The nearness of the sweet face, the gentle touch of the girl’s hands, the soft breath of her lips, sent a maddening impulse through Howland to surrender everything to her.  For an instant he wavered.

“There might be one—­just one thing that would take me away to-night,” he replied, his voice trembling with the great love that thrilled him.  “For you, Meleese, I would give up everything—­ambition, fortune, the building of this road.  If I go to-night will you go with me?  Will you promise to be my wife when we reach Le Pas?”

A look of ineffable tenderness came into the beautiful eyes so near to his own.

“That is impossible.  You will not love me when you know what I am—­what I have done—­”

He stopped her.

“Have you done wrong—­a great wrong?”

For a moment her eyes faltered; then, hesitatingly, there fell from her lips, “I—­don’t—­know.  I believe I have.  But it’s not that—­it’s not that!”

“Do you mean that—­that I have no right to tell you I love you?” he asked.  “Do you mean that it is wrong for you to listen to me?  I—­I—­took it for granted that you were a—­girl—­that—­”

“No, no, it is not that,” she cried quickly, catching his meaning.  “It is not wrong for you to love me.”  Suddenly she asked again, “Will you please tell me what time it is—­now?”

He looked again.

“Twenty-five minutes after midnight.”

“Let us go farther up the trail,” she whispered.  “I am afraid here.”

She led the way, passing swiftly beyond the path that branched out to his cabin.  Two hundred yards beyond this a tree had fallen on the edge of the trail, and seating herself on it Meleese motioned for him to sit down beside her.  Howland’s back was to the thick bushes behind them.  He looked at the girl, but she had turned away her face.  Suddenly she sprang from the log and stood in front of him.

“Now!” she cried.  “Now!” and at that signal Howland’s arms were seized from behind, and in another instant he was struggling feebly in the grip of powerful arms which had fastened themselves about him like wire cable, and the cry that rose to his lips was throttled by a hand over his mouth.  For an instant he caught a glimpse of the girl’s white face as she stood in the trail; then strong hands pulled him back, while others bound his wrists and still others held his legs.  Everything had passed in a few seconds.  Helplessly bound and gagged he lay on his back in the snow, listening to the low voices that came faintly to him from beyond the bushes.  He could understand nothing that they said—­and yet he was sure that he recognized among them the voice of Meleese.