"You go straight in," he commanded. "I'll swing—to right—toward river——"
For two minutes after that Aldous tore straight ahead. Then for barely a moment he stopped. He had not paused to question Peggy Blackton. His own fears told him who Joanne's abductors were. They were men working under instructions from Quade. And they could not be far away, for scarcely ten minutes had passed since the first scream. He listened, and held his breath so that the terrific beating of his heart would not drown the sound of crackling brush. All at once the blood in him was frozen by a fierce yell. It was MacDonald, a couple of hundred yards to his right, and after that yell came the bellowing shout of his name.
"Johnny! Johnny! Oh, Johnny!"
He dashed in MacDonald's direction, and a few moments later heard the crashing of bodies in the undergrowth. Fifty seconds more and he was in the arena. MacDonald was fighting three men in a space over which the spruce-tops grew thinly. The moon shone upon them as they swayed in a struggling mass, and as Aldous sprang to the combat one of the three reeled backward and fell as if struck by a battering-ram. In that same moment MacDonald went down, and Aldous struck a terrific blow with the butt of his heavy Savage. He missed, and the momentum of his blow carried him over MacDonald. He tripped and fell. By the time he had regained his, feet the two men had disappeared into the thick shadows of the spruce forest. Aldous whirled toward the third man, whom he had seen fall. He, too, had disappeared. A little lamely old Donald brought himself to his feet. He was smiling.
"Now, what do 'ee think, Johnny?"
"Where is she? Where is Joanne?" demanded Aldous.
"Twenty feet behind you, Johnny, gagged an' trussed up nice as a whistle! If they hadn't stopped to do that work you wouldn't ha' seen her ag'in, Johnny—s'elp me, God, you wouldn't! They was hikin' for the river. Once they had reached the Frazer, and a boat——"
He broke off to lead Aldous to a clump of dwarf spruce. Behind this, white and still in the moonlight, but with eyes wide open and filled with horror, lay Joanne. Hands and feet were bound, and a big handkerchief was tied over her mouth. Twenty seconds later Aldous held her shivering and sobbing and laughing hysterically by turns in his arms, while MacDonald's voice brought Paul and Peggy Blackton to them. Blackton had recovered from the blow that had dazed him. Over Joanne's head he stared at Aldous. And MacDonald was staring at Blackton. His eyes were burning a little darkly.
"It's all come out right," he said, "but it ain't a special nice time o' night to be taking a' evening walk in this locality with a couple o' ladies!"
Blackton was still staring at Aldous, with Peggy clutching his arm as if afraid of losing him.