“Two days ago,” said Carvel.  “And from Lac Bain it is—­”

“He will be here tomorrow,” Nepeese answered him.

“Tomorrow, as the sun goes down, he will enter the clearing.  I know.  My blood has been singing it all day.  Tomorrow—­tomorrow—­for he will travel fast, Ookimow Jeem.  Yes, he will come fast.”

Carvel had bent his head.  The soft tresses gripped in his fingers were crushed to his lips.  The Willow, looking again into the fire, did not see.  But she felt—­and her soul was beating like the wings of a bird.

“Ookimow Jeem,” she whispered—­a breath, a flutter of the lips so soft that Carvel heard no sound.

If old Tuboa had been there that night it is possible he would have read strange warnings in the winds that whispered now and then softly in the treetops.  It was such a night; a night when the Red Gods whisper low among themselves, a carnival of glory in which even the dipping shadows and the high stars seemed to quiver with the life of a potent language.  It is barely possible that old Tuboa, with his ninety years behind him, would have learned something, or that at least he would have suspected a thing which Carvel in his youth and confidence did not see.  Tomorrow—­he will come tomorrow!  The Willow, exultant, had said that.  But to old Tuboa the trees might have whispered, why not tonight?

It was midnight when the big moon stood full above the little opening in the forest.  In the tepee the Willow was sleeping.  In a balsam shadow back from the fire slept Baree, and still farther back in the edge of a spruce thicket slept Carvel.  Dog and man were tired.  They had traveled far and fast that day, and they heard no sound.

But they had traveled neither so far nor so fast as Bush McTaggart.  Between sunrise and midnight he had come forty miles when he strode out into the clearing where Pierrot’s cabin had stood.  Twice from the edge of the forest he had called; and now, when he found no answer, he stood under the light of the moon and listened.  Nepeese was to be here—­waiting.  He was tired, but exhaustion could not still the fire that burned in his blood.  It had been blazing all day, and now—­so near its realization and its triumph—­the old passion was like a rich wine in his veins.  Somewhere, near where he stood, Nepeese was waiting for him, waiting for him.  Once again he called, his heart beating in a fierce anticipation as he listened.  There was no answer.  And then for a thrilling instant his breath stopped.  He sniffed the air—­and there came to him faintly the smell of smoke.

With the first instinct of the forest man he fronted the wind that was but a faint breath under the starlit skies.  He did not call again, but hastened across the clearing.  Nepeese was off there—­somewhere—­sleeping beside her fire, and out of him there rose a low cry of exultation.  He came to the edge of the forest; chance directed his steps to the overgrown trail.  He followed it, and the smoke smell came stronger to his nostrils.