The resolute lips drooped, a hot salt tear blurred Vermilion’s camp-fire and distorted the figures of the gambling scowmen.  She closed her eyes tightly.  The writhing green shadow-shapes lost form, dimmed, and resolved themselves into an image—­a lean, lined face with rapier-blade eyes gazed upon her from the blackness—­the face of Tiger Elliston!

Instantly, the full force and determination of her surged through the girl’s veins anew.  The drooping lips stiffened.  Her heart sang with the joy of conquest.  The tight-pressed lids flew open, and for a long time she watched the shadow-dance of the flames on her tent wall.  Dim, and elusive, and far away faded the dancing shadow-shapes—­and she slept.

Not so Vermilion, who, when his companions tired of their game and sought their blankets, sat and stared into the embers of his dying fire.  The half-breed was troubled.  As boss of Pierre Lapierre’s scowmen, a tool of a master mind, a unit of a system, he had prospered.  But, no longer was he a unit of a system.  From the moment Chloe Elliston had bargained with him for the transportation of her outfit into the wilderness, the man’s brain had been active in formulating a plan.

This woman was rich.  One who is not rich cannot afford to transport thirty-odd tons of outfit into the heart of the wilderness, at the tariff of fifteen cents the pound.  So, throughout the days of the journey, the man gazed with avarice upon the piles of burlapped pieces, while his brain devised the scheme.  Thereafter, in the dead of night occurred many whispered consultations, as Vermilion won over his men.  He chose shrewdly, for these men knew Pierre Lapierre, and well they knew what portion would be theirs should the scheme of Vermilion miscarry.

At last, the selection had been made, and five of the most desperate and daring of all the rivermen had, by the lure of much gold, consented to cast loose from the system and “go it alone.”  The first daring move in the undertaking had succeeded—­a move that, in itself, bespoke the desperate character of its perpetrators, for it was no accident that sent the head scow plunging down through the Chute in the darkness.

But, in the breast of Vermilion, as he sat alone beside his camp-fire, was no sense of elation—­and in the heart of him was a great fear.  For, despite the utmost secrecy among the conspirators, the half-breed knew that even at that moment, somewhere to the northward, Pierre Lapierre had learned of his plot.

Eight days had elapsed since the mysterious disappearance of Chenoine—­and Chenoine, it was whispered, was half-brother to Pierre Lapierre.  Therefore, Vermilion crouched beside his camp-fire and cursed the slowness of the coming of the day.  For well he knew that when a man double-crossed Pierre Lapierre, he must get away with it—­or die.  Many had died.  The black eyes flashed dangerously.  He—­Vermilion—­would get away with it!  He glanced toward the sleeping forms of the five scowmen and shuddered.  He, Vermilion, knew that he was afraid to sleep!