The old hunter chuckled.

“It was so still when I come to those trees back there that I thought mebby something had ’appened,” he said.

“So, I sneaked up, Johnny.”

“Did you see anything over the range?” asked Aldous anxiously.

“I found footprints in the snow, an’ when I got to the top I smelled smoke, but couldn’t see a fire.  It was dark then.”  MacDonald nodded toward the tepee.  “Is she asleep, Johnny?”

“I think so.  She must be very tired.”

They drew back into the shadow of the spruce.  It was a simultaneous movement of caution, and both, without speaking their thoughts, realized the significance of it.  Until now they had had no opportunity of being alone since last night.

MacDonald spoke in a low, muffled voice: 

“Quade an’ Culver Rann are goin’ the limit, Johnny,” he said.  “They left men on the job at Tete Jaune, and they’ve got others watching us.  Consequently, I’ve hit on a scheme—­a sort of simple and unreasonable scheme, mebby, but an awful good scheme at times.”

“What is it?”

“Whenever you see anything that ain’t a bear, or a goat, or a sheep, don’t wait to change the time o’ day—­but shoot!” said MacDonald.

Aldous smiled grimly.

“If I had any ideas of chivalry, or what I call fair play, they were taken out of me last night, Mac,” he said.  “I’m ready to shoot on sight!”

MacDonald grunted his satisfaction.

“They can’t beat us if we do that, Johnny.  They ain’t even ordinary cut-throats—­they’re sneaks in the bargain; an’ if they could walk in our camp, smilin’ an’ friendly, and brain us when our backs was turned, they’d do it.  We don’t know who’s with them, and if a stranger heaves in sight meet him with a chunk o’ lead.  They’re the only ones in these mountains, an’ we won’t make any mistake.  See that bunch of spruce over there?”

The old hunter pointed to a clump fifty yards beyond the tepee toward the little lake.  Aldous nodded.

“I’ll take my blankets over there,” continued MacDonald.  “You roll yourself up here, and the tepee’ll be between us.  You see the system, Johnny?  If they make us a visit during the night we’ve got ’em between us, and there’ll be some real burying to do in the morning!”

Back under the low-hanging boughs of the dwarf spruce Aldous spread out his blanket a few minutes later.  He had made up his mind not to sleep, and for hours he lay watchful and waiting, smoking occasionally, with his face close to the ground so that the odour of tobacco would cling to the earth.  The moon rose until it was straight overhead, flooding the valley in a golden splendour that he wished Joanne might have seen.  Then it began sinking into the west; slowly at first, and then more swiftly, its radiance diminished.  He looked at his watch before the yellow orb effaced itself behind the towering peak of a distant mountain.  It was a quarter of two.