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diff --git a/old/phlst10.txt b/old/phlst10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a813a8c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/phlst10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5757 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Philip Steele of the +Royal Northwest Mounted Police, by James Oliver Curwood +#4 in our series by James Oliver Curwood + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your own disk, +thereby keeping an electronic path open for future readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. Do not change or edit it without written permission. +The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the information +they need to understand what they may and may not do with the etext. +To encourage this, we have moved most of the information to the end, +rather than having it all here at the beginning. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These Etexts Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and +further information, is included below. We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 +Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file. + + + +Title: Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police + +Author: James Oliver Curwood + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Release Date: November, 2003 [Etext #4633] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 20, 2002] + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Philip Steele of the +Royal Northwest Mounted Police, by James Oliver Curwood +This file should be named phlst10.txt or phlst10.zip + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, phlst11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, phlst10a.txt + +Etext prepared by Dianne Bean, Prescott Valley, Arizona. + + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +The "legal small print" and other information about this book +may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this +important information, as it gives you specific rights and +tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used. + + + + + + + + + + + +Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police + +by James Oliver Curwood + +New York 1911 + + + + +Philip Steele + + + +Chapter I. The Hyacinth Letter + +Philip Steele's pencil drove steadily over the paper, as if the mere +writing of a letter he might never mail in some way lessened the +loneliness. + +The wind is blowing a furious gale outside. From off the lake come +volleys of sleet, like shot from guns, and all the wild demons of this +black night in the wilderness seem bent on tearing apart the huge +end-locked logs that form my cabin home. In truth, it is a terrible +night to be afar from human companionship, with naught but this roaring +desolation about and the air above filled with screeching terrors. Even +through thick log walls I can hear the surf roaring among the rocks and +beating the white driftwood like a thousand battering-rams, almost at my +door. It is a night to make one shiver, and in the lulls of the storm +the tall pines above me whistle and wail mournfully as they straighten +their twisted heads after the blasts. + +To-morrow this will be a desolation of snow. There will be snow from +here to Hudson's Bay, from the Bay to the Arctic, and where now there is +all this fury and strife of wind and sleet there will be unending +quiet--the stillness which breeds our tongueless people of the North. +But this is small comfort for tonight. Yesterday I caught a little mouse +in my flour and killed him. I am sorry now, for surely all this trouble +and thunder in the night would have driven him out from his home in the +wall to keep me company. + +It would not be so bad if it were not for the skull. Three times in the +last half-hour I have started to take it down from its shelf over my +crude stone fireplace, where pine logs are blazing. But each time I have +fallen back, shivering, into the bed-like chair I have made for myself +out of saplings and caribou skin. It is a human skull. Only a short time +ago it was a living man, with a voice, and eyes, and brain--and that is +what makes me uncomfortable. If it were an old skull, it would be +different. But it is a new skull. Almost I fancy at times that there is +life lurking in the eyeless sockets, where the red firelight from the +pitch-weighted logs plays in grewsome flashes; and I fancy, too, that in +the brainless cavities of the skull there must still be some of the old +passion, stirred into spirit life by the very madness of this night. A +hundred times I have been sorry that I kept the thing, but never more so +than now. + +How the wind howls and the pines screech above me! A pailful of snow, +plunging down my chimney, sends the chills up my spine as if it were the +very devil himself, and the steam of it surges out and upward and hides +the skull. It is absurd to go to bed, to make an effort to sleep, for I +know what my dreams would be. To-night they would be filled with this +skull--and with visions of a face, a woman's face-- + +Thus far had Steele written, when with a nervous laugh he sprang from +his chair, and with something that sounded very near to an oath, in the +wild tumult of the storm, crumpled the paper in his hand and flung it +among the blazing logs he had described but a few moments before. + +"Confound it, this will never do!" he exclaimed, falling into his own +peculiar habit of communing with himself. "I say it won't do, Phil +Steele; deuce take it if it will! You're getting nervous, sentimental, +almost homesick. Ugh, what a beast of a night!" + +He turned to the rude stone fireplace again as another blast of snow +plunged down the chimney. + +"Wish I'd built a fire in the stove instead of there," he went on, +filling his pipe. "Thought it would be a little more cheerful, you know. +Lord preserve us, listen to that!" + +He began walking up and down the hewn log floor of the cabin, his hands +deep in his pockets, puffing out voluminous clouds of smoke. It was not +often that Philip Steele's face was unpleasant to look upon, but +to-night it wore anything but its natural good humor. It was a strong, +thin face, set off by a square jaw, and with clear, steel-gray eyes in +which just now there shone a strange glitter, as they rested for a +moment upon the white skull over the fire. From his scrutiny of the +skull Steele turned to a rough board table, lighted by a twisted bit of +cotton cloth, three-quarters submerged in a shallow tin of caribou +grease. In the dim light of this improvised lamp there were two letters, +opened and soiled, which an Indian had brought up to him from Nelson +House the day before. One of them was short and to the point. It was an +official note from headquarters ordering him to join a certain Buck Nome +at Lac Bain, a hundred miles farther north. + +It was the second letter which Steele took in his hands for the +twentieth time since it had come to him here, three hundred miles into +the wilderness. There were half-a-dozen pages of it, written in a +woman's hand, and from it there rose to his nostrils the faint, sweet +perfume of hyacinth. It was this odor that troubled him--that had +troubled him since yesterday, and that made him restless and almost +homesick to-night. It took him back to things--to the days of not so +very long ago when he had been a part of the life from which the letter +came, and when the world had seemed to hold for him all that one could +wish. In a retrospective flash there passed before him a vision of those +days, when he, Mr. Philip Steele, son of a multimillionaire banker, was +one of the favored few in the social life of a great city; when +fashionable clubs opened their doors to him, and beautiful women smiled +upon him, and when, among others, this girl of the hyacinth letter held +out to him the tempting lure of her heart. Her heart? Or was it the +tempting of his own wealth? Steele laughed, and his strong white teeth +gleamed in a half-contemptuous smile as he turned again toward the fire. + +He sat down, with the letter still in his hands, and thought of some of +those others whom he had known. What had become of Jack Moody, he +wondered--the good old Jack of his college days, who had loved this girl +of the hyacinth with the whole of his big, honest heart, but who hadn't +been given half a show because of his poverty? And where was Whittemore, +the young broker whose hopes had fallen with his own financial ruin; and +Fordney, who would have cut off ten years of his life for her--and +half-a-dozen others he might name? + +Her heart! Steele laughed softly as he lifted the letter so that the +sweet perfume of it came to him more strongly. How she had tempted him +for a time! Almost--that night of the Hawkins' ball--he had surrendered +to her. He half-closed his eyes, and as the logs crackled in the +fireplace and the wind roared outside, he saw her again as he had seen +her that night--gloriously beautiful; memory of the witchery of her +voice, her hair, her eyes firing his blood like strong wine. And this +beauty might have been for him, was still his, if he chose. A word from +out of the wilderness, a few lines that he might write to-night-- + +With a sudden jerk Steele sat bolt upright. One after another he +crumpled the sheets of paper in his hand and tossed all but the +signature page into the fire. The last sheet he kept, studied it for a +little--as if her name were the answer to a problem--then laid it aside. +For a few moments there remained still the haunting sweetness of the +hyacinth. When it was gone, he gave a last searching sniff, rose to his +feet with a laugh in which there was some return of his old spirit, hid +that final page of her letter in his traveling kit and proceeded to +refill his pipe. + +More than once Philip Steele had told himself that he was born a century +or two after his time. He had admitted this much to a few of his +friends, and they had laughed at him. One evening he had opened his +heart a little to the girl of the hyacinth letter, and after that she +had called him eccentric. Within himself he knew that he was unlike +other men, that the blood in him was calling back to almost forgotten +generations, when strong hearts and steady hands counted for manhood +rather than stocks and bonds, and when romance and adventure were not +quite dead. At college he took civil engineering, because it seemed to +him to breathe the spirit of outdoors; and when he had finished he +incurred the wrath of those at home by burying himself for a whole year +with a surveying expedition in Central America. + +It was this expedition that put the finishing touch to Philip Steele. He +came back a big hearted, clear minded young fellow, as bronzed as an +Aztec--a hater of cities and the hothouse varieties of pleasure to which +he had been born, and as far removed from anticipation of his father's +millions as though they had never been. He possessed a fortune in his +own right, but as yet he had found no use for the income that was piling +up. A second expedition, this time to Brazil, and then he came back--to +meet the girl of the hyacinth letter. And after that, after he had +broken from the bondage which held Moody, and Fordney, and Whittemore, +he went back to his many adventures. + +It was the North that held him. In the unending desolations of snow and +forest and plain, between Hudson's Bay and the wild country of the +Athabasca, he found the few people and the mystery and romance which +carried him back, and linked him to the dust-covered generations he had +lost. One day a slender, athletically built young man enlisted at Regina +for service in the Northwest Mounted Police. Within six months he had +made several records for himself, and succeeded in having himself +detailed to service in the extreme North, where man-hunting became the +thrilling game of One against One in an empty and voiceless world. And +no one, not even the girl of the hyacinth letter, would have dreamed +that the man who was officially listed as "Private Phil Steele, of the +N.W.M.P.," was Philip Steele, millionaire and gentleman adventurer. + +None appreciated the humor of this fact more than Steele himself, and he +fell again into his wholesome laugh as he placed a fresh pine log on the +fire, wondering what his aristocratic friends--and especially the girl +of the hyacinth letter--would say if they could see him and his +environment just at the present moment. In a slow, chuckling survey he +took in the heavy German socks which he had hung to dry close to the +fire; his worn shoe-packs, shining in a thick coat of caribou grease, +and his single suit of steaming underwear that he had washed after +supper, and which hung suspended from the ceiling, looking for all the +world, in the half dusk of the cabin, like a very thin and headless man. +In this gloom, indeed, but one thing shone out white and distinct--the +skull on the little shelf above the fire. As his eyes rested on it, +Steele's lips tightened and his face grew dark. With a sudden movement +he reached up and took it in his hands, holding it for a moment so that +the light from the fire flashed full upon it. In the left side, on a +line with the eyeless socket and above the ear, was a hole as large as a +small egg. + +"So I'm ordered up to join Nome, the man who did this, eh?" he muttered, +fingering the ragged edge. "I could kill him for what happened down +there at Nelson House, M'sieur Janette. Some day--I may." + +He balanced the skull on his finger tips, level with his chin. + +"Nice sort of a chap for a Hamlet, I am," he went on, whimsically. "I +believe I'll chuck you into the fire, M'sieur Janette. You're getting on +my nerves." + +He stopped suddenly and lowered the skull to the table. + +"No, I won't burn you," he continued, "I've brought you this far and +I'll pack you up to Lac Bain with me. Some morning I'll give you to +Bucky Nome for breakfast. And then, M'sieur--then we shall see what we +shall see." + +Later that night he wrote a few words on a slip of paper and tacked the +paper to the inside of his door. To any who might follow in his +footsteps it conveyed this information and advice: + +NOTICE! + +This cabin and what's in it are quasheed by me. Fill your gizzard but +not your pockets. + +Steele, Northwest Mounted. + + + +Chapter II. A Face Out Of The Night + +Steele came up to the Hudson's Bay Company's post at Lac Bain on the +seventh day after the big storm, and Breed, the factor, confided two +important bits of information to him while he was thawing out before the +big box-stove in the company's deserted and supply-stripped store. The +first was that a certain Colonel Becker and his wife had left Fort +Churchill, on Hudson's Bay, to make a visit at Lac Bain; the second, +that Buck Nome had gone westward a week before and had not returned. +Breed was worried, not over Nome's prolonged absence, but over the +anticipated arrival of the other two. According to the letter which had +come to him from the Churchill factor. Colonel Becker and his wife had +come over on the last supply ship from London, and the colonel was a +high official in the company's service. Also, he was an old gentleman. +Ostensibly he had no business at Lac Bain, but was merely on a vacation, +and wished to see a bit of real life in the wilderness. + +Breed's grizzled face was miserable. + +"Why don't they send 'em down to York Factory or Nelson House?" he +demanded of Steele. "They've got duck feathers, three women, and a +civilized factor at the Nelson, and there ain't any of 'em here--not +even a woman!" + +Steele shrugged his shoulders as Breed mentioned the three women at +Nelson. + +"There are only two women there now," he replied. "Since a certain Bucky +Nome passed that way, one of them has gone into the South." + +"Well, two, then," said Breed, who had not caught the flash of fire in +the other's eyes. "But I tell you there ain't a one here, Steele, not +even an Indian--and that dirty Cree, Jack, is doing the cooking. Blessed +Saints, I caught him mixing biscuit dough in the wash basin the other +day, and I've been eating those biscuits ever since our people went out +to their traplines! There's you, and Nome, two Crees, a 'half' and +myself--and that's every soul there'll be at Lac Bain until the +mid-winter run of fur. Now, what in Heaven's name is the poor old Mrs. +Colonel going to do?" + +"Got a bed for her?" + +"A bunk--hard as nails!" + +"Good grub?" + +"Rotten!" groaned the factor. "Every trapper's son of them took out big +supplies this fall and we're stripped. Beans, flour, sugar'n'prunes--and +caribou until I feel like turning inside out every time I smell it. I'd +give a month's commission for a pound of pork. Look here! If this letter +ain't 'quality' you can cut me into jiggers. Bet the Mrs. Colonel wrote +it for her hubby." + +From an inside pocket Breed drew forth a square white envelope with a +broken seal of red wax, and from it extracted a folded sheet of +cream-tinted paper. Scarcely had Steele taken the note in his hands when +a quick thrill passed through him. Before he had read the first line he +was conscious again of that haunting sweetness in the air he +breathed--the perfume of hyacinth. There was not only this perfume, but +the same paper, the same delicately pretty writing of the letter he had +burned more than a week before. He made no effort to suppress the +exclamation of astonishment that broke from his lips. Breed was staring +at him when he lifted his eyes. + +"This is a mighty strange coincidence, Breed," he said, regaining his +composure. "I could almost swear that I know this writing, and yet of +course such a thing is impossible. Still, it's mighty queer. Will you +let me keep the letter until to-night? I'd like to take it over to the +cabin and compare it--" + +"Needn't return it at all," interrupted the factor. "Hope you find +something interesting to tell me at supper--five sharp. It will be a +blessing if you know 'em." + +Ten minutes later Steele was in the little cabin which he and Nome +occupied while at Lac Bain. Jack, the Cree, had built a rousing fire in +the long sheet-iron stove, and as Steele opened its furnace-like door, a +flood of light poured out into the gathering gloom of early evening. +Drawing a chair full into the light, he again opened the letter. Line +for line and word for word he scrutinized the writing, and with each +breath that he drew he found himself more deeply thrilled by a curious +mental excitement which it was impossible for him to explain. According +to the letter. Colonel and Mrs. Becker had arrived at Churchill aboard +the London ship a little over a month previously. He remembered that the +date on the letter from the girl was six weeks old. At the time it was +written, Colonel Becker and his wife were either in London or Liverpool, +or crossing the Atlantic. No matter how similar the two letters appeared +to him, he realized that, under the circumstances, the same person could +not have written them both. For many minutes he sat back in his chair, +with his eyes half-closed, absorbing the comforting heat of the fire. +Again the old vision returned to him. In a subconscious sort of way he +found himself fighting against it, as he had struggled a score of times +to throw off its presence, since the girl's letter had come to him. And +this time, as before, his effort was futile. He saw her again--and +always as on that night of the Hawkins' ball, eyes and lips smiling at +him, the light shining gloriously in the deep red gold of her hair. + +With an effort Steele aroused himself and looked at his watch. It was a +quarter of five. He stooped to close the stove door, and stopped +suddenly, his hand reaching out, head and shoulders hunched over. Across +his knee, shining in the firelight, like a thread of spun gold, lay a +single filament of a woman's hair. + +He rose slowly, holding the hair between him and the light. His fingers +trembled, his breath came quickly. The hair had fallen upon his knee +from the letter--or the envelope, and it was wonderfully like HER hair! + +From the direction of the factor's quarters came the deep bellowing of +Breed's moose-horn, calling him to supper. Before he responded to it, +Steele wound the silken thread of gold about his ringer, then placed it +carefully among the papers and cards which he carried in his leather +wallet. His face was flushed when he joined the factor. Not since the +night at the Hawkins' ball, when he had felt the touch of a beautiful +woman's hands, the warmth of her breath, the soft sweep of her hair +against his lips as he had leaned over her in his half-surrender, had +thought of woman stirred him as he felt himself stirred now. He was glad +that Breed was too much absorbed in his own troubles to observe any +possible change in himself or to ask questions about the letter. + +"I tell you, it may mean the short birch for me, Steele," said the +factor gloomily. "Lac Bain is just now the emptiest, most +fallen-to-pieces, unbusiness-like post between the Athabasca and the +Bay. We've had two bad seasons running, and everything has gone wrong. +Colonel Becker is a big one with the company. Ain't no doubt about that, +and ten to one he'll think it's a new man that's wanted here." + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed Steele. A sudden flash shot into his face as he +looked hard at Breed. "See here, how would you like to have me go out to +meet them?" he asked. "Sort of a welcoming committee of one, you know. +Before they got here I could casually give 'em to understand what Lac +Bain has been up against during the last two seasons." + +Breed's face brightened in an instant. + +"That might save us, Steele. Will you do it?" + +"With pleasure." + +Philip was conscious of an increasing warmth in his face as he bent over +his plate. "You're sure--they're elderly people?" he asked. + +"That is what MacVeigh wrote me from Churchill; at least he said the +colonel was an old man." + +"And his wife?" + +"Has got her nerve," growled Breed irreverently. "It wouldn't be so bad +if it was only the colonel. But an old woman--ugh! What he doesn't think +of she'll remind him of, you can depend on that." + +Steele thought of his mother, who looked at things through a magnifying +lorgnette, and laughed a little cheerlessly. + +"I'll go out and meet them, anyway," he comforted. "Have Jack fix me up +for the hike in the morning, Breed. I'll start after breakfast." + +He was glad when supper was over and he was back in his own cabin +smoking his pipe. It was almost with a feeling of shame that he took the +golden hair from his wallet and held it once more so that it shone +before his eyes in the firelight. + +"You're crazy, Phil Steele," he assured himself. "You're an unalloyed +idiot. What the deuce has Colonel Becker's wife got to do with you--even +if she has golden hair and uses cream-tinted paper soaked in hyacinth? +Confound it--there!" and he released the shining hair from his fingers +so that the air currents sent it floating back into the deeper gloom of +the cabin. + +It was midnight before he went to bed. He was up with the first cold +gray of dawn. All that day he strode steadily eastward on snowshoes, +over the company's trail to the bay. Two hours before dusk he put up his +light tent, gathered balsam for a bed, and built a fire of dry spruce +against the face of a huge rock in front of his shelter. It was still +light when he wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down on the balsam, +with his feet stretched out to the reflected heat of the big rock. It +seemed to Steele that there was an unnatural stillness in the air, as +the night thickened beyond the rim of firelight, and, as the gloom grew +still deeper, blotting out his vision in inky blackness, there crept +over him slowly a feeling of loneliness. It was a new sensation to +Steele, and he shivered as he sat up and faced the fire. It was this +same quiet, this same unending mystery of voiceless desolation that had +won him to the North. Until to-night he had loved it. But now there was +something oppressive about it, something that made him strain his eyes +to see beyond the rock and the fire, and set his ears in tense listening +for sounds which did not exist. He knew that in this hour he was longing +for companionship--not that of Breed, nor of men with whom he hunted +men, but of men and women whom he had once known and in whose lives he +had played a part--ages ago, it seemed to him. He knew, as he sat with +clenched hands and staring eyes, that chiefly he was longing for a +woman--a woman whose eyes and lips and sunny hair haunted him after +months of forgetfulness, and whose face smiled at him luringly, now, +from out the leaping flashes of fire--tempting him, calling him over a +thousand miles of space. And if he yielded-- + +The thought sent his nails biting into the flesh of his palms and he +sank back with a curse that held more of misery than blasphemy. Physical +exhaustion rather than desire for sleep closed his eyes, at last, in +half-slumber, and after that the face seemed nearer and more real to +him, until it was close at his side, and was speaking to him. He heard +again the soft, rippling laugh, girlishly sweet, that had fascinated him +at Hawkins' ball; he heard the distant hum and chatter of other voices, +and then one loud and close--that of Chesbro, who had unwittingly +interrupted them, and saved him, just in the nick of time. + +Steele moved restlessly; after a moment wriggled to his elbow and looked +toward the fire. He seemed to hear Chesbro's voice again as he awoke, +and a thrill as keen as an electric shock set his nerves tingling when +he heard once more the laughing voice of his dream, hushed and low. In +amazement he sat bolt upright and stared. Was he still dreaming? The +fire was burning brightly and he was aware that he had scarce fallen +into sleep. + +A movement--a sound of feet crunching softly in the snow, and a figure +came between him and the fire. + +It was a woman. + +He choked back the cry that rose to his lips and sat motionless and +without sound. The figure approached a step nearer, peering into the +deep gloom of the tent. He caught the silver glint in the firelight on +heavy fur, the whiteness of a hand touching lightly the flap of his +tent, and then for an instant he saw a face. In that instant he sat as +rigid as if he had stopped the beat of his own life. A pair of dark eyes +laughing in at him, a flash of laughing teeth, a low titter that was +scarce more than a rippling throat-note, and the face was gone, leaving +him still staring into the blank space where it had been. + +With a cough to give warning of his wakefulness, Steele flung off his +blanket and drew himself through the low opening of the tent. On the +extreme right of the fire stood a man and woman, warming themselves over +the coals. They straightened from their leaning posture as he appeared. + +"This is too bad, too bad, Mr. Steele," exclaimed the man, advancing +quickly. "I was afraid we'd make a blunder and awaken you. We were about +to camp on a mountain back there when we saw your fire and drove on to +it. I'm sorry--" + +"Wouldn't have had you miss me for anything," interrupted Steele, +gripping the other's proffered hand. "You see, I'm out from Lac Bain to +meet Colonel and Mrs. Becker, and--" He hesitated purposely, his white +teeth gleaming in the frank smile which made people like him immensely, +from the first. + +"You've met them," completed the laughing voice from across the fire. +"Please, Mr. Steele, will you forgive me for looking in at you and +waking you up? But your feet looked so terribly funny, and I assure you +that was all I could see, though I tried awfully hard. Anyway, I saw +your name printed on the flap of your tent." + +Steele felt a slow fire burning in his cheeks as he encountered the +beautiful eyes glowing at him from behind the colonel. The woman was +smiling at him. In the heat of the fire she had pushed back her fur +turban, and he saw that her hair was the same shining red gold that had +come to him in the letter, and that her lips and eyes and the glorious +color in her face were remarkably like those of which he had dreamed, +and of which waking visions had come with the hyacinth letter to fill +him with unrest and homesickness. In spite of himself he had reasoned +that she would be young and that she would have golden hair, but these +other things, the laughing beauty of her face, the luring depth of her +eyes. + +He caught himself staring. + +"I--I was dreaming," he almost stammered. He pulled himself together +quickly. "I was dreaming of a face, Mrs. Becker, It seems strange that +this should happen--away up here, in this way. The face that I dreamed +of is a thousand miles from here, and it is wonderfully like yours." + +The colonel was laughing at him when he turned. He was a little man, as +straight as a gun rod, pale of face except for his nose, which was +nipped red by the cold, and with a pointed beard as white as the snow +under his feet. That part of his countenance which exposed itself above +the top of his great fur coat and below his thick beaver cap was alive +with good cheer, notwithstanding its pallor. + +"Glad you're good humored about it, Steele," he cried with an immediate +tone of comradeship. "We wouldn't have ventured into your camp if it +hadn't been for Isobel. She was positively insistent, sir. Wanted to see +who was here and what it looked like. Eh, Isobel, my dear, are you +satisfied?" + +"I surely didn't expect to find 'It' asleep at this time of the day," +said Mrs. Becker. She laughed straight into Philip's face, and so +roguishly sweet was the curve of her red lips and the light in her eyes +that his heart quickened its beating, and the flush deepened in his +cheeks. + +"It's only six," he said, looking at his watch. "I don't usually turn in +this early. I was tired to-night--though I am not, now," he added +quickly. "I could sit up until morning--and talk. We don't often meet +people from outside, you know. Where are the others?" + +"Back there," said the colonel, waving an arm into the gloom. "Isobel +made 'em sit down and be quiet, dogs and all, sir, while we came on +alone. There are Indians, two sledges, and a ton of duff." + +"Call them," said Steele. "There's room for your tent beside mine, +Colonel, close against the face of this rock. It's as good as a +furnace." + +The colonel moved a little out into the gloom and shouted to those +behind. Philip turned to find Mrs. Becker looking at him in a timid, +questioning sort of way, the laughter gone from her eyes. For a moment +she seemed to be on the point of speaking to him, then picked up a short +stick and began toying with the coals. + +"You must be tired, Mrs. Becker," he said. "Now that you are near a +fire, I would suggest that you throw off your heavy coat. You will be +more comfortable, and I will bring you a blanket to sit on." + +He dived into his tent and a moment later reappeared with a blanket, +which he spread close against the butt of a big spruce within half a +dozen feet of the fire. When he turned toward her, the colonel's wife +had thrown off her coat and turban and stood before him, a slim and +girlish figure, bewitchingly pretty as she smiled her gratitude and +nestled down into the place he had prepared for her. For a moment he +bent over her, tucking the thick fur about her feet and knees, and in +that moment he breathed from the heavy coils of her shining hair the +flower-like sweetness which had already stirred him to the depths of his +soul. + +Colonel Becker was smiling down upon them when he straightened up, and +at the humorous twinkle in his eyes, as he gazed from one to the other, +Steele felt that the guilt of his own thoughts was blazing in his face. +He was glad that the Indians came up with the sledges just at this +moment, and as he went back to help them with the dogs and packs he +swore softly at himself for the heat that was in his blood and the +strange madness that was firing his brain. And inwardly he cursed +himself still more when he returned to the fire. From out the deep gloom +he saw the colonel sitting with his back against the spruce and Mrs. +Becker nestling against him, her head resting upon his shoulder, talking +and laughing up into his face. Even as he hesitated for an instant, +scarce daring to break upon the scene, he saw her pull the gray-bearded +face down to hers and kiss it, and in the ineffable contentment and +happiness shining in the two faces in the firelight Philip Steele knew +that he was looking upon that which had broken for ever the haunting +image of another woman in his heart. In its place would remain this +picture of love--love as he had dreamed of it, as he had hoped for it, +and which he had found at last--but not for himself--in the heart of a +wilderness. + +He saw now something childishly sweet and pure in the face that smiled +welcome to him as he came noisily through the snow-crust; and something, +too, in the colonel's face, which reached out and gripped at his very +heartstrings, and filled him with a warm glow that was new and strange +to him, and which was almost the happiness of these two. It swept from +him the sense of loneliness which had oppressed him a short time before, +and when at last, after they had talked for a long time beside the fire, +the colonel's wife lifted her pretty head drowsily and asked if she +might go to bed, he laughed in sheer joy at the pouting tenderness with +which she rubbed her pink cheek against the grizzled face above her, and +at the gentle light in the colonel's eyes as he half carried her into +the tent. + +For a long time after he had rolled himself in his own blanket Philip +lay awake, wondering at the strangeness of this thing that had happened +to him. It was Her hair that he had seen shining this night under the +old spruce, lustrous and soft, and coiled in its simple glory, as he had +seen it last on the night when Chesbro had broken in on them at the +ball. It was very easy for him to imagine that it had been Her face, +with soul and heart and love added to its beauty. More than ever he knew +what had been missing for him now, and blessed Chesbro for his +blundering, and fell asleep to dream of the new face, and to awaken +hours later to the unpleasant realization that his visions were but +dream-fabric after all, and that the woman was the wife of Colonel +Becker. + + + +Chapter III. A Skull And A Flirtation + +It was late afternoon when they came into Lac Bain, and as soon as +Philip had turned over the colonel and his wife to Breed, he hurried to +his own cabin. At the door he encountered Buck Nome. The two men had not +met since a month before at Nelson House, and there was but little +cordiality in Sng to say howdy to 'em," explained Nome, pausing for a +moment. "Deuce of a good joke on you, Steele! How do you like the job of +bringing in an old colonel's frozen wife, or a frozen colonel's old +wife, eh?" + +Every fiber in Steele's body grew tense at the banter in the other's +voice. He whirled upon Nome, who had partly turned away. + +"You remember--you lied down there at Nelson to get just such a 'job' as +this," he reminded. "Have you forgotten what happened--after that?" + +"Don't get miffed about it, man," returned Nome with an irritating +laugh. "All's fair in love and war. That was love down there, 'pon my +word of honor it was, and this is about as near the other thing as I +want to come." + +There was something in his laugh that drew Steele's lips in a tight line +as he entered the cabin. It was not the first time that he had listened +to Nome's gloating chuckle at the mention of certain women. It was this +more than anything else that made him hate the man. + +Physically, Nome was a magnificent specimen, beyond doubt the handsomest +man in the service north of Winnipeg; so that while other men despised +him for what they knew, women admired and loved him--until, now and then +too late for their own salvation, they discovered that his moral code +was rotten to the core. + +Such a thing had happened at Nelson House, and Philip felt himself +burning with a desire to choke the life out of Nome as he recalled the +tragedy there. And what would happen--now? The thought came to him like +a dash of cold water, and yet, after a moment, his teeth gleamed in a +smile as a vision rose before him of the love and purity which he had +seen in the sweet face of the colonel's wife. He chuckled softly to +himself as he dragged out a pack from under his bunk; but there was no +humor in the chuckle. From it he took a bundle wrapped in soft +birch-bark, and from this produced the skull that he had brought up with +him from the South. There was a tremble of excitement in his low laugh +as he glanced about the gloomy interior of the cabin. + +From the log ceiling hung a big oil lamp with a tin reflector, and under +this he hung the skull. + +"You'll make a pretty ornament, M'sieur Janette," he exclaimed, standing +off to contemplate the white thing leering and bobbing at him from the +end of its string. "Mon Dieu, I tell you that when the lamp is lighted +Bucky Nome must be blind if he doesn't recognize you, even though you're +dead, M'sieur!" + +He lighted a smaller lamp, shaved himself, and changed his clothes. It +was dark when he was ready for supper, and Nome had not returned. He +waited a quarter of an hour longer, then put on his cap and coat and +lighted the big oil lamp. At the door he turned to look back. The +cavernous sockets of the skull stared at him. From where he stood he +could see the ragged hole above the ear. + +"It's your game to-night, M'sieur Janette," he cried back softly, and +closed the door behind him. + +They were gathered before a huge fire of logs in the factor's big +living-room when Philip joined the others. A glance told him why Nome +had not returned to the cabin. Breed and the colonel were smoking cigars +over a ragged ledger of stupendous size, which the factor had spread out +upon a small table, and both were deeply absorbed. Mrs. Becker was +facing the fire, and close beside her sat Nome, leaning toward her and +talking in a voice so low that only a murmur of it came to Steele's +ears. The man's face was flushed when he looked up, and his eyes shone +with the old fire which made Philip hate him. + +As the woman turned to greet him Steele felt a suddenly sickening +sensation grip at his heart. Her cheeks, too, were flushed, and the +color in them deepened still more when he bowed to her and joined the +two men at the table. The colonel shook hands with him, and Philip +noticed that once or twice after that his eyes shifted uneasily in the +direction of the two before the fire, and that whenever the low laughter +of Mrs. Becker and Nome came to them he paid less attention to the +columns of figures which Breed was pointing out to him. When they rose +to go into supper, Philip's blood boiled as Nome offered his arm to Mrs. +Becker, who accepted it with a swift, laughing glance at the colonel. +There was no response in the older man's pale face, and Philip's fingers +dug hard into the palms of his hands. At the table Nome's attentions to +Mrs. Becker were even more marked. Once, under pretext of helping her to +a dish, he whispered words which brought a deeper flush to her cheeks, +and when she looked at the colonel his eyes were fixed upon her in stern +reproof. It was abominable! Was Nome mad? Was the woman-- + +Steele did not finish the thought in his own mind. His eyes encountered +those of the colonel's wife across the table. He saw a sudden, quick +catch of breath in her throat; even as he looked the flush faded from +her face, and she rose from her seat, her gaze still upon him. + +"I--I am not feeling well," she said. "Will you please excuse me?" + +In an instant Nome was at her side, but she turned quickly from him to +the colonel, who had risen from his chair. + +"Please take me to my room," she begged. "Then--then you can come back." + +Once more her face turned to Steele. There was a pallor in it now that +startled him. For a few moments he stood alone, as Breed and Nome left +the table. He listened, and heard the opening and closing of a second +door. + +Then a footstep, and Nome reappeared. + +"By Heaven, but she's a beauty!" he exclaimed. "I tell you, Steele--" + +Something in his companion's eyes stopped him. Two red spots burned in +Steele's cheeks as he advanced and gripped the other fiercely by the +arm. + +"Yes, she is pretty--very pretty," he said quietly, his fingers sinking +deeper into Nome's arm. "Get your hat and coat, Nome. I want to see you +in the cabin." + +Behind them the door opened and closed again, and Steele shoved past his +associate to meet Breed. + +"Buck and I have a little matter to attend to over at the cabin," he +explained. "When they--when the colonel returns tell him we'll be over +to smoke an after-supper pipe with him a little later, will you? And +give our compliments to--her." With a half-sneer on his lips he rejoined +Nome, who stared hard at him, and followed him through the outer door. + +"Now, what the devil does this mean?" Nome demanded when they were +outside. "If you have anything on your mind, Steele--" + +"I have," interrupted Philip, "and I'm going to relieve myself of it. +Pretty? She's as beautiful as an angel, Buck--the colonel's wife, I +mean. And you--" He laughed harshly. "You're always the lucky dog, Buck +Nome. You think she's half in love with you now. Too bad she was taken +ill just at the psychological moment, as you might say, Buck. Wonder +what was the matter?" + +"Don't know," growled Nome, conscious of something in the other's voice +which darkness concealed in his face. + +"Of course, you don't," replied Steele. + +"That's why I am bringing you over to the cabin. I am going to tell you +just what happened when Mrs. Becker was taken ill, and when she turned a +trifle pale, if you noticed sharply. Buck. It's a good joke, a mighty +good joke, and I know you will thoroughly appreciate it." + +He drew a step back when they came near the cabin, and Nome entered +first. Very coolly Philip turned and bolted the door. Then, throwing off +his coat, he pointed to the white skull dangling under the lamp. + +"Allow me to introduce an old friend of mine, Buck--M'sieur Janette, of +Nelson House." + +With a sudden curse Nome leaped toward his companion, his face flaming, +his hands clenched to strike--only to look into the shining muzzle of +Steele's revolver, with Steele's cold gray eyes glittering dangerously +behind it. + +"Sit down, Nome--right there, under the man you killed!" he commanded. +"Sit down, or by the gods I'll blow your head off where you stand! +There--and I'll sit here, like this, so that the cur's heart within you +is a bull's-eye for this gun. It's M'sieur Janette's turn tonight," he +went on, leaning over the little table, the red spots in his cheeks +growing redder and brighter as Nome cringed before his revolver. +"M'sieur Janette's--and the colonel's; but mostly Janette's. Remember +that, Nome. It's for Janette. I'm not thinking much about Mrs. +Becker--just now." + +Steele's breath came quickly and his lips were almost snarling in his +hatred of the man before him. + +"It's a lie!" gasped Nome chokingly, his face ashen white. "You lie when +you say I killed--Janette." + +The fingers of Steele's pistol hand twitched. + +"How I'd like to kill you!" he breathed. "You won his wife, Nome; you +broke his heart--and after that he killed himself. You sent a report +into headquarters that he killed himself by accident. You lied. It was +you who killed him--by taking his wife. I got his skull because I +thought I might need it against you to show that it was a pistol instead +of a rifle that killed him. And this isn't the first man you've sent to +hell, Nome, and is isn't the first woman. But your next won't be Mrs. +Becker!" + +He thrust his revolver almost into the other man's face as Nome opened +his lips to speak. + +"Shut up!" he cried. "If you open your dirty mouth again I'll be tempted +to kill you where you sit! Don't you know what happened to-night? Don't +you know that Mrs. Becker forgot herself, and remembered again, just in +time, and that you've taken a little blood from the colonel's heart as +you took all of it from--his?" He reached up and broke the string that +held the skull, turning the empty face of the thing toward Nome. "Look +at it, you scoundrel! That's the man you killed, as you would kill the +colonel if you could. That's Janette!" + +His voice fell to a hissing whisper as he shoved the skull slowly across +the table, so close that a sudden movement would have sent it against +the other's breast. + +"We've been fixing this thing up between us, Bucky--M'sieur Janette and +I," he went on, "and we've come to the conclusion that we won't kill +you, but that you don't belong to the service. Understand?" + +"You mean--to drive me out--" One of Nome's hands had stolen to his +side, and Steele's pistol arm grew tense. + +"On the table with your hands, Bucky! There, that's better," he laughed +softly. + +"Yes, we're going to drive you out. You're going to pack up a few things +right away, Bucky, and you're going to run like the devil away from this +place. I'd advise you to go straight back to headquarters and resign +from the Northwest Mounted. MacGregor knows you pretty well, Bucky, and +knows one or two things you've done, even though your whole record is +not an open book to him. I don't believe he'll put any obstacles in the +way of your discharge although your enlistment hasn't expired. +Disability is an easy plea, you know. But if the inspector should think +so much of you that he is loath to let you go, then M'sieur Janette and +I will have to fix up the story for headquarters, and I don't mind +telling you we'll add just a little for interest, and that the woman and +the people at Nelson House will swear to it. You've the making of a good +outlaw, Bucky," he smiled tauntingly, "and if you follow your natural +bent you'll have some of your old friends after you, good and hard. +You'd better steer clear of that though, and try your hand at being +honest for once. M'sieur Janette wants to give you this chance, and +you'd better make good time. So get a move on, Bucky. You'll need a +blanket and a little grub, that's all." + +"Steele, you don't mean this! Good God, man--" Nome had half risen to +his feet. "You don't mean this!" + +With his free hand Philip took out his watch. + +"I mean that if you are not gone within fifteen minutes I'll march you +over to Breed and the colonel, tell them the story of M'sieur Janette, +here, and hold you until we hear from headquarters," he said quickly. +"Which will it be, Nome?" + +Like one stunned by a blow Nome rose slowly to his feet. He spoke no +word as he carefully filled his pack with the necessities of a long +journey. At the door, as he opened it to go, he turned for just an +instant upon Steele, who was still holding the revolver in his hand. + +"Remember, Bucky," admonished Philip in a quiet voice, "it's all for the +good of yourself and the service." + +Fear had gone from Nome's face. It was filled now with a hatred so +intense that his teeth shone like the fangs of a snarling animal. + +"To hell with you," he said, "and to hell with the service; but +remember, Philip Steele, remember that some day we'll meet again." + +"Some day," laughed Philip. "Good-by, Bucky Nome--deserter!" + +The door closed and Nome was gone. + +"Now, M'sieur Janette, it's our turn," cried Steele, smiling +companionably upon the skull and loading his pipe. "It's our turn." + +He laughed aloud, and for some time puffed out luxurious clouds of smoke +in silence. + +"It's the best day's work I've done in my life," he continued, with his +eyes still upon the skull. "The very best, and it would be complete, +M'sieur, if I could send you down to the woman who helped to kill you." + +He stopped, and his eyes leaped with a sudden fire. "By George!" he +exclaimed, under his breath. His pipe went out; for many minutes he +stared with set face at the skull, as if it had spoken to him and its +voice had transfixed him where he stood. Then he tossed his pipe upon +the table, collected his service equipment and strapped it in his pack. +After that he returned to the table with a pad of paper and a pencil and +sat down. His face was strangely white as he took the skull in his +hands. + +"I'll do it, so help me all the gods, I'll do it!" he breathed +excitedly. "M'sieur, a woman killed you---as much as Bucky Nome, a woman +did it. You couldn't do her any good--but you might--another. I'm going +to send you to her, M'sieur. You're a terrible lesson, and I may be a +beast; but you're preaching a powerful sermon, and I guess--perhaps--you +may do her good. I'll tell her your story, old man, and the story of the +woman who made you so nice and white and clean. Perhaps she'll see the +moral, M'sieur. Eh? Perhaps!" + +For a long time he wrote, and when he had done he sealed the writing, +put the envelope and the skull together in a box, and tied the whole +with babiche string. On the outside he fastened another note to Breed, +the factor, in which he explained that he and Bucky Nome had found it +necessary to leave that very night for the West. And he heavily +underscored the lines in which he directed the factor to see that the +box was delivered to Mrs. Colonel Becker, and that, as he valued the +honor and the friendship of the service, and especially of Philip +Steele, all knowledge of it should be kept from the colonel himself. + +It was eight o'clock when he went out into the night with his pack upon +his back. He grunted approval when he found it was snowing, for the +track of himself and Nome would be covered. Through the thickening gloom +the two or three lights in the factor's home gleamed like distant stars. +One of them was brighter than the others, and he knew that it came from +the rooms which Breed had fitted up for the colonel and his wife. As +Philip halted for a moment, his eyes drawn by a haunting fascination to +that window, the light grew clearer and brighter, and he fancied that he +saw a face looking out into the night--toward his cabin. A moment later +he knew that it was the woman's face. Then a door opened, and a figure +hurried across the open. He stepped back into the gloom of his own cabin +and waited. It was the colonel. Three times he knocked loudly at the +cabin door. + +"I'd like to go out and shake his hand," muttered Steele. "I'd like to +tell him that he isn't the only man who's had an idol broken, and that +Mrs. B.'s little flirtation isn't a circumstance--to what might have +happened." + +Instead, he moved silently away, and turned his face into the thin trail +that buried itself in the black forests of the West. + + + +Chapter IV. The Silken Scarf + +A loneliness deeper than he had ever known--a yearning that was almost +pain, oppressed Philip as he left Lac Bain behind him. Half a mile from +the post he stopped under a shelter of dense spruce, and stood listening +as there came to him faintly the distant howling of a dog. After all, +had he done right? He laughed harshly and his hands clenched as he +thought of Bucky Nome. He had done right by him. But the skull--Mrs. +Becker--was that right? Like a flash there came to him out of the +darkness a picture of the scene beside the fire--of Mrs. Becker and the +colonel, of the woman's golden head resting on her husband's shoulder, +her sweet blue eyes filled with all the truth and glory of womanhood as +she had looked up into his grizzled face. And then there took its place +the scene beside the fire in the factor's room. He saw the woman's +flushed cheeks as she listened to the low voice of Bucky Nome, he saw +again what looked like yielding softness in her eyes--the grayish pallor +in the colonel's face as he had looked upon the flirtation. Yes, he had +done right. She had recovered herself in time, but she had taken a +little bit of life from the colonel, and from him. She had broken his +ideal--the ideal he had always hoped for, and had sought for, but had +never found, and he told himself that now she was no better than the +girl of the hyacinth letter, whose golden beauty and eyes as clear as an +angel's had concealed this same deceit that wrecked men's lives. M'sieur +Janette's clean, white skull and the story of how and why M'sieur +Janette had died would not be too great a punishment for her. + +He resumed his journey, striving to concentrate his mind on other +things. Seven or eight miles to the south and west was the cabin of +Jacques Pierrot, a half-breed, who had a sledge and dogs. He would hire +Jacques to accompany him on his patrol in place of Bucky Nome. Then he +would return to Nelson House and send in his report of Bucky Nome's +desertion, since he knew well enough after the final remarks of that +gentleman that he did not intend to sever his connection with the +Northwest Mounted in the regular way. After that--He shrugged his +shoulders as he thought of the fourteen months' of service still ahead +of him. Until now his adventure as a member of the Royal Mounted had not +grown monotonous for an hour. Excitement, action, fighting against odds, +had been the spice of life to him, and he struggled to throw off the +change that had taken hold of him the moment he had opened the +hyacinth-scented letter of Mrs. Becker. "You're a fool," he argued. +"You're as big a fool as Bucky Nome. My God--you--Phil Steele--letting a +married woman upset you like this!" + +It was near midnight when he came to Pierrot's cabin, but a light was +still burning in the half-breed's log home. Philip kicked off his snow +shoes and knocked at the door. In a moment Pierrot opened it, stepped +back, and stared at the white figure that came in out of the storm. + +"Mon Dieu--it ees you--Mee-sair Philip!" + +Philip held out his hand to Jacques, and shot a quick glance about him. +There had been a change in the cabin since he had visited it last. One +of Pierrot's hands was done up in a sling, his face was thin and pale, +and his dark eyes were sunken and lusterless. In the little wilderness +home there was an air of desertion and neglect, and Philip wondered +where Pierrot's rosy-cheeked, black-haired wife and his half dozen +children had gone. + +"Mon Dieu--it ees you, Mee-sair Philip," cried Pierrot again, his face +lighting up with pleasure. "You come late. You are hongree?" + +"I've had supper," replied Philip. "I've just come from Lac Bain. But +what's up, old man--?" He pointed to Pierrot's hand, and looked +questionably about the cabin again. + +"Eh--Iowla--my wife--she is at Churchill, over on the bay," groaned +Jacques. "And so are the children. What! You did not hear at Lac Bain? +Iowla is taken seek--ver' seek--with a strange thing which--ugh!--has to +be fixed with a knife, Mee-sair Philip. An' so I take her to the doctor +over at Churchill, an' he fix her--an' she is growing well now, an' will +soon come home. She keep the children with her. She say they mak' her +think of Jacques, on his trap-line. Eh--it ees lonely--dam'--dam' +lonely, and I have been gone from my Iowla but two weeks to-morrow." + +"You have been with her at Fort Churchill?" asked Philip, taking off his +pack and coat. + +"Oui, M'sieur," said Jacques, falling into his French. "I have been +there since November. What! They did not tell you at Lac Bain?" + +"No--they did not tell me. But I was there but a few hours, Jacques. +Listen--" He pulled out his pipe and began filling it, with his back to +the stove. "You saw people--strangers--at Fort Churchill, Jacques? They +came over on the London ship, and among them there was a woman--" + +Pierrot's pale face flashed up with sudden animation. + +"Ah--zee angel!" he cried. "That is what my Iowla called her, M'sieur. +See!" He pointed to his bandaged hand. "Wan day that bete--the Indian +dog of mine--did that, an' w'en I jumped up from the snow in front of +the company's store, the blood running from me, I see her standing +there, white an' scared. An' then she run to me with a little scream, +an' tear something from her neck, an' tie it round my hand. Then she go +with me to my cabin, and every day after that she come to see my Iowla +an' the children. She wash little Pierre, an' cut his hair. She wash +Jean an' Mabelle. She laugh an' sing an' hol' the baby, an' my Iowla +laugh an' sing; an' she takes down my Iowla's hair, which is so long +that it falls to her knees, an' does it up in a wonderful way an' says +she would give everything she got if she could have that hair. An' my +Iowla laugh at her, because her hair is like an angel's--like fire w'en +the sun is on it; an' my Iowla tak' hers down, all red an' gold, an' do +it up in the Cree way. And w'en she brings the man with her--he laughs +an' plays with the kids, an' says he knows the doctor and that there +will be nothing to pay for all that he is done. Ah--she ees wan +be-e-eautiful-l-l angel! An' this--this is w'at she tied around my +hand." + +With new life Pierrot went to a covered box nailed against one of the +log walls and a moment later placed in Philip's hands a long, white, +silken neck-scarf. Once more there rose to his nostrils the sweet, faint +scent of hyacinth, and with a sudden low cry Philip crushed the dainty +fabric in a mass to his face. In that moment it seemed as though the +sweetness of the woman herself was with him, stirring him at last to +confess the truth--the thing which he had fought against so fiercely in +those few hours at Lac Bain; and the knowledge that he had surrendered +to himself, that in going from Lac Bain he was leaving all that the +world held for him in the way of woman and love, drew his breath from +him in another broken, stifled cry. + +When he lowered the scarf his face was white. Pierrot was staring at +him. + +"It makes me think--of home," he explained lamely. "Sometimes I get +lonely, too. There's a girl--down there--who wears a scarf like this, +and what she wears smells like a flower, just as this does--" + +"Oui, I understand," said Pierrot softly. "It is the way I feel when my +Iowla is gone." + +He replaced the scarf in the box, and when he returned to the stove +Philip explained why he had come to his cabin. With Pierrot's promise to +accompany him with dogs and sledge on his patrol the next day he +prepared to go to bed. Pierrot also was undressing, and Philip said to +him casually, + +"This woman--at Churchill--Jacques--what if some one should tell you +that she is not so much of an angel after all--that she is, perhaps, +something like--like the woman over at Lac la Biche, who ran away with +the Englishman?" + +Pierrot straightened as though Philip had thrust a knife-point into his +back. He broke forth suddenly into French. + +"I would call him a liar, M'sieur," he cried fiercely. "I would call him +a liar, once-twice--three times, and then if he said it again I would +fight him. Mon Dieu, but it would be no sin to kill one with a mouth +like that!" + +Philip was conscious of the hot blood rushing to his face as he bent +over his bunk. The depths of Pierrot's faith shamed him, and he crawled +silently between the blankets and turned his face to the wall. Pierrot +extinguished the light, and a little later Philip could hear his deep +breathing. But sleep refused to close his own eyes, and he lay on his +back, painfully awake. In spite of the resolution he had made to think +no more of the woman at Lac Bain, his mind swept him back to her +irresistibly. He recalled every incident that had occurred, every word +that she had spoken, since he had first looked upon her beautiful face +out on the Churchill trail. He could find nothing but purity and +sweetness until he came with her for that fatal hour or two into the +company of Bucky Nome. And then, again, his blood grew hot. But--after +all--was there not some little excuse for her? He thought of the +hundreds of women he had known, and wondered if there was one among them +all who had not at some time fallen into this same little error as Mrs. +Becker. For the first time he began to look at himself. Mrs. Becker had +laughed with Bucky Nome, her cheeks had grown a little flushed, her eyes +had shone radiantly--but were those things a sin? Had those same eyes +not looked up into his own, filled with a sweetness that thrilled him, +when he bent over her beside the fire out on the Churchill trail? Was +there not that same lovely flush in her face when his lips had almost +touched her hair? And had not the colonel's sudden return brought a +flush into both their faces? He smiled to himself, and for a moment he +thrilled ecstatically. The reaction came like a shock. In an instant +other scenes--other faces--flashed upon him, and again he saw the +luring, beautiful face of Eileen Hawkins, who smiled on men as Mrs. +Becker had smiled on Bucky Nome and on him. + +He closed his eyes and tried to force himself into sleep, but failed. At +last he rose silently from his bunk, filled his pipe, and sat down in +the darkness beside the stove. The storm had increased to a gale, +wailing and moaning over the cabin outside, and the sound carried him +back to the last night in the cabin far to the south, when he had +destroyed the hyacinth-scented letter. The thought of the letter moved +him restlessly. He listened to Pierrot's breathing, and knew that the +half-breed was asleep. Then he rose to his feet and laid his pipe on the +table. A curious feeling of guilt came over him as he moved toward the +box in which Jacques had placed the silken scarf. His breath came +quickly; in the dark his eyes shone; a tingling thrill of strange +pleasure shot through him as his fingers touched the thing for which +they were searching. He drew the scarf out, and returned to the stove +with it, crushing it in both his hands. The sweetness of it came to him +again like the woman's breath. It was the sweetness of her hair, of the +golden coils massed in the firelight; a part of the woman herself, of +her glorious eyes, her lips, her face--and suddenly he crushed the +fabric to his own face, and stood there, trembling in the darkness, +while Jacques Pierrot slept and the storm wailed and moaned over his +head. For he knew--now--that he would do more for this woman than +Jacques Pierrot could ever do; more, perhaps, than even the colonel, her +husband, would do. His heart seemed bursting with a new and terrible +pain, and the truth at last seemed to rise and choke him. He loved her. +He loved this woman, the wife of another man. He loved her as he had +never dreamed that he could love a woman, and with the scarf still +smothering his lips and face he stood for many minutes, silent and +motionless, gathering himself slowly from out of the appalling depths +into which he had allowed himself to plunge. + +Then he folded the scarf, and instead of returning it to the box, put it +in one of the pockets of his coat. + +"Pierrot won't care," he excused himself. "And it's the only thing, +little girl--the only thing--I'll ever have--of you." + + + +Chapter V. Beauty-Proof + +It was Pierrot who aroused Philip in the morning. + +"Mon, Dieu, but you have slept like a bear," he exclaimed. "The storm +has cleared and it will be fine traveling. Eh--you have not heard? I +wonder why they are firing guns off toward Lac Bain!" + +Philip jumped from his bed, and his first look was in the direction of +the box. He was criminal enough to hope that Jacques would not discover +that the scarf was missing. + +"A moose--probably," he said. "There were tracks close up to the post a +day or two ago." + +He was anxious to begin their journey, and assisted Pierrot in preparing +breakfast. The sound of guns impressed upon him the possibility of some +one from Lac Bain calling at the half-breed's cabin, and he wished to +avoid further association with people from the post--at least for a +time. At nine o'clock Pierrot bolted the door and the two set off into +the south and west. On the third day they swung to the eastward to +strike the Indians living along Reindeer Lake, and on the sixth cut a +trail by compass straight for Nelson House. A week later they arrived at +the post, and Philip found a letter awaiting him calling him to Prince +Albert. In a way the summons was a relief to him. He bade Pierrot +good-by, and set out for Le Pas in company with two Indians. From that +point he took the work train to Etomami, and three hours later was in +Prince Albert. + +"Rest up for a time, Steele," Inspector MacGregor told him, after he had +made a personal report on Bucky Nome. + +During the week that followed Philip had plenty of leisure in which to +tell himself that he was a fool, and that he was deliberately throwing +away what a munificent fortune had placed in his hands. MacGregor's +announcement that he was in line for promotion in the near future did +not stir him as it would have done a few weeks before. In his little +barracks room he laughed ironically as he recalled MacGregor's words, +"We're going to make a corporal or a sergeant of you." He--Philip +Steele--millionaire, club man, son of a western king of finance--a +corporal or a sergeant! For the first time the thought amused him, and +then it maddened him. He had played the part of an idiot, and all +because there had been born within him a love of adventure and the big, +free life of the open. No wonder some of his old club friends regarded +him as a scapegrace and a ne'er-do-well. He had thrown away position, +power, friends and home as carelessly as he might have tossed away the +end of a cigar. And all--for this! He looked about his cramped quarters, +a half sneer on his lips. He had tied himself to this! To his ears there +came faintly the thunder of galloping hoofs. Sergeant Moody was training +his rookies to ride. The sneer left his lips, and was replaced by a +quick, alert smile as he heard a rattle of revolver shots and the +cheering of voices. After all, it was not so bad. It was a service that +made men, and he thought of the English remittance-man, whose father was +a lord of something-or-other, and who was learning to ride and shoot out +there with red-headed, raucous-voiced Moody. There began to stir in him +again the old desire for action, and he was glad when word was sent to +him that Inspector MacGregor wished to see him in his office. + +The big inspector was pacing back and forth when Philip came in. + +"Sit down, Steele, sit down," he said. "Take it easy, man--and have a +cigar." + +If MacGregor had suddenly gone into a fit Philip could not have been +more surprised than at these words, as he stood with his cap in his hand +before the desk of the fiery-mustached inspector, who was passing his +box of choice Havanas. There are tightly drawn lines of distinction in +the Royal Mounted. As Philip had once heard the commissioner say, "Every +man in the service is a king--but there are different degrees of kings," +and for a barracks man to be asked to sit in the inspector's office and +smoke was a sensational breach of the usual code. But as he had +distinctly heard the invitation to sit, and to smoke, Philip proceeded +to do both, and waited in silence for the next mine to explode under his +feet. And there was a certain ease in his manner of doing these things +which would have assured most men that he was not unaccustomed to +sitting in the presence of greatness. + +The inspector seemed to notice this. For a moment he stood squarely in +front of Steele, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, a twinkle in +the cold, almost colorless eyechuckling, companionable laugh, such as +finds its vent in the fellowship of equals, but which is seldom indulged +in by a superior before an inferior in the R.N.W.M. Police. + +"Mighty good cigars, eh, Steele?" he asked, turning slowly toward the +window. "The commissioner sent 'em up to me from Regina. Nothing like a +good cigar on a dreary day like this. Whew, listen to the wind--straight +from Medicine Hat!" + +For a few moments he looked out upon the cheerless drab roofs of the +barracks, with their wisps of pale smoke swirling upward into the leaden +sky; counted the dozen gnarled and scrubby trees, as had become a habit +with him; rested his eyes upon the black and shriveled remnants of +summer flower-beds thrusting their frost-shrunken stalks through the +snow, and then, almost as if he were speaking to himself, he said, +"Steele, are you beautyproof?" + +There was no banter in his voice. It was low, so low that it had in it +the ring of something more than mere desire for answer, and when the +inspector turned, Philip observed a thing that he had never seen +before--a flush in MacGregor's face. His pale eyes gleamed. His voice +was filled with an intense earnestness as he repeated the question. "I +want to know, Steele. Are you beauty-proof?" + +In spite of himself Philip felt the fire rising in his own face. In that +moment the inspector could have hit on no words that would have thrilled +him more deeply than those which he had spoken. Beauty-proof! Did +MacGregor know? Was it possible-- He took a step forward, words came to +his lips, but he caught himself before he had given voice to them. + +Beauty-proof! + +He laughed, softly, as the inspector had laughed a few moments before. +But there was a strange tenseness in his face--something which MacGregor +saw, but could not understand. + +"Beauty-proof?" He repeated the words, looking keenly at the other. +"Yes, I think I am, sir." + +"You think you are?" + +"I am quite sure that I am. Inspector. That is as far as I can go." + +The inspector seated himself at his desk and opened a drawer. From it he +took a photograph. For some time he gazed at it in silence, puffing out +clouds of smoke from his cigar. Then, without lifting his eyes from the +picture, he said: "I am going to put you up against a queer case, +Steele, and the strangest thing about it is its very simplicity. It's a +job for the greenest rookie in the service, and yet I swear that there +isn't another man in Saskatchewan to whom I would talk as I am about to +talk to you. Rather paradoxical, isn't it?" + +"Rather," agreed Philip. + +"And yet not when you come to understand the circumstances," continued +the inspector, placing the photograph face down on the table and looking +at the other through a purple cloud of tobacco smoke. "You see, Steele, +I know who you are. I know that your father is Philip Steele, the big +Chicago banker. I know that you are up here for romance and adventure +rather than for any other thing there is in the service. I know, too, +that you are no prairie chicken, and that most of your life has been +spent where you see beautiful women every hour of the day, and where +soft voices and tender smiles aren't the most wonderful things in the +world, as they sometimes are up here. Fact is, we have a way of our own +of running down records--" + +"And a confounded clever one it must be," interrupted Philip +irreverently. "Had you any--any particular reason for supposing me to be +'beauty-proof,' as you call it?" he added coldly. + +"I've told you my only reason," said the inspector, leaning over his +desk. "You've seen so many pretty faces, Steele, and you've associated +with them so long that one up here isn't going to turn your head. Now--" + +MacGregor hesitated, and laughed. The flush grew deeper in his cheeks, +and he looked again at the photograph. + +"I'm going to be frank with you," he went on. "This young woman called +on me yesterday, and within a quarter of an hour--fifteen minutes, mind +you!--she had me going like a fool! Understand? I'm not proof--against +her--and yet I'm growing old in the service and haven't had a love +affair since--a long time ago. I'm going to send you up to the Wekusko +camp, above Le Pas, to bring down a prisoner. The man is her husband, +and he almost killed Hodges, who is chief of construction up there. The +minimum he'll get is ten years, and this woman is moving heaven and +earth to save him. So help me God, Steele, if I was one of the +youngsters, and she came to me as she did yesterday, I believe I'd let +him give me the slip! But it mustn't happen. Understand? It mustn't +happen. We've got to bring that man down, and we've got to give him the +law. Simple thing, isn't it--this bringing a prisoner down from Wekusko! +Any rookie could do it, couldn't he? And yet--" + +The inspector paused to light his cigar, which had gone out. Then he +added: "If you'll do this, Steele--and care for it--I'll see that you +get your promotion." + +As he finished, he tossed the photograph across the desk. "That's she. +Don't ask me how I got the picture." + +A curious thrill shot through Philip as he picked up the bit of +cardboard. It was a wondrously sweet face that looked squarely out of it +into his eyes, a face so youthful, so filled with childish prettiness +that an exclamation of surprise rose to his lips. Under other +circumstances he would have sworn that it was the picture of a +school-girl. He looked up, about to speak, but MacGregor had turned +again to the window, clouds of smoke about his head. He spoke without +turning his head. + +"That was taken nearly ten years ago," he said, and Philip knew that he +was making an effort to keep an unnatural break out of his voice. "But +there has been little change--almost none. His name is Thorpe. I will +send you a written order this afternoon and you can start to-night." + +Philip rose, and waited. + +"Is there nothing more?" he asked, after a moment. "This woman--" + +"There is nothing more," interrupted the inspector, still looking out +through the window. + +"Only this, Steele--you must bring him back. Whatever happens, bring +back your prisoner." + +As he turned to leave, Philip fancied that he caught something else--a +stifled, choking breath, a sound that made him turn his head again as he +went through the door. The inspector had not moved. + +"Now what the deuce does this mean?" he asked himself, closing the door +softly behind him. "You're up against something queer this time, Philip +Steele, I'll wager dollars to doughnuts. Promotion for bringing in a +prisoner! What in thunder--" + +He stopped for a moment in one of the cleared paths. From the big low +roofed drill enclosure a hundred yards away came the dull thud of +galloping hoofs and the voice of Sergeant Moody thundering instructions +to the rookies. Moody had a heart like flint and would have faced +blazing cannon to perform his duty. He had grown old and ugly in the +service and was as beauty-proof as an ogre of stone. Why hadn't +MacGregor sent him? + +Beauty-proof! The words sent a swift rush of thought, of regret, of the +old homesickness and longing through Philip as he returned to his +quarters. He wondered just how much MacGregor knew, and he sat down to +bring up before him for the thousandth time a vision of the two faces +that had played their part in his life--the face of the girl at home, as +beautiful as a Diane de Poitiers, as soulless as a sphinx, who had +offered herself to him in return for his name and millions, and of that +other which he had met away up in the frozen barrens of Lac Bain. +Beauty-proof! He laughed and loaded his pipe. MacGregor had made a good +guess, even though he did not know what had passed that winter before he +came north to seek adventure, or of the fight he had made for another +woman, with Mr. Bucky Nome--deserter! + + + +Chapter VI. Philip Follows A Pretty Face + +It was late in the afternoon when Philip's instructions came from the +inspector. They were tersely official in form, gave him all necessary +authority, and ordered him to leave for Le Pas that night. Pinned to the +order was a small slip of paper, and on this MacGregor had repeated in +writing his words of a few hours before: "Whatever happens, bring back +your prisoner." + +There was no signature to this slip, and the first two words were +heavily underscored. What did this double caution mean? Coming from a +man like MacGregor, who was as choice as a king of his advice, Philip +knew that it was of unusual significance. If it was intended as a +warning, why had not the inspector given him more detail? During the +hour in which he was preparing for his journey he racked his brain for +some clew to the situation. The task which he was about to perform +seemed simple enough. A man named Thorpe had attempted murder at +Wekusko. He was already a prisoner, and he was to bring him down. The +biggest coward in Saskatchewan, or a man from a hospital bed, could do +this much, and yet-- + +He read the inspector's words over and over again. "Whatever happens!" +In spite of himself a little stir of excitement crept into his blood. +Since that thrilling hour in which he had seen Bucky Nome desert from +the service he had not felt himself moved as now, and in a moment of +mental excitement he found himself asking a question which a few minutes +before he would have regarded as a mark of insanity. Was it possible +that in the whole of the Northland there could be another woman as +beautiful as Colonel Becker's wife--a woman so beautiful that she had +turned even Inspector MacGregor's head, as Mrs. Becker had turned Bucky +Nome's--and his? Was it possible that between these two women--between +this wife of an attempted murderer and Mrs. Becker there was some +connecting link--some association-- + +He cut his thoughts short with a low exclamation of disgust. The +absurdity of the questions he had asked himself brought a flush into his +face. But he could not destroy the undercurrent of emotions they had +aroused. Anyway, something was going to happen. He was sure of that. The +inspector's actions, his words, his mysterious nervousness, the strange +catch in his voice as they parted, all assured him that there was a good +reason for the repeated warning. And whatever did happen was to be +brought about by the woman whose girlish beauty he had looked upon in +the picture. That MacGregor was aware of the nature of his peril, if he +was to run into danger at all, he was sure, and he was equally certain +that some strong motive restrained the inspector from saying more than +he had. Already he began to scent in the adventure ahead of him those +elements of mystery, of excitement, even of romance, the craving for +which was an inherited part of his being. And with these things there +came another sensation, one that surprised and disquieted him. A few +days before his one desire had been to get out of the north country, to +place as much distance as possible between himself and Lac Bain. And now +he found himself visibly affected by the thought that his duty was to +take him once more in the direction of the woman whose sweet face had +become an indissoluble part of his existence. He would not see her. Even +at Wekusko he would be many days' journey from Lac Bain. But she would +be nearer to him, and it was this that quickened his pulse. + +He was ten minutes early for his train, and employed that interval in +mingling among the people at the station. MacGregor had as much as told +him that whatever unusual thing might develop depended entirely upon the +appearance of the woman and he began to look for her. She was not at the +station. Twice he walked through the coaches of his train without +discovering a face that resembled that in the photograph. + +It was late when he arrived at Etomami, where the sixty mile line of the +Hudson's Bay Railroad branches off to the north. At dawn he entered the +caboose of the work train, which was to take him up through the +wilderness to Le Pas. He was the only passenger. + +"There ain't even a hand-car gone up ahead of us," informed the brakeman +in response to his inquiry. "This is the only train in five days." + +After all, it was to be a tame affair, in spite of the inspector's +uneasiness and warnings, thought Philip. The woman was not ahead of him. +Two days before she had been in MacGregor's office, and under the +circumstances it was impossible for her to be at Le Pas or at Wekusko, +unless she had traveled steadily on dog sledge. Philip swore softly to +himself in his disappointment, ate breakfast with the train gang, went +to sleep, and awoke when they plowed their way into the snow-smothered +outpost on the Saskatchewan. + +The brakeman handed him a letter. + +"This came on the Le Pas mail," he explained. "I kept it out for you +instead of sending it to the office." + +"Thank you," said Philip. "A special--from headquarters. Why in thunder +didn't they send me a messenger instead of a letter, Braky? They could +have caught me on the train." + +He tore open the departmental envelope as he spoke and drew forth a bit +of folded paper. It was not the official letter-head, but at a glance +Philip recognized the inspector's scrawling writing and his signature. +It was one of MacGregor's quiet boasts that the man did not live who +could forge his name. An astonished whistle broke from his lips as he +read these few lines: + +Follow your conscience, whatever you do. Both God and man will reward +you in the end. + +Felix MacGregor. + +And this was all. There was no date, no word of explanation; even his +own name had been omitted from this second order. He picked up the +envelope which had fallen to the floor and looked at the postmark. It +had been stamped four-thirty. It was after five, an hour later, that he +had received his verbal instructions from MacGregor! The inspector must +have written the note before their interview of the preceding +afternoon--before his repeated injunction of "Whatever happens, bring +back your prisoner!" But this letter was evidently intended as final +instructions since it had been sent so as to reach him at this time. +What did it mean? The question buzzed in Philip's brain, repeated itself +twenty times, fifty times, as he hurried through the gathering darkness +of the semi-polar night toward the log hotel of the place. He was +convinced that there was some hidden motive in the inspector's actions. +What was he to understand? + +Suddenly he stopped, a hundred yards from the glimmering lights of the +Little Saskatchewan hotel, and chuckled audibly as he stuffed his pipe. +It flashed upon him now why MacGregor had chosen him instead of an +ordinary service man to bring down the prisoner from Wekusko. MacGregor +knew that he, Philip Steele, college man and man of the world, would +reason out the key to this little puzzle, whereas Sergeant Moody and +others of his type would turn back for explanations. And Inspector +MacGregor, twenty years in the service, and recognized as the shrewdest +man-hunter between the coasts, wished to give no explanation. Philip's +blood tingled with fresh excitement as the tremendous risk which the +inspector himself was running, dawned upon him. Publicity of the note +which he held in his hand would mean the disgrace and retirement even of +Felix MacGregor. + +He thrust the letter in his pocket and hurried on. The lights of the +settlement were already agleam. From the edge of the frozen river there +came the sound of a wheezy accordion in a Chinese cafe, and the howling +of a dog, either struck by man or worsted in a fight. Where the more +numerous lights of the one street shone red against the black background +of forest, a drunken half-breed was chanting in half-Cree, half-French, +the chorus of the caribou song. He heard the distant snapping of a whip, +the yelping response of huskies, and a moment later a sledge and six +dogs passed him so close that he was compelled to leap from their path. +This was Le Pas--the wilderness! Beyond it, just over the frozen river +which lay white and silent before him, stretched that endless desolation +of romance and mystery which he had grown to love, a world of deep +snows, of silent-tongued men, of hardship and battle for life where the +law of nature was the survival of the fittest, and that of man, "Do unto +others as ye would that they should do unto you." Never did Philip +Steele's heart throb with the wild, free pulse of life and joy as in +such moments as these, when his fortune, his clubs, and his friends were +a thousand miles away, and he stood on the edge of the big northern +Unknown. + +As he had slept through the trainmen's dinner hour, he was as hungry as +a wolf, and he lost no time in seating himself in a warm corner of the +low, log-ceilinged dining-room of the Little Saskatchewan. Although a +quarter of an hour early, he had hardly placed himself at his table when +another person entered the room. Casually he glanced up from the two +letters which he had spread out before him. The one who had followed him +was a woman. She had turned sharply upon seeing him and seated herself +at the next table, her back so toward him that he caught only her half +profile. + +It was enough to assure him that she was young and pretty. On her head +she wore a turban of silver lynx fur, and about this she had drawn her +glossy brown hair, which shone like burnished copper in the lamp-glow, +and had gathered it in a bewitchingly coquettish knot low on her neck, +where it shone with a new richness and a new warmth with every turn of +her head. But not once did she turn so that Philip could see more than +the tantalizing pink of her cheek and the prettiness of her chin, which +at times was partly concealed in a collarette of the same silver gray +lynx fur. + +He ate his supper almost mechanically, in spite of his hunger, for his +mind was deep in the mysterious problem which confronted him. Half a +dozen times he broke in upon his thoughts to glance at the girl at the +opposite table. Once he was sure that she had been looking at him and +that she had turned just in time to keep her face from him. Philip +admired pretty women, and of all beauty in woman he loved beautiful +hair, so that more and more frequently his eyes traveled to the shining +wealth of copper-colored tresses near him. He had almost finished his +supper when a movement at the other table drew his eyes up squarely, and +his heart gave a sudden jump. The girl had risen. She was facing him, +and as for an instant their eyes met she hesitated, as if she were on +the point of speaking. In that moment he recognized her. + +It was the girl in the photograph, older, more beautiful--the same soft, +sweet contour of face, the same dark eyes that had looked at him in +MacGregor's office, filled with an indescribable sadness now, instead of +the laughing joy of girlhood. In another moment he would have responded +to her hesitation, to the pathetic tremble of her lips, but before words +could form themselves she had turned and was gone. And yet at the door, +even as she disappeared, he saw her face turned to him again, +pleadingly, entreatingly, as if she knew his mission and sent to him a +silent prayer for mercy. + +Thrusting back his chair, he caught up his hat from a rack and followed. +He was in time to see her pass through the low door out into the night. +Without hesitation his mind had leaped to a definite purpose. He would +overtake her outside, introduce himself, and then perhaps he would +understand the conflicting orders of Inspector MacGregor. + +The girl was passing swiftly down the main street when he took up the +pursuit. Suddenly she turned into a path dug through the snow that led +riverward. Ahead of her there was only the starlit gloom of night and +the distant blackness of the wilderness edge. Philip's blood ran a +little faster. She had expected that he would follow, knew that he was +close behind her, and had turned down into this deserted place that they +might not be observed! He made no effort now to overtake her, but kept +the same distance between them, whistling carelessly and knowing that +she would stop to wait for him. Ahead of them there loomed up out of the +darkness a clump of sapling spruce, and into their shadow the girl +disappeared. + +A dozen paces more and Philip himself was buried in the thick gloom. He +heard quick, light footsteps in the snow-crust ahead of him. Then there +came another sound--a step close behind him, a noise of disturbed brush, +a low voice which was not that of a woman, and before his hand could +slip, to the holster at his belt a human form launched itself upon him +from the side, and a second form from behind, and under their weight he +fell a helpless heap into the snow. Powerful hands wrenched his arms +behind his back and other hands drew a cloth about his mouth. A stout +cord was twisted around his wrists, his legs were tied, and then his +captors relieved him of their weight. + +Not a word had been spoken during the brief struggle. Not a word was +spoken now as his mysterious assailants hoisted him between them and +followed in the footsteps of the woman. Scarcely a hundred paces beyond +the spruce the dark shadow of a cabin came into view. Into this he was +carried and placed on something which he took to be a box. Then a light +was struck. + +For the first time Philip's astonished eyes had a view of his captors. +One of them was an old man, a giant in physique, with a long gray beard +and grayish yellow hair that fell to his shoulders. His companion was +scarcely more than a boy, yet in his supple body, as he moved about, +Philip recognized the animal-like strength of the forest breed. A word +spoken in a whisper by the boy revealed the fact that the two were +father and son. From that side of the room which was at Philip's back +they dragged forth a long pine box, and were engaged in this occupation +when the door opened and a third man entered. Never had Philip looked on +a more unprepossessing face than that of the newcomer, in whose little +black eyes there seemed to be a gloating triumph as he leered at the +prisoner. He was short, with a huge breadth of shoulders. His eyes and +mouth and nose were all but engulfed in superfluous flesh, and as he +turned from Philip to the man and boy over the box he snapped the joints +of his fingers in a startling manner. + +"Howdy, howdy!" he wheezed, like one afflicted with asthma. "Good! +good!" With these four words he lapsed into the silence of the older man +and the boy. + +As the box was dragged full into the light, a look of horror shot into +Philip's eyes. It was the rough-box of a coffin! Without a word, and +apparently without a signal, the three surrounded him and lifted him +bodily into it. To his surprise he found himself lying upon something +soft, as if the interior of his strange prison had been padded with +cushions. Then, with extreme caution, his arms were freed from under his +back and strapped to his side, and other straps, broad and firm, were +fastened from side to side of the box across his limbs and body, as if +there were danger of his flying up and out through the top. Another +moment and a shadow fell above him, pitch gloom engulfed him. + +They were dragging on the cover to the box! He heard the rapid beating +of a hammer, the biting of nails into wood, and he writhed and struggled +to free his hands, to cry out, to gain the use of his legs, but not the +fraction of an inch could he relieve himself of his fetters. After a +time his straining muscles relaxed, and he stopped to get his breath and +listen. Faintly there came to him the sound of subdued voices, and he +caught a glimmer of light, then another, and still a third. He saw now +that half a dozen holes had been bored into the cover and sides of the +box. The discovery brought with it a sense of relief. At least he was +not to be suffocated. He found, after an interval, that he was even +comfortable, and that his captors had not only given him a bed to lie +upon, but had placed a pillow under his head. + + + +Chapter VII. The Tragedy In The Cabin + +A few moments later Philip heard the movement of heavy feet, the opening +and closing of a door, and for a time after that there was silence. Had +MacGregor anticipated this, he wondered? Was this a part of the program +which the inspector had foreseen that he would play? His blood warmed at +the thought and he clenched his fists. Then he began to think more +calmly. His captors had not relieved him of his weapons. They had placed +his service cap in the box with him and had unbuckled his cartridge belt +so that he would rest more comfortably. What did all this mean? For the +hundredth time he asked himself the question. + +Returning footsteps interrupted his thoughts. The cabin door opened, +people entered, again he heard whispering voices. + +He strained his ears. At first he could have sworn that he heard the +soft, low tones of a woman's voice, but they were not repeated. Hands +caught hold of the box, dragged it across the floor, and then he felt +himself lifted bodily, and, after a dozen steps, placed carefully upon +some object in the snow. His amazement increased when he understood what +was occurring. + +He was on a sledge. Through the air-holes in his prison he heard the +scraping of strap-thongs as they were laced through the runner-slits and +over the box, the restless movement of dogs, a gaping whine, the angry +snap of a pair of jaws. Then, slowly, the sledge began to move. A whip +cracked loudly above him, a voice rose in a loud shout, and the dogs +were urged to a trot. Again there came to Philip's ears the wheezing +notes of the accordion. By a slight effort he found that he could turn +his head sufficiently to look through a hole on a level with his eyes in +the side of the box. The sledge had turned from the dark trail into the +lighted street, and stopped at last before a brilliantly lighted front +from which there issued the sound of coarse voices, of laughter and +half-drunken song. + +One of his captors went into the bar while the other seated himself on +the box, with one leg shutting out Philip's vision by dangling it over +the hole through which he was looking. + +"What's up, Fingy?" inquired a voice. + +"Wekusko," replied the man on the box, in the husky, flesh-smothered +tones of the person who had entered last into the cabin. + +"Another dead one up there, eh?" persisted the same voice. + +"No. Maps 'n' things f'r Hodges, up at the camp. Devil of a hurry, ain't +he, to order us up at night? Tell ---- to hustle out with the bottle, +will you?" + +The speaker sent the lash of his whip snapping through the air in place +of supplying a name. + +"Maps and things--for Hodges--Wekusko!" gasped Philip inwardly. + +He listened for further information. None came, and soon the man called +Fingy jumped from the box, cracked his whip with a wheezing command to +the dogs, and the sledge moved on. + +And so his captors were taking him to Wekusko?--and more than that, to +Hodges, chief of construction, whose life had been attempted by the +prisoner whom Inspector MacGregor had ordered him to bring down! Had +Fingy spoken the truth? And, if so, was this another part of the +mysterious plot foreseen by the inspector? + +During the next half hour, in which the sledge traveled steadily over +the smooth, hard trail into the north, Philip asked himself these and a +score of other questions equally perplexing. He was certain that the +beautiful young woman whom he had followed had purposely lured him into +the ambush. He considered himself her prisoner. Then why should he be +consigned, like a parcel of freight, to Hodges, her husband's accuser, +and the man who demanded the full penalty of the law for his assailant? + +The more he added to the questions that leaped into his mind the more +mystified he became. The conflicting orders, the strange demeanor of his +chief, the pathetic appeal that he had seen in the young woman's eyes, +the ambush, and now this unaccountable ride to Wekusko, strapped in a +coffin box, all combined to plunge him into a chaos of wonder from which +it was impossible for him to struggle forth. However, he assured himself +of two things; he was comparatively comfortable, and within two hours at +the most they would reach Hodges' headquarters, if the Wekusko camp were +really to be their destination. Something must develop then. + +It had ceased to occur to him that there was peril in his strange +position. If that were so, would his captors have left him in possession +of his weapons, even imprisoned as he was? If they had intended him +harm, would they have cushioned his box and placed a pillow under his +head so that the cloth about his mouth would not cause him discomfort? +It struck him as peculiarly significant, now that he had suffered no +injury in the short struggle on the trail, that no threats or +intimidation had been offered after his capture. This was a part of the +game which he was to play! He became more and more certain of it as the +minutes passed, and there occurred to him again and again the +inspector's significant words, "Whatever happens!" MacGregor had spoken +the words with particular emphasis, had repeated them more than once. +Were they intended to give him a warning of this, to put him on his, +guard, as well as at his ease? + +And with these thoughts, many, conflicting and mystifying, he found it +impossible to keep from associating other thoughts of Bucky Nome, and of +the woman whom he now frankly confessed to himself that he loved. If +conditions had been a little different, if the incidents had not +occurred just as they had, he have suspected the hand of Bucky Nome in +what was transpiring now. But he discarded that suspicion the instant +that it came to him. That which remained with him more and more deeply +as the minutes passed was a mental picture of the two women--of this +woman who was fighting to save her husband, and of the other, whom he +loved, and for whom he had fought to save her for her husband. It was +with a dull feeling of pain that he compared the love, the faith, and +the honor of this woman whose husband had committed a crime with that +one night's indiscretion of Mrs. Becker. It was in her eyes and face +that he had seen a purity like that of an angel, and the pain seemed to +stab him deeper when he thought that, after all, it was the criminal's +wife who was proving herself, not Mrs. Becker. + +He strove to unburden his mind for a time, and turned his head so that +he could peer through the hole in the side of the box. The moon had +risen, and now and then he caught flashes of the white snow in the +opens, but more frequently only the black shadows of the forest through +which they were passing. They had not left Le Pas more than two hours +behind when the sledge stopped again and Philip saw a few scattered +lights a short distance away. + +"Must be Wekusko," he thought. "Hello, what's that?" + +A voice came sharply from the opposite side of the box. + +"Is that you, Fingy?" it demanded. "What the devil have you got there?" + +"Your maps and things, sir," replied Fingy hoarsely. "Couldn't come up +to-morrow, so thought we'd do it to-night." + +Philip heard the closing of a door, and footsteps crunched in the snow +close to his ears. + +"Love o' God!" came the voice again. "What's this you've brought them up +in, Fingy?" + +"Coffin box, sir. Only thing the maps'd fit into, and it's been layin' +around useless since MacVee kem down in it Mebby you can find use for +it, later," he chuckled grewsomely. "Ho-ho-ho! mebby you can!" + +A moment later the box was lifted and Philip knew that he was being +carried up a step and through a door, then with a suddenness that +startled him he found himself standing upright. His prison had been set +on end! + +"Not that way, man," objected Hodges, for Philip was now certain that he +was in the presence of the chief of construction. "Put it down--over +there in the corner." + +"Not on your life," retorted Fingy, cracking his finger bones fiercely. +"See here. Mister Hodges, I ain't a coward, but I b'lieve in bein' to +the dead, 'n' to a box that's held one. It says on that red card, +'Head--This end up,' an', s'elp me, it's going to be up, unless you put +it down. I ain't goin' to be ha'nted by no ghosts! Ho, ho, ho--" He +approached close to the box. "I'll take this red card off, Mister +Hodges. It ain't nat'ral when there ain't nothing but maps 'n' things in +it." + +If the cloth had not been about his mouth, it is possible that Philip +would not have restrained audible expression of his astonishment at what +happened an instant later. The card was torn off, and a ray of light +shot into his eyes. Through a narrow slit not more than a quarter of an +inch wide, and six inches long, he found himself staring out into the +room. The. Fingy was close behind him. And in the rear of these two, as +if eager for their departure, was Hodges, chief of construction. No +sooner had the men gone than Hodges turned back to the table in the +center of the office. It was not difficult for Philip to see that the +man's face was flushed and that he was laboring under some excitement. +He sat down, fumbled over some papers, rose quickly to his feet, looked +at his watch, and began pacing back and forth across the room. + +"So she's coming," he chuckled gleefully. + +"She's coming, at last!" He looked at his watch again, straightened his +cravat before a mirror, and rubbed his hands with a low laugh. "The +little beauty has surrendered," he went on, his face turning for an +instant toward the coffin box. "And it's time--past time." + +A light knock sounded at the door, and the chief sprang to open it. A +figure darted past him, and for but a breath a white, beautiful face was +turned toward Philip and his prison--the face of the young woman whom he +had seen but two hours before in Le Pas, the face that had pleaded with +him that night, that had smiled upon him from the photograph, and that +seemed to be masked now in a cold marble-like horror, as its glorious +eyes, like pools of glowing fire, seemed searching him out through that +narrow slit in the coffin box. + +Hodges had advanced, with arms reaching out, and the woman turned with a +low, sobbing breath breaking from her lips. + +Another step and Hodges would have taken her in his arms, but she evaded +him with a quick movement, and pointed to a chair at one side of the +table. + +"Sit down!" she cried softly. "Sit down, and listen!" + +Was it fancy, or did her eyes turn with almost a prayer in them to the +box against the wall? Philip's heart was beating like a drum. That one +word he knew was intended for him. + +"Sit down," she repeated, as Hodges hesitated. "Sit down--there--and I +will sit here. Before--before you touch me, I want an understanding. You +will let me talk, and listen--listen!" + +Again that one word--"listen!"-Philip knew was intended for him. + +The chief had dropped into his chair, and his visitor seated herself +opposite him, with her face toward Philip. She flung back the fur from +about her shoulders, and took off her fur turban, so that the light of +the big hanging lamp fell full upon the glory of her hair, and set off +more vividly the ivory pallor of her cheeks, in which a short time +before Philip had seen the rich crimson glow of life, and something that +was not fear. + +"We must come to an understanding," she repeated, fixing her eyes +steadily upon the man before her. "I would sacrifice my life for +him--for my husband--and you are demanding that I do more than that. I +must be sure of the reward!" + +Hodges leaned forward eagerly, as if about to speak, but she interrupted +him. + +"Listen!" she cried, a fire beginning to burn through the whiteness of +her cheeks. "It was you who urged him to come up here when, through +misfortune, we lost our little home down in Marion. You offered him +work, and he accepted it, believing you a friend. He still thought you a +friend when I knew that you were a traitor, planning and scheming to +wreck his life, and mine. He would not listen when I spoke to him, +without arousing his suspicions, of my abhorrence of you. He trusted +you. He was ready to fight for you. And you--you--" + +In her excitement the young woman's hands gripped the edges of the +table. For a few moments her breath seemed to choke her, and then she +continued, her voice trembling with passion. + +"And you--you followed me about like a serpent, making every hour of my +life one of misery, because he believed in you, and I dared not tell +him. So I kept it from him--until that night you came to our cabin when +he was away, and dared to take me in your arms, to kiss me, and I--I +told him then, and he hunted you down and would have killed you if there +hadn't been others near to give you help. My God, I love him more +because of that! But I was wrong. I should have killed you!" + +She stopped, her breath breaking in a sob. + +With a sudden movement Hodges sprang from his chair and came toward her, +his face flushed, his lips smiling; but, quicker than he, Thorpe's wife +was upon her feet, and from his prison Philip saw the rapid rising and +falling of her bosom, the threatening fire in her beautiful eyes as she +faced him. + +"Ah, but you are beautiful!" he heard the man say. + +With a cry, in which there was mingled all the passion and gloating joy +of triumph, Hodges caught her in his arms. In that moment every vein in +Philip's body seemed flooded with fire. He saw the woman's face again, +now tense and white in an agony of terror, saw her struggle to free +herself, heard the smothered cry that fell from her lips. For the first +time he strained to free himself, to cry out through the thick bandage +that gagged him. The box trembled. His mightiest effort almost sent it +crashing to the floor. Sweating, powerless, he looked again through the +narrow slit. In the struggle the woman's hair had loosened, and tumbled +now in shining masses down her back. Her hands were gripping at Hodges' +throat. Then one of them crept down to her bosom, and with that movement +there came a terrible, muffled report. With a groan the chief staggered +back and sank to the floor. + +For a moment, stupefied by what she had done, Thorpe's wife stood with +smoking pistol in her hand, gazing upon the still form at her feet. +Then, slowly, like one facing a terrible accuser, she turned straight to +the coffin box. The weapon that she held fell to the floor. Without a +tremor in her beautiful face she went to one side of the room, picked up +a small belt-ax, and began prying off the cover to Philip's prison. +There was still no hesitation, no tremble of fear in her face or hands +when the cover gave way and Philip stood revealed, his face as white as +her own and bathed in a perspiration of excitement and horror. Calmly +she took away the cloth about his mouth, loosened the straps about his +legs and arms and body, and then she stood back, still speechless, her +hands clutching at her bosom while she waited for him to step forth. + +His first movement was to fall upon his knees beside Hodges. He bowed +his head, listened, and held his hand under the man's waistcoat. Then he +looked up. The woman was bending over him, her eyes meeting his own +unflinchingly. + +"He is dead!" he said quietly. + +"Yes, my brother, he is dead!" + +The sweet, low tones of the woman's voice rose scarcely above a whisper. +The meaning of her words sank into his very soul. + +"My sister--" he repeated, hardly knowing that the words were on his +lips. "My--" + +"Or--your wife," she interrupted, and her hand rested gently for a +moment upon his shoulder. "Or your wife--what would you have had her +do?" + +Her voice--the gentleness of her touch, sent his mind flashing back to +that other tragic moment in a little cabin far north, when he had almost +killed a man, and for less than this that he had heard and seen. It +seemed, for an instant, as though the voice so near to him was coming, +faintly, pleadingly, from that other woman at Lac Bain--the woman who +had almost caused a tragedy similar to this, only with the sexes +changed. He would have excused Colonel Becker for killing Bucky Nome, +for defending his own honor and his wife's. And here--now--was a woman +who had fought and killed for her own honor, and to save her husband. +His sister--his wife-- Would he have had them do this? Would he have +Mrs. Becker, the woman he loved, defend her honor as this woman had +defended hers? Would he not have loved her ten times--a hundred +times--more for doing so? + +He rose to his feet, making an effort to steel himself against the +justice of what he had seen--against the glory of love, of womanhood, of +triumph which he saw shining in her eyes. + +"I understand now," he said. "You had me brought here--in this way--that +I might hear what was said, and use it as evidence. But--" + +"Oh, my God, I did not mean to do this," she cried, as if knowing what +he was about to say. "I thought that if he betrayed his vileness to +you--if he knew that the world would know, through you, how he had +attempted to destroy a home, and how he offered my husband's freedom in +exchange for--but you saw, you heard, you must understand! He would not +dare to go on when he knew that all this would become public. My husband +would have been free. But now--" + +"You have killed him," said Philip. + +There was no sympathy in his voice. It was the cold, passionless +accusation of a man of the law, and the woman bowed her face in her +hands. He put on his service cap, tightened his belt, and touched her +gently on the arm. + +"Do you know where your husband is confined?" he asked. "I will take you +there, and you may remain with him to-night." + +She brightened instantly. "Yes," she said. + +"Come!" + +They passed through the door, closing it carefully behind them, and the +woman led the way to a dark, windowless building a hundred yards from +the dead chief's headquarters. + +"This is the camp prison," she whispered. + +A man clad in a great bear-skin coat was on guard at the door. In the +moonlight he recognized Philip's uniform. + +"Here are orders from the inspector," said Philip, holding out +MacGregor's letter. "I am to have charge of the prisoner. Mrs. Thorpe is +to spend the night with him." + +A moment later the door was opened and the woman passed in. As he turned +away Philip heard a low sobbing cry, a man's startled voice. Then the +door swung heavily on its hinges and there was silence. + +Five minutes later Philip was bending again over the dead man. A +surprising transformation had come over him now. His face was flushed +and his strong teeth shone in sneering hatred as he covered the body +with a blanket. On the wall hung a pair of overalls and a working-man's +heavy coat. These and Hodges' hat he quickly put on in place of his own +uniform. Once more he went out into the night. + +This time he came up back of the prison. The guard was pacing back and +forth in his beaten path, so thickly muffled about the ears that he did +not hear Philip's cautious footsteps behind him. When he turned he found +the muzzle of a revolver within arm's length of his face. + +"Hands up!" commanded Philip. + +The astonished man obeyed without a word. + +"If you make a move or the slightest sound I'll kill you!" continued +Philip threateningly. "Drop your hands behind you--there, like that!" + +With the quickness and skill which he had acquired under Sergeant Moody +he secured the guard's wrists with one of the coffin box straps, and +gagged him with the same cloth that had been used upon himself. He had +observed that his prisoner carried the key to the padlocked cabin in one +of his coat pockets, and after possessing himself of this he made him +seat himself in the deep shadow, strapped his ankles, and then unlocked +the prison door. + +There was a light inside, and from beyond this the white faces of the +man and the woman stared at him as he entered. The man was leaning back +in his cot, and Philip knew that the wife had risen suddenly, for one +arm was still encircling his shoulders, and a hand was resting on his +cheek as if she had been stroking it caressingly when he interrupted +them. Her beautiful, startled eyes gazed at him half defiantly now. + +He advanced into the light, took off his hat, and smiled. + +With a cry Thorpe's wife sprang to her feet. + +"Sh-h-h-h-h!" warned Philip, raising a hand and pointing to the door +behind them. + +Thorpe had risen. Without a word Philip advanced and held out his hand. +Only half understanding, the prisoner reached forth his own. As, for an +instant, the two men stood in this position, one smiling, the other +transfixed with wonder, there came a stifled, sobbing cry from behind. +Philip turned. The woman stood in the lamp glow, her arms reaching out +to him--to both--and never, not even at Lac Bain, had he seen a woman +more beautiful than Thorpe's wife at that moment. + +As if nothing had happened, he went to the table, where there was a pen +and ink and a pad of paper. + +"Perhaps your wife hasn't told you everything that has happened +to-night, Thorpe," he said. "If she hasn't, she will--soon. Now, +listen!" + +He had pulled a small book from an inner pocket and was writing. + +"My name is Steele, Philip Steele, of the Royal Mounted. Down in Chicago +I've got a father, Philip Egbert Steele, a banker, who's worth half a +dozen millions or so. You're going down to him as fast as dog-sledge and +train can carry you, and you'll give him this note. It says that your +name is Johnson, and that for my sake he's going to put you on your +feet, so that it is going to be pretty blamed comfortable for +yourself--and the noblest little woman I've ever met. Do you understand, +Thorpe?" + +He looked up. Thorpe's wife had gone to her husband. She stood now, half +in his arms, and looking at him; as they were, they reminded him of a +couple who had played the finale in a drama which he had seen a year +before. + +"There is one favor which you must do me, Thorpe," he went on. "At home +I am rich. Up here I'm only Phil Steele, of the Royal Mounted. I'm +telling you so that you won't think that I'm stripping myself when I +make you take this. It's a little ready cash, and a check for a thousand +dollars. Some day, if you want to, you can pay it back. Now hustle up +and get on your clothes. I imagine that your friends are somewhere +near--with the sledge that brought me up from Le Pas. Tomorrow, of +course, I shall be compelled to take up the pursuit. But if you hurry I +don't believe that I shall catch you." + +He rose and put on his hat, leaving the money and the check on the +table. The woman staggered toward him, the man following in a dazed, +stunned sort of way. He saw the woman's arms reaching out to him again, +a look in her beautiful face that he would never forget. + +In another moment he had opened the door and was gone. + + + +Chapter VIII. Another Letter For Philip + +From beside his prisoner in the deep gloom Philip saw Thorpe and his +wife come out of the cabin a minute later and hurry away through the +night. Then he dragged the guard into the prison, relocked the door, +left the key in the lock, and returned to Hodges' office to replace the +old clothes for his uniform. Not until he stood looking down upon the +dead body again did the enormity of his own offense begin to crowd upon +him. But he was not frightened nor did he regret what he had done. He +turned out the light, sat down, coolly filled his pipe, and began +turning the affair over, detail by detail, in his mind. He had, at +least, followed Inspector MacGregor's injunction--he had followed his +conscience. Hodges had got what he deserved, and he had saved a man and +a woman. + +But in spite of his first argument, he knew that MacGregor had not +foreseen a tragedy of this sort, and that, in the eyes of the law, he +was guilty of actively assisting in the flight of two people who could +not possibly escape the penalty of justice--if caught. But they would +not be caught. He assured himself of that, smiling grimly in the +darkness. No one at Wekusko could explain what had happened. + +He was positive that the guard had not recognized him, and that he would +think one of Thorpe's friends had effected the rescue. And +MacGregor--Philip chuckled as he thought of the condemning evidence in +his possession, the strange orders which would mean dismissal for the +inspector, and perhaps a greater punishment, if he divulged them. He +would be safe in telling MacGregor something of what had occurred in the +little cabin. And then, as he sat in this grim atmosphere of death, a +thought came to him of M'sieur Janette's skull, of Bucky Nome, and of +the beautiful young wife at Lac Bain. + +If Mrs. Becker could know of this, too--if Bucky Nome, buried somewhere +deep in the northern wilderness, could only see Hodges as he lay there, +dead on the cabin floor! To the one it would be a still greater +punishment, to the other a warning. And yet, even as he thought of the +colonel's wife and of her flirtation with Nome, a vision of her face +came to him again, filled with the marvelous sweetness, the purity, and +the love which had enthralled him beside the campfire. In these moments +it was almost impossible for him to convince himself that she had +forgotten her dignity as a wife even for an hour. Could he have been +mistaken? Had he looked at her with eyes heated by his own love, fired +by jealousy? If she had smiled upon him instead of upon Bucky Nome, if +her cheeks had flushed at his words, would he have thought that she had +done wrong? As if in answer to his own questions, he saw again the +white, tense face of the colonel, her husband, and he laughed harshly. + +For several hours Philip remained in the shelter of Hodges' office. With +early dawn he stole out into the forest, and a little later made his +appearance in camp, saying that he had spent the night at Le Pas. Not +until an hour later was it discovered that Hodges had been killed, the +guard made a prisoner, and that Thorpe and his wife were gone. Philip at +once took charge of affairs and put a strain on his professional +knowledge by declaring that Thorpe had undoubtedly fled into the North. +Early in the afternoon he started in pursuit. + +A dozen miles north of the Wekusko camp he swung at right angles to the +west, traveled fifteen miles, then cut a straight course south. It was +three days later before he showed up at Le Pas, and learned that no one +had seen or heard of Thorpe and his wife. Two days later he walked into +MacGregor's office. The inspector fairly leaped from his chair to greet +him. + +"You got them, Steele!" he cried. "You got them after the mur--the +killing of Hodges?" + +Philip handed him a crumpled bit of paper. + +"Those were your latest instructions, sir," he replied quietly. "I +followed them to the letter." + +MacGregor read, and his face turned as white as the paper he held. "Good +God!" he gasped. + +He reeled rather than walked back to his desk, dropped into a chair and +buried his face in his arms, his shoulders shaking like those of a +sobbing boy. It was a long time before he looked up, and during these +minutes Philip, with his head bowed low to the other, told him of all +that had happened in the little room at Wekusko. But he did not say that +it was he who had surprised the guard and released Thorpe and his wife. + +At last MacGregor raised his head. + +"Philip," he said, taking the young man's hand in both his own, "since +she was a little girl and I a big, strapping playmate of nineteen, I +have loved her. She is the only girl--the only woman--I have ever loved. +You understand? I am almost old enough to be her father. She was never +intended for me. But things like this happen--sometimes, and when she +came to plead with me the other day I almost yielded. That is why I +chose you, warned you--" + +He stopped, and a sob rose in his breast. + +"And at last you did yield," said Philip. + +The inspector gazed at him for a moment in silence. Then he said: "It +was ten years ago, on her seventeenth birthday, that I made her a +present of a little silver-bound autograph book, and on the first page +of that book I wrote the words which saved her husband--and her. Do you +understand now, Philip? It was her last card, and she played it well." + +He smiled faintly, and then said, as if to no one but himself, "God +bless her!" + +He looked down on the big, tawny head that was bowed again upon the +desk, and placed his hands on the other's shoulders. + +"God bless her!" echoed Philip. + +"You are not alone in your sorrows, Felix MacGregor," he said softly. +"You asked me if I was beauty-proof. Yes, I am. And it is because of +something like this, because of a face and a soul that have filled my +heart, because of a woman that is not mine, and never can be mine, +because of a love which ever burns, and must never be known--it is +because of this that I am beauty-proof. God bless this little woman, +MacGregor--and you--and I--will never ask where she has gone." + +MacGregor's hand reached out and gripped his own in silence. In that +hand-clasp there was sealed a pact between them, and Philip returned to +his barracks room to write a letter, in care of his father, to the man +and woman whom he had helped to escape into the south. He spent the +greater part of that day writing. It was late in the afternoon that +Moody came in with the mail. + +"One for you, Phil," he said, tossing a letter on Philip's table. "Looks +as though it had been through a war." + +Philip picked up the letter as the sergeant left him. He dropped his pen +with a low whistle. He could see at a glance that the letter had come an +unusual journey. It was dirty, and crumpled, and ragged at the ends--and +then, on the back of it, he found written in ink, "Lac Bain." His +fingers trembled as he tore open the envelope. Swiftly he read. His +breath came in a gasping cry from between his lips, his face turned as +white as the crumpled paper, and then, as suddenly, a flush of +excitement leaped into his cheeks, replacing the pallor. His eyes seemed +blinded before he had half finished the letter, and his heart was +pounding with suffocating force. + +This was what he read: + +My Dear Philip Steele: + +Your letter, and the skull, came to us to-day. I thank God that chance +brought me into my Isobel's room in time, or I fear for what might have +happened. It was a terrible punishment, my dear Steele, for her--and for +me. But I deserved it more than she. That very night--after Isobel left +the table--she insisted that I explain. When I returned to the room +below, you were gone. I waited, and then went to your cabin. You know +why I did not find you. Steele, Isobel is not my wife. She is my +daughter. + +Mrs. Becker had planned to come with me to Lac Bain from Fort Churchill, +and we wrote the factor to that effect. But we changed our plans. Mrs. +Becker returned on the London ship, and Isobel came with me. In a spirit +of fun she suggested that for the first few hours she be allowed to pass +as--well, you understand. The joke was carried too far. When she met +you--and Bucky Nome--it ceased to be a joke, and almost became a +tragedy. For those few minutes before the fire Isobel used her disguise +as a test. She came to me, before you joined us, and whispered to me +that Nome was a scoundrel, and that she would punish him before the +evening was over. In the short space of that evening she knew that she +had met one of the most despicable of blackguards in Nome, and one of +the noblest of men in you. And not until she saw on you the effect of +what she was doing did everything dawn fully upon her. + +You know what happened. She left the table suddenly, overcome by shame +and terror. When I returned later, and told her that I could not find +you, it was impossible to comfort her. She lay in her bed crying all +that night. I am telling you all this, because to me my daughter is one +of the two most precious things on earth, the sweetest and purest little +girl that ever breathed. I can not describe to you the effect upon her +of the skull and the letter. Forgive us--forgive me. Some day we may +meet again + +Sylvester Becker. + +Like one in a dream Philip picked up the torn envelope. Something +dropped from it upon the table--a tiny cluster of violets that had been +pressed and dried between the pages of a book, and when he took them in +his fingers, he found that their stems were tied with a single thread of +golden hair! + + + +Chapter IX. Philip Takes Up The Trail + +The letter--the flowers--that one shining golden hair, wound in a +glistening thread about their shriveled stems, seemed for a short space +to lift Philip Steele from out of the world he was in, to another in +which his mind was only vaguely conscious, stunned by this letter that +had come with the unexpectedness of a thunderbolt to change, in a single +instant, every current of life in his body. For a few moments he made no +effort to grasp the individual significance of the letter, the flowers, +the golden hair. One thought filled his brain--one great, overpowering +truth, which excluded everything else--and this was the realization that +the woman he loved was not Colonel Becker's wife. She was free. And for +him--Philip Steele--there was hope--hope--Suddenly it dawned upon him +what the flowers meant. The colonel had written the letter, and Isobel +had sent the faded violets, with their golden thread. It was her message +to him--a message without words, and yet with a deeper meaning for him +than words could have expressed. In a flood there rushed back upon him +all the old visions which he had fought against, and he saw her again in +the glow of the campfire, and on the trail, glorious in her beauty, his +ideal of all that a woman should be. + +He rose to his feet and locked his door, fearing that some one might +enter. He wanted to be alone, to realize fully what had happened, to +regain control of his emotions. If Isobel Becker had merely written him +a line or two, a note exculpating herself of what her father had already +explained away, he would still have thought that a world lay between +them. But, in place of that, she had sent him the faded flowers, with +their golden thread! + +For many minutes he paced back and forth across his narrow room, and +never had a room looked more like a prison cell to him than this one did +now. He was filled with but one impulse, and that was to return to Lac +Bain, to humble himself at the feet of the woman he loved, and ask her +forgiveness for the heinous thing he had done. He wanted to tell her +that he had driven Bucky Nome into outlawry, that he had fought for her, +and run away himself--because he loved her. It was Sergeant Moody's +voice, vibrant with the rasping unpleasantness of a file, that jarred +him back into his practical self. He thrust the letter and the flowers +into his breast pocket, and opened the door. + +Moody came in. + +"What in blazes are you locked up for?" he demanded, his keen little +eyes scrutinizing Philip's feverish face. "Afraid somebody'll walk in +and steal you, Phil?" + +"Headache," said Philip, patting a hand to his head. "One of the kind +that makes you think your brain must be a hard ball bumping around +inside your skull." + +The sergeant laid his hand on Philip's arm. + +"Go take a walk, Phil," he said, in a softer voice. "It will do you +good. I just came in to tell you the news. They've got track of DeBar +again, up near Lac la Biche. But we can talk about that later. Go take a +walk." + +"Thanks for the suggestion," said Philip. "I believe I'll do it." + +He passed beyond the barracks, and hit the sleigh-worn road that led out +of town, walking faster and faster, as his brain began working. He would +return to Lac Bain. That was settled in his mind without argument. +Nothing could hold him back after what he had received that afternoon. +If the letter and the violet message had come to him from the end of the +earth it would have made no difference; his determination would have +been the same. He would return to Lac Bain--but how? That was the +question which puzzled him. He still had thirteen months of service +ahead of him. He was not in line for a furlough. It would take at least +three months of official red tape to purchase his discharge. These facts +rose like barriers in his way. It occurred to him that he might confide +in MacGregor, and that the inspector would make an opportunity for him +to return into the north immediately. MacGregor had the power to do +that, and he believed that he would do it. But he hesitated to accept +this last alternative. + +And then, all at once. Sergeant Moody's words came back to him--"They've +got track of DeBar again, up near Lac la Biche." The idea that burst +upon him with the recalling of those words stopped Philip suddenly, and +he turned back toward the barracks. He had heard a great deal about +DeBar, the cleverest criminal in all the northland, and whom no man or +combination of men had been clever enough to catch. And now this man was +near Lac la Biche, in the Churchill and Lac Bain country. It he could +get permission from MacGregor to go after DeBar his own difficulty would +be settled in the easiest possible way. The assignment would take him +for a long and indefinite time into the north. It would take him back to +Isobel Becker. + +He went immediately to his room upon reaching the barracks, and wrote +out his request to MacGregor. He sent it over to headquarters by a +rookie. After that he waited. + +Not until the following morning did Moody bring him a summons to appear +in MacGregor's office. Five minutes later the inspector greeted him with +outstretched hand, gave him a grip that made his fingers snap, and +locked the office door. He was holding Philip's communication when the +young man entered. + +"I don't know what to say to this, Steele," he began, seating himself at +his desk and motioning Philip to a chair. "To be frank with you, this +proposition of yours is entirely against my best judgment." + +"In other words, you haven't sufficient confidence in me," added Philip. + +"No, I don't mean that. There isn't a man on the force in whom I have +greater confidence than you. But, if I was to gamble, I'd wager ten to +one that you'd lose out if I sent you up to take this man DeBar." + +"I'll accept that wager--only reverse the odds," said Philip daringly. + +The inspector twisted one of his long red mustaches and smiled a little +grimly at the other. + +"If I were to follow my own judgment I'd not send one man, but two," he +went on. "I don't mean to underestimate the value of my men when I say +that our friend DeBar, who has evaded us for years, is equal to any two +men I've got. I wouldn't care to go after him myself--alone. I'd want +another hand with me, and a mighty good one--a man who was cool, +cautious, and who knew all of the ins and outs of the game as well as +myself. And here--" He interrupted himself, and chuckled audibly, "here +you are asking permission to go after him alone! Why, man, it's the very +next thing to inviting yourself to commit suicide! Now, if I were to +send you, and along with you a good, level-headed man like Moody--" + +"I have had enough of double-harness work, unless I am commanded to go, +Mr. MacGregor," interrupted Philip. "I realize that DeBar is a dangerous +man, but I believe that I can bring him down. Will you give me the +opportunity?" + +MacGregor laid his cigar on the edge of the desk and leaned across +toward his companion, the long white fingers of his big hands clasped in +front of him. He always took this position, with a cigar smoldering +beside him, when about to say those things which he wished to be +indelibly impressed on the memory of his listener. + +"Yes, I'm going to give you the opportunity," he said slowly, "and I am +also going to give you permission to change your mind after I have told +you something about DeBar, whom we know as the Seventh Brother. I repeat +that, if you go alone, it's just ten to one that you don't get him. +Since '99 four men have gone out after him, and none has come back. +There was Forbes, who went in that year; Bannock, who took up the trial +in 1902; Fleisham in 1904, and Gresham in 1907. Since the time of +Gresham's disappearance we have lost sight of DeBar, and only recently, +as you know, have we got trace of him again. He is somewhere up on the +edge of the Barren Lands. I have private information which leads me to +believe that the factor at Fond du Lac can take you directly to him." + +MacGregor unclasped his hands to pick up a worn paper from a small pile +on the desk. + +"He is the last of seven brothers," he added. "His father was hanged." + +"A good beginning," interjected Philip. + +"There's just the trouble," said the inspector quickly. "It wasn't a +good beginning. This is one of those peculiar cases of outlawry for +which the law itself is largely responsible, and I don't know of any one +I would say this to but you. The father was hanged, as I have said. Six +months later it was discovered, beyond a doubt, that the law had taken +the life of an innocent man, and that DeBar had been sent to the gallows +by a combination of evidence fabricated entirely by the perjury of +enemies. The law should have vindicated itself. But it didn't. Two of +those who had plotted against DeBar were arrested, tried--and acquitted, +a fact which goes to prove the statement of a certain great man that +half of the time law is not justice. There is no need of going into +greater detail about the trials and the plled the three men chiefly +instrumental in sending their father to his death, and fled into the +North." + +"Good!" exclaimed Philip. + +The word shot from him before he had thought. At first he flushed, then +sat bolt upright and smiled frankly into the inspector's face as he +watched the effect of his indiscretion. + +"So many people thought at the time," said MacGregor, eying him with +curious sharpness. "Especially the women. For that reason the first +three who were caught were merely convicted of manslaughter instead of +murder. They served their sentences, were given two years each for good +behavior, and are somewhere in South America. The fourth killed himself +when he was taken near Moose Factory, and the other three went what the +law calls 'bad.' Henry, the oldest of them all, killed the officer who +was bringing him down from Prince Albert in '99, and was afterward +executed. Paul, the sixth, returned to his native town seven years after +the hanging of his father and was captured after wounding two of the +officers who went in pursuit of him. He is now in an insane asylum." + +The inspector paused, and ran his eyes over a fresh slip of paper. + +"And all this," said Philip in a low voice, "because of a crime +committed by the law itself. Five men hung, one a suicide, three in +prison and one in an insane asylum--because of a blunder of the law!" + +"The king can do no wrong," said MacGregor with gentle irony, "and +neither can the law. Remember that, Philip, as long as you are in the +service. The law may break up homes, ruin states, set itself a Nemesis +on innocent men's heels--but it can do no wrong. It is the Juggernaut +before which we all must bow our heads, even you and I, and when by any +chance it makes a mistake, it is still law, and unassailable. It is the +greatest weapon of the clever and the rich, so it bears a moral. Be +clever, or be rich." + +"And William DeBar, the seventh brother--" began Philip. + +"Is tremendously clever, but not rich," finished the inspector. "He has +caused us more trouble than any other man in Canada. He is the youngest +of the seven brothers, and you know there are curious superstitions +about seventh brothers. In the first pursuit after the private hanging +he shot two men. He killed a third in an attempt to save his brother at +Moose Factory. Since then, Forbes, Bannock, Fleisham and Gresham have +disappeared, and they all went out after him. They were all good men, +powerful physically, skilled in the ways of the wilderness, and as brave +as tigers. Yet they all failed. And not only that, they lost their +lives. Whether DeBar killed them, or led them on to a death for which +his hands were not directly responsible, we have never known. The fact +remains that they went out after De Bar--and died. I am not +superstitious, but I am beginning to think that DeBar is more than a +match for any one man. What do you say? Will you go with Moody, or--" + +"I'll go alone, with your permission," said Philip. + +The inspector's voice at once fell into its formal tone of command. + +"Then you may prepare to leave at once," he said. "The factor at Fond du +Lac will put you next to your man. Whatever else you require I will give +you in writing some time to-day." + +Philip accepted this as signifying that the interview was at an end, and +rose from his seat. + +That night he added a postscript to the letter which he had written +home, saying that for a long time he would not be heard from again. The +midnight train was bearing him toward Le Pas. + + + +Chapter X. Isobel's Disappearance + +Four hundred miles as an arrow might fly, five hundred by snowshoes and +dog-sledge; up the Pelican Lake waterway, straight north along the edge +of the Geikie Barrens, and from Wollaston westward, Philip hurried--not +toward the hiding place of William DeBar, but toward Lac Bain. + +A sledge and six dogs with a half-breed driver took him from Le Pas as +far as the Churchill; with two Crees, on snow-shoes, he struck into the +Reindeer country, and two weeks later bought a sledge and three dogs at +an Indian camp on the Waterfound. On the second day, in the barrens to +the west, one of the dogs slit his foot on a piece of ice; on the third +day the two remaining dogs went lame, and Philip and his guide struck +camp at the headwater of the Gray Beaver, sixty miles from Lac Bain. It +was impossible for the dogs to move the following day, so Philip left +his Indian to bring them in later and struck out alone. + +That day he traveled nearly thirty miles, over a country broken by +timbered ridges, and toward evening came to the beginning of the open +country that lay between him and the forests about Lac Bain. It had been +a hard day's travel, but he did not feel exhausted. The full moon was +rising at nine o'clock, and Philip rested for two hours, cooking and +eating his supper, and then resumed his journey, determined to make +sufficient progress before camping to enable him to reach the post by +the following noon. It was midnight when he put up his light tent, built +a fire, and went to sleep. He was up again at dawn. At two o'clock he +came into the clearing about Lac Bain. As he hurried to Breed's quarters +he wondered if Colonel Becker or Isobel had seen him from their window. +He had noticed that the curtain was up, and that a thin spiral of smoke +was rising from the clay chimney that descended to the fireplace in +their room. + +He found Breed, the factor, poring over one of the ledgers which he and +Colonel Becker had examined. He started to his feet when he saw Philip. + +"Where in the name of blazes have you been?" were his first words, as he +held out a hand. "I've been hunting the country over for you, and had +about come to the conclusion that you and Bucky Nome were dead." + +"Hunting for me," said Philip. "What for?" + +Breed shrugged his shoulders. + +"The colonel an'--Miss Isobel," he said. "They wanted to see you so bad +that I had men out for three days after you'd gone looking for you. +Couldn't even find your trail. I'm curious to know what was up." + +Philip laughed. He felt a tingling joy running through every vein in his +body. It was difficult for him to repress the trembling eagerness in his +voice, as he said: "Well, I'm here. I wonder if they want to see +me--now." + +"Suppose they do," replied Breed, slowly lighting his pipe. "But you've +hung off too long. They're gone." + +"Gone?" Philip stared at the factor. + +"Gone?" he demanded again. + +"Left this morning--for Churchill," affirmed Breed. "Two sledges, two +Indians, the colonel and Miss Isobel." + +For a few moments Philip stood in silence, staring straight out through +the one window of the room with his back to the factor. + +"Did they leave any word for me?" he asked. + +"No." + +"Then--I must follow them!" He spoke the words more to himself than to +Breed. The factor regarded him in undisguised astonishment and Philip, +turning toward him, hastened to add: "I can't tell you why. Breed--but +it's necessary that I overtake them as soon as possible. I don't want to +lose a day--not an hour. Can you lend me a team and a driver?" + +"I've got a scrub team," said Breed, "but there isn't another man that I +can spare from the post. There's LeCroix, ten miles to the west. If you +can wait until to-morrow--" + +"I must follow this afternoon--now," interrupted Philip. "They will have +left a clean trail behind, and I can overtake them some time to-morrow. +Will you have the team made ready for me--a light sledge, it you've got +it." + +By three o'clock he was on the trail again. Breed had spoken truthfully +when he said that his dogs were scrubs. There were four of them, two +mongrels, one blind huskie, and a mamelute that ran lame. And besides +this handicap, Philip found that his own endurance was fast reaching the +ebbing point. He had traveled sixty miles in a day and a half, and his +legs and back began to show signs of the strain. In spite of this fact, +his spirits rose with every mile he placed behind him. He knew that it +would be impossible for Isobel and her father to stand the hardship of +fast and continued travel. At the most they would not make more than +twenty miles in a day, and even with his scrub team he could make +thirty, and would probably overtake them at the end of the next day. And +then it occurred to him, with a pleasurable thrill, that to find Isobel +again on the trail, as he had first seen her, would be a hundred times +better than finding her at Lac Bain. He would accompany her and the +colonel to Churchill. They would be together for days, and at the end of +that time-- + +He laughed low and joyously, and for a spell he urged the dogs into a +swifter pace. That he had correctly estimated the speed of those ahead +of him he was convinced, when, two hours later, he came upon the remains +of their mid-day camp-fire, nine or ten miles from Lac Bain. It was dark +when he reached this point. There were glowing embers still in the fire, +and these he stirred into life, adding armfuls of dry wood to the +flames. About him in the snow he found the prints of Isobel's little +feet, and in the flood of joy and hope that was sweeping more and more +into his life he sang and whistled, and forgot that he was alone in a +desolation of blackness that made even the dogs slink nearer to the +fire. He would camp here--where Isobel had been only a few hours before. +If he traveled hard he would overtake them by the next noon. + +But he had underestimated his own exhaustion. After he had put up his +tent before the fire he made himself a bed of balsam boughs and tell +into a deep sleep, from which neither dawn nor the restless movements of +the dogs could awaken him. When at last he opened his eyes it was broad +day. He jumped to his feet and looked at his watch. It was nine o'clock, +and after ten before he again took up the pursuit of the two sledges. +Not until several hours later did he give up hope of overtaking Isobel +and her father as he had planned, and he reproved himself roundly for +having overslept. The afternoon was half gone before he struck their +camp of the preceding evening, and he knew that, because of his own loss +of time, Isobel was still as far ahead of him as when he had left Lac +Bain. + +He made up some of this time by following the trail for an hour when the +moon was at its highest, and then pitched his tent. He was up again the +next morning and breaking camp before it was light. Scarcely had he +traveled an hour over the clear-cut trail ahead of him when he suddenly +halted his dogs with a loud cry of command and astonishment. In a small +open the trails of the two sledges separated. One continued straight +east, toward Churchill, while the other turned almost at right angles +into the south. For a few moments he could find no explanation for this +occurrence. Then he decided that one of the Indians had struck +southward, either to hunt, or on some short mission, and that he would +join the other sledge farther on. Convinced that this was the right +solution, Philip continued over the Churchill trail. A little later, to +his despair, it began to snow so heavily that the trail which he was +following was quickly obliterated. There was but one thing for him to do +now, and that was to hasten on to Fort Churchill, giving up all hope of +finding Isobel and the colonel before he met them there. + +Four days later he came into the post. The news that awaited him struck +him dumb. Isobel and her father, with one Indian, had gone with the +sledge into the South. The Indian who had driven on to Churchill could +give no further information, except that he knew the colonel and his +daughter had suddenly changed their minds about coming to Churchill. +Perhaps they had gone to Nelson House, or York Factory--or even to Le +Pas. He did not know. + +It was with a heavy heart that Philip turned his face once more toward +Lac Bain. He could not repress a laugh, bitter and filled with +disappointment, as he thought how fate was playing against him. If he +had not overslept he would have caught up with the sledges before they +separated, if he had not forced himself into this assignment it was +possible that Isobel and her father would have come to him. They knew +that his detachment was at Prince Albert--and they were going south. He +had little doubt but that they were striking for Nelson House, and from +Nelson House to civilization there was but one trail, that which led to +Le Pas and Etomami. And Etomami was but two hours by rail from Prince +Albert. + +He carried in his breast pocket a bit of written information which he +had obtained from the Churchill factor--that helped to soften, in a way, +the sting of his disappointment. It was Colonel Becker's London +address--and Isobel's, and he quickly laid out for himself new plans of +action. He would write to MacGregor from Lac Bain, asking him to put in +at once the necessary application for the purchase of his release from +the service. As soon as he was free he would go to London. He would call +on Isobel like a gentleman, he told himself. Perhaps, after all, it +would be the better way. + +But first, there was DeBar. + +As he had been feverishly anxious to return into the North, so, now, he +was anxious to have this affair with DeBar over with. He lost no time at +Lac Bain, writing his letter to Inspector MacGregor on the same day that +he arrived. Only two of the dogs which the Indian had brought into the +post were fit to travel, and with these, and a light sledge on which he +packed his equipment he set off alone for Fond du Lac. A week later he +reached the post. He found Hutt, the factor, abed with a sprained knee, +and the only other men at the post were three Chippewayans, who could +neither talk nor understand English. + +"DeBar is gone," groaned Hutt, after Philip had made himself known. "A +rascal of a Frenchman came in last night on his way to the Grand Rapid, +and this morning DeBar was missing. I had the Chippewayans in, and they +say he left early in the night with his sledge and one big bull of a +hound that he hangs to like grim death. I'd kill that damned Indian you +came up with. I believe it was he that told the Frenchman there was an +officer on the way." + +"Is the Frenchman here?" asked Philip. + +"Gone!" groaned Hutt again, turning his twisted knee. "He left for the +Grand Rapid this morning, and there isn't another dog or sledge at the +post. This winter has been death on the dogs, and what few are left are +out on the trap-lines. DeBar knows you're after him, sure as fate, and +he's taken a trail toward the Athabasca. The best I can do is to let you +have a Chippewayan who'll go with you as far as the Chariot. That's the +end of his territory, and what you'll do after that God only knows." + +"I'll take the chance," said Philip. "We'll start after dinner. I've got +two dogs, a little lame, but even at that they'll have DeBar's outfit +handicapped." + +It was less than two hours later when Philip and the Chippewayan set off +into the western forests, the Indian ahead and Philip behind, with the +dogs and sledge between them. Both men were traveling light. Philip had +even strapped his carbine and small emergency bag to the toboggan, and +carried only his service revolver at his belt. It was one o'clock and +the last slanting beams of the winter sun, heatless and only cheering to +the eye, were fast dying away before the first dull gray approach of +desolate gloom which precedes for a few hours the northern night. As the +black forest grew more and more somber about them, he looked over the +grayish yellow back of the tugging huskies at the silent Indian striding +over the outlaw's trail, and a slight shiver passed through him, a +shiver that was neither of cold nor fear, yet which was accompanied by +an oppression which it was hard for him to shake off. Deep down in his +heart Philip had painted a picture of William DeBar--of the man--and it +was a picture to his liking. Such men he would like to know and to call +his friends. But now the deepening gloom, the darkening of the sky +above, the gray picture ahead of him--the Chippewayan, as silent as the +trees, the dogs pulling noiselessly in their traces like slinking +shadows, the ghost-like desolation about him, all recalled him to that +other factor in the game, who was DeBar the outlaw, and not DeBar the +man. In this same way, he imagined, Forbes, Bannock, Fleisham and +Gresham had begun the game, and they had lost. Perhaps they, too, had +gone out weakened by visions of the equity of things, for the sympathy +of man for man is strong when they meet above the sixtieth. + +DeBar was ahead of him--DeBar the outlaw, watching and scheming as he +had watched and schemed when the other four had played against him. The +game had grown old to him. It had brought him victim after victim, and +each victim had made of him a more deadly enemy of the next. Perhaps at +this moment he was not very far ahead, waiting to send him the way of +the others. The thought urged new fire into Philip's blood. He spurted +past the dogs and stopped the Chippewayan, and then examined the trail. +It was old. The frost had hardened in the huge footprints of DeBar's big +hound; it had built a webby film over the square impressions of his +snow-shoe thongs. But what of that? Might not the trail still be old, +and DeBar a few hundred yards ahead of him, waiting--watching? + +He went back to the sledge and unstrapped his carbine. In a moment the +first picture, the first sympathy, was gone. It was not the law which +DeBar was fighting now. It was himself. He walked ahead of the Indian, +alert, listening and prepared. The crackling of a frost-bitten tree +startled him into stopping; the snapping of a twig under its weight of +ice and snow sent strange thrills through him which left him almost +sweating. The sounds were repeated again and again as they advanced, +until he became accustomed to them. Yet at each new sound his fingers +gripped tighter about his carbine and his heart beat a little faster. +Once or twice he spoke to the Indian, who understood no word he said and +remained silent. They built a fire and cooked their supper when it grew +too dark to travel. + +Later, when it became lighter, they went on hour after hour, through the +night. At dawn the trail was still old. There were the same cobwebs of +frost, the same signs to show that DeBar and his Mackenzie hound had +preceded them a long time before. During the next day and night they +spent sixteen hours on their snow-shoes and the lacework of frost in +DeBar's trail grew thinner. The next day they traveled fourteen and the +next twelve, and there was no lacework of frost at all. There were hot +coals under the ashes of DeBar's fires. The crumbs of his bannock were +soft. The toes of his Mackenzie hound left warm, sharp imprints. It was +then that they came to the frozen water of the Chariot. The Chippewayan +turned back to Fond du Lac, and Philip went on alone, the two dogs +limping behind him with his outfit. + +It was still early in the day when Philip crossed the river into the +barrens and with each step now his pulse beat faster. DeBar could not be +far ahead of him. He was sure of that. Very soon he must overtake him. +And then--there would be a fight. In the tense minutes that followed, +the vision of Isobel's beautiful face grew less and less distinct in his +mind. It was filled with something more grim, something that tightened +his muscles, kept him ceaselessly alert. He would come on DeBar--and +there would be a fight. DeBar would not be taken by surprise. + +At noon he halted and built a small fire between two rocks, over which +he boiled some tea and warmed his meat. Each day he had built three +fires, but at the end of this day, when darkness stopped him again, it +occurred to him that since that morning DeBar had built but one. Gray +dawn had scarcely broken when he again took up the pursuit. It was +bitterly cold, and a biting wind swept down across the barrens from the +Arctic icebergs. His pocket thermometer registered sixty degrees below +zero when he left it open on the sledge, and six times between dawn and +dusk he built himself fires. Again DeBar built but one, and this time he +found no bannock crumbs. + +For the last twenty miles DeBar had gone straight into the North. He +continued straight into the North the next day and several times Philip +scrutinized his map, which told him in that direction there lay nothing +but peopleless barrens as far as the Great Slave. + +There was growing in him now a fear--a fear that DeBar would beat him +out in the race. His limbs began to ache with a strange pain and his +progress was becoming slower. At intervals he stopped to rest, and after +each of these intervals the pain seemed to gnaw deeper at his bones, +forcing him to limp, as the dogs were limping behind him. He had felt it +once before, beyond Lac Bain, and knew what it meant. His legs were +giving out--and DeBar would beat him yet! The thought stirred him on, +and before he stopped again he came to the edge of a little lake. DeBar +had started to cross the lake, and then, changing his mind, had turned +back and skirted the edge of it. Philip followed the outlaw's trail with +his eyes and saw that he could strike it again and save distance by +crossing the snow-covered ice. + +He went on, with dogs and sledge at his heels, unconscious of the +warning underfoot that had turned DeBar back. In midlake he turned to +urge the dogs into a faster pace, and it was then that he heard under +him a hollow, trembling sound, growing in volume even as he hesitated, +until it surged in under his feet from every shore, like the rolling +thunder of a ten-pin ball. With a loud cry to the dogs he darted +forward, but it was too late. Behind him the ice crashed like brittle +glass, and he saw sledge and dogs disappear as if into an abyss. In an +instant he had begun a mad race to the shore a hundred feet ahead of +him. Ten paces more and he would have reached it, when the toe of his +snow-shoe caught in a hummock of snow and ice. For a flash it stopped +him, and the moment's pause was fatal. Before he could throw himself +forward on his face in a last effort to save himself, the ice gave way +and he plunged through. In his extremity he thought of DeBar, of +possible help even from the outlaw, and a terrible cry for that help +burst from his lips as he felt himself going. The next instant he was +sorry that he had shouted. He was to his waist in water, but his feet +were on bottom. He saw now what had happened, that the surface of the +water was a foot below the shell of ice, which was scarcely more than an +inch in thickness. It was not difficult for him to kick off his +snow-shoes under the water, and he began breaking his way ashore. + +Five minutes later he dragged himself out, stiff with the cold, his +drenched clothing freezing as it came into contact with the air. His +first thought was of fire, and he ran up the shore, his teeth +chattering, and began tearing off handfuls of bark from a birch. Not +until he was done and the bark was piled in a heap beside the tree did +the full horror of his situation dawn upon him. His emergency pouch was +on the sledge, and in that pouch was his waterproof box of matches! + +He ran back to the edge of broken ice, unconscious that he was almost +sobbing in his despair. There was no sign of the sledge, no sound of the +dogs, who might still be struggling in their traces. They were +gone--everything--food, fire, life itself. He dug out his flint and +steel from the bottom of a stiffening pocket and knelt beside the bark, +striking them again and again, yet knowing that his efforts were futile. +He continued to strike until his hands were purple and numb and his +freezing clothes almost shackled him to the ground. + +"Good God!" he breathed. + +He rose slowly, with a long, shuddering breath and turned his eyes to +where the outlaw's trail swung from the lake into the North. Even in +that moment, as the blood in his veins seemed congealing with the icy +chill of death, the irony of the situation was not lost upon Philip. + +"It's the law versus God, Billy," he chattered, as if DeBar stood before +him. "The law wouldn't vindicate itself back there--ten years ago--but I +guess it's doing it now." + +He dropped into DeBar's trail and began to trot. + +"At least it looks as if you're on the side of the Mighty," he +continued. "But we'll see--very soon--Billy--" + +Ahead of him the trail ran up a ridge, broken and scattered with rocks +and stunted scrub, and the sight of it gave him a little hope. Hope died +when he reached the top and stared out over a mile of lifeless barren. + +"You're my only chance. Billy," he shivered. "Mebby, if you knew what +had happened, you'd turn back and give me the loan of a match." + +He tried to laugh at his own little joke, but it was a ghastly attempt +and his purpling lips closed tightly as he stumbled down the ridge. As +his legs grew weaker and his blood more sluggish, his mind seemed to +work faster, and the multitude of thoughts that surged through his brain +made him oblivious of the first gnawing of a strange dull pain. He was +freezing. He knew that without feeling pain. He had before him, not +hours, but minutes of life, and he knew that, too. His arms might have +been cut off at the shoulders for all feeling that was left in them; he +noticed, as he stumbled along in a half run, that he could not bend his +fingers. At every step his legs grew heavier and his feet were now +leaden weights. Yet he was surprised to find that the first horror of +his situation had left him. It did not seem that death was only a few +hundred yards away, and he found himself thinking of MacGregor, of home, +and then only of Isobel. He wondered, after that, if some one of the +other four had played the game, and lost, in this same way, and he +wondered, too, if his bones would never be found, as theirs had never +been. + +He stopped again on a snow ridge. He had come a quarter of a mile, +though it seemed that he had traveled ten times that distance. + +"Sixty degrees below zero--and it's the vindication of the law!" + +His voice scarcely broke between his purple lips now, and the bitter +sweep of wind swayed him as he stood. + + + +Chapter XI. The Law Versus The Man + +Suddenly a great thrill shot through Philip, and for an instant he stood +rigid. What was that he saw out in the gray gloom of Arctic desolation, +creeping up, up, up, almost black at its beginning, and dying away like +a ghostly winding-sheet? A gurgling cry rose in his throat, and he went +on, panting now like a broken-winded beast in his excitement. It grew +near, blacker, warmer. He fancied that he could feel its heat, which was +the new fire of life blazing within him. + +He went down between two great drifts into a pit which seemed +bottomless. He crawled to the top of the second, using his pulseless +hands like sticks in the snow, and at the top something rose from the +other side of the drift to meet him. + +It was a face, a fierce, bearded face, the gaunt starvation in it hidden +by his own blindness. It seemed like the face of an ogre, terrible, +threatening, and he knew that it was the face of William DeBar, the +seventh brother. + +He launched himself forward, and the other launched himself forward, and +they met in a struggle which was pathetic in its weakness, and rolled +together to the bottom of the drift. Yet the struggle was no less +terrible because of that weakness. It was a struggle between two +lingering sparks of human life and when these two sparks had flickered +and blazed and died down, the two men lay gasping, an arm's reach from +each other. + +Philip's eyes went to the fire. It was a small fire, burning more +brightly as he looked, and he longed to throw himself upon it so that +the flames might eat into his flesh. He had mumbled something about +police, arrest and murder during the struggle, but DeBar spoke for the +first time now. + +"You're cold," he said. + +"I'm freezing to death," said Philip. + +"And I'm--starving." + +DeBar rose to his feet. Philip drew himself together, as if expecting an +attack, but in place of it DeBar held out a warmly mittened hand. + +"You've got to get those clothes off--quick--or you'll die," he said. +"Here!" + +Mechanically Philip reached up his hand, and DeBar took him to his +sledge behind the fire and wrapped about him a thick blanket. Then he +drew out a sheath knife and ripped the frozen legs of his trousers up +and the sleeves of his coat down, cut the string of his shoe-packs and +slit his heavy German socks, and after that he rubbed his feet and legs +and arms until Philip began to feel a sting like the prickly bite of +nettles. + +"Ten minutes more and you'd been gone," said DeBar. + +He wrapped a second blanket around Philip, and dragged the sledge on +which he was lying still nearer to the fire. Then he threw on a fresh +armful of dry sticks and from a pocket of his coat drew forth something +small and red and frozen, which was the carcass of a bird about the size +of a robin. DeBar held it up between his forefinger and thumb, and +looking at Philip, the flash of a smile passed for an instant over his +grizzled face. + +"Dinner," he said, and Philip could not fail to catch the low chuckling +note of humor in his voice. "It's a Whisky Jack, man, an' he's the first +and last living thing I've seen in the way of fowl between here and Fond +du Lac. He weighs four ounces if he weighs an ounce, and we'll feast on +him shortly. I haven't had a full mouth of grub since day before +yesterday morning, but you're welcome to a half of him, if you're hungry +enough." + +"Where'd your chuck go?" asked Philip. + +He was conscious of a new warmth and comfort in his veins, but it was +not this that sent a heat into his face at the outlaw's offer. DeBar had +saved his life, and now, when DeBar might have killed him, he was +offering him food. The man was spitting the bird on the sharpened end of +a stick, and when he had done this he pointed to the big Mackenzie +hound, tied to the broken stub of a dead sapling. + +"I brought enough bannock to carry me to Chippewayan, but he got into it +the first night, and what he left was crumbs. You lost yours in the +lake, eh?" + +"Dogs and everything," said Philip. "Even matches." + +"Those ice-traps are bad," said DeBar companionably, slowly turning the +bird. "You always want to test the lakes in this country. Most of 'em +come from bog springs, and after they freeze, the water drops. Guess +you'd had me pretty soon if it hadn't been for the lake, wouldn't you?" + +He grinned, and to his own astonishment Philip grinned. + +"I was tight after you, Bill." + +"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed the outlaw. "That sounds good! I've gone by +another name, of course, and that's the first time I've heard my own +since--" + +He stopped suddenly, and the laugh left his voice and face. + +"It sounds--homelike," he added more gently. "What's yours, pardner?" + +"Steele--Philip Steele, of the R.N.W.M.P.," said Philip. + +"Used to know a Steele once," went on DeBar. "That was back--where it +happened. He was one of my friends." + +For a moment he turned his eyes on Philip. They were deep gray eyes, set +well apart in a face that among a hundred others Philip would have +picked out for its frankness and courage. He knew that the man before +him was not much more than his own age, yet he appeared ten years older. + +He sat up on his sledge as DeBar left his bird to thrust sticks into the +snow, on the ends of which he hung Philip's frozen garments close to the +fire. From the man Philip's eyes traveled to the dog. The hound yawned +in the heat and he saw that one of his fangs was gone. + +"If you're starving, why don't you kill the dog?" he asked. + +DeBar turned quickly, his white teeth gleaming through his beard. + +"Because he's the best friend I've got on earth, or next to the best," +he said warmly. "He's stuck to me through thick and thin for ten years. +He starved with me, and fought with me, and half died with me, and he's +going to live with me as long as I live. Would you eat the flesh of your +brother, Steele? He's my brother--the last that your glorious law has +left to me. Would you kill him if you were me?" + +Something stuck hard and fast in Philip's throat, and he made no reply. +DeBar came toward him with the hot bird on the end of his stick. With +his knife the outlaw cut the bird into two equal parts, and one of these +parts he cut into quarters. One of the smaller pieces he tossed to the +hound, who devoured it at a gulp. The half he stuck on the end of his +knife and offered to his companion. + +"No," said Philip. "I can't." + +The eyes of the two men met, and DeBar, on his knees, slowly settled +back, still gazing at the," said DeBar, after a moment, "don't be a +fool, Steele. Let's forget, for a little while. God knows what's going +to happen to both of us to-morrow or next day, and it'll be easier to +die with company than alone, won't it? Let's forget that you're the Law +and I'm the Man, and that I've killed one or two. We're both in the same +boat, and we might as well be a little bit friendly for a few hours, and +shake hands, and be at peace when the last minute comes. If we get out +of this, and find grub, we'll fight fair and square, and the best man +wins. Be square with me, old man, and I'll be square with you, s'elp me +God!" + +He reached out a hand, gnarled, knotted, covered with callouses and +scars, and with a strange sound in his throat Philip caught it tightly +in his own. + +"I'll be square. Bill!" he cried. "I swear that I'll be square--on those +conditions. If we find grub, and live, we'll fight it out--alone--and +the best man wins. But I've had food today, and you're starving. Eat +that and I'll still be in better condition than you. Eat it, and we'll +smoke. Praise God I've got my pipe and tobacco!" + +They settled back close in the lee of the drift, and the wind swirled +white clouds of snow-mist over their heads, while DeBar ate his bird and +Philip smoked. The food that went down DeBar's throat was only a morsel, +but it put new life into him, and he gathered fresh armfuls of sticks +and sapling boughs until the fire burned Philip's face and his drying +clothes sent up clouds of steam. Once, a hundred yards out in the plain, +Philip heard the outlaw burst into a snatch of wild forest song as he +pulled down a dead stub. + +"Seems good to have comp'ny," he said, when he came back with his load. +"My God, do you know I've never felt quite like this--so easy and happy +like, since years and years? I wonder if it is because I know the end is +near?" + +"There's still hope," replied Philip. + +"Hope!" cried DeBar. "It's more than hope, man. It's a certainty for +me--the end, I mean. Don't you see, Phil--" He came and sat down close +to the other on the sledge, and spoke as if he had known him for years. +"It's got to be the end for me, and I guess that's what makes me +cheerful like. I'm going to tell you about it, if you don't mind." + +"I don't mind; I want to hear," said Philip, and he edged a little +nearer, until they sat shoulder to shoulder. + +"It's got to be the end," repeated DeBar, in a low voice. "If we get out +of this, and fight, and you win, it'll be because I'm dead, Phil. D'ye +understand? I'll be dead when the fight ends, if you win. That'll be one +end." + +"But if you win, Bill." + +A flash of joy shot into DeBar's eyes. + +"Then that'll be the other end," he said more softly still. He pointed +to the big Mackenzie hound. "I said he was next to my best friend an +earth, Phil. The other--is a girl--who lived back there--when it +happened, years and years ago. She's thirty now, and she's stuck to me, +and prayed for me, and believed in me for--a'most since we were kids +together, an' she's written to me--'Frank Symmonds'--once a month for +ten years. God bless her heart! That is what's kept me alive, and in +every letter she's begged me to let her come to me, wherever I was. +But--I guess the devil didn't get quite all of me, for I couldn't, 'n' +wouldn't. But I've give in now, and we've fixed it up between us. By +this time she's on her way to my brothers in South America, and if I +win--when we fight--I'm going where she is. And that's the other end, +Phil, so you see why I'm happy. There's sure to be an end of it for +me--soon." + +He bowed his wild, unshorn head in his mittened hands, and for a time +there was silence between them. + +Philip broke it, almost in a whisper. + +"Why don't you kill me--here--now-while I'm sitting helpless beside you, +and you've a knife in your belt?" + +DeBar lifted his head slowly and looked with astonishment into his +companion's face. + +"I'm not a murderer!" he said. + +"But you've killed other men," persisted Philip. + +"Three, besides those we hung," replied DeBar calmly. "One at Moose +Factory, when I tried to help John, and the other two up here. They were +like you--hunting me down, and I killed 'em in fair fight. Was that +murder? Should I stand by and be shot like an animal just because it's +the law that's doing it? Would you?" + +He rose without waiting for an answer and felt of the clothes beside the +fire. + +"Dry enough," he said. "Put 'em on and we'll be hiking." + +Philip dressed, and looked at his compass. + +"Still north?" he asked. "Chippewayan is south and west." + +"North," said DeBar. "I know of a breed who lives on Red Porcupine +Creek, which runs into the Slave. If we can find him we'll get grub, and +if we don't--" + +He laughed openly into the other's face. + +"We won't fight," said Philip, understanding him. + +"No, we won't fight, but we'll wrap up in the same blankets, and die, +with Woonga, there, keeping our backs warm until the last. Eh, Woonga, +will you do that?" + +He turned cheerily to the dog, and Woonga rose slowly and with +unmistakable stiffness of limb, and was fastened in the sledge traces. + +They went on through the desolate gloom of afternoon, which in late +winter is, above the sixtieth, all but night. Ahead of them there seemed +to rise billow upon billow of snow-mountains, which dwarfed themselves +into drifted dunes when they approached, and the heaven above them, and +the horizon on all sides of them were shut out from their vision by a +white mist which was intangible and without substance and yet which rose +like a wall before their eyes. It was one chaos of white mingling with +another chaos of white, a chaos of white earth smothered and torn by the +Arctic wind under a chaos of white sky; and through it all, saplings +that one might have twisted and broken over his knee were magnified into +giants at a distance of half a hundred paces, and men and dog looked +like huge specters moving with bowed heads through a world that was no +longer a world of life, but of dead and silent things. And up out of +this, after a time, rose DeBar's voice, chanting in tones filled with +the savagery of the North, a wild song that was half breed and half +French, which the forest men sing in their joy when coming very near to +home. + +They went on, hour after hour, until day gloom thickened into night, and +night drifted upward to give place to gray dawn, plodding steadily +north, resting now and then, fighting each mile of the way to the Red +Porcupine against the stinging lashes of the Arctic wind. And through it +all it was DeBar's voice that rose in encouragement to the dog limping +behind him and to the man limping behind the dog--now in song, now in +the wild shouting of the sledge-driver, his face thin and gaunt in its +starved whiteness, but his eyes alive with a strange fire. And it was +DeBar who lifted his mittened hands to the leaden chaos of sky when they +came to the frozen streak that was the Red Porcupine, and said, in a +voice through which there ran a strange thrill of something deep and +mighty, "God in Heaven be praised, this is the end!" + +He started into a trot now, and the dog trotted behind him, and behind +the dog trotted Philip, wondering, as he had wondered a dozen times +before that night, if DeBar were going mad. Five hundred yards down the +stream DeBar stopped in his tracks, stared for a moment into the +breaking gloom of the shore, and turned to Philip. He spoke in a voice +low and trembling, as if overcome for the moment by some strong emotion. + +"See--see there!" he whispered. "I've hit it, Philip Steele, and what +does it mean? I've come over seventy miles of barren, through night an' +storm, an' I've hit Pierre Thoreau's cabin as fair as a shot! Oh, man, +man, I couldn't do it once in ten thousand times!" He gripped Philip's +arm, and his voice rose in excited triumph. "I tell 'ee, it means +that--that God--'r something--must be with me!" + +"With us," said Philip, staring hard. + +"With me," replied DeBar so fiercely that the other started +involuntarily. "It's a miracle, an omen, and it means that I'm going to +win!" His fingers gripped deeper, and he said more gently, "Phil, I've +grown to like you, and if you believe in God as we believe in Him up +here--if you believe He tells things in the stars, the winds and things +like this, if you're afraid of death--take some grub and go back! I mean +it, Phil, for if you stay, an' fight, there is going to be but one end. +I will kill you!" + + + +Chapter XII. The Fight--And A Strange Visitor + +At DeBar's words the blood leaped swiftly through Philip's veins, and he +laughed as he flung the outlaw's hand from his arm. + +"I'm not afraid of death," he cried angrily. "Don't take me for a child, +William DeBar. How long since you found this God of yours?" + +He spoke the words half tauntingly, and as soon regretted them, for in a +voice that betrayed no anger at the slur DeBar said: "Ever since my +mother taught me the first prayer, Phil. I've killed three men and I've +helped to hang three others, and still I believe in a God, and I've halt +a notion He believes a little bit in me, in spite of the laws made down +in Ottawa." + +The cabin loomed up amid a shelter of spruce like a black shadow, and +when they climbed up the bank to it they found the snow drifted high +under the window and against the door. + +"He's gone--Pierre, I mean," said DeBar over his shoulder as he kicked +the snow away. "He hasn't come back from New Year's at Fort Smith." + +The door had no lock or bolt, and they entered. It was yet too dark for +them to see distinctly, and DeBar struck a match. On the table was a tin +oil lamp, which he lighted. It revealed a neatly kept interior about a +dozen feet square, with two bunks, several chairs, a table, and a sheet +iron stove behind which was piled a supply of wood. DeBar pointed to a +shelf on which were a number of tin boxes, their covers weighted down by +chunks of wood. + +"Grub!" he said. + +And Philip, pointing to the wood, added, "Fire--fire and grub." + +There was something in his voice which the other could not fail to +understand, and there was an uncomfortable silence as Philip put fuel +into the stove and DeBar searched among the food cans. + +"Here's bannock and cooked meat--frozen," he said, "and beans." + +He placed tins of each on the stove and then sat down beside the roaring +fire, which was already beginning to diffuse a heat. He held out his +twisted and knotted hands, blue and shaking with cold, and looked up at +Philip, who stood opposite him. + +He spoke no words, and yet there was something in his eyes which made +the latter cry out softly, and with a feeling which he tried to hide: +"DeBar, I wish to God it was over!" + +"So do I," said DeBar. + +He rubbed his hands and twisted them until the knuckles cracked. + +"I'm not afraid and I know that you're not, Phil," he went on, with his +eyes on the top of the stove, "but I wish it was over, just the same. +Somehow I'd a'most rather stay up here another year or two than--kill +you." + +"Kill me!" exclaimed Philip, the old fire leaping back into his veins. + +DeBar's quiet voice, his extraordinary self-confidence, sent a flush of +anger into Philip's face. + +"You're talking to me again as if I were a child, DeBar. My instructions +were to bring you back, dead or alive--and I'm going to!" + +"We won't quarrel about it, Phil," replied the outlaw as quietly as +before. "Only I wish it wasn't you I'm going to fight. I'd rather kill +half-a-dozen like the others than you." + +"I see," said Philip, with a perceptible sneer in his voice. "You're +trying to work upon my sympathy so that I will follow your +suggestion--and go back. Eh?" + +"You'd be a coward if you did that," retorted DeBar quickly. "How are we +going to settle it, Phil?" + +Philip drew his frozen revolver from its holster and held it over the +stove. + +"If I wasn't a crack shot, and couldn't center a two-inch bull's-eye +three times out of four at thirty paces, I'd say pistols." + +"I can't do that," said DeBar unhesitatingly, "but I have hit a wolf +twice out of five shots. It'll be a quick, easy way, and we'll settle it +with our revolvers. Going to shoot to kill?" + +"No, if I can help it. In the excitement a shot may kill, but I want to +take you back alive, so I'll wing you once or twice first." + +"I always shoot to kill," replied DeBar, without lifting his head. "Any +word you'd like to have sent home, Phil?" + +In the other's silence DeBar looked up. + +"I mean it," he said, in a low earnest voice. "Even from your point of +view it might happen, Phil, and you've got friends somewhere. It +anything should happen to me you'll find a letter in my pocket. I want +you to write to--to her--an' tell her I died in--an accident. Will you?" + +"Yes," replied Philip. "As for me, you'll find addresses in my pocket, +too. Let's shake!" + +Over the stove they gripped hands. + +"My eyes hurt," said DeBar. "It's the snow and wind, I guess. Do you +mind a little sleep--after we eat? I haven't slept a wink in three days +and nights." + +"Sleep until you're ready," urged Philip. "I don't want to fight bad +eyes." + +They ate, mostly in silence, and when the meal was done Philip carefully +cleaned his revolver and oiled it with bear grease, which he found in a +bottle on the shelf. + +DeBar watched him as he wiped his weapon and saw that Philip lubricated +each of the five cartridges which he put in the chamber. + +Afterward they smoked. + +Then DeBar stretched himself out in one of the two bunks, and his heavy +breathing soon gave evidence that he was sleeping. + +For a time Philip sat beside the stove, his eyes upon the inanimate form +of the outlaw. Drowsiness overcame him then, and he rolled into the +other bunk. He was awakened several hours later by DeBar, who was +filling the stove with wood. + +"How's the eyes?" he asked, sitting up. + +"Good," said the other. "Glad you're awake. The light will be bad inside +of an hour." + +He was rubbing and warming his hands, and Philip came to the opposite +side of the stove and rubbed and warmed his hands. For some reason he +found it difficult to look at DeBar, and he knew that DeBar was not +looking at him. + +It was the outlaw who broke the suspense. + +"I've been outside," he said in a low voice. "There's an open in front +of the cabin, just a hundred paces across. It wouldn't be a bad idea for +us to stand at opposite sides of the open and at a given signal +approach, firing as we want to." + +"Couldn't be better," exclaimed Philip briskly, turning to pull his +revolver from its holster. + +DeBar watched him with tensely anxious eyes as he broke the breech, +looked at the shining circle of cartridges, and closed it again. + +Without a word he went to the door, opened it, and with his pistol arm +trailing at his side, strode off to the right. For a moment Philip stood +looking after him, a queer lump in his throat. He would have liked to +shake hands, and yet at the same time he was glad that DeBar had gone in +this way. He turned to the left--and saw at a glance that the outlaw had +given him the best light. DeBar was facing him when he reached his +ground. + +"Are you ready?" he shouted. + +"Ready!" cried Philip. + +DeBar ran forward, shoulders hunched low, his pistol arm half extended, +and Philip advanced to meet him. At seventy paces, without stopping in +his half trot, the outlaw fired, and his bullet passed in a hissing +warning three feet over Philip's head. The latter had planned to hold +his fire until he was sure of hitting the outlaw in the arm or shoulder, +but a second shot from him, which seemed to Philip almost to nip him in +the face, stopped him short, and at fifty paces he returned the fire. + +DeBar ducked low and Philip thought that he was hit. + +Then with a fierce yell he darted forward, firing as he came. + +Again, and still a third time Philip fired, and as DeBar advanced, +unhurt, after each shot, a cry of amazement rose to his lips. At forty +paces he could nip a four-inch bull's-eye three times out of five, and +here he missed a man! At thirty he held an unbeaten record--and at +thirty, here in the broad open, he still missed his man! + +He had felt the breath of DeBar's fourth shot, and now with one +cartridge each the men advanced foot by foot, until DeBar stopped and +deliberately aimed at twenty paces. Their pistols rang out in one +report, and, standing unhurt, a feeling of horror swept over Philip as +he looked at the other. The outlaw's arms fell to his side. His empty +pistol dropped to the snow, and for a moment he stood rigid, with his +face half turned to the gloomy sky, while a low cry of grief burst from +Philip's lips. + +In that momentary posture of DeBar he saw, not the effect of a wound +only, but the grim, terrible rigidity of death. He dropped his own +weapon and ran forward, and in that instant DeBar leaped to meet him +with the fierceness of a beast! + +It was a terrible bit of play on DeBar's part, and for a moment took +Philip off his guard. He stepped aside, and, with the cleverness of a +trained boxer, he sent a straight cut to the outlaw's face as he closed +in. But the blow lacked force, and he staggered back under the other's +weight, boiling with rage at the advantage which DeBar had taken of him. + +The outlaw's hands gripped at his throat and his fingers sank into his +neck like cords of steel. With a choking gasp he clutched at DeBar's +wrists, knowing that another minute--a half-minute of that death clutch +would throttle him. He saw the triumph in DeBar's eyes, and with a last +supreme effort drew back his arm and sent a terrific short-arm punch +into the other's stomach. + +The grip at his throat relaxed. A second, a third, and a fourth blow, +his arm traveling swiftly in and out, like a piston-rod, and the triumph +in DeBar's eyes was replaced by a look of agony. The fingers at his +throat loosened still more, and with a sudden movement Philip freed +himself and sprang back a step to gather force for the final blow. + +The move was fatal. Behind him his heel caught in a snow-smothered log +and he pitched backward with DeBar on top of him. + +Again the iron fingers burned at his throat. But this time he made no +resistance, and after a moment the outlaw rose to his feet and stared +down into the white, still face half buried in the snow. Then he gently +lifted Philip's head in his arms. There was a crimson blotch in the snow +and close to it the black edge of a hidden rock. + +As quickly as possible DeBar carried Philip into the cabin and placed +him on one of the cots. Then he gathered certain articles of food from +Pierre's stock and put them in his pack. He had carried the pack half +way to the door when he stopped, dropped his load gently to the floor, +and thrust a hand inside his coat pocket. From it he drew forth a +letter. It was a woman's letter--and he read it now with bowed lead, a +letter of infinite faith, and hope, and love, and when once more he +turned toward Philip his face was filled with the flush of a great +happiness. + +"Mebby you don't just understand, Phil," he whispered, as if the other +were listening to him. "I'm going to leave this." + +With the stub of a pencil he scribbled a few words at the bottom of the +crumpled letter. + +He wrote in a crude, awkward hand: + +You'd won if it hadn't been for the rock. But I guess mebby that it was +God who put the rock there, Phil. While you was asleep I took the +bullets out of your cartridges and put in damp-paper, for I didn't want +to see any harm done with the guns. I didn't shoot to hit you, and after +all, I'm glad it was the rock that hurt you instead of me. + + +He leaned over the cot to assure himself that Philip's breath was coming +steadier and stronger, and then laid the letter on the young man's +breast. + +Five minutes later he was plodding steadily ahead of his big Mackenzie +hound into the peopleless barrens to the south and west. + +And still later Philip opened his eyes and saw what DeBar had left for +him. He struggled into a sitting posture and read the few lines which +the outlaw had written. + +"Here's to you, Mr. Felix MacGregor," he chuckled feebly, balancing +himself on the edge of the bunk. "You're right. It'll take two men to +lay out Mr. William DeBar--if you ever get him at all!" + +Three days later, still in the cabin, he raised a hand to his bandaged +head with an odd grimace, half of pain, half of laughter. + +"You're a good one, you are!" he said to himself, limping back and forth +across the narrow space of the cabin. "You've got them all beaten to a +rag when it comes to playing the chump, Phil Steele. Here you go up to +Big Chief MacGregor, throw out your chest, and say to him, 'I can get +that man,' and when the big chief says you can't, you call him a +four-ply ignoramus in your mind, and get permission to go after him +anyway--just because you're in love. You follow your man up here--four +hundred miles or so--and what's the consequence? You lose all hope of +finding her, and your 'man' does just what the big chief said he would +do, and lays you out--though it wasn't your fault after all. Then you +take possession of another man's shack when he isn't at home, eat his +grub, nurse a broken head, and wonder why the devil you ever joined the +glorious Royal Mounted when you've got money to burn. You're a wise one, +you are, Phil Steele--but you've learned something new. You've learned +there's never a man so good but there's a better one somewhere--even if +he is a man-killer like Mr. William DeBar." + +He lighted his pipe and went to the door. For the first time in days the +sun was shining in a cold blaze of fire over the southeastern edge of +the barrens, which swept away in a limitless waste of snow-dune and rock +and stunted scrub among which occasional Indian and half-breed trappers +set their dead-falls and poison baits for the northern fox. Sixty miles +to the west was Fort Smith. A hundred miles to the south lay the +Hudson's Bay Company's post at Chippewayan; a hundred and fifty miles to +the south and east was the post at Fond du Lac, and to the +north--nothing. A thousand miles or so up there one would have struck +the polar sea and the Eskimo, and it was with this thought of the +lifelessness and mystery of a dead and empty world that Philip turned +his eyes from the sun into the gray desolation that reached from Pierre +Thoreau's door to the end of the earth. Far off to the north he saw a +black speck moving in the chaos of white. It might have been a fox +coming over a snow-dune a rifle-shot away, for distances are elusive +where the sky and the earth seem to meet in a cold gray rim about one; +or it might have been a musk-ox or a caribou at a greater distance, but +the longer he looked the more convinced he became that it was none of +these--but a man. It moved slowly, disappeared for a few minutes in one +of the dips of the plain, and came into view again much nearer. This +time he made out a man, and behind, a sledge and dogs. + +"It's Pierre," he shivered, closing the door and coming back to the +stove. "I wonder what the deuce the breed will say when he finds a +stranger here and his grub half gone." + +After a little he heard the shrill creaking of a sledge on the crust +outside and then a man's voice. The sounds stopped close to the cabin +and were followed by a knock at the door. + +"Come in!" cried Philip, and in the same breath it flashed upon him that +it could not be the breed, and that it must be a mighty particular and +unusual personage to knock at all. + +The door opened and a man came in. He was a little man, and was bundled +in a great beaver overcoat and a huge beaver cap that concealed all of +his face but his eyes, the tip of his nose, and the frozen end of a +beard which stuck out between the laps of his turned-up collar like a +horn. For all the world he looked like a diminutive drum-major, and +Philip rose speechless, his pipe still in his mouth, as his strange +visitor closed the door behind him and approached. + +"Beg pardon," said the stranger in a smothered voice, walking as though +he were ice to the marrow and afraid of breaking himself. "It's so +beastly cold that I have taken the liberty of dropping in to get warm." + +"It is cold--beastly cold," replied Philip, emphasizing the word. "It +was down to sixty last night. Take off your things." + +"Devil of a country--this," shivered the man, unbuttoning his coat. "I'd +rather roast of the fever than freeze to death." Philip limped forward +to assist him, and the stranger eyed him sharply for a moment. + +"Limp not natural," he said quickly, his voice freeing itself at last +from the depths of his coat collar. "Bandage a little red, eyes +feverish, lips too pale. Sick, or hurt?" + +Philip laughed as the little man hopped to the stove and began rubbing +his hands. + +"Hurt," he said. "If you weren't four hundred miles from nowhere I'd say +that you were a doctor." + +"So I am," said the other. "Edward Wallace Boffin, M.D., 900 North +Wabash Avenue, Chicago." + + + +Chapter XIII. The Great Love Experiment + +For a full half minute after the other's words Philip stared in +astonishment. Then, with a joyful shout, he suddenly reached out his +hand across the stove. + +"By thunder," he cried, "you're from home!" + +"Home!" exclaimed the other. There was a startled note in his voice. +"You're--you're a Chicago man?" he asked, staring strangely at Philip +and gripping his hand at the same time. + +"Ever hear of Steele--Philip Egbert Steele? I'm his son." + +"Good Heavens!" drawled the doctor, gazing still harder at him and +pinching the ice from his beard, "what are you doing up here?" + +"Prodigal son," grinned Philip. "Waiting for the calf to get good and +fat. What are you doing?" + +"Making a fool of myself," replied the doctor, looking at the top of the +stove and rubbing his hands until his fingers snapped. + +At the North Pole, if they had met there, Philip would have known him +for a professional man. His heavy woolen suit was tailor made. He wore a +collar and a fashionable tie. A lodge signet dangled at his watch chain. +He was clean-shaven and his blond Van Dyke beard was immaculately +trimmed. Everything about him, from the top of his head to the bottom of +his laced boots, shouted profession, even in the Arctic snow. He might +have gone farther and guessed that he was a physician--a surgeon, +perhaps--from his hands, and from the supple manner in which he twisted +his long white fingers about one another over the stove. He was a man of +about forty, with a thin sensitive face, strong rather than handsome, +and remarkable eyes. They were not large, nor far apart, but were like +twin dynamos, reflecting the life of the man within. They were the sort +of eyes which Philip had always associated with great mental power. + +The doctor had now finished rubbing his hands, and, unbuttoning his +under coat, he drew a small silver cigarette case from his waistcoat +pocket. + +"They're not poison," he smiled, opening it and offering the cigarettes +to Philip. "I have them made especially for myself." A sound outside the +door made him pause with a lighted match between his fingers. "How about +dogs and Indian?" he asked. "May they come in?" + +Philip began hobbling toward the door. + +"So exciting to meet a man from home that I forgot all about 'em," he +exclaimed. + +With three or four quick steps the doctor overtook him and caught him by +the arm. + +"Just a moment," he said quickly. "How far is Fort Smith from here?" + +"About sixty miles." + +"Do you suppose I could get there without--his assistance?" + +"If you're willing to bunk here for a few days--yes," said Philip. "I'm +going on to Fort Smith myself as soon as I am able to walk." + +An expression of deep relief came into the doctor's eyes. + +"That's just what I want, Steele," he exclaimed, unfeignedly delighted +at Philip's suggestion. "I'm not well, and I require a little rest. Call +him in." + +No sooner had the Indian entered than to Philip's astonishment the +little doctor began talking rapidly to him in Cree. The guide's eyes +lighted up intelligently, and at the end he replied with a single word, +nodded, and grinned. Philip noticed that as he talked a slight flush +gathered in the doctor's smooth cheeks, and that not only by his voice +but by the use of his hands as well he seemed anxious to impress upon +his listener the importance of what he was saying. + +"He'll start back for Chippewayan this afternoon," he explained to +Philip a moment later. "The dogs and sledge are mine, and he says that +he can make it easily on snow-shoes." Then he lighted his cigarette and +added suggestively, "He can't understand English." + +The Indian had caught a glimpse of Philip's belt and holster, and now +muttered a few low words, as though he were grumbling at the stove. The +doctor poised his cigarette midway to his lips and looked quickly across +at Philip. + +"Possibly you belong to the Northwest Mounted Police," he suggested. + +"Yes." + +"Heavens," drawled the doctor again, "and you the son of a millionaire +banker! What you doing it for?" + +"Fun," answered Philip, half laughing. "And I'm not getting it in +sugar-coated pellet form either. Doctor. I came up here to get a man, +found him, and was gloriously walloped for my trouble. I'm not +particularly sorry, either. Rather glad he got away." + +"Why?" asked the doctor. + +In spite of their short acquaintance Philip began to feel a sort of +comradeship for the man opposite him. + +"Well," he said hesitatingly, "you see, he was one of those criminals +who are made criminals. Some one else was responsible--a case of one man +suffering because of another man's sins." + +If the doctor had received the thrust of a pin he could not have jumped +from his chair with more startling suddenness than he did at Philip's +words. + +"That's it!" he cried excitedly, beginning to pace back and forth across +the cabin floor. "It's more than a theory--it's a truth--that people +suffer more because of other people than on account of themselves. We're +born to it and we keep it up, inflicting a thousand pricks and a +thousand sorrows to gain one selfish end and it isn't once in a hundred +times that the boomerang comes home and strikes the right one down. But +when it does--when it does, sir--" + +As suddenly as he had begun, the doctor stopped, and he laughed a little +unnaturally. "Bosh!" he exclaimed. "Let's see that head of yours, +Steele. Speaking of pains and pricks reminds me that, being a surgeon, I +may be of some assistance to you." + +Philip knew that he had checked himself with an effort, and as his new +acquaintance began to loosen the bandage he found himself wondering what +mysterious mission could have sent a Chicago surgeon up to Fort Smith. +The doctor interrupted his thoughts. + +"Queer place for a blow," he said briskly. "Nothing serious--slight +abrasion--trifle feverish. We'll set you to rights immediately." He +bustled to his greatcoat and from one of the deep pockets drew forth a +leather medicine case. "Queer place, queer place," he chuckled, +returning with a vial in his hand. "Were you running when it happened?" + +Philip laughed with him, and by the time the doctor had finished he had +given him an account of his affair with DeBar. Not until hours later, +when the Cree had left on his return trip and they sat smoking before a +roaring fire after supper, did it occur to him how confidential he had +become. Seldom had Philip met a man who impressed him as did the little +surgeon. He liked him immensely. He felt that he had known him for years +instead of hours, and chatted freely of his adventures and asked a +thousand questions about home. He found that the doctor was even better +acquainted with his home city than himself, and that he knew many people +whom he knew, and lived in a fashionable quarter. He was puzzled even as +they talked and laughed and smoked their cigarettes and pipes. The +doctor said nothing about himself or his personal affairs, and cleverly +changed the conversation whenever it threatened to drift in that +direction. + +It was late when Philip rose from his chair, suggesting that they go to +bed. He laughed frankly across into the other's face. + +"Boffin--Boffin--Boffin," he mused. + +"Strange I've never heard of you down south, Doctor. Now what the deuce +can you be doing up here?" + +There was a point-blank challenge in his eyes. The doctor leaned a +little toward him, as if about to speak, but caught himself. For several +moments his keen eyes gazed squarely into Philip's, and when he broke +the silence the same nervous flush that Philip had noticed before rose +into his cheeks. + to go roughing it down in South America. I believe you're honest--on + the square." + +Philip stared at him in amazement. + +"If I didn't," he went on, rubbing his hands again over the stove, "I'd +follow your suggestion, and go to bed. As it is, I'm going to tell you +why I'm up here, on your word of honor to maintain secrecy. I've got a +selfish end in view, for you may be able to assist me. But nothing must +go beyond yourself. What do you say to the condition?" + +"I will not break your confidence--unless you have murdered some one," +laughed Philip, stooping to light a fresh pipe. "In that event you'd +better keep quiet, as I'd have to haul you back to headquarters." + +He did not see the deepening of the flush in the other's face. + +"Good," said the doctor. "Sit down, Steele. I take it for granted that +you will help me--if you can. First I suppose I ought to confess that my +name is not Boffin, but McGill--Dudley McGill, professor of neurology +and diseases of the brain--" + +Philip almost dropped his pipe. "Great Scott, and it was you who +wrote--" He stopped, staring in amazement. + +"Yes, it was I who wrote Freda, if that's what you refer to," finished +the doctor. "It caused a little sensation, as you may know, and nearly +got me ousted from the college. But it sold up to two hundred thousand +copies, so it wasn't a bad turn," he added. + +"It was published while I was away," said Philip. "I got a copy in Rio +Janeiro, and it haunted me for weeks after I read it. Great Heaven, you +can't believe--" + +"I did," interrupted the doctor sharply. "I believed everything that I +wrote--and more. It was my theory of life." He sprang from his chair and +began walking back and forth in his quick, excited way. The flush had +gone from his face now and was replaced by a strange paleness. His lips +were tense, the fingers of his hands tightly clenched, his voice was +quick, sharp, incisive when he spoke. + +"It was my theory of life," he repeated almost fiercely, "and that is +the beginning of why I am up here. My theory was that there existed no +such thing as 'the divine spark of love' between men and women not +related by blood, no reaching out of one soul for another--no faith, no +purity, no union between man and woman but that could be broken by low +passions. My theory was that man and woman were but machines, and that +passion, and not the love which we dream and read of, united these +machines; and that every machine, whether it was a man or a woman, could +be broken and destroyed in a moral sense by some other machine of the +opposite sex--if conditions were right. Do you understand me? My theory +was destructive of homes, of happiness, of moral purity. It was bad. I +argued my point in medical journals, and I wrote a book based on it. But +I lacked proof, the actual proof of experience. So I set out to +experiment." + +He seemed to have forgotten now that Philip was in the room, and went on +bitterly, as if arraigning himself for something which he had not yet +disclosed. + +"It made me a--a--almost a criminal," he continued. "I had no good +thoughts for humanity, beyond my small endeavors in my little field of +science. I was a machine myself, cold, passionless, caring little for +women--thus proving, if I had stopped to consider myself, the +unreasonableness of my own theory. Coolly and without a thought of the +consequences, I set out to prove myself right. When I think of it now my +action appalls me. It was heinous, for the mere proving of my theory +meant misery and unhappiness for those who were to prove it to me. I was +not cramped for money. So I determined to experiment with six +machines--three young men and three young women. I planned that each +person should be unconscious of the part he or she was playing, and that +each pair should be thrown constantly together--not in society, mind +you, for my theory was that conditions must be right. Through a trusted +and highly paid agent I hired my people--the men. Through another, who +was a woman, I hired those of the opposite sex. One of the young women +was sent to an obscure little place a hundred miles back from the +Brazilian coast, ostensibly to act as governess for the children of an +American family which did not exist. To this same place, through the +other agent, was sent a man, whose duty was to get information about the +country for a party of capitalists. Do you begin to understand?" + +"Yes, I begin to understand," said Philip. + +"This place to which they went was made up of a dozen or so hovels," +continued the doctor, resuming his nervous walk. "There was no one there +who could talk or understand their language but these two. The +consequence--conditions were right. They would be constantly together. +They would either prove or disprove my theory that men and women were +but machines of passion. I knew that they would stay at this place +during the three months I had allotted for my experiment, for I paid +them a high price. The girl, when she found no American family, was told +to wait until they arrived. The man, of course, had plenty of supposed +work to keep him there." + +"I understand," repeated Philip. + +"The second couple," continued the doctor, forcing himself into a chair +opposite Philip, "were in a similar way sent up here--to an obscure +northern post which I have reason for not naming. And the third couple +went to a feverish district down in Central America." + +He rose from his chair again, and Philip was silent while the doctor +went to his great-coat and from somewhere within its depths brought out +fresh cigarettes. His hand trembled slightly as he lighted one and the +flare of the match, playing for an instant on his face, emphasized the +nervous tension which he was under. + +"I suppose you think it all very strange--and idiotic," he said, after a +few moments. "But we frequently do strange things, and apparently +senseless ones, in scientific work. Madmen have made the world's +greatness. Our most wonderful inventors, our greatest men of all ages, +have in a way been insane--for they have been abnormal, and what is that +but a certain form of insanity?" + +He looked at Philip through his cigarette smoke as if expecting a reply, +but Philip only wet his lips, and remained silent. + +"I got six months' leave of absence," he resumed, "and set out to see +the results of my experiments. First I went to Rio, and from there to +the place where the first couple had gone. As a consequence, five weeks +passed between the date of the last letters of my experimenters and the +day I joined them. Heavens, man! When I made it known that I wanted +them, where do you think they took me?" + +He dropped his half-burned cigarette and his voice was husky as he +turned on Philip. "Where--where do you think they took me?" he demanded. + +"God knows!" exclaimed Philip, tremulously. "Where?" + +"To two freshly made graves just outside the village," groaned the +doctor. "I learned their story after a little. The girl, finding herself +useless there, had begun to teach the little children. I'm--I'm--going +to skip quickly over this." His voice broke to a whisper. "She was an +angel. The poor half-naked women told me that through my interpreter. +The children cried for her when she died. The men had brought flowering +trees from miles away to shade her grave--and the other. They had met, +as I had planned--the man and the girl, but it didn't turn out--my way. +It was a beautiful love, I believe, as pure and sweet as any in the +whole world. They say that they made the whole village happy, and that +each Sunday the girl and the man would sing to them beautiful songs +which they could not understand, but which made even the sick smile with +happiness. It was a low, villainous place for a village, half encircled +by a swampy river, and the terrible heat of the summer sun brought with +it a strange sickness. It was a deadly, fatal sickness, and many died, +and always there were the man and the girl, working and singing and +striving to do good through all the hours of day and night. What need is +there of saying more?" the doctor cried, his voice choking him. "What +need to say more--except that the man went first, and that the girl died +a week later, and that they were buried side by side under the mangum +trees? What need--unless it is to say that I am their murderer?" + +"There have been many mistakes made in the name of science," said +Philip, clearing his throat. "This was one. Your theory was wrong." + +"Yes, it was wrong," said the doctor, more gently. "I saved myself by +killing them. My theory died with them, and as fast as I could travel I +hurried to that other place in Central America." + +A soft glow entered into his eyes now, and he came around the stove and +took one of Philip's hands between his own, and looked steadily down +into his face, while there came a curious twitching about the muscles of +his throat. + +"Nothing had happened," he said, barely above a whisper. "I found her, +and I thank God for that I loved her, and my theory was doubly +shattered, a thousand times cursed. She is my wife, and I am the +happiest of men--except for these haunting memories. Before I married +her I told her all, and together we have tried to make restitution for +my crime, for I shall always deem it such. I found that the man who died +was supporting a mother, and that the girl's parents lived on a little +mortgaged farm in Michigan. We sent the mother ten thousand dollars, and +the parents the same. We have built a little church in the village where +they died. The third couple," finished the doctor, dropping Philip's +hand, "came up here. When I got back from the south I found that several +of my checks had been returned. I wrote letter after letter, but could +find no trace of these last of my experimenters. I sent an agent into +the North and he returned without news of them. They had never appeared +at Fort Smith. And now--I have come up to hunt for them myself. Perhaps, +in your future wanderings, you may be of some assistance to me. That is +why I have told you this--with the hope that you will help me, if you +can." + +With a flash of his old, quick coolness the doctor turned to one of +Pierre Thoreau's bunks. + +"Now," he said, with a strained laugh, "I'll follow your suggestion and +go to bed. Goodnight." + + + + +Chapter XIV. What Came Of The Great Love Experiment + +For an hour after he had gone to bed Philip lay awake thinking of the +doctor's story. He dreamed of it when he fell asleep. In a way for which +he could not account, the story had a peculiar effect upon him, and +developed in him a desire to know the end. He awoke in the morning +anxious to resume the subject with McGill, but the doctor disappointed +him. During the whole of the day he made no direct reference to his +mission in the North, and when Philip once or twice brought him back to +the matter he evaded any discussion of it, giving him to understand, +without saying so, that the matter was a closed incident between them, +only to be reopened when he was able to give some help in the search. +The doctor talked freely of his home, of the beauty and the goodness of +his wife, and of a third member whom they expected in their little +family circle in the spring. They discussed home topics--politics, clubs +and sport. The doctor disliked society, though for professional reasons +he was compelled to play a small part in it, and in this dislike the two +men found themselves on common ground. They became more and more +confidential in all ways but one. They passed hours in playing cribbage +with a worn pack of Pierre's cards, and the third night sang old college +songs which both had nearly forgotten. It was on this evening that they +planned to remain one more day in Pierre's cabin and then leave for Fort +Smith. + +"You have hope--there," said Philip in a casual way, as they were +undressing. + +"Little hope, but the search will begin from there," replied the doctor. +"I have more hope at Chippewayan, where we struck a clew. I sent back my +Indian to follow it up." + +They went to bed. How long he had slept Philip had no idea, when he was +awakened by a slight noise. In a sub-conscious sort of way, with his +eyes still closed, he lay without moving and listened. The sound came +again, like the soft, cautious tread of feet near him. Still without +moving he opened his eyes. The oil lamp which he had put out on retiring +was burning low. In its dim light stood the doctor, half dressed, in a +tense attitude of listening. + +"What's the matter?" asked Philip. + +The professor started, and turned toward the stove. + +"Nervousness, I guess," he said gloomily. "I was afraid I would awaken +you. I've been up three times during the last hour--listening for a +voice." + +"A voice?" + +"Yes, back there in the bunk I could have sworn that I heard it calling +somewhere out in the night. But when I get up I can't hear it. I've +stood at the door until I'm frozen." + +"It's the wind," said Philip. "It has troubled me many times out on the +snow plains. I've heard it wail like children crying among the dunes, +and again like women screaming, and men shouting. You'd better go to +bed." + +"Listen!" The doctor stiffened, his white face turned to the door. + +"Good Heavens, was that the wind?" he asked after a moment. + +Philip had rolled from his bunk and was pulling on his clothes. + +"Dress and we'll find out," he advised. + +Together they went to the door, opened it, and stepped outside. The sky +was thick and heavy, with only a white blur where the moon was +smothered. Fifty yards away the gray gloom became opaque. Over the +thousand miles of drift to the north there came a faint whistling wind, +rising at times in fitful sweeps of flinty snow, and at intervals dying +away until it became only a lulling sound. In one of these intervals +both men held their breath. + +From somewhere out of the night, and yet from nowhere that they could +point, there came a human voice. + +"Pier-r-r-r-e Thoreau--Pier-r-r-r-e Thoreau--Ho, Pierre Thoreau-u-u-u!" + +"Off there!" shivered the doctor. + +"No--out there!" said Philip. + +He raised his own voice in an answering shout, and in response there +came again the cry for Pierre Thoreau. + +"I'm right!" cried the doctor. "Come!" + +He darted away, his greatcoat making a dark blur in the night ahead of +Philip, who paused again to shout through the megaphone of his hands. +There came no reply. A second and a third time he shouted, and still +there was no response. + +"Queer," he thought. "What the devil can it mean?" + +The doctor had disappeared, and he followed in the direction he had +gone. A hundred yards more and he saw the dark blur again, close to the +ground. The doctor was bending over a human form stretched out in the +snow. + +"Just in time," he said to Philip as he came up. Excitement had gone +from his voice now. It was cool and professional, and he spoke in a +commanding way to his companion. "You're heavier than I, so take him by +the shoulders and hold his head well up. I don't believe it's the cold, +for his body is warm and comfortable. I feel something wet and thick on +his shirt, and it may be blood. So hold his head well up." + +Between them they carried him back to the cabin, and with the quick +alertness of a man accustomed to every emergency of his profession the +doctor stripped off his two coats while Philip looked at the face of the +man whom they had placed in his bunk. His own experience had acquainted +him with violence and bloodshed, but in spite of that fact he shuddered +slightly as he gazed on the unconscious form. + +It was that of a young man of splendid physique, with a closely shaven +face, short blond hair, and a magnificent pair of shoulders. + +Beyond the fact that he knew the face wore no beard he could scarce have +told if it were white or black. From chin to hair it was covered with +stiffened blood. + +The doctor came to his side. + +"Looks bad, doesn't he?" he said cheerfully. "Thought it wasn't the +cold. Heart beating too fast, pulse too active. Ah--hot water if you +please, Philip!" + +He loosened the man's coat and shirt, and a few moments later, when +Philip brought a towel and a basin of water, he rose from his +examination. + +"Just in time--as I said before," he exclaimed with satisfaction. "You'd +never have heard another 'Pierre Thoreau' out of him, Philip," he went +on, speaking the young man's name as it he had been accustomed to doing +it for a long time. "Wound on the head--skull sound--loss of blood from +over-exertion. We'll have him drinking coffee within an hour if you'll +make some." + +The doctor rolled up his shirt sleeves and began to wash away the blood. + +"A good-looking chap," he said over his shoulder. "Face clean cut, fine +mouth, a frontal bone that must have brain behind it, square chin--" He +broke off to ask: "What do you suppose happened to him?" + +"Haven't got the slightest idea," said Philip, putting the coffee pot on +the stove. "A blow, isn't it?" + +Philip was turning up the wick of the lamp when a sudden startled cry +came from the bedside. Something in it, low and suppressed, made him +turn so quickly that by a clumsy twist of his fingers the lamp was +extinguished. He lighted it again and faced the doctor. McGill was upon +his knees, terribly pale. + +"Good Heaven!" he gasped. "What's the matter?" + +"Nothing, nothing, Phil--it was he! He let it out of him so unexpectedly +that it startled me." + +"I thought it was your voice," said Philip. + +"No, no, it was his. See, he is returning to consciousness." + +The wounded man's eyes opened slowly, and closed again. He heaved a +great sigh and stretched out his arms as if about to awaken from a deep +slumber. The doctor sprang to his feet. + +"We must have ice, Phil--finely chopped ice from the creek down there. +Will you take the ax and those two pails and bring back both pails full? +No hurry, but we'll need it within an hour." + +Philip bundled himself in his coat and went out with the ax and pails. + +"Ice!" he muttered to himself. "Now what can he want of ice?" + +He dug down through three feet of snow and chopped for half an hour. +When he returned to the cabin the wounded man was bolstered up in bed, +and the doctor was pacing back and forth across the room, evidently +worked to a high pitch of excitement. + +"Murder--robbery--outrage! Right under our noses, that's what it was!" +he cried. "Pierre Thoreau is dead--killed by the scoundrels who left +this man for dead beside him! They set upon them late yesterday +afternoon as Pierre and his partner were coming home, intending to kill +them for their outfit. The murderers, who are a breed and a white +trapper, have probably gone to their shack half a dozen miles up the +creek. Now, Mr. Philip Steele, here's a little work for you!" + +MacGregor himself had never stirred Philip Steele's blood as did the +doctor's unexpected wards, but the two men watching him saw nothing +unusual in their effect. He set down his ice and coolly took off his +coat, then advanced to the side of the wounded man. + +"I'm glad you're better," he said, looking down into the other's strong, +pale face. "It was a pretty close shave. Guess you were a little out of +your head, weren't you?" + +For an instant the man's eyes shifted past Philip to where the doctor +was standing. + +"Yes--I must have been. He says I was calling for Pierre, and Pierre was +dead. I left him ten miles back there in the snow." He closed his eyes +with a groan of pain and continued, after a moment, "Pierre and I have +been trapping foxes. We were coming back with supplies to last us until +late spring when--it happened. The white man's name is Dobson, and +there's a breed with him. Their shack is six or seven miles up the +creek." + +Philip saw the doctor examining a revolver which he had taken from the +pocket of his big coat. He came over to the bunkside with it in his +hand. + +"That's enough, Phil," he said softly. "He must not talk any more for an +hour or two or we'll have him in a fever. Get on your coat. I'm going +with you." + +"I'm going alone," said Phil shortly. "You attend to your patient." He +drank a cup of coffee, ate a piece of toasted bannock, and with the +first gray breaking of dawn started up the creek on a pair of Pierre's +old snow-shoes. The doctor followed him to the creek and watched him +until he was out of sight. + +The wounded man was sitting on the edge of the cot when McGill reentered +the cabin. + +His exertion had brought a flush of color back into his face, which +lighted up with a smile as the other came through the door. + +"It was a close shave, thanks to you," he said, repeating Philip's +words. + +"Just so," replied the doctor. He had placed a brace of short bulldog +revolvers on the table and offered one of them now to his companion. + +"The shaving isn't over yet, Falkner." + +They ate breakfast, each with a gun beside his tin plate. Now and then +the doctor interrupted his meal to go to the door and peer over the +broadening vista of the barrens. They had nearly finished when he came +back from one of these observations, his lips set a little tighter, a +barely perceptible tremor in his voice when he spoke. + +"They're coming, Falkner!" + +They picked up their revolvers and the doctor buttoned his coat tight up +about his neck. + +For ten minutes they sat silent and listening. + +Not until the crunching beat of snow-shoes came to their ears did the +doctor move. Thrusting his weapon into his coat pocket, he went to the +door. Falkner followed him, and stood well out of sight when he opened +it. Two men and a dog team were crossing the opening. McGill's dogs were +fastened under a brush lean-to built against the cabin, and as the rival +team of huskies began filling the air with their clamor for a fight, the +stranger team halted and one of the two men came forward alone. He +stopped with some astonishment before the aristocratic-looking little +man waiting for him in Pierre's doorway. + +"Is Pierre Thoreau at home?" he demanded. + +"I'm a stranger here, so I can not say," replied the doctor, inspecting +the questioner with marked coolness. "It is possible, however, that he +is--for I picked up a man half dead out in the snow last night, and I'm +waiting for him to come back to life. A smooth-faced, blond fellow, with +a cut on his head. It may be this Pierre Thoreau." + +The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the man kicked off his +snow-shoes and with an, excited wave of his arm to his companion with +the dogs, almost ran past the doctor. + +"It's him--the man I want to see!" he cried in a low voice. "My name's +Dobson, of the--" + +What more he had meant to say was never finished. Falkner's powerful +arms had gripped his head and throat in a vise-like clutch from which no +smother of sound escaped, and three or four minutes later, when the +second man came through the door, he found his comrade flat on his back, +bound and gagged, and the shining muzzles of two short and +murderous-looking revolvers leveled at his breast. He was a swarthy +breed, scarcely larger than the doctor himself, and his only +remonstrance as his hands were fastened behind his back was a brief +outburst of very bad and, very excited French which the professor +stopped with a threatening flourish of his gun. + +"You'll do," he said, standing off to survey his prisoner. "I believe +you're harmless enough to have the use of your legs and mouth." With a +comic bow the little doctor added, "M'sieur, I'm going to ask you to +drive us back to Fort Smith, and if you so much as look the wrong way +out of your eyes I'll blow off your head. You and your friend are to +answer for the killing of Pierre Thoreau and for the attempted murder of +this young man, who will follow us to Fort Smith to testify against +you." + +It was evident that the half-breed did not understand, and the doctor +added a few explanatory words in French. The man on the floor groaned +and struggled until he was red in the face. + +"Easy, easy," soothed the doctor. "I appreciate the fact that it is +pretty tough luck, Dobson, but you'll have to take your medicine. +Falkner, if you'll lend a hand in getting me off I won't lose much time +in starting for Fort Smith." + +It was a strange-looking outfit that set out from Pierre Thoreau's cabin +half an hour later. Ahead of the team which had come that morning walked +the breed, his left arm bound to his side with a babiche thong. On the +sledge behind him lay an inanimate and blanket-wrapped bundle, which was +Dobson; and close at the rear of the sledge, stripped of his greatcoat +and more than ever like a diminutive drum-major, followed Dudley McGill, +professor of neurology and diseases of the brain, with a bulldog +revolver in his mittened hand. + +From the door Falkner watched them go. + +Six hours later Philip returned from the east. Falkner saw him coming up +from the creek and went to meet him. + +"I found the cabin, but no one was there," said Philip. "It has been +deserted for a long time. No tracks in the snow, everything inside +frozen stiff, and what signs I did find were of a woman!" + +The muscles of Falkner's face gave a sudden twitch. "A woman!" he +exclaimed. + +"Yes, a woman," repeated Philip, "and there was a photograph of her on a +table in the bedroom. Did this Dobson have a wife?" + +Falkner had fallen a step behind him as they entered the cabin. + +"A long time ago--a woman was there," he said. "She was a young woman, +and--and almost beautiful. But she wasn't his wife." + +"She was pretty," replied Philip, "so pretty that I brought her picture +along for my collection at home." He looked about for McGill. "Where's +the doctor?" + +Falkner's face was very white as he explained what had happened during +the other's absence. + +"He said that he would camp early this afternoon so that you could +overtake them," he finished after he had described the capture and the +doctor's departure. "The doctor thought you would want to lose no time +in getting the prisoners to Fort Smith, and that he could get a good +start before night. To-morrow or the next day I am going to follow with +the other team. I'd go with you if he hadn't commanded me to remain here +and nurse my head for another twenty-four hours." + +Philip shrugged his shoulders, and the two had little to say as they ate +their dinners. After an hour's rest he prepared a light pack and took up +the doctor's trail. Inwardly he rankled at the unusual hand which the +little professor was playing in leaving Pierre's cabin with the +prisoners, and yet he was confident that McGill would wait for him. Mile +after mile he traveled down the creek. At dusk there was no sign of his +new friend. Just before dark he climbed a dead stub at the summit of a +high ridge and half a dozen miles of the unbroken barren stretched out +before his eyes. + +At six o'clock he stopped to cook some tea and warm his meat and +bannock. After that he traveled until ten, then built a big fire and +gave up the pursuit until morning. At dawn he started again, and not +until the forenoon was half gone did he find where the doctor had +stopped to camp. + +The ashes of his fire were still warm beneath and the snow was trampled +hard around them. In the north the clouds were piling up, betokening a +storm such as it was not well for a man in Philip's condition of fatigue +to face. Already some flavor of the approaching blizzard was carried to +him on the wind. + +So he hurried on. Fortunately the storm died away after an hour or two +of fierce wind. Still he did not come up with McGill, and he camped +again for the night, cursing the little professor who was racing on +ahead of him. It was noon of the following day when he came in sight of +the few log cabins at Fort Smith, situated in a treeless and +snow-smothered sweep of the plain on the other side of the Slave. He +crossed the river and hurried past the row of buildings that led to post +headquarters. In front of the company office were gathered a little +crowd of men, women and children. He pushed his way through and stopped +at the bottom of the three log steps which led up to the door. + +At the top was Professor McGill, coming out. His face was a puzzle. His +eyes had in them a stony stare as he gazed down at Philip. Then he +descended slowly, like one moving in a dream. "Good Heavens," he said +huskily, and only for Philip's ears, "do you know what I've done, Phil?" + +"What?" demanded Philip. + +The doctor came down to the last step. + +"Phil," he whispered, "that fellow we found with a broken head played a +nice game on me. He was a criminal, and I've brought back to Fort Smith +no less person than the man sent out to arrest him, Corporal Dobson, of +the Mounted Police, and his driver, Francois Something-or-Other. +Heavens, ain't it funny?" + +That same afternoon Corporal Dobson and the half-breed set out again in +quest of Falkner, and this time they were accompanied by Pierre Thoreau, +who learned for the first time what had happened in his cabin. The +doctor disappeared for the rest of the day, but early the next morning +he hunted Phil up and took him to a cabin half a mile down the river. A +team of powerful dogs, an unusually large sledge, and two Indians were +at the door. + +"I bought 'em last night," explained the doctor, "and we're going to +leave for the south to-day." + +"Giving up your hunt?" asked Philip. + +"No, it's ended," replied McGill in a matter-of-fact way. "It ended at +Pierre Thoreau's cabin. Falkner was the third man to work out my +experiment." + +Philip stopped in his tracks, and the doctor stopped, and turned toward +him. + +"But the third--" Philip began. + +The little doctor continued to smile. + +"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Philip," he quoted, "than +are dreamed of in your philosophy. This love experiment has turned out +wrongly, as far as preconceived theories are concerned, but when I think +of the broader, deeper significance of it all I am--pleased is not the +word." + +"What I can't see--" Philip was stopped by the doctor's lifted hand. + +"You see, I am relying on your word of honor, Phil," he explained, +laughing softly at the amazement which he saw in the other's face. "It's +all so wonderful that I want you to know the end of it, and how happily +it has turned out for me--and the little woman waiting for me back home. +It was I and not Falkner who cried out just before you turned the +lamp-wick down. A letter had fallen from his coat pocket, and it was one +of my letters--sent through my agent. Understand? I sent you for the +ice, and while you were gone I told him who I was, and he told me why I +had never heard from him, and why he was in Pierre Thoreau's cabin. My +agent had sent him north with five hundred dollars as a first payment. +To cut a long story short, he got into a card game in Prince Albert--as +the best of us do at times--and as a result become mixed up in a +quarrel, in which he pretty nearly killed a man. They've been after him +ever since, and almost had him when we found him, injured by a blow +which he received in an ugly fall earlier in the night. It's the last +and total wrecking of my theory." + +"But the girl--" urged Philip. + +"We're going to see her now, and she will tell you the whole story as +she told it to me," said the doctor, as calmly as before. "Ah, but it's +wonderful, man--this great, big, human love that fills the world! They +two met at Nelson House, as I had planned they should, and four months +after that they smashed my theory by being married by a missionary from +York Factory. I mean that they smashed the bad part of it, Phil, but all +three couples proved the other--that there exist no such things as 'soul +affinities,' and that two normal people of opposite sexes, if thrown +together under certain environment, will as naturally mate as two birds, +and will fight and die for one another afterward, too. There may not be +one in ten thousand who believes it, but I do--still. At the last moment +the man in Falkner triumphed over his love and he told her what he was, +that up until the moment he met her he drank and gambled, and that for +his shooting a man in Prince Albert he would sooner or later get a term +in prison. And she? I tell you that she busted my theory to a frazzle! +She loved him, as I now believe every woman in the world is capable of +loving, and she married him, and stuck to him through thick and thin, +fled with him when he was compelled to run--and her faith in him now is +like that of a child in its God. For a time they lived in that cabin +above Pierre Thoreau's, and perhaps they wouldn't have been found out if +they hadn't come up to Fort Smith for a holiday. Falkner told me that +his pursuers would surely stop at Pierre's, and d his wife. By this time +he has a good start for the States, and will be there by the time I get +his wife down." + +Philip had not spoken a word. Almost mechanically he pulled the +photograph from his pocket. + +"And this--" he said. + +The doctor laughed as he took the picture from his hand. + +"Is Mrs. William Falkner, Phil. Come in. I'm anxious to have you meet +her." + + + +Chapter XV. Philip's Last Assignment + +Philip, instead of following the doctor, laid a detaining hand upon his +arm. + +"Wait!" he said. + +Something in the seriousness of his manner drew a quick look of +apprehension over the other's face. + +"I want to talk with you," continued Philip. "Let us walk a little way +down the trail." + +The doctor eyed him suspiciously as they turned away from the cabin. + +"See here, Phil Steele," he said, and there was a hard ring in his +voice, "I've had all sorts of confidence in you, and I've told you more, +perhaps, than I ought. I don't suppose you have a suspicion that you +ought to break it?" + +"No, it isn't that," replied Philip, laughing a little uneasily. "I'm +glad you got away with Falkner, and so far as I am concerned no one will +ever know what has happened. It's I who want to place a little +confidence in you now. I am positively at my wits' end, and all over a +situation which seems to place you and me in a class by ourselves--sort +of brothers in trouble, you know," and he told McGill, briefly, of +Isobel, and his search for her. + +"I lost them between Lac Bain and Fort Churchill," he finished. "The two +sledges separated, one continuing to Churchill, and the other turning +into the South. I followed the Churchill sledge--and was wrong. When I +came back the snow had covered the other trail." + +The little professor stopped suddenly, and squared himself directly in +Philip's path. + +"You don't say!" he gasped. There was a look of amazement on his face. + +"What a wonderfully little world this is, Phil," he added, smiling in a +curious way. "What a wonderfully, wonderfully little world it is! It's +only a playground, after all, and the funny part of it is that it is not +even large enough to play a game of hide-and-seek in, successfully. I've +proved that beyond question. And here--you--" + +"What?" demanded Philip, puzzled by the other's attitude. + +"Well, you see, I went first to Nelson House," said McGill, "and from +there up to the Hudson's Bay Company's post in the Cochrane River, +hunting for Falkner and this girl--a man and a woman. And at the +Cochrane Post a Frenchman told me that there was a strange man and woman +up at Lac Bain, and I set off for there. That must have been just about +the time you were starting for Churchill, for on the third day up I met +a sledge that turned me off the Lac Bain trail to take up the nearer +trail to Chippewayan. With this sledge were the two who had been at Lac +Bain, Colonel Becker and his daughter." + +For a moment Philip could not speak. He caught the other's hand +excitedly. + +"You--you found where they were going?" he asked, when McGill did not +continue. + +"Yes. We ate dinner together, and the colonel said they were bound for +Nelson House, and that they would probably go from there to Winnipeg. I +didn't ask which way they would go." + +"From Nelson House it would be by the Saskatchewan and Le Pas trail," +cried Philip. He was looking straight over the little doctor's head. "If +it wasn't for this damnable DeBar--whom I ought to go after again--" + +"Drop DeBar," interrupted McGill quietly. "He's got too big a start of +you anyway--so what's the use? Drop 'im. I dropped a whole lot of things +when I came up here." + +"But the law--" + +"Damn the law!" exploded the doctor with unexpected vehemence. +"Sometimes I think the world would be just as happy without it." + +Their eyes met, sharp and understanding. + +"You're a professor in a college," chuckled Philip, his voice trembling +again with hope and eagerness. "You ought to know more than I do. What +would you do if you were in my place?" + +"I'd hustle for a pair of wings and fly," replied the little professor +promptly. "Good Lord, Phil--if it was my wife--and I hadn't got her +yet--I wouldn't let up until I'd chased her from one end of the earth to +the other. What's a little matter of duty compared to that girl hustling +toward Winnipeg? Next to my own little girl at home she's the prettiest +thing I ever laid my eyes on." + +Philip laughed aloud. + +"Thanks, McGill. By Heaven, I'll go! When do you start?" + +"The dogs are ready, and so is Mrs. William Falkner." + +Philip turned about quickly. + +"I'll go over and say good-by to the detachment, and get my pack," he +said over his shoulder. "I'll be back inside of half an hour." + +It was a slow trip down. The snow was beginning to soften in the warmth +of the first spring suns by the time they arrived at Lac la Crosse. Two +days before they reached the post at Montreal Lake, Philip began to feel +the first discomfort of a strange sickness, of which he said nothing. +But the sharp eyes of the doctor detected that something was wrong, and +before they came to Montreal House he recognized the fever that had +begun to burn in Philip's body. + +"You've set too fast a pace," he told him. "It's that--and the blow you +got when DeBar threw you against the rock. You'll have to lay up for a +spell." + +In spite of his protestations, the doctor compelled him to go to bed +when they arrived at the post. He grew rapidly worse, and for five weeks +the doctor and Falkner's wife nursed him through the fever. When they +left for the South, late in May, he was still too weak to travel, and it +was a month later before he presented himself, pale and haggard, before +Inspector MacGregor at Prince Albert. Again disappointment was awaiting +him. There had been delay in purchasing his discharge, and he found that +he would have to wait until August. MacGregor gave him a three weeks' +furlough, and his first move was to go up to Etomami and Le Pas. Colonel +Becker and Isobel had been at those places six weeks before. He could +find no trace of their having stopped at Prince Albert. He ran down to +Winnipeg and spent several days in making inquiries which proved the +hopelessness of any longer expecting to find Isobel in Canada. He +assured himself that by this time they were probably in London and he +made his plans accordingly. His discharge would come to him by the tenth +of August, and he would immediately set off for England. + +Upon his return to Prince Albert he was detailed to a big prairie +stretch of country where there was little to do but wait. On the first +day of August he was at Hymers when the Limited plunged down the +embankment into Blind Indian River. The first word of it came over the +wire from Bleak House Station a little before midnight, while he and the +agent were playing cribbage. Pink-cheeked little Gunn, agent, operator, +and one-third of the total population of Hymers, had lifted a peg to +make a count when his hand stopped in mid-air, and with a gasping break +in his voice he sprang to his feet. + +The instrument on the little table near the window was clicking +frantically. It was Billinger, at Bleak House, crying out for +headquarters, clear lines, the right of way. The +Transcontinental--engine, tender, baggage car, two coaches and a +sleeper, had gone to the devil. Those, in his excitement, where his +first words. From fifty to a hundred were dead. Gunn almost swore +Billinger's next words to the line. It was not an accident! Human hands +had torn up three sections of rail. The same human hands had rolled a +two-ton boulder in the right of way. He did not know whether the express +car--or what little remained of it--had been robbed or not. + +From midnight until two o'clock the lines were hot. A wrecking train was +on its way from the east, another from division headquarters to the +west. Ceaselessly headquarters demanded new information, and bit by bit +the terrible tragedy was told even as the men and women in it died and +the few souls from the prairies around Bleak House Station fought to +save lives. Then a new word crept in on the wires. It called for Philip +Steele at Hymers. + +It commanded him in the name of Inspector MacGregor of the Royal Mounted +to reach Bleak House Station without delay. What he was to do when he +arrived at the scene of the wreck was left to his own judgment. The wire +from MacGregor aroused Philip from the stupor of horror into which he +had fallen. Gunn's girlish face was as white as a sheet. + +"I've got a jigger," he said, "and you can take it. It's forty miles to +Bleak House and you can make it in three hours. There won't be a train +for six." + +Philip scribbled a few words for MacGregor and shoved them into Gunn's +nervous hand. While the operator was sending them off he rolled a +cigarette, lighted it, and buckled on his revolver belt. Then Gunn +hurried him through the door and they lifted the velocipede on the +track. + +"Wire Billinger I'm coming," called back Philip as Gunn started him off +with a running shove. + + + +Chapter XVI. A Lock Of Golden Hair + +As the sun was rising in a burning August glare over the edge of the +parched prairie, Philip saw ahead of him the unpainted board shanty that +was called Bleak House Station, and a few moments later he saw a man run +out into the middle of the track and stare down at him from under the +shade of his hands. It was Billinger, his English-red face as white as +he had left Gunn's, his shirt in rags, arms bare, and his tremendous +blond mustaches crisped and seared by fire. Close to the station, +fastened to posts, were two saddlehorses. A mile beyond these things a +thin film of smoke clouded the sky. As the jigger stopped Philip jumped +from his seat and held out a blistered hand. "I'm Steele--Philip Steele, +of the Northwest Mounted." + +"And I'm Billinger--agent," said the other. + +Philip noticed that the hand that gripped his own was raw and bleeding. +"I got your word, and I've received instructions from the department to +place myself at your service. My wife is at the key. I've found the +trail, and I've got two horses. But there isn't another man who'll leave +up there for love o' God or money. It's horrible! Two hours ago you'd +'ave heard their screams from where you're standing--the hurt, I mean. +They won't leave the wreck--not a man, and I don't blame 'em." + +A pretty, brown-haired young woman had come to the door and Billinger +ran to her. + +"Good-by," he cried, taking her for a moment in his big arms. "Take care +of the key!" He turned as quickly to the horses, talking as they +mounted. "It was robbery," he said--and they set off at a canter, side +by side. "There was two hundred thousand in currency in the express car, +and it's gone. I found their trail this morning, going into the North. +They're hitting for what we call the Bad Lands over beyond the Coyote, +twenty miles from here. I don't suppose there's any time to lose--" + +"No," said Philip. "How many are there?" + +"Four--mebby more." + +Billinger started his horse into a gallop and Philip purposely held his +mount behind to look at the other man. The first law of MacGregor's +teaching was to study men, and to suspect. + +It was the first law of the splendid service of which he was a part--and +so he looked hard at Billinger. The Englishman was hatless. His sandy +hair was cropped short, and his mustaches floated out like flexible +horns from the sides of his face. His shirt was in tatters. In one place +it was ripped clean of the shoulder and Philip saw a purplish bruise +where the flesh was bare. He knew these for the marks of Billinger's +presence at the wreck. Now the man was equipped for other business. A +huge "forty-four" hung at his waist, a short carbine swung at his +saddle-bow; and there was something in the manner of his riding, in the +hunch of his shoulders, and in the vicious sweep of his long mustaches, +that satisfied Philip he was a man who could use them. He rode up +alongside of him with a new confidence. They were coming to the top of a +knoll; at the summit Billinger stopped and pointed down into a hollow a +quarter of a mile away. + +"It will be a loss of time to go down there," he said, "and it will do +no good. See that thing that looks like a big log in the river? That's +the top of the day coach. It went in right side up, and the +conductor--who wasn't hurt--says there were twenty people in it. We +watched it settle from the shore, and we couldn't do a thing--while they +were dying in there like so many caged rats! The other coach burned, and +that heap of stuff you see there is what's left of the Pullman and the +baggage car. There's twenty-seven dead stretched out along the track, +and a good many hurt. Great Heavens, listen to that!" + +He shuddered, and Philip shuddered, at the wailing sound of grief and +pain that came up to them. + +"It'll be a loss of time--to go down," repeated the agent. + +"Yes, it would be a loss of time," agreed Philip. + +His blood was burning at fever heat when he raised his eyes from the +scene below to Billinger's face. Every fighting fiber in his body was +tingling for action, and at the responsive glare which he met in +Billinger's eyes he thrust his hand half over the space that separated +them. + +"We'll get 'em, Billinger," he cried. "By God, we'll get 'em!" + +There was something ferocious in the crush of the other's hand. The +Englishman's teeth gleamed for an instant between his seared mustaches +as he heeled his mount into a canter along the back of the ridge. Five +minutes later the knoll dipped again into the plain and at the foot of +it Billinger stopped his horse for a second and pointed to fresh +hoof-marks in the prairie sod. Philip jumped from his horse and examined +the ground. + +"There are five in the gang, Billinger," he said shortly--"All of them +were galloping--but one." He looked up to catch Billinger leaning over +the pommel of his saddle staring at something almost directly under his +horse's feet. + +"What's that?" he demanded. "A handkerchief?" + +Philip picked it up--a dainty bit of fine linen, crumpled and sodden by +dew, and held it out between the forefinger and thumb of both hands. + +"Yes, and a woman's handkerchief. Now what the devil--" + +He stopped at the look in Billinger's face as he reached down for the +handkerchief. The square jaws of the man were set like steel springs, +but Philip noticed that his hand was trembling. + +"A woman in the gang," he laughed as Philip mounted. + +They started out at a canter, Billinger still holding the bit of linen +close under his eyes. After a little he passed it back to Philip who was +riding close beside him. + +"Something happened last night," he said, looking straight ahead of him, +"that I can't understand. I didn't tell my wife. I haven't told any one. +But I guess you ought to know. It's interesting, anyway--and has made a +wreck of my nerves." He wiped his face with a blackened rag which he +drew from his hip pocket. "We were working hard to get out the living, +leaving the dead where they were for a time, and I had crawled under the +wreck of the sleeper. I was sure that I had heard a cry, and crawled in +among the debris, shoving a lantern ahead of me. About where Berth +Number Ten should have been, the timbers had telescoped upward, leaving +an open space four or five feet high. I was on my hands and knees, +bareheaded, and my lantern lighted up things as plain as day. At first I +saw nothing, and was listening again for the cry when I felt something +soft and light sweeping down over me, and I looked up. Heavens--" + +Billinger was mopping his face again, leaving streaks of char-black +where the perspiration had started. + +"Pinned up there in the mass of twisted steel and broken wood was a +woman," he went on. "She was the most beautiful thing I have ever looked +upon. Her arms were reaching down to me; her face was turned a little to +one side, but still looking at me--and all but her face and part of her +arms was smothered in a mass of red-gold hair that fell down to my +shoulders. I could have sworn that she was alive. Her lips were red, and +I thought for a moment that she was going to speak to me. I could have +sworn, too, that there was color in her face, but it must have been +something in the lantern light and the red-gold of her hair, for when I +spoke, and then reached up, she was cold." + +Billinger shivered and urged his horse into a faster gait. + +"I went out and helped with the injured then. I guess it must have been +two hours later when I returned to take out her body. But the place +where I had seen her was empty. She was gone. At first I thought that +some of the others had carried her out, and I looked among the dead and +injured. She was not among them. I searched again when day came, with +the same result. No one has seen her. She has completely +disappeared--and with the exception of my shanty there isn't a house +within ten miles of here where she could have been taken. What do you +make of it, Steele?" + +Philip had listened with tense interest. + +"Perhaps you didn't return to the right place," he suggested. "Her body +may still be in the wreck." + +Billinger glanced toward him with a nervous laugh. + +"But it was the right place," he said. "She had evidently not gone to +bed, and was dressed. When I returned I found a part of her skirt in the +debris above. A heavy tress of her hair had caught around a steel +ribbing, and it was cut off! Some one had been there during my absence +and had taken the body. I--I'm almost ready to believe that I was +mistaken, and that she was alive. I found nothing there, nothing--that +could prove her death." + +"Is it possible--" began Philip, holding out the handkerchief. + +It was not necessary for him to finish. Billinger understood, and nodded +his head. + +"That's what I'm thinking," he said. "Is it possible? What in God's name +would they want of her, unless--" + +"Unless she was alive," added Philip. "Unless one or more of the +scoundrels searching for valuables in there during the excitement, saw +her and carried her off with their other booty. It's up to us, +Billinger!" + +Billinger had reached inside his shirt, and now he drew forth a small +paper parcel. + +"I don't know why--but I kept the tress of hair," he said. "See--" + +From between his fingers, as he turned toward Philip, there streamed out +a long silken tress that shone a marvelous gold in the sun, and in that +same instant there fell from Philip's lips a cry such as Billinger had +not heard, even from the lips of the wounded; and before he could +recover from his astonishment, he had leaned over and snatched the +golden tress from him, and sat in his saddle staring at it like a +madman. + + + +Chapter XVII. The Girl In The Wreck + +In that moment of terrible shock--in the one moment when it seemed to +him as though no other woman in the world could have worn that golden +tress of hair but Isobel, Philip had stopped his horse, and his face had +gone as white as death. With a tremendous effort he recovered himself, +and saw Billinger staring at him as though the hot sun had for an +instant blinded him of reason. But the lock of hair still rippled and +shone before his eyes. Only twice in his life could he remember having +seen hair just like this--that peculiar reddish gold that changed its +lights with every passing cloud. + +He had seen it on Isobel, in the firelight of the camp, at Lac Bain--and +he had seen it crowning the beautiful head of the girl back home, the +girl of the hyacinth letter. He struggled to calm himself under the +questioning gaze of Billinger's eyes. He laughed, wound the hair +carefully about his fingers, and put it in his coat pocket. + +"You--you have given me a shock," he said, straining to keep his voice +even. "I'm glad you had foresight enough to keep the lock of hair, +Billinger. At first--I jumped to a conclusion. But there's only one +chance in a hundred that I'm right. If I should be right--I know the +girl. Do you understand--why it startled me? Now for the chase, +Billinger. Lead away!" + +Leaning low over their saddles they galloped into the North. For a time +the trail of the five outlaws was so distinct that they rode at a speed +which lathered their horses. Then the short prairie grass, crisp and +sun-dried, gave place to a broad sweep of wire grass above which the +yellow backs of coyotes were visible as now and then they bobbed up in +their quick, short leaps to look over the top of it. In this brown sea +all trace of the trail was lost from the saddle and both men dismounted. +Foot by foot they followed the faint signs ahead of them, while over +their backs the sun rose higher and began to burn with the dry +furnace-like heat that had scorched the prairies. So slow was their +progress that after a time Billinger straightened himself with a nervous +curse. The perspiration was running in dirty streaks down his face. +Before he had spoken Philip read the fear that was in his eyes and tried +to hide the reflection of it in his own. It was too hot to smoke, but he +drew forth a case of cigarettes and offered one to Billinger. The agent +accepted one, and both lighted in silence, eying each other over their +matches. + +"Won't do," said Billinger, spitting on his match before tossing it +among the grass. "It's ten miles across this wire-dip, and we won't make +it until night--it we make it at all. I've got an idea. You're a better +trailer than I am, so you follow this through. I'll ride on and see if I +can pick up the trail somewhere in the edge of the clean prairie. What +do you say?" + +"Good!" said Philip. "I believe you can do it." + +Billinger leaped into his saddle and was off at a gallop. Philip was +almost eagerly anxious for this opportunity, and scarcely had the other +gone when he drew the linen handkerchief and the crumpled lock of hair +from his pocket and held them in his hand as he looked after the agent. +Then, slowly, he raised the handkerchief to his face. For a full minute +he stood with the dainty fabric pressed to his lips and nose. Back +there--when he had first held the handkerchief--he thought that he +imagined. But now he was sure. Faintly the bit of soiled fabric breathed +to him the sweet scent of hyacinth. His eyes shone in an eager bloodshot +glare as he watched Billinger disappear over a roll in the prairie a +mile away. + +"Making a fool of yourself again," he muttered, again winding the golden +hair about his fingers. "There are other women in the world who use +hyacinth besides her. And there are other women with red-gold hair--and +pretty, pretty as Billinger says she was, aren't there?" + +He laughed, but there was something uneasy and unnatural in the laugh. +In spite of his efforts to argue the absurdity of his thoughts, he could +feel that he was trembling in every nerve of his body. And twice--three +times he held the handkerchief to his face before he reached the rise in +the prairie over which Billinger had disappeared. The agent had been +gone an hour when the trail of the outlaws brought him to the knoll. +From the top of it Philip looked over the prairie to the North. + +A horseman was galloping toward him. He knew that it was Billinger, and +stood up in his stirrups so that the other would see him. Half a mile +away the agent stopped and Philip could see him signaling frantically +with both arms. Five minutes later Philip rode up to him. Billinger's +horse was half-winded, and in Billinger's face there were tense lines of +excitement. + +"There's some one out on the prairie," he called, as Philip reined in. +"I couldn't make out a horse, but there's a man in the trail beyond the +second ridge. I believe they've stopped to water their horses and feed +at a little lake just this side of the rough country." + +Billinger had loosened his carbine, and was examining the breech. He +glanced anxiously at Philip's empty saddle-straps. + +"It'll be long-range shooting, if they've got guns," he said. "Sorry I +couldn't find a gun for you." + +Philip drew one of his two long-barreled service revolvers and set his +lips in a grim and reassuring smile as he followed the bobbing head of a +coyote some distance away. + +"We're not considered proficient in the service unless we can make use +of these things at two hundred yards, Billinger," he replied, replacing +the weapon in its holster. "If it's a running fight I'd rather have 'em +than a carbine. If it isn't a running fight we'll come in close." + +Philip looked at the agent as they galloped side by side through the +long grass, and Billinger looked at him. In the face of each there was +something which gave the other assurance. For the first time it struck +Philip that his companion was something more than an operator at Bleak +House Station. He was a fighter. He was a man of the stamp needed down +at Headquarters, and he was bound to tell him so before this affair was +over. He was thinking of it when they came to the second ridge. + +Five miles to the north and west loomed the black line of the Bad Lands. +To a tenderfoot they would not have appeared to be more than a mile +distant. Midway in the prairie between there toiled a human figure. Even +at that distance Philip and Billinger could see that it was moving, +though with a slowness that puzzled them. For several minutes they stood +breathing their horses, their eyes glued on the object ahead of them. +Twice in a space of a hundred yards it seemed to stumble and fall. The +second time that it rose Philip knew that it was standing motionless. +Then it disappeared again. He stared until the rolling heat waves of the +blistered prairie stung his eyes. The object did not rise. Blinking, he +looked at Billinger, and through the sweat and grime of the other's face +he saw the question that was on his own lips. Without a word they +spurred down the slope, and after a time Billinger swept to the right +and Philip to the left, each with his eyes searching the low prairie +grass. The agent saw the thing first, still a hundred yards to his +right. He was off his horse when Philip whirled at his shout and +galloped across to him. + +"It's her--the girl I found in the wreck," he said. Something seemed to +be choking him. His neck muscles twitched and his long, lean fingers +were digging into his own flesh. + +In an instant Philip was on his feet. He saw nothing of the girl's face, +hidden under a mass of hair in which the sun burned like golden fire. He +saw nothing but the crumpled, lifeless form, smothered under the shining +mass, and yet in this moment he knew. With a fierce cry he dropped upon +his knees and drew away the girl's hair until her lovely face lay +revealed to him in terrible pallor and stillness, and as Billinger stood +there, tense and staring, he caught that face close to his breast, and +began talking to it as though he had gone "Isobel--Isobel--Isobel--" he +moaned. "My God, my Isobel--" + +He had repeated the name a hundred times, when Billinger, who began to +understand, put his hand on Philip's shoulder and gave him his water +canteen. + +"She's not dead, man," he said, as Philip's red eyes glared up at him. +"Here--water." + +"My God--it's strange," almost moaned Philip. "Billinger--you +understand--she's going to be my wife--if she lives--" + +That was all of the story he told, but Billinger knew what those few +words meant. + +"She's going to live," he said. "See--there's color coming back into her +face--she's breathing." He bathed her face in water, and placed the +canteen to her lips. + +A moment later Philip bent down and kissed her. "Isobel--my +sweetheart--" he whispered. + +"We must hurry with her to the water hole," said Billinger, laying a +sympathetic hand on Philip's shoulder. "It's the sun. Thank God, nothing +has happened to her, Steele. It's the sun--this terrible heat--" + +He almost pulled Philip to his feet, and when he had mounted Billinger +lifted the girl very gently and gave her to him. + +Then, with the agent leading in the trail of the outlaws, they set off +at a walk through the sickening sun-glare for the water hole in the edge +of the Bad Lands. + + + +Chapter XVIII. The Battle In The Canyon + +Hunched over, with Isobel's head sheltered against his breast, Philip +rode a dozen paces behind the agent. It seemed as if the sun had +suddenly burst in molten fire upon the back of his neck, and for a time +it made him dizzy. His bridle reins hung loosely over the pommel. He +made no effort to guide his horse, which followed after Billinger's. It +was Billinger who brought him back to himself. The agent waited for +them, and when he swung over in one stirrup to look at the girl it was +the animal ferocity in his face, and not his words, that aroused Philip. + +"She's coming to," he said, straining to keep the tremble out of his +voice. "I don't believe she's much hurt. You take this canteen. I'm +going ahead." + +He gave Philip the water and leaned over again to gaze into the girl's +face. + +"I don't believe she's much hurt," he repeated in a hoarse, dry whisper. +"You can leave her at the water hole just beyond that hill off +there--and then you can follow me." + +Philip clutched the girl tighter to him as the agent rode off. He saw +the first faint flush returning into her cheeks, the reddening of her +lips, the gentle tremor of her silken lashes, and forgetful of all else +but her, he moaned her name, cried out his love for her, again and +again, even as her eyes opened and she stared up into the face of the +man who had come to her first at Lac Bain, and who had fought for her +there. For a breath or two the wonder of this thing that was happening +held her speechless and still lifeless, though her senses were adjusting +themselves with lightning swiftness. At first Philip had not seen her +open eyes, and he believed that she did not hear the words of love he +whispered in her hair. When he raised her face a little from his breast +she was looking at him with all the sweet sanity in the world. + +A moment there was silence--a silence of even the breath in Philip's +body, the beating of his heart. His arms loosened a little. He drew +himself up rigid, and the girl lifted her head a trifle, so that their +eyes met squarely, and a world of question and understanding passed +between them in an instant. As swift as morning glow a flush mounted +into Isobel's face, then ebbed as swiftly, and Philip cried: "You were +hurt--hurt back there in the wreck. But you're safe now. The train was +wrecked by outlaws. We came out after them, and I--I found you--back +there on the prairie. You're safe now." + +His arms tightened about her again. + +"You're all right now," he repeated gently. He was not conscious of the +sobbing break in his voice, or of the great, throbbing love that it +breathed to her. He tried to speak calmly. "There's nothing +wrong--nothing. The heat made you sick. But you're all right now--" + +From beyond the hill there came a sound that made him break off with a +sudden, quick breath. It was the sharp, stinging report of Billinger's +carbine! Once, twice, three times--and then there followed more distant +shots! + +"He's come up with them!" he cried. The fury of fight, of desire for +vengeance, blazed anew in his face. There was pain in the grip of his +arm about the girl. + +"Do you feel strong--strong enough to ride fast?" he asked. "There's +only one man with me, and there are five of them. It's murder to let him +fight it alone!" + +"Yes--yes--" whispered the girl, her arms tightening round him. "Ride +fast--or put me off. I can follow--" + +It was the first time that he had heard her voice since that last +evening up at Lac Bain, many months before, and the sound of it thrilled +him. + +"Hold tight!" he breathed. + +Like the wind they swept across the prairie and up the slope of the +hill. At the top Philip reined in. Three or four hundred yards distant +lay a thick clump of poplar trees and a thousand yards beyond that the +first black escarpments of the Bad Lands. In the space between a +horseman was galloping fiercely to the west. It was not Billinger. With +a quick movement Philip slipped the girl to the ground, and when she +sprang a step back, looking up at him in white terror, he had whipped +out one of his big service revolvers. + +"There's a little lake over there among those trees," he said. "Wait +there--until I come back!" + +He raced down the slope--not to cut off the flying horseman--but toward +the clump of poplars. It was Billinger he was thinking of now. The agent +had fired three shots. There had followed other shots, not Billinger's, +and after that his carbine had remained silent. Billinger was among the +poplars. He was hurt or dead. + +A well-worn trail, beaten down by transient rangerss big revolver +showing over his horse's ears. A hundred paces and the timber gave place +to a sandy dip, in the center of which was the water hole. The dip was +not more than an acre in extent. Up to his knees in the hole was +Billinger's riderless horse, and a little way up the sand was Billinger, +doubled over on his hands and knees beside two black objects that Philip +knew were men, stretched out like the dead back at the wreck. +Billinger's yellow-mustached face, pallid and twisted with pain, looked +over them as Philip galloped across the open and sprang out of his +saddle. With a terrible grimace he raised himself to his knees, +anticipating the question on Philip's lips. + +"Nothing very bad, Steele," he said. "One of the cusses pinked me +through the leg, and broke it, I guess. Painful, but not killing. Now +look at that!" + +He nodded to the two men lying with their faces turned up to the hot +glare of the sun. One glance was enough to tell Philip that they were +dead, and that it was not Billinger who had killed them. Their bearded +faces had stiffened in the first agonies of death. Their breasts were +soaked with blood and their arms had been drawn down close to their +sides. As he looked the gleam of a metal buckle on the belt of the dead +man nearest him, caught Philip's eye. He took a step nearer to examine +it and then drew back. This bit of metal told the story--it bore the +letters R.N.W.M.P. + +"I thought so," he muttered with a slight catch in his voice. "You +didn't follow my good advice, Bucky Nome, and now you reap the harvest +of your folly. You have paid your debt to M'sieur Janette." + +Then Philip turned quickly and looked back at Billinger. In his hand the +agent held a paper package, which he had torn open. A second and similar +package lay in the sand in front of him. + +"Currency!" he gasped. "It's a part of the money stolen from the express +car. The two hundred thousand was done up in five packages, and here are +two of 'em. Those men were dead when I came, and each had a package +lying on his breast. The fellow who pinked me was just leaving the dip!" + +He dropped the package and began ripping down his trouser leg with a +knife. Philip dropped on his knees beside him, but Billinger motioned +him back. + +"It's not bleeding bad," he said. "I can fix it alone." + +"You're certain, Billinger--" + +"Sure!" laughed the agent, though he was biting his lips until they were +necked with blood. "There's no need of you wasting time." + +For a moment Philip clutched the other's hand. + +"We can't understand what this all means, old man--the carrying off +of--of Isobel--and the money here, but we'll find out soon!" + +"Leave that confounded carbine," exclaimed Billinger, as the other rose +to mount. "I did rotten work with it, and the other fellow fixed me with +a pistol. That's why I'm not bleeding very much." + +The outlaw had disappeared in the black edge of the Bad Lands when +Philip dashed up out of the dip into the plain. There was only one break +ahead of him, and toward this he urged his horse. In the entrance to the +break there was another sandy but waterless dip, and across this trailed +the hoof-prints of the outlaws' mounts, two at a walk--one at a gallop. +At one time, ages before, the break had been the outlet of a stream +pouring itself out between jagged and cavernous walls of rock from the +black heart of the upheaved country within. Now the bed of it was strewn +with broken trap and masses of boulders, cracked and dried by centuries +of blistering sun. + +Philip's heart beat a little faster as he urged his horse ahead, and not +for an instant did his cocked revolver drop from its guard over the +mare's ears. He knew, if he overtook the outlaws in retreat, that there +would be a fight, and that it would be three against one. That was what +he hoped for. It was an ambush that he dreaded. He realized that if the +outlaws stopped and waited for him he would be at a terrible +disadvantage. In open fight he was confident His prairie-bred mount took +the rough trail at a swift canter, evading the boulders and knife-edged +trap in the same guarded manner that she galloped over prairie-dog and +badger holes out upon the plain. Twice in the ten minutes that followed +their entrance into the chasm Philip saw movement ahead of him, and each +time his revolver leaped to it. Once it was a wolf, again the swiftly +moving shadow of an eagle sweeping with spread wings between him and the +sun. He watched every concealment as he approached and half swung in his +saddle in passing, ready to fire. + +A quick turn in the creek bed, where the rock walls hugged in close, and +his mare planted her forefeet with a suddenness that nearly sent him +over her head. Directly in their path, struggling to rise from among the +rocks, was a riderless horse. Two hundred yards beyond a man on foot was +running swiftly up the chasm, and a pistol shot beyond him two others on +horseback had turned and were waiting. + +"Lord, if I had Billinger's gun now!" groaned Philip. + +At the sound of his voice and the pressure of his heels in her flank the +mare vaulted over the animal in their path. The clatter of pursuing +hoofs stopped the runner for an instant, and in that same instant Philip +halted and rose in his stirrups to fire. As his finger pressed the +trigger there came to his ears a thrilling sound from behind him--the +sharp galloping beat of steel upon rock! Billinger was +coming--Billinger, with his broken leg and his carbine! + +He could have shouted for joy as he fired. + +Once--twice, and the outlaw was speeding ahead of him again, unhurt. A +third shot and the man stumbled among the rocks and disappeared. There +was no movement toward retreat on the part of the mounted men, and +Philip listened as he slipped in fresh cartridges. His horse was +panting; he could hear the excited and joyous tumult of his own +heart-but above it all he heard the steady beat, beat, beat of those +approaching hoofs!. Billinger would be there soon--in time to use his +carbine at a deadly rate, while he got into closer quarters with his +revolver. God bless Billinger--and his broken leg! + +He was filled with the craze of fight now and it found vent in a yell of +defiance as he spurred on toward the outlaws. They were not going to +run. They were waiting for him. He caught the gleam of the hot sun on +their revolvers, and saw that they meant business as they swung a little +apart to divide his fire. At one hundred yards Philip still held his gun +at his side; at sixty he pulled in his mare, flattened along her neck +like an Indian, his pistol arm swinging free between her ears. It was +one of the cleverest fighting tricks of the service, and he made the +movement as the guns of the others leaped before their faces. Two shots +sang over his head, so close that they would have swept him from the +saddle if he had been erect. In another moment the rockbound chasm +echoed with the steady roar of the three revolvers. In front of the +flaming end of his own gun Philip saw the outlaw on the right pitch +forward in his saddle and fall to the ground. He sent his last shot at +the man on the left and drew his second gun. Before he could fire again +his mare gave a tremendous lunge forward and stumbled upon her knees, +and with a gasp of horror Philip felt the saddle-girth slip as he swung +to free himself. + +In the few terrible seconds that followed Philip was conscious of two +things--that death was very near, and that Billinger was a moment too +late. Less than ten paces away the outlaw was deliberately taking aim at +him, while his own pistol arm was pinned under the weight of his body. +For a breath he ceased to struggle, looking up in frozen calmness at the +man whose finger was already crooked to fire. + +When a shot suddenly rang out, it passed through him in a lightning +flash that it was the shot intended for him. But he saw no movement in +the outlaw's arm; no smoke from his gun. For a moment the man sat rigid +and stiff in his saddle. Then his arm dropped. His revolver fell with a +clatter among the stones. He slipped sidewise with a low groan and +tumbled limp and lifeless almost at Philip's feet. + +"Billinger--Billinger--" + +The words came in a sob of joy from Philip's lips. Billinger had come in +time--just in time! + +He struggled so that he could turn his head and look down the chasm. +Yes, there was Billinger--a hundred yards away, hunched over his saddle. +Billinger, with his broken leg, his magnificent courage, his-- + +With a wild cry Philip jerked himself free. + +Good God, it was not Billinger! It was Isobel! She had slipped from the +saddle--he saw her as she tottered a few steps among the rocks and then +sank down among them. With his pistol still in his hand he ran back to +where Billinger's horse was standing. The girl was crumpled against the +side of a boulder, with her head in her arms--and she was crying. In an +instant he was beside her, and all that he had ever dreamed of, all that +he had ever hoped for, burst from his lips as he caught her and held her +close against his breast. Yet he never could have told what he said. +Only he knew that her arms were clasped about his neck, and that, as she +pressed her face against him, she sobbed over and over again something +about the old days at Lac Bain--and that she loved him, loved him! Then +his eyes turned up the chasm, and what he saw there made him bend low +behind the boulder and brought a strange thrill into his voice. + +"You will stay here--a little while," he whispered, running his fingers +through her shining hair. There was a tone of gentle command in his +words as he placed her against the rock. "I must go back for a few +minutes. There is no danger--now." + +He stooped and picked up the carbine which had fallen from her hand. +There was one cartridge still in the breech. Replacing his revolver in +its holster he rose above the rocks, ready to swing the rifle to his +shoulder. Up where the outlaws lay, a man was standing in the trail. He +was making no effort to conceal himself, and did not see Philip until he +was within fifty paces of him. Even then he did not show surprise. +Apparently he was unarmed, and Philip dropped the muzzle of his carbine. +The man motioned for him to advance, standing with a spread hand resting +on either hip. He was hatless and coatless. His hair was long. His face +was covered with a scraggly growth of red beard, too short to hide his +sunken cheeks. He might have been a man half starved, and yet there was +strength in his bony frame and his eyes were as keen as a serpent's. + +"Got in just in time to miss the fun after all," he said coolly. "Queer +game, wasn't it? I was ahead of you up as far as the water hole. Saw +what happened there." + +Philip's hand dropped on the butt of his revolver. + +"Who are you?" he asked. + +"Me? I'm Blackstone--Jim Blackstone, from over beyond the elbow. I guess +everybody for fifty miles round here knows me. And I guess I'm the only +one who knows what's happened--and why." He had stepped behind a huge +rock that shut out the lower trail from them and Philip followed, his +hand still on his revolver. + +"They're both dead," added the stranger, signifying with a nod of his +head that he meant the outlaws. "One of them was alive when I came up, +but I ran my knife between his ribs, and he's dead now." + +"The devil!" cried Philip, half drawing his revolver at the ferocious +leer in the other's face. + +"Wait," exclaimed the man, "and see if I'm not right. The man who was +responsible for the wreck back there is my deadliest enemy--has been for +years, and now I'm even up with him. And I guess in the eyes of the law +I've got the right to it. What do you say?" + +"Go on," said Philip. + +The snake-like eyes of the man burned with a dull flame and yet he spoke +calmly. + +"He came out here from England four years ago," he went on. "He was +forced to come. Understand? He was such a devil back among his +people--half a criminal even then--that he was sent out here on a +regular monthly remittance. After that everything went the way of his +younger brother. His father married again, and the second year he became +even less cut off. He was bad--bad from the start, and he went from bad +to worse out here. He gambled, fought, robbed, and became the head of a +gang of scoundrels as dangerous as himself. He brooded over what he +considered his wrongs until he went a little mad. He lived only to +avenge himself. At the first opportunity he was prepared to kill his +father and his step-mother. Then, a few weeks ago, he learned that these +two were coming to America and that on their way to Vancouver they would +pass through Bleak House Station. He went completely mad then, and +planned to destroy them, and rob the train. You know how he and his gang +did the job. After it was over and they had got the money, he let his +gang go on ahead of him while he went back to the wreck of the sleeper. +He wanted to make sure that they were dead. Do you see?" + +"Yes," said Philip tensely, "go on." + +"And when he got there," continued the other, bowing his head as he +filled an old briar pipe with tobacco, "he found some one else. It's +strange--and you may wonder how I know it all. But it's true. Back in +England he had worshipped a young girl. Like the others, she detested +him; and yet he loved her and would have died for her. And in the wreck +of the sleeper he found her and her father--both dead. He brought her +out, and when no one was near carried her through the night to his +horse. The knowledge that he had killed her--the only creature in the +world that he loved--brought him back to sanity. It filled him with a +new desire for vengeance--but vengeance of another kind. To achieve this +vengeance he was compelled to leave her dead body miles out on the +prairie. Then he hurried to overtake his comrades. As their leader he +had kept possession of the money they had taken from the express car. +The division was to be made at the water hole. The gang was waiting for +him there. The money was divided, and two of the gang rode ahead. The +other two were to go in another direction so as to divide the pursuit. +The remittance man remained with them, and when the others had gone a +distance he killed them both. He was sane now, you understand. He had +committed a great crime and he was employing his own method of undoing +it. Then he was going back to bury--her." + +The man's voice broke. A great sob shook his frame. When he looked up, +Philip had drawn his revolver. + +"And the remittance man--" he began. + +"Is myself--Jim Blackstone--at your service." + +The man turned his back to Philip, hunched over, as if bent in grief. +For a moment he stood thus. There followed in that same moment the loud +report of a pistol, and when Philip leaped to catch his tottering form +the glaze of death was in the outlaw's eyes. + +"I was going to do this--back there--beside her," he gasped faintly. A +shiver ran through him and his head dropped limply forward. + +Philip laid him with his face toward a rock and stepped out from his +concealment. The girl had heard the pistol shot and was running up the +trail. + +"What was that?" she asked, when he had hurried to her. + +"The last shot, sweetheart," he answered softly, catching her in his +arms. "We're going back to Billinger now, and then---home." + + + + + + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Philip Steele of the +Royal Northwest Mounted Police, by James Oliver Curwood +This file should be named phlst10.txt or phlst10.zip + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, phlst11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, phlst10a.txt + +Etext prepared by Dianne Bean, Prescott Valley, Arizona. + +More information about this book is at the top of this file. + +We are now trying to release all our etexts one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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