As Helen Yardely caught sight of Ainley's face, for a moment she was dumb with , then she cried: "You? You?"  
"Yes," he answered quickly, "I have been seeking you for weeks, and I find you in the nick of time. But there is no time to explain now. There were others with your captors; I saw the following behind. We must get away at once."
 
As he he cut the which bound her to the sledge and helped her to rise. Then he spoke again urgently. "Quick!" he said. "There is danger. This way—I have a team waiting for you. We must take to the woods."
 
He took her arm, and began to hurry through the blinding snow. Helen, bewildered by the swift turn of events, did not resist, but moved forward with him, and in a couple of minutes found herself by a sled-team guarded by a couple of Indians.
 
"Get on the sledge, Helen," said Ainley, brusquely. "There is no time to waste. We must hurry."
 
Still in a whirl of conflicting thoughts, the girl seated herself on the sledge, Ainley swiftly did what he could for her comfort, and a moment later the dogs received their command.
 
"Moosh! Moosh!"
 
They turned from the storm-ridden lake to the shelter of the great woods. The trail was not a good one; but the snow among the trees was far from being the it was in the open; and though their progress was slow, on the whole it was steady. Except for forced halts to the harness when it caught in the bushes, they did not stop for two hours, but pressed on until they reached an open space in the woods, which they crossed in a of blinding snow. On the other side of this break they came to a fresh spur of forest, and when they had to the shelter of the trees once more, the first voluntary halt was made. Then for the first time since the march had begun, Ainley spoke to the girl.
 
"Comfortable, Helen?" he asked.
 
"As comfortable as possible under the circumstances," was the reply.
 
"I am sorry I can do no better," replied Ainley. "But we are in danger still, and a little hardship is better than the grave risk of life."
 
"Oh!" answered Helen. "I do not mind the hardship."
 
"That is what I should expect of you," answered Ainley quickly, "but it is not for long that I ask it of you. In another hour or so, we shall be safe, I hope, then we will camp until the storm is over."
 
"Of whom are you afraid?" asked Helen.
 
"Indians! We were forced to shoot three of your captors; and those of their friends who were following on behind may feel to try and their deaths."
 
"Oh!" said the girl; a note of such evident disappointment in her tone, that Ainley looked at her quickly.
 
"Why do you speak like that, Helen? One would think that you were almost sorry that I had delivered you from the fate awaiting you."
 
"Oh, it is not that!" replied Helen quickly. "Though of course I do not know what the fate was. Do you?"
 
"I have an idea," he said, "and I will explain when we camp. Just now I must have a word with my men. Coffee will be ready in a few minutes; and there will be bacon and biscuit, which if not exactly appetising will be sustaining."
 
"I shall not mind bacon and biscuit," answered Helen, and as Ainley walked away a look of deep thought came on the girl's face.
 
Was it true, she asked herself, that he was afraid of the pursuit of revengeful Indians? She remembered the sledge which she had seen following behind, a sledge accompanied by only two men, and the evident anxiety it had occasioned her chief captor, and one thing itself in her mind with all the force of a conviction, namely that whatever Gerald Ainley thought about these men behind, her captors knew nothing whatever about them; then she remembered the revelations made by the half-breed. He had owned that he had attacked the cabin and captured her for a price, a great price paid by a man who loved her. Was that man Gerald Ainley? It was an odd coincidence that he should have been waiting just where he was, which was quite evidently the place where the half-breed had been making for. His words of greeting made it clear that he had been expecting to meet her, but in that case how did it come about that he knew she was in the neighbourhood? Was he indeed the man to whom the half-breed was looking for the price? If so, why had he so ruthlessly shot down the men who were his confederates?
 
Instantly an explanation that fitted the facts occurred to her. He had shot down her captors in order to his connection with them and with the attack upon the cabin. She remembered the man whom she had seen, and her odd fancy that he was a white man, and recalled her lover's conviction that no bodily harm was meant to her, though the same was not true of himself, and a very deep distrust of Gerald Ainley surged in her heart; a distrust that was deepened by her recollection of the policeman's story of the forged bill, and the sheet of foolscap which had been in her lover's possession.
 
But of this distrust she gave no sign when Ainley approached her, bearing food and coffee. She accepted the situation as if it were the most everyday one in the world; and she listened to the few words that he had to say, with real interest.
 
"We shall resume our march in twenty minutes or so, Helen, but as I said, in an hour or so, we shall be beyond pursuit. Then, when we have camped, you shall tell me the story of your adventures."
 
"Yes," she answered quietly, "and you shall tell me exactly how you came to find me."
 
"That is a long story," he answered with a slight frown, "but you shall hear it all in good time. It has taken me months to find you, and I had almost begun to despair, when a fortunate chance gave me the clue to your whereabouts."
 
"What chance was it?" asked Helen quickly.
 
"To answer that," he answered , "is to my story." Then he smiled, "You must be patient a little while longer, as I am, and when you have heard it, I hope you will not deny me my reward?"
 
"Oh," she said with a little touch of scorn creeping into her tones. "You have been working for a reward?"
 
"No," he replied sharply. "My has been a labour of love. You must know that, Helen! Though it is quite true that Sir James——"
 
He broke off, and as he showed no signs of continuing Helen forced him to do so. "You were saying something about my uncle? Did he send you after me?"
 
"He made me head of the search-party, because he knew I loved you, and he hinted that when I had found you I might go to him. You understand, Helen?"
 
"Yes," answered the girl enigmatically. "I think I do."
 
Looking at her, Ainley saw that there was nothing to be gained by pressing the matter further at that moment; and excusing himself he went to give orders to his Indians. A short time later they resumed their journey, and travelled for something more than an hour; then almost in the dark they pitched camp for the night. A substantial meal was prepared of which Helen partook in the shelter of a little tent which had been ; then when she had finished the meal, she seated herself by the big fire which had been built.
 
Ainley also seated himself less than a yard from her; and without giving him a chance of asking for her story, she instantly demanded his.
 
"Now," she said, as lightly as she could, "you shall tell me everything. How you searched for me, how you got on my trail at last, and the fate from which you saved me this morning."
 
Ainley would have preferred to hear her story first; but he did not to her suggestion, and with a little deprecatory laugh he began. "It is not very easy to talk of one's own doings, but I will do my best to avoid boastfulness."
 
Then, carefully picking his words, he described the anxiety her non-return to her uncle's camp had given rise to; and the preliminary search made by himself and the Indian Joe. As he described his own feelings of despair at the finding of the portion of her canoe in the drift-pile beyond the falls, his voice shook with quite genuine emotion, and Helen moved so as to bring her face a little in shadow whilst she watched him. In that moment she momentarily forgot the distrust which her own questioning had in her, and listened absorbed whilst he the discovery of the brooch, and the new hope it occasioned, since it afforded evidence that she was in all probability still alive. Then he broke off sharply. "You were saved from the river, somehow, by that fellow Stane, who was up at Fort Malsun, were you not?"
 
"Yes! How did you know?"
 
"I got his description from a half-breed who had met and hailed you going up the river in a canoe towards Old Fort Winagog."
 
"But we met no half-breed," said Helen quickly, her distrust in full force.
 
"You met no half-breed?" The surprise in Ainley's face was quite genuine, as Helen saw, and she realized that whatever was to come, this part of the man's story was quite true.
 
"No, we met no one, and we never reached Fort Winagog, because our canoe was stolen whilst we slept."
 
"Is that so?" Ainley's face grew dark as he asked the question; then a troubled look came upon it. "The man must have lied to me............