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And now this man before her, this man with a boy’s face, with the dark, luminous eyes, whom she had saved from the frozen plains, he had that in his breast which would free Haman, so he had said. A fury had its birth in her at that moment. Something seemed to seize her brain and master it, something so big that it held all her faculties in perfect control, and she felt herself in an atmosphere where all life moved round her mechanically, she herself the only sentient thing, so much greater than all she saw, or all that she realized by her subconscious self. Everything in the world seemed small. How calm it was even with the fury within!

“Tell me,” she said, quietly–“tell me how you are able to save Haman?”

“He not kill Wakely. It is my brudder Fadette dat kill and get away. Haman he is drunk, and everyt’ing seem to say Haman he did it, an’ every one know Haman is not friend to Wakely. So the juree say he must be hanging. But my brudder he go to die with hawful bad cold queeck, an’ he send for the priest an’ for me, an’ tell all. I go to Governor with the priest, an’ Governor gif me dat writing here.” He tapped his breast, then took out a wallet and showed the paper to her. “It is life of dat Haman, voici! And so I safe him for my brudder. Dat was a bad boy, Fadette. He was bad all time since he was a baby, an’ I t’ink him pretty lucky to die on his bed, an’ get absolve, and go to purgatore. If he not have luck like dat he go to hell, an’ stay there.”

He sighed, and put the wallet back in his breast carefully, his eyes half shut with weariness, his handsome face drawn and thin, his limbs lax with fatigue.

“If I get Askatoon before de time for dat, I be happy in my heart, for dat brudder off mine he get out of purgatore bime-bye, I t’ink.”

His eyes were almost shut, but he drew himself together with a great effort, and added desperately: “No sleep. If I sleep it is all smash. Man say me I can get Askatoon by dat time from here, if I go queeck way across lak’–it is all froze now, dat lak’–an’ down dat Foxtail Hills. Is it so, ma’m’selle?”

“By the ‘quick’ way if you can make it in time,” she said; “but it is no way for the stranger to go. There are always bad spots on the ice–it is not safe. You could not find your way.”

“I mus’ get dere in time,” he said, desperately.

“You can’t do it–alone,” she said. “Do you want to risk all and lose?”

He frowned in self-suppression. “Long way, I no can get dere in time?” he asked.

She thought a moment. “No; it can’t be done by the long way. But there is another way–a third trail, the trail the Gover’ment men made a year ago when they came to survey. It is a good trail. It is blazed in the woods and staked on the plains. You cannot miss. But–but there is so little time.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “You cannot leave here much before sunrise, and–“

“I will leef when de moon rise, at eleven,” he interjected.

“You have had no sleep for two nights, and no food. You can’t last it out,” she said, calmly.

The deliberate look on his face deepened to stubbornness.

“It is my vow to my brudder–he is in purgatore. An’ I mus’ do it,” he rejoined, with an emphasis there was no mistaking. “You can show me dat way?”

She went to a drawer and took out a piece of paper. Then, with a point of blackened stick, as he watched her and listened, she swiftly drew his route for him.

“Yes, I get it in my head,” he said. “I go dat way, but I wish–I wish it was dat queeck way. I have no fear, not’ing. I go w’en dat moon rise–I go, bien sur.”