The four flickering, scattered lights presently dropped into line.  The trail had been found; they were coming nearer.  Flip breathed quickly; the spiced aroma of her presence filled the blanket as he drew her tightly beside him.  He had forgotten the storm that raged around them, the mysterious foe that was approaching, until Flip caught his sleeve with a slight laugh.  “Why, it’s Kennedy and Bijah!”

“Who’s Kennedy and Bijah?” asked Lance, curtly.

“Kennedy’s the Postmaster and Bijah’s the Butcher.”

“What do they want?” continued Lance.

“Me,” said Flip, coyly.

“You?”

“Yes; let’s run away.”

Half leading, half dragging her friend, Flip made her way with unerring woodcraft down the ravine.  The sound of voices and even the tumult of the storm became fainter, an acrid smell of burning green wood smarted Lance’s lips and eyes; in the midst of the darkness beneath him gradually a faint, gigantic nimbus like a lurid eye glowed and sank, quivered and faded with the spent breath of the gale as it penetrated their retreat.  “The pit,” whispered Flip; “it’s safe on the other side,” she added, cautiously skirting the orbit of the great eye, and leading him to a sheltered nest of bark and sawdust.  It was warm and odorous.  Nevertheless, they both deemed it necessary to enwrap themselves in the single blanket.  The eye beamed fitfully upon them, occasionally a wave of lambent tremulousness passed across it; its weirdness was an excuse for their drawing nearer each other in playful terror.

“Flip.”

“Well?”

“What did the other two want?  To see you, too?”

“Likely,” said Flip, without the least trace of coquetry.  “There’s been a lot of strangers yer, off and on.”

“Perhaps you’d like to go back and see them?”

“Do you want me to?”

Lance’s reply was a kiss.  Nevertheless he was vaguely uneasy.  “Looks a little as if I were running away, don’t it?” he suggested.

“No,” said Flip; “they think you’re only a squaw; it’s me they’re after.”  Lance smarted a little at this infelicitous speech.  A strange and irritating sensation had been creeping over him—­it was his first experience of shame and remorse.  “I reckon I’ll go back and see,” he said, rising abruptly.

Flip was silent.  She was thinking.  Believing that the men were seeking her only, she knew that their intention would be directed from her companion when it was found out he was no longer with her, and she dreaded to meet them in his irritable presence.

“Go,” she said; “tell Dad something’s wrong in the diamond pit, and say I’m watching it for him here.”

“And you?”

“I’ll go there and wait for him.  If he can’t get rid of them, and they follow him there, I’ll come back here and meet you.  Anyhow, I’ll manage to have Dad wait there a spell.”