But Godefroy had miscalculated the effects of his threats.  At the door stood a score of warriors who had not been to the massacre.  If we hoped to escape torture the wizard bade us follow these men.  They led us away with a sinister silence.  When we reached the crest of the hill, half-way between the lodges and the massacre, Godefroy took alarm.  This was not the direction of our fort.  The trader shouted out that M. Radisson would punish them well if they did us harm.  At that one of the taciturn fellows turned.  They would take care to do us no harm, he said, with an evil laugh.  On the ridge of the hill they paused, as if seeking a mark.  Two spindly wind-stripped trees stood straight as mast-poles above the snow.  The leader went forward to examine the bark for Indian signal, motioning Godefroy and me closer as he examined the trees.

With the whistle of a whip-lash through air the thongs were about us, round and round ankle, neck, and arms, binding us fast.  Godefroy shouted out a blasphemous oath and struggled till the deer sinew cut his buckskin.  I had only succeeded in wheeling to face our treacherous tormentors when the strands tightened.  In the struggle the trader had somehow got his face to the bark.  The coils circled round him.  The thongs drew close.  The Indians stood back.  They had done what they came to do.  They would not harm us, they taunted, pointing to the frost-silvered valley, where lay the dead of their morning crime.

Then with harsh gibes, the warriors ran down the hillside, leaving us bound.

CHAPTER XVIII

FACING THE END

Below the hill on one side flickered the moving torches of the hostiles.  On the other side, where the cliff fell sheer away, lay the red-dyed snows with misty shapes moving through the frosty valley.

A wind of sighs swept across the white wastes.  Short, sharp barkings rose from the shadowy depth of the ravine.  Then the silence of desolation . . . then the moaning night-wind . . . then the shivering cry of the wolf-pack scouring on nightly hunt.

For a moment neither Godefroy nor I spoke.  Then the sinews, cutting deep, wakened consciousness.

“Are they gone?” asked Godefroy hoarsely.

“Yes,” said I, glancing to the valley.

“Can’t you break through the thongs and get a hand free?”

“My back is to the tree.  We’ll have to face it, Godefroy—­don’t break down, man!  We must face it!”

“Face what?” he shuddered out.  “Is anything there?  Face what?” he half screamed.

“The end!”

He strained at the thongs till he had strength to strain no more.  Then he broke out in a volley of maledictions at Jack Battle and me for interfering with the massacre, to which I could answer never a word; for the motives that merit greatest applause when they succeed, win bitterest curses when they fail.