He opened the door cautiously. From Welland's bed-room, the light burned dimly. Hector entered.
At the entrance to the room, he found confusion everywhere. A dark form crouched, moaning, in a corner. She looked up at him—Lizzie! The sight gave him a nasty shock, for he fancied her at Fort Macleod.
Suddenly possessed of a vague uneasiness, he strode quickly in. Welland, acting on some strange freak, had left a message for him under the lamp on the table. He snatched it up and read:
"You have won this time. But I will win yet. I owe you my ruin and, if it takes me twenty years, I'll get even. Remember, I'll get even, if it takes me twenty years."
The threat was lost on Hector—at any other time he would have laughed at it. But now he turned swiftly to Lizzie.
"Where is Joe?" he demanded.
Surely, surely Welland had not escaped him, after all that had passed?
"Where is Joe?" he repeated fiercely.
Lizzie laughed in mad triumph.
"He gone—hour ago! You no' catch him. He over the medicine-line!"