Many sober faces clustered around Eva when she said good-bye next morning, but Burroughs' was not among them. He had said nothing of his humiliation, but had avoided meeting Miss Thornhill again. Her father was greatly dissatisfied; he thought that Eva's reception of the attention of other men had offended the trader, and he did not spare his blame for such a condition of things. Eva maintained her equanimity, feeling that she had done well to preserve the secret of her engagement, and to win Philip's pledge to silence. Two months later Robert Burroughs sold out his trading-post, and he, too, prepared to return to the States. When he told Pine Coulee that she was to return to her father's lodge with the boy, he was, for the first time, afraid of the woman. All her savage blood surged in protest; his offers to support their child were spurned. He was glad when the squaw was sullenly silent in the lodges of her tribe, and he determined never to come again to Macleod--to leave the past behind him. That was his dominant thought as he started out for Fort Benton, accompanied by his familiar, Wild Cat Bill. Their life at Fort Macleod had been in many ways one of jeopardy. He had run incredible risks of exposure and ruin, but he had won, through sheer audacity and bravado. He smiled covertly as he recalled the fact that he, the greatest whiskey smuggler in the Whoop Up Country, was also the privileged friend of an unsuspecting, honorable, upright officer--Colonel Macleod. Even his hardened conscience pricked as he thought how he had deceived one who, with somewhat more of acumen, and somewhat less of belief in men, would have been most severe on his wrong-doing. But that was over. To turn to less reprehensible and underhand ways would be easy, he was sure. Or, if he found that the old ways of accomplishing his purpose were more profitable, he would exercise them on bigger projects in Montana. He had made a fortune in the Whoop Up Country. Now he intended to increase it in the development of Montana's resources. He proposed to marry and rear a family, as became a prosperous and respected citizen. Dreams of statehood were beginning to waken into hope of reality among the sturdy men who dwelt in the territory, and during this journey south Burroughs confided to Bill his ambition to sit in the United States Senate. Fortune had favored him so far. All that was necessary to further his ambitions was to be as shrewd and cautious as he had been hitherto, and all things should be his--with Bill's help. Bill listened--that was his role for the time being. But he thought well of the plans, and said so before his chief referred to quite another subject--Pine Coulee and the boy. Here Bill found no words.