CHAPTER IX

Philip had entered Bram Johnson’s cabin from the west.  Out of the east the pale fire of the winter sun seemed to concentrate itself on the one window of Bram’s habitation, and flooded the opposite partition.  In this partition there was a doorway, and in the doorway stood a girl.

She was standing full in the light that came through the window when Philip saw her.  His first impression was that she was clouded in the same wonderful hair that had gone into the making of the golden snare.  It billowed over her arms and breast to her hips, aflame with the living fires of the reflected sun.  His second impression was that his entrance had interrupted her while she was dressing and that she was benumbed with astonishment as she stared at him.  He caught the white gleam of her bare shoulders under her hair.  And then, with a shock, he saw what was in her face.

It turned his blood cold.  It was the look of a soul that had been tortured.  Agony and doubt burned in the eyes that were looking at him.  He had never seen such eyes.  They were like violet amethysts.  Her face was dead white.  It was beautiful.  And she was young.  She was not over twenty, it flashed upon him—­but she had gone through a hell.

“Don’t let me alarm you,” he said, speaking gently.  “I am Philip Raine of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.”

It did not surprise him that she made no answer.  As plainly as if she had spoken it he had in those few swift moments read the story in her face.  His heart choked him as he waited for her lips to move.  It was a mystery to him afterward why he accepted the situation so utterly as he stood there.  He had no question to ask, and there was no doubt in his mind.  He knew that he would kill Bram Johnson when the moment arrived.

The girl had not seemed to breathe, but now she drew in her breath in a great gasp.  He could see the sudden throb of her breast under her hair, but the frightened light did not leave her eyes even when he repeated the words he had spoken.  Suddenly she ran to the window, and Philip saw the grip of her hands at the sill as she looked out.  Through the gate Bram was driving his wolves.  When she faced him again, her eyes had in them the look of a creature threatened by a whip.  It amazed and startled him.  As he advanced a step she cringed back from him.  It struck him then that her face was like the face of an angel—­filled with a mad horror.  She reached out her bare arms to hold him back, and a strange pleading cry came from her lips.

The cry stopped him like a shot.  He knew that she had spoken to him.  And yet he had not understood!  He tore open his coat and the sunlight fell on his bronze insignia of the Service.  Its effect on her amazed him even more than had her sudden fear of him.  It occurred to him suddenly that with a two weeks’ ragged growth of beard on his face he must look something like a beast himself.  She had feared him, as she feared Bram, until she saw the badge.