Strange events took place on the Nannabijou Limits during the morning of the day Hammond left by tug for Kam City.

Josephine Stone arose early after a restless night of nervous dread of she knew not what. There had been disturbing incidents that had contributed to her trepidation. When she had returned to the island after her fright at encountering the Indian wizard, Ogima Bush, on the trail, she found Mrs. Johnson, her companion, was absent. Inquiry of her Indian woman-of-all-work, brought out fragmentary information that Mrs. Johnson had left shortly after Miss Stone and Hammond had set out on their trip up Nannabijou Hill.

“Two men come in boat,” said the girl, “and big lady go way with them.”

“But, Mary,” insisted Miss Stone, “didn’t she leave any message—didn’t she tell you any words to tell me?”

“Maybe tell Mary—don’t know. They talk fast. Walk fast. Go way fast—in put-put boat. Maybe go some place big lady know, for she laugh and look—glad. Mary think she say she not come back for long time.”

“Which way did the boat go?”

The Indian girl swung her arm to the west. “Maybe go to city, don’t know.”

Mrs. Johnson must have been sent for hurriedly. Most likely she had received an urgent message from her home in Calgary. Something sudden must have happened, but Josephine Stone could not imagine the considerate Mrs. Johnson leaving without an explanation. She again frantically searched every possible place in the cottage for sign of a note that she might have left behind. There was none.

The messengers in the boat must have brought a telegram from Calgary to her. Perhaps, in her excitement, she had forgotten to leave a message of explanation. But just what sort of news Mrs. Johnson could have received that would make her laugh and “look glad,” as the Indian girl had said, was more than she could imagine.

“Mary,” Miss Stone demanded, “did you see the men give Mrs. Johnson a piece of paper to read before she left?”

“Maybe give piece of paper. Mary don’t know.”

It was utterly no use. The girl could tell her nothing, and her brother Henry, who looked after the boats and cut the wood when he was not engaged in the glorious Indian pursuit of doing nothing, was even more stoically stupid.

After a night of fitful rest, when she had tried to compose her mind that everything would turn out all right, she rose with an ominous presentiment. Even after she had had breakfast and had gone out for a short stroll around the island, the glory of the autumn morning did not tend to dissipate her depression.

As she was nearing the cottage door on her return, the white glare of a large, bell-shaped military tent struck on the clearing of a hill some distance south on the lake-shore caught her attention. Soon picturesque figures appeared about the tent—stalwart-looking chaps in scarlet tunics, stiff-brimmed stetsons and dark trousers with wide gold braid stripes. She instantly recognised them as Canadian mounted police and remembered that Acey Smith had said the day previous that an outpost of the mounties would possibly be stationed somewhere near Amethyst Island.

The young policemen were busying themselves about a small camp-fire, evidently preparing an outdoor breakfast, their gay chatter and outbursts of laughter ringing strangely clear on the limpid morning air. . . . Then from out of the woods there came a single soft stroke of the gong of Nannabijou.

The figures round the camp-fire stood one moment in silent mystification; then, as if they had simultaneously made the discovery, their gaze was turned on the figure of Josephine Stone. One of the men focussed a field-glass upon her, and the girl, embarrassed by the attention she was provoking, moved back into the shelter of the trees.

She could not bear to return to the interior of the cottage. An overpowering sense of an intangible something out there in the woods had taken such a hold on her she quaked at times as with the cold. It was as if unseen eyes watched her every movement from the fastnesses; as though a designing, hating presence prowled out there, always watching—waiting. She could not entirely account for the sensation. So far, she had never been afraid, alone as she and Mrs. Johnson had been so far as white company was concerned. Partly, of course, it came of her fright at the unexpected meeting with Ogima Bush on the trail, the unexplained departure of Mrs. Johnson and the urgent demand of Acey Smith that she leave the island, because of an unnamed danger, until the appointed time for meeting J.C.X.

J.C.X.!The very name now seemed to fill her with dread. Previously she had pictured a dashing czar of the bush camps, handsome as he was poetic by nature. At one time she had even suspected that J.C.X. was none other than Acey Smith himself. Now she knew that could not be the fact; she knew now that the timber boss of the Nannabijou Limits, iron man though he was in other respects, bent abjectly to the sinister influence and will of some powerful factor he lived in constant dread of and dare not explain. The remorse that had been in his tones when yesterday he had spoken of “the Man That Might Have Been” had uttered volumes as to the mental and spiritual shackles he had allowed to be placed upon his better self. Why had he so contemptuously referred to the tragic ending of the career of Captain Carlstone? Had the gallant soldier also been vassal to the grim J.C.X. and killed himself to escape his despair?

She now heartily wished she had never come to Amethyst Island—that she had not pressed on Acey Smith to bring about a meeting with J.C.X. If J.C.X. were a presentable human being of sane and upright character, why was it not possible for Acey Smith to induce him to come to meet her, instead of asking her, an unprotected stranger, to journey she knew not where to gain the information referred to in his letter? True, she trusted Acey Smith so far as her personal safety was concerned; her woman’s intuition told her that, away from the weird outside influence that seemed to dominate him body and soul, he possessed the born instincts of a gentleman—but, under its sway, it was problematical what he might not be capable of doing.

That was one of the reasons she had refused to leave the island for an undesignated destination without notifying any one—the other was Louis Hammond. Louis Hammond would surely come to-day—when she so sorely needed him. Instinctively her eyes searched the lakeshore trail in search of a youthful, buoyant figure.

Josephine Stone was startled from her reverie by the parting of the shrubbery down by the island shore. Five tall, powerful-looking Indians sprang into view.

In the lead was a ghastly figure—the Indian Medicine Man who had so startled her in the trail yesterday.

A face more sinister than his would be difficult to conceive. Dark, almost to the blackness of an African, his features bespoke evil cunning and a sense of power that was made the more disconcerting by the livid red gashes on the cheek-bones and by the brilliant jet-black eyes around which the whites showed garishly. Straight, lank black hair fell to his shoulders, where row upon row of glistening white wolves’ teeth were arrayed. He wore no head adornment save a single eagle’s feather stuck in a band of purple at the back of his head.

“Henry!” Josephine Stone called to her Indian man-of-all-work. The latter and his sister came out of the house and took places by her side, but she could see they were quaking with fear.

The quintette from the woods came to an abrupt halt before them. For the moment Josephine Stone felt reassured on noting they carried no arms. The weird figure in the foreground bowed low, while his four companions stood motionless as carved statues.

“Wonderful white lady,” he addressed her in low, guttural tones whose enunciation was perfect. “Ogima Bush, the Medicine Man, brings this message: It is the will of Ogima’s master that the white lady go from here.”

In her trepidation and bewilderment, Josephine Stone could scarcely find words to reply. “I do not understand,” she faltered. “Am I—ordered off this island?”

The Medicine Man bowed again. “It is the will of Ogima’s master,” he repeated. “The white lady is to go from here with Ogima. No harm will come to her.”

His eyes flamed upon Henry and his sister standing by her side, as he addressed them sharply; commands in the Objibiway tongue that were like flying knife-blades.

Like galvanised automatons, Miss Stone’s servants moved away and marched down to the waterfront.

Their treacherous behaviour brought out the spirit of the girl. For the moment, in her disgust, she forgot her own perilous predicament. “Cowards!” she cried after them, “to be frightened by a cheap fakir.

“As for you,” and she turned her flashing eyes upon the Medicine Man, “go back and tell your master the white lady says he can go—to the devil!”

White with anger she swayed, a beautiful figure of defiance—a fragile white woman, alone, mocking a powerful savage. The Medicine Man’s head went up, his black eyes gleaming admiration—and something else, something that burned into her very soul in its ravishing masterfulness. His lips parted and from them came a sibilant gasp.

Next instant he stepped forward; a swift, panther-like movement. She sprang out of his grasp and swift as light sped back through the cottage door. From a handbag just inside she snatched out a small automatic.

She whirled the pistol into his face. “Now, you get out of here,” she cried, “or I’ll—shoot to kill!”

Ogima Bush paused. But instead of leaping back, he drew himself to his full height and calmly folded his arms, the faintest traces of a smile about his mouth as he looked down into the muzzle of the deadly little gun. “If wonderful white lady shoot,” he said calmly, “she see a man die.”In that moment, for all his wicked hideousness, the Indian was magnificent. He was facing death, gambling on a one remote chance that she could not thus deliberately slay him.

Josephine Stone hesitated, her finger trembling at the trigger. She never exactly knew how it happened so quickly, but in the winking of an eye the red man’s left hand flew out and closed over her wrist and fingers. The automatic spat harmlessly past his cheek out into the open and was flung from her hand to the floor. She felt herself whisked from her feet as lightly as if she had been a child. She scratched and tore at his face and throat impotently as he leaped through the doorway and raced across the island to the beach.

Josephine Stone screamed and screamed again. He made no attempt to stop her; his low, mocking laugh was her only answer. But over his shoulder she saw that her cries had had the desired result. Five mounted policemen standing in astonishment by their tent on the hill up the lakeshore sprang forward and tore down toward the island.

Ogima Bush with his burden stepped into the stern of a big rowboat, and at his command two of his husky bucks bent over the oars and made the craft fairly shoot across the intervening gap to the mainland. The others of the party had apparently crossed previously.

The bow of the boat was barely beached when Ogima Bush leaped out into the shallow water with the girl. As if by magic the Indian oarsmen disappeared into the curtain of the woods. The Medicine Man followed, tearing through the trees and dense growth as swiftly and skillfully as a flying moose, at the same time protecting her so that not even a branch scratched against her face or caught in her garments.

Far behind she could occasionally catch sounds of the floundering efforts of the pursuing policemen. Twice she tried to cry out to attract their attention, but all her strength seemed to have left her and it was all she could do to ward off a swoon. He seemed to carry her with as great ease as he might a babe, and she had to admit to herself with a certain deference and respect.

The crashings of the policemen through the bush behind them grew fainter and fainter and finally were lost in the distance.

Presently Ogima Bush stepped out upon a winding man-wide trail. He stood listening a moment, then gave vent to three calls like a crow. An answering “caw, caw, caw” came from the right just ahead. The Medicine Man plunged forward.

Another turn brought them to what was to Josephine Stone more familiar territory. They were on the trail that led across Solomon Creek to the foot of the cliffs of Nannabijou. She saw that they had come by a more difficult but much shorter route than the one by which she and Louis Hammond had come up the day previous. At the approach to the creek bridge four Indians stepped out each holding a handle of a crude sedan built of poles and cedar boughs. Muttering low commands in the Objibiway tongue, the Medicine Man placed Josephine Stone on the cross-seat fashioned between the two main poles. The girl recognised the folly of offering further resistance to her captors; her only resource now, she knew, was to await a strategic moment for escape. At a grunt from Ogima Bush the carriers plunged forward and across the bridge with their burden, the Medicine Man striding behind them.

The young woman experienced a distinct sense of relief at being free from the encircling arms of the grisly Indian. She now had opportunity of scrutinising the four carriers. They were not any of them the same Indians as those who had accompanied the Medicine Man to her cottage. Each of these men wore a single eagle’s feather in his hair, similar to the one affected by the Medicine Man. The girl remembered that the single feather was the insignia of chiefship and that no red man save a witch doctor or headman of the tribe dared venture into the zone of the Cup of Nannabijou, whose black cliffs frowned menacingly upon her from above.

III

Josephine Stone’s feelings were a mixture of wonder and apprehension as the strange-looking party crossed Solomon Creek, toiled up the trail and finally debouched into the passageway in the cliffs that led to the tunnel she and Hammond had visited.

In the interim she had time for cool reflection. Rescue was for the present beyond question, away up in these wild hills, and she knew any attempt on her part at escape would be equally hopeless. It would be quite as futile to attempt to gain information as to the object of her abduction from her sombre captors. It suddenly struck her that her visit with Hammond to the water-sealed entrance to the Cup of Nannabijou might have had something to do with her present plight. She knew the Indians looked upon the vicinity of the Cup as forbidden ground. The priests of the mystic region might be determined to have an explanation of the trespass, or worse still, be intent on punishing the offenders. Acey Smith’s reference of the day before to an enemy whom he seemed to fear might molest her during his absence recurred to her. No doubt the superintendent had been well-intentioned when he had insisted that she leave the island with him. He might have had his own good reasons for being mysterious about it, and now she had ugly proof of a real danger he probably had in mind.

Her reflections were cut short by the sudden entrance of the party into the gloom of the tunnel, down which they carried her carefully to the point where it opened out on the rocky brink of the roaring mountain torrent. The bearers paused and let the sedan down on the four short posts that served for legs. Not one of them spoke or committed a motion. She glanced backward. Had it not been for the blinking eyes of the men behind her, they could have represented figures of bronze. Ogima Bush had disappeared.

Her eyes were momentarily blinded by a wicked green flash of light that illuminated the passageway, and with it came a deep gonglike alarum from above.

There was a vibrating, thundering sound, and with its advent the waters in the stream channel began to drop; dwindled swiftly to a mere trickle and finally disappeared entirely except for the moisture retained on the smooth-worn rock of its bed.

Amazement was still upon Josephine Stone when she heard Ogima Bush utter a guttural command at her side. He had reappeared as silently as he had dropped out of sight and now walked with a firm hand to the side of the sedan as the bearers carried it down the stone steps to the bed of the stream.

They moved only about fifty or sixty yards, around a very abrupt curve, when they came to a stop opposite another short flight of steps leading to a tunnel through the cliffs similar to the one by which they had entered the stream-bed below.

Once in the tunnel, Ogima Bush again disappeared. Josephine Stone heard the gonglike alarum, the roar of released torrents, and the waters went sweeping down the channel they had just emerged from.

Just how the stream was diverted from and returned to the portion of its course that formed a section of the passageway up into the Cup she was curious to understand. She fancied that a dam or shut-off was manipulated by some one in charge above on signals sent by means of the gong.

In the weird novelty of it all the girl almost forgot her own precarious situation; that she was the captive of a lawless Indian magician, whose cunning, wicked face was an index of the unscrupulous, ruthless soul that lay behind the black eyes whose whites showed with such savage garishness. Furthermore, for the moment, the fact that she knew nothing of whom she was to be taken before or the fate that might await her had ceased to weigh heavily upon her mind. The adventurous side of it and curiosity to know what was the object of it all engrossed her more.

With a suddenness that made her eyes wince they moved out from the semi-gloom of the tunnel to the bright sunlight of the open.

They were on the inside of the Cup of Nannabijou.