Evening saw the completion of a substantial five-foot barricade, and soon after dark Old Elk appeared with the information that both Chloe and Big Lena, as well as Lapierre himself, were within the confines of the Bastile du Mort.  The man also proudly displayed a bleeding scalp which he had ripped from the head of one of Lapierre’s scouts who had blundered upon the old man as he lay concealed behind a snow-covered log.  The sight of the grewsome trophy with its long black hair and blood-dripping flesh excited the Indians to a fever pitch.  The scalp was placed upon a pole driven into the snow in the centre of the little stockade.  And for hours the Indians danced about it, rendering the night hideous with the wild chants and wails of their weird incantations.

As the night advanced and the incantations increased in violence, MacNair arose from the robe he had spread beside his camp-fire, and drawing away from the wild savagery of the scene, stole alone out into the dense blackness of the swamp and detouring to the shore of the lake, seated himself upon an uprooted tree-butt.

An hour passed as he sat thinking—­staring into the dark.  The moon rose and illumined with soft radiance the indomitable land of the raw.  MacNair’s gaze roved from the forbidding blackness of the farther shore-line, across the dead, cold snow-level of the ice-locked lake, to the bold headlands that rose sheer upon his right and upon his left.  The scene was one of unbending hardness—­of nature’s frowning defiance of man.  The soft touch of the moonlight jarred upon his mood.  Death lurked in the shadows—­and death, and worse than death, awaited the dawning of the day.  It was a hard land—­the North—­having naught to do with beauty and the soft brilliance of moonlight.  He glanced toward the jutting rock-ribbed plateau that was Lapierre’s stronghold.  Out of the night—­out of the intense blackness of the spruce-guarded dark came the wailing howl of the savage scalp-dance.

“The real spirit of the North,” he murmured bitterly.  He arose to his feet, and, with his eyes fixed upon the bold headland of the little plateau, stretched his great arms toward the spot that concealed the woman he loved—­and then he turned and passed swiftly into the blackness of the forest.

But despite the frenzy of the blood-lust, at no time were the Indians out of MacNair’s control, and when he ordered quiet, the incantations ceased at the word and they sought their blankets to dream eagerly of the morrow.

Morning came, and long before sunrise a thin line of men, women, and heavily laden dog-sleds put out from the farther shore of the lake and headed for the black spruce swamp.  The clan of MacNair was gathering to the call of the wolf.

The newcomers were conducted to the log stockade where the women were left to store the provisions, while MacNair called a council of his fighting men and laid out his plan of attack.  He glanced with pride into the eager faces of the men who would die for him.  He counted eighty-seven men under arms, thirty of whom were armed with Lapierre’s Mausers.