“You—virago! Would you?”
He had lost complete control of himself, and what would have happened is only to be conjectured, but at that moment the Indian George stepped quietly from behind some tall bushes. He still carried his rifle, and though there was an impassive look on his brown face, his eyes were blazing. The white man saw him, and as he met those eyes, the wrath in him was checked. The Indian spoke no word, but very deliberately opened the breech of his rifle, as if to assure himself that it was loaded. Then he closed it and looked at Rayner again, and at that second look the white man shivered, for in it he saw something threatening and ominous, which unsealed the springs of fear within him. Joy was the first to speak.
“George,” she said, addressing her henchman, “Mr. Rayner takes the trail in an hour. Anything he needs for his journey he is to have; but he goes within the hour, and never again is he to visit North Star. Do you understand?”
The Indian nodded his head in grave assent, and without another look at Adrian Rayner, Joy turned and went up the road towards the house.
CHAPTER XVI
THE CORPORAL HEARS NEWS
DURING the weeks of his convalescence in Chief Louis’ smoking tepee, Roger Bracknell spent much of his time in reflecting on the news which the chief had given him. Reviewing the story calmly and dispassionately, he could find nothing to weaken the conclusion which the half-breed himself had reached. The dynamite and the winter thunder, with the description of the broken trail and the strange conduct of the unknown man in deliberately over-running Rolf Gargrave’s camp, were almost conclusive evidence. Some one had planned that Rolf Gargrave should die; and his death had been as surely a murder as if the man who had planned it had taken a rifle with which to do the deed. Who was the man?