“Nom de Dieu!” De Courtenay threw back his head and laughed, the flecks of light from the fire flittering across his handsome features.  “You speak a lost cause, my friend!  She was mine since that first morning by your well when the high head bent to my hand.  What a woman she is,—­ Maid of the Long Trail, Spirit of the Woods and Lakes!  A lioness with a dove’s heart!  I have seen the Queen of the World in this God-forsaken wilderness; therefore is it worth while.”

“Stop!” cried McElroy sharply; “let the old wound be.  Only make ready to act at once.”

“Aye,—­I am ready now.”

“Then rise with me,—­swiftly as possible,—­when I count to three.  One—­ "

The two men strained their bodies, leaning forward, for both had risen to sit facing the fire when the dance began.

“Two,—­” breathed McElroy, “ready, M’sieu,—­three!”

With one accord they leaped to their feet, and the factor in a flash was upon the Indian just passing behind him.  He had leaped high, for the Nakonkirhirinon was taller than a common man, and he clutched the muscled neck in a grasp of steel, pressing his shoulder against his adversary’s face, to still the outcry he knew would come.

The orgy at the fire was lifting its tone of riot into one of savagery and menace, the tom-toms beat more swiftly with gaining excitement, and the yapping yells were growing more frequent.

It was an auspicious moment and the heart of McElroy throbbed with a savage pleasure, but suddenly he felt other hands disputing his grip on the astonished Indian, who was raining blows upon him having dropped his gun in the first shock.  Over the bare shoulder of the warrior, shining like bronze in a gleam of light, he saw the face of De Courtenay, its blue eyes alight.

In a flash his grip was torn from behind, and, as the Indian reared his head and threw back his great shoulders, lifting him clear of the earth, he heard the joyous voice of the cavalier.

“Run!” it cried, as he fell clear; “run!  And tell Maren Le Moyne that her name is last upon my lips,—­her face last before—­”

Out above the words there rang the shrill cry of the guard, his mouth uncovered by McElroy’s shaking off.

The Indian had whirled and grappled with De Courtenay, and, before McElroy could tear him loose, fighting like a madman, out from the yelling circle there poured an avalanche of lunatics, jerked from Gehenna by that ringing cry.

Foremost was Bois DesCaut, his evil eyes glinting like a witch’s omen.

Yelling, jumping, flaming with the liquor of the Bois-Brules, they fell upon the two men and dragged them, half-falling, half-running, toward the circle, into it, and up to the fire.

“Ho-ho! ho-ho-o!  Ha-ha! ha-ha-a! ha-ha!”

Faces wild as the devil’s dreams pushed close, hands plucked at them, and suddenly a dozen painted braves caught up handfuls of live coals and flung them upon them.