And she, drawing a blanket over her knees, crouched, looking into the same dancing flames, overwhelmed for the moment by a total sense-engulfing feeling of unreality. Could all of this which had happened, which was still happening, be an actual experience for her, Lynette Brooke? More did it resemble a long-drawn-out ugly dream than actuality! To be here to-night, so far from the world, her own world, in the heart of a gigantic wilderness, in a rude cabin; a giant of a man who, as he had said truly, might have crushed her between his powerful forefinger and thumb; a savage wolf of a dog watching her with unblinking eyes; another man, somewhere, with vengeance in his heart, following them; another man, clutching to his breast his golden secret, not far away; ... nightmare ingredients! Did this man, Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf as men called him, really know where to find Mexicali Joe? And, when he found him, would he come upon Taggart and Gallup and that hawk-faced man whom they called Cliff Shipton? And with them would there be Babe Deveril, who must have gone somewhere in his mad, hungering hope to have a rifle in his hands?... Above all else, was she the plaything of fate? Or the director of fate? Now it lay within the scope of her power to cry out to Bruce Standing: "When you find Mexicali Joe you will find others, no friends of yours, with him! With them, probably, Babe Deveril! And more than one rifle ready to stand between you and the Mexican!" ... If she kept her silence, there might be bloodshed before morning; if she spoke her warning, she might be doubly arming Timber-Wolf. She grew restless; so restless that Thor, distrusting her, began growling. And Bruce Standing, regarding her fixedly, demanded sharply: "Well, what is it?" Well ... what should she say? Anything or nothing? If she kept her silence, would she in after-days know herself to blame for to-night's bloodshed in that, keeping shut lips, she allowed him to stumble upon all Taggart's crowd. He was eying her sharply. She must make some answer, and so at last she prefaced her reply by asking him: "You say that we are not on your land?" "I did not say that. I said that this is not the cabin in which I had some years ago the pleasant experience of borrowing some money from Babe Deveril. He has never been here; has never heard of this place. No man other than myself, and until now no woman ever came here." "That narrow end of a valley we crossed this afternoon ... that was the upper end of Buck Valley? And the creek which came next was Big Bear Creek? And, right near us somewhere is Grub Stake Cañon?" "You know the country like a map!" He spoke carelessly enough and yet was puzzled to understand how she knew; of course Deveril could have told her something of it and yet Deveril's knowledge was restricted to the slim gleanings of one short excursion of years ago, and he did not believe that even Deveril had ever heard of Grub Stake Cañon.