“Come,” he said.  “We’ll go.”

She started back for the snowshoe that had been torn off.  Beside it lay her rifle.  If she could get hold of it again—­

The great hulk moved beside her, his thumb and fingers round the back of her neck.  Before they reached the weapon, he twisted her aside so cruelly that a flame of pain ran down her spine.  She cried out.

He laughed as he stooped for the gun and the web.  “Don’ play none o’ yore monkey tricks on Bully West.  He knew it all ’fore you was born.”

The pressure of his grip swung Jessie to the left.  He gave her a push that sent her reeling and flung at her the snowshoe.

“Hump yoreself now.”

She knelt and adjusted the web.  She would have fought if there had been the least chance of success.  But there was none.  Nor could she run away.  The fellow was a callous, black-hearted ruffian.  He would shoot her down rather than see her escape.  If she became stubborn and refused to move, he would cheerfully torture her until she screamed with agony.  There was nothing he would like better.  No, for the present she must take orders.

“Hit the trail, missie.  Down past that big tree,” he snapped.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Don’t ask me questions.  Do like I tell you.”

The girl took one look at his heavy, brutal face and did as she was told.  Onistah would find her.  When she did not show up at the rendezvous, he would follow her trail and discover that something was amiss.  Good old Onistah never had failed her.  He was true as tried steel and in all the North woods there was no better tracker.

There would be a fight.  If West saw him first, he would shoot the Blackfoot at sight.  She did not need to guess that.  He would do it for two reasons.  The first was the general one that he did not want any of her friends to know where he was.  The more specific one was that he already had a grudge against the young Indian that he would be glad to pay once for all.

Jessie’s one hope was that Onistah would hasten to the rescue.  Yet she dreaded the moment of his coming.  He was a gentle soul, one of Father Giguere’s converts.  It was altogether likely that he would walk into the camp of the escaped convict openly and become a victim of the murderer’s guile.  Onistah did not lack courage.  He would fight if he had to do so.  Indeed, she knew that he would go through fire to save her.  But bravery was not enough.  She could almost have wished that her foster-brother was as full of devilish treachery as the huge ape-man slouching at her heels.  Then the chances of the battle would be more even.

The desperado drove her down into the muskeg, directing the girl’s course with a flow of obscene and ribald profanity.

It is doubtful if she heard him.  As her lithe, supple limbs carried her from one moss hump to another, she was busy with the problem of escape.  She must get away soon.  Every hour increased the danger.  The sun would sink shortly.  If she were still this ruffian’s prisoner when the long Arctic night fell, she would suffer the tortures of the damned.  She faced the fact squarely, though her cheeks blanched at the prospect and the heart inside her withered.