SHE STOOD there gasping for breath, and unable to speak; and to both the others in the cabin it was evident that something startling had occurred. Dick Bracknell found his tongue first.

“What is the matter, Miss La Farge? What has happened?”

Babette found her breath and cried pantingly,

“Some one tried to kill me?”

“To kill you!” her listeners cried together incredulously.

“Yes. I was walking down the creek, wondering where Jim and our dogs were gone to, when I heard a sharp sound, just like the twang of a bowstring and looked round. I could see nothing, and the woods on the banks were quite still and silent, nothing moving anywhere. I was still looking, and convincing myself that I had imagined the sound when it occurred again, and a second later an arrow struck a tree close by me, and remained there, quivering. I did not remain to see any more, or to try and learn who had sent it. I turned in my tracks and ran back here, and once as I ran an arrow passed clean through my parka, and buried itself in the snow beyond.”

Dick Bracknell broke out, suddenly, “Confound[236] it,” he cried, “this is intolerable. That Indian Joe must have gone mad!”

“You think it is your man?” asked Joy quickly.

“I am sure of it! Who else can it be in this God-forsaken wilderness? It must be he, but I will soon find out!”

He moved towards the door and throwing down the bar, opened it. There was nothing visible but the snow, and the dark woods. He took a step forward, and as he did so something came swishing through the air and struck the door post. He knew what it was before he saw it, and cried out.

“Joe, you confounded fool, what——”

The sharp crack of a rifle broke in on the words, and a bullet cut the fur off his coat at the top of the shoulder. He turned quickly round, and tumbled backward into the cabin, kicking the door to behind him. Joy ran forward, and dropped the bar in place, then looked at him.

“You are hurt?” she cried anxiously.

“No,” he answered, as he picked himself up.

“Only knocked over with surprise.”

“But that was a rifle, wasn’t it? Some one fired at you?”

“Yes, some one certainly did!” He gave a wheezy laugh as he lifted a hand to his shoulder.

“And he almost got me. He made the fur fly, and if it had struck an inch or two lower down I should have been out of action for a while at any rate. He must be a rotten shot, for out there on the snow I must have been a perfect mark!”

“But what on earth can your man be——”

“It is not Joe,” broke in Bracknell with conviction.[237] “Even if he has gone clean into lunacy he’d never do a thing like that to me. Besides, Joe had no gun with him. Our guns are there in the corner, and as we’ve run out of ammunition they are no use. It simply can’t be Joe.”

“Then who can it be? And why should he want to do a thing like that?”

“It may be your other man—Jim, didn’t you call him? He may have returned, and thinking you were prisoners here, may have tried to get me in the hope of releasing you.”

“But you forget the attack on Babette! Some one shot arrows at her and——”

“By Jove! I had forgotten something! Stand away from the door. I’m going to open it. There’s something I want to get.”

“Oh, be careful!” cried Joy.

He swung around and looked at her whimsically, then he said quietly, “I’ll be careful for your sake, not my own. I’ve got to get you safely out of this. That much I owe you at any rate.”

He turned again to the door and cautiously opening it a little way, peeped out. There was nothing visible, and quickly he opened the door wider and thrusting out an arm, gripped the arrow which was sticking in the post, and hastily flung the door in place once more. Even as he did so, something crashed into the wood, and the sound of a shot reverberated through the stillness outside.

The two girls looked at him, their faces were white and they were much alarmed. Bracknell looked at the door and laughed shortly.

[238]

“It seems that we are to stand a regular siege,” he said. “That man of yours is of the persevering sort.”

Neither Joy nor her foster-sister replied, and moving towards the stove Bracknell threw on a spruce log, and as it caught and flamed up he stopped, and by its light he examined the arrow in his hand. Quarter of a minute later he stood up.

“This settles it,” he said. “This arrow is not Joe’s. It is too finely made, with an ivory barb on which somebody has spent time. Joe’s bow and arrows were makeshifts, and his barbs were of moose bone!”

“Then who can it be?” asked Joy. “Jim would have no arrows at all, and he certainly would not have fired them at Babette if he had.”

Dick Bracknell shook his head. “I cannot think. It may be a roving band of Indians from the far North. This arrow tells its own story. It is like those made by the Indian Esquimaux in the North Behring. I’ve been up there and I’ve seen arrows like it before.”

“But at least one of our attackers has a rifle,” said Miss La Farge.

“Yes,” answered Bracknell thoughtfully.

“And why should they attack us at all?” asked Joy.

“They may be out for plunder. Most of these fellows have a weakness for the possessions of white men. I’ve seen one of them risk his life for a woodman’s axe, and they’ll give their heads for a sheath knife. They will have seen the cabin and may think that there are things worth having here, but in any[239] case they will find out the mistake in a very few days.”

“Why?”

“Because we haven’t more than two or three days’ stock of food,” replied Bracknell grimly. “There’s only a small stock of coffee, a few beans and some frozen moose meat. That’s why I suspected Joe of trying to get your outfit. But I’ve changed my mind now. I think that those fellows outside may have killed your man—and Joe also, if we only knew!”

“Then our position is rather desperate?”

Bracknell nodded. “If those beggars really mean business, we’re in a pretty tight corner. They may rush the cabin or they may wait. In either case they will get us!”

“There is one possibility that you have not thought of yet,” said Babette slowly.

“What is that?”

“It is that this attack may not have been made by any roving tribe at all.”

“But who——”

“Adrian Rayner!”

“God in heaven!” as the exclamation broke from his lips Dick Bracknell looked at her in amazed conviction. “Of course, I never thought of him!”

“He is the one man who has cause to do such a thing. He knows that Joy and I suspect him of shooting you at North Star. He wanted to marry her, and he knows that that is now out of the question altogether. But he is Joy’s cousin, and Joy, as you know, is immensely wealthy. If she died up here——”

[240]

“Heavens! yes! And I would stake my life that he&r............