"Ah, _oui_. I expec' that much. But Ba'teese, he think, mebbe, of another way. Eh, Golemar?" He shouted to the dog, trotting, as usual, beside the buggy. "Mebbe we have a, what-you-say, punch of luck." Then, silent, he leaned over the reins. Houston too was quiet, striving in vain to find a way out of the difficulties that beset him. At the end of half an hour he looked up in surprise. They no longer were on the way to the mill. The road had become rougher, hillier, and Houston recognized the stream and the aspen groves which fringed the highway leading to Ba'tiste's cabin. But the buggy skirted the cabin, at last to bring into sight a snug, well-built, pretty little cottage which Houston knew, instinctively, to be the home of Medaine Robinette. At the veranda, Ba'tiste pulled on the reins and alighted. "Come," he ordered quietly. "But--" "She have land, and she have a part of the lake and a flume site." Houston hung back. "Isn't it a bad bet, Ba'tiste? Have you talked to her?" "No--I have not seen her since the day--at the flume. She is here--Lost Wing is at the back of the cabin. We will talk to her, you and I. Mebbe, when the spring come, she will lease to you the lake and the flume site. Mebbe--" "Very well." But Houston said it against his will. He felt, in the first place, that he would be presuming to ask it of her,--himself a stranger against whom had come the accusation of murder, hardly denied. Yet, withal, in a way, he welcomed the chance to see her and to seek to explain to her the deadly thrusts which Fred Thayer had sent against him. Then too a sudden hope came; Ba'tiste had said that Agnes Jierdon had become friendly with her; certainly she had told the truth and righted the wrongs of malicious treachery. He joined Ba'tiste with a bound. A moment more and the door had opened, to reveal Medaine, repressed excitement in her eyes, her features a trifle pale, her hand trembling slightly as she extended it to Ba'tiste. Houston she received with a bow,--forced, he thought. They went within, and Ba'tiste pulled his queer little cap from his head, to crush it in the grasp of his massive hands. "We have come for business, Medaine," he announced, with a slight show of embarrassment. "M'sieu Houston, he have need for a flume site." "But I don't see where I could be of any assistance. I have no right--" "Ah! But eet is not for the moment present. Eet is for the springtime." She seemed to hesitate then and Houston took a sudden resolve. It might as well be now as later. "Miss Robinette," he began, coming forward, "I realize that all this needs some explanation. Especially," and he halted, "about myself." "But is that any of my affair?" Her old pertness was gone. She seemed white and frightened, as though about to listen to something she would rather not hear. Houston answered her as best he could: