The old man sat near the camp-fire after dark that night sure that Herron was even then conducting the affair better than he could have done himself.  He had confidence.  No faintest indication,—­even in the uncertainty of moonlight through the trees,—­that a man had left the river would escape the young man’s minute inspection.  And in the search no twig would snap under those soft-moccasined feet; no betraying motion of brush or brake warn the man he sought.  Dick’s woodcraft of that sort was absolute; just as Sam Bolton’s woodcraft also was absolute—­of its sort.  It might be long, but the result was certain,—­unless the Indian himself suspected.

Dick had taken his rifle.

“You know,” Sam reminded him, significantly, “we don’t really need that Injun.”

“I know,” Dick had replied, grimly.

Now Sam Bolton sat near the fire waiting for the sound of a shot.  From time to time he spread his gnarled, carved-mahogany hands to the blaze.  Under his narrow hat his kindly gray-blue eyes, wrinkled at the corners with speculation and good humour, gazed unblinking into the light.  As always he smoked.

Time went on.  The moon climbed, then descended again.  Finally it shone almost horizontally through the tree-trunks, growing larger and larger until its field was crackled across with a frostwork of twigs and leaves.  By and by it reached the edge of a hill-bank, visible through an opening, and paused.  It had become huge, gigantic, big with mystery.  A wolf sat directly before it, silhouetted sharply.  Presently he raised his pointed nose, howling mournfully across the waste.

The fire died down to coals.  Sam piled on fresh wood.  It hissed spitefully, smoked voluminously, then leaped into flame.  The old woodsman sat as though carved from patience, waiting calmly the issue.

Then through the shadows, dancing ever more gigantic as they became more distant, Sam Bolton caught the solidity of something moving.  The object was as yet indefinite, mysterious, flashing momentarily into view and into eclipse as the tree-trunks intervened or the shadows flickered.  The woodsman did not stir; only his eyes narrowed with attention.  Then a branch snapped, noisy, carelessly broken.  Sam’s expectancy flagged.  Whoever it was did not care to hide his approach.

But in a moment the watcher could make out that the figures were two; one erect and dominant, the other stooping in surrender.  Sam could not understand.  A prisoner would be awkward.  But he waited without a motion, without apparent interest, in the indifferent attitude of the woods-runner.

Now the two neared the outer circle of light; they stepped within it; they stopped at the fire’s edge.  Sam Bolton looked up straight into the face of Dick’s prisoner.

It was May-may-gwan, the Ojibway girl.

CHAPTER TEN

Dick pulled the girl roughly to the fireside, where he dropped her arm, leaving her downcast and submissive.  He was angry all through with the powerless rage of the man whose attentions a woman has taken more seriously than he had intended.  Suddenly he was involved more deeply than he had meant.