It was Stevens’ boy.

“Dad wants to see you down at the camp,” he whispered excitedly.  “He says right away—­an’ for no one to see you.  He said not to let any one see me.  I’ve been waiting for you to come out in the dark.”

“Skip back and tell him I’ll come,” replied Aldous quickly.  “Be sure you mind what he says—­and don’t let any one see you!”

The boy disappeared like a rabbit.  Aldous looked back, and ahead, and then dived into the darkness after him.

A quarter of an hour later he came out on the river close to Stevens’ camp.  A little nearer he saw Stevens squatted close to a smouldering fire about which he was drying some clothes.  The boy was huddled in a disconsolate heap near him.  Aldous called softly, and Stevens slowly rose and stretched himself.  The packer advanced to where he had screened himself behind a clump of bush.  His first look at the other assured him that he was right in using caution.  The moon had risen, and the light of it fell in the packer’s face.  It was a dead, stonelike gray.  His cheeks seemed thinner than when Aldous had seen him a few hours before and there was despair in the droop of his shoulders.  His eyes were what startled Aldous.  They were like coals of fire, and shifted swiftly from point to point in the bush.  For a moment they stood silent.

“Sit down,” Stevens said then.  “Get out of the moonlight.  I’ve got something to tell you.”

They crouched behind the bush.

“You know what happened,” Stevens said, in a low voice.  “I lost my outfit.”

“Yes, I saw what happened, Stevens.”

The packer hesitated for a moment.  One of his big hands reached out and gripped John Aldous by the arm.

“Let me ask you something before I go on,” he whispered.  “You won’t take offence—­because it’s necessary.  She looked like an angel to me when I saw her up at the train.  But you know.  Is she good, or——­You know what we think of women who come in here alone.  That’s why I ask.”

“She’s what you thought she was, Stevens,” replied Aldous.  “As pure and as sweet as she looks.  The kind we like to fight for.”

“I was sure of it, Aldous.  That’s why I sent the kid for you.  I saw her in your cabin—­after the outfit went to hell.  When I come back to camp, Quade was here.  I was pretty well broken up.  Didn’t talk to him much.  But he seen I had lost everything.  Then he went on down to your place.  He told me that later.  But I guessed it soon as he come back.  I never see him look like he did then.  I’ll cut it short.  He’s mad—­loon mad—­over that girl.  I played the sympathy act, thinkin’ of you—­an’ her.  He hinted at some easy money.  I let him understand that at the present writin’ I’d be willing to take money most any way, and that I didn’t have any particular likin’ for you.  Then it come out.  He made me a proposition.”

Stevens lowered his voice, and stopped to peer again about the bush.