She did not shrink, but looked at him steadily with her cold blue eyes, and, with a lofty mien, followed the man in whose charge she was placed.
"And now that we have the petticoats out of the way," said one of the bandits hastily, "I suppose we can launch out and punish those who have wiped out poor Sol and his 'pardners?'"
"You will do nothing of the sort, Dick," replied Captain Kidd to the coarse Englishman who addressed him.
"Why not? Are you afraid of the Crows who infest the wood? So it appears."
"No, nor of the Blackfeet who are also in the neighbourhood."
"Of the Red River Half-breeds, then, who are camped yonder? Pooh, I could eat the lot, three at a bite."
"No."
"Of the sledging train, whose unconcealed traces abounded to the northeast, as Lottery Paul reported two days ago?"
"Of them still less. If this young woman's tale be true, they came scooting along with sails on their sledges—what a notion! And scooted into a cutoff! They were smashed, and the reds and the wolves have left no more than their bones."
"I know now! You are afeard o' running up against the Old Man of the Mountains!"