Scarcely had he uttered the words when he sped on again.  Three minutes later they came to where the trail crossed the edge of a small rock-cluttered meadow, and with a sudden spurt Aldous darted ahead of MacDonald into this opening, where he saw two figures in the moonlight.  Half a dozen feet from them he stopped with a cry of horror.  They were Paul and Peggy Blackton!  Peggy was dishevelled and sobbing, and was frantically clutching at her husband.  It was Paul Blackton who dragged the cry from his lips.  The contractor was swaying.  He was hatless; his face was covered with blood, and his eyes were only half open, as if he were fighting to pull himself back into consciousness after a terrible blow.  Peggy’s hair was down, her dress was torn at the throat, and she was panting so that for a moment she could not speak.

“They’ve got—­Joanne!” she cried then.  “They went—­there!”

She pointed, and Aldous ran where she pointed—­into the timber on the far side of the little meadow.  MacDonald caught his arm as they ran.

“You go straight in,” he commanded.  “I’ll swing—­to right—­toward river——­”

For two minutes after that Aldous tore straight ahead.  Then for barely a moment he stopped.  He had not paused to question Peggy Blackton.  His own fears told him who Joanne’s abductors were.  They were men working under instructions from Quade.  And they could not be far away, for scarcely ten minutes had passed since the first scream.  He listened, and held his breath so that the terrific beating of his heart would not drown the sound of crackling brush.  All at once the blood in him was frozen by a fierce yell.  It was MacDonald, a couple of hundred yards to his right, and after that yell came the bellowing shout of his name.

“Johnny!  Johnny!  Oh, Johnny!”

He dashed in MacDonald’s direction, and a few moments later heard the crashing of bodies in the undergrowth.  Fifty seconds more and he was in the arena.  MacDonald was fighting three men in a space over which the spruce-tops grew thinly.  The moon shone upon them as they swayed in a struggling mass, and as Aldous sprang to the combat one of the three reeled backward and fell as if struck by a battering-ram.  In that same moment MacDonald went down, and Aldous struck a terrific blow with the butt of his heavy Savage.  He missed, and the momentum of his blow carried him over MacDonald.  He tripped and fell.  By the time he had regained his, feet the two men had disappeared into the thick shadows of the spruce forest.  Aldous whirled toward the third man, whom he had seen fall.  He, too, had disappeared.  A little lamely old Donald brought himself to his feet.  He was smiling.

“Now, what do ’ee think, Johnny?”

“Where is she?  Where is Joanne?” demanded Aldous.

“Twenty feet behind you, Johnny, gagged an’ trussed up nice as a whistle!  If they hadn’t stopped to do that work you wouldn’t ha’ seen her ag’in, Johnny—­s’elp me, God, you wouldn’t!  They was hikin’ for the river.  Once they had reached the Frazer, and a boat——­”