occurred to him suddenly that with a two weeks' ragged growth of
beard on his face he must look something like a beast himself. She
had feared him, as she feared Bram, until she saw the badge.

"I am Philip Raine, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police," he
repeated again. "I have come up here especially to help you, if
you need help. I could have got Bram farther back, but there was a
reason why I didn't want him until I found his cabin. That reason
was you. Why are you here with a madman and a murderer?"

She was watching him intently. Her eyes were on his lips, and into
her face--white a few moments before--had risen swiftly a flush of
color. He saw the dread die out of her eyes in a new and dazzling
excitement. Outside they could hear Bram. The girl turned again
and looked through the window. Then she began talking, swiftly and
eagerly, in a language that was as strange to Philip as the
mystery of her presence in Bram Johnson's cabin. She knew that he
could not understand, and suddenly she came up close to him and
put a finger to his lips, and then to her own, and shook her head.
He could fairly feel the throb of her excitement. The astounding
truth held him dumb. She was trying to make him comprehend
something--in a language which he had never heard before in all
his life. He stared at her--like an idiot he told himself
afterward.

And then the shuffle of Bram's heavy feet sounded just outside the
door. Instantly the old light leapt into the girl's eyes. Before
the door could open she had darted into the room from which she
had first appeared, her hair floating about her in a golden cloud
as she ran.