While Chip, bound, gagged, and helpless in the half-breed’s canoe, was just entering the alder-choked outlet of this lake, twenty miles below and close to where the stream entered another lake, four men were launching their canoes.

“It was here,” Martin was saying to Hersey, “one moonlight night a year ago, that a friend of mine and myself saw a spectral man astride a log, just entering that bed of reeds, as I told you. Who or what it was, we could not guess; but as that spook canoeman went up this stream, we followed and discovered our hermit’s home.”

“Night-time and moonshine play queer pranks with our imagination,” Hersey responded. “I’m not a whit superstitious, and yet I’ve many a time seen what I thought to be a hunter creeping along the lake shore at night, and I once came near plugging a fat man in a shadowy glen. I was up on a cliff watching down into it, the day was cloudy, and ’way below I saw what I was sure was a bear crawling along the bank of the stream. I had my rifle raised and was only waiting for a better sight, when up rose the bear and I saw a human face. For a moment it made me faint, and since then I make doubly sure before shooting at any object in the woods.”

And now these four men, Levi wielding the stern paddle of Martin’s canoe, and Hersey’s deputy that of his, entered the broad, winding stream. The tall spruce-tops meeting darkened its currentless course, long filaments of white moss depended from every limb, and as they twisted and turned up this sombre highway, the air grew stifling. Not a breeze, not a sound, disturbed the solemn silence, and except for the swish of paddles and faint thud as they touched gunwales, the fall of a leaf might have been heard. So dense was this dark, silent forest, and so forbidding its effect, that for an hour no one scarce spoke, and even when the two canoes finally drew together, converse came in whispers. Another hour of steady progress, and then the banks began to outline themselves ahead, the trees opened more, a sign of current was met, and the sun lit up their pathway.

By now the spectral beard had vanished from the trees, white clouds were reflected from the still waters, and the gleam of sandy bottom was seen below. The birds, inspired perhaps by the absence of gloom, also added their cheering notes, Nature was smiling once more, and not a hint or even intuition of the fast-nearing tragedy met those men.

And then, as a broad, eddying bend in the stream held their canoes, by tacit consent a halt was made.

Martin, his paddle crossed on the thwarts in front, dipped a cup of the cool, sweet water and drank. Levi wiped the sweat from his face, and Hersey also quenched his thirst. The day was hot. They had paddled ten miles. There was no hurry, and as pipes were drawn forth and filled, conversation began. But just at this moment Levi’s ears, ever alert, caught the faint sound of a paddle striking a canoe gunwale. Not as usual, in an intermittent fashion, as would be the case with a skilled canoeist, but a steady, rhythmic thud.

“Hist,” he said, and silence fell upon the group.

In the wilderness all sounds are noticed and noted, by night especially, because then they may mean a bear crawling softly through the undergrowth, or a wildcat, yellow-eyed and vicious, creeping near. But by day as well they are always heeded, and the crackle of a twig, or the sound of a deer’s foot striking a stone, or any slight noise, becomes of keen interest.

And now, from far ahead, came the steady tap, tap, tap. It soon increased, and then it assured those waiting, listening men that some canoe was being urged down-stream.

Without a word they glanced at one another, and then, as if an intuition came to both at the same time, Martin and Hersey reached for their rifles.

On and on came the steady thump, thump.

Just ahead the stream narrowed and curved out of sight. A few foam flecks from an unseen rill above floated down. The white sandy bottom showed in the clear water.

And then, as those stern-faced, watching, listening men, rifles in hand, almost side by side, waited there, out from behind this bend shot a canoe.

“My God, it’s Pete Bolduc! Look out!” almost yelled Levi, and “Halt! Surrender!” from Hersey, as two rifles were levelled at the oncomer. Then one instant’s sight of a red and scarred face, a quick reach for a rifle, a splash of water, an overturned canoe, and with a curse the astonished half-breed dived into the undergrowth.

Two rifles spoke almost at the same instant from the waiting canoes, one answered from out the thicket. A thrashing, struggling something in the filled canoe next caught all eyes, and Levi, leaping into the waist-deep stream, grasped and lifted a dripping form.

It was Chip!

A brief yet bloodless tragedy, all over in less time than the telling; yet a lifetime of horror had been endured by that waif, for as Levi bore her to the bank, cut the thongs that bound her, and freed her mouth from a pad of deerskin, she grasped his hand and kissed it.

And then came another surprise; for down a sloping, thick-grown hillside, something was heard thrashing, and soon Old Tomah, his clothing in shreds, his face bleeding, appeared to view.

Calculating to a nicety where he could best intercept and head off the escaping half-breed, he had crossed four miles of pathless undergrowth in less than an hour, and reached the stream at the nearest point after it left the lake.

How Chip, still sobbing from the awful agony of mind, and dripping water as well, greeted Old Tomah; how Hersey, chagrined at the escape of the half-breed, gave vent to muttered curses; how Martin joined them in thought; and how they all gathered around Chip and listened to her tale of horror, are but minor features of the episode, and not worth the telling.

When all was said and done, Old Tomah, grim and silent as ever, although he had done what no white man could do or would try to do, washed his bloody face in the stream, drank his fill of the cool water, and lifting Pete’s half-filled canoe as easily as if it were a shingle, tipped it, turned the water out, and set it on the sloping bank.

“Me take you back and watch you now,” he said to Chip. “You no get caught again.”

And thus convoyed, poor Chip, willing to clasp and caress the feet or legs of any or all of those men, and more grateful than any dog ever was for a caress, was escorted back to the lake.

All those waiting at the cabin were at the landing when the rescuers arrived. Angie, her eyes brimming, first embraced and then kissed the girl. Ray would have felt it a proud privilege to have carried her to the cabin, and Old Cy’s wrinkled face showed more joy than ever gladdened it in all his life before.

Somehow this hapless waif had grown dearer to them all than she or they understood.

There was also feasting and rejoicing that night at Martin’s wildwood home, and mingled with it all an oft-repeated tale.Old Cy told one end of it in his droll way, Martin related the other, and Chip filled up the interim. Levi had his say, and Hersey supplied more or less–mostly more–of this half-breed’s history.

Old Tomah, however, said nothing. To him, who lived in the past of a bygone race which looked upon lumbermen as devastating vandals ever eating into its kingdom, and whose thoughts were upon the happy hunting-grounds soon to be entered, this half-breed’s lust and cunning were as the fall of the leaf. Were it needful he would, as he had, plunge through bramble and brier and leap over rock and chasm to rescue his big pappoose, but now that she was safe again, he lapsed into his stoical reserve once more. Shadowy forms and the mysticism of the wilderness were more to his taste than all the pathos of human life; and while his eyes kindled at Chip’s smile, his thoughts were following some storm or tempest sweeping over a vast wilderness, or the rush and roar of the great white spectre.

“Chip is good girl,” he said to Angie the next morning, “and white lady love her. Tomah’s heart is like squaw heart, too; but he go away and forget. White lady must not forget,” and with that mixture of tenderness and stoicism he strode away, and the last seen of him was when he entered the outlet without once looking back at the cabin where his “big pappoose” was kept.

More serious, however, were the facts Martin and Hersey now had to consider, and a council of war, as it were, was now held with Levi, Old Cy, and the deputy as advisers.

What the half-breed would now do, and in what way they could now capture him were, of course, discussed, and as usual in such cases, it was of no avail, because they were dealing with absolutely unknown quantities. The facts were these: Bolduc, a cunning criminal, fearless of all law, had set his heart upon the possession of this girl. Her story, unquestionably true, that he had paid a large sum for this right and title, must inevitably make him feel that he would have what was his at any cost. His first attempt at securing her had been thwarted. He had been shot at by minions of the law,–an act sure to make him more vengeful,–his canoe had been taken, and what with the loss of the girl, money, and canoe also, one of his stamp would surely be driven to extreme revenge.

He was now at large in this wilderness, knew where the girl and his enemies were, and as Hersey said, “He had the drop on them.”

“I believe in standing by our guns,” that officer continued, after all these conclusions had been admitted. “We are here to rid the woods of this scoundrel. We have five good rifles and know how to use them. The law is on our side, for he refused to surrender, and returned our shots; and if I catch sight of him, I shall shoot to cripple, anyway.”

Old Cy’s advice, however, was more pacific.

“My notion is this feller’s a cowardly cuss,” he said, “a sort o’ human hyena. He’ll never show himself in the open, but come prowlin’ ’round nights, stealin’ anything he can. He may take a pop at some on us from a-top o’ the ridge; but I callate he’ll never venture within gunshot daytimes. His sort is allus more skeered o’ us’n we need be o’ him.”

In spite of Old Cy’s conclusions, however, the camp remained in a state of siege that day and many days following.

Angie and Chip seldom strayed far from the cabin. Ray assumed the water-bringing, night and morning. Old Cy and Levi patrolled the premises, while Martin, Hersey, and his deputy hunted a little for game and a good deal for moccasined footprints or a sight or a sign of this half-breed.Hersey, more especially, made him his object of pursuit. He had come here for that purpose, his pride and reputation were at stake, and the thousand dollars Martin had agreed to pay was a minor factor. He and his mate passed hours in the mornings and late in the afternoon watching from wide apart outlooks on the ridge. They made long jaunts up the brook valley to where the smoke sign had been seen, they found where this half-breed had built a fire here, and later another lair, a mile from the cabins and in this ridge. Long detours they made in other directions. Old Tomah’s trail through the forest was crossed; but neither in forest nor on lake shore were any recent footprints of the half-breed found. Old ones were discovered in plenty. An almost beaten trail led from his lair in the ridge to a crevasse back of the cabins, but to one well versed in wood tracks, it was easy to tell how old these tracks were.

A freshly made trail in the forest bears unmistakable evidence of its date, and no woodwise man ever confounds a two or three days’ old one with it. One footprint may not determine this occult fact; but followed to where the moss is spongy or the earth moist, a matter of hours, even, can be decided.

A week of this watchfulness, with no sign of their enemy’s return, not even to within the circuit patrolled time and again, began to relieve suspense and awaken curiosity. They had been so sure, especially Martin, that he would come back for revenge, that now it was hard to account for his not doing so.

“My idee is he got so skeered at them two shots,” Old Cy asserted, “he hain’t stopped runnin’ yit.” And then the old man chuckled at the ludicrous picture of this pernicious “varmint” scampering through a wilderness from fright.

But Old Cy was wrong. It was not fear that saved them from a prompt visitation from this half-breed, but lack of means of defence. The one shot remaining in his rifle at the moment of meeting had been sent on its vengeful errand, all the rest of his ammunition was in his canoe, and now on the bottom of the stream. Being thus crippled for means to act, the only course left to him was a return to his cabin seventy-five miles away, with only a hunting-knife to sustain life with.

Even to a skilled hunter and trapper like him, this was no easy task. It meant at least a week’s journey through almost impassable swamps and undergrowth, with frogs, raw fish, roots, and berries for food.

How that half-breed, unconscious that the mills of God had ground him the grist he deserved, fought his way through this pathless wilderness; how he ate mice and frogs to sustain his worthless life; how he cursed McGuire as the original cause of his wretched plight and Martin’s party as aids; and how many times he swore he would kill every one of them, needs no description.

He lived to reach his hut on the Fox Hole, and from that moment on, this wilderness held an implacable enemy of McGuire’s, sworn to kill him, first of all.