"Who was it? I do not understand what you mean, Helen."
"Some one fired on the Indians from the wood, and he kept on firing as the Indians bound me to the sledge, and even after we had begun to flee."
Ainley rose abruptly to his feet. It was very clear to the girl that the information she had given him had astonished him. His manner betrayed perturbation as he replied in short, jerky sentences: "You amaze me! What you say is—most astonishing. Are you sure? You have not dreamed this by any chance?"
"If I have," answered Helen, "another shared my dream. For when I heard the shots I thought that Mr. Stane had fired them; it was the half-breed who told me that I was mistaken, and that the shots had been fired by some one in the forest."
Ainley's perturbation did not subside at this further information. There was in his face a look of agitation that amounted almost to apprehension. "I do not understand it at all," he said, more to himself than to Helen. "It is beyond me. Good Heavens! Is it possible that Stane escaped after all? He——"
"I thought one of your men saw his body?" interrupted Helen, quickly.
"He certainly saw the body of a white man, or so he avers, and I had no reason to suppose that it could be any one else!"
"Then," said the girl, "you are not sure?"
"No, not in the sense you mean; but I am morally certain that—but why worry about Stane? Dead or alive he can be nothing to you."
The girl turned to him sharply, and there was a flash in her eyes and a look on her face that startled him.