Moved by the same
impulse, they ran to the door, hand in hand.
"It is Sachigo!" panted Jeanne. She could hardly speak. She seemed
to struggle to get breath, "I had forgotten. They are fighting--"
MacDougall strode up from his post beside the door, where he had
been waiting for the appearance of Jeanne.
"Firing--off there," he said. "What does it mean?"
"We must wait and see," replied Philip. "Send two of your men to
investigate, Mac. I will rejoin you after I have taken Miss
d'Arcambal over to Cassidy's wife."
He moved away quickly with Jeanne. On a sudden rise of the wind
from the south the firing came to them more distinctly. Then it
died away, and ended in three or four intermittent shots. For the
space of a dozen seconds a strange stillness followed, and then
over the mountain top, where there was still a faint glow in the
sky, there came the low, quavering, triumphal cry of the Crees: a
cry born of the forest itself, mournful even in its joy, only half
human--almost like a far-away burst of tongue from a wolf pack on
the hunt trail. And after that there was an unbroken silence.
"It is over," breathed Philip.
He felt Jeanne's fingers tighten about his own.
"No one will ever know," he continued.
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