In a cramped and almost illegible hand the old wanderer of the mountains had written: 

   Don’t go to cabin.  Culver Rann waiting to kill you.  Don’t show
   yorself in town.  Cum to me as soon as you can on trail striking
   north to Loon Lake.  Watch yorself.  Be ready with yor gun.

   DONALD MacDONALD.

Aldous shoved the note in his pocket and slipped back out of the lantern-glow into deep shadow.  For several minutes he stood silent and listening.

CHAPTER XI

As John Aldous stood hidden in the darkness, listening for the sound of a footstep, Joanne’s words still rang in his ears.  “I believe he is out there—­waiting for you,” she had said; and, chuckling softly in the gloom, he told himself that nothing would give him more satisfaction than an immediate and material proof of her fear.  In the present moment he felt a keen desire to confront Quade face to face out there in the lantern-glow, and settle with the mottled beast once for all.  The fact that Quade had seen Joanne as the guest of the Blacktons hardened him in his determination.  Quade could no longer be in possible error regarding her.  He knew that she had friends, and that she was not of the kind who could be made or induced to play his game and Culver Rann’s.  If he followed her after this——­

Aldous gritted his teeth and stared up and down the black trail.  Five minutes passed and he heard nothing that sounded like a footstep, and he saw no moving shadow in the gloom.  Slowly he continued along the road until he came to where a narrow pack-trail swung north and east through the thick spruce and balsam in the direction of Loon Lake.  Remembering MacDonald’s warning, he kept his pistol in his hand.  The moon was just beginning to rise over the shoulder of a mountain, and after a little it lighted up the more open spaces ahead of him.  Now and then he paused, and turned to listen.  As he progressed with slowness and caution, his mind worked swiftly.  He knew that Donald MacDonald was the last man in the world to write such a message as he had sent him through Blackton unless there had been a tremendous reason for it.  But why, he asked himself again and again, should Culver Rann want to kill him?  Rann knew nothing of Joanne.  He had not seen her.  And surely Quade had not had time to formulate a plot with his partner before MacDonald wrote his warning.  Besides, an attempt had been made to assassinate the old mountaineer!  MacDonald had not warned him against Quade.  He had told him to guard himself against Rann.  And what reason could this Culver Rann have for doing him injury?  The more he thought of it the more puzzled he became.  And then, in a flash, the possible solution of it all came to him.

Had Culver Rann discovered the secret mission on which he and the old mountaineer were going into the North?  Had he learned of the gold—­where it was to be found?  And was their assassination the first step in a plot to secure possession of the treasure?