Who was he?  Where was he taking her?  For what purpose?  Onistah could not guess.  He knew that McRae had made enemies, as any forceful character on the frontier must.  The Scotchman had kicked out lazy ne’er-do-wells from his camp.  As a free trader he had matched himself against the Hudson’s Bay Company.  But of those at war with him few would stoop to revenge themselves on his daughter.  The Blackfoot had not heard of the recent trouble between Whaley and the McRaes, nor had the word reached him that Bully West was free again.  Wherefore he was puzzled at what the signs on the snow told him.

Yet he knew he had read them correctly.  The final proof of it to him was that Jessie broke trail and not the man.  If he were a friend he would lead the way.  He was at her heels because he wanted to make sure that she did not try to escape or to attack him.

The tracks led down into the muskeg.  It was spitting snow, but he had no difficulty in seeing where the trail led from hummock to hummock in the miry earth.  The going here was difficult, for the thick moss was full of short, stiff brush that caught the webbed shoes and tripped the traveler.  It was hard to find level footing.  The mounds were uneven, and more than once Onistah plunged knee-deep from one into the swamp.

He crossed the muskeg and climbed an ascent into the woods, swinging sharply to the right.  There was no uncertainty as to the direction of the tracks in the snow.  If they veered for a few yards, it was only to miss a tree or to circle down timber.  Whoever he might be, the man who had taken Jessie prisoner knew exactly where he was going.

The Blackfoot knew by the impressions of the webs that he was a large, heavy man.  Once or twice he saw stains of tobacco juice on the snow.  The broken bits of a whiskey-bottle flung against a tree did not tend to reassure him.

He saw smoke.  It came from a tangle of undergrowth in a depression of the forest.  Very cautiously, with the patience of his race, he circled round the cabin through the timber and crept up to it on hands and knees.  Every foot of the way he took advantage of such cover as was to be had.

The window was a small, single-paned affair built in the end opposite the door.  Onistah edged close to it and listened.  He heard the drone of voices, one heavy and snarling, another low and persuasive.

His heart jumped at the sound of a third voice, a high-pitched treble.  He would have known it among a thousand.  It had called to him in the swirl of many a wind-swept storm.  He had heard it on the long traverse, in the stillness of the lone night, at lakeside camps built far from any other human being.  His imagination had heard it on the summer breeze as he paddled across a sun-drenched lake in his birch-bark canoe.

The Blackfoot raised his head till he could look through the window.

Jessie McRae sat on a stool facing him.  Two men were in the room.  One strode heavily up and down while the other watched him warily.