"Not strictly accurate, and that in two particulars," was the quiet reply. "In the first place, you should have said `But for Miss Santorex'; in the second, you would not have had the luck to be a dead man at this moment. You would be squirming a good deal nearer to a slow fire than is either pleasant or salubrious." Geoffry turned pale, nor could he repress a slight shudder as he thought of the ghastly fate from which he had escaped, as it were, by the skin of his teeth. Then the sight of his enslaver--so unexpectedly met with, and, like himself, dependent for aid and protection amid the grisly perils of these Western wilds, upon this mysterious stranger, who treated him, Geoffry, with a patronising and tolerant air which under any other circumstances would have been galling in the extreme--roused a wave of jealousy and distrust in the young man's breast. What the deuce was she doing here, careering about the country with this splendidly handsome desperado? But the latter's next words seemed to solve the enigma. "I reckon you'll follow the crowd next time you feel like running buffalo, Miss Santorex. I ought not to have exposed you to even this small risk." "A delicate way of reminding me that I've only myself to thank for risking being scalped," she replied demurely, but with a mischievous smile struggling not to break forth. "Well, it's perfectly true. I made you take me, and you all agreed it was quite safe. But we killed our buffalo after all--though I didn't like the killing part of it--and I shall never get the chance of a buffalo hunt again. Besides," with a glance at Geoffry and a serious ring in her voice, "it looks as if we had been sent here on purpose." "I say," sputtered Geoffry, staring at Vipan, as though bursting with a new idea. "I say, w-were you ever at the 'Varsity?" "Which 'Varsity?" "Why, Oxford or Cambridge, don't cher know. You give me the idea of a man who has been there." "Do I? If I was there at all, it must have been rather before you were born," replied the other, imperturbably. "Hang the fellow, he needn't be so close!" thought Geoffry, with a sullen sense of having been "shut up." But he was glad enough to see safety and comfort in the shape of Major Winthrop's camp, which lay about a mile distant, between them and the setting sun, although he was conscious of a profound feeling of jealousy and distrust towards the man to whom he owed that safety and comfort. "My partner will show up this evening," said Vipan, tranquilly. "In fact I shouldn't wonder if we found him in camp when we arrive, and what's more, he'll know exactly what we've been doing since I joined you." "How on earth will he know?" asked Yseulte, wonderingly. "That's just how he will know," was the amused reply. "By looking on the earth. We have a code of our own. But, you'll see, anyhow." ------------------------------------------------------------------------