Terrible, blighting, the words were borne to the ears of the girl. Bearded men looked, listened, and turned away, shuddering. The sun burst suddenly through a rift in the flying clouds, and his golden radiance fell incongruously upon the scene. Ethel gazed as at some horrid phantasm--the rough men with gaudy shirts of red and blue and multicolored checks, standing in groups with tense, set faces--the other man--_her_ man--standing alone, silent and smiling, by the side of his blood-bathed victim, and the old crone, whose marcid form writhed in the swing of the thin-shrieked chant. And then before she sensed that he had moved he stood before her. She raised her eyes to his in which the hard, cold gleam had given place to a look of intense longing, of infinite love, and the long-pent yearning of a soul. He stretched his arms toward her and she saw that the bruised and swollen hands were stained with blood. Suddenly she realized that this man was her _husband_. A sickening fear overcame her, and she shrank, shuddering, from the touch of the blood-smeared hands. A look of terror came into her face; she covered her eyes with her hands as if to shut out the horror of it all, and, turning, fled blindly--she knew not where. As she ran there still sounded in her ears the words of the high, thin chant--the blighting curse of Yaga Tah. CHAPTER LII THE BIG MAN Darkness settled over the North country. The sky had cleared, the wind gone down, and the air was soft and balmy with the feel of spring. A million stars sparkled overhead and above the intense blackness of the pines the moon rose, flooding the timberland with the mystery of her soft radiance. Ethel tossed uneasily in her cot and glanced across to where her aunt and Mrs. Sheridan slumbered heavily. Then she arose and stood at the window gazing out on the moonlit clearing with its low, silent buildings, and clean-cut, black shadows. Noiselessly she dressed and stole into the silvery world. Utterly wretched, dispirited, heartsick, she wandered aimlessly, neither knowing nor caring whither her slow, dragging steps carried her. Somewhere in the distance, sounding faint and far, came the shouts of men. Unconsciously she wandered toward the river. On the edge of a high bluff overlooking the rollways and the rushing waters she paused, leaning wearily against the bole of a giant birch. Thanks to the quick action of Bill Carmody Moncrossen's scheme of fouling the upper drive had taken no toll of human life. The few rollways that were broken out, however, were sufficient to cause a nasty jam, and far below where the girl stood the men of both crews worked furiously among the high-piled logs. Weird and unreal it seemed to Ethel as she gazed down upon the flare of huge fires built upon the bank, the tiny flash of lanterns and the flicker of torches, where the men swarmed out upon the uncertain footing.