"Yes," answered the girl enigmatically. "I think I do."
Looking at her, Ainley saw that there was nothing to be gained by pressing the matter further at that moment; and excusing himself he went to give orders to his Indians. A short time later they resumed their journey, and travelled steadily for something more than an hour; then almost in the dark they pitched camp for the night. A substantial meal was prepared of which Helen partook in the shelter of a little tent which had been erected; then when she had finished the meal, she seated herself by the big fire which had been built.
Ainley also seated himself less than a yard from her; and without giving him a chance of asking for her story, she instantly demanded his.
"Now," she said, as lightly as she could, "you shall tell me everything. How you searched for me, how you got on my trail at last, and the fate from which you saved me this morning."
Ainley would have preferred to hear her story first; but he did not demur to her suggestion, and with a little deprecatory laugh he began. "It is not very easy to talk of one's own doings, but I will do my best to avoid boastfulness."
Then, carefully picking his words, he described the anxiety her non-return to her uncle's camp had given rise to; and the preliminary search made by himself and the Indian Joe. As he described his own feelings of despair at the finding of the portion of her canoe in the drift-pile beyond the falls, his voice shook with quite genuine emotion, and Helen moved so as to bring her face a little in shadow whilst she watched him. In that moment she momentarily forgot the distrust which her own questioning had awakened in her, and listened absorbed whilst he narrated the discovery of the brooch, and the new hope it occasioned, since it afforded evidence that she was in all probability still alive. Then he broke off sharply. "You were saved from the river, somehow, by that fellow Stane, who was up at Fort Malsun, were you not?"
"Yes! How did you know?"
"I got his description from a half-breed who had met and hailed you going up the river in a canoe towards Old Fort Winagog."
"But we met no half-breed," said Helen quickly, her distrust awakening in full force.
"You met no half-breed?" The surprise in Ainley's face was quite genuine, as Helen saw, and she realized that whatever was to come, this part of the man's story was quite true.