we start in
the morning?"

"As soon as we've had breakfast--if you're anxious."

"I am. Good night."