A swarm of angry words surged to my tongue’s end—and died unspoken. Right willingly would I have voiced a blunt opinion of his brutal directness—to a grief-stricken girl, at such a time—but she flashed him a queer half-pleading look, and meekly accepted the plate I held before her. He had gained my point for me, but the hard, domineering tone grated. I felt a sudden, keen resentment against him. To protect and shield her from everything had at once become a task in which I desired no other man’s aid. “Now let us see how much of the truth is in the Black Factor,” Barreau began, when we had cleaned our plates and laid them in the grub-box. He turned down the canvas with which I had covered Montell, and opened the front of the buckskin shirt. Jessie stirred uneasily. She seemed about to protest, then settled back and stared blankly into the fire. Deliberately, methodically, Barreau went through the dead man’s pockets. These proved empty. Feeling carefully he at last found that which he sought, pinned securely to Montell’s undershirt, beneath one arm. He brought the package to our side of the fire, considered a moment and opened it. Flat, the breadth of one’s hand, little over six inches in length, it revealed bills laid smoothly together like a deck of cards. Barreau counted them slowly. One—two—three—four—on up to sixty; each a thousand-dollar Bank of Montreal note. He snapped the rubber band back over them and slid the sheaf back into its heavy envelope. “Le Noir did not draw such a long bow, after all,” he observed, to no one in particular. “Yet this is more than they offered me. Well, I dare say they felt that it would not be long——” He broke off, with a shrug of his shoulders. Then he put the package away in a pocket under his _parka_. Jessie watched him closely, but said nothing. A puzzled look replaced her former apathy. That night we slept with the dogs tied inside our tent, and the toboggan drawn up beside our bed. I did not ask Barreau his reason for this. I could hazard a fair guess. Whosoever had deprived Montell of his dogs, might now be awaiting a chance to do a like favor for us. I would have talked to him of this but there was a restraint between us that had never arisen before. And so I held my peace. I fell asleep at last, for all the silent guest that lay by the foot of our bed. What time I wakened I cannot say. The moon-glare fell on the canvas and cast a hazy light over the tent interior. And as I lay there, half-minded to get up and build a fire Barreau stirred beside me, and spoke. “Last night was Christmas Eve,” he muttered. “To-day—Peace on earth, good-will to men! Merry Christmas. What a game—what a game!”