CHAPTER III

ANGUS McRAE DOES HIS DUTY


The harsh shout came to them again, and with it a volley of oaths that
polluted the night.

Sleeping Dawn quickened her pace. The character of Bully West was
sufficiently advertised in that single outburst. She conceived him
bloated, wolfish, malignant, a man whose mind traveled through filthy
green swamps breeding fever and disease. Hard though this young man
was, in spite of her hatred of him, of her doubt as to what lay behind
those inscrutable, reddish-brown eyes of his, she would a hundred
times rather take chances with him than with Bully West. He was at
least a youth. There was always the possibility that he might not yet
have escaped entirely from the tenderness of boyhood.

Morse followed her silently with long, tireless, strides. The girl
continued to puzzle him. Even her manner of walking expressed
personality. There was none of the flat-footed Indian shuffle about
her gait. She moved lightly, springily, as one does who finds in it
the joy of calling upon abundant strength.

She was half Scotch, of course. That helped to explain her. The words
of an old song hummed themselves through his mind.