And yet, deep down in his heart, he was filled with suspicion.  When DeBar was about to leave the next morning, Pierrot said: 

“Tell m’sieu that I will leave for Lac Bain the day after tomorrow.”

After DeBar had gone, he said to Nepeese: 

“And you shall remain here, ma cherie.  I will not take you to Lac Bain.  I have had a dream that m’sieu will not go on a journey, but that he has lied, and that he will be sick when I arrive at the Post.  And yet, if it should happen that you care to go—­”

Nepeese straightened suddenly, like a reed that has been caught by the wind.

“Non!” she cried, so fiercely that Pierrot laughed, and rubbed his hands.

So it happened that on the second day after the fox hunter’s visit Pierrot left for Lac Bain, with Nepeese in the door waving him good-bye until he was out of sight.

On the morning of this same day Bush McTaggart rose from his bed while it was still dark.  The time had come.  He had hesitated at murder—­at the killing of Pierrot; and in his hesitation he had found a better way.  There could be no escape for Nepeese.

It was a wonderful scheme, so easy of accomplishment, so inevitable in its outcome.  And all the time Pierrot would think he was away to the east on a mission!

He ate his breakfast before dawn, and was on the trail before it was yet light.  Purposely he struck due east, so that in coming up from the south and west Pierrot would not strike his sledge tracks.  For he had made up his mind now that Pierrot must never know and must never have a suspicion, even though it cost him so many more miles to travel that he would not reach the Gray Loon until the second day.  It was better to be a day late, after all, as it was possible that something might have delayed Pierrot.  So he made no effort to travel fast.

McTaggart took a vast amount of brutal satisfaction in anticipating what was about to happen, and he reveled in it to the full.  There was no chance for disappointment.  He was positive that Nepeese would not accompany her father to Lac Bain.  She would be at the cabin on the Gray Loon—­alone.

This aloneness to Nepeese was burdened with no thought of danger.  There were times, now, when the thought of being alone was pleasant to her, when she wanted to dream by herself, when she visioned things into the mysteries of which she would not admit even Pierrot.  She was growing into womanhood—­just the sweet, closed bud of womanhood as yet—­still a girl with the soft velvet of girlhood in her eyes, yet with the mystery of woman stirring gently in her soul, as if the Great Hand were hesitating between awakening her and letting her sleep a little longer.  At these times, when the opportunity came to steal hours by herself, she would put on the red dress and do up her wonderful hair as she saw it in the pictures of the magazines Pierrot had sent up twice a year from Nelson House.