He could scarcely have explained why—­perhaps because he dimly apprehended that it was Colina’s game to drive him mad with jealousy.

“Let him go,” he said thickly.  “I will run the mill myself!”

So long as the wheels revolved smoothly and the stream of creamy flour issued from the mouth of the machine the miller had a sinecure.  Ambrose scowling and grinding his teeth scarcely saw what his eyes were turned on.  His mind was busy outside.

He was sharply recalled to his job by a tearing sound from within the machinery.  The flour came out mixed with bran.  The wheels jammed and stopped.

Ambrose threw out the clutch, and doggedly attacked the problem.  It was cruelly hard to concentrate his mind on machinery while a damnable little voice in his brain persisted in asking over and over: 

“Where are they?  What are they doing?  How far will rage carry her?”

He contrived to remove the torn frame without much difficulty, but how to clean out the mass of stuff that clogged every part of the mechanism defied his ingenuity.  Apparently the thing must be taken apart.  How could he hope to put it together by lantern light?

There was a stir at the door, and Duncan Greer slouched in with a hang-dog scowl.  Never in his life had Ambrose been so glad to see a man.  He was careful to mask his joy.  He glanced at the boy carelessly and went on with his work.  Duncan came directly to him.

“I’m your man,” he muttered.  “For keeps, if you want me.”

“Sure,” said Ambrose, very offhand.  “Help me get this thing going, will you?”

As they worked side by side in the lantern light, Ambrose perceived a red welt across the boy’s forehead and cheek that was momentarily growing darker.  He smiled grimly.  Duncan, finding his eyes fixed on it, flushed up painfully.

“Women are the devil!” he muttered.

A great unholy joy filled Ambrose’s breast.  In his relief he could have hugged the boy, and laughed.

“Don’t abuse the women, my son,” he said grimly.  “They have to fight with what weapons they can.  You were warned.  You only got what was coming to you!”

When the machine was running smoothly again, Ambrose went to the door to reconnoiter.

“They’ve gone,” he said.  “I don’t think they’ll trouble us again before morning.  You can all sleep.”

Daybreak and the following hours found Ambrose and his party on the qui vive for a renewed demonstration from the other side.  None was made.

Neither Macfarlane, Gordon Strange, nor Colina could have mustered a corporal’s guard of the natives to their aid.  The breeds in their own mysterious way had simply disappeared.

Without them, the half dozen whites could do nothing against Ambrose’s strong party.  Colina herself had suffered a moral defeat, and required time to recoup her losses.

In the back of the store the white men and Gordon Strange held lengthy consultations without agreeing on any course of action.  Strange in his modest way deferred to Macfarlane and the others.