Every event of the day had pointed to a successful trip, from Harold's point of view. He had known that Bill couldn't make it through to his Twenty-three Mile cabin after the Chinook wind had softened the snow. The bitter night that followed would have likely claimed quickly any one that tried to sleep, without blankets, unsheltered in the snow fields. And when Virginia had gone out to save him and had brought back the blind and reeling man, his first impulse had been to leap upon him, in his helplessness, and drive his hunting knife through his heart! It wouldn't, however, had been a wise course to pursue. He didn't want to lose Virginia. He flattered himself that he had been cunning and self-mastered. He had watched Virginia's tender services to the woodsman, and once he had seen a luster in her eyes that had seemed to shatter his reason. And he knew that the time had come to strike. He felt no remorse. The North had stripped him of all the masks with which civilization had disguised him, and he was simply his father's son. This was a land of savage and primitive passions, and he felt no self-amazement that he should be planning a murderous and an inhuman crime. He had learned certain lessons of cruelty from the wilderness; the savage breeds with whom he had mingled had had their influence too. Bill, born and living in a land of beasts, had kept the glory of manhood; Harold, coming from a land of men, had fallen to the beasts' own level. And even the savage wolf does not slay the pack-brother that frees him from a trap! Besides, his father's wicked blood was prompting his every step. He threw the cigarette away and glanced critically at the rifles of his two confederates. The breeds waited patiently for him to speak. "Where's Sindy?" he asked at last. They began to wonder if he had called them here just to ask about Sindy, and for an instant they were sullenly unresponsive. But the heavy lines on their master's face soon reassured them. "Over Buckshot Dan's--just where you said," Joe replied. "Of course Buckshot took her back?" The Indians nodded. "Well, I'm going to let him keep her. I've got a white squaw now--and soon I'm going out with her--to the Outside. But there's things to do first. Bill has found the mine." The others nodded gravely. They expected some such development. "And Bill is as blind as a mole--got caught in a cabin full of green-wood smoke. He'll be able to see again in a day or two. So I sent for you right away." The breeds nodded again, a trifle less phlegmatically. Perhaps Pete's eyes had begun to gleam,--such a gleam as the ptarmigan sees in the eyes of the little weasel, leaping through the snow.