"Where, little one?" he asked.

"Beyond the palisade. But hurry, M'sieu,--for the love of God!"

At the great gate in the eastern wall he paused and looked either way.
To the southward all was peaceful. An aged Indian of the Assiniboines
squatted at the water's edge mending the broken bottom of a skin canoe,
and two voyageurs, gay in the matter of sash and crimson cap, lay
lazily beneath a drowsing tree.

To the northward there flashed into McElroy's vision one of those
pictures a man sees but few times and never forgets, a picture
startling in its clear-cut strength.

Against the mellow background of the weather-beaten stockade that
surrounded the post there stood two figures, a man and a woman, and
between the two there crouched with snarling lips and flaming eyes a
huge grey dog.

Tall he was, that man, tall and broad of shoulder, but the head of the
woman, shining like blue-black satin in the morning sun, was level with
his brows.

She leaned a trifle forward and her eyes held fast to his passion-
flooded face. It was evident that she had but just reached the spot
from the fact that the club, arrested in its upward swing, still was
poised in the air.

They faced each other and the factor stopped in his tracks.