But Howland was not a man to
surrender to his fears, if they could be called fears. He was satisfied
that a mysterious peril of some kind awaited him at the camp on the
Wekusko, but he gave up trying to fathom the reason for this peril,
accepting in his businesslike way the fact that it did exist, and that
in a short time it would probably explain itself. The one puzzling
factor which he could not drive out of his thoughts was the girl. Her
sweet face haunted him. At every turn he saw it--now over the table in
the opium den, now in the white starlight of the trail, again as it had
looked at him for an instant from the sledge. Vainly he strove to
discover for himself the lurking of sin in the pure eyes that had seemed
to plead for his friendship, in the soft lips that had lied to him
because of their silence. "Please forgive me for what I have done--" He
unfolded the crumpled note and read the words again and again. "Believe
me now--" She knew that he knew that she had lied to him, that she had
lured him into the danger from which she now wished to save him. His
cheeks burned. If a thousand perils threatened him on the Wekusko he
would still go. He would meet the girl again. Despite his strongest
efforts he found it impossible to destroy the vision of her beautiful
face.
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