Bela suddenly stepped aside. "Run home!" she said contemptuously. "Better pack your trunk."
Miss Mackall's legs suddenly recovered their function, and she sped up the trail like a released arrow. Never in her life had she run so fast. She fell into her room panting and trembling, and offered up a little prayer of thankfulness for the security of four walls and a locked door.
Next morning she was unable to get up in time to see Sam pass. She appeared at the dinner table pale and shaky, and pleaded a headache in explanation. During the meal she led the conversation by a round-about course to the subject of Indians.
"Do they ever go crazy?" she asked Gilbert Beattie, with an off-hand air.
"Yes, indeed," he answered. "It's one of the commonest troubles we have to deal with. They're fanatics by nature, anyway, and it doesn't take much to turn the scale. Weh-ti-go is their word for insanity. Among the people around the lake there is an extraordinary superstition, which the priests have not been able to eradicate in two hundred years. The Indians say of an insane man that his brain is frozen. And they believe in their hearts that the only way to melt it is by drinking human blood—a woman's or a child's by preference. That is the real explanation of many an obscure tragedy up here."
Miss Mackall shuddered and ate no more.
Late that afternoon she managed to drag herself down to the road. She waited for Sam at the entrance to a patch of woods a little way toward the French outfit.
"What's the matter?" he exclaimed at the sight of her.
"Ah, don't look at me!" she said unhappily. "I've had an awful night. Sick headache. I just wanted to tell you not to come to-night."
"All right," said Sam. "To-morrow night?"