“Josephine is safe for a time, M’sieur,” assured Jean.  “Listen to me, Netootam!  I feared this.  That is why I warned you.  Lang is taking her to Thoreau’s.  He believes that we will not dare to pursue, and that Josephine will send back word she is there of her own pleasure.  Why?  Because he has sworn to give Le M’sieur the confession if we make him trouble.  Mon Dieu, he thinks we will not dare! and even now, Netootam, six of the fastest teams and swiftest runners within a hundred miles are gone to spread the word among the forest people that L’Ange, our Josephine, has been carried off by Thoreau and his beasts!  Before dawn they will begin to gather where the forks meet, twelve miles off there toward the Devil’s Nest, and to-morrow—­”

Jean crossed himself.

“Our Lady forgive us, if it is a sin to take the lives of twenty such men,” he said softly.  “Not one will live to tell the story.  And not a log of Thoreau House will stand to hold the secret which will die forever with to-morrow’s end.”

Philip came near to Jean now.  He placed his two hands on the half-breed’s shoulders, and for a moment looked at him without speaking.  His face was strangely white.

“I understand—­everything, Jean,” he whispered huskily, and his lips seemed parched.  “To-morrow, we will destroy all evidence, and kill.  That is the one way.  And that secret which you dread, which Josephine has told me I could not guess in a thousand years, will be buried forever.  But Jean—­I have guessed it.  I know!  It has come to me at last, and—­my God!—­I understand!”

Slowly, with a look of horror in his eyes, Jean drew back from him.  Philip, with bowed head, saw nothing of the struggle in the half-breed’s face.  When Jean spoke it was in a strange voice and low.

“M’sieur!”

Philip looked up.  In the fire-glow Jean was reaching out his hand to him.  In the faces of the two men was a new light, the birth of a new brotherhood.  Their hands clasped.  Silently they gazed into each other’s eyes, while over them the beginning of storm moaned in the treetops and the clouds raced in snow-gray armies under the moon.

“Breathe no word of what may have come to you to-night,” spoke Jean then.  “You will swear that?”

“Yes.”

“And to-morrow we fight!  You see now—­you understand what that fight means, M’sieur?”

“Yes.  It means that Josephine—­”

“Tsh!  Even I must not hear what is on your lips, M’sieur!  I cannot believe that you have guessed true.  I do not want to know.  I dare not.  And now, M’sieur, will you lie down?  I will go to Le M’sieur and tell him I have received word that you and Josephine are to stay at Breuil’s overnight.  He must not know what has happened.  He must not be at the big fight to-morrow.  When it is all over we will tell him that we did not want to terrify him and Miriam over Josephine.  If he should be at the fight, and came hand to hand with Lang or Thoreau—­”