At last they came to the foot of a rock ridge.  Up this the dogs toiled, with Jean pulling at the lead-trace.  They came to the top.  There they stopped.  And standing like a hewn statue, his voice breaking in a panting cry, Jean Jacques Croisett pointed down into the plain below.

Half a mile away a light stood out like a glowing star in the darkness.  It was a campfire.

“It is a fire at the Forks,” spoke Jean above the wind.  “Mon Dieu, M’sieur—­is it not something to have friends like that!”

He led the way a short distance along the face of the ridge, and then they plunged down the valley of deeper gloom.  The forest was thick and low, and Philip guessed that they were passing through a swamp.  When they came out of it the fire was almost in their faces.  The howling of dogs greeted them.  As they dashed into the light half a dozen men had risen and were facing them, their rifles in the crooks of their arms.  From out of the six there strode a tall, thin, smooth-shaven man toward them, and from Jean’s lips there fell words which he tried to smother.

“Mother of Heaven, it is Father George, the Missioner from Baldneck!” he gasped.

In another moment the Missioner was wringing the half-breed’s mittened hand.  He was a man of sixty.  His face was of cadaverous thinness, and there was a feverish glow in his eyes.

“Jean Croisset!” he cried.  “I was at Ladue’s when Pierre came with the word.  Is it true?  Has the purest soul in all this world been stolen by those Godless men at Thoreau’s?  I cannot believe it!  But if it is so, I have come to fight!”

“It is true, Father,” replied Jean.  “They have stolen her as the wolves of white men stole Red Fawn from her father’s tepee three years ago.  And to-morrow—­”

“The vengeance of the Lord will descend upon them,” interrupted the Missioner.  “And this, Jean, your friend?”

“Is M’sieur Philip Darcambal, the husband of Josephine,” said Jean.

As the Missioner gripped Philip’s hand his thin fingers had in them the strength of steel.

“Ladue told me that she had found her man,” he said.  “May God bless you, my son!  It was I, Father George, who baptized her years and years ago.  For me she made Adare House a home from the time she was old enough to put her tiny arms about my neck and lisp my name.  I was on my way to see you when night overtook me at Ladue’s.  I am not a fighting man, my son.  God does not love their kind.  But it was Christ who flung the money-changers from the temple—­and so I have come to fight.”