Suddenly he heard a step, a light, running step, and with a recognizing cry he sprang out into the starlight to meet the slim, panting, white-faced figure that ran to him from between the thick walls of forest trees.

“Meleese?” he exclaimed softly.

He held out his arms and the girl ran straight into them, thrusting her hands against his breast, throwing back her head so that she looked up into his face with great, staring, horror-filled eyes.

“Now—­now—­” she sobbed, “now will you go?”

Her hands left his breast and crept to his shoulders; slowly they slipped over them, and as Howland pressed her closer, his lips silent, she gave an agonized cry and dropped her head against his shoulder, her whole body torn in a convulsion of grief and terror that startled him.

“You will go?” she sobbed again and again.  “You will go—­you will go—­”

He ran his fingers through her soft hair, crushing his face close to hers.

“No, I am not going, dear,” he replied in a low, firm voice.  “Not after what happened to-night.”

She drew away from him as quickly as if he had struck her, freeing herself even from the touch of his hands.

“I heard—­what happened—­an hour ago,” she said, her voice choking her.  “I overheard—­them—­talking.”  She struggled hard to control herself.  “You must leave the camp—­to-night.”

In the gloom she saw Howland’s teeth gleaming.  There was no fear in his smile; he laughed gently down into her eyes as he took her face between his hands again.

“I want to take back the promise that I gave you last night, Meleese.  I want to give you a chance to warn any whom you may wish to warn.  I shall not return into the South.  From this hour begins the hunt for the cowardly devils who have tried to murder me.  Before dawn every man on the Wekusko will be in the search, and if we find them there shall be no mercy.  Will you help me, or—­”

She struck his hands from her face, springing back before he had finished.  He saw a sudden change of expression; her lips grew tense and firm; from the death whiteness of her face there faded slowly away the look of soft pleading, the quivering lines of fear.  There was a strangeness in her voice when she spoke—­something of the hard determination which Howland had put in his own, and yet the tone of it lacked his gentleness and love.

“Will you please tell me the time?” The question was almost startling.  Howland held the dial of his watch to the light of the stars.

“It is a quarter past midnight.”

The faintest shadow of a smile passed over the girl’s lips.

“Are you certain that your watch is not fast?” she asked.

In speechless bewilderment Howland stared at her.

“Because it will mean a great deal to you and to me if it is not a quarter past midnight,” continued Meleese, a growing glow in her eyes.  Suddenly she approached him and put both of her warm hands to his face, holding down his arms with her own.  “Listen,” she whispered.  “Is there nothing—­nothing that will make you change your purpose, that will take you back into the South—­to-night?”