He stopped at the look that had come into her face.  Her eyes were turned to the window.  He saw them filled with a strange terror, and involuntarily his own followed them to where the storm was beating softly against the window-pane.  Close to the lighted glass was pressed a man’s face.  He caught a flashing glimpse of a pair of eyes staring in at them, of a thick, wild beard whitened by the snow.  He knew the face.  When life seemed slipping out of his throat he had looked up into it that night of the ambush on the Great North Trail.  There was the same hatred, the same demoniac fierceness in it now.

With a quick movement Howland sprang away from the girl and leveled his revolver to where the face had been.  Over the shining barrel he saw only the taunting emptiness of the storm.  Scarcely had the face disappeared when there came the loud shout of a man, the hoarse calling of a name, and then of another, and after that the quick, furious opening of the outer door.

Howland whirled, his weapon pointing to the only entrance.  The girl was ahead of him and with a warning cry he swung the muzzle of his gun upward.  In a moment she had pushed the bolt that locked the room from the inside, and had leaped back to him, her face white, her breath breaking in fear.  She spoke no word, but with a moan of terror caught him by the arm and pulled him past the light and beyond the thick curtain that had hidden her when he had entered the room a few minutes before.  They were in a second room, palely lighted by a mass of coals gleaming through the open door of a box stove, and with a second window looking out into the thick night.  Fiercely she dragged him to this window, her fingers biting deep into the flesh of his arm.

“You must go—­through this!” she cried chokingly.  “Quick!  O, my God, won’t you hurry?  Won’t you go?”

Howland had stopped.  From the blackness of the corridor there came the beat of heavy fists on the door and the rage of a thundering voice demanding admittance.  From out in the night it was answered by the sharp barking of a dog and the shout of a second voice.

“Why should I go?” he asked.  “I told you a few moments ago that I had come prepared to fight, Meleese.  I shall stay—­and fight!”

“Please—­please go!” she sobbed, striving to pull him nearer to the window.  “You can get away in the storm.  The snow will cover your trail.  If you stay they will kill you—­kill you—­”

“I prefer to fight and be killed rather than to run away without you,” he interrupted.  “If you will go—­”

She crushed herself against his breast.

“I can’t go—­now—­this way—­” she urged.  “But I will come to you.  I promise that—­I will come to you.”  For an instant her hands clasped his face.  “Will you go—­if I promise you that?”

“You swear that you will follow me—­that you will come down to the Wekusko?  My God, are you telling me the truth, Meleese?”