“Come out here!” he commanded, and the lithe beast crept wagging and apologizing to his side. “What kind of a way is this for you to keep a camp--Jess sitting in the kitchen, and you in the box, and somebody carrying off Françoise and the boy, and every rag that would show they had ever been here--and not a sound out of your cowardly head till we come home and catch you skulking? I've a notion to take a board and beat you to death!” Jim lay down with an abject and dismal whine. “Where is she?” Jim lifted his nose and sniffed hopefully, and his master rose up and dragged him by the collar to the empty cabin. It was the first time Brown had entered that little cell since its dedication to the woman for whom it was built. He rubbed Jim's muzzle against the bed, and pointed to nails in the logs where the clothes of the patois had hung. “Now you lope out and find them--do you hear?” Jim, crouching on his belly in acknowledgment that his apprehension had been at fault during some late encounter, slunk across the camp and took the path to the hotels. Brown turned on Puttany following at his heels: “Frank, are you sure Joe La France is dead?” “Oh yes, he is det.” “Did you see him die? Were you there when he was buried? Was he put underground with plenty of dirt on top of him, or did he merely drop in the water?” “I vas not there.” “Maybe the lazy hound has resurrected. I've seen these lumbermen dropped into the water and drowned too often. You can never be sure they won't be up drinking and fighting to-morrow unless you run a knife through them.” “He is a det man,” affirmed Puttany. “Then somebody else has carried her off, and I'm going to know all about it before I come back to camp. If I never come back, you may have the stuff and land. I'm in this heels over head, and I don't care how soon things end with me.” “But, Prowny, old poy, I vill help you--” “You stay here. This is my hunt.” Jim passed the rustic guest-houses without turning aside from the trail. Brown took no thought of inquiring at their doors, for throughout the summer Françoise had not once been seen at the hotels. He did, however, hastily borrow a horse from the stable where he was privileged, and pursuing the blood-hound along the lake shore, he cantered over a causeway of logs and earth which had been raised above a swamp. The trail was very fresh, for Jim, without swerving, followed the road where it turned at right angles from the shore and wound inland among stumps. They had nearly reached Allanville, a group of log huts beside a north-shore railroad, when Jim uttered the bay of victory. Brown dropped from the saddle and called him sternly back. To be hunting Françoise with a blood-hound out of leash--how horrible was this! He tied his horse to a tree and took Jim by the collar, restraining the creature's fierce joy of discovery. Françoise must be near, unless a hound whose scent was unerring had become a fool.