The dogs were inspired, now, with the full intoxication of the chase; they strained forward fretfully, their gray plumes waving, their tongues lolling, their staccato chorus adding to the general disturbance.  When the word came to go, they leaped into their harness, and with a musical jingle of bells they swept down toward the river; over the steep bank they poured, and were gone.  A shout of encouragement followed Rock as he was snapped into the blackness, then noisily the crowd bolted for the warm interiors behind them.

Rouletta was slow in leaving; for some time she stood harkening to the swift diminuendo of those tinkling sleigh-bells, staring into the night as if to fix in her mind’s eye the picture of what she had last seen, the picture of a mighty man riding the rail of a plunging basket sled.  In spite of the biting cold he was stripped down; a thin drill parka sufficed to break the temper of the wind, light fur boots were upon his feet, the cheek pieces of his otter cap were tied above his crown.  He had turned to wave at her and to shout a word of encouragement just before he vanished.  That was like him, she told herself—­eager to spare her even the pain of undue apprehension.  The shock of her discovery of an hour ago was still too fresh in Rouletta’s memory; it was still too new and too agitating to permit of orderly thought, yet there it stood, stark and dismaying.  This woodsman loved her, no longer as a sister, but as the one woman of his choice.  As yet she could not reconcile herself to such a state of affairs; her attempts to do so filled her with mixed emotions.  Poor ’Poleon!  Why had this come to him?  Rouletta’s throat swelled; tears not of the wind or the cold stood in her eyes once again; an aching tenderness and pity welled up from her heart.

She became conscious finally that her body was growing numb, so she bestirred herself.  She had taken but a step or two, however, when some movement in the shadows close at hand arrested her.  Peering into the gloom, she discovered a figure.  It was Laure.

The girl wore some sort of wrap, evidently snatched at random, but under it she was clad in her dance-hall finery, and she, too, was all but frozen.

Rouletta was about to move on, when the other addressed her through teeth that clicked like castanets.

“I got here—­late.  Is it true?  Have they—­gone after Joe and Frank?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?  I—­I haven’t heard.  Don’t they think—­Pierce did it?”

“You know he didn’t do it,” Rouletta cried.  “Neither did he steal Courteau’s money.”

“What do you mean, ’I know’?” Laure’s voice was harsh, imperative.  She clutched at the other girl; then, as Rouletta hesitated, she regained control of herself and ran on, in a tone bitterly resentful:  “Oh, you’d like to get him out of it—­save him for yourself—­wouldn’t you?  But you can’t.  You can’t have him.  I won’t let you.  My God!  Letty, he’s the only thing I ever cared for!  I never had even a dog or a cat or a canary of my own.  Think a little bit of me.”