“I am Philip Raine, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police,” he repeated again.  “I have come up here especially to help you, if you need help.  I could have got Bram farther back, but there was a reason why I didn’t want him until I found his cabin.  That reason was you.  Why are you here with a madman and a murderer?”

She was watching him intently.  Her eyes were on his lips, and into her face—­white a few moments before—­had risen swiftly a flush of color.  He saw the dread die out of her eyes in a new and dazzling excitement.  Outside they could hear Bram.  The girl turned again and looked through the window.  Then she began talking, swiftly and eagerly, in a language that was as strange to Philip as the mystery of her presence in Bram Johnson’s cabin.  She knew that he could not understand, and suddenly she came up close to him and put a finger to his lips, and then to her own, and shook her head.  He could fairly feel the throb of her excitement.  The astounding truth held him dumb.  She was trying to make him comprehend something—­in a language which he had never heard before in all his life.  He stared at her—­like an idiot he told himself afterward.

And then the shuffle of Bram’s heavy feet sounded just outside the door.  Instantly the old light leapt into the girl’s eyes.  Before the door could open she had darted into the room from which she had first appeared, her hair floating about her in a golden cloud as she ran.

The door opened, and Bram entered.  At his heels, beyond the threshold, Philip caught a glimpse of the pack glaring hungrily into the cabin.  Bram was burdened under the load he had brought from the sledge.  He dropped it to the floor, and without looking at Philip his eyes fastened themselves on the door to the inner room.

They stood there for a full minute, Bram as if hypnotized by the door, and Philip with his eyes on Bram.  Neither moved, and neither made a sound.  A curtain had dropped over the entrance to the inner room, and beyond that they could hear the girl moving about.  A dozen emotions were fighting in Philip.  If he had possessed a weapon he would have ended the matter with Bram then, for the light that was burning like a strange flame in the wolf-man’s eyes convinced him that he had guessed the truth.  Bare-handed he was no match for the giant madman.  For the first time he let his glance travel cautiously about the room.  Near the stove was a pile of firewood.  A stick of this would do—­when the opportunity came.

And then, in a way that made him almost cry out, every nerve in his body was startled.  The girl appeared in the doorway, a smile on her lips and her eyes shining radiantly—­straight at Bram!  She partly held out her arms, and began talking.  She seemed utterly oblivious of Philip’s presence.  Not a word that she uttered could he understand.  It was not Cree or Chippewyan or Eskimo.  It was not French or German or any tongue that he had ever