“Well, I may have been a little too hasty,” said Gault with the air of one who was making an immense concession. “Let us try to make a fresh start.”
Loseis reflected that if she allowed a reconciliation to take place she would never be able to get rid of him. “Perhaps I have been hasty, too,” she said, “but I can’t forgive you yet. Give me another twenty-four hours . . . Come to breakfast to-morrow, and I promise to meet you half way.”
“Done!” cried Gault, showing all the big teeth. I am wearing her down! he thought. Women do not mean all they say! “Expect me at eight,” he said, making for the door.
Conacher crawled out from under the bed with a very red face. “It’s good he went!” he growled. “I couldn’t have stood it much longer. . . . What did you want to ask him to breakfast for?”
Loseis was charmed to see Conacher betraying jealousy. “While I have him here no discovery is likely to be made,” she said. “Every hour’s start that you can gain will help.”
“Well, I hope he comes after me, that’s all,” said Conacher grimly.
At ten o’clock that night Loseis and Mary-Lou came out of their house arm in arm, and stood in front of the door linked together, gazing up at the serene moon. Behind them crouched Conacher. Across the way Gault’s house was in the blackest shadow, and they could not tell but that the door might be standing open, and some one watching them from within. Making out to be lost in contemplation of the moon, the two girls, always taking care to present a double front to a possible watcher, edged to the corner of the house. Conacher then darted around behind. He was to make his way around the outside of the square and meet them beside the creek in half an hour.
Loseis went back to close the door of her house, and the girls continued their stroll. From the middle of the square they could make out that the door of Gault’s house was closed. They descended to the bank of the main stream, and came back again. Having by this maneuver satisfied themselves that they were not being followed, they returned down the rise, picked up Conacher at the creek, and crossed the meadow beyond. Upon the gravelly ridge which bounded it on the other side, they came upon Tatateecha and his silent men, squatting on the earth with their backs to the moon like a patch of little bushes.
Conacher was presented to Tatateecha as the friend of Loseis who must be obeyed in all things. Conacher himself could only issue his orders by means of signs. Being a white man, and therefore not to be trusted where absolute silence was required, he was sent down into the second meadow to wait. The little Slavis deployed in the first meadow, and slowly closing up, urged the horses slowly back over the ridge. In the second meadow they could be packed without danger of arousing the sleepers at the post. For this operation the light of the moon would be invaluable.
Led by Loseis, the whole tribe then crept back in single file through the grass towards the Post. They crossed the creek, not by the stepping-stones, but higher up, immediately below the steep bank at the back of the men’s house and the little warehouse. Leaving her men at the bottom of the bank, Loseis went up to make a reconnaissance. She crept up to the wall of the men’s house, and rounding the front corner, edged, a foot at a time to the door. Laying her ear to the crack, she was rewarded by hearing heavy snores within. No watch was being kept. What had Gault to fear from two girls?