"Winter brings close to our doors the one unpleasant feature of this country," he said, turning to light a second cigar. "Thirty-five miles to the north and west of us there is what the Indians call 'Muchemunito Nek'—the Devil's Nest. It's a Free Trader's house. A man down in Montreal by the name of Lang owns a string of them, and his agent over at the Devil's Nest is a scoundrel of the first water. His name is Thoreau. There are a score of half-breeds and whites in his crowd, and not a one of them with an honest hair in his head. It's the one criminal rendezvous I know of in all this North country. Bad Indians who have lost credit at the Hudson's Bay Company's posts go to Thoreau's. Whites and half-breeds who have broken the laws are harboured there. A dozen trappers are murdered each winter for their furs, and the assassins are among Thoreau's men. One of these days there is going to be a big clean-up. Meanwhile, they are unpleasant company. There is a deep swamp between our house and Thoreau's, so that during the open water seasons it means we are a hundred miles away from them by canoe. When winter comes we are only thirty-five miles, as the sledge-dogs run. I don't like it. You can snow-shoe the distance in a few hours."
"I know of such a place far to the west," replied Philip. "Both the Hudson's Bay Company and Reveillon Freres have threatened to put it out of business, but it still remains. Perhaps that is owned by Lang, too."
He had joined Adare at the window. The next moment both men were staring at the same object in a mutual surprise. Into the white snow space between the house and the forest there had walked swiftly the slim, red-clad figure of Josephine, her face turned to the forest, her hair falling in a long braid down her back.
The master of Adare chuckled exultantly.
"There goes our little Red Riding Hood!" he rumbled. "She beat us after all, Philip. She is going after the dogs!"
Philip's heart was beating wildly. A better opportunity for seeing Josephine alone could not have come to him. He feared that his voice might betray him as he laid a hand on Adare's arm.
"If you will excuse me I will join her," he said. "I know it doesn't seem just right to tear off in this way, but—you see—"
Adare interrupted him with one of his booming laughs.
"Go, my lad. I understand. If it was Miriam instead of Mignonne running away like that, John Adare wouldn't be waiting this long."
Philip turned and left the room, every pulse in his body throbbing with an excitement roused by the knowledge that the hour had come when Josephine would give herself to him forever, or doom him to that hopelessness for which Jean Croisset had told him to prepare himself.