into the sweet-scented balsam under the shelter. Rod's experience that
day had not been filled with the terrible hardships of his companions,
and for some time after they had fallen asleep he sat close to the
fire, thinking again of the strangeness with which his fortunes had
changed, and watching the flickering firelight as it played in a
thousand fanciful figures in the deeper and denser gloom of the
forest. The dogs had crept in close to the blazing logs and lay as
still as though life no longer animated their tawny bodies. From far
away there came the lonely howl of a wolf; a great white man-owl
fluttered close to the camp and chortled his crazy, half-human "hello,
hello, hello;" the trees cracked with the tightening frost, but
neither wolf howl nor frost nor the ghostly visitant's insane voice
aroused those who were sleeping.

An hour passed and still Rod sat by the fire; his rifle lying across
his knees. His imagination had painted a thousand pictures in that
time. Never for an instant had his mind ceased to work. Somewhere in
that great wilderness there was another camp-fire that night, and in
that camp Minnetaki was a captive. Some indefinable sensation seemed
to creep into him, telling him that she was awake, and that she was
thinking of her friends. Was it a touch of sleep, or that wonderful
thing called mental telepathy, that wrought the next picture in his
brain? It came with startling vividness. He saw the girl beside a
fire. Her beautiful hair, glistening black in the firelight, hung in a
heavy braid over her shoulder; her eyes were staring wildly into the
flames, as if she were about to leap into them, and back of her so
close that he might have touched her, was a figure that sent a chill
of horror through him. It was Woonga, the outlaw chief! He was
talking, his red face was fiendish, he stretched out a hand!