It was Nina Ide. In the dim light Wade could see tears and heart-broken woe on her face. He had had some experience with the self-poise of the daughter of Rodburd Ide. This emotion, which checked with sobs the words in her throat, frightened him. "It's a terrible thing, and I don't understand it, Mr. Wade," quavered the driver. He slipped down from the load and came and stood beside them. "We was in Pogey Notch, and the wind was blowin' pretty hard there, and I told the young ladies they'd better cover their heads with the blankets. And I pulled the canvas over me, 'cause the snow stung so, and I didn't see it when it happened--and I don't understand it." "When what happened?" Wade gasped. "They took her--whatever they was," stated the driver, in awed tones. "I didn't see 'em or hear 'em take her. And I don't know jest where we was when they took her. I went back and hunted, but it wasn't any use. They was gone, and her with 'em. They wasn't humans, Mr. Wade. It was black art, that's what it was." "Probably," said Tommy Eye, with deep conviction. He had led the group that came out of the camp to greet the tote team. "There were ha'nts here last night. They got Foolish Abe." "They sartinly seem to mean the Skeet family this time," said the driver. "It was that Skeet girl--the pretty one that's called Kate--that they got off'n my team." The men of the camp, surrounding the new arrivals, surveyed Nina Ide with respectful but eager curiosity. "If I was a ha'nt," growled the chopping-boss, "and had my pick, I reckon I'd have shown better judgment." His remark was under his breath, and the girl did not hear it. She clung to Wade. Her agitation communicated itself to him. A sense of calamity told him that there was trouble deeper than the disappearance of the waif of the Skeet tribe. Her words confirmed his suspicion. "My God, what are we going to do, Mr. Wade?" she sobbed. "I planned it; I encouraged her. It was wild, imprudent, reckless. I ought to have realized it. But I knew how you felt towards her. I wanted to help her and--and you!" Something in the horror of her wide-open eyes told him plainly now that this could not be merely the question of the loss of one of the Skeets. And with that conviction growing out of bewildered doubt, he went with her when she led him away towards the office camp. A suspicion wild as a nightmare flashed into his mind. In the wangan she faced him, as woe-stricken, as piteously afraid, as though she were confessing a crime against him. "It was John Barrett's daughter Elva on that team with me," she choked. "She wanted to come--but I'll be honest with you, Mr. Wade. She wouldn't have come if I hadn't encouraged her--yes, put the idea into her head and the means into her hands. I've been a fool, Mr. Wade, but I'll not be a coward and lie about my responsibility." He gazed at her, his face ghastly white in the lantern-light.