After a long silence Bill knocked the dead ashes from his pipe, and his jaw squared as he looked out over the foaming white-water. He turned toward the girl and encountered the intense gaze of her dark eyes.
The neglected needlework lay across her knees, the small hands were folded, and the shining needle glinted in the sun where it had been deftly caught into the yellow buckskin at the turning of an unfinished scroll.
"The logs which you seek," she said quietly, "are piled upon the bank of the river, half a mile below the rapids." The man regarded her with a startled glance.
"What do you know about these logs—and of what I was thinking?"
She answered him with a curious, baffling smile, and, ignoring his question, continued:
"You need help. I am but a girl and know naught of logs nor why these logs did not go down the river with the others. But in your face as you pondered from day to day I have read it. Is it not that you would prevent Moncrossen from taking these logs? But you know not how to do it, for the logs must go down the river and Moncrossen must come up the river?"
"You are a wonder!" he exclaimed in admiration. "That's exactly what's been bothering me." She blushed furiously under his gaze and, with lowering eyes, continued:
"I do not know how it can be managed, but Jacques will know. You may trust Jacques as you trust me. For we are your friends, and his hatred of Moncrossen is a real hatred."
She raised her eyes to his.
"Do you know why Jacques hates Moncrossen, and why Wa-ha-ta-na-ta hates all white men?" she asked. Bill shook his head and listened as the girl, with blazing eyes, told him of the death of Pierre, and then, of the horror of that night on Broken Knee.