a forest tree encroaching on the road and moving in the wind. She
kept on swiftly, holding her knife under her cloak. She had stopped
singing.

Presently she saw that the figure was a man, and coming her way; and
then her heart stood still, for she knew by the swing of his
shoulders that it was Burr Gordon. She threw back her proud head and
sped along towards him, grasping her knife under her cloak and
looking neither to the right nor left. She swerved not her eyes a
hair's-breadth when she came close to him--so close that their
shoulders almost touched in passing in the narrow path.

Suddenly there was a quick sigh in her ear--"Oh, Madelon!" Then an
arm was flung around her waist and hot lips were pressed to her own.

The mixed blood of two races, in which action is quick to follow
impulse, surged up to Madelon's head. She drew the hand which held
the knife from under her cloak and struck. "Kiss me again, Burr
Gordon, if you dare!" she cried out, and her cry was met by a groan
as he fell away from her into the snow.




Chapter IV


Madelon stood for a second looking at the dark, prostrate form as one
of her Iroquois ancestors might have looked at a fallen foe before he
drew his scalping-knife; then suddenly the surging of the savage