Colina shook her head.  “No need for you to come back,” she said.  “It will only anger the policeman.  You and Georges go on home.  I will get a policeman to go with me.”

Germain protested, but his secret desire was to obey the sergeant’s orders, and Colina had no difficulty in persuading him.

A division of the baggage was made on the spot, and they parted.  The Grampierres continued toward Enterprise, and the three girls turned back.

Colina breathed more freely.  Plaskett now believed that she had gone home with Germain, and Germain believed she had gone back to Plaskett.

Marya had mounted on their pack-horse.  They had not gone far in the trail, when she signified that they were to strike off to the left.

Colina pulled up.  “Cora,” she said, “it’s not true that I am going to get help from the police.  I mean to go myself to the other Indian village to get the girl I want.  You don’t have to come.  You can ride after Germain, and tell him I decided I didn’t need you.”

“I go wit’ you,” Cora said stolidly.

Colina beamed on her handmaiden, and offered her her hand.  She was willing to face the thing alone, but it was a comfort to have the stolid dependable Cora at her side.  Moreover, Cora was an admirable cook and packer.  Colina was not enamored of the drudgery of camp.

Marya led the way slowly through the trackless bush in the general direction of the afternoon sun, or southwest.  Colina guessed that they were making a wide detour around the Indian village.

The going was not too difficult, for it was only second growth timber, poplar and birch, with spruce in the hollows.  The original monarchs had been consumed by fire many years before.

They had covered, Colina guessed, about five miles when the sky showed ahead through the tree trunks, and Marya signed that they were to dismount and tie the horses.  Leading them to the edge of the trees, she made them lie down.

They found themselves overlooking a grassy bottom similar to that upon which the Kakisa village stood.  The outer edge of the meadow was skirted by the brown flood of the river, and trees hemmed it in on either side.  A score of Indian ponies were feeding in the grass.

Marya made Colina understand that the trail to Kakisa Lake traversed the little plain below alongside the river.  She signified that some men were expected from the upper village that day, and that Colina must wait where she was until she saw them pass below.  Finally Marya pointed avidly to the opal ring.

Colina handed it over.  The Indian girl slipped it on her own finger, gazing at the effect with a kind of incredulous delight.  The stolid Cora looked on disapprovingly.

Suddenly Marya, without so much as a look at her companions, scrambled to her feet, and hastened silently away through the trees.  She was clutching the ring finger with the other hand as if she feared to lose it, finger and all.  That was the last of Marya.