If the situation had seemed fairly clear to him a few minutes before it had become more deeply mysterious than ever now.  Even as the wolf-man rose from his knees, still mumbling to himself in incoherent exultation, the great and unanswerable question pounded in Philip’s brain:  “Who was this girl, and what was she to Bram Johnson—­the crazed outlaw whom she feared and yet whom she did not wish him to harm?”

And then he saw her staring at the things which Bram had sorted out on the floor.  In her eyes was hunger.  It was a living, palpitant part of her now as she stared at the things which Bram had taken from the dunnage bag—­as surely as Bram’s madness was a part of him.  As Philip watched her he knew that slowly the curtain was rising on the tragedy of the golden snare.  In a way the look that he saw in her face shocked him more than anything that he had seen in Bram’s.  It was as if, in fact, a curtain had lifted before his eyes revealing to him an unbelievable truth, and something of the hell through which she had gone.  She was hungry—­for something that was not flesh!  Swiftly the thought flashed upon him why the wolf-man had traveled so far to the south, and why he had attacked him for possession of his food supply.  It was that he might bring these things to the girl.  He knew that it was sex-pride that restrained the impulse that was pounding in every vein of her body.  She wanted to fling herself down on her knees beside that pile of stuff—­but she remembered him!  Her eyes met his, and the shame of her confession swept in a crimson flood into her face.  The feminine instinct told her that she had betrayed herself—­like an animal, and that he must have seen in her for a moment something that was almost like Bram’s own madness.

CHAPTER X

Until he felt the warm thrill of the girl’s arm under his hand Philip did not realize the hazard he had taken.  He turned suddenly to confront Bram.  He would not have known then that the wolf-man was mad, and impulsively he reached out a hand.

“Bram, she’s starving,” he cried.  “I know now why you wanted that stuff!  But why didn’t you tell me!  Why don’t you talk, and let me know who she is, and why she is here, and what you want me to do?”

He waited, and Bram stared at him without a sound.

“I tell you I’m a friend,” he went on.  “I—­”

He got no farther than that, for suddenly the cabin was filled with the madness of Bram’s laugh.  It was more terrible than out on the open Barren, or in the forest, and he felt the shudder of the girl at his side.  Her face was close to his shoulder, and looking down he saw that it was white as death, but that even then she was trying to smile at Bram.  And Bram continued to laugh—­and as he laughed, his eyes blazing a greenish fire, he turned to the stove and began putting fuel into the fire.  It