He rose and went to the window, and with a queer thickening in his throat Philip stared at his broad back. He thought he saw a moment's quiver of his shoulders. Then Adare's voice changed.
"Winter brings close to our doors the one unpleasant feature of this country," he said, turning to light a second cigar. "Thirty- five miles to the north and west of us there is what the Indians call 'Muchemunito Nek'--the Devil's Nest. It's a Free Trader's house. A man down in Montreal by the name of Lang owns a string of them, and his agent over at the Devil's Nest is a scoundrel of the first water. His name is Thoreau. There are a score of half-breeds and whites in his crowd, and not a one of them with an honest hair in his head. It's the one criminal rendezvous I know of in all this North country. B
