Chloe glanced about her
for her revolver. An evil-faced half-breed, dragging his body from the
hips, pulled himself toward it, hunching along with his bare hands
digging into the crust of the snow. The girl reached it a second
before him. The man cursed her shrilly and sank into the snow, crying
aloud like a child.
Suddenly Chloe realized that the battle had surged beyond her. Shots
and hoarse cries arose from the scrub beyond the storehouse, while all
about her, in the trampled snow, wounded men cursed and prayed, and
dead men froze in the slush of their own heart's blood. The girl
followed into the scrub, and to her surprise came face to face with the
Louchoux girl, who was carrying armfuls of dry brushwood, which she
piled against the corner of the storehouse.
Chloe glanced into the black eyes that glowed like living coals. The
Indian girl added her armful to the pile and, drawing matches from her
pocket, dropped to her knees in the snow. She pointed toward the log
storehouse.
"Lapierre ran inside," she said.
With a wild laugh Chloe passed on. The scrub thinned toward the point
of the peninsula, where the rim-rocks rose sheer two hundred feet above
the level of the lake.
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