“Aim-sa loves not. She must not. The Moosefoot–she is Queen.”
“Curses on the Moosefoot, I say,” cried Nick, with passionate impulse.
Aim-sa put up her hand.
“The man–‘The Hood.’ Fear the Spirit.”
A chill shot down through Nick’s heart as he listened. But his passion was only checked for the moment. The next and he seized the woman in his powerful arms and drew her to his breast, and kissed her not too unwilling lips. The kiss maddened him, and he held her tight, while he sought her blindly, madly. He kissed her cheeks, her hair, her eyes, her lips, and the touch of her warm flesh scorched his very soul. Nor is it possible to say how long he would have held her had she not, by a subtle, writhing movement, slipped from within his enfolding arms. Her keen ears had caught a sound which did not come from the fighting dogs. It was the penetrating forest cry in the brooding mountain calm.
“Remember–‘The Hood,’” Aim-sa warned him. And the next moment had vanished within the dugout.
Now Nick knew that he too had heard the cry, and he stood listening, while his passion surged through his veins and his heart beat in mighty pulsations. As he gazed over the forest waste, he expected to see the mysterious hooded figure.
But what he beheld brought an angry flush to his cheeks. He did not see “The Hood,” but Ralph walking slowly up the hill.
And a harsh laugh which had no mirth in it broke from him. Then a frown settled darkly upon his brow. What, he asked himself, had Ralph returned for? He bore no burden of skins.
And when Ralph looked up and saw Nick whom he believed to be miles away, his heart grew bitter within him. He read the look on the other’s face. He saw the anger, and a certain guiltiness of his own purpose made him interpret it aright. And in a flash he resolved upon a scheme which, but for what he saw, would never have presented itself to him.