Neither was aware of the noiseless opening of a door, nor of the wide-eyed, girlish face that stared at them through the aperture, nor was either aware that the man’s words were borne distinctly to the ears of the Louchoux girl.  Nor could they note the change from an expression of startled surprise to slitlike, venomous points of fire that took place in the eyes of the listening girl—­nor the clenching fists.  Nor did they hear the soft, catlike tread with which the girl quit the door and crossed to the kitchen table.  Nor could they see the cruel snarl of her lips as her fingers closed tightly about the haft of the huge butcher-knife, whose point was sharp and whose blade was keen.  Nor did they hear the noiseless tread with which the girl again approached the door, swung wider now to admit the passage of her tense, lithe body.  Nor did they see her crouch for a spring with the tight-clutched knife upraised and the gleaming slitlike eyes focused upon a point mid-way between Lapierre’s shoulder-blades as his arm unconsciously came to rest upon the back of Chloe Elliston’s chair.

For a long moment the girl poised, gloating—­enjoying in its fulness the measure of her revenge.  Before her, leaning in just the right attitude to receive upon his defenceless back the full force of the blow, sat the man who had deceived her.  For not until she had listened to the low-voiced, impassioned words had she realized there had been any deception.  With the realization came the hot, fierce flame of anger that seared her very soul.  An anger engendered by her own wrong, and fanned to its fiercest by the knowledge that the man was at that moment seeking to deceive the white woman—­the woman who had taught her much, and who with the keenest interest and gentleness had treated her as an equal.

She had come to love this white woman with the love that was greater than the love of life.  And the words to which this woman was now listening were the same words, from the same lips, to which she herself had listened beside the cold waters of the far-off Mackenzie.  Thus the Louchoux girl faced suddenly her first great problem.  And to the half-savage mind of her the solution of the problem seemed very simple, very direct, and, had Big Lena not entered by way of the outer door at the precise moment that the girl crouched with uplifted knife, it would doubtless have been very effective.

But Big Lena did enter, and, with a swiftness of perception that belied the vacuous stare of the fishlike eyes, took in the situation at a glance; for LeFroy had already hinted to her of the relation which existed between his erstwhile superior and this girl from the land of the midnight sun.  Whereupon Big Lena had kept her own counsel and had patiently bided her time, and now her time had come, and she was in no wise minded that the fulness of her vengeance should be marred by the untimely taking off of Lapierre.  Swiftly she crossed the room, and as her strong fingers closed about the wrist of the Indian girl’s upraised knife-arm, the other hand reached beyond and noiselessly closed the door between the two rooms.