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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Isobel, by James Oliver Curwood
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Isobel
+
+Author: James Oliver Curwood
+
+Posting Date: March 19, 2014
+Release Date: October, 2004
+[This file was first posted on January 19, 2003]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ISOBEL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Norm Wolcott
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ Isobel
+
+ A Romance of the Northern Trail
+
+ by James Oliver Curwood, 1913
+
+                                  TO
+                               CARLOTTA
+                        WHO IS WITH ME AND TO
+                                VIOLA
+                WHO FILLS FOR ME A DREAM OF THE FUTURE
+                 I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THIS BOOK
+
+ I
+
+ THE MOST TERRIBLE THING IN THE WORLD
+
+At Point Fullerton, one thousand miles straight north of civilization,
+Sergeant William MacVeigh wrote with the stub end of a pencil between
+his fingers the last words of his semi-annual report to the
+Commissioner of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police at Regina.
+
+He concluded:
+
+  "I beg to say that I have made every effort to run down Scottie
+  Deane, the murderer. I have not given up hope of finding him, but I
+  believe that he has gone from my territory and is probably now
+  somewhere within the limits of the Fort Churchill patrol. We have
+  hunted the country for three hundred miles south along the shore of
+  Hudson's Bay to Eskimo Point, and as far north as Wagner Inlet.
+  Within three months we have made three patrols west of the Bay,
+  unraveling sixteen hundred miles without finding our man or word of
+  him. I respectfully advise a close watch of the patrols south of
+  the Barren Lands."
+
+"There!" said MacVeigh aloud, straightening his rounded shoulders with
+a groan of relief. "It's done."
+
+From his bunk in a corner of the little wind and storm beaten cabin
+which represented Law at the top end of the earth Private Pelliter
+lifted a head wearily from his sick bed and said: "I'm bloomin' glad
+of it, Mac. Now mebbe you'll give me a drink of water and shoot that
+devilish huskie that keeps howling every now and then out there as
+though death was after me."
+
+"Nervous?" said MacVeigh, stretching his strong young frame with
+another sigh of satisfaction. "What if you had to write this twice a
+year?" And he pointed at the report.
+
+"It isn't any longer than the letters you wrote to that girl of
+yours--"
+
+Pelliter stopped short. There was a moment of embarrassing silence.
+Then he added, bluntly, and with a hand reaching out: "I beg your
+pardon, Mac. It's this fever. I forgot for a moment that-- that you
+two-- had broken."
+
+"That's all right," said MacVeigh, with a quiver in his voice, as he
+turned for the water.
+
+"You see," he added, returning with a tin cup, "this report is
+different. When you're writing to the Big Mogul himself something gets
+on your nerves. And it has been a bad year with us, Pelly. We fell
+down on Scottie, and let the raiders from that whaler get away from
+us. And-- By Jo, I forgot to mention the wolves!"
+
+"Put in a P. S.," suggested Pelliter.
+
+"A P. S. to his Royal Nibs!" cried MacVeigh, staring incredulously at
+his mate. "There's no use of feeling your pulse any more, Pelly. The
+fever's got you. You're sure out of your head."
+
+He spoke cheerfully, trying to bring a smile to the other's pale face.
+Pelliter dropped back with a sigh.
+
+"No-- there isn't any use feeling my pulse," he repeated. "It isn't
+sickness, Bill-- not sickness of the ordinary sort. It's in my brain--
+that's where it is. Think of it-- nine months up here, and never a
+glimpse of a white man's face except yours. Nine months without the
+sound of a woman's voice. Nine months of just that dead, gray world
+out there, with the northern lights hissing at us every night like
+snakes and the black rocks staring at us as they've stared for a
+million centuries. There may be glory in it, but that's all. We're
+'eroes all right, but there's no one knows it but ourselves and the
+six hundred and forty-nine other men of the Royal Mounted. My God,
+what I'd give for the sight of a girl's face, for just a moment's
+touch of her hand! It would drive out this fever, for it's the fever
+of loneliness, Mac-- a sort of madness, and it's splitting my 'ead."
+
+"Tush, tush!" said MacVeigh, taking his mate's hand. "Wake up, Pelly!
+Think of what's coming. Only a few months more of it, and we'll be
+changed. And then-- think of what a heaven you'll be entering. You'll
+be able to enjoy it more than the other fellows, for they've never had
+this. And I'm going to bring you back a letter-- from the little
+girl--"
+
+Pelliter's face brightened.
+
+"God bless her!" he exclaimed. "There'll be letters from her-- a dozen
+of them. She's waited a long time for me, and she's true to the bottom
+of her dear heart. You've got my letter safe?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+MacVeigh went back to the rough little table and added still further
+to his report to the Commissioner of the Royal Mounted in the
+following words:
+
+  "Pelliter is sick with a strange trouble in his head. At times I
+  have been afraid he was going mad, and if he lives I advise his
+  transfer south at an early date. I am leaving for Churchill two
+  weeks ahead of the usual time in order to get medicines. I also
+  wish to add a word to what I said about wolves in my last report.
+  We have seen them repeatedly in packs of from fifty to one
+  thousand. Late this autumn a pack attacked a large herd of
+  traveling caribou fifteen miles in from the Bay, and we counted the
+  remains of one hundred and sixty animals killed over a distance of
+  less than three miles. It is my opinion that the wolves kill at
+  least five thousand caribou in this patrol each year.
+
+  "I have the honor to be, sir,
+
+                                              "Your obedient servant,
+                                      " WILLIAM MACVEIGH, Sergeant,
+                                     "In charge of detachment."
+
+He folded the report, placed it with other treasures in the waterproof
+rubber bag which always went into his pack, and returned to Pelliter's
+side.
+
+"I hate to leave you alone, Pelly," he said. "But I'll make a fast
+trip of it-- four hundred and fifty miles over the ice, and I'll do it
+in ten days or bust. Then ten days back, mebbe two weeks, and you'll
+have the medicines and the letters. Hurrah!"
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Pelliter.
+
+He turned his face a little to the wall. Something rose up in
+MacVeigh's throat and choked him as he gripped Pelliter's hand.
+
+"My God, Bill, is that the sun?" suddenly cried Pelliter.
+
+MacVeigh wheeled toward the one window of the cabin. The sick man
+tumbled from his bunk. Together they stood for a moment at the window,
+staring far to the south and east, where a faint red rim of gold shot
+up through the leaden sky.
+
+"It's the sun," said MacVeigh, like one speaking a prayer.
+
+"The first in four months," breathed Pelliter.
+
+Like starving men the two gazed through the window. The golden light
+lingered for a few moments, then died away. Pelliter went back to his
+bunk.
+
+Half an hour later four dogs, a sledge, and a man were moving swiftly
+through the dead and silent gloom of Arctic day. Sergeant MacVeigh was
+on his way to Fort Churchill, more than four hundred miles away.
+
+This is the loneliest journey in the world, the trip down from the
+solitary little wind-beaten cabin at Point Fullerton to Fort
+Churchill. That cabin has but one rival in the whole of the
+Northland-- the other cabin at Herschel Island, at the mouth of the
+Firth, where twenty-one wooden crosses mark twenty-one white men's
+graves. But whalers come to Herschel. Unless by accident, or to break
+the laws, they never come in the neighborhood of Fullerton. It is at
+Fullerton that men die of the most terrible thing in the world--
+loneliness. In the little cabin men have gone mad.
+
+The gloomy truth oppressed MacVeigh as he guided his dog team over the
+ice into the south. He was afraid for Pelliter. He prayed that
+Pelliter might see the sun now and then. On the second day he stopped
+at a cache of fish which they had put up in the early autumn for dog
+feed. He stopped at a second cache on the fifth day, and spent the
+sixth night at an Eskimo igloo at Blind Eskimo Point. Late on the
+ninth day he came into Fort Churchill, with an average of fifty miles
+a day to his credit.
+
+From Fullerton men came in nearer dead than alive when they made the
+hazard in winter. MacVeigh's face was raw from the beat of the wind.
+His eyes were red. He had a touch of runner's cramp. He slept for
+twenty-four hours in a warm bed without stirring. When he awoke he
+raged at the commanding officer of the barrack for letting him sleep
+so long, ate three meals in one, and did up his business in a hurry.
+
+His heart warmed with pleasure when he sorted out of his mail nine
+letters for Pelliter, all addressed in the same small, girlish hand.
+There was none for himself-- none of the sort which Pelliter was
+receiving, and the sickening loneliness within him grew almost
+suffocating.
+
+He laughed softly as he broke a law. He opened one of Pelliter's
+letters-- the last one written-- and calmly read it. It was filled
+with the sweet tenderness of a girl's love, and tears came into his
+red eyes. Then he sat down and answered it. He told the girl about
+Pelliter, and confessed to her that he had opened her last letter. And
+the chief of what he said was that it would be a glorious surprise to
+a man who was going mad (only he used loneliness in place of madness)
+if she would come up to Churchill the following spring and marry him
+there. He told her that he had opened her letter because he loved
+Pelliter more than most men loved their brothers. Then he resealed the
+letter, gave his mail to the superintendent, packed his medicines and
+supplies, and made ready to return.
+
+On this same day there came into Churchill a halfbreed who had been
+hunting white foxes near Blind Eskimo, and who now and then did scout
+work for the department. He brought the information that he had seen a
+white man and a white woman ten miles south of the Maguse River. The
+news thrilled MacVeigh.
+
+"I'll stop at the Eskimo camp," he said to the superintendent. "It's
+worth investigating, for I never knew of a white woman north of sixty
+in this country. It might be Scottie Deane."
+
+"Not very likely," replied the superintendent. "Scottie is a tall man,
+straight and powerful. Coujag says this man was no taller than
+himself, and walked like a hunchback. But if there are white people
+out there their history is worth knowing."
+
+The following morning MacVeigh started north. He reached the
+half-dozen igloos which made up the Eskimo village late the third day.
+Bye-Bye, the chief man, offered him no encouragement, MacVeigh gave
+him a pound of bacon, and in return for the magnificent present
+Bye-Bye told him that he had seen no white people. MacVeigh gave him
+another pound, and Bye-Bye added that he had not heard of any white
+people. He listened with the lifeless stare of a walrus while MacVeigh
+impressed upon him that he was going inland the next morning to search
+for white people whom he had heard were there. That night, in a
+blinding snow-storm, Bye-Bye disappeared from camp.
+
+MacVeigh left his dogs to rest up at the igloo village and swung
+northwest on snow-shoes with the break of arctic dawn, which was but
+little better than the night itself. He planned to continue in this
+direction until he struck the Barren, then patrol in a wide circle
+that would bring him back to the Eskimo camp the next night. From the
+first he was handicapped by the storm. He lost Bye-Bye's snow-shoe
+tracks a hundred yards from the igloos. All that day he searched in
+sheltered places for signs of a camp or trail. In the afternoon the
+wind died away, the sky cleared, and in the wake of the calm the cold
+became so intense that trees cracked with reports like pistol shots.
+
+He stopped to build a fire of scrub bush and eat his supper on the
+edge of the Barren just as the cold stars began blazing over his head.
+It was a white, still night. The southern timberline lay far behind
+him, and to the north there was no timber for three hundred miles.
+Between those lines there was no life, and so there was no sound. On
+the west the Barren thrust itself down in a long finger ten miles in
+width, and across that MacVeigh would have to strike to reach the
+wooded country beyond. It was over there that he had the greatest hope
+of discovering a trail. After he had finished his supper he loaded his
+pipe, and sat hunched close up to his fire, staring out over the
+Barren. For some reason he was filled with a strange and uncomfortable
+emotion, and he wished that he had brought along one of his tired dogs
+to keep him company.
+
+He was accustomed to loneliness; he had laughed in the face of things
+that had driven other men mad. But to-night there seemed to be
+something about him that he had never known before, something that
+wormed its way deep down into his soul and made his pulse beat faster.
+He thought of Pelliter on his fever bed, of Scottie Deane, and then of
+himself. After all, was there much to choose between the three of
+them?
+
+A picture rose slowly before him in the bush-fire, and in that picture
+he saw Scottie, the man-hunted man, fighting a great fight to keep
+himself from being hung by the neck until he was dead; and then he saw
+Pelliter, dying of the sickness which comes of loneliness, and beyond
+those two, like a pale cameo appearing for a moment out of gloom, he
+saw the picture of a face. It was a girl's face, and it was gone in an
+instant. He had hoped against hope that she would write to him again.
+But she had failed him.
+
+He rose to his feet with a little laugh, partly of joy and partly of
+pain, as he thought of the true heart that was waiting for Pelliter.
+He tied on his snow-shoes and struck out over the Barren. He moved
+swiftly, looking sharply ahead of him. The night grew brighter, the
+stars more brilliant. The zipp, zipp, zipp of the tails of his
+snow-shoes was the only sound he heard except the first faint, hissing
+monotone of the aurora in the northern skies, which came to him like
+the shivering run of steel sledge runners on hard snow.
+
+In place of sound the night about him began to fill with ghostly life.
+His shadow beckoned and grimaced ahead of him, and the stunted bush
+seemed to move. His eyes were alert and questing. Within himself he
+reasoned that he would see nothing, and yet some unusual instinct
+moved him to caution. At regular intervals he stopped to listen and to
+sniff the air for an odor of smoke. More and more he became like a
+beast of prey. He left the last bush behind him. Ahead of him the
+starlit space was now unbroken by a single shadow. Weird whispers came
+with a low wind that was gathering in the north.
+
+Suddenly MacVeigh stopped and swung his rifle into the crook of his
+arm. Something that was not the wind had come up out of the night. He
+lifted his fur cap from his ears and listened. He heard it again,
+faintly, the frosty singing of sledge runners. The sledge was
+approaching from the open Barren, and he cleared for action. He took
+off his heavy fur mittens and snapped them to his belt, replaced them
+with his light service gloves, and examined his revolver to see that
+the cylinder was not frozen. Then he stood silent and waited.
+
+ II
+
+ BILLY MEETS THE WOMAN
+
+Out of the gloom a sledge approached slowly. It took form at last in a
+dim shadow, and MacVeigh saw that it would pass very near to him. He
+made out, one after another, a human figure, three dogs, and the
+toboggan. There was something appalling in the quiet of this specter
+of life looming up out of the night. He could no longer hear the
+sledge, though it was within fifty paces of him. The figure in advance
+walked slowly and with bowed head, and the dogs and the sledge
+followed in a ghostly line. Human leader and animals were oblivious to
+MacVeigh, silent and staring in the white night. They were opposite
+him before he moved.
+
+Then he strode out quickly, with a loud holloa. At the sound of his
+voice there followed a low cry, the dogs stopped in their traces, and
+the figure ran back to the sledge. MacVeigh drew his revolver. Half a
+dozen long strides and he had reached the sledge. From the opposite
+side a white face stared at him, and with one hand resting on the
+heavily laden sledge, and his revolver at level with his waist,
+MacVeigh stared back in speechless astonishment.
+
+For the great, dark, frightened eyes that looked across at him, and
+the white, staring face he recognized as the eyes and the face of a
+woman. For a moment he was unable to move or speak, and the woman
+raised her hands and pushed back her fur hood so that he saw her hair
+shimmering in the starlight. She was a white woman. Suddenly he saw
+something in her face that struck him with a chill, and he looked down
+at the thing under his hand. It was a long, rough box. He drew back a
+step.
+
+"Good God!" he said. "Are you alone?"
+
+She bowed her head, and he heard her voice in a half sob.
+
+"Yes-- alone."
+
+He passed quickly around to her side. "I am Sergeant MacVeigh, of the
+Royal Mounted," he said, gently. "Tell me, where are you going, and
+how does it happen that you are out here in the Barren-- alone."
+
+Her hood had fallen upon her shoulder, and she lifted her face full to
+MacVeigh. The stars shone in her eyes. They were wonderful eyes, and
+now they were filled with pain. And it was a wonderful face to
+MacVeigh, who had not seen a white woman's face for nearly a year. She
+was young, so young that in the pale glow of the night she looked
+almost like a girl, and in her eyes and mouth and the upturn of her
+chin there was something so like that other face of which he had
+dreamed that he reached out and took her two hesitating hands in his
+own, and asked again:
+
+"Where are you going, and why are you out here-- alone?"
+
+"I am going-- down there," she said, turning her head toward the
+timber-line. "I am going with him-- my husband--"
+
+Her voice choked her, and, drawing her hands suddenly from him, she
+went to the sledge and stood facing him. For a moment there was a glow
+of defiance in her eyes, as though she feared him and was ready to
+fight for herself and her dead. The dogs slunk in at her feet, and
+MacVeigh saw the gleam of their naked fangs in the starlight.
+
+"He died three days ago," she finished, quietly, "and I am taking him
+back to my people, down on the Little Seul."
+
+"It is two hundred miles," said MacVeigh, looking at her as if she
+were mad. "You will die."
+
+"I have traveled two days," replied the woman. "I am going on."
+
+"Two days-- across the Barren!"
+
+MacVeigh looked at the box, grim and terrible in the ghostly radiance
+that fell upon it. Then he looked at the woman. She had bowed her head
+upon her breast, and her shining hair fell loose and disheveled. He
+saw the pathetic droop of her tired shoulders, and knew that she was
+crying. In that moment a thrilling warmth flooded every fiber of his
+body, and the glory of this that had come to him from out of the
+Barren held him mute. To him woman was all that was glorious and good.
+The pitiless loneliness of his life had placed them next to angels in
+his code of things, and before him now he saw all that he had ever
+dreamed of in the love and loyalty of womanhood and of wifehood.
+
+The bowed little figure before him was facing death for the man she
+had loved, and who was dead. In a way he knew that she was mad. And
+yet her madness was the madness of a devotion that was beyond fear, of
+a faithfulness that made no measure of storm and cold and starvation;
+and he was filled with a desire to go up to her as she stood crumpled
+and exhausted against the box, to take her close in his arms and tell
+her that of such a love he had built for himself the visions which had
+kept him alive in his loneliness. She looked pathetically like a
+child.
+
+"Come, little girl," he said. "We'll go on. I'll see you safely on
+your way to the Little Seul. You mustn't go alone. You'd never reach
+your people alive. My God, if I were he--"
+
+He stopped at the frightened look in the white face she lifted to him.
+
+"What?" she asked.
+
+"Nothing-- only it's hard for a man to die and lose a woman like you,"
+said MacVeigh. "There-- let me lift you up on the box."
+
+"The dogs cannot pull the load," she objected. "I have helped them--"
+
+"If they can't, I can," he laughed, softly; and with a quick movement
+he picked her up and seated her on the sledge. He stripped off his
+pack and placed it behind her, and then he gave her his rifle. The
+woman looked straight at him with a tense, white face as she placed
+the weapon across her lap.
+
+"You can shoot me if I don't do my duty," said MacVeigh. He tried to
+hide the happiness that came to him in this companionship of woman,
+but it trembled in his voice. He stopped suddenly, listening.
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"I heard nothing," said the woman. Her face was deadly white. Her eyes
+had grown black.
+
+MacVeigh turned, with a word to the dogs. He picked up the end of the
+babiche rope with which the woman had assisted them to drag their
+load, and set off across the Barren. The presence of the dead had
+always been oppressive to him, but to-night it was otherwise. His
+fatigue of the day was gone, and in spite of the thing he was helping
+to drag behind him he was filled with a strange elation. He was in the
+presence of a woman. Now and then he turned his head to look at her.
+He could feel her behind him, and the sound of her low voice when she
+spoke to the dogs was like music to him. He wanted to burst forth in
+the wild song with which he and Pelliter had kept up their courage in
+the little cabin, but he throttled his desire and whistled instead. He
+wondered how the woman and the dogs had dragged the sledge. It sank
+deep in the soft drift-snow, and taxed his strength. Now and then he
+paused to rest, and at last the woman jumped from the sledge and came
+to his side.
+
+"I am going to walk," she said. "The load is too heavy."
+
+"The snow is soft," replied MacVeigh. "Come."
+
+He held out his hand to her; and, with the same strange, white look in
+her face, the woman gave him her own. She glanced back uneasily toward
+the box, and MacVeigh understood. He pressed her fingers a little
+tighter and drew her nearer to him. Hand in hand, they resumed their
+way across the Barren. MacVeigh said nothing, but his blood was
+running like fire through his body. The little hand he held trembled
+and started uneasily. Once or twice it tried to draw itself away, and
+he held it closer. After that it remained submissively in his own,
+warm and thrilling. Looking down, he could see the profile of the
+woman's face.
+
+A long, shining tress of her hair had freed itself from under her
+hood, and the light wind lifted it so that it fell across his arm.
+Like a thief he raised it to his lips, while the woman looked straight
+ahead to where the timber-line began to show in a thin, black streak.
+His cheeks burned, half with shame, half with tumultuous joy. Then he
+straightened his shoulders and shook the floating tress from his arm.
+
+Three-quarters of an hour later they came to the first of the timber.
+He still held her hand. He was still holding it, with the brilliant
+starlight falling upon them, when his chin shot suddenly into the air
+again, alert and fighting, and he cried, softly:
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"Nothing," said the woman. "I heard nothing-- unless it was the wind
+in the trees."
+
+She drew away from him. The dogs whined and slunk close to the box.
+Across the Barren came a low, wailing wind.
+
+"The storm is coming back," said MacVeigh. "It must have been the wind
+that I heard."
+
+ III
+
+ IN HONOR OF THE LIVING
+
+For a few moments after uttering those words Billy stood silent
+listening for a sound that was not the low moaning of the wind far out
+on the Barren. He was sure that he had heard it-- something very near,
+almost at his feet, and yet it was a sound which he could not place or
+understand. He looked at the woman. She was gazing steadily at him.
+
+"I hear it now," she said. "It is the wind. It has frightened me. It
+makes such terrible sounds at times-- out on the Barren. A little
+while ago-- I thought-- I heard-- a child crying--"
+
+Billy saw her clutch a hand at her throat, and there were both terror
+and grief in the eyes that never for an instant left his face. He
+understood. She was almost ready to give way under the terrible strain
+of the Barren. He smiled at her, and spoke in a voice that he might
+have used to a little child.
+
+"You are tired, little girl?"
+
+"Yes-- yes-- I am tired--"
+
+"And hungry and cold?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then we will camp in the timber."
+
+They went on until they came to a growth of spruce so dense that it
+formed a shelter from both snow and wind, with a thick carpet of brown
+needles under foot. They were shut out from the stars, and in the
+darkness MacVeigh began to whistle cheerfully. He unstrapped his pack
+and spread out one of his blankets close to the box and wrapped the
+other about the woman's shoulders.
+
+"You sit here while I make a fire," he said.
+
+He piled up dry needles over a precious bit of his birchbark and
+struck a flame. In the glowing light he found other fuel, and added to
+the fire until the crackling blaze leaped as high as his head. The
+woman's face was hidden, and she looked as though she had fallen
+asleep in the warmth of the fire. For half an hour Mac-Veigh dragged
+in fuel until he had a great pile of it in readiness.
+
+Then he forked out a deep bed of burning coals and soon the odor of
+coffee and frying bacon aroused his companion. She raised her head and
+threw back the blanket with which he had covered her shoulders. It was
+warm where she sat, and she took off her hood while he smiled at her
+companionably from over the fire. Her reddish-brown hair tumbled about
+her shoulders, rippling and glistening in the fire glow, and for a few
+moments she sat with it falling loosely about her, with her eyes upon
+MacVeigh. Then she gathered it between her fingers, and MacVeigh
+watched her while she divided it into shining strands and pleated it
+into a big braid.
+
+"Supper is ready," he said. "Will you eat it there?"
+
+She nodded, and for the first time she smiled at him. He brought bacon
+and bread and coffee and other things from his pack and placed them on
+a folded blanket between them. He sat opposite her, cross-legged. For
+the first time he noticed that her eyes were blue and that there was a
+flush in her cheeks. The flush deepened as he looked at her, and she
+smiled at him again.
+
+The smile, the momentary drooping of her eyes, set his heart leaping,
+and for a little while he was unconscious of taste in the food he
+swallowed. He told her of his post away up at Point Fullerton, and of
+Pelliter, who was dying of loneliness.
+
+"It's been a long time since I've seen a woman like you," he confided.
+"And it seems like heaven. You don't know how lonely I am!" His voice
+trembled. "I wish that Pelliter could see you-- just for a moment," he
+added. "It would make him live again."
+
+Something in the soft glow of her eyes urged other words to his lips.
+
+"Mebbe you don't know what it means not to see a white woman in-- in--
+all this time," he went on. "You won't think that I've gone mad, will
+you, or that I'm saying or doing anything that's wrong? I'm trying to
+hold myself back, but I feel like shouting, I'm that glad. If Pelliter
+could see you--" He reached suddenly in his pocket and drew out the
+precious packet of letters. "He's got a girl down south-- just like
+you," he said. "These are from her. If I get 'em up in time they'll
+bring him round. It's not medicine he wants. It's woman-- just a sight
+of her, and sound of her, and a touch of her hand."
+
+She reached across and took the letters. In the firelight he saw that
+her hand was trembling.
+
+"Are they-- married?" she asked, softly.
+
+"No, but they're going to be," he cried, triumphantly. "She's the most
+beautiful thing in the world, next to--"
+
+He paused, and she finished for him.
+
+"Next to one other girl-- who is yours."
+
+"No, I wasn't going to say that. You won't think I mean wrong, will
+you, if I tell you? I was going to say next to-- you. For you've come
+out of the blizzard-- like an angel to give me new hope. I was sort of
+broke when you came. If you disappeared now and I never saw you again
+I'd go back and fight the rest of my time out, an' dream of pleasant
+things. Gawd! Do you know a man has to be put up here before he knows
+that life isn't the sun an' the moon an' the stars an' the air we
+breathe. It's woman-- just woman."
+
+He was returning the letters to his pocket. The woman's voice was
+clear and gentle. To Billy it rose like sweetest music above the
+crackling of the fire and the murmuring of the wind in the spruce
+tops.
+
+"Men like you-- ought to have a woman to care for," she said. "He was
+like that."
+
+"You mean--" His eyes sought the long, dark box.
+
+"Yes-- he was like that."
+
+"I know how you feel," he said; and for a moment he did not look at
+her. "I've gone through-- a lot of it. Father an' mother and a sister.
+Mother was the last, and I wasn't much more than a kid-- eighteen, I
+guess-- but it don't seem much more than yesterday. When you come up
+here and you don't see the sun for months nor a white face for a year
+or more it brings up all those things pretty much as though they
+happened only a little while ago.'"
+
+"All of them are-- dead?" she asked.
+
+"All but one. She wrote to me for a long time, and I thought she'd
+keep her word. Pelly-- that's Pelliter-- thinks we've just had a
+misunderstanding, and that she'll write again. I haven't told him that
+she turned me down to marry another fellow. I didn't want to make him
+think any unpleasant things about his own girl. You're apt to do that
+when you're almost dying of loneliness."
+
+The woman's eyes were shining. She leaned a little toward him.
+
+"You should be glad," she said. "If she turned you down she wouldn't
+have been worthy of you-- afterward. She wasn't a true woman. If she
+had been, her love wouldn't have grown cold because you were away. It
+mustn't spoil your faith-- because that is-- beautiful."
+
+He had put a hand into his pocket again, and drew out now a thin
+package wrapped in buckskin. His face was like a boy's.
+
+"I might have-- if I hadn't met you," he said. "I'd like to let you
+know-- some way-- what you've done for me. You and this."
+
+He had unfolded the buckskin, and gave it to her. In it were the big
+blue petals and dried stem of a blue flower.
+
+"A blue flower!" she said.
+
+"Yes. You know what it means. The Indians call it i-o-waka, or
+something like that, because they believe that it is the flower spirit
+of the purest and most beautiful thing in the world. I have called it
+woman."
+
+He laughed, and there was a joyous sort of note in the laugh.
+
+"You may think me a little mad," he said, "but do you care if I tell
+you about that blue flower?"
+
+The woman nodded. There was a little quiver at her throat which Billy
+did not see.
+
+"I was away up on the Great Bear," he said, "and for ten days and ten
+nights I was in camp-- alone-- laid up with a sprained ankle. It was a
+wild and gloomy place, shut in by barren ridge mountains, with stunted
+black spruce all about, and those spruce were haunted by owls that
+made my blood run cold nights. The second day I found company. It was
+a blue flower. It grew close to my tent, as high as my knee, and
+during the day I used to spread out my blanket close to it and lie
+there and smoke. And the blue flower would wave on its slender stem,
+an' bob at me, an' talk in sign language that I imagined I understood.
+Sometimes it was so funny and vivacious that I laughed, and then it
+seemed to be inviting me to a dance. And at other times it was just
+beautiful and still, and seemed listening to what the forest was
+saying-- and once or twice, I thought, it might be praying. Loneliness
+makes a fellow foolish, you know. With the going of the sun my blue
+flower would always fold its petals and go to sleep, like a little
+child tired out by the day's play, and after that I would feel
+terribly lonely. But it was always awake again when I rolled out in
+the morning. At last the time came when I was well enough to leave. On
+the ninth night I watched my blue flower go to sleep for the last
+time. Then I packed. The sun was up when I went away the next morning,
+and from a little distance I turned and looked back. I suppose I was
+foolish, and weak for a man, but I felt like crying. Blue flower had
+taught me many things I had not known before. It had made me think.
+And when I looked back it was in a pool of sunlight, and it was waving
+at me! It seemed to me that it was calling-- calling me back-- and I
+ran to it and picked it from the stem, and it has been with me ever
+since that hour. It has been my Bible an' my comrade, an' I've known
+it was the spirit of the purest and the most beautiful thing in the
+world-- woman. I--" His voice broke a little. "I-- I may be foolish,
+but I'd like to have you take it, an' keep it-- always-- for me."
+
+He could see now the quiver of her lips as she looked across at him.
+
+"Yes, I will take it," she said. "I will take it and keep it--
+always."
+
+"I've been keeping it for a woman-- somewhere," he said. "Foolish
+idea, wasn't it? And I've been telling you all this, when I want to
+hear what happened back there, and what you are going to do when you
+reach your people. Do you mind-- telling me?"
+
+"He died-- that's all," she replied, fighting to speak calmly. "I
+promised to take him back-- to my people, And when I get there-- I
+don't know-- what I shall-- do--"
+
+She caught her breath. A low sob broke from her lips.
+
+"You don't know-- what you will do--"
+
+Billy's voice sounded strange even to himself. He rose to his feet and
+looked down into her upturned face, his hands clenched, his body
+trembling with the fight he was making. Words came to his lips and
+were forced back again-- words which almost won in their struggle to
+tell her again that she had come to him from out of the Barren like an
+angel, that within the short space since their meeting he had lived a
+lifetime, and that he loved her as no man had ever loved a woman
+before. Her blue eyes looked at him questioningly as he stood above
+her.
+
+And then he saw the thing which for a moment he had forgotten-- the
+long, rough box at the woman's back. His fingers dug deeper into his
+palms, and with a gasping breath he turned away. A hundred paces back
+in the spruce he had found a bare rock with a red bakneesh vine
+growing over it. With his knife he cut off an armful, and when he
+returned with it into the light of the fire the bakneesh glowed like a
+mass of crimson flowers. The woman had risen to her feet, and looked
+at him speechlessly as he scattered the vine over the box. He turned
+to her and said, softly:
+
+"In honor of the dead!"
+
+The color had faded from her face, but her eyes shone like stars.
+Billy advanced toward her with his hands reaching out. But suddenly he
+stopped and stood listening. After a moment he turned and asked again:
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"I heard the dogs-- and the wind," she replied.
+
+"It's something cracking in my head, I guess," said MacVeigh. "It
+sounded like--" He passed a hand over his forehead and looked at the
+dogs huddled in deep sleep beside the sledge. The woman did not see
+the shiver that passed through him. He laughed cheerfully, and seized
+his ax.
+
+"Now for the camp," he announced. "We're going to get the storm within
+an hour."
+
+On the box the woman carried a small tent, and he pitched it close to
+the fire, filling the interior two feet deep with cedar and balsam
+boughs. His own silk service tent he put back in the deeper shadows of
+the spruce. When he had finished he looked questioningly at the woman
+and then at the box.
+
+"If there is room-- I would like it in there-- with me," she said, and
+while she stood with her face to the fire he dragged the box into the
+tent. Then he piled fresh fuel upon the fire and came to bid her good
+night. Her face was pale and haggard now, but she smiled at him, and
+to MacVeigh she was the most beautiful thing in the world. Within
+himself he felt that he had known her for years and years, and he took
+her hands and looked down into her blue eyes and said, almost in a
+whisper:
+
+"Will you forgive me if I'm doing wrong? You don't know how lonesome
+I've been, and how lonesome I am, and what it means to me to look once
+more into a woman's face. I don't want to hurt you, and I'd-- I'd"--
+his voice broke a little--"I'd give him back life if I could, just
+because I've seen you and know you and-- and love you."
+
+She started and drew a quick, sharp breath that came almost in a low
+cry.
+
+"Forgive me, little girl," he went on. "I may be a little mad. I guess
+I am. But I'd die for you, and I'm going to see you safely down to
+your people-- and-- and-- I wonder-- I wonder-- if you'd kiss me good
+night--"
+
+Her eyes never left his face. They were dazzlingly blue in the
+firelight. Slowly she drew her hands away from him, still looking
+straight into his eyes, and then she placed them against each of his
+arms and slowly lifted her face to him. Reverently he bent and kissed
+her.
+
+"God bless you!" he whispered.
+
+For hours after that he sat beside the fire. The wind came up stronger
+across the Barren; the storm broke fresh from the north, the spruce
+and the balsam wailed over his head, and he could hear the moaning
+sweep of the blizzard out in the open spaces. But the sounds came to
+him now like a new kind of music, and his heart throbbed and his soul
+was warm with joy as he looked at the little tent wherein there lay
+sleeping the woman whom he loved.
+
+He still felt the warmth of her lips, he saw again and again the blue
+softness that had come for an instant into her eyes, and he thanked
+God for the wonderful happiness that had come to him. For the
+sweetness of the woman's lips and the greater sweetness of her blue
+eyes told him what life held for him now. A day's journey to the south
+was an Indian camp. He would take her there, and would hire runners to
+carry up Pelliter's medicines and his letters. Then he would go on--
+with the woman-- and he laughed softly and joyously at the glorious
+news which he would take back to Pelliter a little later. For the kiss
+burned on his lips, the blue eyes smiled at him still from out of the
+firelit gloom, and he knew nothing but hope.
+
+It was late, almost midnight, when he went to bed. With the storm
+wailing and twisting more fiercely about him, he fell asleep. And it
+was late when he awoke. The forest was filled with a moaning sound.
+The fire was low. Beyond it the flap of the woman's tent was still
+down, and he put on fresh fuel quietly, so that he would not awaken
+her. He looked at his watch and found that he had been sleeping for
+nearly seven hours. Then he returned to his tent to get the things for
+breakfast. Half a dozen paces from the door flap he stopped in sudden
+astonishment.
+
+Hanging to his tent in the form of a great wreath was the red bakneesh
+which he had cut the night before, and over it, scrawled in charcoal
+on the silk, there stared at him the crudely written words:
+
+"In honor of the living."
+
+With a low cry he sprang back toward the other tent, and then, as
+sudden as his movement, there flashed upon him the significance of the
+bakneesh wreath. The woman was saying to him what she had not spoken
+in words. She had come out in the night while he was asleep and had
+hung the wreath where he would see it in the morning. The blood rushed
+warm and joyous through his body, and with something which was not a
+laugh, but which was an exultant breath from the soul itself, he
+straightened himself, and his hand fell in its old trick to his
+revolver holster. It was empty.
+
+He dragged out his blankets, but the weapon was not between them. He
+looked into the corner where he had placed his rifle. That, too, was
+gone. His face grew tense and white as he walked slowly beyond the
+fire to the woman's tent. With his ear at the flap he listened. There
+was no sound within-- no sound of movement, of life, of a sleeper's
+breath; and like one who feared to reveal a terrible picture he drew
+back the flap. The balsam bed which he had made for the woman was
+empty, and across it had been drawn the big rough box. He stepped
+inside. The box was open-- and empty, except for a mass of worn and
+hard-packed balsam boughs in the bottom. In another instant the truth
+burst in all its force upon MacVeigh. The box had held life, and the
+woman--
+
+Something on the side of the box caught his eyes. It was a folded bit
+of paper, pinned where he must see it. He tore it off and staggered
+with it back into the light of day. A low, hard cry came from his lips
+as he read what the woman had written to him:
+
+  "May God bless you for being good to me. In the storm we have
+  gone-- my husband and I. Word came to us that you were on our
+  trail, and we saw your fire out on the Barren. My husband made the
+  box for me to keep me from cold and storm. When we saw you we
+  changed places, and so you met me with my dead. He could have
+  killed you-- a dozen times, but you were good to me, and so you
+  live. Some day may God give you a good woman who will love you as I
+  love him. He killed a man, but killing is not always murder. We
+  have taken your weapons, and the storm will cover our trail. But
+  you would not follow. I know that. For you know what it means to
+  love a woman, and so you know what life means to a woman when she
+  loves a man.           MRS. ISOBEL DEANE."
+
+ IV
+
+ THE MAN-HUNTERS
+
+Like one dazed by a blow Billy read once more the words which Isobel
+Deane had left for him. He made no sound after that first cry that had
+broken from his lips, but stood looking into the crackling flames of
+the fire until a sudden lash of the wind whipped the note from between
+his fingers and sent it scurrying away in a white volley of fine snow.
+The loss of the note awoke him to action. He started to pursue the bit
+of paper, then stopped and laughed. It was a short, mirthless laugh,
+the kind of a laugh with which a strong man covers pain. He returned
+to the tent again and looked in. He flung back the tent flaps so that
+the light could enter and he could see into the box. A few hours
+before that box had hidden Scottie Deane, the murderer. And she was
+his wife! He turned back to the fire, and he saw again the red
+bakneesh hanging over his tent flap, and the words she had scrawled
+with the end of a charred stick, "In honor of the living." That meant
+him. Something thick and uncomfortable rose in his throat, and a blur
+that was not caused by snow or wind filled his eyes. She had made a
+magnificent fight. And she had won. And it suddenly occurred to him
+that what she had said in the note was true, and that Scottie Deane
+could easily have killed him. The next moment he wondered why he had
+not done that. Deane had taken a big chance in allowing him to live.
+They had only a few hours' start of him, and their trail could not be
+entirely obliterated by the storm. Deane would be hampered in his
+flight by the presence of his wife. He could still follow and overtake
+them. They had taken his weapons, but this would not be the first time
+that he had gone after his man without weapons.
+
+Swiftly the reaction worked in him. He ran beyond the fire, and
+circled quickly until he came upon the trail of the outgoing sledge.
+It was still quite distinct. Deeper in the forest it could be easily
+followed. Something fluttered at his feet. It was Isobel Deane's note.
+He picked it up, and again his eyes fell upon those last words that
+she had written: But you would not follow. I know that. For you know
+what it means to love a woman, and so you know what life means to a
+woman when she loves a man. That was why Scottie Deane had not killed
+him. It was because of the woman. And she had faith in him! This time
+he folded the note and placed it in his pocket, where the blue flower
+had been. Then he went slowly back to the fire.
+
+"I told you I'd give him back his life-- if I could," he said. "And I
+guess I'm going to keep my word." He fell into his old habit of
+talking to himself-- a habit that comes easily to one in the big open
+spaces-- and he laughed as he stood beside the fire and loaded his
+pipe. "If it wasn't for her!" he added, thinking of Scottie Deane.
+"Gawd-- if it wasn't for her!"
+
+He finished loading his pipe, and lighted it, staring off into the
+thicker spruce forest into which Scottie and his wife had fled. The
+entire force was on the lookout for Scottie Deane. For more than a
+year he had been as elusive as the little white ermine of the woods.
+He had outwitted the best men in the service, and his name was known
+to every man of the Royal Mounted from Calgary to Herschel Island.
+There was a price on his head, and fame for the man who captured him.
+Those who dreamed of promotions also dreamed of Scottie Deane; and as
+Billy thought of these things something that was not the man-hunting
+instinct rose in him and his blood warmed with a strange feeling of
+brotherhood. Scottie Deane was more than an outlaw to him now, more
+than a mere man. Hunted like a rat, chased from place to place, he
+must be more than those things for a woman like Isobel Deane still to
+cling to. He recalled the gentleness of her voice, the sweetness of
+her face, the tenderness of her blue eyes, and for the first time the
+thought came to him that such a woman could not love a man who was
+wholly bad. And she did love him. A twinge of pain came with that
+truth, and yet with it a thrill of pleasure. Her loyalty was a
+triumph-- even for him. She had come to him like an angel out of the
+storm, and she had gone from him like an angel. He was glad. A living,
+breathing reality had taken the place of the dream vision in his
+heart, a woman who was flesh and blood, and who was as true and as
+beautiful as the blue flower he had carried against his breast. In
+that moment he would have liked to grip Scottie Deane by the hand,
+because he was her husband and because he was man enough to make her
+love him. Perhaps it was Deane who had hung the wreath of bakneesh on
+his tent and who had scribbled the words in charcoal. And Deane surely
+knew of the note his wife had written. The feeling of brotherhood grew
+stronger in Billy, and thought of their faith in him filled him with a
+strange elation.
+
+The fire was growing low, and he turned to add fresh fuel. His eyes
+caught sight of the box in the tent, and he dragged it out. He was
+about to throw it on the fire when he hesitated and examined it more
+closely. How far had they come, he wondered? It must have been from
+the other side of the Barren, for Deane had built the box to protect
+Isobel from the fierce winds of the open. It was built of light, dry
+wood, hewn with a belt ax, and the corners were fastened with babiche
+cord made of caribou skin in place of nails. The balsam that had been
+placed in it for Isobel was still in the box, and Billy's heart beat a
+little more quickly as he drew it out. It had been Isobel's bed. He
+could see where the balsam was thicker, where her head had rested.
+With a sudden breathless cry he thrust the box on the fire.
+
+He was not hungry, but he made himself a pot of coffee and drank it.
+Until now he had not observed that the storm was growing steadily
+worse. The thick, low-hanging spruce broke the force of it. Beyond the
+shelter of the forest he could hear the roar of it as it swept through
+the thin scrub and open spaces of the edge of the Barren. It recalled
+him once more to Pelliter. In the excitement of Isobel's presence and
+the shock and despair that had followed her flight he had been guilty
+of partly forgetting Pelliter. By the time he reached the Eskimo
+igloos there would be two days lost. Those two days might mean
+everything to his sick comrade. He jumped to his feet, felt in his
+pocket to see that the letters were safe, and began to arrange his
+pack. Through the trees there came now fine white volleys of
+blistering snow. It was like the hardest granulated sugar. A sudden
+blast of it stung his eyes; and, leaving his pack and tent, he made
+his way anxiously toward the more open timber and scrub. A few hundred
+yards from the camp he was forced to bow his head against the snow
+volleys and pull the broad flaps of his cap down over his cheeks and
+ears. A hundred yards more and he stopped, sheltering himself behind a
+gnarled and stunted banskian. He looked out into the beginning of the
+open. It was a white and seething chaos into which he could not see
+the distance of a pistol shot. The Eskimo igloos were twenty miles
+across the Barren, and Billy's heart sank. He could not make it. No
+man could live in the storm that was sweeping straight down from the
+Arctic, and he turned back to the camp. He had scarcely made the move
+when he was startled by a strange sound coming with the wind. He faced
+the white blur again, a hand dropping to his empty pistol holster. It
+came again, and this time he recognized it. It was a shout, a man's
+voice. Instantly his mind leaped to Deane and Isobel. What miracle
+could be bringing them back?
+
+A shadow grew out of the twisting blur of the storm. It quickly
+separated itself into definite parts-- a team of dogs, a sledge, three
+men. A minute more and the dogs stopped in a snarling tangle as they
+saw Billy. Billy stepped forth. Almost instantly he found a revolver
+leveled at his breast.
+
+"Put that up, Bucky Smith," he called. "If you're looking for a man
+you've found the wrong one!"
+
+The man advanced. His eyes were red and staring. His pistol arm
+dropped as he came within a yard of Billy.
+
+"By-- It's you, is it, Billy MacVeigh!" he exclaimed. His laugh was
+harsh and unpleasant. Bucky was a corporal in the service, and when
+Billy had last heard of him he was stationed at Nelson House. For a
+year the two men had been in the same patrol, and there was bad blood
+between them. Billy had never told of a certain affair down at Norway
+House, the knowledge of which at headquarters would have meant Bucky's
+disgraceful retirement from the force. But he had called Bucky out in
+fair fight and had whipped him within an inch of his life. The old
+hatred burned in the corporal's eyes as he stared into Billy's face.
+Billy ignored the look, and shook hands with the other men. One of
+them was a Hudson's Bay Company's driver, and the other was Constable
+Walker, from Churchill.
+
+"Thought we'd never live to reach shelter," gasped Walker, as they
+shook hands. "We're out after Scottie Deane, and we ain't losing a
+minute. We're going to get him, too. His trail is so hot we can smell
+it. My God, but I'm bushed!"
+
+The dogs, with the company man at their head, were already making for
+the camp. Billy grinned at the corporal as they followed.
+
+"Had a pretty good chance to get me, if you'd been alone, didn't you,
+Bucky?" he asked, in a voice that Walker did not hear. "You see, I
+haven't forgotten your threat."
+
+There was a steely hardness behind his laugh. He knew that Bucky Smith
+was a scoundrel whose good fortune was that he had never been found
+out in some of his evil work. In a flash his mind traveled back to
+that day at Norway House when Rousseau, the half Frenchman, had come
+to him from a sick-bed to tell him that Bucky had ruined his young
+wife. Rousseau, who should have been in bed with his fever, died two
+days later. Billy could still hear the taunt in Bucky's voice when he
+had cornered him with Rousseau's accusation, and the fight had
+followed. The thought that this man was now close after Isobel and
+Deane filled him with a sort of rage, and as Walker went ahead he laid
+a hand on Bucky's arm.
+
+"I've been thinking about you of late, Bucky," he said. "I've been
+thinking a lot about that affair down at Norway, an' I've been lacking
+myself for not reporting it. I'm going to do it-- unless you cut a
+right-angle track to the one you're taking. I'm after Scottie Deane
+myself!"
+
+In the next breath he could have cut out his tongue for having uttered
+the words. A gleam of triumph shot into Bucky's eyes.
+
+"I thought we was right," he said. "We sort of lost the trail in the
+storm. Glad we found you to set us right. How much of a start of us
+has he and that squaw that's traveling with him got?"
+
+Billy's mittened hands clenched fiercely. He made no reply, but
+followed quickly after Walker. His mind worked swiftly. As he came in
+to the fire he saw that the dogs had already dropped down in their
+traces and that they were exhausted. Walker's face was pinched, his
+eyes half closed by the sting of the snow. The driver was half
+stretched out on the sledge, his feet to the fire. In a glance he had
+assured himself that both dogs and men had gone through a long and
+desperate struggle in the storm. He looked at Bucky, and this time
+there was neither rancor nor threat in his voice when he spoke.
+
+"You fellows have had a hard time of it," he said. "Make yourselves at
+home. I'm not overburdened with grub, but if you'll dig out some of
+your own rations I'll get it ready while you thaw out."
+
+Bucky was looking curiously at the two tents.
+
+"Who's with you?" he asked.
+
+Billy shrugged his shoulders. His voice was almost affable.
+
+"Hate to tell you who was with me, Bucky," he laughed, "I came in late
+last night, half dead, and found a half-breed camped here-- in that
+silk tent. He was quite chummy-- mighty fine chap. Young fellow, too--
+almost a kid. When I got up this morning--" Billy shrugged his
+shoulders again and pointed to his empty pistol holster. "Everything
+was gone-- dogs, sledge, extra tent, even my rifle and automatic. He
+wasn't quite bad, though, for he left me my grub. He was a funny cuss,
+too. Look at that!" He pointed to the bakneesh wreath that still hung
+to the front of his tent. "'In honor of the living,'" he read, aloud,
+"Just a sort of reminder, you know, that he might have hit me on the
+head with a club if he'd wanted to." He came nearer to Bucky, and
+said, good-naturedly: "I guess you've got me beat this time, Bucky.
+Scottie Deane is pretty safe from me, wherever he is. I haven't even
+got a gun!"
+
+"He must have left a trail," remarked Bucky, eying him shrewdly.
+
+"He did-- out there!"
+
+As Bucky went to examine what was left of the trail Billy thanked
+Heaven that Deane had placed Isobel on the sledge before he left camp.
+There was nothing to betray her presence. Walker had unlaced their
+outfit, and Billy was busy preparing a meal when Bucky returned. There
+was a sneer on his lips.
+
+"Didn't know you was that easy," he said. "Wonder why he didn't take
+his tent! Pretty good tent, isn't it?"
+
+He went inside. A minute later he appeared at the flap and called to
+Billy.
+
+"Look here!" he said, and there was a tremble of excitement in his
+voice. His eyes were blazing with an ugly triumph. "Your half-breed
+had pretty long hair, didn't he?"
+
+He pointed to a splinter on one of the light tent-poles. Billy's heart
+gave a sudden jump. A tress of Isobel's long, loose hair had caught in
+the splinter, and a dozen golden-brown strands had remained to give
+him away. For a moment he forgot that Bucky Smith was watching him. He
+saw Isobel again as she had last entered the tent, her beautiful hair
+flowing in a firelit glory about her, her eyes still filled with
+tender gratitude. Once more he felt the warmth of her lips, the touch
+of her hand, the thrill of her presence near him. Perhaps these
+emotions covered any suspicious movement or word by which he might
+otherwise have betrayed himself. By the time they were gone he had
+recovered himself, and he turned to his companion with a low laugh.
+
+"It's a woman's hair, all right, Bucky. He told me all sorts of nice
+things about a girl `back home.' They must have been true."
+
+The eyes of the two men met unflinchingly. There was a sneer on Buck's
+lips; Billy was smiling.
+
+"I'm going to follow this Frenchman after we've had a little rest,"
+said the corporal, trying to cover a certain note of excitement and
+triumph in his voice. "There's a woman traveling with Scottie Deane,
+you know-- a white woman-- and there's only one other north of
+Churchill. Of course, you're anxious to get back your stolen outfit?"
+
+"You bet I am," exclaimed Billy, concealing the effect of the
+bull's-eye shot Bucky had made. "I'm not particularly happy in the
+thought of reporting myself stripped in this sort of way. The breed
+will hang to thick cover, and it won't be difficult to follow his
+trail."
+
+He saw that Bucky was a little taken aback by his ready acquiescence,
+and before the other could reply he hurried out to join Walker in the
+preparation of breakfast. He made a gallon of tea, fried some bacon,
+and brought out and toasted his own stock of frozen bannock. He made a
+second kettle of tea while the others were eating, and shook out the
+blankets in his own tent. Walker had told him that they had traveled
+nearly all night.
+
+"Better have an hour or two of sleep before you go on," he invited.
+
+The driver's name was Conway. He was the first to accept Billy's
+invitation. When he had finished eating, Walker followed him into the
+tent. When they were gone Bucky looked hard at Billy.
+
+"What's your game?" he asked.
+
+"The Golden Rule, that's all," replied Billy, proffering his tobacco.
+"The half-breed treated me square and made me comfortable, even if he
+did take his pay afterward. I'm doing the same."
+
+"And what do you expect to take-- afterward?"
+
+Billy's eyes narrowed as he returned the other's searching look.
+
+"Bucky, I didn't think you were quite a fool," he said. "You've got a
+little decency in your hide, haven't you? A man might as well be in
+jail as up here without a gun. I expect you to contribute one-- when
+you go after the half-breed-- you or Walker. He'll do it if you won't.
+Better go in with the others. I'll keep up the fire."
+
+Bucky rose sullenly. He was still suspicious of Billy's hospitality,
+but at the same time he could see the strength of Billy's argument and
+the importance of the price he was asking. He joined Walker and
+Conway. Fifteen minutes later Billy approached the tent and looked in.
+The three men were in the deep sleep of exhaustion. Instantly Billy's
+actions changed. He had thrown his pack outside the tent to make more
+room, and he quickly slipped a spare blanket in with his provisions.
+Then he entered the other tent, and a flush spread over his face, and
+he felt his blood grow warmer.
+
+"You may be a fool, Billy MacVeigh," he laughed, softly. "You may be a
+fool, but we're going to do it!"
+
+Gently he disentangled the long silken strands of golden brown from
+the tent-pole. He wound the hair about his fingers, and it made a soft
+and shining ring. It was all that he would ever possess of Isobel
+Deane, and his breath came more quickly as he pressed it for a moment
+to his rough and storm-beaten face. He put it in his pocket, carefully
+wrapped in Isobel's note, and then once more he went back to the tent
+in which the three men were sleeping. They had not moved. Walker's
+holster was within reach of his hand. For a moment the temptation to
+reach out and pluck the gun from it was strong. He pulled himself
+away. He would win in this fight with Bucky as surely as he had won in
+the other, and he would win without theft. Quickly he threw his pack
+over his shoulder and struck the trail made by Deane in his flight. On
+his snow-shoes he followed it in a long, swift pace. A hundred yards
+from the camp he looked back for an instant. Then he turned, and his
+face was grim and set.
+
+"If you've got to be caught, it's not going to be by that outfit back
+there, Mr. Scottie Deane," he said to himself. "It's up to yours
+truly, and Billy MacVeigh is the man who can do the trick, if he
+hasn't got a gun!"
+
+ V
+
+ BILLY FOLLOWS ISOBEL
+
+From the first Billy could see the difficulty with which Deane and his
+dogs had made their way through the soft drifts of snow piled up by
+the blizzard. In places where the trees had thinned out Deane had
+floundered ahead and pulled with the team. Only once in the first mile
+had Isobel climbed from the sledge, and that was where traces,
+toboggan, and team had all become mixed up in the snow-covered top of
+a fallen tree. The fact that Deane was compelling his wife to ride
+added to Billy's liking for the man. It was probable that Isobel had
+not gone to sleep at all after her hard experience on the Barren, but
+had lain awake planning with her husband until the hour of their
+flight. If Isobel had been able to travel on snow-shoes Billy reasoned
+that Deane would have left the dogs behind, for in the deep, soft snow
+he could have made better time without them, and snow-shoe trails
+would have been obliterated by the storm hours ago. As it was, he
+could not lose them. He knew that he had no time to lose if he made
+sure of beating out Bucky and his men. The suspicious corporal would
+not sleep long. While he had the advantage of being comparatively
+fresh, Billy's snow-shoes were smoothing and packing the trail, and
+the others, if they followed, would be able to travel a mile or two an
+hour faster than himself. That Bucky would follow he did not doubt for
+a moment. The corporal was already half convinced that Scottie Deane
+had made the trail from camp and that the hair he had found entangled
+in the splinter on the tent-pole belonged to the outlaw's wife. And
+Scottie Deane was too big a prize to lose.
+
+Billy's mind worked rapidly as he bent more determinedly to the
+pursuit. He knew that there were only two things that Bucky could do
+under the circumstances. Either he would follow after him with Walker
+and the driver or he would come alone. If Walker and Conway
+accompanied him the fight for Scottie Deane's capture would be a fair
+one, and the man who first put manacles about the outlaw's wrists
+would be the victor. But if he left his two companions in camp and
+came after him alone--
+
+The thought was not a pleasant one. He was almost sorry that he had
+not taken Walker's gun. If Bucky came alone it would be with but one
+purpose in mind-- to make sure of Scottie Dean by "squaring up" with
+him first. Billy was sure that he had measured the man right, and that
+he would not hesitate to carry out his old threat by putting a bullet
+into him at the first opportunity. And here would be opportunity. The
+storm would cover up any foul work he might accomplish, and his reward
+would be Scottie Deane-- unless Deane played too good a hand for him.
+
+At thought of Deane Billy chuckled. Until now he had not taken him
+fully into consideration, and suddenly it dawned upon him that there
+was a bit of humor as well as tragedy in the situation. He cheerfully
+conceded to himself that for a long time Deane had proved himself a
+better man than either Bucky or himself, and that, after all, he was
+the man who held the situation well in hand even now. He was well
+armed. He was as cautions as a fox, and would not be caught napping.
+And yet this thought filled Billy with satisfaction rather than fear.
+Deane would be more than a match for Bucky alone if he failed in
+beating out the corporal. But if he did beat him out--
+
+Billy's lips set grimly, and there was a hard light in his eyes as he
+glanced back over his shoulder. He would not only beat him out, but he
+would capture Scottie Deane. It would be a game of fox against fox,
+and he would win. No one would ever know why he was playing the game
+as he had planned to play it. Bucky would never know. Down at
+headquarters they would never know. And yet deep down in his heart he
+hoped and believed that Isobel would guess and understand. To save
+Deane, to save Isobel, he must keep them out of the hands of Bucky
+Smith, and to do that he must make them his own prisoners. It would be
+a terrible ordeal at first. A picture of Isobel rose before him, her
+faith and trust in him broken, her face white and drawn with grief and
+despair, her blue eyes flashing at him-- hatred. But he felt now that
+he could stand those things. One moment-- the fatal moment, when she
+would understand and know that he had remained true-- would repay him
+for what he might suffer.
+
+He traveled swiftly for an hour, and paused then to get his wind where
+the partly covered trail dipped down into a frozen swamp. Here Isobel
+had climbed from the sledge and had followed in the path of the
+toboggan. In places where the spruce and balsam were thick overhead
+Billy could make out the imprints of her moccasins. Deane had led the
+dogs in the darkness of the storm, and twice Billy found the burned
+ends of matches, where he had stopped to look at his compass. He was
+striking a course almost due west. At the farther edge of the swamp
+the trail struck a lake, and straight across this Deane had led his
+team. The worst of the storm was over now. The wind was slowly
+shifting to the south and east, and the fine, steely snow had given
+place to a thicker and softer downfall. Billy shuddered as he thought
+of what this lake must have been a few hours before, when Isobel and
+Deane had crossed it in the thick blackness of the blizzard that had
+swept it like a hurricane.
+
+It was half a mile across the lake, and here, fifty yards from shore,
+the trail was completely covered. Billy lost no time by endeavoring to
+find signs of it in the open, but struck directly for the opposite
+timber field and swung along in the shelter of the scrub forest. He
+picked up the trail easily. Half an hour later he stopped. Spruce and
+balsam grew thick about him, shutting out what was left of the wind.
+Here Scottie Deane had stopped to build a fire. Close to the charred
+embers was a mass of balsam boughs on which Isobel had rested. Scottie
+had made a pot of boiling tea and had afterward thrown the grounds on
+the snow. The warm bodies of the dogs had made smooth, round pits in
+the snow, and Billy figured that the fugitives had rested for a couple
+of hours. They had traveled eight miles through the blizzard without a
+fire, and his heart was filled with a sickening pain as he thought of
+Isobel Deane and the suffering he had brought to her. For a few
+moments there swept over him a revulsion for that thing which he stood
+for-- the Law. More than once in his experience he had thought that
+its punishment had been greater than the crime. Isobel had suffered,
+and was suffering, far more than if Deane had been captured a year
+before and hanged. And Deane himself had paid a penalty greater than
+death in being a witness of the suffering of the woman who had
+remained loyal to him. Billy's heart went out to them in a low,
+yearning cry as he looked at the balsam bed and the black char of the
+fire. He wished that he could give them, life and freedom and
+happiness, and his hands clenched tightly as he thought that he was
+willing to surrender everything, even to his own honor, for the woman
+he loved.
+
+Fifteen minutes after he had struck the shelter of the camp he was
+again in pursuit. His blood leaped a little excitedly when he found
+that Scottie Deane's trail was now almost as straight as a plumb-line
+and that the sledge no longer became entangled in hidden windfalls and
+brush. It was proof that it was light when Deane and Isobel had left
+their camp. Isobel was walking now, and their sledge was traveling
+faster. Billy encouraged his own pace, and over two or three open
+spaces he broke into a long, swinging run. The trail was comparatively
+fresh, and at the end of another hour he knew that they could not be
+far ahead of him. He had followed through a thin swamp and had climbed
+to the top of a rough ridge when he stopped. Isobel had reached the
+bald cap of the ridge exhausted. The last twenty yards he could see
+where Deane had assisted her; and then she had dropped down in the
+snow, and he had placed a blanket under her. They had taken a drink of
+tea made back over the fire, and a little of it had fallen into the
+snow. It had not yet formed ice, and instinctively he dropped behind a
+rock and looked down into the wooded valley at his feet. In a few
+moments he began to descend.
+
+He had almost reached the foot of the ridge when he brought himself
+short with a sudden low cry of horror. He had reached a point where
+the side of the ridge seemed to have broken off, leaving a precipitous
+wall. In a flash he realized what had happened. Deane and Isobel had
+descended upon a "snow trap," and it had given way under their weight,
+plunging them to the rocks below. For no longer than a breath he stood
+still, and in that moment there came a sound from far behind that sent
+a strange thrill through him. It was the howl of a dog. Bucky and his
+men were in close pursuit, and they were traveling with the team.
+
+He swung a little to the left to escape the edge of the trap and
+plunged recklessly to the bottom. Not until he saw where Scottie Deane
+and the team had dragged themselves from the snow avalanche did he
+breathe freely again. Isobel was safe! He laughed in his joy and wiped
+the nervous sweat from his face as he saw the prints of her moccasins
+where Deane had righted the sledge. And then, for the first time, he
+observed a number of small red stains on the snow. Either Isobel or
+Deane had been injured in the fall, perhaps slightly. A hundred yards
+from the "trap" the sledge had stopped again, and from this point it
+was Deane who rode and Isobel who walked!
+
+He followed more cautiously now. Another hundred yards and he stopped
+to sniff the air. Ahead of him the spruce and balsam grew close and
+thick, and from that shelter he was sure that something was coming to
+him on the air. At first he thought it was the odor of the balsam. A
+moment later he knew that it was smoke.
+
+Force of habit brought his hand for the twentieth time to his empty
+pistol holster. Its emptiness added to the caution with which he
+approached the thick spruce and balsam ahead of him. Taking advantage
+of a mass of low snow-laden bushes, he swung out at a right angle to
+the trail and began making a wide circle. He worked swiftly. Within
+half or three-quarters of an hour Bucky would reach the ridge.
+Whatever he accomplished must be done before then. Five minutes after
+leaving the trail he caught his first glimpse of smoke and began to
+edge in toward the fire. The stillness oppressed him. He drew nearer
+and nearer, yet he heard no sound of voice or of the dogs. At last he
+reached a point where he could look out from behind a young ground
+spruce and see the fire. It was not more than thirty feet away. He
+held his breath tensely at what he saw. On a blanket spread out close
+to the fire lay Scottie Deane, his head pillowed on a pack-sack. There
+was no sign of Isobel, and no sign of the sledge and dogs. Billy's
+heart thumped excitedly as he rose to his feet. He did not stop to ask
+himself where Isobel and the dogs had gone. Deane was alone, and lay
+with his back toward him. Fate could not have given him a better
+opportunity, and his moccasined feet fell swiftly and quietly in the
+snow. He was within six feet of Scottie before the injured man heard
+him, and scarcely had the other moved when he was upon him. He was
+astonished at the ease with which he twisted Deane upon his back and
+put the handcuffs about his wrists. The work was no sooner done than
+he understood. A rag was tied about Deane's head, and it was stained
+with blood. The man's arms and body were limp. He looked at Billy with
+dulled eyes, and as he slowly realized what had happened a groan broke
+from his lips.
+
+In an instant Billy was on his knees beside him. He had seen Deane
+twice before, over at Churchill, but this was the first time that he
+had ever looked closely into his face. It was a face worn by hardship
+and mental torture. The cheeks were thinned, and the steel-gray eyes
+that looked up into Billy's were reddened by weeks and months of
+fighting against storm. It was the face, not of a criminal, but of a
+man whom Billy would have trusted-- blonde-mustached, fearless, and
+filled with that clean-cut strength which associates itself with
+fairness and open fighting. Hardly had he drawn a second breath when
+Billy realized why this man had not killed him when he had the chance.
+Deane was not of the sort to strike in the dark or from behind. He had
+let Billy live because he still believed in the manhood of man, and
+the thought that he had repaid Deane's faith in him by leaping upon
+him when he was down and wounded filled Billy with a bitter shame. He
+gripped one of Deane's hands in his own.
+
+"I hate to do this, old man," he cried, quickly. "It's hell to put
+those things on a man who's hurt. But I've got to do it. I didn't mean
+to come-- no, s'elp me God, I didn't-- if Bucky Smith and two others
+hadn't hit your trail back at the old camp. They'd have got you--
+sure. And she wouldn't have been safe with them. Understand? She
+wouldn't have been safe! So I made up my mind to beat on ahead and
+take you myself. I want you to understand. And you do know, I guess.
+You must have heard, for I thought you were sure-enough dead in the
+box, an' I swear to Heaven I meant all I said then. I wouldn't have
+come. I was glad you two got away. But this Bucky is a skunk and a
+scoundrel-- and mebbe if I take you-- I can help you-- later on.
+They'll be here in a few minutes."
+
+He spoke quickly, his voice quivering with the emotion that inspired
+his words, and not for an instant did Scottie Deane allow his eyes to
+shift from Billy's face. When Billy stopped he still looked at him for
+a moment, judging the truth of what he had heard by what he saw in the
+other's face. And then Billy felt his hand tighten for an instant
+about his own.
+
+"I guess you're pretty square, MacVeigh," he said, "and I guess it had
+to come pretty soon, too. I'm not sorry that it's you-- and I know
+you'll take care of her."
+
+"I'll do it-- if I have to fight-- and kill!"
+
+Billy had withdrawn his hand, and both were clenched. Into Deane's
+eyes there leaped a sudden flash of fire.
+
+"That's what I did," he breathed, gripping his fingers hard. "I
+killed-- for her. He was a skunk-- and a scoundrel-- too. And you'd
+have done it!" He looked at Billy again. "I'm glad you said what you
+did-- when I was in the box," he added. "If she wasn't as pure and as
+sweet as the stars I'd feel different. But it's just sort of in my
+bones that you'll treat her like a brother. I haven't had faith in
+many men. I've got it in you."
+
+Billy leaned low over the other. His face was flushed, and his voice
+trembled.
+
+"God bless you for that, Scottie!" he said.
+
+A sound from the forest turned both men's eyes.
+
+"She took the dogs and went out there a little way for a load of
+wood," said Deane. "She's coming back."
+
+Billy had leaped to his feet, and turned his face toward the ridge.
+He, too, had heard a sound-- another sound, and from another
+direction. He laughed grimly as he turned to Deane.
+
+"And they're coming, too, Scottie," he replied. "They're climbing the
+ridge. I'll take your guns, old man. It's just possible there may be a
+fight!"
+
+He slipped Deane's revolver into his holster and quickly emptied the
+chamber of the rifle that stood near.
+
+"Where's mine?" he asked.
+
+"Threw 'em away," said Deane. "Those are the only guns in the outfit."
+
+Billy waited while Isobel Deane came through low-hanging spruce with
+the dogs.
+
+ VI
+
+ THE FIGHT
+
+There was a smile for Deane on Isobel's lips as she struggled through
+the spruce, knee-deep in snow, the dogs tugging at the sledge behind
+her. And then in a moment she saw MacVeigh, and the smile froze into a
+look of horror on her face. She was not twenty feet distant when she
+emerged into the little opening, and Billy heard the rattling cry in
+her throat. She stopped, and her hands went to her breast. Deane had
+half raised himself, his pale, thin face smiling encouragingly at her;
+and with a wild cry Isobel rushed to him and flung herself upon her
+knees at his side, her hands gripping fiercely at the steel bands
+about his wrists. Billy turned away. He could hear her sobbing, and he
+could hear the low, comforting voice of the injured man. A groan of
+anguish rose to his own lips, and he clenched his hands hard, dreading
+the terrible moment when he would have to face the woman he loved
+above all else on earth.
+
+It was her voice that brought him about. She had risen to her feet,
+and she stood before him panting like a hunted animal, and Billy saw
+in her face the thing which he had feared more than the sting of
+death. No longer were her blue eyes filled with the sweetness and
+faith of the angel who had come to him from out of the Barren. They
+were hard and terrible and filled with that madness which made him
+think she was about to leap upon him. In those eyes, in the quivering
+of her bare throat, in the sobbing rise and fall of her breast were
+the rage, the grief, and the fear of one whose faith had turned
+suddenly into the deadliest of all emotions; and Billy stood before
+her without a word on his lips, his face as cold and as bloodless as
+the snow under his feet.
+
+"And so you-- you followed-- after-- that!"
+
+It was all she said, and yet the voice, the significance of the
+choking words, hurt him more than if she had struck him. In them there
+was none of the passion and condemnation he had expected. Quietly,
+almost whisperingly uttered, they stung him to the soul. He had meant
+to say to her what he had said to Deane-- even more. But the crudeness
+of the wilderness had made him slow of tongue, and while his heart
+cried out for words Isobel turned and went to her husband. And then
+there came the thing he had been expecting. Down the ridge there raced
+a flurry of snow and a yelping of dogs. He loosened the revolver in
+his holster, and stood in readiness when Bucky Smith ran a few paces
+ahead of his men into the camp. At sight of his enemy's face, torn
+between rage and disappointment, all of Billy's old coolness returned
+to him.
+
+With a bound Bucky was at Scottie Deane's side. He looked down at his
+manacled hands and at the woman who was clasping them in her own, and
+then he whirled on Billy with the quickness of a cat.
+
+"You're a liar and a sneak!" he panted. "You'll answer for this at
+headquarters. I understand now why you let 'em go back there. It was
+her! She paid you-- paid you in her own way-- to free him! But she
+won't pay you again--"
+
+At his words Deane had started as if stung by a wasp. Billy saw
+Isobel's whitened face. The meaning of Buck's words had gone home to
+her as swiftly as a lightning flash, and for an instant her eyes had
+turned to him! Bucky got no further than those last words. Before he
+could add another syllable Billy was upon him. His fist shot out--
+once, twice-- and the blows that fell sent Bucky crashing through the
+fire. Billy did not wait for him to regain his feet. A red light
+blazed before his eyes. He forgot the presence of Deane and Walker and
+Conway. His one thought was that the scoundrel he had struck down had
+flung at Isobel the deadliest insult that a man could offer a woman,
+and before either Conway or Walker could make a move he was upon
+Bucky. He did not know how long or how many times he struck, but when
+at last Conway and Walker succeeded in dragging him away Bucky lay
+upon his back in the snow, blood gushing from his mouth and nose.
+Walker ran to him. Panting for breath, Billy turned toward Isobel and
+Deane. He was almost sobbing. He made no effort to speak. But he saw
+that the thing he had dreaded was gone. Isobel was looking at him
+again-- and there was the old faith in her eyes. At last-- she
+understood! Dean's handcuffed hands were clenched. The light of
+brotherhood shone in his eyes, and where a moment before there had
+been grief and despair in Billy's heart there came now a warm glow of
+joy. Once more they had faith in him!
+
+Walker had raised Bucky to a sitting posture, and was wiping the blood
+from his face when Billy went to them. The corporal's hand made a limp
+move toward his revolver. Billy struck it away and secured the weapon.
+Then he spoke to Walker.
+
+"There is no doubt in your mind that I hold a sergeancy in the
+service, is there, Walker?" he asked.
+
+His tone was no longer one of comradeship. In it there was the ring of
+authority. Walker was quick to understand.
+
+"None, sir!"
+
+"And you are familiar with our laws governing insubordination and
+conduct unbecoming an officer of the service?"
+
+Walker nodded.
+
+"Then, as a superior officer and in the name of his Majesty the King,
+I place Corporal Bucky Smith under arrest, and commission you, under
+oath of the service, to take him under your guard to Churchill, along
+with the letter which I shall give you for the officer in charge
+there. I shall appear against him a little later with the evidence
+that will outlaw him from the service. Put the handcuffs on him!"
+
+Stunned by the sudden change in the situation, Walker obeyed without a
+word. Billy turned to Conway, the driver.
+
+"Deane is too badly injured to travel," he explained, " Put up your
+tent for him and his wife close to the fire. You can take mine in
+exchange for it as you go back."
+
+He went to his kit and found a pencil and paper. Fifteen minutes later
+he gave Walker the letter in which he described to the commanding
+officer at Churchill certain things which he knew would hold Bucky a
+prisoner until he could personally appear against him. Meanwhile
+Conway had put up the tent and had assisted Deane into it. Isobel had
+accompanied him. Billy then had a five-minute confidential talk with
+Walker, and when the constable gave instructions for Conway to prepare
+the dogs for the return trip there was a determined hardness in his
+eyes as he looked at Bucky. In those five minutes he had heard the
+story of Rousseau, the young Frenchman down at Norway House, and of
+the wife whose faithlessness had killed him. Besides, he hated Bucky
+Smith, as all men hated him. Billy was confident that he could rely
+upon him.
+
+Not until dogs and sledge were ready did Bucky utter a word. The
+terrific beating he had received had stunned him for a few minutes;
+but now he jumped to his feet, not waiting for the command from
+Walker, and strode up close to Billy. There was a vengeful leer on his
+bloody face and his eyes blazed almost white, but his voice was so low
+that Conway and Walker could only hear the murmur of it. His words
+were meant for Billy alone.
+
+"For this I'm going to kill you, MacVeigh," he said; and in spite of
+Billy's contempt for the man there was a quality in the low voice that
+sent a curious shiver through him. "You can send me from the service,
+but you're going to die for doing it!"
+
+Billy made no reply, and Bucky did not wait for one. He set off at the
+head of the sledge, with Conway a step behind them. Billy followed
+with Walker until they reached the foot of the ridge. There they shook
+hands, and Billy stood watching them until they passed over the cap of
+the ridge.
+
+He returned to the camp slowly. Deane had emerged from the tent,
+supported by Isobel. They waited for him, and in Deane's face he saw
+the look that had filled it after he had struck down Bucky Smith. For
+a moment he dared not look at Isobel. She saw the change in him, and
+her cheeks flushed. Deane would have extended his hands, but she was
+holding them tightly in her own.
+
+"You'd better go into the tent and keep quiet," advised Billy. "I
+haven't had time yet to see if you're badly hurt."
+
+"It's not bad," Deane assured him. "I bumped into a rock sliding down
+the ridge, and it made me sick for a few minutes."
+
+Billy knew that Isobel's eyes were on him, and he could almost feel
+their questioning. He began to take wood from the sledge she had
+loaded and throw it on the fire. He wished that Scottie and she had
+remained in the tent for a little longer. His face burned and his
+blood seemed like fire when he caught a glimpse of the steel cuffs
+about Deane's wrists. Through the smoke he saw Isobel still clasping
+her husband. He could see one of her little hands gripping at the
+steel band, and suddenly he sprang across and faced them, no longer
+fearing to meet Isobel's eyes or Deane's. Now his face was aflame, and
+he half held out his arms to them as he spoke, as though he would
+clasp them both to him in this moment of sacrifice and self-abnegation
+and the dawning of new life.
+
+"You know-- you both know why I've done this!" he cried, "You heard
+what I said back there, Deane-- when you was in the box; an' all I
+said was true. She came to me out of that storm like an angel-- an'
+I'll think of her as an angel all my life. I don't know much about
+God-- not the God they have down there, where they take an eye for an
+eye an' a tooth for a tooth and kill because some one else has killed.
+But there's something up here in the big open places, something that
+makes you think and makes you want to do what's right and square; an'
+she's got all I know of God in that little Bible of mine-- the blue
+flower. I gave the blue flower to her, an' now an' forever she's my
+blue flower. I ain't ashamed to tell you, Deane, because you've heard
+it before, an' you know I'm not thinking it in a sinful way. It 'll
+help me if I can see her face an' hear her voice and know there's such
+love as yours after you're gone. For I'm going to let you go, Deane,
+old man. That's what I came for, to save you from the others an' give
+you back to her. I guess mebbe you'll know-- now-- how I feel--"
+
+His voice choked him. Isobel's glorious eyes were looking into his
+soul, and he looked straight back into them and saw all his reward
+there. He turned to Deane. His key clicked in the locks to the
+handcuffs, and as they fell into the snow the two men gripped hands,
+and in their strong faces was that rarest of all things-- love of man
+for man.
+
+"I'm glad you know," said Billy, softly. "It wouldn't be fair if you
+didn't, Scottie. I can think of her now, an' it won't be mean and low.
+And if you ever need help-- if you're down in South America or
+Africa-- anywhere-- I'll come if you send word. You'd better go to
+South America. That's a good place. I'll report to headquarters that
+you died-- from the fall. It's a lie, but blue flower would do it, and
+so will I. Sometimes, you know, the friend who lies is the only friend
+who's true-- and she'd do it-- a thousand times-- for you."
+
+"And for you," whispered Isobel.
+
+She was holding out her hands, her blue eyes streaming with tears of
+happiness, and for a moment Billy accepted one of them and held it in
+his own. He looked over her head as she spoke.
+
+"God will bless you for this-- some day," she said; and a sob broke in
+her voice. "He will bring you happiness-- happiness-- in what you have
+dreamed of. You will find a blue flower-- sweet and pure and loyal--
+and then you will know, even more fully, what life means to me with
+him."
+
+And then she broke down, sobbing like a child, and with her face
+buried in her hands turned into the tent.
+
+"Gawd!" whispered Billy, drawing a deep breath.
+
+He looked Deane in the eyes; and Deane smiled, a rare and beautiful
+smile.
+
+For a quarter of an hour they talked alone, and then Billy drew a
+wallet from his pocket.
+
+"You'll need money, Scottie," he said. "I don't want you to lose a
+minute in getting out of the country. Make for Vancouver. I've got
+three hundred dollars here. You've got to take it or I'll shoot you!"
+
+He thrust the money into Deane's hands as Isobel came out of the tent.
+Her eyes were red, but she was smiling; and she held something in her
+hand. She showed it to the two men. It was the blue flower Billy had
+given her. But now its petals were torn apart, and nine of them lay in
+the palm of her hand.
+
+"It can't go with one." She spoke softly and the smile died on her
+lips. "There are nine petals, three for each of us."
+
+She gave three to her husband and three to Billy, and for a moment the
+men stared at them as they lay in their rough and calloused palms.
+Then Billy drew out the bit of buckskin in which he had placed the
+strands of Isobel's hair and slipped the blue petals in with them.
+Deane had drawn a worn envelope from his pocket. Billy spoke low to
+Deane.
+
+"I want to be alone for a while-- until dinner-time. Will you go into
+the tent-- with her?"
+
+When they were gone Billy went to the spot where he had dropped his
+pack before crawling up on Deane. He picked it up and slipped it over
+his shoulders as he walked. He went swiftly back over his old trail,
+and this time it was with a heart leaden with a deep and terrible
+loneliness. When he reached the ridge he tried to whistle, but his
+lips seemed thick, and there was something in his throat that choked
+him. From the cap of the ridge he looked down. A thin mist of smoke
+was rising from out of the spruce. It blurred before his eyes, and a
+sobbing break came in his low cry of Isobel's name. Then he turned
+once more back into the loneliness and desolation of his old life.
+
+"I'm coming, Pelly," he laughed, in a strained, hard way. "I haven't
+given you exactly a square deal, old man, but I'll hustle and make up
+for lost time!"
+
+A wind was beginning to moan in the spruce tops again. He was glad of
+that. It promised storm. And a storm would cover up all trails.
+
+ VII
+
+ THE MADNESS OF PELLITER
+
+Away up at Fullerton Point amid the storm and crash of the arctic
+gloom Pelliter fought himself through day after day of fever, waiting
+for MacVeigh. At first he had been filled with hope. That first
+glimpse of the sun they had seen through the little window on the
+morning that Billy left for Fort Churchill had come just in time to
+keep reason from snapping in his head. For three days after that he
+looked through the window at the same hour and prayed moaningly for
+another glimpse of that paradise in the southern sky. But the storm
+through which Isobel had struggled across the Barren gathered over his
+head and behind him, day after day of it, rolling and twisting and
+moaning with the roar of the cracking fields of ice, bringing back
+once more the thick death-gloom of the arctic night that had almost
+driven him mad. He tried to think only of Billy, of his loyal
+comrade's race into the south, and of the precious letters he would
+bring back to him; and he kept track of the days by making pencil
+marks on the door that opened out upon the gray and purple desolation
+of the arctic sea.
+
+At last there came the day when he gave up hope. He believed that he
+was dying. He counted the marks on the door and found that there were
+sixteen. Just that many days ago Billy had set off with the dogs. If
+all had gone well he was a third of the way back, and within another
+week would be "home."
+
+Pelliter's thin, fever-flushed face relaxed into a wan smile as he
+counted the pencil marks again. Long before that week was ended he
+figured that he would be dead. The medicines-- and the letters-- would
+come too late, probably four or five days too late. Straight out from
+his last mark he drew a long line, and at the end of it added in a
+scrawling, almost unintelligible, hand: "Dear Billy, I guess this is
+going to be my last day." Then he staggered from the door to the
+window.
+
+Out there was what was killing him-- loneliness, a maddening
+desolation, a lifeless world that reached for hundreds of miles
+farther than his eyes could see. To the north and east there was
+nothing but ice, piled-up masses and grinning mountains of it, white
+at first, of a somber gray farther off, and then purple and almost
+black. There came to him now the low, never-ceasing thunder of the
+undercurrents fighting their way down from the Arctic Ocean, broken
+now and then by a growling roar as the giant forces sent a crack, like
+a great knife, through one of the frozen mountains. He had listened to
+those sounds for five months, and in those five months he had heard no
+other voice but his own and MacVeigh's and the babble of an Eskimo.
+Only once in four months had he seen the sun, and that was on the
+morning that MacVeigh went south. So he had gone half mad. Others had
+gone completely mad before him. Through the window his eyes rested on
+the five rough wooden crosses that marked their graves. In the service
+of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police they were called heroes. And in
+a short time he, Constable Pelliter, would be numbered among them.
+MacVeigh would send the whole story down to her, the true little girl
+a thousand miles south; and she would always remember him-- her hero--
+and his lonely grave at Point Fullerton, the northernmost point of the
+Law. But she would never see that grave. She could never come to put
+flowers on it, as she put flowers on the grave of his mother; she
+would never know the whole story, not a half of it-- his terrible
+longing for a sound of her voice, a touch of her hand, a glimpse of
+her sweet blue eyes before he died. They were to be married in August,
+when his service in the Royal Mounted ended. She would be waiting for
+him. And in August-- or July-- word would reach her that he had died.
+
+With a dry sob he turned from the window to the rough table that he
+had drawn close to his bunk, and for the thousandth time he held
+before his red and feverish eyes a photograph. It was a portrait of a
+girl, marvelously beautiful to Tommy Pelliter, with soft brown hair
+and eyes that seemed always to talk to him and tell him how much she
+loved him. And for the thousandth time he turned the picture over and
+read the words she had written on the back:
+
+  "My own dear boy, remember that I am always with you, always
+  thinking of you, always praying for you; and I know, dear, that you
+  will always do what you would do if I were at your side."
+
+"Good Lord!" groaned Pelliter. "I can't die! I can't! I've got to
+live-- to see her--"
+
+He dropped back on his bunk exhausted. The fires burned in his head
+again. He grew dizzy, and he talked to her, or thought he was talking,
+but it was only a babble of incoherent sound that made Kazan, the
+one-eyed old Eskimo dog, lift his shaggy head and sniff suspiciously.
+Kazan had listened to Pelliter's deliriums many times since MacVeigh
+had left them alone, and soon he dropped his muzzle between his
+forepaws and dozed again. A long time afterward he raised his head
+once more. Pelliter was quiet. But the dog sniffed, went to the door,
+whined softly, and nervously muzzled the sick man's thin hand. Then he
+settled back on his haunches, turned his nose straight up, and from
+his throat there came that wailing, mourning cry, long-drawn and
+terrible, with which Indian dogs lament before the tepees of masters
+who are newly dead. The sound aroused Pelliter. He sat up again, and
+he found that once more the fire and the pain had gone from his head.
+
+"Kazan, Kazan," he pleaded, weakly, "it isn't time-- yet!"
+
+Kazan had gone to the window that looked to the west, and stood with
+his forefeet on the sill. Pelliter shivered.
+
+"Wolves again," he said, "or mebbe a fox."
+
+He had grown into that habit of talking to himself, which is as common
+as human life itself in the far north, where one's own voice is often
+the one thing that breaks a killing monotony. He edged his way to the
+window as he spoke and looked out with Kazan. Westward there stretched
+the lifeless Barren illimitable and void, without rock or bush and
+overhung by a sky that always made Pelliter think of a terrible
+picture he had once seen of Doré's "Inferno." It was a low, thick sky,
+like purple and blue granite, always threatening to pitch itself down
+in terrific avalanches, and between the earth and this sky was the
+thin, smothered world which MacVeigh had once called God's insane
+asylum.
+
+Through the gloom Kazan's one eye and Pelliter's feverish vision could
+not see far, but at last the man made out an object toiling slowly
+toward the cabin. At first he thought it was a fox, and then a wolf,
+and then, as it loomed larger, a straying caribou. Kazan whined. The
+bristles along his spine rose stiff and menacing. Pelliter stared
+harder and harder, with his face pressed close against the cold glass
+of the window, and suddenly he gave a gasping cry of excitement. It
+was a man who was toiling toward the cabin! He was bent almost double,
+and he staggered in a zigzag fashion as he advanced. Pelliter made his
+way feebly to the door, unbarred it, and pushed it partly open.
+Overcome by weakness he fell back then on the edge of his bunk,
+
+It seemed an age before he heard steps. They were slow and stumbling,
+and an instant later a face appeared at the door. It was a terrible
+face, overgrown with beard, with wild and staring eyes; but it was a
+white man's face. Pelliter had expected an Eskimo, and he sprang to
+his feet with sudden strength as the stranger came in.
+
+"Something to eat, mate, for the love o' God give me something to
+eat!"
+
+The stranger fell in a heap on the floor and stared up at him with the
+ravenous entreaty of an animal. Pelliter's first move was to get
+whisky, and the other drank it in great gulps. Then he dragged himself
+to his feet, and Pelliter sank in a chair beside the table.
+
+"I'm sick," he said. "Sergeant MacVeigh has gone to Churchill, and I
+guess I'm in a bad way. You'll have to help yourself. There's meat--
+'n' bannock--"
+
+Whisky had revived the new-comer. He stared at Pelliter, and as he
+stared he grinned, ugly yellow teeth leering from between his matted
+beard. The look cleared Pelliter's brain. For some reason which he
+could not explain, his pistol hand fell to the place where he usually
+carried his holster. Then he remembered that his service revolver was
+under the pillow.
+
+"Fever," said the sailor; for Pelliter knew that he was a sailor.
+
+He took off his heavy coat and tossed it on the table. Then he
+followed Pelliter's instructions in quest of food, and for ten minutes
+ate ravenously. Not until he was through and seated opposite him at
+the table did Pelliter speak.
+
+"Who are you, and where in Heaven's name did you come from?" he asked.
+
+"Blake-- Jim Blake's my name, an' I come from what I call Starvation
+Igloo Inlet, thirty miles up the coast. Five months ago I was left a
+hundred miles farther up to take care of a cache for the whaler John
+B. Sidney, and the cache was swept away by an overflow of ice. Then we
+struck south, hunting and starving, me 'n' the woman--"
+
+"The woman!" cried Pelliter.
+
+"Eskimo squaw," said Blake, producing a black pipe. "The cap'n bought
+her to keep me company-- paid four sacks of flour an' a knife to her
+husband up at Wagner Inlet. Got any tobacco?"
+
+Pelliter rose to get the tobacco. He was surprised to find that he was
+steadier on his feet and that Blake's words were clearing his brain.
+That had been his and MacVeigh's great fight-- the fight to put an end
+to the white man's immoral trade in Eskimo women and girls, and Blake
+had already confessed himself a criminal. Promise of action, quick
+action, momentarily overcame his sickness. He went back with the
+tobacco, and sat down.
+
+"Where's the woman?" be asked.
+
+"Back in the igloo," said Blake, filling his pipe. "We killed a walrus
+up there and built an icehouse. The meat's gone. She's probably gone
+by this time." He laughed coarsely across at Pelliter as he lighted
+his pipe. "It seems good to get into a white man's shack again."
+
+"She's not dead?" insisted Pelliter.
+
+"Will be-- shortly," replied Blake. "She was so weak she couldn't walk
+when I left. But them Eskimo animals die hard, 'specially the women."
+
+"Of course you're going back for her?"
+
+The other stared for a moment into Pelliter's flushed face, and then
+laughed as though he had just heard a good joke.
+
+"Not on your life, my boy. I wouldn't hike that thirty miles again--
+an' thirty back-- for all the Eskimo women up at Wagner."
+
+The red in Pelliter's eyes grew redder as he leaned over the table.
+
+"See here," he said, "you're going back-- now! Do you understand?
+You're going back!"
+
+Suddenly he stopped. He stared at Blake's coat, and with a swiftness
+that took the other by surprise he reached across and picked something
+from it. A startled cry broke from his lips. Between his fingers he
+held a single filament of hair. It was nearly a foot long, and it was
+not an Eskimo woman's hair. It shone a dull gold in the gray light
+that came through the window. He raised his eyes, terrible in their
+accusation of the man opposite him.
+
+"You lie!" he said. "She's not an Eskimo!"
+
+Blake had half risen, his great hands clutching the ends of the table,
+his brutal face thrust forward, his whole body in an attitude that
+sent Pelliter back out of his reach. He was not an instant too soon.
+With an oath Blake sent the table crashing aside and sprang upon the
+sick man.
+
+"I'll kill you!" he cried. "I'll kill you, an' put you where I've put
+her, 'n' when your pard comes back I'll--"
+
+His hands caught Pelliter by the throat, but not before there had come
+from between the sick man's lips a cry of "Kazan! Kazan!"
+
+With a wolfish snarl the old one-eyed sledge-dog sprang upon Blake,
+and the three fell with a crash upon Pelliter's bunk. For an instant
+Kazan's attack drew one of Blake's powerful hands from Pelliter's
+throat, and as he turned to strike off the dog Pelliter's hand groped
+out under his flattened pillow. Blake's murderous face was still
+turned when he drew out his heavy service revolver; and as Blake cut
+at Kazan with a long sheath-knife which he had drawn from his belt
+Pelliter fired. Blake's grip relaxed. Without a groan he slipped to
+the floor, and Pelliter staggered back to his feet. Kazan's teeth were
+buried in Blake's leg.
+
+"There, there, boy," said Pelliter, pulling him away. "That was a
+close one!"
+
+He sat down and looked at Blake. He knew that the man was dead. Kazan
+was sniffing about the sailor's head with stiffened spines. And then a
+ray of light flashed for an instant through the window. It was the
+sun-- the second time that Pelliter had seen it in four months. A cry
+of joy welled up from his heart. But it was stopped midway. On the
+floor close beside Blake something glittered in the fiery ray, and
+Pelliter was upon his knees in an instant. It was the short golden
+hair he had snatched from the dead man's coat, and partly covering it
+was the picture of his sweetheart which had fallen when the table was
+overturned. With the photograph in one hand and that single thread of
+woman's hair between the fingers of his other Pelliter rose slowly to
+his feet and faced the window. The sun was gone. But its coming had
+put a new life into him. He turned joyously to Kazan.
+
+"That means something, boy," he said, in a low, awed voice, "the sun,
+the picture, and this! She sent it, do you hear, boy? She sent it! I
+can almost hear her voice, an' she's telling me to go. `Tommy,' she's
+saying, `you wouldn't be a man if you didn't go, even though you know
+you're going to die on the way. You can take her something to eat,'
+she's saying, boy, `an' you can just as well die in an igloo as here.
+You can leave word for Billy, an' you can take her grub enough to last
+until he comes, an' then he'll bring her down here, an' you'll be
+buried out there with the others just the same.' That's what she's
+saying, Kazan, so we're going!" He looked about him a little wildly.
+"Straight up the coast," he mumbled. "Thirty miles. We might make it."
+
+He began filling a pack with food. Outside the door there was a small
+sledge, and after he had bundled himself in his traveling-clothes he
+dragged the pack to the sledge, and behind the pack tied on a bundle
+of firewood, a lantern, blankets, and oil. After he had done this he
+wrote a few lines to MacVeigh and pinned the paper to the door. Then
+he hitched old Kazan to the sledge and started off, leaving the dead
+man where he had fallen.
+
+"It's what she'd have us do," he said again to Kazan. "She sure would
+have us do this, Kazan. God bless her dear little heart!"
+
+ VIII
+
+ LITTLE MYSTERY
+
+Pelliter hung close to the ice-bound coast. He traveled slowly,
+leading the way for Kazan, who strained every muscle in his aged body
+to drag the sledge. For a time the excitement of what had occurred
+gave Pelliter a strength which soon began to ebb. But his old weakness
+did not entirely return. He found that his worst trouble at first was
+in his eyes. Weeks of fever had enfeebled his vision until the world
+about him looked new and strange. He could see only a few hundred
+paces ahead, and beyond this little circle everything turned gray and
+black. Singularly enough, it struck him that there was some humor as
+well as tragedy in the situation, that there was something to laugh at
+in the fact that Kazan had but one eye, and that he was nearly blind.
+He chuckled to himself and spoke aloud to the dog.
+
+"Makes me think of the games o' hide-'n'-seek we used to play when we
+were kids, boy," he said. "She used to tie her handkerchief over my
+eyes, 'n' then I'd follow her all through the old orchard, and when I
+caught her it was a part of the game she'd have to let me kiss her.
+Once I bumped into an apple tree--"
+
+The toe of his snow-shoe caught in an ice-hummock and sent him face
+downward into the snow. He picked himself up and went on.
+
+"We played that game till we was grown-ups, old man," he went on.
+"Last time we played it she was seventeen. Had her hair in a big brown
+braid, an' it all came undone so that when I caught her an' took off
+the handkerchief I could just see her eyes an' her mouth laughing at
+me, and it was that time I hugged her up closer than ever and told her
+I was going out to make a home for us. Then I came up here."
+
+He stopped and rubbed his eyes; and for an hour after that, as he
+plodded onward, he mumbled things which neither Kazan nor any other
+living thing could have understood. But whatever delirium found its
+way into his voice, the fighting spark in his brain remained sane. The
+igloo and the starving woman whom Blake had abandoned formed the one
+living picture which he did not for a moment forget. He must find the
+igloo, and the igloo was close to the sea. He could not miss it-- if
+he lived long enough to travel thirty miles. It did not occur to him
+that Blake might have lied-- that the igloo was farther than he had
+said, or perhaps much nearer.
+
+It was two o'clock when he stopped to make tea. He figured that he had
+traveled at least eighteen miles; the fact was he had gone but a
+little over half that distance. He was not hungry, and ate nothing,
+but he fed Kazan heartily of meat. The hot tea, strengthened with a
+little whisky, revived him for the time more than food would have
+done.
+
+"Twelve miles more at the most," he said to Kazan. "We'll make it.
+Thank God, we'll make it!"
+
+If his eyes had been better he would have seen and recognized the huge
+snow-covered rock called the Blind Eskimo, which was just nine miles
+from the cabin. As it was, he went on, filled with hope. There were
+sharper pains in his head now, and his legs dragged wearily. Day ended
+at a little after two, but at this season there was not much change in
+light and darkness, and Pelliter scarcely noted the difference. The
+time came when the picture of the igloo and the dying woman came and
+went fitfully in his brain. There were dark spaces. The fighting spark
+was slowly giving way, and at last Pelliter dropped upon the sledge.
+
+"Go on, Kazan!" he cried, weakly. "Mush it-- go on!"
+
+Kazan tugged, with gaping jaws; and Pelliter's head dropped upon the
+food-filled pack.
+
+What Kazan heard was a groan. He stopped and looked back, whining
+softly. For a time he sat on his haunches, sniffing a strange thing
+which had come to him in the air. Then he went on, straining a little
+faster at the sledge and still whining. If Pelliter had been conscious
+he would have urged him straight ahead. But old Kazan turned away from
+the sea. Twice in the next ten minutes he stopped and sniffed the air,
+and each time he changed his course a little. Half an hour later he
+came to a white mound that rose up out of the level waste of snow, and
+then he settled himself back on his haunches, lifted his shaggy head
+to the dark night sky, and for the second time that day he sent forth
+the weird, wailing, mourning death-howl.
+
+It aroused Pelliter. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, staggered to his
+feet, and saw the mound a dozen paces away. Rest had cleared his brain
+again. He knew that it was an igloo. He could make out the door, and
+he caught up his lantern and stumbled toward it. He wasted half a
+dozen matches before he could make a light. Then he crawled in, with
+Kazan still in his traces close at his heels.
+
+There was a musty, uncomfortable odor in the snow-house. And there was
+no sound, no movement. The lantern lighted up the small interior, and
+on the floor Pelliter made out a heap of blankets and a bearskin.
+There was no life, and instinctively he turned his eyes down to Kazan.
+The dog's head was stretched out toward the blankets, his ears were
+alert, his eyes burned fiercely, and a low, whining growl rumbled in
+his throat.
+
+He looked at the blankets again, moved slowly toward them. He pulled
+back the bearskin and found what Blake had told him he would find-- a
+woman. For a moment he stared, and then a low cry broke from his lips
+as he fell upon his knees. Blake had not lied, for it was an Eskimo
+woman. She was dead. She had not died of starvation. Blake had killed
+her!
+
+He rose to his feet again and looked about him. After all, did that
+golden hair, that white woman's hair, mean nothing? What was that? He
+sprang back toward Kazan, his weakened nerves shattered by a sound and
+a movement from the farthest and darkest part of the igloo. Kazan
+tugged at his traces, panting and whining, held back by the sledge
+wedged in the door. The sound came again, a human, wailing, sobbing
+cry.
+
+With his lantern in his hand Pelliter darted across to it. There was
+another roll of blankets on the floor, and as he looked he saw the
+bundle move. It took him but an instant to drop beside it, as he had
+dropped beside the other, and as he drew back the damp and partly
+frozen covering his heart leaped up and choked him. The lantern light
+fell full upon the thin, pale face and golden head of a little child.
+A pair of big frightened eyes were staring up at him; and as he knelt
+there, powerless to move or speak in the face of this miracle, the
+eyes closed again, and there came again the wailing, hungry note which
+Kazan had first heard as they approached the igloo. Pelliter flung
+back the blanket and caught the child in his arms.
+
+"It's a girl-- a little girl!" he almost shouted to Kazan. "Quick,
+boy-- go back-- get out!"
+
+He laid the child upon the other blankets, and then thrust back Kazan.
+He seemed suddenly possessed of the strength of two men as he tore at
+his own blankets and dumped the contents of the pack out upon the
+snow. "She sent us, boy," he cried, his breath coming in sobbing
+gasps. "Where's the milk 'n' the stove--"
+
+In ten seconds more he was back in the igloo with a can of condensed
+cream, a pan, and the alcohol lamp. His fingers trembled so that he
+had difficulty in lighting the wick, and as he cut open the can with
+his knife he saw the child's eyes flutter wide for an instant and then
+close again.
+
+"Just a minute, a half minute," he pleaded, pouring the cream into the
+pan. "Hungry, eh, little one? Hungry? Starving?" He held the pan
+close down over the blue flame and gazed terrified at the white little
+face near him. Its thinness and quiet frightened him. He thrust his
+finger into the cream and found it warm.
+
+"A cup, Kazan! Why didn't I bring a cup?" He darted out again and
+returned with a tin basin. In another moment the child was in his
+arms, and he forced the first few drops of cream between her lips. Her
+eyes shot open. Life seemed to spring into her little body; and she
+drank with a loud noise, one of her tiny hands gripping him by the
+wrist. The touch, the sound, the feel of life against him thrilled
+Pelliter. He gave her half of what the basin contained, and then
+wrapped her up warmly in his thick service blanket, so that all of her
+was hidden but her face and her tangled golden hair. He held her for a
+moment close to the lantern. She was looking at him now, wide-eyed and
+wondering, but not frightened.
+
+"God bless your little soul!" he exclaimed, his amazement growing.
+"Who are you, 'n' where'd you come from? You ain't more'n three years
+old, if you're an hour. Where's your mama 'n' your papa?" He placed
+her back on the blankets. "Now, a fire, Kazan!" he said.
+
+He held the lantern above his head and found the narrow vent through
+the snow-and-ice wall which Blake had made for the escape of smoke.
+Then he went outside for the fuel, freeing Kazan on the way. In a few
+minutes more a small bright blaze of almost smokeless larchwood was
+lighting up and warming the interior of the igloo. To his surprise,
+Pelliter found the child asleep when he went to her again. He moved
+her gently and carried the dead body of the little Eskimo woman
+through the opening and half a hundred paces from the igloo. Not until
+then did he stop to marvel at the strength which had returned to him.
+He stretched his arms above his head and breathed deeply of the cold
+air. It seemed as though something had loosened inside of him, that a
+crushing weight had lifted itself from his eyes. Kazan had followed
+him, and he stared down at the dog.
+
+"It's gone, Kazan," he cried, in a low, half-credulous voice. "I don't
+feel-- sick-- any more. It's her--"
+
+He turned back to the igloo. The lantern and the fire made a cheerful
+glow inside, and it was growing warm. He threw off his heavy coat,
+drew the bearskin in front of the fire, and sat down with the child in
+his arms. She still slept. Like a starving man Pelliter stared down
+upon the little thin face. Gently his rough fingers stroked back the
+golden curls. He smiled. A light came into his eyes. His head bent
+lower and lower, slowly and a little fearfully. At last his lips
+touched the child's cheek. And then his own rough grizzled face,
+toughened by wind and storm and intense cold, nestled against the
+little face of this new and mysterious life he had found at the top of
+the world.
+
+Kazan listened for a time, squatted on his haunches. Then he curled
+himself near the fire and slept. For a long time Pelliter sat rocking
+gently back and forth, thrilled by a happiness that was growing deeper
+and stronger in him each instant. He could feel the tiny beat of the
+little one's heart against his breast; he could feel her breath
+against his cheek; one of her little hands had gripped him by his
+thumb.
+
+A hundred questions ran through his mind now. Who was this little
+abandoned mite? Who were her father and her mother, and where were
+they? How had she come to be with the Eskimo woman and Blake? Blake
+was not her father; the Eskimo woman was not her mother. What tragedy
+had placed her here? Somehow he was conscious of a sensation of joy as
+he reasoned that he would never be able to answer these questions. She
+belonged to him. He had found her. No one would ever come to
+dispossess him. Without awakening her, he thrust a hand into his
+breast pocket and drew out the photograph of the sweet-faced girl who
+was going to be his wife. It did not occur to him now that he might
+die. The old fear and the old sickness were gone. He knew that he was
+going to live.
+
+"You," he breathed, softly, "you did it, and I know you'll be glad
+when I bring her down to you." And then to the little sleeping girl:
+"And if you ain't got a name I guess I'll have to call you Mystery--
+how is that?-- my Little Mystery."
+
+When he looked from the picture again Little Mystery's eyes were open
+and gazing up at him. He dropped the picture and made a lunge for the
+pan of cream warming before the fire. The child drank as hungrily as
+before, with Pelliter babbling incoherent nonsense into her baby ears.
+When she had done he picked up the photograph, with a sudden and
+foolish inspiration that she might understand.
+
+"Looky," he cried. "Pretty--"
+
+To his astonishment and joy, Little Mystery put out a hand and placed
+the tip of her tiny forefinger on the girl's face. Then she looked up
+into Pelliter's eyes.
+
+"Mama," she lisped.
+
+Pelliter tried to speak, but something rose like a knot in his throat
+and choked him. A fire leaped all at once through his body; the joy of
+that one word blinded him with hot tears. When he spoke at last his
+voice was broken, like a sobbing woman's.
+
+"That's it." he said. "You're right, little one. She's your mama!"
+
+ IX
+
+ THE SECRET OF THE DEAD
+
+On the eighth day after Pelliter found the Eskimo igloo Billy MacVeigh
+came up through a gray dawn with his footsore dogs, his letters, and
+his medicines. He had traveled all of the preceding night, and his
+feet dragged heavily. It was with a feeling of fear that he at last
+saw the black cliffs of Fullerton rising above the ice. He dreaded the
+first opening of the cabin door. What would he find? During the past
+forty-eight hours he had figured on Pelliter's chances, and they were
+two to one that he would find his partner dead in his bunk.
+
+And if not, if Pelliter still lived, what a tale there would be to
+tell the sick man! For he knew that he must tell some one, and
+Pelliter would keep his secret. And he would understand. Day after
+day, as he had hurried straight into the north, Billy's loneliness and
+heartbreak weighed more and more heavily upon him. He tried to force
+Isobel out of his thoughts, but it was impossible. A thousand visions
+of her rose before him, and each mile that he drew himself farther
+away from her seemed only to add to the nearness of her spirit at his
+side and to the strange pain in his heart that rose now and then to
+his lips in sobbing breaths that he fought with himself to stifle. And
+yet, with his own grief and hopelessness, he experienced more and more
+each day a compensating joy. It was the joy of knowing that he had
+given back life and hope to Isobel and her husband. Each day he
+figured their progress along with his own. From the Eskimo village he
+had sent a messenger back to Churchill with a long report for the
+officer in command there, and in that report he had lied. He reported
+Scottie Deane as having died of the injury he had received in the
+snow-slide. Not for a moment had he regretted the falsehood. He also
+promised to report at Churchill to testify against Bucky Smith as soon
+as he reached Pelliter and put him on his feet.
+
+On this last day, as he saw the towering cliffs of Fullerton ahead of
+him, he wondered how much he would tell to Pelliter if he found him
+alive. Mentally he rehearsed the amazing story of what came to him
+that night on the Barren, of the dogs coming across the snow, the
+great, dark, frightened eyes of the woman, and the long, narrow box on
+the sledge. He would tell pelliter all that. He would tell how he had
+made a camp for her that night, and how, later, he had told her that
+he loved her and had begged one kiss. And then the disclosures of the
+morning, the deserted tent, the empty box, the little note from
+Isobel, and the revelation that the box had contained the living body
+of the man for whom he and Pelliter had patrolled this desolate
+country for two thousand miles. But would he tell the truth of what
+had happened after that?
+
+He quickened his tired pace as the dogs climbed up from the ice of the
+Bay to the sloping ridge, and stared hard ahead of him. The dogs
+tugged harder as the smell of home entered their nostrils. At last the
+roof of the cabin came in view. MacVeigh's bloodshot eyes were like an
+animal's in their eagerness.
+
+"Pelly, old boy," he gasped to himself. "Pelly--"
+
+He stared harder. And then he spoke a low word to the dogs and
+stopped. He wiped his face. A deep breath of relief fell from his
+lips.
+
+Straight up from the chimney of the cabin there rose a thick column of
+smoke!
+
+He came up to the door of the cabin quietly, wondering why Pelliter
+did not see him or hear the three or four sharp yelps the dogs had
+given. He twisted off his snow-shoes, chuckling as he thought of the
+surprise he would give his mate. His hand was on the door latch when
+he stopped. The smile left his lips. Startled wonderment filled his
+face as he bent close to the door and listened, and for a moment his
+heart throbbed with a terrible fear. He had returned too late--
+perhaps a day-- two days. Pelliter had gone mad! He could hear him
+raving inside, filling the cabin with a laughter that sent a chill of
+horror through his veins. Mad! A sob broke from his lips, and he
+turned his face up to the gray sky. And then the laughter turned to
+song. It was the sweet love song which Pelliter had told him that the
+girl down south used to sing to him when they were alone out under the
+stars. Suddenly it broke off short, and in its place he heard another
+sound. With a cry he opened the door and burst in.
+
+"My God!" he cried. "Pelly-- Pelly--"
+
+Pelliter was on his knees in the middle of the floor. But it was not
+the look of wonderment and joy in his face that Billy saw first. He
+stared at the little golden-haired creature on the floor in front of
+him. He had traveled hard, almost day and night, and for an instant it
+flashed upon him that what he saw was not real. Before he could move
+or speak again Pelliter was on his feet, wringing his hands and almost
+crying in his gladness. There was no sign of fever or madness in his
+face now. Like one in a dream Billy heard what he said.
+
+"God bless you, Billy! I'm glad you've come!" he cried. "We've been
+waiting 'n' watching, and not more'n a minute ago we were at the
+window looking along the edge of the Bay through the binoculars. You
+must have been under the ridge. My God! A little while ago I thought I
+was dying-- I thought I was alone in the world-- alone-- alone. But
+look-- look, Billy, I've got a fam'ly!"
+
+Little Mystery had climbed to her feet. She was looking at Billy
+wonderingly, her golden curls tousled about her pretty face, and
+gripping two or three of Pelliter's old letters in her tiny hand. And
+then she smiled at Billy and held out the letters to him. In an
+instant he had dropped Pelliter's hands and caught her up in his arms.
+
+"I've got letters for you in my pocket, Pelly," he gasped. "But--
+first-- you've got to tell me who she is and where you got her--"
+
+Briefly Pelliter told of Blake's visit, the fight, and of the finding
+of Little Mystery.
+
+"I'd have died if it hadn't been for her, Billy," he finished. "She
+brought me back to life. But I don't know who she is or where she came
+from. There wasn't anything in his pockets or in the igloo to tell. I
+buried him out there-- shallow-- so you could take a look when you
+came back."
+
+He snatched like a starving man for food at the letters MacVeigh
+pulled from his pocket. While he read Billy sat down with Little
+Mystery on his knees. She laughed and put her warm little hands up to
+his rough face. Her eyes were blue, like Isobel's; and suddenly he
+crushed his face close down against her soft curls and held her so
+close to him that for a moment she was frightened. A little later
+Pelliter looked up. His eyes shone, his thin face was radiant with
+joy.
+
+"God bless the sweetest little girl in the world, Billy!" he
+whispered, huskily. "She says she's lonely for me. She tells me to
+hurry-- hurry down there to her. She says that if I don't come soon
+she'll come up to me! Read 'em, Billy!"
+
+He looked in astonishment at the change which he saw in MacVeigh's
+face. Billy accepted the letters mechanically and placed them on the
+edge of the bunk near which he was sitting.
+
+"I'll read them-- after a while," he said, slowly.
+
+Little Mystery clambered from his knee and ran to Pelliter. Billy was
+staring straight into the other's face.
+
+"You're sure you've told me everything, Pelly? There wasn't anything
+in his pockets? You searched well?"
+
+"Yes. There was nothing."
+
+"But-- you were sick--"
+
+"That's why I buried him shallow," interrupted Pelliter. "He's close
+to the last cross, just under the ice and snow. I wanted you to look--
+for yourself."
+
+Billy rose to his feet. He took Little Mystery in his arms again and
+looked closely in her face. There was a strange look in his eyes. She
+laughed at him, but he did not seem to notice it. And then he held her
+out to Pelliter.
+
+"Pelly, did you ever-- ever notice eyes-- very closely?" he asked.
+"Blue eyes?"
+
+Pelliter stared at him amazed.
+
+"My Jeanne has blue eyes--"
+
+"And have they little brown dots in them like a wood violet?"
+
+"No-o-o--"
+
+"They're blue, just blue, ain't they?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And I suppose most all blue eyes are just blue, without the little
+brown spots. Wouldn't you think so?"
+
+"What in Heaven's name are you driving at?" demanded Pelliter.
+
+"I just wanted you to notice that her eyes have little brown spots in
+them," replied Billy. "I've only seen one other pair of eyes-- just
+like hers." He turned toward the door. "I'm going out to care for the
+dogs and dig up Blake," he added. "I can't rest until I've seen him."
+
+Pelliter placed Little Mystery on her feet.
+
+"I'll see to the dogs," he said. "But I don't want to look at Blake
+again."
+
+The two men went out, and while Pelliter led the dogs to a lean-to
+behind the cabin Billy began to work with an ax and spade at the spot
+his comrade had pointed out to him. Ten minutes later he came to
+Blake. An excitement which he had tried to hide from Pelliter overcame
+his sense of horror as he dragged out the stiff and frozen corpse of
+the man. It was a terrible picture that the dead man made, with his
+coarse bearded face turned up to the sky and his teeth still snarling
+as they had snarled on the day he died. Billy knew most men who had
+come into the north above Churchill, but he had never looked upon
+Blake before. It was probable that the dead man had told a part of the
+truth, and that he was a sailor left on the upper coast by some
+whaler. He shivered as he began going through his pockets. Each moment
+added to his disappointment. He found a few things-- a knife, two
+keys, several coins, a fire-flint, and other articles-- but there was
+no letter or writing of any kind, and that was what he had hoped to
+find. There was nothing that might solve the mystery of the miracle
+that had descended upon them. He rolled the dead man into the grave,
+covered him over, and went into the cabin.
+
+Pelliter was in his usual place-- on his hands and knees, with Little
+Mystery astride his back. He paused in a mad race across the cabin
+floor and looked up with inquiring eyes. The little girl held up her
+arms, and MacVeigh tossed her half-way to the ceiling and then hugged
+her golden head close up to his chilled face. Pelliter jumped to his
+feet; his face grew serious as Billy looked at him over the child's
+tousled curls.
+
+"I found nothing-- absolutely nothing of any account," he said.
+
+He placed Little Mystery on one of the bunks and faced the other with
+a puzzled look in his eyes.
+
+"I wish you hadn't been in a fever on that day of the fight, Pelly,"
+he said. "He must have said something-- something that would give us a
+clue."
+
+"Mebbe he did, Billy," replied Pelliter, looking with a shiver at the
+few things MacVeigh had placed on the cabin table. "But there's no use
+worrying any more about it. It ain't in reason that she's got any
+people up here, six hundred miles from the shack of a white man that
+'d own a little beauty like her. She's mine. I found her. She's mine
+to keep."
+
+He sat down at the table, and MacVeigh sat down opposite him, smiling
+sympathetically into Pelliter's eyes.
+
+"I know you want her-- want her bad, Pelly," he said. "And I know the
+girl would love her. But she's got people-- somewhere, and it's our
+duty to find 'em. She didn't drop out of a balloon, Pelly. Do you
+suppose-- the dead man-- might be her father?"
+
+It was the first time he had asked this question, and he noted the
+other's sudden shudder of revulsion.
+
+"I've thought of that. But it can't be. He was a beast, and she--
+she's a little angel. Billy, her mother must have been beautiful. And
+that's what made me guess-- fear--"
+
+Pelliter wiped his face uneasily, and the two young men stared into
+each other's eyes. MacVeigh leaned forward, waiting.
+
+"I figured it all out last night, lying awake there in my bunk,"
+continued Pelliter, "and as the second best friend I have on earth I
+want to ask you not to go any farther, Billy. She's mine. My Jeanne,
+down there, will love her like a real mother, and we'll bring her up
+right. But if you go on, Billy, you'll find something unpleasant-- I--
+I-- swear you will!"
+
+"You know--"
+
+"I've guessed," interrupted the other. "Billy, sometimes a beast-- a
+man beast-- holds an attraction for a woman, and Blake was that sort
+of a beast. You remember-- two years ago-- a sailor ran away with the
+wife of a whaler's captain away up at Narwhale Inlet. Well--"
+
+Again the two men stared silently at each other. MacVeigh turned
+slowly toward the child. She had fallen asleep, and he could see the
+dull shimmer of her golden curls as they lay scattered over Pelliter's
+pillow.
+
+"Poor little devil!" he exclaimed, softly.
+
+"I believe that woman was Little Mystery's mother," Pelliter went on.
+"She couldn't bear to leave the little kid when she went with Blake,
+so she took her along. Some women do that. And after a time she died.
+Then Blake took up with an Eskimo woman. You know what happened after
+that. We don't want Little Mystery to know all this when she grows up.
+It's better not. She's too little to remember, ain't she? She won't
+ever know."
+
+"I remember the ship," said Billy, not taking his eyes off Little
+Mystery. "She was the Silver Seal. Her captain's name was Thompson."
+
+He did not look at Pelliter, but he could feel the quick, tense
+stiffening of the other's body. There was a moment's silence. Then
+Pelliter spoke in a low, unnatural voice.
+
+"Billy, you ain't going to hunt him up, are you? That wouldn't be fair
+to me or to the kid. My Jeanne 'll love her, an' mebbe-- mebbe some
+day your kid 'll come along an' marry her--"
+
+MacVeigh rose to his feet. Pelliter did not see the sudden look of
+grief that shot into his face.
+
+"What do you say, Billy?"
+
+"Think it over, Pelly," came back Billy's voice, huskily. "Think it
+over. I don't want to hurt you, and I know you think a lot of her,
+but-- think it over. You wouldn't rob her father, would you? An' she's
+all he's got left of the woman. Think it over, Pelly, good 'n' hard.
+I'm going to bed an' sleep a week!"
+
+ X
+
+ IN DEFIANCE OF THE LAW
+
+Billy slept all that day and the night that followed, and Pelliter did
+not awaken him. He aroused himself from his long sleep of exhaustion
+an hour or two before dawn of the following morning, and for the first
+time he had the opportunity of going over with himself all the things
+that had happened since his return to Fullerton Point. His first
+thought was Pelliter and Little Mystery. He could hear his comrade's
+deep breathing in the bunk opposite him, and again he wondered if
+Pelliter had told him everything. Was it possible that Blake had said
+nothing to reveal Little Mystery's identity, and that the igloo and
+the dead Eskimo woman had not given up the secret? It seemed
+inconceivable that there would not be something in the igloo that
+would help to clear up the mystery. And yet, after all, he had faith
+in Pelliter. He knew that he would keep nothing from him even though
+it meant possession of the child. And then his mind leaped to Isobel
+Deane. Her eyes were blue, and they had in them those same little
+spots of brown he had found in Little Mystery's. They were unusual
+eyes, and he had noticed the brown in them because it had added to
+their loveliness and had made him think of the violets he had told
+Pelliter about. Was it possible, he asked himself, that there could be
+some association between Isobel and Little Mystery? He confessed that
+it was scarcely conceivable, and yet it was impossible for him to get
+the thought out of his mind.
+
+Before Pelliter awoke he had determined upon his own course of action.
+He would say nothing of what had happened to himself on the Barren, at
+least not for a time. He would not tell of his meeting with Isobel and
+her husband or of what had followed. Until he was absolutely certain
+that Pelliter was keeping nothing from him he would not confide the
+secret of his own treachery to him. For he had been a traitor-- to the
+Law. He realized that. He could tell the story, with its fictitious
+ending, before they set out for Churchill, where he would give
+evidence against Bucky Smith. Meanwhile he would watch Pelliter, and
+wait for him to reveal whatever he might have hidden from him. He knew
+that if Pelliter was concealing something he was inspired by his
+almost insane worship of the little girl he had found who had saved
+him from madness and death. He smiled in the darkness as he thought
+that if Pelliter were working to achieve his own end-- possession of
+Little Mystery-- he was inspired by emotions no more selfish than his
+own in giving back life to Isobel Deane and her husband. On that score
+they were even.
+
+He was up and had breakfast started before Pelliter awoke. Little
+Mystery was still sleeping, and the two men moved about softly in
+their moccasined feet. On this morning the sun shone brilliantly over
+the southern ice-fields, and Pelliter aroused Little Mystery so that
+she might see it before it disappeared. But to-day it did not drop
+below the gray murkiness of the snow-horizon for nearly an hour. After
+breakfast Pelliter read his letters again, and then Billy read them.
+In one of the letters the girl had put a tress of sunny hair, and
+Pelliter kissed it shamelessly before his comrade.
+
+"She says she's making the dress she's going to wear when we're
+married, and that if I don't come home before it's out of style she'll
+never marry me at all," he cried, joyously. "Look there, on that page
+she's told me all about it. You're-- you're goin' to be there, ain't
+you, Billy?"
+
+"If I can make it, Pelly."
+
+"If you can make it! I thought you was going out of the Service when I
+did."
+
+"I've sort of changed my mind."
+
+"And you're going to stick?"
+
+"Mebbe for another three years."
+
+Life in the cabin was different after this. Pelliter and Little
+Mystery were happy, and Billy fought with himself every hour to keep
+down his own gloom and despair. The sun helped him. It rose earlier
+each day and remained longer in the sky, and soon the warmth of it
+began to soften the snow underfoot. The vast fields of ice began to
+give evidence of the approach of spring, and the air was more and more
+filled with the thunderous echoes of the "break up." Great floes broke
+from the shore-runs, and the sea began to open. Down from the north
+the powerful arctic currents began to move their grinding, roaring
+avalanches. But it was a full month before Billy was sure that
+Pelliter was strong enough to begin the long trip south. Even then he
+waited for another week.
+
+Late one afternoon he went out alone and stood on the cliff watching
+the thunderous movement of arctic ice out in the Roes Welcome.
+Standing motionless fifty paces from the little storm-beaten cabin
+that represented Law at this loneliest outpost on the American
+continent, he looked like a carven thing of dun-gray rock, with a
+dun-gray world over his head and on all sides of him, broken only in
+its terrific monotony of deathlike sameness by the darker gloom of the
+sky and the whiter and ghostlier gloom that hung over the ice-fields.
+The wind was still bitter, and his vision was shut in by a near
+horizon which Billy had often thought of as the rim of hell. On this
+afternoon his heart was as leaden as the day. Under his feet the
+frozen earth shivered with the rumbling reverberations of the crashing
+and breaking mountains of ice. His ears were filled with a dull and
+steady roar, like the echoes of distant thunder, broken now and then--
+when an ice-mountain split asunder-- with a report like that of a
+thirteen-inch gun. There were curious wailings, strange screeching
+sounds, and heartbreaking moanings in the air. Two days before
+MacVeigh had heard the roar of the ice ten miles inland, where he had
+gone for caribou.
+
+But he scarcely heard that roar now. He was looking toward the warring
+fields of ice, but he did not see them. It was not the dead gloom and
+the gray monotony that weighted his heart, but the sounds that he
+heard now and then in the cabin-- the laughing of Little Mystery and
+of Pelliter. A few days more and he would lose them. And after that
+what would be left for him? A cry broke from his lips, and he gripped
+his hands in despair. He would be alone. There was no one waiting for
+him down in that world to which Pelliter was going, no girl to meet
+him, no father, no mother-- nothing. He laughed in his pain as he
+faced the cold wind from the north. The sting of that wind was like
+the mocking ghost of his own past life. For all his life he had known
+only the stings of pain and of loneliness. And then, suddenly, there
+came Pelliter's words to him again-- "Mebbe some day you'll have a
+kid." A flood of warmth swept through his veins, and in the moment of
+forgetfulness and hope which came with it he turned his eyes into the
+south and west and saw the sweet face and upturned lips of Isobel
+Deane.
+
+He pulled himself together with a low laugh and faced the breaking
+seas of ice and the north. The gloom of night had drawn the horizon
+nearer. The rumble and thunder of crumbling floes came from out of a
+purple chaos that was growing blue-black in the distance. For several
+minutes he stood listening and looking into nothingness. The breaking
+of the ice, the moaning discontent in the air, and the growling
+monotone of the giant currents had driven other men mad; but they held
+a fascination for him. He knew what was happening, and he could almost
+measure the strength of the unseen hands of nature. No sound was new
+or strange to him. But now, as he stood there, there rose above all
+the other tumult a sound that he had not heard before. His body became
+suddenly tense and alert as he faced squarely to the north. For a full
+minute he listened, and then turned and ran to the cabin.
+
+Pelliter had lighted a lamp, and in its glow Billy's face shone white
+with excitement.
+
+"Good God, Pelly, come here!" he cried from the door.
+
+As Pelliter ran out he gripped him by the shoulders.
+
+"Listen!" he commanded. "Listen to that!"
+
+"Wolves!" said Pelliter.
+
+The wind was rising, and sent a whistling blast through the open door
+of the cabin. It awakened Little Mystery, who sat up with frightened
+cries.
+
+"No, it's not wolves," cried MacVeigh, and it did not sound like
+MacVeigh's voice that spoke. "I never heard wolves like that. Listen!"
+
+He clutched Pelliter's arm as on a fresh burst of the wind there came
+the strange and terrible sound from out of the night. It was rapidly
+drawing nearer-- a wailing burst of savage voice, as if a great wolf
+pack had struck the fresh and blood-stained trail of game. But with
+this there was the other and more fearful sound, a shrieking and
+yelping as if half-human creatures were being torn by the fangs of
+beasts. As Pelliter and MacVeigh stood waiting for something to appear
+out of the gray-and-black mystery of the night they heard a sound that
+was like the slow tolling of a thing that was half bell and half drum.
+
+"It's not wolves," shouted Billy. "Whatever it is, there's men with
+it! Hurry, Pelly, into the cabin with our dogs and sledge! Those are
+dogs we hear-- dogs who are howling because they smell us-- and there
+are hundreds of 'em! Where there's dogs there's men-- but who in
+Heaven's name can they be?"
+
+He dragged the sledge into the cabin while Pelliter unleashed the
+huskies from the lean-to. When he came in with the dogs Pelliter
+locked and bolted the door.
+
+Billy slipped a clipful of cartridges into his big-game Remington. His
+carbine was already on the table, and as Pelliter stood staring at him
+in indecision he pulled out two Savage automatics from under his bunk
+and gave one of them to his companion. His face was white and set.
+
+"Better get ready, Pelly," he said, quietly. "I've been in this
+country a long time, and I tell you they're dogs and men. Did you hear
+the drum? It's made of seal belly, and there's a bell on each side of
+it. They're Eskimos, and there isn't an Eskimo village within two
+hundred miles of us this winter. They're Eskimos, and they're not on a
+hunt, unless it's for us!"
+
+In an instant Pelliter was buckling on his revolver and
+cartridge-belt. He grinned as he looked at the wicked little
+blue-steeled Savage.
+
+"I hope you ain't mistaken, Billy," he said, "for it 'll be the first
+excitement we've had in a year."
+
+None of his enthusiasm revealed itself in MacVeigh's face.
+
+"The Eskimo never fights until he's gone mad, Pelly," he said, "and
+you know what madmen are. I can't guess what they've got to fight
+over, unless they want our grub. But if they do--" He moved toward the
+door, his swift-firing Remington in his hand. "Be ready to cover me,
+Pelly. I'm going out. Don't fire until you hear me shoot."
+
+He opened the door and stepped out. The howling had ceased now, but
+there came in its place strange barking voices and a cracking which
+Billy knew was made by the long Eskimo whips. He advanced to meet many
+dim forms which he saw breaking out of the wall of gloom, raising his
+voice in a loud holloa. From the Doorway Pelliter saw him suddenly
+lost in a mass of dogs and men, and half flung his carbine to his
+shoulder. But there was no shooting from MacVeigh. A score of sledges
+had drawn up about him, and the whips of dozens of little black men
+cracked viciously as their dogs sank upon their bellies in the snow.
+Both men and dogs were tired, and Billy saw that they had been running
+long and hard. Still as quick as animals the little men gathered about
+him, their white-and-black eyes staring at him out of round, thick,
+dumb-looking faces. He noted that they were half a hundred strong, and
+that all were armed, many with their little javelin-like narwhal
+harpoons, some with spears, and others with rifles. From the circle of
+strangely dressed and hideously visaged beings that had gathered about
+him one advanced and began talking to him in a language that was like
+the rapid clack of knuckle bones.
+
+"Kogmollocks!" Billy groaned, and he lifted both hands to show that he
+did not understand. Then he raised his voice. "Nuna-talmute," he
+cried. "Nuna-talmute-- Nuna-talmute! Ain't there one of that lingo
+among you?"
+
+He spoke directly to the chief man, who stared at him in silence for a
+moment and then pointed both short arms toward the lighted cabin.
+
+"Come on!" said Billy. He caught the little Eskimo by one of his thick
+arms and led him boldly through the breach that was made for them in
+the circle. The chief man's voice broke out in a few words of command,
+like a dozen quick, sharp yelps of a dog, and six other Eskimos
+dropped in behind them.
+
+"Kogmollocks-- the blackest-hearted little devils alive when it comes
+to trading wives and fighting," said MacVeigh to Pelliter, as he came
+up at the head of the seven little black men. " Watch the door, Pelly.
+They're coming in."
+
+He stepped into the cabin, and the Eskimos followed. From Pelliter's
+bunk Little Mystery looked at the strange visitors with eyes which
+suddenly widened with surprise and joy, and in another moment she had
+given the strange story that Pelliter or Billy had ever heard her
+utter. Scarcely had that cry fallen from her lips when one of the
+Eskimos sprang toward her. His black hands were already upon her,
+dragging the child from the bunk, when with a warning yell of rage
+Pelliter leaped from the door and sent him crashing back among his
+companions. In another instant both men were facing the seven Eskimos
+with leveled automatics.
+
+"If you fire don't shoot to kill!" commanded MacVeigh.
+
+The chief man was pointing to Little Mystery, his weird voice rising
+until it was almost a scream. Suddenly he doubled himself back and
+raised his javelin. Simultaneously two streams of fire leaped from the
+automatics. The javelin dropped to the floor, and with a shrill cry
+which was half pain and half command the leader staggered back to the
+door, a stream of blood running from his wounded hand. The others
+sprang out ahead of him, and Pelliter closed and bolted the door. When
+he turned MacVeigh was closing and slipping the bolts to the heavy
+barricades of the two windows. From Pelliter's bunk Little Mystery
+looked at them and laughed.
+
+"So it's you?" said Billy, coming to her, and breathing hard. "It's
+you they want, eh? Now, I wonder why?"
+
+Pelliter's face was flushed with excitement. He was reloading his
+automatic. There was almost a triumph in his eyes as he met MacVeigh's
+questioning gaze.
+
+They stood and listened, heard only the rumbling monotone of the
+drifting ice-- not the breath of a sound from the scores of men and
+dogs.
+
+"We've given them a lesson," said Pelliter, at last, smiling with the
+confidence of a man who was half a tenderfoot among the little brown
+men.
+
+Billy pointed to the door.
+
+"That door is about the only place vulnerable to their bullets," he
+said, as though he had not heard Pelliter. "Keep out of its range. I
+don't believe what guns they've got are heavy enough to penetrate the
+logs. Your bunk is out of line and safe."
+
+He went to Little Mystery, and his stern face relaxed into a smile as
+she put up her arms to greet him.
+
+"So it's you, is it?" he asked again, taking her warm little face and
+soft curls between his two hands. "They want you, an' they want you
+bad. Well, they can have grub, an' they can have me, but"-- he looked
+up to meet Pelliter's eyes-- "I'm damned if they can have you," he
+finished.
+
+Suddenly the night was broken by another sound, the sharp, explosive
+crack of rifles. They could hear the beat of bullets against the log
+wall of the cabin. One crashed through the door, tearing away a
+splinter as wide as a man's arm, and as MacVeigh nodded to the path of
+the bullet he laughed. Pelliter had heard that laugh before. He knew
+what it meant. He knew what the death-whiteness of MacVeigh's face
+meant. It was not fear, but something more terrible than fear. His own
+face was flushed. That is the difference in men.
+
+MacVeigh suddenly darted across the danger zone to the opposite half
+of the cabin.
+
+"If that's your game, here goes," he cried. "Now, damn y', you're so
+anxious to fight-- get at it 'n' fight!"
+
+He spoke the last words to Pelliter. Billy always swore when he went
+into action.
+
+ XI
+
+ THE NIGHT OF PERIL
+
+On his own side of the cabin Pelliter began tugging at a small, thin
+block laid between two of the logs. The shooting outside had ceased
+when the two men opened up the loopholes that commanded a range
+seaward. Almost immediately it began again, the dull red flashes
+showing the location of the Eskimos, who had drawn back to the ridge
+that sloped down to the Bay. As the last of five shots left his
+Remington Billy pulled in his gun and faced across to Pelliter, who
+was already reloading.
+
+"Pelly, I don't want to croak," he said, "but this is the last of Law
+at Fullerton Point-- for you and me. Look at that!"
+
+He raised the muzzle of his rifle to one of the logs over his head.
+Pelliter could see the fresh splinters sticking out.
+
+"They've got some heavy calibers," continued Billy, "and they've
+hidden behind the slope, where they're safe from us for a thousand
+years. As soon as it grows light enough to see they'll fill this shack
+as full of holes as an old cheese."
+
+As if to verify his words a single shot rang out and a bullet plowed
+through a log so close to Pelliter that the splinters flew into his
+face.
+
+"I know these little devils, Pelly," went on MacVeigh. "If they were
+Nuna-talmutes you could scare 'em with a sky-rocket. But they're
+Kogmollocks. They've murdered the crews of half a dozen whalers, and I
+shouldn't wonder if they'd got the kid in some such way. They wouldn't
+let us off now, even if we gave her up. It wouldn't do. They know
+better than to let the Law get any evidence against them. If we're
+killed and the cabin burned, who's going to say what happened to us?
+There's just two things for us to do--"
+
+Another fusillade of shots came from the snow ridge, and a third
+bullet crashed into the cabin.
+
+"Just two things," Billy went on, as he completely shaded the dimly
+burning lamp. "We can stay here 'n' die-- or run."
+
+"Run!"
+
+This was an unknown word in the Service, and in Pelliter's voice there
+were both amazement and contempt.
+
+"Yes, run," said Billy, quietly. "Run-- for the kid's sake."
+
+It was almost dark in the cabin, and Pelliter came close to his
+companion.
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"That it's the only way to save the kid. We might give her up, then
+fight it out, but that means she'd go back to the Eskimos, 'n' mebbe
+never be found again. The men and dogs out there are bushed. We are
+fresh. If we can get away from the cabin we can beat 'em out."
+
+"We'll run, then," said Pelliter. He went to Little Mystery, who sat
+stunned into silence by the strange things that were happening, and
+hugged her up in his arms, his back turned to the possible bullet that
+might come through the wall. "We're going to run, little sweetheart,"
+he mumbled, half laughingly, in her curls.
+
+Billy began to pack, and Pelliter put Little Mystery down on the bunk
+and started to harness the six dogs, ranging them close along the
+wall, with old one-eyed Kazan, the hero who had saved him from Blake,
+in the lead. Outside the firing had ceased. It was evident that the
+Eskimos had made up their minds to save their ammunition until dawn.
+
+Fifteen minutes sufficed to load the sledge; and while Pelliter was
+fastening the sledge traces MacVeigh bundled Little Mystery into her
+thick fur coat. The sleeves caught, and he turned it back, exposing
+the white edge of the lining. On that lining was something which drew
+him down close, and when the strange cry that fell from his lips drew
+Pelliter's eyes toward him he was staring down into Little Mystery's
+upturned face with the look of one who saw a vision.
+
+"Mother of Heaven!" he gasped, "she's--" He caught himself, and
+smothered Little Mystery up close to him for a moment before he
+brought her to the sledge. "She's the bravest little kid in the
+world," he finished; and Pelliter wondered at the strangeness of his
+voice. He tucked her into a nest made of blankets and then tied her in
+securely with babiche rope. Pelliter stood up first and saw the
+hungry, staring look in MacVeigh's face as he kept his eyes steadily
+upon Little Mystery.
+
+"What's the matter, Mac?" he asked. "Are you very much afraid-- for
+her?"
+
+"No," said MacVeigh, without lifting his head. "If you're ready,
+Pelly, open the door." He rose to his feet and picked up his rifle. He
+did not seem like the old MacVeigh; but the dogs were nipping and
+whining, and there was no time for Pelliter's questions.
+
+"I'm going out first, Billy," he said. "You can make up your mind
+they're watching the cabin pretty close, and as soon as the dogs nose
+the open air they'll begin yapping 'n' let 'em on to us. We can't risk
+her under fire. So I'm going to back along the edge of the ridge and
+give it to 'em as fast as I can work the gun. They'll all turn to me,
+and that's the time for you to open the door and make your getaway.
+I'll be with you inside of five minutes."
+
+He turned out the lights as he spoke. Then he opened the door and
+slipped out into the darkness without a protesting word from MacVeigh.
+Hardly had he gone when the latter fell upon his knees beside Little
+Mystery and in the deep gloom crushed his rough face down against her
+soft, warm little body.
+
+"So it's you, is it?" he cried, softly; and then he mumbled things
+which the little girl could not possibly have understood.
+
+Suddenly he sprang to his feet and ran to the door with a word to
+faithful old Kazan, the leader.
+
+From far down the snow-ridge there came the rapid firing of Pelliter's
+rifle.
+
+For a moment Billy waited, his hand on the door, to give the watching
+Eskimos time to turn their attention toward Pelliter. He could perhaps
+have counted fifty before he gave Kazan the leash and the six dogs
+dragged the sledge out into the night. With his humanlike intelligence
+old Kazan swung quickly after his master, and the team darted like a
+streak into the south and west, giving tongue to that first sharp,
+yapping voice which it is impossible to beat or train out of a band of
+huskies. As he ran Billy looked back over his shoulder. In the
+hundred-yard stretch of gray bloom between the cabin and the
+snow-ridge he saw three figures speeding like wolves. In a flash the
+meaning of this unexpected move of the Eskimos dawned upon him. They
+were cutting Pelliter off from the cabin and his course of flight.
+
+"Go it, Kazan!" he cried, fiercely, bending low over the leader.
+"Moo-hoosh-- moo-hoosh-- moo-hoosh, old man!" And Kazan leaped into a
+swift run, nipping and whining at the empty air.
+
+Billy stopped and whirled about. Two other figures had joined the
+first three, and he opened fire. One of the running Eskimos pitched
+forward with a cry that rose shrill and scarcely human above the
+moaning and roar of the ice-fields, and the other four fell flat upon
+the snow to escape the hail of lead that sang close over their heads.
+From the snow-ridge there came a fusillade of shots, and a single
+figure darted like a streak in MacVeigh's direction. He knew that it
+was Pelliter; and, running slowly after Kazan and the sledge, he
+rammed a fresh clipful of cartridges into the chamber of his rifle.
+The figures in the open had risen again, and Pelliter's automatic
+Savage trailed out a stream of fire as he ran. He was breathing
+heavily when he reached Billy.
+
+"Kazan has got the kid well in the lead," shouted the latter. "God
+bless that old scoundrel! I believe he's human."
+
+They set off swiftly, and the thick night soon engulfed all signs of
+the Eskimos. Ahead of them the sledge loomed up slowly, and when they
+reached it both men thrust their rifles under the blanket straps. Thus
+relieved of their weight, they forged ahead of Kazan.
+
+"Moo-hoosh-- moo-hoosh!" encouraged Billy.
+
+He glanced at Pelliter on the opposite side. His comrade was running
+with one arm raised at the proper angle to reserve breath and
+endurance; the other hung straight and limp at his side. A sudden fear
+shot through him, and he darted ahead of the lead dog to Pelliter's
+side. He did not speak, but touched the other's arm.
+
+"One of the little devil's winged me," gasped Pelliter. "It's not
+bad."
+
+He was breathing as though the short run was already winding him, and
+without a word Billy ran up to Kazan's head and stopped the team
+within twenty paces. The open blade of his knife was ripping up
+Pelliter's sleeve before his comrade could find words to object.
+Pelliter was bleeding, and bleeding hard. His face was shot with pain.
+The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his forearm, but had
+fortunately missed the main artery. With the quick deftness of the
+wilderness-trained surgeon Billy drew the wound close and bound it
+tightly with his own and Pelliter's handkerchiefs. Then he thrust
+Pelliter toward the sledge.
+
+"You've got to ride, Pelly," he said. "If you don't you'll go under,
+and that means all of us."
+
+Far behind them there rose the yapping and howling of dogs.
+
+"They're after us with the dogs!" groaned Pelliter. "I can't ride.
+I've got to run-- and fight!"
+
+"You get on the sledge, or I'll stave your head in!" commanded
+MacVeigh. "Face the enemy, Pelly, and give 'em hell. You've got three
+rifles there. You can do the shooting while I hustle on the dogs. And
+keep yourself in front of her," he added, pointing to the almost
+completely buried Little Mystery.
+
+ XII
+
+ LITTLE MYSTERY FINDS HER OWN
+
+After convincing Pelliter that he must ride on the sledge Billy ran on
+ahead, and the dogs started with their heavier load.
+
+"Now for the timber-line," he called down to Kazan. "It's fifty miles,
+old boy, and you've got to make it by dawn. If we don't--"
+
+He left the words unfinished, but Kazan tugged harder, as if he had
+heard and understood. The sledge had reached the unbroken sweep of the
+Barren now, and MacVeigh felt the wind in his face. It was blowing
+from the north and west, and with it came sudden gusts filled with
+fine particles of snow. After a few moments he fell back to see that
+Little Mystery's face was completely covered. Pelliter was crouching
+low on the sledge, his feet braced in the blanket straps. His wound
+and the uncomfortable sensation of riding backward on a swaying sledge
+were making him dizzy, and he wondered if what he saw creeping up out
+of the night was a result of this dizziness or a reality. There was no
+sound from behind. But a darker spot had grown within his vision, at
+times becoming larger, then almost disappearing. Twice he raised his
+rifle. Twice he lowered it again, convinced that the thing behind was
+only a shadowy fabric of his imagination. It was possible that their
+pursuers would lose trace of them in the darkness, and so he held his
+fire.
+
+He was staring at the shadow when from out of it there leaped a little
+spurt of flame, and a bullet sang past the sledge, a yard to the
+right. It was a splendid shot. There was a marksman with the shadow,
+and Pelliter replied so quickly that the first shot had not died away
+before there followed the second. Five times his automatic sent its
+leaden messengers back into the night, and at the fifth shot there
+came a wild outburst of pain from one of the Eskimo dogs.
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Billy. "That's one team out of business, Pelly. We
+can beat 'em in a running fight!"
+
+He heard the quick metallic snap of fresh cartridges as Pelliter
+slipped them into the chamber of his rifle, but beyond that sound, the
+wind, and the straining of the huskies there was no other. A grim
+silence fell behind. The roar of the distant ice grew less. The earth
+no longer seemed to shudder under their feet at the terrific
+explosions of the crumbling bergs. But in place of these the wind was
+rising and the fine snow was thickening. Billy no longer turned to
+look behind. He stared ahead and as far as he could see on each side
+of them. At the end of half an hour the panting dogs dropped into a
+walk, and he walked close beside his comrade.
+
+"They've given it up," groaned Pelliter, weakly. "I'm glad of it, Mac,
+for I'm-- I'm-- dizzy." He was lying on the sledge now, with his head
+bolstered up on a pile of blankets.
+
+"You know how the wolves hunt, Pelly," said MacVeigh-- "in a
+moon-shape half circle, you know, that closes in on the running game
+from in front? Well, that's how the Eskimos hunt, and I'm wondering if
+they're trying to get ahead of us-- off there, and off there." He
+motioned to the north and the south.
+
+"They can't," replied Pelliter, raising himself to his elbow with an
+effort. "Their dogs are bushed. Let me walk, Mac. I can--" He fell
+back with a sudden low cry. "Gawd, but I'm dizzy--"
+
+MacVeigh halted the dogs, and while they dropped upon their bellies,
+panting and licking up the snow, he kneeled beside Pelliter. Darkness
+concealed the fear in his eyes and face. His voice was strong and
+cheerful.
+
+"You've got to lie still, Pelly," he warned, arranging the blankets so
+that the wounded man could rest comfortably. "You've got a pretty bad
+nip, and it's best for all of us that you don't make a move. You're
+right about the Eskimos and their dogs. They're bushed, and they've
+given the chase up as a bad job, so what's the use of making a fool of
+yourself? Ride it out, Pelly. Go to sleep with Little Mystery if you
+can. She thinks she's in a cradle."
+
+He got up and started the dogs. For a long time he was alone. Little
+Mystery was sleeping and Pelliter was quiet. Now and then he dropped
+his mittened hand on Kazan's head, and the faithful old leader whined
+softly at his touch. With the others it was different. They snapped
+viciously, and he kept his distance. He went on for hours, halting the
+team now and then for a few minutes' rest. He struck a match each time
+and looked at Pelliter. His comrade breathed heavily, with his eyes
+closed. Once, long after midnight, he opened them and stared at the
+flare of the match and into MacVeigh's white face.
+
+"I'm all right, Billy," he said. "Let me walk--"
+
+MacVeigh forced him back gently, and went on. He was alone until the
+first cold, gray break of dawn. Then he stopped, gave each of the dogs
+a frozen fish, and with the fuel on the sledge built a small fire. He
+scraped up snow for tea, and hung the pail over the fire. He was
+frying bacon and toasting hard bannock biscuits when Pelliter aroused
+himself and sat up. Billy did not see him until he faced about.
+
+"Good morning, Pelly," he grinned. "Have a good nap?"
+
+Pelliter groped about on the sledge.
+
+"Wish I could find a club," he growled. "I'd-- I'd brain you! You let
+me sleep!"
+
+He thrust out his uninjured arm, and the two shook hands. Once or
+twice before they had done this after hours of great peril. It was not
+an ordinary handshake.
+
+Billy rose to his feet. Half a mile away the edge of the big forest
+for which they had been fighting rose out of the dawn gloom.
+
+"If I'd known that," he said, pointing, "we'd have camped in shelter.
+Fifty miles, Pelly. Not so bad, was it?"
+
+Behind them the gray Barren was lifting itself into the light of day.
+The two men ate and drank tea. During those few minutes neither gave
+attention to the forest or the Barren. Billy was ravenously hungry.
+Pelliter could not get enough of the tea. And then their attention
+went to Little Mystery, who awoke with a wailing protest at the
+smothering cover of blankets over her face. Billy dug her out and held
+her up to view the strange change since yesterday. It was then that
+Kazan stopped licking his ashy chops to send up a wailing howl.
+
+Both men turned their eyes toward the forest. Halfway between a figure
+was toiling slowly toward them. It was a man, and Billy gave a low cry
+of astonishment.
+
+But Kazan was facing the gray Barren, and he howled again, long and
+menacingly. The other dogs took up the cry, and when Pelliter and
+MacVeigh followed the direction of their warning they stood for a full
+quarter of a minute as if turned into stone.
+
+A mile away the Barren was dotted with a dozen swiftly moving sledges
+and a score of running men!
+
+After all, their last stand was to be made at the edge of the
+timber-line!
+
+In such situations men like MacVeigh and Pelliter do not waste
+precious moments in prearranging actions in words. Their mental
+processes are instantaneous and correlative-- and they act. Without a
+word Billy replaced Little Mystery in her nest without even giving her
+a sip of the warm tea, and by the time the dogs were straightened in
+their traces Pelliter was handing him his Remington.
+
+"I've ranged it for three hundred and fifty yards," he said. "We won't
+want to waste our fire until they come that near."
+
+They set out at a trot, Pelliter running with his wounded arm down at
+his side. Suddenly the lone figure between them and the forest
+disappeared. It had fallen flat in the snow, where it lay only a black
+speck. In a moment it rose again and advanced. Both Pelliter and Billy
+were looking when it fell for a second time.
+
+An unpleasant laugh came from MacVeigh's lips.
+
+The figure was climbing to its feet for the fifth time, and was only
+on its hands and knees when the sledge drew up. It was a white man.
+His head was bare, his face deathlike. His neck was open to the cold
+wind, and, to the others' astonishment, he wore no heavier garment
+over his dark flannel shirt. His eyes burned wildly from out of a
+shaggy growth of beard and hair, and he was panting like one who had
+traveled miles instead of a few hundred yards.
+
+All this Billy saw at a glance, and then he gave a sudden unbelieving
+cry. The man's red eyes rested on his, and every fiber in his body
+seemed for a moment to have lost the power of action. He gasped and
+stared, and Pelliter started as if stung at the words which came first
+from his lips.
+
+"Deane-- Scottie Deane!"
+
+An amazed cry broke from Pelliter. He looked at MacVeigh, his chief.
+He made an involuntary movement forward, but Billy was ahead of him.
+He had flung down his rifle, and in an instant was on his knees at
+Deane's side, supporting his emaciated figure in his arms.
+
+"Good God! what does this mean, old man?" he cried, forgetting
+Pelliter. "What has happened? Why are you away up here? And where--
+where-- is she?"
+
+He had gripped Deane's hand. He was holding him tight; and Deane,
+looking up into his eyes, saw that he was no longer looking into the
+face of the Law, but that of a brother. He smiled feebly.
+
+"Cabin-- back there-- in edge-- woods," he gasped. "Saw you-- coming.
+Thought mebbe you'd pass-- so-- came out. I'm done for-- dying."
+
+He drew a deep breath and tried to assist himself as Billy raised him
+to his feet. A little wailing cry came from the sledge. Startled,
+Deane turned his eyes toward that cry.
+
+"My God!" he screamed.
+
+He tore himself away from Billy and flung himself upon his knees
+beside Little Mystery, sobbing and talking like a madman as he clasped
+the frightened child in his arms. With her he leaped to his feet with
+new strength.
+
+"She's mine-- mine!" he cried, fiercely. "She's what brought me back!
+I was going for her! Where did you get her? How--"
+
+There came to them now in sudden chorus the wild voice of the Eskimo
+dogs out on the plain. Deane heard the cry and faced with the others
+in their direction. They were not more than half a mile away, bearing
+down upon them swiftly. Billy knew that there was not a moment to
+lose. In a flash it had leaped upon him that in some way Deane and
+Isobel and Little Mystery were associated with that avenging horde,
+and as quickly as he could he told Deane what had happened. Sanity had
+come back into Deane's eyes, and no sooner had he heard than he ran
+out in the face of the army of little brown men with Little Mystery in
+his arms. MacVeigh and Pelliter could hear him calling to them from a
+distance. They were in the edge of the forest when Deane met the
+Eskimos. There was a long wait, and then Deane and Little Mystery came
+back-- on a sledge drawn by Eskimo dogs. Beside the sledge walked the
+chief who had been wounded in the cabin at Fullerton Point. Deane was
+swaying, his head was bowed half upon his breast, and the chief and
+another Eskimo were supporting him. He nodded to the right, and a
+hundred yards away they found a cabin. The powerful little northerners
+carried him in, still clutching Little Mystery in his arms, and he
+made a motion for Billy to follow him-- alone. Inside the cabin they
+placed him on a low bunk, and with a weak cough he beckoned Billy to
+his side. MacVeigh knew what that cough meant. The sick man had
+suffered terrible exposure, and the tissue of his lungs was sloughing
+away. It was death, the most terrible death of the north.
+
+For a few moments Deane lay panting, clasping one of Billy's hands.
+Little Mystery slipped to the floor and began to investigate the
+cabin. Deane smiled into Billy's eyes.
+
+"You've come again-- just in time," he said, quite steadily. "Seems
+queer, don't it, Billy?"
+
+For the first time he spoke the other's name as if he had known him a
+lifetime. Billy covered him over gently with one of the blankets, and
+in spite of himself his eyes sought about him questioningly. Deane saw
+the look.
+
+"She didn't come," he whispered. "I left her--"
+
+He broke off with a racking cough that brought a crimson stain to his
+lips. Billy felt a choking grief.
+
+"You must be quiet," he said. "Don't try to talk now. You have no
+fire, and I will build one. Then I'll make you something hot."
+
+He went to move away, but one of Deane's hands detained him.
+
+"Not until I've said something to you, Billy," he insisted. "You
+know-- you understand. I'm dying. It's liable to come any minute now,
+and I've got to tell you-- things. You must understand-- before I go.
+I won't be long. I killed a man, but I'm-- not sorry. He tried to
+insult her-- my wife-- an' you-- you'd have killed him, too. You
+people began to hunt me, and for safety we went far north-- among the
+Eskimos-- an' lived there-- long time. The Eskimos-- they loved the
+little girl an' wife, specially little Isobel. Thought them angels--
+some sort. Then we heard you were goin' to hunt for me-- up there--
+among the Eskimos. So we set out with the box. Box was for her-- to
+keep her from fearful cold. We didn't dare take the baby-- so we left
+her up there. We were going back-- soon-- after you'd made your hunt.
+When we saw your fire on the edge of the Barren she made me get in the
+box-- an' so-- so you found us. You know-- after that. You thought it
+was-- coffin-- an' she told you I was dead. You were good-- good to
+her-- an' you must go down there where she is, and take little Isobel.
+We were goin' to do as you said-- an' go to South America. But we had
+to have the baby, an' I came back. Should have told you. We knew
+that-- afterward. But we were afraid-- to tell the secret-- even to
+you--"
+
+He stopped, panting and coughing. Billy was crushing both his thin,
+cold hands in his own. He found no word to say. He waited, fighting to
+stifle the sobbing grief in his breath.
+
+"You were good-- good-- good-- to her," repeated Deane, weakly, "You
+loved her-- an' it was right-- because you thought I was dead an' she
+was alone an' needed help. I'm glad-- you love her. You've been good--
+'n' honest-- an I want some one like you to love her an' care for her.
+She ain't got nobody but me-- an' little Isobel. I'm glad-- glad--
+I've found a man-- like you!"
+
+He suddenly wrenched his hands free and took Billy's tense face
+between them, staring straight into his eyes.
+
+"An'-- an'-- I give her to you," he said. "She's an angel, and she's
+alone-- needs some one-- an' you-- you'll be good to her. You must go
+down to her-- Pierre Couchée's cabin-- on the Little Beaver. An'
+you'll be good to her-- good to her--"
+
+"I will go to her," said Billy, softly. "And I swear here on my knees
+before the great and good God that I will do what an honorable man
+should do!"
+
+Deane's rigid body relaxed, and he sank back on his blankets with a
+sigh of relief.
+
+"I worried-- for her," he said. "I've always believed in a God--
+though I killed a man-- an' He sent you here in time!" A sudden
+questioning light came into his eyes. "The man who stole little
+Isobel," he breathed-- "who was he?"
+
+"Pelliter-- the man out there-- killed him when he came to the cabin,"
+said Billy. "He said his name was Blake-- Jim Blake."
+
+"Blake! Blake! Blake!" Again Deane's voice rose from the edge of death
+to a shriek. "Blake, you say? A great coarse sailorman, with red
+hair-- red beard-- yellow teeth like a walrus! Blake-- Blake--" He
+sank back again, with a thrilling, half-mad laugh. "Then-- then it's
+all been a mistake-- a funny mistake," he said; and his eyes closed,
+and his voice spoke the words as though he were uttering them from out
+of a dream.
+
+Billy saw that the end was near. He bent down to catch the dying man's
+last words. Deane's hands were as cold as ice. His lips were white.
+And then Deane whispered:
+
+"We fought-- I thought I killed him-- an' threw him into the sea. His
+right name was Samuelson. You knew him-- by that name-- but he went
+often-- by Blake-- Jim Blake. So-- so-- I'm not a murderer-- after
+all. An' he-- he came back for revenge-- and-- stole-- little--
+Isobel. I'm-- I'm-- not-- a-- murderer. You-- you-- will-- tell-- her.
+You'll tell her-- I didn't kill him-- after all. You'll tell her--
+an'-- be-- good-- good--"
+
+He smiled. Billy bent lower.
+
+"Again I swear before the good God that I will do what an honorable
+man should do," he replied.
+
+Deane made no answer. He did not hear. The smile did not fade entirely
+from his lips. But Billy knew that in this moment death had come in
+through the cabin door. With a groan of anguish he dropped Deane's
+stiffening hand. Little Isobel pattered across the floor to his side.
+She laughed; and suddenly Billy turned and caught her in his arms,
+and, crumpled down there on the floor beside the one brother he had
+known in life, he sobbed like a woman.
+
+ XIII
+
+ THE TWO GODS
+
+It was little Isobel who pulled MacVeigh together, and after a little
+he rose with her in his arms and turned her from the wall while he
+covered Deane's face with the end of a blanket. Then he went to the
+door. The Eskimos were building fires. Pelliter was seated on the
+sledge a short distance from the cabin, and at Billy's call he came
+toward him.
+
+"If you don't mind, you can take her over to one of the fires for a
+little while," said Billy. "Scottie is dead. Try and make the chief
+understand,"
+
+He did not wait for Pelliter to question him, but closed the door
+quietly and went back to Deane. He drew off the blanket and gazed for
+a moment into the still, bearded face.
+
+"My Gawd, an' she's waitin' for you, 'n' looking for you, an' thinks
+you're coming back soon," he whispered. "You 'n' the kid!"
+
+Reverently he began the task ahead of him. One after another he went
+into Deane's pockets and drew forth what he found. In one pocket there
+was a small knife, some cartridges, and a match box. He knew that
+Isobel would prize these and keep them because her husband had carried
+them, and he placed them in a handkerchief along with other things he
+found. Last of all he found in Deane's breast pocket a worn and faded
+envelope. He peered into the open end before he placed it on the
+little pile, and his heart gave a sudden throb when he saw the blue
+flower petals Isobel had given him. When he was done he crossed
+Deane's hands upon his breast. He was tying the ends of the
+handkerchief when the door opened softly behind him.
+
+The little dark chief entered. He was followed by four other Eskimos.
+They had left their weapons outside. They seemed scarcely to breathe
+as they ranged themselves in a line and looked down upon Scottie
+Deane. Not a sign of emotion came into their expressionless faces, not
+the flicker of an eyelash did the immobility of their faces change. In
+a low, clacking monotone they began to speak, and there was no
+expression of grief in their voices. Yet Billy understood now that in
+the hearts of these little brown men Scottie Deane stood enshrined
+like a god. Before he was cold in death they had come to chant his
+deeds and his virtues to the unseen spirits who would wait and watch
+at his side until the beginning of the new day. For ten minutes the
+monotone continued. Then the five men turned and without a word,
+without looking at him, went out of the cabin. Billy followed them,
+wondering if Deane had convinced them that he and Pelliter were his
+friends. If he had not done that he feared that there would still be
+trouble over little Isobel. He was delighted when he found Pelliter
+talking with one of the men.
+
+"I've found a flunkey here whose lingo I can get along with," cried
+Pelliter. "I've been telling 'em what bully friends we are, and have
+made 'em understand all about Blake. I've shaken hands with them all
+three or four times, and we feel pretty good. Better mix a little.
+They don't like the idea of giving us the kid, now that Scottie's
+dead. They're asking for the woman."
+
+Half an hour later MacVeigh and Pelliter returned to the cabin. At the
+end of that time he was confident that the Eskimos would give them no
+further trouble and that they expected to leave Isobel in their
+possession. The chief, however, had given Billy to understand that
+they reserved the right to bury Deane.
+
+Billy felt that he was now in a position where he would have to tell
+Pelliter some of the things that had happened to him on his return to
+Churchill. He had reported Deane's death as having occurred weeks
+before as the result of a fall, and when he returned to Fort Churchill
+he knew that he would have to stick to that story. Unless Pelliter
+knew of Isobel, his love for her, and his own defiance of the Law in
+giving them their freedom, his comrade might let out the truth and
+ruin him.
+
+In the cabin they sat down at the table. Pelliter's arm was in a
+sling. His face was drawn and haggard and blackened by powder. He drew
+his revolver, emptied it of cartridges, and gave it to little Isobel
+to play with. He kept up his spirits among the Eskimos, but he made no
+effort to conceal his dejection now.
+
+"I've lost her," he said, looking at Billy. "You're going to take her
+to her mother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It hurts. You don't know how it's goin' to hurt to lose her," he
+said.
+
+MacVeigh leaned across the table and spoke earnestly.
+
+"Yes, I know what it means, Pelly," he replied. "I know what it means
+to love some one-- and lose. I know. Listen."
+
+Quickly he told Pelliter the story of the Barren, of the coming of
+Isobel, the mother, of the kiss she had given him, and of the flight,
+the pursuit, the recapture, and of that final moment when he had taken
+the steel cuffs from Deane's wrists. Once he had begun the story he
+left nothing untold, even to the division of the blue-flower petals
+and the tress of Isobel's hair. He drew both from his pocket and
+showed them to Pelliter, and at the tremble in his voice there came a
+mistiness in his comrade's eyes. When he had finished Pelliter reached
+across with his one good arm and gripped the other's hand.
+
+"An' what she said about the blue flower is comin' true, Billy," he
+whispered. "It's bringing happiness to you, just as she said, for
+you're going down to her--"
+
+MacVeigh interrupted him.
+
+"No, it's not," he said, softly. "She loved him-- as much as the girl
+down there will ever love you, Pelly, and when I tell her what has
+happened-- her heart will break. That can't bring happiness-- for me
+!"
+
+The hours of that day bore leaden weights for Billy. The two men made
+their plans. A number of the Eskimos agreed to accompany Pelliter as
+far as Eskimo Point, whence he would make his way alone to Churchill.
+Billy would strike south to the Little Beaver in search of Couchée's
+cabin and Isobel. He was glad when night came. It was late when he
+went to the door, opened it, and looked out.
+
+In the edge of the timber-line it was black, black not only with the
+gloom of night, but with the concentrated darkness of spruce and
+balsam and a sky so low and thick that one could almost hear the
+wailing swish of it overhead like the steady sobbing of surf on a
+seashore. It was black, save for the small circles of light made by
+the Eskimo fires, about which half a hundred of the little brown men
+sat or crouched. The masters of the camp were all awake, but twice as
+many dogs, exhausted and footsore, lay curled in heaps, as inanimate
+as if dead. There was present a strange silence and a strange and
+unnatural gloom that was not of the night alone, a silence broken only
+by the low moaning of the wind out on the Barren, the restlessness in
+the air above the tree-tops, and the crackling of the fires. The
+Eskimos were as motionless as so many dead men. Their round,
+expressionless eyes were wide open. They sat or crouched with their
+backs to the Barren, their faces turned into the still deeper
+blackness of the forest. Some distance away, like a star, there
+gleamed the small and steady light in the cabin window. For two hours
+the eyes of those about the fires had been fixed on that light. And at
+intervals there had risen from among the stony-faced watchers the
+little chief, whose clacking voice joined for a few moments each time
+the wailing of the wind, the swish of the low-hanging sky, and the
+crackling of the fires. But there was sound of no other voice or
+movement. He alone moved and spoke, for to the others the clacking
+sounds he made was speech, words spoken each time for the man who lay
+dead in the cabin.
+
+A dozen times Pelliter and MacVeigh had looked out to the fires, and
+looked each time at the hour. This time Billy said:
+
+"They're moving, Pelly! They're jumping to their feet and coming this
+way!" He looked at his watch again. "They're mighty good guessers.
+It's a quarter after twelve. When a chief or a big man dies they bury
+him in the first hour of the new day. They're coming after Deane."
+
+He opened the door and stepped out into the night. Pelliter joined
+him. The Eskimos advanced without a sound and stopped in a shadowy
+group twenty paces from the cabin. Five of these little fur-clad men
+detached themselves from the others and filed into the cabin, with the
+chief man at their head. As they bent over Deane they began to chant a
+low monotone which awakened little Isobel, who sat up and stared
+sleepily at the strange scene. Billy went to her and gathered her
+close in his arms. She was sleeping again when he put her down among
+the blankets. The Eskimos were gone with their burden. He could hear
+the low chanting of the tribe.
+
+"I found her, and I thought she was mine," said Pelliter's low voice
+at his side. "But she ain't, Billy. She's yours."
+
+MacVeigh broke in on him as though he had not heard.
+
+"You better get to bed, Pelly," he warned. "That arm needs rest. I'm
+going out to see where they bury him."
+
+He put on his cap and heavy coat and went as far as the door, then
+turned back. From his kit he took a belt-ax and nails.
+
+The wind was blowing more strongly over the Barren, and MacVeigh could
+no longer hear the low lament of the Eskimos. He moved toward their
+fires, and found them deserted of men, only the dogs remained in their
+deathlike sleep. And then, far down the edge of the timber, he saw a
+flare of light. Five minutes later he stood hidden in a deep shadow, a
+few paces from the Eskimos. They had dug the grave early in the
+evening, out on the great snow-plain, free of the trees; and as the
+fire they had built lighted up their dark, round faces MacVeigh saw
+the five little black men who had borne forth Scottie Deane leaning
+over the shallow hole in the frozen earth. Scottie was already gone.
+The earth and ice and frozen moss were falling in upon him, and not a
+sound fell now from the thick lips of his savage mourners. In a few
+minutes the crude work was done, and like a thin black shadow the
+natives filed back to their camp. Only one remained, sitting
+cross-legged at the head of the grave, his long narwhal spear at his
+back. It was O-gluck-gluck, the Eskimo chief, guarding the dead man
+from the devils who come to steal body and soul during the first few
+hours of burial.
+
+Billy went deeper into the forest until he found a thin, straight
+sapling, which he cut down with half a dozen strokes of his belt-ax.
+From the sapling he stripped the bark, and then he chopped off a third
+of its length and nailed it crosswise to what remained. After that he
+sharpened the bottom end and returned to the grave, carrying the cross
+over his shoulder. Stripped to whiteness, it gleamed in the firelight.
+The Eskimo watcher stared at it for a moment, his dull eyes burning
+darker in the night, for he knew that after this two gods, and not
+one, were to guard the grave. Billy drove the cross deep, and as the
+blows of his ax fell upon it the Eskimo slunk back until he was
+swallowed in the gloom. When MacVeigh was done he pulled off his cap.
+But it was not to pray.
+
+"I'm sorry, old man," he said to what was under the cross. "God knows
+I'm sorry. I wish you was alive. I wish you was going back to her--
+with the kid-- instid o' me. But I'll keep that promise. I swear it.
+I'll do-- what's right-- by her."
+
+From the forest he looked back. The Eskimo chief had returned to his
+somber watch. The cross gleamed a ghostly white against the thick
+blackness of the Barren. He turned his face away for the last time,
+and there filled him the oppression of a leaden hand, a thing that was
+both dread and fear. Scottie Deane was dead-- dead and in his grave,
+and yet he walked with him now at his side. He could feel the
+presence, and that presence was like a warning, stirring strange
+thoughts within him. He turned back to the cabin and entered softly.
+Pelliter was asleep. Little Isobel was breathing the sweet
+forgetfulness of childhood. He stooped and kissed her silken curls,
+and for a long time he stood with one of those soft curls between his
+fingers. In a few years more, he thought, it would be the darker gold
+and brown of the woman's hair-- of the woman he loved. Slowly a great
+peace entered into him. After all, there was more than hope ahead for
+him. She-- the older Isobel-- knew that he loved her as no other man
+in the world could love her. He had given proof of that. And now he
+was going to her.
+
+ XIV
+
+ THE SNOW-MAN
+
+After his return from the scene of burial Billy undressed, put out the
+light, and went to bed. He fell asleep quickly, and his slumber was
+filled with many dreams. They were sweet and joyous at first, and he
+lived again his first meeting with the woman; he was once more in the
+presence of her beauty, her purity, her faith and confidence in him.
+And then more trouble visions came to him. He awoke twice, and each
+time he sat up, filled with the shuddering dread that had come to him
+at the graveside.
+
+A third time he awakened, and he struck a match to look at his watch.
+It was four o'clock. He was still exhausted. His limbs ached from the
+tremendous strain of the fifty-mile race across the Barren, but he
+could no longer sleep. Something-- he did not attempt to ask himself
+what it was-- was urging him to action. He got up and dressed.
+
+When Pelliter awoke two hours later MacVeigh's pack and sledge were
+ready for the trip south. While they ate their breakfast the two men
+finished their plans. When the hour of parting came Billy left his
+comrade alone with little Isobel and went out to hitch up the dogs.
+When he returned there was a fresh redness in Pelliter's eyes, and he
+puffed out thick clouds of smoke from his pipe to hide his face.
+MacVeigh thought of that parting often in the days that followed.
+Pelliter stood last in the door, and in his face was a look which
+MacVeigh wished that he had not seen. In his own heart was the dread
+and the fear, the thing which he could not name.
+
+For hours he could not shake off the gloom that oppressed him. He
+strode at the head of old Kazan, the leader, striking a course due
+south by compass. When he fell back for the third time to look at
+little Isobel he found the child buried deep in her blankets sound
+asleep. She did not awake until he stopped to make tea at noon. It was
+four o'clock when he halted again to make camp in the shelter of a
+clump of tall spruce. Isobel had slept most of the day. She was wide
+awake now, laughing at him as he dug her out of her nest.
+
+"Give me a kiss," he demanded.
+
+Isobel complied, putting her two little hands to his face.
+
+"You're a-- a little peach," he cried. "There ain't been a whimper out
+of you all day. And now we're going to have a fire-- a big fire."
+
+He set about his work, whistling for the first time since morning. He
+set up his silk Service tent, cut spruce and balsam boughs until he
+had them a foot deep inside, and then dragged in wood for half an
+hour. By that time it was dark and the big fire was softening the snow
+for thirty feet around. He had taken off Isobel's thick, swaddling
+coat, and the child's pretty face shone pink in the fireglow. The
+light danced red and gold in her tangled curls, and as they ate
+supper, both on the same blanket, Billy saw opposite him more and more
+of what he knew he would find in the woman. When they had finished he
+produced a small pocket comb and drew Isobel close up to him. One by
+one he smoothed the tangles out of her curls, his heart beating
+joyously as the silken touch of them ran through his fingers. Once he
+had felt that same soft touch of the woman's hair against his face. It
+had been an accidental caress, but he had treasured it in his memory.
+It seemed real again now, and the thrill of it made him place little
+Isobel alone again on the blanket, while he rose to his feet. He threw
+fresh fuel on the fire, and then he found that the warmth had softened
+the snow until it clung to his feet. The discovery gave him an
+inspiration. A warmth that was not of the fire leaped into his face,
+and he gathered up the softened snow, raking it into piles with a
+snow-shoe; and before Isobel's astonished and delighted eyes there
+grew into shape a snow-man almost as big as himself. He gave it arms
+and a head, and eyes of charred wood, and when it was done he placed
+his own cap on the crown of it and his pipe in its mouth. Little
+Isobel screamed with delight, and together, hand in hand, they danced
+around and around it, just as he and the other girls and boys had
+danced years and years ago. And when they stopped there were tears of
+laughter and joy in the child's eyes and a filmy mist of another sort
+in Billy's.
+
+It was the snow-man that brought back to him years and years of lost
+hopes. They flooded in upon him until it seemed as though the old life
+was the life of yesterday and waiting for him now just beyond the edge
+of the black forest. Long after Isobel was asleep in the tent he sat
+and looked at the snow-man; and more and more his heart sang with a
+new joy, until it seemed as though he must rise and cry out in the
+eagerness and hope that filled him. In the snow-man, slowly melting
+before the fire, there was a heart and a soul and voice. It was
+calling to him, urging him as nothing in the world had ever urged him
+before. He would go back to the old home down in God's country, to the
+old playmates who were men and women now. They would welcome him-- and
+they would welcome the woman. For he would take her. For the first
+time he made himself believe that she would go. And there, hand in
+hand, they would follow his boyhood footprints over the meadows and
+through the hills, and he would gather flowers for her in place of the
+mother that was gone, and he would tell her all the old stories of the
+days that were passed.
+
+It was the snow-man!
+
+ XV
+
+ LE MORT ROUGE-- AND ISOBEL
+
+Until late that night Billy sat beside his campfire with the snow-man.
+Strange and new thoughts had come to him, and among these was the
+wondering one asking himself why he had never built a snow-man before.
+When he went to bed he dreamed of the snow-man and of little Isobel;
+and the little girl's laughter and happiness when she saw the curious
+form the dissolving snow-man had taken in the heat of the fire when
+she awoke the following morning filled him again with those boyish
+visions of happiness that he had seen just ahead of him. At other
+times he would have told himself that he was no longer reasonable.
+After they had breakfasted and started on the day's journey he laughed
+and talked with baby Isobel, and a dozen times in the forenoon he
+picked her up in his arms and carried her behind the dogs.
+
+"We're going home," he kept telling her over and over again. "We're
+going home-- down to mama-- mama-- mama!" He emphasized that; and each
+time Isobel's pretty mouth formed the word mama after him his heart
+leaped exultantly. By the end of that day it had become the sweetest
+word in the world to him. He tried mother, but his little comrade
+looked at him blankly, and he did not like it himself. "Mama, mama,
+mama," he said a hundred times that night beside their campfire, and
+before he tucked her away in her warm blankets he said something to
+her about "Now I lay me down to sleep." Isobel was too tired and
+sleepy to comprehend much of that. Even after she was deep in slumber
+and Billy sat alone smoking his pipe he whispered that sweetest word
+in the world to himself, and took out the tress of shining hair and
+gazed at it joyously in the glow of the fire. By the end of the next
+day little Isobel could say almost the whole of the prayer his own
+mother had taught him years and years and years ago, so far back that
+his vision of her was not that of a woman, but of an elusive and
+wonderful angel; and the fourth day at noon she lisped the whole of it
+without a word of assistance from him.
+
+On the morning of the fifth day Billy struck the Gray Beaver, and
+little Isobel grew serious at the change in him. He no longer amused
+her, but urged the dogs along, never for an instant relaxing his
+vigilant quest for a sign of smoke, a trail, a blazed tree. At his
+heart there began to burn a suspense that was almost suffocating. In
+these last hours before he was to see Isobel there came the inevitable
+reaction within him. Gloom oppressed him where a little while before
+joyous anticipation had given him hope. The one terrible thought drove
+out all others now-- he was bringing her news of death, her husband's
+death. And to Isobel he knew that Deane had meant all that the world
+held of joy or hope-- Deane and the baby.
+
+It was like a shock when he came suddenly upon the cabin, in the edge
+of a small clearing. For a moment he hesitated. Then he took Isobel in
+his arms and went to the door. It was slightly ajar, and after
+knocking upon it with his fist he thrust it open and entered.
+
+There was no one in the room in which he found himself, but there was
+a stove and a fire. At the end of the room was a second door, and it
+opened slowly. In another moment Isobel stood there. He had never seen
+her as he saw her now, with the light from a window falling upon her.
+She was dressed in a loose gown, and her long hair fell in disheveled
+profusion over her shoulders and bosom. MacVeigh would have cried out
+her name-- he had told himself a hundred times what he would first say
+to her-- but what he saw in her face startled him and held him silent
+while their eyes met. Her cheeks were flushed. Her lips burned an
+unnatural red. Her eyes were glowing with strange fires. She looked at
+him first, and her hands clutched at her bosom, crumpling the masses
+of her lustrous hair. Not until she had looked into his eyes did she
+recognize what he carried in his arms. When he held the child out to
+her she sprang forward with the strangest cry he had ever heard.
+
+"My baby!" she almost shrieked. "My baby-- my baby--"
+
+She staggered back and sank into a chair near a table, with little
+Isobel clasped to her breast. For a time Billy heard only those words
+in her dry, sobbing voice as she crushed her burning face down against
+her child's. He knew that she was sick, that it was fever which had
+sent the hot flush into her cheeks. He gulped hard, and went near to
+her. Trembling, he put out a hand and touched her. She looked up. A
+bit of that old, glorious light leaped into her eyes, the light which
+he had seen when in gratitude she had given him her lips to kiss.
+
+"You?" she whispered. "You-- brought her--"
+
+She caught his hand, and the soft smother of her loose hair fell over
+it. He could feel the quick rise and fall of her bosom.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+There was a demand in her face, her eyes, her parted lips. He went on,
+her hand clasping his tighter, until he could feel the swift beating
+of her heart. He had never thought that he could tell the story in as
+few words as he told it now, with more and more of the glorious light
+creeping into Isobel's eyes. She stopped breathing when he told her of
+the fight in the cabin and the death of the man who had stolen little
+Isobel. A hundred words more brought him to the edge of the forest. He
+stopped there. But she still questioned him in silence. She drew him
+down nearer, until he could feel her breath. There was something
+terrible in the demand of her eyes. He tried to find words to say, but
+something rose up in his throat and choked him. She saw his effort.
+
+"Go on," she said, softly.
+
+"And then-- I brought her to you," he said.
+
+"You met him?"
+
+Her question was so sudden that it startled him, and in an instant he
+had betrayed himself.
+
+Little Isobel slipped to the floor, and Isobel stood up. She came near
+to him, as she came that marvelous night out on the Barren, and in her
+eyes there was the same prayer as she put her two hands up to him and
+looked straight into his face.
+
+He thought it would be easier. But it was terrible. She did not move.
+No sound came from her tight-drawn lips as he told her of the meeting
+with Deane, and of her husband's illness. She guessed what was coming
+before he had spoken it. At his words, telling of death, she drew away
+from him slowly. She did not cry out. Her only evidence that she had
+heard and understood was the low moan that fell from her lips. She
+covered her face with her hands and stood for a moment an arm's length
+away, and in that moment all the force of his great love for her swept
+upon MacVeigh in an overwhelming flood. He opened his arms, longing to
+gather her into them and comfort her as he would have comforted a
+little child. In that love he would willingly have dropped dead at her
+feet if he could have given back to her the man she had lost. She
+raised her head in time to see his outstretched arms, she saw the love
+and the pleading in his face, and into her own eyes there leaped the
+fire of a tigress.
+
+"You-- you--" she cried. "It was you who killed him! He had done no
+wrong-- save to protect me and avenge me from the insult of a brute!
+He had done no wrong. But the Law-- your Law-- set you after him, and
+you hunted him like a beast; you drove him from our home, from me and
+the baby. You hunted him until he died up there-- alone. You-- you
+killed him."
+
+With a sudden cry she turned and caught up little Isobel and ran
+toward the other door. And as she disappeared into the room from which
+she had first appeared Billy heard her moaning those terrible words.
+
+"You-- you-- you--"
+
+Like a man who had been struck a blow he swayed back to the outer
+door. Near his dogs and sledge he met Pierre Couchée and his
+half-French wife coming in from their trap line. He scarcely knew what
+explanation he gave to the half-breed, who helped him to put up his
+tent. But when the latter left to follow his wife into the cabin he
+said:
+
+"She ess seek, ver' seek. An' she grow more seek each day until-- mon
+Dieu!-- my wife, she ess scare!"
+
+He cut a few balsam boughs and spread out his blankets, but did not
+trouble to build a fire. When the half-breed returned to say that
+supper was waiting he told him that he was not hungry, and that he was
+going to sleep. He doubled himself up under his blankets, silent and
+staring, even neglecting to feed the dogs. He was awake when the stars
+appeared. He was awake when the moon rose. He was still awake when the
+light went out in Pierre Couchée's cabin. The snow-man was gone from
+his vision-- home and hope. He had never been hurt as he was hurt now.
+He was yet awake when the moon passed far over his head, sank behind
+the wilderness to the west, and blackness came. Toward dawn he fell
+into an uneasy slumber, and from that sleep he was awakened by Pierre
+Couchée's voice.
+
+When he opened his eyes it was day, and the half-breed stood at the
+opening of the tent. His face was filled with horror. His voice was
+almost a scream when he saw that MacVeigh was awake and sitting up.
+
+"The great God in heaven!" he cried. "It is the plague, m'sieur-- le
+mort rouge-- the small pox! She is dying--"
+
+MacVeigh was on his feet, gripping him by the arms.
+
+He turned and ran toward the cabin, and Billy saw that the
+half-breed's team was harnessed, and that Pierre's wife was bringing
+forth blankets and bundles. He did not wait to question them, but
+hurried into the plague-stricken cabin. From the woman's room came a
+low moaning, and he rushed in and fell upon his knees at her side. Her
+face was flushed with the fever, half hidden in the disheveled masses
+of her hair. She recognized him, and her dark eyes burned madly.
+
+"Take-- the baby!" she panted. "My God-- go-- go with her!"
+
+Tenderly he put out a hand and stroked back her hair from her face.
+
+"You are sick-- sick with the bad fever," he said, gently.
+
+"Yes-- yes, it is that. I did not think-- until last night-- what it
+might be. You-- you love me! Then take her-- take the baby and go--
+go-- go!"
+
+All his old strength came back to him now. He felt no fear. He smiled
+down into her face, and the silken touch of her hair set his heart
+leaping and the love into his eyes.
+
+"I will take her out there," he said. "But she is all right-- Isobel."
+He spoke her name almost pleadingly. "She is all right. She will not
+take the fever."
+
+He picked up the child and carried her out into the larger room.
+Pierre and his wife were at the door. They were dressed for travel, as
+he had seen them come in off the trap line the evening before. He
+dropped Isobel and sprang in front of them.
+
+"What do you mean?" he demanded. "You are not going away! You cannot
+go!" He turned almost fiercely upon the woman. "She will die-- if you
+do not stay and care for her. You shall not run away!"
+
+"It is the plague," said Pierre. "It is death to remain!"
+
+"You shall stay!" said MacVeigh, still speaking to Pierre's wife. "You
+are the one woman-- the only woman-- within a hundred miles. She will
+die without you. You shall stay if I have to tie you!"
+
+With the quickness of a cat Pierre raised the butt of the heavy
+dog-whip which he held in his hand and it came down with a sickening
+thud on Billy's head. As he staggered into the middle of the cabin
+floor, groping blindly for a moment before he fell, he heard a
+strange, terrified cry, and in the open inner door he saw the
+white-robed figure of Isobel Deane. Then he sank down into a pit of
+blackness.
+
+It was Isobel's face that he first saw when he came from out of that
+black pit. He knew that it was her voice calling to him before he had
+opened his eyes. He felt the touch of her hands, and when he looked up
+her loose, soft hair swept his breast. His head was bolstered up, and
+so he could look straight into her face. It frightened him. He knew
+now what she had been saying to him as he lay there upon the floor.
+
+"You must get up! You must go!" he heard her mooning. "You must take
+my baby away. And you-- you-- must go!"
+
+He pulled himself half erect, then rose to his feet, swaying a little.
+He came to her then, with the look in his face she had first seen out
+on the Barren when he had told her that he was going with her through
+the forest.
+
+"No, I am not going away," he said, firmly, and yet with that same old
+gentleness in his voice. "If I go you will die. So I am going to
+stay."
+
+She stared at him, speechless.
+
+"You-- you can't," she gasped, at last. "Don't you see-- don't you
+understand? I'm a woman-- and you can't. You must take her-- my baby--
+and go for help."
+
+"There is no help," said MacVeigh, quietly. "Within a few hours you
+will be helpless. I am going to stay and-- and-- I swear to God I will
+care for you-- as he-- would have done. He made me promise that-- to
+care for you-- to stick by you--"
+
+She looked straight into his eyes. He saw the twitching of her throat,
+the quiver of her lips. In another moment she would have fallen if he
+had not put a supporting arm about her.
+
+"If-- anything-- happens," she gasped, brokenly, "you will take care--
+of her-- my baby--"
+
+"Yes-- always."
+
+"And if I-- get well--"
+
+Her head swayed dizzily and dropped to his breast.
+
+"If I get-- well--"
+
+"Yes," he urged. "Yes--"
+
+"If I--"
+
+He saw her struggle and fail.
+
+"Yes, I know-- I understand," he cried, quickly, as she grew heavier
+in his arms. "If you get well I will go. I swear to do that. I will go
+away. No one will ever know-- no one-- in the whole world. And I will
+be good to you-- and care for you--"
+
+He stopped, brushed back her hair, and looked into her face. Then he
+carried her into the inner room; and when he came out little Isobel
+was crying.
+
+"You poor little kid," he cried, and caught her up in his arms. "You
+poor little--"
+
+The child smiled at him through her tears, and Billy suddenly sat down
+on the edge of the table.
+
+"You've been a little brick from the beginning, and you're going to
+keep it up, little one," he said, taking her pretty face between his
+two big hands. "You've got to be good, for we're going to have a--
+a--" He turned away, and finished under his breath. "We're going to
+have a devil of a time!"
+
+ XVI
+
+ THE LAW-- MURDERER OF MEN
+
+Seated on the table, little Isobel looked up into Billy's face and
+laughed, and when the laugh ended in a half wail Billy found that his
+fingers had tightened on her little shoulder until they hurt. He
+tousled her hair to bring back her good-humor, and put her on the
+floor. Then he went back to the partly open door. It was quiet in the
+darkened room. He listened for a breath or a sob, and could hear
+neither. A curtain was drawn over the one window, and he could but
+indistinctly make out the darker shadow where Isobel lay on the bed.
+His heart beat faster as he softly called Isobel's name. There was no
+answer. He looked back. Little Isobel had found something on the floor
+and was amusing herself with it. Again he called the mother, and still
+there was no answer. He was filled with a sort of horror. He wanted to
+go over to the dark shadow and assure himself that she was breathing,
+but a hand seemed to thrust him back. And then, piercing him like a
+knife, there came again those low, moaning words of accusation:
+
+"It was you-- it was you-- it was you--"
+
+In that voice, low and moaning as it was, he recognized some of
+Pelliter's madness. It was the fever. He fell back a step and drew a
+hand across his forehead. It was damp, clammy with a cold
+perspiration. He felt a burning pain where he had been struck, and a
+momentary dizziness made him stagger. Then, with a tremendous effort,
+he threw himself together and turned to the little girl. As he carried
+her out through the door into the fresh air Isobel's feverish words
+still followed him:
+
+"It was you-- you-- you-- you!"
+
+The cold air did him good, and he hurried toward the tent with baby
+Isobel. As he deposited her among the blankets and bearskins the
+hopelessness of his position impressed itself swiftly upon him. The
+child could not remain in the cabin, and yet she would not be immune
+from danger in the tent, for he would have to spend a part of his time
+with her. He shuddered as he thought of what it might mean. For
+himself he had no fear of the dread disease that had stricken Isobel.
+He had run the risk of contagion several times before and had remained
+unscathed, but his soul trembled with fear as he looked into little
+Isobel's bright blue eyes and tenderly caressed the soft curls about
+her face, If Couchée and his wife had only taken her! At thought of
+them he sprang suddenly to his feet.
+
+"Looky, little one, you've got to stay here!" he commanded.
+"Understand? I'm going to pin down the tent-flap, and you mustn't cry.
+If I don't get that damned half-breed, dead or alive, my name ain't
+Billy MacVeigh."
+
+He fastened the tent-flap so that Isobel could not escape, and left
+her alone, quiet and wondering. Loneliness was not new to her.
+Solitude did not frighten her; and, listening with his ear close to
+the canvas, Billy soon heard her playing with the armful of things he
+had scattered about her. He hurried to the dogs and harnessed them to
+the sledge. Couchée and his wife did not have over half an hour the
+start of him-- three-quarters at the most. He would run the race of
+his life for an hour or two, overtake them, and bring them back at the
+point of his revolver. If there had to be a fight he would fight.
+
+Where the trail struck into the forest he hesitated, wondering if he
+would not make better speed by leaving the team and sledge behind. The
+excited actions of the dogs decided him. They were sniffing at the
+scent left in the snow by the rival huskies, and were waiting eagerly
+for the command to pursue. Billy snapped his whip over their heads.
+
+"You want a fight, do you, boys?" he cried. "So do I. Get on with you!
+M'hoosh! M'hoosh!"
+
+Billy dropped upon his knees on the sledge as the dogs leaped ahead.
+They needed no guidance, but followed swiftly in Couchée's trail. Five
+minutes later they broke into thin timber, and then came out into a
+narrow plain, dotted with stunted scrub, through which ran the Beaver.
+Here the snow was soft and drifted, and Billy ran behind, hanging to
+the tail-rope to keep the sledge from leaving him if the dogs should
+develop an unexpected spurt. He could see that Couchée was exerting
+every effort to place distance between himself and the plague-stricken
+cabin, and it suddenly struck Billy that something besides fear of le
+mort rouge was adding speed to his heels. It was evident that the
+half-breed was spurred on by the thought of the blow he had struck in
+the cabin. Possibly he believed that he was a murderer, and Billy
+smiled as he observed where Couchée had whipped his dogs at a run
+through the soft drifts. He brought his own team down to a walk,
+convinced that the half-breed had lost his head, and that he would
+bush himself and his dogs within a few miles. He was confident, now
+that he would overtake them somewhere on the plain.
+
+With the elation of this thought there came again the sudden,
+sickening pain in his head. It was over in an instant, but in that
+moment the snow had turned black, and he had flung out his arms to
+keep himself from falling. The babiche rope had slipped from his hand,
+and when things cleared before his eyes again the sledge was twenty
+yards ahead of him. He overtook it, and dropped upon it, panting as
+though he had run a race. He laughed as he recovered himself, and
+looked over the gray backs of the tugging dogs, but in the same breath
+the laugh was cut short on his lips. It was as if a knife-blade had
+run in one lightning thrust from the back of his neck to his brain,
+and he fell forward on his face with a cry of pain. After all,
+Couchée's blow had done the work. He realized that, and made an effort
+to call the dogs to a stop. For five minutes they went on, unheeding
+the half-dozen weak commands that he called out from the darkness that
+had fallen thickly about him. When at last he pulled himself up from
+his face and the snow turned white again, the dogs had halted. They
+were tangled in their traces and sniffing at the snow.
+
+Billy sat up. Darkness and pain left him as swiftly as they had come.
+He saw Couchée's trail ahead, and then he looked at the dogs. They had
+swung at right angles to the sledge and had pulled the nose of it deep
+into a drift. With a sharp cry of command he sent the lash of his whip
+among them and went to the leader's head. The dogs slunk to their
+bellies, snarling at him.
+
+"What the devil--" he began, and stopped.
+
+He stared at the snow. Straight out from Couchée's trail there ran
+another-- a snow-shoe trail. For a moment he thought that Couchée or
+his wife had for some reason struck out a distance from their sledge.
+A second glance assured him that in this supposition he was wrong.
+Both the half-breed and his wife wore the long, narrow "bush"
+snow-shoes, and this second trail was made by the big, basket-shaped
+shoes worn by Indians and trappers on the Barrens. In addition to
+this, the trail was well beaten. Whoever had traveled it recently had
+gone over it many times before, and Billy gave utterance to his joy in
+a low cry. He had struck a trap line. The trapper's cabin could not be
+far away, and the trapper himself had passed that way not many minutes
+since. He examined the two trails and found where the blunt, round
+point of a snow-shoe had covered an imprint left by Couchée, and at
+this discovery Billy made a megaphone of his mittened hands and gave
+utterance to the long, wailing holloa of the forest man. It was a cry
+that would carry a mile. Twice he shouted, and the second time there
+came a reply. It was not far distant, and he responded with a third
+and still louder shout. In a flash there came again the terrible pain
+in his head, and he sank down on the sledge. This time he was roused
+from his stupor by the barking and snarling of the dogs and the voice
+of a man. When he lifted his head out of his arms he saw some one
+close to the dogs. He made an effort to rise, and staggered half to
+his feet. Then he fell back, and the darkness closed in about him more
+thickly than before. When he opened his eyes again he was in a cabin.
+He was conscious of warmth. The first sound that he heard was the
+crackling of a fire and the closing of a stove door. And then he heard
+some one say:
+
+"S'help me God, if it ain't Billy MacVeigh!"
+
+He stared up into the face that was looking down at him. It was a
+white man's face, covered with a scrubby red beard. The beard was new,
+but the eyes and the voice he would have recognized anywhere. For two
+years he had messed with Rookie McTabb down at Norway and Nelson
+House. McTabb had quit the Service because of a bad leg.
+
+"Rookie!" he gasped.
+
+He drew himself up, and McTabb's hands grasped his shoulders.
+
+"S'help me, if it ain't Billy MacVeigh!" he exclaimed again, amazement
+in his voice and face. "Joe brought you in five minutes ago, and I
+ain't had a straight squint at you until now. Billy MacVeigh! Well,
+I'm--" He stopped to stare at Billy's forehead, where there was a
+stain of blood. "Hurt?" he demanded, sharply. "Was it that damned
+half-breed?"
+
+Billy was gripping his hands now. Over near the stove, still kneeling
+before the closed door, he saw the dark face of an Indian turned
+toward him.
+
+"It was Couchée," he said. "He hit me with the butt of his whip, and
+I've had funny spells ever since. Before I have another I want to tell
+you what I'm up against, Rookie. My Gawd, it's a funny chance that ran
+me up against you-- just in time! Listen."
+
+He told McTabb briefly of Scottie Deane's death, of Couchée's flight
+from the cabin, and the present situation there.
+
+"There isn't a minute to lose," he finished, tightening his hold on
+McTabb's hand. "There's the kid and the mother, and I've got to get
+back to them, Rookie. The rest is up to you. We've got to get a woman.
+If we don't-- soon--"
+
+He rose to his feet and stood there looking at McTabb. The other
+nodded.
+
+"I understand," he said. "You're in a bad fix, Billy. It's two hundred
+miles to the nearest white woman, away over near Du Brochet. You
+couldn't get an Indian to go within half a mile of a cabin that's
+struck by the plague, and I doubt if this white woman would come. The
+only game I can see is to send to Fort Churchill or Nelson House and
+have the force send up a nurse. It will take two weeks."
+
+Billy gave a gesture of despair. Indian Joe had listened attentively,
+and now rose quietly from his position in front of the stove.
+
+"There's Indian camp over on Arrow Lake," he said, facing Billy. "I
+know squaw there who not afraid of plague."
+
+"Sure as fate!" cried McTabb, exultantly. "Joe's mother is over there,
+and if there is anything on earth she won't do for Joe I can't guess
+what it is. Early this winter she came a hundred and fifty miles--
+alone-- to pay him a visit. She'll come. Go after her, Joe. I'll go
+Billy MacVeigh's bond to get the Service to pay her five dollars a day
+from the hour she starts!" He turned to Billy. "How's your head?" he
+asked.
+
+"Better. It was the run that fixed me, I guess."
+
+"Then we'll go over to Couchée's cabin and I'll bring back the kid."
+
+They left Joe preparing for his three-day trip into the south and
+east, and outside the cabin McTabb insisted on Billy riding behind the
+dogs. They struck back for Couchée's trail, and when they came to it
+McTabb laughed.
+
+"I'll bet they're running like rabbits," he said. "What in thunder did
+you expect to do if you caught 'em, Billy? Drag the woman back by the
+hair of 'er 'ead? I'm glad you tumbled where you did. You've got to
+beat a lynx to beat Couchée. He'd have perforated you from behind a
+snow-drift sure as your name's Billy MacVeigh."
+
+Billy felt that an immense load had been lifted from him, and he was
+partly inclined to tell his companion more about Isobel and himself.
+This, however, he did not do. As McTabb strode ahead and urged on the
+dogs he figured on the chances of Joe and his mother returning within
+a week. During that time he would be alone with Isobel, and in spite
+of the horrible fear that never for a moment left his heart it was
+impossible for him not to feel a thrill of pleasure at the thought.
+Those would be days of agony for himself as well as for her, and yet
+he would be near, always near, the woman he loved. And little Isobel
+would be safe in Rookie's cabin. If anything happened--
+
+His hands gripped the edges of the sledge at the thought that leaped
+into his brain. It was Pelliter's thought. If anything happened to
+Isobel the little girl would be his own, forever and forever. He
+thrust the thought from him as if it were the plague itself. Isobel
+would live. He would make her live, If she died--
+
+McTabb heard the low cry that broke from his lips. He could not keep
+it back. Good God, if she went, how empty the world would be! He might
+never see her again after these days of terror that were ahead of him;
+but if she lived, and he knew that the sun was shining in her bright
+hair, and that her blue eyes still looked up at the stars, and that in
+her sweet prayers she sometimes thought of him-- along with Deane--
+life could not be quite so lonely for him.
+
+McTabb had dropped back to his side.
+
+"Head hurt?" he asked.
+
+"A little," lied Billy. "There's a level stretch ahead, Rookie. Hustle
+up the dogs!"
+
+Half an hour later the sledge drew up in front of Couchée's cabin.
+Billy pointed to the tent.
+
+"The little one is in there," he said. "Go over an' get acquainted,
+Rookie. I'm going to take a look inside to see if everything is all
+right."
+
+He entered the cabin quietly and closed the door softly behind him.
+The inner door was as he had left it, partly open, and he looked in,
+with a wildly beating heart. He could no longer hesitate. He stepped
+in and spoke her name.
+
+"Isobel!"
+
+There was a movement on the bed, and he was startled by the suddenness
+with which Isobel sprang to her feet. She drew aside the heavy curtain
+from the window and stood in the light. For a moment Billy saw her
+blue eyes filled with a strange fire as she stared at him. There was a
+wild flush in her cheeks, and he could hear her dry breath as it came
+from between her parted lips. Her hair was still undone and covered
+her in a shimmering veil.
+
+"I've found a trapper's cabin, Isobel, and we're taking the baby
+there," he went on. "She will be safe. And we're sending for help--
+for a woman--"
+
+He stopped, horror striking him dumb. He saw more plainly the feverish
+madness in Isobel's eyes. She dropped the curtain, and they were in
+gloom. The whispered words he heard were more terrible than the
+madness in her eyes.
+
+"You won't kill her?" she pleaded. "You won't kill my baby? You won't
+kill her--"
+
+She staggered, back toward the bed, whispering the words over and over
+again. Not until she had dropped upon it did Billy move. The blood in
+his body seemed to have turned cold. Be dropped upon his knees at her
+side. His hand buried itself in the soft smother of her hair, but he
+no longer felt the touch of it. He tried to speak, but words would not
+come. And then, suddenly, she thrust him back, and he could see the
+glow of her eyes in the half darkness. For a moment she seemed to have
+fought herself out of her delirium.
+
+"It was you-- you-- who helped to kill him!" she panted. "It was the
+Law-- and you are the Law. It kills-- kills-- kills-- and it never
+gives back when it makes a mistake. He was innocent, but you and the
+Law hounded him until he died. You are the murderers. You killed him.
+You have killed me. And you will never be punished-- never-- never--
+because you are the Law-- and because the Law can kill-- kill--
+kill--"
+
+She dropped back, moaning, and MacVeigh crouched at her side, his
+fingers buried in her hair, with no words to say. In a moment she
+breathed easier. He felt her tense body relax. He forced himself to
+his feet and dragged himself into the outer room, closing the door
+after him. Even in her delirium Isobel had spoken the truth. Forever
+she had digged for him a black abyss between them. The Law had killed
+Scottie Deane. And he was the Law. And for the Law there was no
+punishment, even though it took the life of an innocent man.
+
+He went outside. McTabb was in the tent. The gloom of evening was
+closing in on a desolate world. Overhead the sky was thick, and
+suddenly, with a great cry, Billy flung his arms straight up over his
+head and cursed that Law which could not be punished, the Law that had
+killed Scottie Deane. For he was that Law, and Isobel had called him a
+murderer.
+
+ XVII
+
+ ISOBEL FACES THE ABYSS
+
+It was not the face of MacVeigh-- the old MacVeigh-- that Rookie
+McTabb, the ex-constable, looked into a few moments later. Days of
+sickness could have laid no heavier hand upon him than had those few
+minutes in the darkened room of the cabin. His face was white and
+drawn. There were tense lines at the corners of his mouth and
+something strange and disquieting in his eyes. McTabb did not see the
+change until he came out into what remained of the day with little
+Isobel in his arms. Then he stared.
+
+"That blow got you bad," he said. "You look sick. Mebbe I'd better
+stay with you here to-night."
+
+"No, you hadn't," replied Billy, trying to throw off what he knew the
+other saw. "Take the kid over to the cabin. A night's sleep and I'll
+be as lively as a cat. I'm going to vaccinate her before you go."
+
+He went into the tent and dug out from his pack the small rubber pouch
+in which he carried a few medicines and a roll of medicated cotton. In
+a small bottle there were three vaccine points. He returned with these
+and the cotton.
+
+"Watch her close," he said, as he rolled back the child's sleeve. "I'm
+going to give you an extra point, and if this doesn't work by the
+seventh or eighth day you must do the job over again."
+
+With the point of his knife he began to work gently on baby Isobel's
+tender pink skin. He had expected that she would cry. But she was not
+frightened, and her big blue eyes followed his movements wonderingly.
+At last it began to hurt, and her lips quivered. But she made no
+sound, and as tears welled into her eyes Billy dropped his knife and
+caught her up close to his breast.
+
+"God bless your dear little heart," he cried, smothering his face in
+her silken curls. "You've been hurt so much, an' you've froze, an'
+you've starved, an' you ain't never said a word about it since that
+day up at Fullerton! Little sweetheart--"
+
+McTabb heard him whispering things, and little Isobel's arms crept
+tightly about his neck. After a little Billy held her out to him
+again, and a part of what Rookie had seen in his face was gone.
+
+"It won't hurt any more," he said, as he rubbed the vaccine point over
+the red spot on her arm. "You don't want to be sick, do you? And that
+'ll keep you from being sick. There--"
+
+He wound a strip of the cotton about her arm, tied it, and gave part
+of what remained to McTabb. Then he took her in his arms again and
+kissed her warm face and her soft curls, and after that bundled her in
+furs and put her on the sledge. Rookie was straightening out the dogs
+when, like a thief, he clipped off one of the curls with his knife.
+Isobel laughed gleefully when she saw the curl between his fingers.
+Before McTabb had turned it was in his pocket.
+
+"I won't see her again-- soon," MacVeigh said; and he tried to keep a
+thickness out of his voice. "That is, I-- I won't see her to-- to
+handle her. I'll come over now and then an' look at her from the edge
+of the woods. You bring 'er out, Rookie, an' don't you dare to let her
+know I'm out there. She wouldn't know what it meant if I didn't come
+to her."
+
+He watched them as they disappeared into the gloom of night, and when
+they had gone a groan of anguish broke from his lips. For he knew that
+little Isobel was going from him forever. He would see her again--
+from the edge of the forest; but he would never hold her in his arms,
+nor feel again her tender arms about his neck or the soft smother of
+her hair against his face. Long before the dread menace of the plague
+was lifted from the cabin and from himself he would be gone. For that
+was what Isobel, the mother, had demanded, and he would keep his
+promise to her. She would never know what happened in these days of
+her delirium. She would not have to face him afterward. He knew
+already how he would go. When help came he would slip away quietly
+some night, and the big wilderness would swallow him up. His plans
+seemed to come without thought on his own part. He would go to Fort
+Churchill and testify against Bucky Smith. And then he would quit the
+Service. His term of enlistment expired in a month, and he would not
+re-enlist. "It was the Law that killed him-- and you are the Law. It
+kills-- kills-- kills-- and it never gives back when it makes a
+mistake." Under the dark sky those words seemed never to end in his
+ears, and each moment they added to his hatred of the thing of which
+he had been a part for years. He seemed to hear Isobel's accusing
+voice in the low soughing of the night wind in the spruce tops; and in
+the stillness of the world that hung heavy and close about him the
+words chased each other through his brain until they seemed to leave
+behind them a path of fire.
+
+"It kills-- kills-- kills-- and it never gives back when it makes a
+mistake."
+
+His lips were set tensely as he faced the cabin. He remembered now
+more than one instance where the Law had killed and had never given
+back. That was a part of the game of man-hunting. But he had never
+thought of it in Isobel's way until she had painted for him in those
+few half-mad, accusing words a picture of himself. The fact that he
+had fought for Scottie Deane and had given him his freedom did not
+exonerate himself in his own eyes now. It was because of himself and
+Pelliter chiefly that Deane and Isobel had been forced to seek refuge
+among the Eskimos. From Fullerton they had watched and hunted for him
+as they would have hunted for an animal. He saw himself as Isobel must
+see him now-- the murderer of her husband. He was glad, as he returned
+to the cabin, that he had happened to come in the second or third day
+of her fever. He dreaded her sanity now more than her delirium,
+
+He lighted a tin lamp in the cabin and listened for a moment at the
+inner door. Isobel was quiet. For the first time he made a more
+careful note of the cabin. Couchée and his wife had left plenty of
+food. He had noticed a frozen haunch of venison hanging outside the
+cabin, and he went out and chopped off several pieces of the meat. He
+did not feel hungry enough to prepare food for himself, but put the
+meat in a pot and placed it on the stove, that he might have broth for
+Isobel.
+
+He began to find signs of her presence in the room as he moved about.
+Hanging on a wooden peg in the log wall he saw a scarf which he knew
+belonged to her. Under the scarf there was a pair of her shoes, and
+then he noticed that the crude cabin table was covered with a litter
+of stuff which he had not observed before. There were needles and
+thread, some cloth, a pair of gloves, and a red bow of ribbon which
+Isobel had worn at her throat. What held his eyes were two bundles of
+old letters tied with blue ribbon, and a third pile, undone and
+scattered. In the light of the lamp he saw that all of the writing on
+the envelopes was in the same hand. The top envelope on the first pile
+was addressed to "Mrs. Isobel Deane, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan"; the
+first envelope of the other bundle to "Miss Isobel Rowland, Montreal,
+Canada." Billy's heart choked him as he gathered the loose letters in
+his hands and placed them, with the others, on a little shelf above
+the table. He knew that they were letters from Deane, and that in her
+fever and loneliness Isobel had been reading them when he brought to
+her news of her husband's death.
+
+He was about to remove the other articles from the table where a
+folded newspaper clipping was uncovered by the removal of the cloth.
+It was a half page from a Montreal daily, and out of it there looked
+straight up at him the face of Isobel Deane. It was a younger, more
+girlish-looking face, but to him it was not half so beautiful as the
+face of the Isobel who had come to him from out of the Barren. His
+fingers trembled and his breath came more quickly as he held the paper
+in the light and read the few lines under the picture:
+
+  ISOBEL ROWLAND, ONE OF THE LAST OF MONTREAL'S DAUGHTERS OF THE
+  NORTH, WHO HAS SACRIFICED A FORTUNE FOR LOVE OF A YOUNG ENGINEER
+
+In spite of the feeling of shame that crept over him at thus allowing
+himself to be drawn into a past sacred to Isobel and the man who had
+died, Billy's eyes sought the date-line. The paper was eight years
+old. And then he read what followed. In those few minutes, as the
+cold, black type revealed to him the story of Isobel and Deane, he
+forgot that he was in the cabin, and that he could almost hear the
+breathing of the woman whose sweet romance had ended now in tragedy.
+He was with Deane that day, years ago, when he had first looked into
+Isobel's eyes in the little old cemetery of nameless and savage dead
+at Ste. Anne de Beaupré; he heard the tolling of the ancient bell in
+the church that had stood on the hillside for more than two hundred
+and fifty years; and he could hear Deane's voice as he told Isobel the
+story of that bell and how, in the days of old, it had often called
+the settlers in to fight against the Indians. And then, as he read on,
+he could feel the sudden thrill in Deane's blood when Isobel had told
+him who she was, and that Pierre Radisson, one of the great lords of
+the north, had been her great-grandfather; that he had brought
+offerings to the little old church, and that he had fought there and
+died close by, and that his body was somewhere among the nameless and
+unmarked dead. It was a beautiful story, and MacVeigh saw more of it
+between the lines than could ever have been printed. Once he had gone
+to Ste. Anne de Beaupré to see the pilgrims and the miracles there,
+and there flashed before him the sunlit slope overlooking the broad
+St. Lawrence, where Isobel and Deane had afterward met, and where she
+had told him how large a part the little old cracked bell, the ancient
+church, and the plot of nameless dead had played in her life ever
+since she could remember. His blood grew hot as he read of what
+followed the beginning of love at the pilgrims' shrine. Isobel had no
+father or mother, the paper said. Her uncle and guardian was an iron
+master of the old blood-- the blood that had been a part of the
+wilderness and the great company since the day the first "gentlemen
+adventurers" came over with Prince Rupert. He lived alone with Isobel
+in a big white house on the top of a hill, shut in by stone walls and
+iron pickets, and looked out upon the world with the cold hauteur of a
+feudal lord. He was young David Deane's enemy from the moment he first
+heard about him, largely because he was nothing more than a struggling
+mining engineer, but chiefly because he was an American and had come
+from across the border. The stone walls and iron pickets were made a
+barrier to him. The heavy gates never opened for him. Then had come
+the break. Isobel, loyal in her love, had gone to Deane. The story
+ended there.
+
+For a few moments Billy stood with the paper in his hand, the type a
+blur before his eyes. He could almost see Isobel's old home in
+Montreal. It was on the steep, shaded road leading up to Mount Royal,
+where he had once watched a string of horses "tacking" with their
+two-wheeled carts of coal in their arduous journey to Sir George
+Allen's basement at the end of it. He remembered how that street had
+held a curious sort of fascination for him, with its massive stone
+walls, its old French homes, and that old atmosphere still clinging to
+it of the Montreal of a hundred years ago. Twelve years before he had
+gone there first and carved his name on the wooden stairway leading to
+the top of the mountain. Isobel had been there then. Perhaps it was
+she he had heard singing behind one of the walls.
+
+He put the paper with the letters, making a note of the uncle's name.
+If anything happened it would be his duty to send word to him--
+perhaps. And then, deliberately, he tore into little pieces the slip
+of paper on which he had written the name. Geoffrey Renaud had cast
+off his niece. And if she died why should he-- Billy MacVeigh-- tell
+him anything about little Isobel? Since Isobel's terrible castigation
+of himself and the Law duty had begun to hold a diferent meaning for
+him.
+
+Several times during the next hour Billy listened at the door. Then he
+made some tea and toast and took the broth from the stove. He went
+into the room, leaving these on the hearth of the stove so that they
+would not grow cold. He heard Isobel move, and as he went to her side
+she gave a little breathless cry.
+
+"David-- David-- is it you?" she moaned. "Oh, David, I'm so glad you
+have come!"
+
+Billy stood over her. In the darkness his face was ashen gray, for
+like a flash of fire in the lightless room the truth rushed upon him.
+Shock and fever had done their work. And in her delirium Isobel
+believed that he was Deane, her husband. In the gloom he saw that she
+was reaching up her arms to him.
+
+"David!" she whispered; and in her voice there were a love and
+gladness that thrilled and terrified him to the quick of his soul.
+
+ XVIII
+
+ THE FULFILMENT OF A PROMISE
+
+In the space of silence that followed Isobel's whispered words there
+came to Billy a realization of the crisis which he faced. The thought
+of surrendering himself to his first impulse, and of taking Deane's
+place in these hours of Isobel's fever, filled him instantly with a
+revulsion that sent him back a step from the bed, his hands clenched
+until his nails hurt his calloused palms.
+
+"No, no, I am not David," he began, but the words died in his throat.
+
+To tell her that, to make her know the truth-- that her husband was
+dead-- might kill her now. Hope, belief that he was alive and with
+her, would help to make her live. So quickly that he could not have
+spoken his thoughts in words these things flashed upon him. If Deane
+were alive and at her side his presence would save her. And if she
+believed that he was Deane he would save her. In the end she would
+never know. He remembered how Pelliter had forgotten things that had
+happened in his delirium. To Isobel, when she awakened into sanity, it
+would only seem like a dream at most. A few words from him then would
+convince her of that. If necessary, he would tell her that she had
+talked much about David in her fever and had imagined him with her.
+She would have no suspicion that he had played that part.
+
+Isobel had waited a moment, but now she whispered again, as if a
+little frightened at his silence.
+
+"David-- David--"
+
+He stepped back quickly to the bed and his hands met those reaching up
+to him. They were hot and dry, and Isobel's fingers tightened about
+his own almost fiercely, and drew his hands down on her breast. She
+gave a sigh, as though she would rest easier now that his hands were
+touching her.
+
+"I have been making some broth for you," he said, scarcely daring to
+speak. "Will you take some of it, Isobel? You must-- and sleep."
+
+He felt the pressure of Isobel's hands, and she spoke to him so calmly
+that for a breath he thought that she must surely be herself again.
+
+"I don't like the dark, David," she said. "I can't see you. And I want
+to do up my hair. Will you bring in a light?"
+
+"Not until you are better," he whispered. "A light will hurt your
+eyes. I will stay with you-- near you--"
+
+She raised a hand in the darkness, and it stroked his face. In that
+touch were all the love and gentleness that had lived for the man who
+was dead, and the caress thrilled Billy until it seemed as though what
+was in his heart must burst forth in a sobbing breath. Suddenly her
+hand left his face, and he heard her moving restlessly.
+
+"My hair-- David--"
+
+He put out a hand, and it fell in the soft smother of her hair. It was
+tangled about her face and neck, and he lifted her gently while he
+drew out the thick masses of it. He did not dare to speak while he
+smoothed out the rich tresses and pleated them into a braid. Isobel
+sighed restfully when he had done.
+
+"I am going to get the broth now," he said then.
+
+He went into the outer room where the lamp was lighted. Not until he
+took up the cup of broth did he notice how his hand trembled. A bit of
+the broth spilled on the floor, and he dropped a piece of the toast.
+He, too, was passing through the crucible with Isobel Deane.
+
+He went back and lifted her so that her head rested against his
+shoulder and the warmth of her hair lay against his cheek and neck.
+Obediently she ate the half-dozen bits of toast he moistened in the
+broth, and then drank a few sips of the liquid. She would have rested
+there after that, with her face turned against his, and Billy knew
+that she would have slept. But he lowered her gently to the pillow.
+
+"You must go to sleep now," he urged, softly. "Good night--"
+
+"David!"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"You-- you-- haven't-- kissed-- me--"
+
+There was a childish plaint in her voice, and with a sob in his own
+breath he bent over her. For an instant her arms clung about his neck.
+He felt the sweet, thrilling touch of her warm lips, and then he drew
+himself back; and, with her "Good night, David" following him to the
+door, he went into the outer room, and with a strange, broken cry
+flung himself on the cot in which Couchée had slept.
+
+It was an hour before he raised his face from the blankets. Yet he had
+not slept. In that hour, and in the half-hour that had preceded it in
+Isobel's room, there had come lines into his face which made him look
+older. Once Isobel had kissed him, and he had treasured that kiss as
+the sweetest thing that had come to him in all his life. And to-night
+she had given him more than that, for there had been love, and not
+gratitude alone, in the warmth of her lips, in the caress of her hands
+and arms, and in the pressure of her feverish face against his own.
+But they brought him none of the pleasure of that which she had given
+to him on the Barren. Grief-stricken, he rose and faced the door. In
+spite of the fact that he knew there was no alternative for him, he
+regarded himself as worse than a thief. He was taking an advantage of
+her which filled him with a repugnance for himself, and he prayed for
+the hour when sanity would return to her, though it brought back the
+heartbreak and despair that were now lost in the oblivion of her
+fever. Always in the northland there is somewhere the dread trail of
+le mort rouge, the "red death," and he was well acquainted with the
+course it would have to run. He believed that the fever had stricken
+Isobel the third or fourth day before, and there would follow three or
+four days more in which she would not be herself. Then would come the
+reaction. She would awaken to the truth then that her husband was
+dead, and that he had been with her alone all that time.
+
+He listened for a moment at the door. Isobel was resting quietly, and
+he went out of the cabin without making a sound. The night had grown
+blacker and gloomier. There was not a rift in the sullen darkness of
+the sky over him. A wind had risen from out of the north and east,
+just enough of a wind to set the tree-tops moaning and fill the
+closed-in world about him with uneasy sound. He walked toward the tent
+where little Isobel had been, and there was something in the air that
+choked him. He wished that he had not sent all of the dogs with
+McTabb. A terrible loneliness oppressed him. It was like a clammy hand
+smothering his heart in its grip, and it made him sick. He turned and
+looked at the light in the cabin. Isobel was there, and he had thought
+that where she was he could never be lonely. But he knew now that
+there lay between them a gulf which an eternity could not bridge.
+
+He shuddered, for with the night wind it seemed to him that there came
+again the presence of Scottie Deane. He gripped his hands and stared
+out into a pit of blackness. It was as if he had heard the Wild
+Horsemen passing that way, panting and galloping through the spruce
+tops on their mission of gathering the souls of the dead. Deane was
+with him, as his spirit had been with him on that night he had
+returned to Pelliter after putting the cross over Scottie's grave. And
+in a moment or two the feeling of that presence seemed to lift the
+smothering weight from his heart. He knew that Deane could understand,
+and the presence comforted him. He went to the tent and looked in,
+though there was nothing to see. And then he turned back to the cabin.
+Thought of the grave with its sapling cross brought home to him his
+duty to the woman. From the rubber pouch he brought forth his pad of
+paper and a pencil.
+
+For more than an hour after that he worked. steadily in the dull glow
+of the lamp. He knew that Isobel would return to Deane. It might be
+soon-- or a long time from now. But she would go. And step by step he
+mapped out for her the trail that led to the little cabin on the edge
+of the Barren. And after that he wrote in his big, rough hand what was
+overflowing from his heart.
+
+"May God take care of you always. I would give my life to give you
+back his. I won't let his grave be lost. I will go back some day and
+plant blue flowers over it. I guess you will never know what I would
+do to give him back to you and make you happy."
+
+He knew that he had not promised what he would fail to do. He would
+return to the lonely grave on the edge of the Barren. There was
+something that called him to it now, something that he could not
+understand, and which came of his own desolation. He folded the pages
+of paper, wrapped them in a clean sheet, and wrote Isobel Deans's name
+on the outside. Then he placed the packet with the letters on the
+shelf over the table. He knew that she would find it with them.
+
+What happened during the terrible week that followed that night no one
+but MacVeigh would ever know. To him they were seven days of a fight
+whose memory would remain with him until the end of time. Sleepless
+nights and almost sleepless days. A bitter struggle, almost without
+rest, with the horrible specter that ever hovered within the inner
+room. A struggle that drew his cheeks in and put deep lines in his
+face; a struggle during which Isobel's voice spoke tenderly and
+pleadingly with him in one hour and bitterly in the next. He felt the
+caress of her hands. More than once she drew him down to the soft
+thrill of her feverish lips. And then, in more terrible moments, she
+accused him of hunting to death the man who lay back under the sapling
+cross. The three days of torment lengthened into four, and the four
+into seven, To the bottom of his soul he suffered, for he understood
+what it all meant for him. On the third and the fifth and the seventh
+days he went over to McTabb's cabin, and Rookie came out and talked
+with him at a distance through a birchbark megaphone. On the seventh
+day there was still no news of Indian Joe and his mother. And on this
+day Billy played his last part as Deane. He went into her room at noon
+with broth and toast and a dish of water, and after she had eaten a
+little he lifted her and made a prop of blankets at her back so that
+he could brush out and braid her beautiful hair. It was light in the
+room in spite of the curtain which he kept closely drawn. Outside the
+sun was shining brightly, and the pale luster of it came through the
+curtain and lit up the rich tresses he was brushing. When he was done
+he lowered her gently to her pillow. She was looking at him strangely.
+And then, with a shock that seemed to turn him cold to the depths of
+his soul, he saw what was in her eyes. Sanity and reason. He saw
+swiftly gathering in them the old terror, the old grief-- recognition
+of his true self! He waited to hear no word, but turned as he had done
+a hundred times before and left the room.
+
+In the outer room he stood for a few silent minutes, gathering
+strength for the ordeal that was near. The end was at hand-- for him.
+He choked back his weakness, and after a time returned to the inner
+door. But now he did not go in as he had entered before. He knocked.
+It was the first time. And Isobel's voice bade him enter.
+
+His heart was filled with a sudden throbbing pain when he saw that she
+had turned so that she lay with her face turned away from him. He bent
+over her and said, softly:
+
+"You are better. The danger is past."
+
+"I am better and-- and-- it is over?" he heard her whisper.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The-- the baby?"
+
+"Is well-- yes."
+
+There was a moment's silence. The room seemed to tremble with it. Then
+she said, faintly:
+
+"You have been alone?"
+
+"Yes-- alone-- for seven days."
+
+She turned her eyes upon him fully. He could see the glow of them in
+the faint light. It seemed to him that she was reading him to the
+depths of his soul, and that in this moment she knew! She knew that he
+had taken the part of David, and suddenly she turned her face away
+from him again with a strange, choking sob. He could feel her
+trembling. She seemed, struggling for breath and strength, and he
+heard again the words "You-- you-- you--"
+
+"Yes, yes-- I know-- I understand," he said, and his heart choked him.
+"You must be quiet-- now. I promised you that if you got well I would
+go. And-- I will. No one will ever know. I will go."
+
+"And you will never come to me again?" Her voice was terribly quiet
+and cold.
+
+"Never," he said. "I swear that."
+
+She had drawn away from him now until he could see nothing of her but
+the shimmer of her thick braid where it lay in a ray of light. But he
+could hear her sobbing breath. She scarcely knew when he left the
+room, he went so quietly. He closed her door after him, and this time
+he latched it. The outer door was open, and suddenly he heard that for
+which he had been waiting and listening-- the short, sharp yelping of
+dogs, and a human voice.
+
+In three leaps he was out in the open. Halfway across the narrow
+clearing Indian Joe had halted with his team. One glance at the sledge
+showed Billy that Joe's mother had not failed him. A thin, weazened
+little old woman scrambled from a pile of bearskins as he ran toward
+them. She had sunken eyes that watched his approach with a ratlike
+glitter, and her naked hands were so emaciated that they looked like
+claws; but in spite of her unprepossessing appearance Billy almost
+hugged her in his delight at their coming. Maballa was her name,
+Rookie had told him, and she understood and could talk English better
+than her son. Billy told her of the condition in the cabin, and when
+he had finished she took a small pack from the sledge, cackled a few
+words to Indian Joe, and followed him without a moment's hesitation.
+That she had no fear of the plague added to Billy's feeling of relief.
+As soon as she had taken off her hood and heavy blanket she went
+fearlessly into the inner room, and a moment later Billy heard her
+talking to Isobel.
+
+It took him but a few moments to gather up the few things he possessed
+and put them in his pack. Then he went out and took down his tent.
+Indian Joe had already gone, and he followed in his trail. An hour
+later McTabb appeared at the door of his cabin, summoned by Billy's
+shout. He circled about and came up with the wind, until he stood
+within fifty paces of MacVeigh. Billy told him what he was going to
+do. He was going to Churchill, and would leave Isobel and the baby in
+his care. From Fort Churchill he would send back an escort to take the
+woman and little Isobel down to civilization. He wanted fresh
+clothes-- anything he could wear. Those he had on he would be
+compelled to burn. He suggested that he could get into one of Indian
+Joe's outfits, if he had any spare garments, and McTabb went back to
+the cabin, returning a few minutes later with an armful of clothes.
+
+"Here's everything you'll need, except an undershirt an' drawers,"
+said McTabb, placing them in a pile on the snow. "I'll wait a little
+while you're changing. Better burn those quick. The wind might change,
+and I don't want to be caught in a whiff of it."
+
+He moved to a safe distance while Billy secured the clothes and went
+into the timber. From a birch tree he pulled off a pile of bark, and
+as he stripped he put his old clothes on it. McTabb could hear the
+crackling and snapping of the fire when Billy reappeared arrayed in
+Indian Joe's "second best"-- buckskin trousers, a worn and tattered
+fur coat, a fisher-skin cap, and moccasins a size too small for him.
+For fifteen minutes the two men talked, McTabb still drawing the
+dead-line at fifty paces. Then he went back and brought up Billy's
+dogs and sledge.
+
+"I'd like to shake hands with you, Billy," he apologized, "but I guess
+it's best not to. I don't suppose-- we'd dare-- bring out the kid?"
+
+"No," said Billy. "Good-by, Mac. I'll see you-- sometime-- later. Just
+go back-- an' bring her to the door, will you? I don't want her to
+know I'm here, an' I'll take a look at her from the bush. She wouldn't
+understand, you know, if she knew I was here an' wouldn't come up an'
+see her."
+
+He concealed himself among the spruce as McTabb went into the cabin. A
+moment later he reappeared. Isobel was in his arms, and Billy gulped
+back a sob. For an instant she turned her face his way, and he could
+see that she was pointing in his direction as Rookie talked to her,
+and then for another instant the sun lit up the child's hair with a
+golden fire, as he had first seen it on that wonderful day at
+Fullerton. He wanted to cry out one word to her-- at least one-- but
+what came was only the sob he had fought to keep back. He turned his
+face into the forest. And this time he knew that the parting was
+final.
+
+ XIX
+
+ A PILGRIMAGE TO THE BARREN
+
+The fourth night after he had left the plague-stricken cabin Billy was
+camped on Lame Otter Creek, one hundred and eighty miles from Fort
+Churchill, over on Hudson's Bay. He had eaten his supper, and was
+smoking his pipe. It was a clear and glorious night, with the sky
+afire with stars and a full moon. Several times Billy had stared at
+the moon. It was what the Indians called "the bleeding moon"-- red as
+blood, with an uneven, dripping edge. It was the Indian superstition
+that it meant misfortune to those who did not keep it at their backs.
+For seven consecutive nights it had made a red trail through the skies
+in that terrible year of plague nineteen years before, when a quarter
+of the forest population of the north had died. Since then it had been
+known as the "plague moon." Billy had seen it only twice before. He
+was not superstitious, but to-night he was filled with a strange
+sensation of uneasiness. He laughed an unpleasant laugh as he stared
+into the crackling birch flames and wondered what new misfortune could
+come to him.
+
+And then, slowly, something seemed to come to him from out of the
+wonderful night like a quieting hand to still the pain in his broken
+heart. At last, once more, he was home. For the wind-swept Barrens and
+the forest had been his home, and more than once he had told himself
+that life away from them would be impossible for him. More deeply than
+ever this thought came to him to-night. He had become a part of them
+and they a part of him. And as he looked up again at the red moon the
+sight of it no longer brought him uneasiness, but a strange sort of
+joy. For an hour he sat there, and the fire died down. About him the
+rustle and whisper of the wild closed in nearer. It was his world, and
+he breathed more deeply and listened. Lonely and sick at heart, he
+felt the life and sympathy and love of it creeping into him, grieving
+with him in his grief, warming him with its hope, pledging him again
+the eternal friendship of its trees, its mountains, and all of the
+wild that it held therein. A hundred times, in that strange man-play
+that comes of loneliness in the far north, he had given life and form
+to the star shadows about him, to the shadows of the tall spruce, the
+twisted shrub, the rocks, and even the mountains. And now it was no
+longer play. With each hour that passed this night, and with each day
+and night that followed, they became more real to MacVeigh; and the
+fires he built in the black gloom painted him pictures as they had
+never painted them before; and the trees and the rocks and the twisted
+shrub comforted him more and more in his loneliness, and gave to him
+the presence of life in their movement, in the coming and going of
+their shadow forms. Everywhere they were the same old friends,
+unvarying and changeless. The spruce shadow of to-night, nodding to
+him in its silent way, was the same that nodded to him last night-- a
+hundred nights ago; the stars were the same, the winds whispering to
+him in the tree-tops were the same, everything was as it was
+yesterday-- years ago. He knew that in these things, and in these
+things alone, he would always possess Isobel. She would return to
+civilization, and the shifting scenes of life down there would soon
+make her forget him-- almost. But in his world there was no change.
+Ten years from now he might go over their old trail and still find the
+charred remains of the campfire he had built for her that night beside
+the Barren. The wilderness would bear memory of her so long as he was
+a part of it; and now, as he came nearer to Churchill, he knew that he
+would always be a part of it.
+
+Three weeks after he had left Couchée's cabin he came into Fort
+Churchill. A month had changed him so that the factor did not
+recognize him at first. The inspector in charge stared at him twice,
+and then cried, "My God, is it you, MacVeigh?" To Pelliter alone, who
+was waiting for him, did Billy tell all that had happened down on the
+Little Beaver. There were several letters waiting for him at
+Churchill, and one of these told him that a silver property in which
+he was interested over at Cobalt had turned out well and that his
+share in the sale was something over ten thousand dollars. He used
+this unexpected piece of good-fortune as an excuse to the inspector
+when he refused to re-enlist. A week after his arrival at Churchill
+Bucky Smith was dishonorably discharged from the Service. There were
+several near them when Bucky came up to him with a smile on his face
+and offered to shake hands.
+
+"I don't bear you any ill-will, Billy," he said, loud enough for the
+others to hear. "Only you've made a big mistake." And then, in words
+for Billy's ears alone, he added: "Remember what I promised you! I'll
+kill you for this if I have to hunt you round the world!"
+
+A few days later Pelliter left on the last of the slush snows in an
+effort to reach Nelson House before the sledging was gone.
+
+"I wish you'd go with me, Billy," he entreated for the hundredth time.
+"My girl 'd love to have you come, an' you know how I'd like it."
+
+But Billy could not be moved.
+
+"I'll come and see you some day-- when you've got the kid," he
+promised, trying to laugh, as he shook hands for the last time with
+his old comrade.
+
+For three days after Pelliter's departure he remained at the post. On
+the morning of the fourth, with his pack on his back and without dogs,
+he struck off into the north and west.
+
+"I think I'll spend next winter at Fond du Lac," he told the
+inspector. "If there's any mail for me you can send it there if you
+have a chance, and if I'm not at Fond du Lac it can be returned to
+Churchill."
+
+He said Fond du Lac because Deane's grave lay between Churchill and
+the old Hudson's Bay Company's post over in the country of the
+Athabasca. The Barrens were the one thing that called to him now-- the
+one thing to which he dared respond. He would keep his promise to
+Isobel and visit Scottie's grave. At least he tried to make himself
+believe that he was keeping a promise. But deep in him there was an
+undercurrent of feeling which he could not explain. It was as if there
+were a spirit with him at times, walking at his side, and hovering
+about his campfire at nights, and when he gave himself up to the right
+mood he felt that it was the presence of Deane. He believed in strong
+friendship, but he had never believed in the love of man for man. He
+had not thought that such a thing could exist, except, perhaps,
+between father and son. With him, in all the castles he had built and
+the dreams he had dreamed, the alpha and omega of love had remained
+with woman. For the first time he knew what it meant to love a man--
+the memory of a man.
+
+Something held him from telling the secret of his mission at Churchill
+even to Pelliter. The evening before he left he had smuggled an ax
+into the edge of the forest, and the second day he found use for this.
+He came to a straight-grained, thick birch, eighteen inches in
+diameter, and he put up his tent fifty paces from it. Before he rolled
+himself in his blankets that night he had cut down the tree. The next
+day he chopped off the butt, and before another nightfall had hewn out
+a slab two inches thick, a foot wide, and three feet long. When he
+took up the trail into the north and west again the following morning
+he left the ax behind.
+
+The fourth night he worked with his hunting-knife and his belt-ax,
+thinning down the slab and making it smooth. The fifth and the sixth
+nights he passed in the same way, and he ended the sixth night by
+heating the end of a small iron rod in the fire and burning the first
+three letters of Deane's epitaph on the slab. For a time he was
+puzzled, wondering whether he should use the name Scottie or David. He
+decided on David.
+
+He did not travel fast, for to him spring was the most beautiful of
+all seasons in the wilderness. It was underfoot and overhead now. The
+snow-floods were singing between the ridges and gathering in the
+hollows. The poplar buds were swollen almost to the bursting point,
+and the bakneesh vines were as red as blood with the glow of new life.
+Seventeen days after he left Churchill he came to the edge of the big
+Barren. For two days he swung westward, and early in the forenoon of
+the third looked out over the gray waste, dotted with moving caribou,
+over which he and Pelliter had raced ahead of the Eskimos with little
+Isobel. He went to the cabin first and entered. It was evident that no
+one had been there since he had left, On the bunk where Deane had died
+he found one of baby Isobel's little mittens. He had wondered where
+she had lost it, and had made her a new one of lynx-skin on the way
+down to Couchée's cabin. The tiny bed that he had made for her on the
+floor was as she had last slept in it, and in the part of a blanket
+that he had used as a pillow was still the imprint of her head. On the
+wall hung a pair of old trousers that Deane had worn. Billy looked at
+these things, standing silently, with his pack at his feet. There was
+something in the cabin that closed in about him and choked him, and he
+struggled to overcome it by whistling. His lips seemed thick. At last
+he turned and went to the grave.
+
+The foxes had been there, and had dug a little about the sapling
+cross. There was no other change. During the remainder of the forenoon
+Billy cut down a heavier sapling and sunk the butt of it three feet
+into the half-frozen earth at the head of Deane's grave. Then, with
+spikes he had brought with him, he nailed on the slab. He believed
+that no one would ever know what the words on that slab meant-- no one
+except himself and the spirit of Scottie Deane. With the end of the
+heated rod he had burned into the wood:
+
+ DAVID DEANE
+
+ Died Feb. 27, 1908
+
+ BELOVED OF ISOBEL AND THE ONE
+
+ WHO WISHES HE COULD TAKE
+
+ YOUR PLACE AND GIVE
+
+ YOU BACK TO
+
+ HER
+
+ W. M. April 15, 1908
+
+He did not stop when it was time for dinner, but carried rocks from a
+ridge a couple of hundred yards away, and built a cairn four feet high
+around the sapling, so that storm or wild animals could not knock it
+down. Then he began a search in the warmest and sunniest parts of the
+forest, where the green tips of plant life were beginning to reveal
+themselves. He found snowflowers, redglow, and bakneesh, and dug up
+root after root, and at last, peeping out from between two rocks, he
+found the arrowlike tip of a blue flower. The bakneesh roots he
+planted about the cairn, and the blue flower he planted by itself at
+the head of the grave.
+
+It was long past midday when he returned to the cabin, and once more
+he was oppressed by the appalling loneliness of it. It was not as he
+had thought it would be. Deane's spirit and companionship had seemed
+to be nearer to him beside his campfires and in the forest. He cooked
+a meal over the stove, but the snapping of the fire seemed strange and
+unnatural in the deserted room. Even the air he breathed was heavy
+with the oppression of death and broken hopes. He found it difficult
+to swallow the food he had cooked, though he had eaten nothing since
+morning. When he was done he looked at his watch. It was four o'clock.
+The northern sun had dropped behind the distant forests and was
+followed now by the thickening gloom of early evening. For a few
+moments Billy stood motionless outside the cabin. Behind him an owl
+hooted its lonely mating-song. Over his head a brush sparrow
+twittered. It was that hour, just between the end of day and the
+beginning of night, when the wilderness holds its breath and all is
+still. Billy clenched his hands and listened. He could not keep back
+the break that was in his breath. Something out there in the silence
+and the gathering darkness was calling him-- calling him away from the
+cabin, away from the grave, and the gray, dead waste of the Barren. He
+turned back into the cabin and put his things into the pack. He took
+the little mitten to keep with his other treasures, and then he went
+out and closed the door behind him. He passed close to the grave and
+for the last time gazed upon the spot where Deane lay buried.
+
+"Good-by, old man," he whispered. Goodby--"
+
+The owl hooted louder as he turned his face into the west. It made him
+shiver, and he hurried his steps into the unbroken wilderness that lay
+for hundreds of miles between him and the post at Fond du Lac.
+
+ XX
+
+ THE LETTER
+
+Days and weeks and months of a loneliness which Billy had never known
+before followed after his pilgrimage to Deane's grave. It was more
+than loneliness. He had known loneliness, the heartbreak and the
+longing of it, in the black and silent chaos of the arctic night; he
+had almost gone mad of it, and he had seen Pelliter nearly die for a
+glimpse of the sun and the sound of a voice. But this was different.
+It was something that ate deeper at his soul each day and each night
+that he lived. He had believed that thought of Isobel and his memories
+of her would make him happier, even though he never saw her again. But
+in this he was mistaken. The wilderness does not lend to
+forgetfulness, and each day her voice seemed nearer and more real to
+him, and she became more and more insistently a part of his thoughts.
+Never an hour of the day passed that he did not ask himself where she
+was. He hoped that she and the baby Isobel had returned to the old
+home in Montreal, where they would surely find friends and be cared
+for. And yet the dread was upon him that she had remained in the
+wilderness, that her love for Deane would keep her there, and that she
+would find a woman's work at some post between the Height of Land and
+the Barrens. At times there possessed him an overwhelming desire to
+return to McTabb's cabin and find where they had gone. But he fought
+against this desire as a man fights against death. He knew that once
+he surrendered himself to the temptation to be near her again he would
+lose much that he had won in his struggle during the days of plague in
+Couchée's cabin.
+
+So his feet carried him steadily westward, while the invisible hands
+tugged at him from behind. He did not go straight to Fond du Lac, but
+spent nearly three weeks with a trapper whom he ran across on the
+Pipestone River. It was June when he struck Fond du Lac, and he
+remained there a month. He had more than half expected to pass the
+winter there, but the factor at the post proved a disagreeable
+acquaintance, and he did not like the country. So early in July he set
+out deeper into the Athabasca country to the west, followed the
+northern shore of the big lake, and two months later came to Fort
+Chippewyan, near the mouth of the Slave River.
+
+He struck Chippewyan at a fortunate time. A government geological and
+map-making party was just preparing to leave for the terra incognita
+between the Great Slave and the Great Bear, and the three men who had
+come up from Ottawa urged Billy to join them. He jumped at the
+opportunity, and remained with them until the party returned to the
+Mackenzie River by the way of Fort Providence five months later. He
+remained at Fort Providence until late spring, and then came down to
+Fort Wrigley, where he had several friends in the service. Fifteen
+months of wandering had had their effect upon him. He could no longer
+resist the call of the wanderlust. It urged him from place to place,
+and stronger and stronger grew in him the desire to return to his old
+country along the shores of the big Bay far to the west. He had partly
+planned to join the railroad builders on the new trans-continental in
+the mountains of British Columbia, but in August, instead of finding
+himself at Edmonton or Tête Jaune Cache, he was at Prince Albert,
+three hundred and fifty miles to the east. From this point he struck
+northward with a party of company men into the Lac La Ronge country,
+and in October swung eastward alone through the Sissipuk and Burntwood
+waterways to Nelson House. He continued northward after a week's rest,
+and on the eighteenth of December the first of the two great storms
+which made the winter of 1909-10 one of the most tragic in the history
+of the far northern people overtook him thirty miles from York
+Factory. It took him five days to reach the post, where he was held up
+for several weeks. These were the first of those terrible weeks of
+famine and intense cold during which more than fifteen hundred people
+died in the north country. From the Barren Lands to the edge of the
+southern watershed the earth lay under from four to six feet of snow,
+and from the middle of December until late in January the temperature
+did not rise above forty degrees below zero, and remained for the most
+of the time between fifty and sixty. From all points in the wilderness
+reports of starvation and death came to the company's posts. Trap
+lines could not be followed because of the intense cold. Moose,
+caribou, and even the furred animals had buried themselves under the
+snow. Indians and half-breeds dragged themselves into the posts. Twice
+at York Factory Billy saw mothers who brought dead babies in their
+arms. One day a white trapper came in with his dogs and sledge, and on
+the sledge, wrapped in a bearskin, was his wife, who had died fifty
+miles back in the forest.
+
+During these terrible weeks Billy found it impossible to keep Isobel
+and the baby Isobel out of his mind night or day. The fear grew in him
+that somewhere in the wilderness they were suffering as others were
+suffering. So obsessed did he become with the thought that he had a
+terrible dream one night, and in that dream baby Isobel's face
+appeared to him, a deathlike mask, white and cold and thinned by
+starvation. The vision decided him. He would go to Fort Churchill, and
+if McTabb had not been driven in he would go to his cabin, over on the
+Little Beaver, and learn what had become of Isobel and the little
+girl. A few days later, on the twenty-seventh day of January, there
+came a sudden rise in the temperature, and Billy prepared at once to
+take advantage of the change. A half-breed, on his way to Churchill,
+accompanied him, and they set out together the following morning. On
+the twentieth of February they arrived at Fort Churchill.
+
+Billy went immediately to detachment headquarters. There had been
+several changes in two years, and there was only one of the old force
+to shake hands with him. His first inquiry was about McTabb and Isobel
+Deane. Neither was at Churchill, nor had been there since the arrival
+of the new officer in charge. But there was mail for Billy-- three
+letters. There had been half a dozen others, but they were now
+following up his old trails somewhere out in the wilderness. These
+three had been returned recently from Fond du Lac. One was from
+Pelliter, the fourth he had written, he said, without an answer. The
+"kid" had come-- a girl-- and he wondered if Billy was dead. The
+second letter was from his Cobalt partner.
+
+The third he turned over several times before he opened it. It did not
+look much like a letter. It was torn and ragged at the edges, and was
+so soiled and water-stained that the address on it was only partly
+legible. It had been to Fond du Lac, and from there it had followed
+him to Fort Chippewyan. He opened it and found that the writing inside
+was scarcely more legible than the inscription on the envelope. The
+last words were quite plain, and he gave a low cry when he found that
+it was from Rookie McTabb.
+
+He went close to a window and tried to make out what McTabb had
+written. Here and there, where water had not obliterated the writing,
+he could make out a line or a few words. Nearly all was gone but the
+last paragraph, and when Billy came to this and read the first words
+of it his heart seemed all at once to die within him, and he could not
+see. Word by word he made out the rest after that, and when he was
+done he turned his stony face to the white whirl of the storm outside
+the window, his lips as dry as though he had passed through a fever.
+
+A part of that last paragraph was unintelligible, but enough was left
+to tell him what had happened in the cabin down on the Little Beaver.
+
+McTabb had written:
+
+  "We thought she was getting well... took sick again.... did
+  everything... could. But it didn't do any good,... died just five
+  weeks to a day after you left. We buried her just behind the cabin.
+  God... that kid... You don't know how I got to love her, Billy....
+  give her up..."
+
+McTabb had written a dozen lines after that, but all of them were a
+water-stained and unintelligible blur.
+
+Billy crushed the letter in his hand. The new inspector wondered what
+terrible news he had received as he walked out into the blinding chaos
+of the storm.
+
+ XXI
+
+ THE FIGHTING SPARK
+
+For ten minutes Billy buried himself blindly in the storm. He scarcely
+knew which direction he took, but at last he found himself in the
+shelter of the forest, and he was whispering Isobel's name over and
+over again to himself.
+
+"Dead-- dead--" he moaned. "She is dead-- dead--"
+
+And then there rushed upon him, crushing back his deeper grief, a
+thought of the baby Isobel. She was still with McTabb down on the
+Little Beaver. In the blur of the storm he read again what he could
+make out of Rookie's letter. Something in that last paragraph struck
+him with a deadly fear. "God... that kid... You, don't know how I got
+to love her, Billy,... give her up..."
+
+What did it mean? What had McTabb told him in that part of the letter
+that was gone?
+
+The reaction came as he put the letter back into his pocket. He walked
+swiftly back to the inspector's office.
+
+"I'm going down to the Little Beaver. I'm going to start to-day," he
+said. "Who is there in Churchill that I can get to go with me?"
+
+Two hours later Billy was ready to start, with an Indian as a
+companion. Dogs could not be had for love or money, and they set out
+on snowshoes with two weeks' supply of provisions, striking south and
+west. The remainder of that day and the next they traveled with but
+little rest. Each hour that passed added to Billy's mad impatience to
+reach McTabb's cabin.
+
+With the morning of the third day began the second of those two
+terrible storms which swept over the northland in that winter of
+famine and death. In spite of the Indian's advice to build a permanent
+camp until the temperature rose again Billy insisted on pushing ahead.
+The fifth night, in the wild Barren country west of the Etawney, his
+Indian failed to keep up the fire, and when Billy investigated he
+found him half dead with a strange sickness. He made the Indian's
+balsam shelter snow and wind proof, cut wood, and waited. The
+temperature continued to fall, and the cold became intense. Each day
+the provisions grew less, and at last the time came when Billy knew
+that he was standing face to face with the Great Peril. He went
+farther and farther from camp in his search for game. Even the brush
+sparrows and snow-hawks were gone. Once the thought came to him that
+be might take what food was left and accept the little chance that
+remained of saving himself. But the idea never got farther than a
+first thought. On the twelfth day the Indian died. It was a terrible
+day. There was food for another twenty-four hours.
+
+Billy packed it, together with his blankets and a few pieces of
+tinware. He wondered if the Indian had died of a contagious disease.
+Anyway, he made up his mind to put out the warning for others if they
+came that way, and over the dead Indian's balsam shelter he planted a
+sapling, and at the end of the sapling he fastened a strip of red
+cotton cloth-- the plague signal of the north.
+
+Than he struck out through the deep snows and the twisting storm,
+knowing that there was no more than one chance in a thousand ahead of
+him, and that the one chance was to keep the wind at his back.
+
+At the end of his first day's struggle Billy built himself a camp in a
+bit of scrub timber which was not much more than bush. He had observed
+that the timber and that every tree and bush he had passed since noon
+was stripped and dead on the side that faced the north. He cooked and
+ate his last food the following day, and went on. The small timber
+turned to scrub, and the scrub, in time, to vast snow wastes over
+which the storm swept mercilessly. All this day he looked for game,
+for a flutter of bird life; he chewed bark, and in the afternoon got a
+mouthful of foxbite, which made his throat swell until he could
+scarcely breathe. At night he made tea, but had nothing to eat. His
+hunger was acute and painful. It was torture the next day-- the
+third-- for the process of starvation is a rapid one in this country
+where only the fittest survive on from four to five meals a day. He
+camped, built a small bush-fire at night, and slept. He almost failed
+to rouse himself on the morning that followed, and when he staggered
+to his feet and felt the cutting sting of the storm still in his face
+and heard the swishing wail of it over the Barren he knew that at last
+the hour had come when he was standing face to face with the Almighty.
+
+For some strange reason he was not frightened at the situation. He
+found that even over the level spaces he could scarce drag his
+snow-shoes, but this had ceased to alarm him as he had been alarmed at
+first. He went on, hour after hour, weaker and weaker. Within himself
+there was still life which reasoned that if death were to come it
+could not come in a better way. It at least promised to be painless--
+even pleasant. The sharp, stinging pains of hunger, like little
+electrical knives piercing him, were gone; he no longer experienced a
+sensation of intense cold; he almost felt that he could lie down in
+the drifted snow and sleep peacefully. He knew what it would be-- a
+sleep without end, with the arctic foxes to pick his bones afterward--
+and so he resisted the temptation and forced himself onward. The storm
+still swept straight west from Hudson's Bay, bringing with it endless
+volleys of snow, round and hard as fine shot, snow that had at first
+seemed to pierce his flesh and which swished past his feet as if
+trying to trip him and tossed itself in windrows and mountains in his
+path. If he could only find timber, shelter! That was what he worked
+for now. When he had last looked at his watch it was nine o'clock in
+the morning; now it was late in the afternoon. It might as well have
+been night. The storm had long since half blinded him. He could not
+see a dozen paces ahead. But the little life in him still reasoned
+bravely. It was a heroic spark of life, a fighting spark, and hard to
+put out. It told him that when he came to shelter he would at least
+feel it, and that he must fight until the last. The pack on his back
+held no significance and no weight for him. He might have traveled a
+mile or ten miles an hour and he would not have sensed the difference.
+Most men would have buried themselves in the snow and died in comfort,
+dreaming the pleasant dreams that come as a sort of recompense to the
+unfortunate who dies of starvation and cold. But the fighting spark
+commanded Billy to die upon his feet if he died at all. It was this
+spark which brought him at last to a bit of timber thick enough to
+give him shelter from wind and snow. It burned a little more warmly
+then. It flared up and gave him new vision. And then, for the first
+time, he realized that it must be night. For a light was burning ahead
+of him, and all else was gloom. His first thought was that it was a
+campfire miles and miles away. Then it drew nearer, until he knew that
+it was a light in a cabin window. He dragged himself toward it, and
+when he came to the door he tried to shout. But no sound fell from his
+swollen lips. It seemed an hour before he could twist his feet out of
+his snow-shoes. Then he groped for a latch, pressed against the door,
+and plunged in.
+
+What he saw was like a picture suddenly revealed for an instant by a
+flashlight. In the cabin there were four men. Two sat at a table
+directly in front of him. One held a dice box poised in the air, and
+had turned a rough, bearded face toward him. The other was a younger
+man, and in this moment it struck Billy as strange that he should be
+clutching a can of beans between his hands. A third man stared from
+where he had been looking down upon the dice-play of the other two. As
+Billy came in he was in the act of lowering a half-filled bottle from
+his lips. The fourth man sat on the edge of a bunk, with a face so
+white and thin that he might have been taken for a corpse if it had
+not been for the dark glare in his sunken eyes. Billy smelled the odor
+of whisky; he smelled food. He saw no sign of welcome in the faces
+turned toward him, but he advanced upon them, mumbling incoherently.
+And then the spark, the fighting spark in him, gave out, and he
+crumpled down on the floor. He heard a voice which came to him from a
+great distance, and which said, "Who the hell is this?" and then,
+after what seemed to be a long time, he heard that same voice say,
+"Pitch him back into the snow."
+
+After that he lost consciousness. But in that last moment between
+light and darkness he experienced a strange thrill that made him want
+to spring to his feet, for it seemed to him that he had recognized the
+voice that had said "Pitch him back into the snow."
+
+ XXII
+
+ INTO THE SOUTH
+
+A long time before he awoke Billy knew that he was not in the snow,
+and that hot stuff was running down his throat. When he opened his
+eyes there was no longer a light burning in the cabin. It was day. He
+felt strangely comfortable, but there was something in the cabin that
+stirred him from his rest. It was the odor of frying bacon. All of his
+hunger had come back. The joy of life, of anticipation, shone in his
+thin face as he pulled himself up. Another face-- the bearded face--
+red-eyed, almost animal-like in its fierce questioning, bent over him.
+
+"Where's your grub, pardner?"
+
+The question was like a stab. Billy did not hear his own voice as he
+explained.
+
+"Got none!" The bearded man's voice was like a bellow as he turned
+upon the others, "He's got no grub!"
+
+In that moment Billy choked back the cry on his lips. He knew the
+voice now-- and the man. It was Bucky Smith! He half rose to his feet
+and then dropped back. Bucky had not recognized him. His own beard,
+shaggy hair, and pinched face had saved him from recognition. Fate had
+played his way.
+
+"We'll divvy up, Bucky," came a weak voice. It was from the thin,
+white-faced man who had sat corpselike on the edge of his bunk the
+night before.
+
+"Divvy hell!" growled the other. "It's up to you-- you 'n' Sweedy.
+You're to blame!"
+
+You're to blame!
+
+The words struck upon Billy's ears with a chill of horror. Starvation
+was in the cabin. He had fallen among animals instead of men. He saw
+the thin-faced man who had spoken for him sitting again on the edge of
+his bunk. Mutely he looked to the others to see who was Sweedy. He was
+the young man who had clutched the can of beans. It was he who was
+frying bacon over the sheet-iron stove.
+
+"We'll divvy, Henry and I," he said. "I told you that last night." He
+looked over at Billy. "Glad you're better," he greeted. "You see,
+you've struck us at a bad time. We're on our last legs for grub. Our
+two Indians went out to hunt a week ago and never came back. They're
+dead, or gone, and we're as good as dead if the storm doesn't let up
+pretty soon. You can have some of our grub-- Henry's and mine."
+
+It was a cold invitation, lacking warmth or sympathy, and Billy felt
+that even this man wished that he had died before he reached the
+cabin. But the man was human; he had at least not cast his voice with
+the one that had wanted to throw him back into the snow, and he tried
+to voice his gratitude and at the same time to hide his hunger. He saw
+that there were three thin slices of bacon in the frying-pan, and it
+struck him that it would be bad taste to reveal a starvation appetite
+in the face of such famine. Bucky was looking straight at him as he
+limped to his feet, and he was sure now that the man he had driven
+from the Service had not recognized him. He approached Sweedy.
+
+"You saved my life," he said, holding out a hand. "Will you shake?"
+
+Sweedy shook hands limply.
+
+"It's hell," he said, in a low voice. "We'd have had beans this
+morning if I hadn't shook dice with him last night." He nodded toward
+Bucky, who was cutting open the top of a can. "He won!"
+
+"My God--" began Billy.
+
+He didn't finish. Sweedy turned the meat, and added:
+
+"He won a square meal off me yesterday-- a quarter of a pound of
+bacon. Day before that he won Henry's last can of beans. He's got his
+share under his blanket over there, and swears he'll shoot any one who
+goes to monkeyin' with his bed-- so you'd better fight shy of it.
+Thompson-- he isn't up yet-- chose the whisky for his share, so you'd
+better fight shy of him, too. Henry and I'll divvy up with you."
+
+"Thanks," said Billy, the one word choking him.
+
+Henry came from his bunk, bent and wabbling. He looked like a dying
+man, and for the first time Billy noticed that his hair was gray. He
+was a little man, and his thin hands shook as he held them out over
+the stove and nodded to Billy. Bucky had opened his can, and
+approached the stove with a pan of water, coming in beside Billy
+without noticing him. He brought with him a foul odor of stale tobacco
+smoke and whisky. After he had put his water over the fire he turned
+to one of the bunks and with half a dozen coarse epithets roused
+Thompson, who sat up stupidly, still half drunk. Henry had gone to a
+small table, and Sweedy followed him with the bacon. Billy did not
+move. He forgot his hunger. His pulse was beating quickly. Sensations
+filled him which he had never known or imagined before. Was it
+possible that these were people of his own kind? Had a madness of some
+sort driven all human instincts from them? He saw Thompson's red eyes
+fastened upon him, and he turned his face to escape their questioning,
+stupid leer. Bucky was turning out the can of beans he had won. Beyond
+him the door creaked, and Billy heard the wail of the storm. It came
+to him now as a friendly sort of sound.
+
+"Better draw up, pardner," he heard Sweedy say. "Here's your share."
+
+One of the thin slices of bacon and a hard biscuit were waiting for
+him on a tin plate. He ate as ravenously as Henry and Sweedy, and
+drank a cup of hot tea. In two minutes the meal was over. It was
+terribly inadequate. The few mouthfuls of food stirred up all his
+craving, and he found it impossible to keep his eyes from Bucky Smith
+and his beans. Bucky was the only one who seemed well fed, and his
+horror increased when Henry bent over him and said, in a low whisper:
+"He didn't get my beans fair. I had three aces and a pair, of deuces,
+an' he took it on three fives and two sixes. When I objected he called
+me a liar an' hit me. Them's my beans, or Sweedy's!" There was
+something almost like murder in the little man's red eyes.
+
+Billy remained silent. He did not care to talk or question. No one
+asked him who he was or whence he came, and he felt no inclination to
+know more of the men he had fallen among. Bucky finished, wiped his
+mouth with his hand, and looked across at Billy.
+
+"How about going out with me to get some wood?" he demanded.
+
+"I'm ready," replied Billy.
+
+For the first time he took notice of himself. He was lame and
+sickeningly weak, but apparently sound in other ways. The intense cold
+had not frozen his ears or feet. He put on his heavy moccasins, his
+thick coat and fur cap, and followed Bucky to the door. He was filled
+with a strange uneasiness. He was sure that his old enemy had not
+recognized him, and yet he felt that recognition might come at any
+moment. If Bucky recognized him-- when they were out alone--
+
+He was not afraid, but he shivered. He was too weak to put up a fight.
+He did not catch the ugly leer which Bucky turned upon Thompson. But
+Henry did, and his little eyes grew smaller and blacker. On snow-shoes
+the two men went out into the storm, Bucky carrying an ax. He led the
+way through the bit of thin timber, and across a wide open over which
+the storm swept so fiercely that their trail was covered behind them
+as they traveled. Billy figured that they had gone a quarter of a mile
+when they came to the edge of a ravine so steep that it was almost a
+precipice. For the first time Bucky touched him. He seized him by the
+arm, and in his voice there was an inhuman, taunting triumph.
+
+"Didn't think I knew you, did you, Billy?" he asked. "Well, I did, and
+I've just been waiting to get you out alone. Remember my promise,
+Billy? I've changed my mind since then. I ain't going to kill you.
+It's too risky. It's safer to let you die-- by yourself-- as you're
+goin' to die to-day or to-night. If you come back to the cabin-- I'll
+shoot you!"
+
+With a movement so quick that Billy had no chance to prepare himself
+for it Bucky sent him plunging headlong down the side of the ravine.
+The deep snow saved him in the long fall. For a few moments Billy lay
+stunned. Then he staggered to his feet and looked up. Bucky was gone.
+His first thought was to return to the cabin. He could easily find it
+and confront Bucky there before the others. And yet he did not move.
+His inclination to go back grew less and less, and after a brief
+hesitation he made up his mind to continue the struggle for life by
+himself. After all, his situation would not be much more desperate
+than that of the men he was leaving behind in the cabin. He buttoned
+himself up closely, saw that his snow-shoes were securely fastened,
+and climbed the opposite side of the ridge.
+
+The timber thinned out again, and Billy struck out boldly into the low
+bush. As he went he wondered what would happen in the cabin. He
+believed that Henry, of the four, would not pull through alive, and
+that Bucky would come out best. It was not until the following summer
+that he learned the facts of Henry's madness, and of the terrible
+manner in which he avenged himself on Bucky Smith by sticking a knife
+under the latter's ribs.
+
+Billy now found himself in a position to measure the amount of energy
+contained in a slice of bacon and a cold biscuit. It was not much.
+Long before noon his old weakness was upon him again. He found even
+greater difficulty in dragging his feet over the snow, and it seemed
+now as though all ambition had left him, and that even the fighting
+spark was becoming disheartened. He made up his mind to go on until
+the beginning of night, then he would stop, build a fire, and go to
+sleep in its warmth.
+
+During the afternoon he passed out of the scrub into a rougher
+country. His progress was slower, but more comfortable, for at times
+he found himself protected from the wind. A gloom darker and more
+somber than that of the storm was falling about him when he came to
+what appeared to be the end of the Barren country. The earth dropped
+away from under his feet, and far below him, in a ravine shut out from
+wind and storm, he saw the black tops of thick spruce. He began to
+scramble downward. His eyes were no longer fit to judge distance or
+chance, and he slipped. He slipped a dozen times in the first five
+minutes, and then there came the time when he did not make a recovery,
+but plunged down the side of the mountain like a rock. He stopped with
+a terrific jar, and for the first time during the fall he wanted to
+cry out with pain. But the voice that he heard did not come from his
+own lips. It was another voice-- and then two, three, many of them, it
+seemed to him. His dazed eyes caught glimpses of dark objects
+floundering in the deep snow about him, and just beyond these objects
+were four or five tall mounds of snow, like tents, arranged in a
+circle. He knew what they meant. He had fallen into an Indian camp. In
+his joy he tried to call out words of greeting, but he had no tongue.
+Then the floundering figures caught him up, and he was carried to the
+circle of snow mounds. The last that he knew was that warmth was
+entering his lungs.
+
+It was a face that he first saw after that, a face that seemed to come
+to him slowly from out of night, approaching nearer and nearer until
+he knew that it was a girl's face, with great, dark, strangely shining
+eyes. In these first moments of his returning consciousness the
+whimsical thought came to him that he was dying and the face was a
+part of a pleasant dream. If that were not so, he had fallen at last
+among friends. His eyes opened wider, he moved, and the face drew
+back. Movement stimulated returning life, and reason rehabilitated
+itself in great bounds. In a dozen flashes he went over all that had
+happened up to the point where he had fallen down the mountain and
+into the Cree camp. Straight above him he saw the funnel-like peak of
+a large birch wigwam, and beyond his feet he saw an opening in the
+birch-bark wall through which there drifted a blue film of smoke. He
+was in a wigwam. It was warm and exceedingly comfortable. Wondering if
+he was hurt, he moved. The movement drew a sharp exclamation of pain
+from him. It was the first real sound he had made, and in an instant
+the face was over him again. He saw it plainly this time, with its
+dark eyes and oval cheeks framed between two great braids of black
+hair. A hand touched his brow, cool and gentle, and a low voice
+soothed him in half a dozen musical words. The girl was a Cree.
+
+At the sound of her voice an indian woman came up beside the girl,
+looked down at him for a moment, and then went to the door of the
+wigwam, speaking in a low voice to some one who was outside. When she
+returned a man followed in after her. He was old and bent, and his
+face was thin. His cheek-bones shone, so tightly was the skin drawn
+over them. Behind him came a younger man, as straight as a tree, with
+strong shoulders and a head set like a piece of bronze sculpture. This
+man carried in his hand a frozen fish, which he gave to the woman. As
+he gave it to her he spoke words in Cree which Billy understood.
+
+"It is the last fish."
+
+For a moment a terrible hand gripped at Billy's heart and almost
+stopped its beating. He saw the woman take the fish and cut it into
+two equal parts with a knife, and one of these parts she dropped into
+a pot of boiling water which hung over the stone fireplace built under
+the vent in the wall. They were dividing with him their last fish! He
+made an effort and sat up. The younger man came to him and put a
+bearskin at his back. He had picked up some of the patois of
+half-blood French and English.
+
+"You seek," he said, "you hurt-- and hungry! You have eat soon."
+
+He motioned with his hand to the boiling pot. There was not a flicker
+of animation in his splendid face. There was something god-like in his
+immobility, something that was awesome in the way he moved and
+breathed. He sat in silence as the half of the last fish was brought
+by the girl; and not until Billy stopped eating, choked by the
+knowledge that he was taking life from these people, did he speak, and
+then it was to urge him to finish the fish. When he had done, Billy
+spoke to the Indian in Cree. Instantly the Indian reached over his
+hand, his face lighting up, and Billy gripped it hard. Mukoki told him
+what had happened. There had been a camp of twenty-two, and there were
+now fifteen. Seven had died-- four men, two women, and one child. Each
+day during the great storm the men had gone out on their futile search
+for game, and every few days one of them had failed to return. Thus
+four had died. The dogs were eaten. Corn and fish were gone; there
+remained but a little flour, and this was for the women and the
+children. The men had eaten nothing but bark and roots for five days.
+And there seemed to be no hope. It was death to stray far from camp.
+That morning two men had set out for the nearest post, but Mukoki said
+calmly that they would never return.
+
+That night and the next day and the terrible night and day that
+followed were filled with hours that Billy would never forget. He had
+sprained one hip badly in his fall, and could not rise from the cot
+Mukoki was often at his side, his face thinner, his eyes more
+lusterless. The second day, late in the afternoon, there came a low
+wailing grief from one of the tepees, a moaning sound that pitched
+itself to the key of the storm until it seemed to be a part of it. A
+child had died, and the mother was mourning. That night another of the
+camp huntsmen failed to return at dusk. But the next day there came at
+the same time the end of both storm and famine. With dawn the sun
+shone. And early in the day one of the hunters ran in from the forest
+nearly crazed with joy. He had ventured farther away than the others,
+and had found a moose-yard. He had killed two of the animals and
+brought with him meat for the first feast.
+
+This last great storm of the winter of 1910 passed well into the
+"break-up" season, and, once the temperature began to rise, the change
+was swift. Within a week the snow was growing soft underfoot. Two days
+later Billy hobbled from his cot for the first time. And then, in the
+passing of a single day and night, the glory of the northern spring
+burst upon the wilderness. The sun rose warm and golden. From the
+sides of the mountains and in the valleys water poured forth in
+rippling, singing floods. The red bakneesh glowed on bared rocks.
+Moose-birds and jays and wood-thrushes flitted about the camp, and the
+air was filled with the fragrant smells of new life bursting from
+earth and tree and shrub.
+
+With return of health and strength Billy's impatience to reach
+McTabb's cabin grew hourly. He would have set out before his hip was
+in condition to travel had not Mukoki kept him back. At last the day
+came when he bade his forest friends good-by and started into the
+south.
+
+ XXIII
+
+ AT THE END OF THE TRAIL
+
+The long days and nights of inactivity which Billy had passed in the
+Indian camp had given him the opportunity to think more calmly of the
+tragedy which had come into his life, and with returning strength he
+had drawn himself partly out from the pit of hopelessness and despair
+into which he had fallen. Deane was dead. Isobel was dead. But the
+baby Isobel still lived; and in the hope of finding and claiming her
+for his own he built other dreams for himself out of the ashes of all
+that had gone for him. He believed that he would find McTabb at the
+cabin and he would find the child there. So confident had he been that
+Isobel would live that he had not told McTabb of the uncle who had
+driven her from the old home in Montreal. He was glad that he had kept
+this to himself, for there would not be much of a chance of Rookie
+having found the child's relative. And he made up his mind that he
+would not give the little Isobel up. He would keep her for himself. He
+would return to civilization, for he would have her to live for. He
+would build a home for her, with a garden and dogs and birds and
+flowers. With his silver-claim money he had fifteen thousand dollars
+laid away, and she would never know what it meant to be poor. He would
+educate her and buy her a piano and she would have no end of pretty
+dresses and things to make her a lady. They would be together and
+inseparable always, and when she grew up he prayed deep down in his
+soul that she would be like the older Isobel, her mother.
+
+His grief was deep. He knew that he could never forget, and that the
+old memories of the wilderness and of the woman he had loved would
+force themselves upon him, year after year, with their old pain. But
+these new thoughts and plans for the child made his grief less
+poignant.
+
+It was late in the afternoon of a day that had been filled with
+sunlight and the warmth of spring that he came to the Little Beaver, a
+short distance above McTabb's cabin. He almost ran from there to the
+clearing, and the sun was just sinking behind the forest in the west
+when he paused on the edge of the break in the forest and saw the
+cabin. It was from here that he had last seen little Isobel. The bush
+behind which he had concealed himself was less than a dozen paces
+away. He noticed this, and then he observed things which made his
+heart sink in a strange, cold way. A path had led into the forest at
+the point where he stood. Now it was almost obliterated by a tangle of
+last year's weeds and plants. Rookie must have made a new path, he
+thought. And then, fearfully, he looked about the clearing and at the
+cabin. Everywhere there was the air of desolation. There was no smoke
+rising from the chimney. The door was closed. There were no evidences
+of life outside. Not the sound of a dog, of a laugh, or of a voice
+broke the dead stillness.
+
+Scarcely breathing, Billy advanced, his heart choked more and more by
+the fear that gripped him. The door to the cabin was not barred. He
+opened it. There was nothing inside. The old stove was broken. The
+bare cots had not been used for months-- perhaps for two years. As he
+took another step an ermine scampered away ahead of him. He heard the
+mouselike squeal of its young a moment later under the sapling floor.
+He went back to the door and stood in the open.
+
+"My God!" he moaned.
+
+He looked in the direction of Couchée's cabin, where Isobel had died.
+Was there a chance there, he wondered? There was little hope, but he
+started quickly over the old trail. The gloom of evening fell swiftly
+about him. It was almost dark when he reached the other clearing. And
+again his voice broke in a groaning cry. There was no cabin here.
+McTabb had burned it after the passing of the plague. Where it had
+stood was now a black and charred mass, already partly covered by the
+verdure of the wilderness. Billy gripped his hands hard and walked
+back from it searchingly. A few steps away he found what McTabb had
+told him that he would find, a mound and a sapling cross. And then, in
+spite of all the fighting strength that was in him, he flung himself
+down upon Isobel's grave, and a great, broken cry of grief burst from
+his lips.
+
+When he raised his head a long time afterward the stars were
+shimmering in the sky. It was a wonderfully still night, and all that
+he could hear was the ripple and song of the spring floods in the
+Little Beaver. He rose silently to his feet and stood for a few
+moments as motionless as a statue over the grave. Then he turned and
+went back over the old trail, and from the edge of the clearing he
+looked back and whispered to himself and to her:
+
+"I'll come back for you, Isobel. I'll come back."
+
+At McTabb's cabin he had left his pack. He put the straps over his
+shoulder and started south again. There was but one move for him to
+make now. McTabb was known at Le Pas. He got his supplies and sold his
+furs there. Some one at Le Pas would know where he had gone with
+little Isobel.
+
+Not until he was several miles distant from the scene of death and his
+own broken hopes did he spread out his blanket and lie down for the
+night. He was up and had breakfast at dawn. On the fourth day he came
+to the little wilderness outpost-- the end of rail-- on the
+Saskatchewan. Within an hour he discovered that Rookie McTabb had not
+been to Le Pas for nearly two years. No one had seen him with a child.
+That same night a construction train was leaving for Etomami, down on
+the main line, and Billy lost no time in making up his mind what he
+would do. He would go to Montreal. If little Isobel was not there she
+was still somewhere in the wilderness with McTabb. Then he would
+return, and he would find her if it took him a lifetime.
+
+Days and nights of travel followed, and during those days and nights
+Billy prayed that he would not find her in Montreal. If by some chance
+McTabb had discovered her relatives, if Isobel had revealed her secret
+to him before she died, his last hope in life was gone. He did not
+think of wasting time in the purchase of new clothes. That would have
+meant the missing of a train. He still wore his wilderness outfit,
+even to his fur cap. As he traveled farther eastward people began to
+regard him curiously. He got the porter to shave off his beard. But
+his hair was long. His moccasins and German socks were ragged and
+torn, and there were rents in his caribou-skin coat and his heavy
+Hudson's Bay sweater-shirt. The hardships he had gone through had left
+their lines in his face. There was something about him, outside of his
+strange attire, that made men look at him more than once. Women, more
+keenly observant than the men, saw the deep-seated grief in his eyes.
+As he approached Montreal he kept himself more and more aloof from the
+others.
+
+When at last the train came to a stop at the big station in the heart
+of the city he walked through the gates and strode up the hill toward
+Mount Royal. It was an hour or more past noon, and he had eaten
+nothing since morning. But he had no thought of hunger. Twenty minutes
+later he was at the foot of the street on which Isobel had told him
+that she had lived. One by one he passed the old houses of brick and
+stone, sheltered behind their solid walls. There had been no change in
+the years since he had been there. Half-way up the hill to the base of
+the mountain he saw an old gardener trimming ivy about an ancient
+cannon near a driveway. He stopped and asked:
+
+"Can you tell me where Geoffrey Renaud lives?"
+
+The old gardener looked at him curiously for a moment without
+speaking. Then he said:
+
+"Renaud? Geoffrey Renaud? That is his house up there behind the
+red-sandstone wall. Is it the house you want to see-- or Renaud?"
+
+"Both," said Billy.
+
+"Geoffrey Renaud has been dead for three years," informed the
+gardener. "Are you a-- relative?"
+
+"No, no," cried Billy, trying to keep his voice steady as he asked the
+next question. "There are others there. Who are they?"
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"There is a little girl there-- four-- five years old, with golden
+hair--"
+
+"She was playing in the garden when I came along a few moments ago,"
+replied the gardener. "I heard her-- with the dog--"
+
+Billy waited to hear no more. Thanking his informant, he walked
+swiftly up the hill to the red-sandstone wall. Before he came to the
+rusted iron gate he, too, heard a child's laughter, and it set his
+heart beating wildly. It was just over the wall. In his eagerness he
+thrust the toe of his moccasined foot into a break in the stone and
+drew himself up. He looked down into a great garden, and a dozen steps
+away, close to a thick clump of shrubbery, he saw a child playing with
+a little puppy. The sun gleamed in her golden hair. He heard her
+joyous laughter; and then, for an instant, her face was turned toward
+him.
+
+In that moment he forgot everything, and with a great, glad cry he
+drew himself up and sprang to the ground on the other side.
+
+"Isobel-- Isobel-- my little Isobel!"
+
+He was beside her, on his knees, with her in his hungry arms, and for
+a brief space the child was so frightened that she held her breath and
+stared at him without a sound.
+
+"Don't you know me-- don't you know me--" he almost sobbed. "Little
+Mystery-- Isobel--"
+
+He heard a sound, a strange, stifled cry, and he looked up. From
+behind the shrubbery there had come a woman, and she was staring at
+Billy MacVeigh with a face as white as chalk. He staggered to his
+feet, and he believed that at last he had gone mad. For it was the
+vision of Isobel Deane that he saw there, and her blue eyes were
+glowing at him as he had seen them for an instant that night a long
+time ago on the edge of the Barren. He could not speak. And then, as
+he staggered another step back toward the wall, he held out his ragged
+arms, without knowing what he was doing, and called her name as he had
+spoken it a hundred times at night beside his lonely campfires.
+Starvation, his injury, weeks of illness, and his almost superhuman
+struggle to reach McTabb's cabin, and after that civilization, had
+consumed his last strength. For days he had lived on the reserve
+forces of a nervous energy that slipped away from him now, leaving him
+dizzy and swaying. He fought to overcome the weakness that seemed to
+have taken the last ounce of strength from his exhausted body, but in
+spite of his strongest efforts the sunlit garden suddenly darkened
+before his eyes. In that moment the vision became real, and as he
+turned toward the wall Isobel Deane called him by name; and in another
+moment she was at his side, clutching him almost fiercely by the arms
+and calling him by name over and over again. The weakness and
+dizziness passed from him in a moment, but in that space he seemed
+only to realize that he must get back-- over the wall.
+
+"I wouldn't have come-- but-- I-- I-- thought you were-- dead," he
+said. "They told me-- you were dead. I'm glad-- glad-- but I wouldn't
+have come--"
+
+She felt the weight of him for an instant on her arm. She knew the
+things that were in his face-- starvation, pain, the signs of ravage
+left behind by fever. In these moments Billy did not see the wonderful
+look that had come into her own face or the wonderful glow in her
+eyes.
+
+"It was Indian Joe's mother who died," he heard her say. "And since
+then we have been waiting-- waiting-- waiting-- little Isobel and I. I
+went away north, to David's grave, and I saw what you had done, and
+what you had burned into the wood. Some day, I knew, you'd come back
+to me. We've been waiting-- for you--"
+
+Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but Billy heard it; and all
+at once his dizziness was gone, and he saw the sunlight shining in
+Isobel's bright hair and the look in her face and eyes.
+
+"I'm sorry-- sorry-- so sorry I said what I did-- about you-- killing
+him," she went on. "You remember-- I said that if I got well--"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"And you thought I meant that if I got well you should go away-- and
+you promised-- and kept your promise. But I couldn't finish. It didn't
+seem right-- then. I wanted to tell you-- out there-- that I was
+sorry-- and that if I got well you could come to me again-- some day
+somewhere-- and then--"
+
+"Isobel!"
+
+"And now-- you may tell me again what you told me out on the Barren--
+a long time ago."
+
+"Isobel-- Isobel--"
+
+"You understand"-- she spoke softly-- "you understand, it cannot
+happen now-- perhaps not for another year. But now"-- she drew a
+little nearer-- "you may kiss me," she said. "And then you must kiss
+little Isobel. And we don't want you to go very far away again. It's
+lonely-- terribly lonely all by ourselves in the city-- and we're glad
+you've come-- so glad--"
+
+Her voice broke to a sobbing whisper, and as Billy opened his great,
+ragged arms and caught her to him he heard that whisper again, saying,
+"We're glad-- glad-- glad you've come back to us."
+
+"And I-- may-- stay?"
+
+She raised her face, glorious in its welcome.
+
+"If you want me-- still."
+
+At last he believed. But he could not speak. He bent his face to hers,
+and for a moment they stood thus, while from behind the shrubbery came
+the sound of little Isobel's joyous laughter.
+
+ THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Isobel, by James Oliver Curwood
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Isobel, by James Oliver Curwood
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Isobel
+
+Author: James Oliver Curwood
+
+Posting Date: March 19, 2014
+Release Date: October, 2004
+[This file was first posted on January 19, 2003]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ISOBEL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Norm Wolcott
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg EBook of Isobel, by James Oliver Curwood
+<br>(#11 in our series by James Oliver Curwood)</h1>
+
+<H4>Isobel</H4>
+<H4>A Romance of the Northern Trail</H4>
+<H4>by James Oliver Curwood, 1913</H4>
+<HR>
+
+<P class=normal align=center>TO<BR>CARLOTTA<BR>WHO IS WITH ME AND
+TO<BR>VIOLA<BR>WHO FILLS FOR ME A DREAM OF THE FUTURE<BR>I AFFECTIONATELY
+DEDICATE THIS BOOK</P>
+<HR>
+
+<H4>I</H4>
+<H4>THE MOST TERRIBLE THING IN THE WORLD</H4>
+<P>At Point Fullerton, one thousand miles straight north of civilization,
+Sergeant William MacVeigh wrote with the stub end of a pencil between his
+fingers the last words of his semi-annual report to the Commissioner of the
+Royal Northwest Mounted Police at Regina.</P>
+<P>He concluded:</P>
+<BLOCKQUOTE><I>“I beg to say that I have made every effort to run down Scottie
+  Deane, the murderer. I have not given up hope of finding him, but I believe
+  that he has gone from my territory and is probably now somewhere within the
+  limits of the Fort Churchill patrol. We have hunted the country for three
+  hundred miles south along the shore of Hudson’s Bay to Eskimo Point, and as
+  far north as Wagner Inlet. Within three months we have made three patrols west
+  of the Bay, unraveling sixteen hundred miles without finding our man or word
+  of him. I respectfully advise a close watch of the patrols south of the Barren
+  Lands.�</I></BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>“There!� said MacVeigh aloud, straightening his rounded shoulders with a
+groan of relief. “It’s done.�</P>
+<P>From his bunk in a corner of the little wind and storm beaten cabin which
+represented Law at the top end of the earth Private Pelliter lifted a head
+wearily from his sick bed and said: “I’m bloomin’ glad of it, Mac. Now mebbe
+you’ll give me a drink of water and shoot that devilish huskie that keeps
+howling every now and then out there as though death was after me.�</P>
+<P>“Nervous?� said MacVeigh, stretching his strong young frame with another sigh
+of satisfaction. “What if you had to write <I>this</I> twice a year?� And he
+pointed at the report.</P>
+<P>“It isn’t any longer than the letters you wrote to that girl of yours—�</P>
+<P>Pelliter stopped short. There was a moment of embarrassing silence. Then he
+added, bluntly, and with a hand reaching out: “I beg your pardon, Mac. It’s this
+fever. I forgot for a moment that— that you two— had broken.�</P>
+<P>“That’s all right,� said MacVeigh, with a quiver in his voice, as he turned
+for the water.</P>
+<P>“You see,� he added, returning with a tin cup, “this report is different.
+When you’re writing to the Big Mogul himself something gets on your nerves. And
+it has been a bad year with us, Pelly. We fell down on Scottie, and let the
+raiders from that whaler get away from us. And— By Jo, I forgot to mention the
+wolves!�</P>
+<P>“Put in a P. S.,� suggested Pelliter.</P>
+<P>“A P. S. to his Royal Nibs!� cried MacVeigh, staring incredulously at his
+mate. “There’s no use of feeling your pulse any more, Pelly. The fever’s got
+you. You’re sure out of your head.�</P>
+<P>He spoke cheerfully, trying to bring a smile to the other’s pale face.
+Pelliter dropped back with a sigh.</P>
+<P>“No— there isn’t any use feeling my pulse,� he repeated. “It isn’t sickness,
+Bill— not sickness of the ordinary sort. It’s in my brain— that’s where it is.
+Think of it— nine months up here, and never a glimpse of a white man’s face
+except yours. Nine months without the sound of a woman’s voice. Nine months of
+just that dead, gray world out there, with the northern lights hissing at us
+every night like snakes and the black rocks staring at us as they’ve stared for
+a million centuries. There may be glory in it, but that’s all. We’re ’eroes all
+right, but there’s no one knows it but ourselves and the six hundred and
+forty-nine other men of the Royal Mounted. My God, what I’d give for the sight
+of a girl’s face, for just a moment’s touch of her hand! It would drive out this
+fever, for it’s the fever of loneliness, Mac— a sort of madness, and it’s
+splitting my ’ead.�</P>
+<P>“Tush, tush!� said MacVeigh, taking his mate’s hand. “Wake up, Pelly! Think
+of what’s coming. Only a few months more of it, and we’ll be changed. And then—
+think of what a heaven you’ll be entering. You’ll be able to enjoy it more than
+the other fellows, for they’ve never had this. And I’m going to bring you back a
+letter— from the little girl—�</P>
+<P>Pelliter’s face brightened.</P>
+<P>“God bless her!� he exclaimed. “There’ll be letters from her— a dozen of
+them. She’s waited a long time for me, and she’s true to the bottom of her dear
+heart. You’ve got my letter safe?�</P>
+<P>“Yes.�</P>
+<P>MacVeigh went back to the rough little table and added still further to his
+report to the Commissioner of the Royal Mounted in the following words:</P>
+<BLOCKQUOTE><I>“Pelliter is sick with a strange trouble in his head. At times
+  I have been afraid he was going mad, and if he lives I advise his transfer
+  south at an early date. I am leaving for Churchill two weeks ahead of the
+  usual time in order to get medicines. I also wish to add a word to what I said
+  about wolves in my last report. We have seen them repeatedly in packs of from
+  fifty to one thousand. Late this autumn a pack attacked a large herd of
+  traveling caribou fifteen miles in from the Bay, and we counted the remains of
+  one hundred and sixty animals killed over a distance of less than three miles.
+  It is my opinion that the wolves kill at least five thousand caribou in this
+  patrol each year.</I>
+  <P><I>“I have the honor to be, sir,</I></P>
+  <P align=right>“Your obedient servant, &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<BR>“
+  WILLIAM MACVEIGH, <I>Sergeant, &nbsp;</I><BR><I>“In charge of detachment.�
+  &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</I></P></BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>He folded the report, placed it with other treasures in the waterproof rubber
+bag which always went into his pack, and returned to Pelliter’s side.</P>
+<P>“I hate to leave you alone, Pelly,� he said. “But I’ll make a fast trip of
+it— four hundred and fifty miles over the ice, and I’ll do it in ten days or
+bust. Then ten days back, mebbe two weeks, and you’ll have the medicines and the
+letters. Hurrah!�</P>
+<P>“Hurrah!� cried Pelliter.</P>
+<P>He turned his face a little to the wall. Something rose up in MacVeigh’s
+throat and choked him as he gripped Pelliter’s hand.</P>
+<P>“My God, Bill, is that the sun?� suddenly cried Pelliter.</P>
+<P>MacVeigh wheeled toward the one window of the cabin. The sick man tumbled
+from his bunk. Together they stood for a moment at the window, staring far to
+the south and east, where a faint red rim of gold shot up through the leaden
+sky.</P>
+<P>“It’s the sun,� said MacVeigh, like one speaking a prayer.</P>
+<P>“The first in four months,� breathed Pelliter.</P>
+<P>Like starving men the two gazed through the window. The golden light lingered
+for a few moments, then died away. Pelliter went back to his bunk.</P>
+<P>Half an hour later four dogs, a sledge, and a man were moving swiftly through
+the dead and silent gloom of Arctic day. Sergeant MacVeigh was on his way to
+Fort Churchill, more than four hundred miles away.</P>
+<P>This is the loneliest journey in the world, the trip down from the solitary
+little wind-beaten cabin at Point Fullerton to Fort Churchill. That cabin has
+but one rival in the whole of the Northland— the other cabin at Herschel Island,
+at the mouth of the Firth, where twenty-one wooden crosses mark twenty-one white
+men’s graves. But whalers come to Herschel. Unless by accident, or to break the
+laws, they never come in the neighborhood of Fullerton. It is at Fullerton that
+men die of the most terrible thing in the world— loneliness. In the little cabin
+men have gone mad.</P>
+<P>The gloomy truth oppressed MacVeigh as he guided his dog team over the ice
+into the south. He was afraid for Pelliter. He prayed that Pelliter might see
+the sun now and then. On the second day he stopped at a cache of fish which they
+had put up in the early autumn for dog feed. He stopped at a second cache on the
+fifth day, and spent the sixth night at an Eskimo igloo at Blind Eskimo Point.
+Late on the ninth day he came into Fort Churchill, with an average of fifty
+miles a day to his credit.</P>
+<P>From Fullerton men came in nearer dead than alive when they made the hazard
+in winter. MacVeigh’s face was raw from the beat of the wind. His eyes were red.
+He had a touch of runner’s cramp. He slept for twenty-four hours in a warm bed
+without stirring. When he awoke he raged at the commanding officer of the
+barrack for letting him sleep so long, ate three meals in one, and did up his
+business in a hurry.</P>
+<P>His heart warmed with pleasure when he sorted out of his mail nine letters
+for Pelliter, all addressed in the same small, girlish hand. There was none for
+himself— none of the sort which Pelliter was receiving, and the sickening
+loneliness within him grew almost suffocating.</P>
+<P>He laughed softly as he broke a law. He opened one of Pelliter’s letters— the
+last one written— and calmly read it. It was filled with the sweet tenderness of
+a girl’s love, and tears came into his red eyes. Then he sat down and answered
+it. He told the girl about Pelliter, and confessed to her that he had opened her
+last letter. And the chief of what he said was that it would be a glorious
+surprise to a man who was going mad (only he used loneliness in place of
+madness) if she would come up to Churchill the following spring and marry him
+there. He told her that he had opened her letter because he loved Pelliter more
+than most men loved their brothers. Then he resealed the letter, gave his mail
+to the superintendent, packed his medicines and supplies, and made ready to
+return.</P>
+<P>On this same day there came into Churchill a halfbreed who had been hunting
+white foxes near Blind Eskimo, and who now and then did scout work for the
+department. He brought the information that he had seen a white man and a white
+woman ten miles south of the Maguse River. The news thrilled MacVeigh.</P>
+<P>“I’ll stop at the Eskimo camp,� he said to the superintendent. “It’s worth
+investigating, for I never knew of a white woman north of sixty in this country.
+It might be Scottie Deane.�</P>
+<P>“Not very likely,� replied the superintendent. “Scottie is a tall man,
+straight and powerful. Coujag says this man was no taller than himself, and
+walked like a hunchback. But if there are white people out there their history
+is worth knowing.�</P>
+<P>The following morning MacVeigh started north. He reached the half-dozen
+igloos which made up the Eskimo village late the third day. Bye-Bye, the chief
+man, offered him no encouragement, MacVeigh gave him a pound of bacon, and in
+return for the magnificent present Bye-Bye told him that he had seen no white
+people. MacVeigh gave him another pound, and Bye-Bye added that he had not heard
+of any white people. He listened with the lifeless stare of a walrus while
+MacVeigh impressed upon him that he was going inland the next morning to search
+for white people whom he had heard were there. That night, in a blinding
+snow-storm, Bye-Bye disappeared from camp.</P>
+<P>MacVeigh left his dogs to rest up at the igloo village and swung northwest on
+snow-shoes with the break of arctic dawn, which was but little better than the
+night itself. He planned to continue in this direction until he struck the
+Barren, then patrol in a wide circle that would bring him back to the Eskimo
+camp the next night. From the first he was handicapped by the storm. He lost
+Bye-Bye’s snow-shoe tracks a hundred yards from the igloos. All that day he
+searched in sheltered places for signs of a camp or trail. In the afternoon the
+wind died away, the sky cleared, and in the wake of the calm the cold became so
+intense that trees cracked with reports like pistol shots.</P>
+<P>He stopped to build a fire of scrub bush and eat his supper on the edge of
+the Barren just as the cold stars began blazing over his head. It was a white,
+still night. The southern timberline lay far behind him, and to the north there
+was no timber for three hundred miles. Between those lines there was no life,
+and so there was no sound. On the west the Barren thrust itself down in a long
+finger ten miles in width, and across that MacVeigh would have to strike to
+reach the wooded country beyond. It was over there that he had the greatest hope
+of discovering a trail. After he had finished his supper he loaded his pipe, and
+sat hunched close up to his fire, staring out over the Barren. For some reason
+he was filled with a strange and uncomfortable emotion, and he wished that he
+had brought along one of his tired dogs to keep him company.</P>
+<P>He was accustomed to loneliness; he had laughed in the face of things that
+had driven other men mad. But to-night there seemed to be something about him
+that he had never known before, something that wormed its way deep down into his
+soul and made his pulse beat faster. He thought of Pelliter on his fever bed, of
+Scottie Deane, and then of himself. After all, was there much to choose between
+the three of them?</P>
+<P>A picture rose slowly before him in the bush-fire, and in that picture he saw
+Scottie, the man-hunted man, fighting a great fight to keep himself from being
+hung by the neck until he was dead; and then he saw Pelliter, dying of the
+sickness which comes of loneliness, and beyond those two, like a pale cameo
+appearing for a moment out of gloom, he saw the picture of a face. It was a
+girl’s face, and it was gone in an instant. He had hoped against hope that she
+would write to him again. But she had failed him.</P>
+<P>He rose to his feet with a little laugh, partly of joy and partly of pain, as
+he thought of the true heart that was waiting for Pelliter. He tied on his
+snow-shoes and struck out over the Barren. He moved swiftly, looking sharply
+ahead of him. The night grew brighter, the stars more brilliant. The <I>zipp,
+zipp, zipp</I> of the tails of his snow-shoes was the only sound he heard except
+the first faint, hissing monotone of the aurora in the northern skies, which
+came to him like the shivering run of steel sledge runners on hard snow.</P>
+<P>In place of sound the night about him began to fill with ghostly life. His
+shadow beckoned and grimaced ahead of him, and the stunted bush seemed to move.
+His eyes were alert and questing. Within himself he reasoned that he would see
+nothing, and yet some unusual instinct moved him to caution. At regular
+intervals he stopped to listen and to sniff the air for an odor of smoke. More
+and more he became like a beast of prey. He left the last bush behind him. Ahead
+of him the starlit space was now unbroken by a single shadow. Weird whispers
+came with a low wind that was gathering in the north.</P>
+<P>Suddenly MacVeigh stopped and swung his rifle into the crook of his arm.
+Something that was not the wind had come up out of the night. He lifted his fur
+cap from his ears and listened. He heard it again, faintly, the frosty singing
+of sledge runners. The sledge was approaching from the open Barren, and he
+cleared for action. He took off his heavy fur mittens and snapped them to his
+belt, replaced them with his light service gloves, and examined his revolver to
+see that the cylinder was not frozen. Then he stood silent and waited.</P>
+<H4>II</H4>
+<H4>BILLY MEETS THE WOMAN</H4>
+<P>Out of the gloom a sledge approached slowly. It took form at last in a dim
+shadow, and MacVeigh saw that it would pass very near to him. He made out, one
+after another, a human figure, three dogs, and the toboggan. There was something
+appalling in the quiet of this specter of life looming up out of the night. He
+could no longer hear the sledge, though it was within fifty paces of him. The
+figure in advance walked slowly and with bowed head, and the dogs and the sledge
+followed in a ghostly line. Human leader and animals were oblivious to MacVeigh,
+silent and staring in the white night. They were opposite him before he
+moved.</P>
+<P>Then he strode out quickly, with a loud holloa. At the sound of his voice
+there followed a low cry, the dogs stopped in their traces, and the figure ran
+back to the sledge. MacVeigh drew his revolver. Half a dozen long strides and he
+had reached the sledge. From the opposite side a white face stared at him, and
+with one hand resting on the heavily laden sledge, and his revolver at level
+with his waist, MacVeigh stared back in speechless astonishment.</P>
+<P>For the great, dark, frightened eyes that looked across at him, and the
+white, staring face he recognized as the eyes and the face of a woman. For a
+moment he was unable to move or speak, and the woman raised her hands and pushed
+back her fur hood so that he saw her hair shimmering in the starlight. She was a
+white woman. Suddenly he saw something in her face that struck him with a chill,
+and he looked down at the thing under his hand. It was a long, rough box. He
+drew back a step.</P>
+<P>“Good God!� he said. “Are you alone?�</P>
+<P>She bowed her head, and he heard her voice in a half sob.</P>
+<P>“Yes— alone.�</P>
+<P>He passed quickly around to her side. “I am Sergeant MacVeigh, of the Royal
+Mounted,� he said, gently. “Tell me, where are you going, and how does it happen
+that you are out here in the Barren— alone.�</P>
+<P>Her hood had fallen upon her shoulder, and she lifted her face full to
+MacVeigh. The stars shone in her eyes. They were wonderful eyes, and now they
+were filled with pain. And it was a wonderful face to MacVeigh, who had not seen
+a white woman’s face for nearly a year. She was young, so young that in the pale
+glow of the night she looked almost like a girl, and in her eyes and mouth and
+the upturn of her chin there was something so like that other face of which he
+had dreamed that he reached out and took her two hesitating hands in his own,
+and asked again:</P>
+<P>“Where are you going, and why are you out here— alone?�</P>
+<P>“I am going— down there,� she said, turning her head toward the timber-line.
+“I am going with him— my husband—�</P>
+<P>Her voice choked her, and, drawing her hands suddenly from him, she went to
+the sledge and stood facing him. For a moment there was a glow of defiance in
+her eyes, as though she feared him and was ready to fight for herself and her
+dead. The dogs slunk in at her feet, and MacVeigh saw the gleam of their naked
+fangs in the starlight.</P>
+<P>“He died three days ago,� she finished, quietly, “and I am taking him back to
+my people, down on the Little Seul.�</P>
+<P>“It is two hundred miles,� said MacVeigh, looking at her as if she were mad.
+“You will die.�</P>
+<P>“I have traveled two days,� replied the woman. “I am going on.�</P>
+<P>“Two days— across the Barren!�</P>
+<P>MacVeigh looked at the box, grim and terrible in the ghostly radiance that
+fell upon it. Then he looked at the woman. She had bowed her head upon her
+breast, and her shining hair fell loose and disheveled. He saw the pathetic
+droop of her tired shoulders, and knew that she was crying. In that moment a
+thrilling warmth flooded every fiber of his body, and the glory of this that had
+come to him from out of the Barren held him mute. To him woman was all that was
+glorious and good. The pitiless loneliness of his life had placed them next to
+angels in his code of things, and before him now he saw all that he had ever
+dreamed of in the love and loyalty of womanhood and of wifehood.</P>
+<P>The bowed little figure before him was facing death for the man she had
+loved, and who was dead. In a way he knew that she was mad. And yet her madness
+was the madness of a devotion that was beyond fear, of a faithfulness that made
+no measure of storm and cold and starvation; and he was filled with a desire to
+go up to her as she stood crumpled and exhausted against the box, to take her
+close in his arms and tell her that of such a love he had built for himself the
+visions which had kept him alive in his loneliness. She looked pathetically like
+a child.</P>
+<P>“Come, little girl,� he said. “We’ll go on. I’ll see you safely on your way
+to the Little Seul. You mustn’t go alone. You’d never reach your people alive.
+My God, if I were he—�</P>
+<P>He stopped at the frightened look in the white face she lifted to him.</P>
+<P>“What?� she asked.</P>
+<P>“Nothing— only it’s hard for a man to die and lose a woman like you,� said
+MacVeigh. “There— let me lift you up on the box.�</P>
+<P>“The dogs cannot pull the load,� she objected. “I have helped them—�</P>
+<P>“If they can’t, I can,� he laughed, softly; and with a quick movement he
+picked her up and seated her on the sledge. He stripped off his pack and placed
+it behind her, and then he gave her his rifle. The woman looked straight at him
+with a tense, white face as she placed the weapon across her lap.</P>
+<P>“You can shoot me if I don’t do my duty,� said MacVeigh. He tried to hide the
+happiness that came to him in this companionship of woman, but it trembled in
+his voice. He stopped suddenly, listening.</P>
+<P>“What was that?�</P>
+<P>“I heard nothing,� said the woman. Her face was deadly white. Her eyes had
+grown black.</P>
+<P>MacVeigh turned, with a word to the dogs. He picked up the end of the
+<I>babiche</I> rope with which the woman had assisted them to drag their load,
+and set off across the Barren. The presence of the dead had always been
+oppressive to him, but to-night it was otherwise. His fatigue of the day was
+gone, and in spite of the thing he was helping to drag behind him he was filled
+with a strange elation. He was in the presence of a woman. Now and then he
+turned his head to look at her. He could feel her behind him, and the sound of
+her low voice when she spoke to the dogs was like music to him. He wanted to
+burst forth in the wild song with which he and Pelliter had kept up their
+courage in the little cabin, but he throttled his desire and whistled instead.
+He wondered how the woman and the dogs had dragged the sledge. It sank deep in
+the soft drift-snow, and taxed his strength. Now and then he paused to rest, and
+at last the woman jumped from the sledge and came to his side.</P>
+<P>“I am going to walk,� she said. “The load is too heavy.�</P>
+<P>“The snow is soft,� replied MacVeigh. “Come.�</P>
+<P>He held out his hand to her; and, with the same strange, white look in her
+face, the woman gave him her own. She glanced back uneasily toward the box, and
+MacVeigh understood. He pressed her fingers a little tighter and drew her nearer
+to him. Hand in hand, they resumed their way across the Barren. MacVeigh said
+nothing, but his blood was running like fire through his body. The little hand
+he held trembled and started uneasily. Once or twice it tried to draw itself
+away, and he held it closer. After that it remained submissively in his own,
+warm and thrilling. Looking down, he could see the profile of the woman’s
+face.</P>
+<P>A long, shining tress of her hair had freed itself from under her hood, and
+the light wind lifted it so that it fell across his arm. Like a thief he raised
+it to his lips, while the woman looked straight ahead to where the timber-line
+began to show in a thin, black streak. His cheeks burned, half with shame, half
+with tumultuous joy. Then he straightened his shoulders and shook the floating
+tress from his arm.</P>
+<P>Three-quarters of an hour later they came to the first of the timber. He
+still held her hand. He was still holding it, with the brilliant starlight
+falling upon them, when his chin shot suddenly into the air again, alert and
+fighting, and he cried, softly:</P>
+<P>“What was that?�</P>
+<P>“Nothing,� said the woman. “I heard nothing— unless it was the wind in the
+trees.�</P>
+<P>She drew away from him. The dogs whined and slunk close to the box. Across
+the Barren came a low, wailing wind.</P>
+<P>“The storm is coming back,� said MacVeigh. “It must have been the wind that I
+heard.�</P>
+<H4>III</H4>
+<H4>IN HONOR OF THE LIVING</H4>
+<P>For a few moments after uttering those words Billy stood silent listening for
+a sound that was not the low moaning of the wind far out on the Barren. He was
+sure that he had heard it— something very near, almost at his feet, and yet it
+was a sound which he could not place or understand. He looked at the woman. She
+was gazing steadily at him.</P>
+<P>“I hear it now,� she said. “It is the wind. It has frightened me. It makes
+such terrible sounds at times— out on the Barren. A little while ago— I thought—
+I heard— a child crying—�</P>
+<P>Billy saw her clutch a hand at her throat, and there were both terror and
+grief in the eyes that never for an instant left his face. He understood. She
+was almost ready to give way under the terrible strain of the Barren. He smiled
+at her, and spoke in a voice that he might have used to a little child.</P>
+<P>“You are tired, little girl?�</P>
+<P>“Yes— yes— I am tired—�</P>
+<P>“And hungry and cold?�</P>
+<P>“Yes.�</P>
+<P>“Then we will camp <I>in the timber.�</I></P>
+<P>They went on until they came to a growth of spruce so dense that it formed a
+shelter from both snow and wind, with a thick carpet of brown needles under
+foot. They were shut out from the stars, and in the darkness MacVeigh began to
+whistle cheerfully. He unstrapped his pack and spread out one of his blankets
+close to the box and wrapped the other about the woman’s shoulders.</P>
+<P>“You sit here while I make a fire,� he said.</P>
+<P>He piled up dry needles over a precious bit of his birchbark and struck a
+flame. In the glowing light he found other fuel, and added to the fire until the
+crackling blaze leaped as high as his head. The woman’s face was hidden, and she
+looked as though she had fallen asleep in the warmth of the fire. For half an
+hour Mac-Veigh dragged in fuel until he had a great pile of it in readiness.</P>
+<P>Then he forked out a deep bed of burning coals and soon the odor of coffee
+and frying bacon aroused his companion. She raised her head and threw back the
+blanket with which he had covered her shoulders. It was warm where she sat, and
+she took off her hood while he smiled at her companionably from over the fire.
+Her reddish-brown hair tumbled about her shoulders, rippling and glistening in
+the fire glow, and for a few moments she sat with it falling loosely about her,
+with her eyes upon MacVeigh. Then she gathered it between her fingers, and
+MacVeigh watched her while she divided it into shining strands and pleated it
+into a big braid.</P>
+<P>“Supper is ready,� he said. “Will you eat it there?�</P>
+<P>She nodded, and for the first time she smiled at him. He brought bacon and
+bread and coffee and other things from his pack and placed them on a folded
+blanket between them. He sat opposite her, cross-legged. For the first time he
+noticed that her eyes were blue and that there was a flush in her cheeks. The
+flush deepened as he looked at her, and she smiled at him again.</P>
+<P>The smile, the momentary drooping of her eyes, set his heart leaping, and for
+a little while he was unconscious of taste in the food he swallowed. He told her
+of his post away up at Point Fullerton, and of Pelliter, who was dying of
+loneliness.</P>
+<P>“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a woman like you,� he confided. “And
+it seems like heaven. You don’t know how lonely I am!� His voice trembled. “I
+wish that Pelliter could see you— just for a moment,� he added. “It would make
+him live again.�</P>
+<P>Something in the soft glow of her eyes urged other words to his lips.</P>
+<P>“Mebbe you don’t know what it means not to see a white woman in— in— all this
+time,� he went on. “You won’t think that I’ve gone mad, will you, or that I’m
+saying or doing anything that’s wrong? I’m trying to hold myself back, but I
+feel like shouting, I’m that glad. If Pelliter could see you—� He reached
+suddenly in his pocket and drew out the precious packet of letters. “He’s got a
+girl down south— just like you,� he said. “These are from her. If I get ’em up
+in time they’ll bring him round. It’s not medicine he wants. It’s <I>woman—</I>
+just a sight of her, and sound of her, and a touch of her hand.�</P>
+<P>She reached across and took the letters. In the firelight he saw that her
+hand was trembling.</P>
+<P>“Are they— married?� she asked, softly.</P>
+<P>“No, but they’re going to be,� he cried, triumphantly. “She’s the most
+beautiful thing in the world, next to—�</P>
+<P>He paused, and she finished for him.</P>
+<P>“Next to one other girl— who is yours.�</P>
+<P>“No, I wasn’t going to say that. You won’t think I mean wrong, will you, if I
+tell you? I was going to say next to— you. For you’ve come out of the blizzard—
+like an angel to give me new hope. I was sort of broke when you came. If you
+disappeared now and I never saw you again I’d go back and fight the rest of my
+time out, an’ dream of pleasant things. Gawd! Do you know a man has to be put up
+here before he knows that life isn’t the sun an’ the moon an’ the stars an’ the
+air we breathe. It’s woman— just woman.�</P>
+<P>He was returning the letters to his pocket. The woman’s voice was clear and
+gentle. To Billy it rose like sweetest music above the crackling of the fire and
+the murmuring of the wind in the spruce tops.</P>
+<P>“Men like you— ought to have a woman to care for,� she said. <I>“He</I> was
+like that.�</P>
+<P>“You mean—� His eyes sought the long, dark box.</P>
+<P>“Yes— he was like that.�</P>
+<P>“I know how you feel,� he said; and for a moment he did not look at her.
+“I’ve gone through— a lot of it. Father an’ mother and a sister. Mother was the
+last, and I wasn’t much more than a kid— eighteen, I guess— but it don’t seem
+much more than yesterday. When you come up here and you don’t see the sun for
+months nor a white face for a year or more it brings up all those things pretty
+much as though they happened only a little while ago.’�</P>
+<P>“All of them are— dead?� she asked.</P>
+<P>“All but one. She wrote to me for a long time, and I thought she’d keep her
+word. Pelly— that’s Pelliter— thinks we’ve just had a misunderstanding, and that
+she’ll write again. I haven’t told him that she turned me down to marry another
+fellow. I didn’t want to make him think any unpleasant things about his own
+girl. You’re apt to do that when you’re almost dying of loneliness.�</P>
+<P>The woman’s eyes were shining. She leaned a little toward him.</P>
+<P>“You should be glad,� she said. “If she turned you down she wouldn’t have
+been worthy of you— afterward. She wasn’t a true woman. If she had been, her
+love wouldn’t have grown cold because you were away. It mustn’t spoil your
+faith— because that is— beautiful.�</P>
+<P>He had put a hand into his pocket again, and drew out now a thin package
+wrapped in buckskin. His face was like a boy’s.</P>
+<P>“I might have— if I hadn’t met <I>you,�</I> he said. “I’d like to let you
+know— some way— what you’ve done for me. You and <I>this.�</I></P>
+<P>He had unfolded the buckskin, and gave it to her. In it were the big blue
+petals and dried stem of a blue flower.</P>
+<P>“A blue flower!� she said.</P>
+<P>“Yes. You know what it means. The Indians call it i-o-waka, or something like
+that, because they believe that it is the flower spirit of the purest and most
+beautiful thing in the world. I have called it <I>woman.�</I></P>
+<P>He laughed, and there was a joyous sort of note in the laugh.</P>
+<P>“You may think me a little mad,� he said, “but do you care if I tell you
+about that blue flower?�</P>
+<P>The woman nodded. There was a little quiver at her throat which Billy did not
+see.</P>
+<P>“I was away up on the Great Bear,� he said, “and for ten days and ten nights
+I was in camp— alone— laid up with a sprained ankle. It was a wild and gloomy
+place, shut in by barren ridge mountains, with stunted black spruce all about,
+and those spruce were haunted by owls that made my blood run cold nights. The
+second day I found company. It was a blue flower. It grew close to my tent, as
+high as my knee, and during the day I used to spread out my blanket close to it
+and lie there and smoke. And the blue flower would wave on its slender stem, an’
+bob at me, an’ talk in sign language that I imagined I understood. Sometimes it
+was so funny and vivacious that I laughed, and then it seemed to be inviting me
+to a dance. And at other times it was just beautiful and still, and seemed
+listening to what the forest was saying— and once or twice, I thought, it might
+be praying. Loneliness makes a fellow foolish, you know. With the going of the
+sun my blue flower would always fold its petals and go to sleep, like a little
+child tired out by the day’s play, and after that I would feel terribly lonely.
+But it was always awake again when I rolled out in the morning. At last the time
+came when I was well enough to leave. On the ninth night I watched my blue
+flower go to sleep for the last time. Then I packed. The sun was up when I went
+away the next morning, and from a little distance I turned and looked back. I
+suppose I was foolish, and weak for a man, but I felt like crying. Blue flower
+had taught me many things I had not known before. It had made me <I>think.</I>
+And when I looked back it was in a pool of sunlight, and it was <I>waving</I> at
+me! It seemed to me that it was calling— calling me back— and I ran to it and
+picked it from the stem, and it has been with me ever since that hour. It has
+been my Bible an’ my comrade, an’ I’ve known it was the spirit of the purest and
+the most beautiful thing in the world— <I>woman.</I> I—� His voice broke a
+little. “I— I may be foolish, but I’d like to have you take it, an’ keep it—
+always— for me.�</P>
+<P>He could see now the quiver of her lips as she looked across at him.</P>
+<P>“Yes, I will take it,� she said. “I will take it and keep it— always.�</P>
+<P>“I’ve been keeping it for a woman— somewhere,� he said. “Foolish idea, wasn’t
+it? And I’ve been telling you all this, when I want to hear what happened back
+there, and what you are going to do when you reach your people. Do you mind—
+telling me?�</P>
+<P>“He died— that’s all,� she replied, fighting to speak calmly. “I promised to
+take him back— to my people, And when I get there— I don’t know— what I shall—
+do—�</P>
+<P>She caught her breath. A low sob broke from her lips.</P>
+<P>“You don’t know— what you will do—�</P>
+<P>Billy’s voice sounded strange even to himself. He rose to his feet and looked
+down into her upturned face, his hands clenched, his body trembling with the
+fight he was making. Words came to his lips and were forced back again— words
+which almost won in their struggle to tell her again that she had come to him
+from out of the Barren like an angel, that within the short space since their
+meeting he had lived a lifetime, and that he loved her as no man had ever loved
+a woman before. Her blue eyes looked at him questioningly as he stood above
+her.</P>
+<P>And then he saw the thing which for a moment he had forgotten— the long,
+rough box at the woman’s back. His fingers dug deeper into his palms, and with a
+gasping breath he turned away. A hundred paces back in the spruce he had found a
+bare rock with a red bakneesh vine growing over it. With his knife he cut off an
+armful, and when he returned with it into the light of the fire the bakneesh
+glowed like a mass of crimson flowers. The woman had risen to her feet, and
+looked at him speechlessly as he scattered the vine over the box. He turned to
+her and said, softly:</P>
+<P>“In honor of the dead!�</P>
+<P>The color had faded from her face, but her eyes shone like stars. Billy
+advanced toward her with his hands reaching out. But suddenly he stopped and
+stood listening. After a moment he turned and asked again:</P>
+<P>“What was that?�</P>
+<P>“I heard the dogs— and the wind,� she replied.</P>
+<P>“It’s something cracking in my head, I guess,� said MacVeigh. “It sounded
+like—� He passed a hand over his forehead and looked at the dogs huddled in deep
+sleep beside the sledge. The woman did not see the shiver that passed through
+him. He laughed cheerfully, and seized his ax.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</P>
+<P>“Now for the camp,� he announced. “We’re going to get the storm within an
+hour.�</P>
+<P>On the box the woman carried a small tent, and he pitched it close to the
+fire, filling the interior two feet deep with cedar and balsam boughs. His own
+silk service tent he put back in the deeper shadows of the spruce. When he had
+finished he looked questioningly at the woman and then at the box.</P>
+<P>“If there is room— I would like it in there— with me,� she said, and while
+she stood with her face to the fire he dragged the box into the tent. Then he
+piled fresh fuel upon the fire and came to bid her good night. Her face was pale
+and haggard now, but she smiled at him, and to MacVeigh she was the most
+beautiful thing in the world. Within himself he felt that he had known her for
+years and years, and he took her hands and looked down into her blue eyes and
+said, almost in a whisper:</P>
+<P>“Will you forgive me if I’m doing wrong? You don’t know how lonesome I’ve
+been, and how lonesome I am, and what it means to me to look once more into a
+woman’s face. I don’t want to hurt you, and I’d— I’d�— his voice broke a
+little—�I’d give him back life if I could, just because I’ve seen you and know
+you and— and love you.�</P>
+<P>She started and drew a quick, sharp breath that came almost in a low cry.</P>
+<P>“Forgive me, little girl,� he went on. “I may be a little mad. I guess I am.
+But I’d die for you, and I’m going to see you safely down to your people— and—
+and— I wonder— I wonder— if you’d kiss me good night—�</P>
+<P>Her eyes never left his face. They were dazzlingly blue in the firelight.
+Slowly she drew her hands away from him, still looking straight into his eyes,
+and then she placed them against each of his arms and slowly lifted her face to
+him. Reverently he bent and kissed her.</P>
+<P>“God bless you!� he whispered.</P>
+<P>For hours after that he sat beside the fire. The wind came up stronger across
+the Barren; the storm broke fresh from the north, the spruce and the balsam
+wailed over his head, and he could hear the moaning sweep of the blizzard out in
+the open spaces. But the sounds came to him now like a new kind of music, and
+his heart throbbed and his soul was warm with joy as he looked at the little
+tent wherein there lay sleeping the woman whom he loved.</P>
+<P>He still felt the warmth of her lips, he saw again and again the blue
+softness that had come for an instant into her eyes, and he thanked God for the
+wonderful happiness that had come to him. For the sweetness of the woman’s lips
+and the greater sweetness of her blue eyes told him what life held for him now.
+A day’s journey to the south was an Indian camp. He would take her there, and
+would hire runners to carry up Pelliter’s medicines and his letters. Then he
+would go on— with the woman— and he laughed softly and joyously at the glorious
+news which he would take back to Pelliter a little later. For the kiss burned on
+his lips, the blue eyes smiled at him still from out of the firelit gloom, and
+he knew nothing but hope.</P>
+<P>It was late, almost midnight, when he went to bed. With the storm wailing and
+twisting more fiercely about him, he fell asleep. And it was late when he awoke.
+The forest was filled with a moaning sound. The fire was low. Beyond it the flap
+of the woman’s tent was still down, and he put on fresh fuel quietly, so that he
+would not awaken her. He looked at his watch and found that he had been sleeping
+for nearly seven hours. Then he returned to his tent to get the things for
+breakfast. Half a dozen paces from the door flap he stopped in sudden
+astonishment.</P>
+<P>Hanging to his tent in the form of a great wreath was the red bakneesh which
+he had cut the night before, and over it, scrawled in charcoal on the silk,
+there stared at him the crudely written words:</P>
+<P>“In honor of the living.�</P>
+<P>With a low cry he sprang back toward the other tent, and then, as sudden as
+his movement, there flashed upon him the significance of the bakneesh wreath.
+The woman was saying to him what she had not spoken in words. She had come out
+in the night while he was asleep and had hung the wreath where he would see it
+in the morning. The blood rushed warm and joyous through his body, and with
+something which was not a laugh, but which was an exultant breath from the soul
+itself, he straightened himself, and his hand fell in its old trick to his
+revolver holster. It was empty.</P>
+<P>He dragged out his blankets, but the weapon was not between them. He looked
+into the corner where he had placed his rifle. That, too, was gone. His face
+grew tense and white as he walked slowly beyond the fire to the woman’s tent.
+With his ear at the flap he listened. There was no sound within— no sound of
+movement, of life, of a sleeper’s breath; and like one who feared to reveal a
+terrible picture he drew back the flap. The balsam bed which he had made for the
+woman was empty, and across it had been drawn the big rough box. He stepped
+inside. The box was open— and empty, except for a mass of worn and hard-packed
+balsam boughs in the bottom. In another instant the truth burst in all its force
+upon MacVeigh. The box had held life, and the woman—</P>
+<P>Something on the side of the box caught his eyes. It was a folded bit of
+paper, pinned where he must see it. He tore it off and staggered with it back
+into the light of day. A low, hard cry came from his lips as he read what the
+woman had written to him:</P>
+<BLOCKQUOTE><I>“May God bless you for being good to me. In the storm we have
+  gone— my husband and I. Word came to us that you were on our trail, and we saw
+  your fire out on the Barren. My husband made the box for me to keep me from
+  cold and storm. When we saw you we changed places, and so you met me with my
+  dead. He could have killed you— a dozen times, but you were good to me, and so
+  you live. Some day may God give you a good woman who will love you as I love
+  him. He killed a man, but killing is not always murder. We have taken your
+  weapons, and the storm will cover our trail. But you would not follow. I know
+  that. For you know what it means to love a woman, and so you know what life
+  means to a woman when she loves a man. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</I>
+  MRS. ISOBEL DEANE.�</BLOCKQUOTE>
+<H4>IV</H4>
+<H4>THE MAN-HUNTERS</H4>
+<P>Like one dazed by a blow Billy read once more the words which Isobel Deane
+had left for him. He made no sound after that first cry that had broken from his
+lips, but stood looking into the crackling flames of the fire until a sudden
+lash of the wind whipped the note from between his fingers and sent it scurrying
+away in a white volley of fine snow. The loss of the note awoke him to action.
+He started to pursue the bit of paper, then stopped and laughed. It was a short,
+mirthless laugh, the kind of a laugh with which a strong man covers pain. He
+returned to the tent again and looked in. He flung back the tent flaps so that
+the light could enter and he could see into the box. A few hours before that box
+had hidden Scottie Deane, the murderer. And <I>she</I> was his wife! He turned
+back to the fire, and he saw again the red bakneesh hanging over his tent flap,
+and the words she had scrawled with the end of a charred stick, “In honor of the
+living.� That meant <I>him.</I> Something thick and uncomfortable rose in his
+throat, and a blur that was not caused by snow or wind filled his eyes. She had
+made a magnificent fight. And she had won. And it suddenly occurred to him that
+what she had said in the note was true, and that Scottie Deane could easily have
+killed him. The next moment he wondered why he had not done that. Deane had
+taken a big chance in allowing him to live. They had only a few hours’ start of
+him, and their trail could not be entirely obliterated by the storm. Deane would
+be hampered in his flight by the presence of his wife. He could still follow and
+overtake them. They had taken his weapons, but this would not be the first time
+that he had gone after his man without weapons.</P>
+<P>Swiftly the reaction worked in him. He ran beyond the fire, and circled
+quickly until he came upon the trail of the outgoing sledge. It was still quite
+distinct. Deeper in the forest it could be easily followed. Something fluttered
+at his feet. It was Isobel Deane’s note. He picked it up, and again his eyes
+fell upon those last words that she had written: <I>But you would not follow. I
+know that. For you know what it means to love a woman, and so you know what life
+means to a woman when she loves a man. That</I> was why Scottie Deane had not
+killed him. It was because of the woman. <I>And she had faith</I> in <I>him!</I>
+This time he folded the note and placed it in his pocket, where the blue flower
+had been. Then he went slowly back to the fire.</P>
+<P>“I told you I’d give him back his life— if I could,� he said. “And I guess
+I’m going to keep my word.� He fell into his old habit of talking to himself— a
+habit that comes easily to one in the big open spaces— and he laughed as he
+stood beside the fire and loaded his pipe. “If it wasn’t for <I>her!�</I> he
+added, thinking of Scottie Deane. “Gawd— if it wasn’t for <I>her!�</I></P>
+<P>He finished loading his pipe, and lighted it, staring off into the thicker
+spruce forest into which Scottie and his wife had fled. The entire force was on
+the lookout for Scottie Deane. For more than a year he had been as elusive as
+the little white ermine of the woods. He had outwitted the best men in the
+service, and his name was known to every man of the Royal Mounted from Calgary
+to Herschel Island. There was a price on his head, and fame for the man who
+captured him. Those who dreamed of promotions also dreamed of Scottie Deane; and
+as Billy thought of these things something that was not the man-hunting instinct
+rose in him and his blood warmed with a strange feeling of brotherhood. Scottie
+Deane was more than an outlaw to him now, more than a mere man. Hunted like a
+rat, chased from place to place, he must be more than those things for a woman
+like Isobel Deane still to cling to. He recalled the gentleness of her voice,
+the sweetness of her face, the tenderness of her blue eyes, and for the first
+time the thought came to him that such a woman could not love a man who was
+wholly bad. And she did love him. A twinge of pain came with that truth, and yet
+with it a thrill of pleasure. Her loyalty was a triumph— even for him. She had
+come to him like an angel out of the storm, and she had gone from him like an
+angel. He was glad. A living, breathing reality had taken the place of the dream
+vision in his heart, a woman who was flesh and blood, and who was as true and as
+beautiful as the blue flower he had carried against his breast. In that moment
+he would have liked to grip Scottie Deane by the hand, because he was her
+husband and because he was <I>man</I> enough to make her love him. Perhaps it
+was Deane who had hung the wreath of bakneesh on his tent and who had scribbled
+the words in charcoal. And Deane surely knew of the note his wife had written.
+The feeling of brotherhood grew stronger in Billy, and thought of their faith in
+him filled him with a strange elation.</P>
+<P>The fire was growing low, and he turned to add fresh fuel. His eyes caught
+sight of the box in the tent, and he dragged it out. He was about to throw it on
+the fire when he hesitated and examined it more closely. How far had they come,
+he wondered? It must have been from the other side of the Barren, for Deane had
+built the box to protect Isobel from the fierce winds of the open. It was built
+of light, dry wood, hewn with a belt ax, and the corners were fastened with
+<I>babiche</I> cord made of caribou skin in place of nails. The balsam that had
+been placed in it for Isobel was still in the box, and Billy’s heart beat a
+little more quickly as he drew it out. It had been Isobel’s bed. He could see
+where the balsam was thicker, where her head had rested. With a sudden
+breathless cry he thrust the box on the fire.</P>
+<P>He was not hungry, but he made himself a pot of coffee and drank it. Until
+now he had not observed that the storm was growing steadily worse. The thick,
+low-hanging spruce broke the force of it. Beyond the shelter of the forest he
+could hear the roar of it as it swept through the thin scrub and open spaces of
+the edge of the Barren. It recalled him once more to Pelliter. In the excitement
+of Isobel’s presence and the shock and despair that had followed her flight he
+had been guilty of partly forgetting Pelliter. By the time he reached the Eskimo
+igloos there would be two days lost. Those two days might mean everything to his
+sick comrade. He jumped to his feet, felt in his pocket to see that the letters
+were safe, and began to arrange his pack. Through the trees there came now fine
+white volleys of blistering snow. It was like the hardest granulated sugar. A
+sudden blast of it stung his eyes; and, leaving his pack and tent, he made his
+way anxiously toward the more open timber and scrub. A few hundred yards from
+the camp he was forced to bow his head against the snow volleys and pull the
+broad flaps of his cap down over his cheeks and ears. A hundred yards more and
+he stopped, sheltering himself behind a gnarled and stunted banskian. He looked
+out into the beginning of the open. It was a white and seething chaos into which
+he could not see the distance of a pistol shot. The Eskimo igloos were twenty
+miles across the Barren, and Billy’s heart sank. He could not make it. No man
+could live in the storm that was sweeping straight down from the Arctic, and he
+turned back to the camp. He had scarcely made the move when he was startled by a
+strange sound coming with the wind. He faced the white blur again, a hand
+dropping to his empty pistol holster. It came again, and this time he recognized
+it. It was a shout, a man’s voice. Instantly his mind leaped to Deane and
+Isobel. What miracle could be bringing them back?</P>
+<P>A shadow grew out of the twisting blur of the storm. It quickly separated
+itself into definite parts— a team of dogs, a sledge, three men. A minute more
+and the dogs stopped in a snarling tangle as they saw Billy. Billy stepped
+forth. Almost instantly he found a revolver leveled at his breast.</P>
+<P>“Put that up, Bucky Smith,� he called. “If you’re looking for a man you’ve
+found the wrong one!�</P>
+<P>The man advanced. His eyes were red and staring. His pistol arm dropped as he
+came within a yard of Billy.</P>
+<P>“By— It’s you, is it, Billy MacVeigh!� he exclaimed. His laugh was harsh and
+unpleasant. Bucky was a corporal in the service, and when Billy had last heard
+of him he was stationed at Nelson House. For a year the two men had been in the
+same patrol, and there was bad blood between them. Billy had never told of a
+certain affair down at Norway House, the knowledge of which at headquarters
+would have meant Bucky’s disgraceful retirement from the force. But he had
+called Bucky out in fair fight and had whipped him within an inch of his life.
+The old hatred burned in the corporal’s eyes as he stared into Billy’s face.
+Billy ignored the look, and shook hands with the other men. One of them was a
+Hudson’s Bay Company’s driver, and the other was Constable Walker, from
+Churchill.</P>
+<P>“Thought we’d never live to reach shelter,� gasped Walker, as they shook
+hands. “We’re out after Scottie Deane, and we ain’t losing a minute. We’re going
+to get him, too. His trail is so hot we can smell it. My God, but I’m
+bushed!�</P>
+<P>The dogs, with the company man at their head, were already making for the
+camp. Billy grinned at the corporal as they followed.</P>
+<P>“Had a pretty good chance to get me, if you’d been alone, didn’t you, Bucky?�
+he asked, in a voice that Walker did not hear. “You see, I haven’t forgotten
+your threat.�</P>
+<P>There was a steely hardness behind his laugh. He knew that Bucky Smith was a
+scoundrel whose good fortune was that he had never been found out in some of his
+evil work. In a flash his mind traveled back to that day at Norway House when
+Rousseau, the half Frenchman, had come to him from a sick-bed to tell him that
+Bucky had ruined his young wife. Rousseau, who should have been in bed with his
+fever, died two days later. Billy could still hear the taunt in Bucky’s voice
+when he had cornered him with Rousseau’s accusation, and the fight had followed.
+The thought that this man was now close after Isobel and Deane filled him with a
+sort of rage, and as Walker went ahead he laid a hand on Bucky’s arm.</P>
+<P>“I’ve been thinking about you of late, Bucky,� he said. “I’ve been thinking a
+lot about that affair down at Norway, an’ I’ve been lacking myself for not
+reporting it. I’m going to do it— unless you cut a right-angle track to the one
+you’re taking. I’m after Scottie Deane myself!�</P>
+<P>In the next breath he could have cut out his tongue for having uttered the
+words. A gleam of triumph shot into Bucky’s eyes.</P>
+<P>“I thought we was right,� he said. “We sort of lost the trail in the storm.
+Glad we found you to set us right. How much of a start of us has he and that
+squaw that’s traveling with him got?�</P>
+<P>Billy’s mittened hands clenched fiercely. He made no reply, but followed
+quickly after Walker. His mind worked swiftly. As he came in to the fire he saw
+that the dogs had already dropped down in their traces and that they were
+exhausted. Walker’s face was pinched, his eyes half closed by the sting of the
+snow. The driver was half stretched out on the sledge, his feet to the fire. In
+a glance he had assured himself that both dogs and men had gone through a long
+and desperate struggle in the storm. He looked at Bucky, and this time there was
+neither rancor nor threat in his voice when he spoke.</P>
+<P>“You fellows have had a hard time of it,� he said. “Make yourselves at home.
+I’m not overburdened with grub, but if you’ll dig out some of your own rations
+I’ll get it ready while you thaw out.�</P>
+<P>Bucky was looking curiously at the two tents.</P>
+<P>“Who’s with you?� he asked.</P>
+<P>Billy shrugged his shoulders. His voice was almost affable.</P>
+<P>“Hate to tell you who <I>was</I> with me, Bucky,� he laughed, “I came in late
+last night, half dead, and found a half-breed camped here— in that silk tent. He
+was quite chummy— mighty fine chap. Young fellow, too— almost a kid. When I got
+up this morning—� Billy shrugged his shoulders again and pointed to his empty
+pistol holster. “Everything was gone— dogs, sledge, extra tent, even my rifle
+and automatic. He wasn’t quite bad, though, for he left me my grub. He was a
+funny cuss, too. Look at that!� He pointed to the bakneesh wreath that still
+hung to the front of his tent. “`In honor of the living,’� he read, aloud,
+“Just a sort of reminder, you know, that he might have hit me on the head with a
+club if he’d wanted to.� He came nearer to Bucky, and said, good-naturedly: “I
+guess you’ve got me beat this time, Bucky. Scottie Deane is pretty safe from me,
+wherever he is. I haven’t even got a gun!�</P>
+<P>“He must have left a trail,� remarked Bucky, eying him shrewdly.</P>
+<P>“He did— out there!�</P>
+<P>As Bucky went to examine what was left of the trail Billy thanked Heaven that
+Deane had placed Isobel on the sledge before he left camp. There was nothing to
+betray her presence. Walker had unlaced their outfit, and Billy was busy
+preparing a meal when Bucky returned. There was a sneer on his lips.</P>
+<P>“Didn’t know you was <I>that</I> easy,� he said. “Wonder why he didn’t take
+his tent! Pretty good tent, isn’t it?�</P>
+<P>He went inside. A minute later he appeared at the flap and called to
+Billy.</P>
+<P>“Look here!� he said, and there was a tremble of excitement in his voice. His
+eyes were blazing with an ugly triumph. “Your half-breed had pretty long hair,
+didn’t he?�</P>
+<P>He pointed to a splinter on one of the light tent-poles. Billy’s heart gave a
+sudden jump. A tress of Isobel’s long, loose hair had caught in the splinter,
+and a dozen golden-brown strands had remained to give him away. For a moment he
+forgot that Bucky Smith was watching him. He saw Isobel again as she had last
+entered the tent, her beautiful hair flowing in a firelit glory about her, her
+eyes still filled with tender gratitude. Once more he felt the warmth of her
+lips, the touch of her hand, the thrill of her presence near him. Perhaps these
+emotions covered any suspicious movement or word by which he might otherwise
+have betrayed himself. By the time they were gone he had recovered himself, and
+he turned to his companion with a low laugh.</P>
+<P>“It’s a woman’s hair, all right, Bucky. He told me all sorts of nice things
+about a girl `back home.’ <I>They</I> must have been true.�</P>
+<P>The eyes of the two men met unflinchingly. There was a sneer on Buck’s lips;
+Billy was smiling.</P>
+<P>“I’m going to follow this Frenchman after we’ve had a little rest,� said the
+corporal, trying to cover a certain note of excitement and triumph in his voice.
+“There’s a woman traveling with Scottie Deane, you know— a white woman— and
+there’s only one other north of Churchill. Of course, you’re anxious to get back
+your stolen outfit?�</P>
+<P>“You bet I am,� exclaimed Billy, concealing the effect of the bull’s-eye shot
+Bucky had made. “I’m not particularly happy in the thought of reporting myself
+stripped in this sort of way. The breed will hang to thick cover, and it won’t
+be difficult to follow his trail.�</P>
+<P>He saw that Bucky was a little taken aback by his ready acquiescence, and
+before the other could reply he hurried out to join Walker in the preparation of
+breakfast. He made a gallon of tea, fried some bacon, and brought out and
+toasted his own stock of frozen bannock. He made a second kettle of tea while
+the others were eating, and shook out the blankets in his own tent. Walker had
+told him that they had traveled nearly all night.</P>
+<P>“Better have an hour or two of sleep before you go on,� he invited.</P>
+<P>The driver’s name was Conway. He was the first to accept Billy’s invitation.
+When he had finished eating, Walker followed him into the tent. When they were
+gone Bucky looked hard at Billy.</P>
+<P>“What’s your game?� he asked.</P>
+<P>“The Golden Rule, that’s all,� replied Billy, proffering his tobacco. “The
+half-breed treated me square and made me comfortable, even if he did take his
+pay afterward. I’m doing the same.�</P>
+<P>“And what do you expect to take— afterward?�</P>
+<P>Billy’s eyes narrowed as he returned the other’s searching look.</P>
+<P>“Bucky, I didn’t think you were quite a fool,� he said. “You’ve got a little
+decency in your hide, haven’t you? A man might as well be in jail as up here
+without a gun. I expect you to contribute one— when you go after the half-breed—
+you or Walker. He’ll do it if you won’t. Better go in with the others. I’ll keep
+up the fire.�</P>
+<P>Bucky rose sullenly. He was still suspicious of Billy’s hospitality, but at
+the same time he could see the strength of Billy’s argument and the importance
+of the price he was asking. He joined Walker and Conway. Fifteen minutes later
+Billy approached the tent and looked in. The three men were in the deep sleep of
+exhaustion. Instantly Billy’s actions changed. He had thrown his pack outside
+the tent to make more room, and he quickly slipped a spare blanket in with his
+provisions. Then he entered the other tent, and a flush spread over his face,
+and he felt his blood grow warmer.</P>
+<P>“You may be a fool, Billy MacVeigh,� he laughed, softly. “You may be a fool,
+but we’re going to do it!�</P>
+<P>Gently he disentangled the long silken strands of golden brown from the
+tent-pole. He wound the hair about his fingers, and it made a soft and shining
+ring. It was all that he would ever possess of Isobel Deane, and his breath came
+more quickly as he pressed it for a moment to his rough and storm-beaten face.
+He put it in his pocket, carefully wrapped in Isobel’s note, and then once more
+he went back to the tent in which the three men were sleeping. They had not
+moved. Walker’s holster was within reach of his hand. For a moment the
+temptation to reach out and pluck the gun from it was strong. He pulled himself
+away. He would win in this fight with Bucky as surely as he had won in the
+other, and he would win without theft. Quickly he threw his pack over his
+shoulder and struck the trail made by Deane in his flight. On his snow-shoes he
+followed it in a long, swift pace. A hundred yards from the camp he looked back
+for an instant. Then he turned, and his face was grim and set.</P>
+<P>“If you’ve got to be caught, it’s not going to be by that outfit back there,
+Mr. Scottie Deane,� he said to himself. “It’s up to yours truly, and Billy
+MacVeigh is the man who can do the trick, if he hasn’t got a gun!�</P>
+<H4>V</H4>
+<H4>BILLY FOLLOWS ISOBEL</H4>
+<P>From the first Billy could see the difficulty with which Deane and his dogs
+had made their way through the soft drifts of snow piled up by the blizzard. In
+places where the trees had thinned out Deane had floundered ahead and pulled
+with the team. Only once in the first mile had Isobel climbed from the sledge,
+and that was where traces, toboggan, and team had all become mixed up in the
+snow-covered top of a fallen tree. The fact that Deane was compelling his wife
+to ride added to Billy’s liking for the man. It was probable that Isobel had not
+gone to sleep at all after her hard experience on the Barren, but had lain awake
+planning with her husband until the hour of their flight. If Isobel had been
+able to travel on snow-shoes Billy reasoned that Deane would have left the dogs
+behind, for in the deep, soft snow he could have made better time without them,
+and snow-shoe trails would have been obliterated by the storm hours ago. As it
+was, he could not lose them. He knew that he had no time to lose if he made sure
+of beating out Bucky and his men. The suspicious corporal would not sleep long.
+While he had the advantage of being comparatively fresh, Billy’s snow-shoes were
+smoothing and packing the trail, and the others, if they followed, would be able
+to travel a mile or two an hour faster than himself. That Bucky would follow he
+did not doubt for a moment. The corporal was already half convinced that Scottie
+Deane had made the trail from camp and that the hair he had found entangled in
+the splinter on the tent-pole belonged to the outlaw’s wife. And Scottie Deane
+was too big a prize to lose.</P>
+<P>Billy’s mind worked rapidly as he bent more determinedly to the pursuit. He
+knew that there were only two things that Bucky could do under the
+circumstances. Either he would follow after him with Walker and the driver or he
+would come alone. If Walker and Conway accompanied him the fight for Scottie
+Deane’s capture would be a fair one, and the man who first put manacles about
+the outlaw’s wrists would be the victor. But if he left his two companions in
+camp and came after him <I>alone—</I></P>
+<P>The thought was not a pleasant one. He was almost sorry that he had not taken
+Walker’s gun. If Bucky came alone it would be with but one purpose in mind— to
+make sure of Scottie Dean by “squaring up� with him first. Billy was sure that
+he had measured the man right, and that he would not hesitate to carry out his
+old threat by putting a bullet into him at the first opportunity. And here would
+be opportunity. The storm would cover up any foul work he might accomplish, and
+his reward would be Scottie Deane— unless Deane played too good a hand for
+him.</P>
+<P>At thought of Deane Billy chuckled. Until now he had not taken him fully into
+consideration, and suddenly it dawned upon him that there was a bit of humor as
+well as tragedy in the situation. He cheerfully conceded to himself that for a
+long time Deane had proved himself a better man than either Bucky or himself,
+and that, after all, he was the man who held the situation well in hand even
+now. He was well armed. He was as cautions as a fox, and would not be caught
+napping. And yet this thought filled Billy with satisfaction rather than fear.
+Deane would be more than a match for Bucky alone if he failed in beating out the
+corporal. But if he <I>did</I> beat him out—</P>
+<P>Billy’s lips set grimly, and there was a hard light in his eyes as he glanced
+back over his shoulder. He would not only beat him out, but he would capture
+Scottie Deane. It would be a game of fox against fox, and he would win. No one
+would ever know why he was playing the game as he had planned to play it. Bucky
+would never know. Down at headquarters they would never know. And yet deep down
+in his heart he hoped and believed that Isobel would guess and understand. To
+save Deane, to save Isobel, he must keep them out of the hands of Bucky Smith,
+and to do that he must make them his own prisoners. It would be a terrible
+ordeal at first. A picture of Isobel rose before him, her faith and trust in him
+broken, her face white and drawn with grief and despair, her blue eyes flashing
+at him— hatred. But he felt now that he could stand those things. One moment—
+the fatal moment, when she would understand and know that he had remained true—
+would repay him for what he might suffer.</P>
+<P>He traveled swiftly for an hour, and paused then to get his wind where the
+partly covered trail dipped down into a frozen swamp. Here Isobel had climbed
+from the sledge and had followed in the path of the toboggan. In places where
+the spruce and balsam were thick overhead Billy could make out the imprints of
+her moccasins. Deane had led the dogs in the darkness of the storm, and twice
+Billy found the burned ends of matches, where he had stopped to look at his
+compass. He was striking a course almost due west. At the farther edge of the
+swamp the trail struck a lake, and straight across this Deane had led his team.
+The worst of the storm was over now. The wind was slowly shifting to the south
+and east, and the fine, steely snow had given place to a thicker and softer
+downfall. Billy shuddered as he thought of what this lake must have been a few
+hours before, when Isobel and Deane had crossed it in the thick blackness of the
+blizzard that had swept it like a hurricane.</P>
+<P>It was half a mile across the lake, and here, fifty yards from shore, the
+trail was completely covered. Billy lost no time by endeavoring to find signs of
+it in the open, but struck directly for the opposite timber field and swung
+along in the shelter of the scrub forest. He picked up the trail easily. Half an
+hour later he stopped. Spruce and balsam grew thick about him, shutting out what
+was left of the wind. Here Scottie Deane had stopped to build a fire. Close to
+the charred embers was a mass of balsam boughs on which Isobel had rested.
+Scottie had made a pot of boiling tea and had afterward thrown the grounds on
+the snow. The warm bodies of the dogs had made smooth, round pits in the snow,
+and Billy figured that the fugitives had rested for a couple of hours. They had
+traveled eight miles through the blizzard without a fire, and his heart was
+filled with a sickening pain as he thought of Isobel Deane and the suffering he
+had brought to her. For a few moments there swept over him a revulsion for that
+thing which he stood for— the <I>Law.</I> More than once in his experience he
+had thought that its punishment had been greater than the crime. Isobel had
+suffered, and was suffering, far more than if Deane had been captured a year
+before and hanged. And Deane himself had paid a penalty greater than death in
+being a witness of the suffering of the woman who had remained loyal to him.
+Billy’s heart went out to them in a low, yearning cry as he looked at the balsam
+bed and the black char of the fire. He wished that he could give them, life and
+freedom and happiness, and his hands clenched tightly as he thought that he was
+willing to surrender everything, even to his own honor, for the woman he
+loved.</P>
+<P>Fifteen minutes after he had struck the shelter of the camp he was again in
+pursuit. His blood leaped a little excitedly when he found that Scottie Deane’s
+trail was now almost as straight as a plumb-line and that the sledge no longer
+became entangled in hidden windfalls and brush. It was proof that it was light
+when Deane and Isobel had left their camp. Isobel was walking now, and their
+sledge was traveling faster. Billy encouraged his own pace, and over two or
+three open spaces he broke into a long, swinging run. The trail was
+comparatively fresh, and at the end of another hour he knew that they could not
+be far ahead of him. He had followed through a thin swamp and had climbed to the
+top of a rough ridge when he stopped. Isobel had reached the bald cap of the
+ridge exhausted. The last twenty yards he could see where Deane had assisted
+her; and then she had dropped down in the snow, and he had placed a blanket
+under her. They had taken a drink of tea made back over the fire, and a little
+of it had fallen into the snow. It had not yet formed ice, and instinctively he
+dropped behind a rock and looked down into the wooded valley at his feet. In a
+few moments he began to descend.</P>
+<P>He had almost reached the foot of the ridge when he brought himself short
+with a sudden low cry of horror. He had reached a point where the side of the
+ridge seemed to have broken off, leaving a precipitous wall. In a flash he
+realized what had happened. Deane and Isobel had descended upon a “snow trap,�
+and it had given way under their weight, plunging them to the rocks below. For
+no longer than a breath he stood still, and in that moment there came a sound
+from far behind that sent a strange thrill through him. It was the howl of a
+dog. Bucky and his men were in close pursuit, and they were traveling with the
+team.</P>
+<P>He swung a little to the left to escape the edge of the trap and plunged
+recklessly to the bottom. Not until he saw where Scottie Deane and the team had
+dragged themselves from the snow avalanche did he breathe freely again. Isobel
+was safe! He laughed in his joy and wiped the nervous sweat from his face as he
+saw the prints of her moccasins where Deane had righted the sledge. And then,
+for the first time, he observed a number of small red stains on the snow. Either
+Isobel or Deane had been injured in the fall, perhaps slightly. A hundred yards
+from the “trap� the sledge had stopped again, and from this point it was Deane
+who rode and Isobel who walked!</P>
+<P>He followed more cautiously now. Another hundred yards and he stopped to
+sniff the air. Ahead of him the spruce and balsam grew close and thick, and from
+that shelter he was sure that something was coming to him on the air. At first
+he thought it was the odor of the balsam. A moment later he knew that it was
+smoke.</P>
+<P>Force of habit brought his hand for the twentieth time to his empty pistol
+holster. Its emptiness added to the caution with which he approached the thick
+spruce and balsam ahead of him. Taking advantage of a mass of low snow-laden
+bushes, he swung out at a right angle to the trail and began making a wide
+circle. He worked swiftly. Within half or three-quarters of an hour Bucky would
+reach the ridge. Whatever he accomplished must be done before then. Five minutes
+after leaving the trail he caught his first glimpse of smoke and began to edge
+in toward the fire. The stillness oppressed him. He drew nearer and nearer, yet
+he heard no sound of voice or of the dogs. At last he reached a point where he
+could look out from behind a young ground spruce and see the fire. It was not
+more than thirty feet away. He held his breath tensely at what he saw. On a
+blanket spread out close to the fire lay Scottie Deane, his head pillowed on a
+pack-sack. There was no sign of Isobel, and no sign of the sledge and dogs.
+Billy’s heart thumped excitedly as he rose to his feet. He did not stop to ask
+himself where Isobel and the dogs had gone. Deane was alone, and lay with his
+back toward him. Fate could not have given him a better opportunity, and his
+moccasined feet fell swiftly and quietly in the snow. He was within six feet of
+Scottie before the injured man heard him, and scarcely had the other moved when
+he was upon him. He was astonished at the ease with which he twisted Deane upon
+his back and put the handcuffs about his wrists. The work was no sooner done
+than he understood. A rag was tied about Deane’s head, and it was stained with
+blood. The man’s arms and body were limp. He looked at Billy with dulled eyes,
+and as he slowly realized what had happened a groan broke from his lips.</P>
+<P>In an instant Billy was on his knees beside him. He had seen Deane twice
+before, over at Churchill, but this was the first time that he had ever looked
+closely into his face. It was a face worn by hardship and mental torture. The
+cheeks were thinned, and the steel-gray eyes that looked up into Billy’s were
+reddened by weeks and months of fighting against storm. It was the face, not of
+a criminal, but of a man whom Billy would have trusted— blonde-mustached,
+fearless, and filled with that clean-cut strength which associates itself with
+fairness and open fighting. Hardly had he drawn a second breath when Billy
+realized why this man had not killed him when he had the chance. Deane was not
+of the sort to strike in the dark or from behind. He had let Billy live because
+he still believed in the manhood of man, and the thought that he had repaid
+Deane’s faith in him by leaping upon him when he was down and wounded filled
+Billy with a bitter shame. He gripped one of Deane’s hands in his own.</P>
+<P>“I hate to do this, old man,� he cried, quickly. “It’s hell to put those
+things on a man who’s hurt. But I’ve got to do it. I didn’t mean to come— no,
+s’elp me God, I didn’t— if Bucky Smith and two others hadn’t hit your trail back
+at the old camp. They’d have got you— sure. And <I>she</I> wouldn’t have been
+safe with them. Understand? <I>She</I> wouldn’t have been safe! So I made up my
+mind to beat on ahead and take you myself. I want you to understand. And you
+<I>do</I> know, I guess. You must have heard, for I thought you were sure-enough
+dead in the box, an’ I swear to Heaven I meant all I said then. I wouldn’t have
+come. I was glad you two got away. But this Bucky is a skunk and a scoundrel—
+and mebbe if I take you— I can help you— later on. They’ll be here in a few
+minutes.�</P>
+<P>He spoke quickly, his voice quivering with the emotion that inspired his
+words, and not for an instant did Scottie Deane allow his eyes to shift from
+Billy’s face. When Billy stopped he still looked at him for a moment, judging
+the truth of what he had heard by what he saw in the other’s face. And then
+Billy felt his hand tighten for an instant about his own.</P>
+<P>“I guess you’re pretty square, MacVeigh,� he said, “and I guess it had to
+come pretty soon, too. I’m not sorry that it’s you— and I know you’ll take care
+of <I>her.�</I></P>
+<P>“I’ll do it— if I have to fight— and kill!�</P>
+<P>Billy had withdrawn his hand, and both were clenched. Into Deane’s eyes there
+leaped a sudden flash of fire.</P>
+<P>“That’s what I did,� he breathed, gripping his fingers hard. “I killed— for
+her. He was a skunk— and a scoundrel— too. And you’d have done it!� He looked at
+Billy again. “I’m glad you said what you did— when I was in the box,� he added.
+“If she wasn’t as pure and as sweet as the stars I’d feel different. But it’s
+just sort of in my bones that you’ll treat her like a brother. I haven’t had
+faith in many men. I’ve got it in you.�</P>
+<P>Billy leaned low over the other. His face was flushed, and his voice
+trembled.</P>
+<P>“God bless you for that, Scottie!� he said.</P>
+<P>A sound from the forest turned both men’s eyes.</P>
+<P>“She took the dogs and went out there a little way for a load of wood,� said
+Deane. “She’s coming back.�</P>
+<P>Billy had leaped to his feet, and turned his face toward the ridge. He, too,
+had heard a sound— another sound, and from another direction. He laughed grimly
+as he turned to Deane.</P>
+<P>“And <I>they’re</I> coming, too, Scottie,� he replied. “They’re climbing the
+ridge. I’ll take your guns, old man. It’s just possible there may be a
+fight!�</P>
+<P>He slipped Deane’s revolver into his holster and quickly emptied the chamber
+of the rifle that stood near.</P>
+<P>“Where’s mine?� he asked.</P>
+<P>“Threw ’em away,� said Deane. “Those are the only guns in the outfit.�</P>
+<P>Billy waited while Isobel Deane came through low-hanging spruce with the
+dogs.</P>
+<H4>VI</H4>
+<H4>THE FIGHT</H4>
+<P>There was a smile for Deane on Isobel’s lips as she struggled through the
+spruce, knee-deep in snow, the dogs tugging at the sledge behind her. And then
+in a moment she saw MacVeigh, and the smile froze into a look of horror on her
+face. She was not twenty feet distant when she emerged into the little opening,
+and Billy heard the rattling cry in her throat. She stopped, and her hands went
+to her breast. Deane had half raised himself, his pale, thin face smiling
+encouragingly at her; and with a wild cry Isobel rushed to him and flung herself
+upon her knees at his side, her hands gripping fiercely at the steel bands about
+his wrists. Billy turned away. He could hear her sobbing, and he could hear the
+low, comforting voice of the injured man. A groan of anguish rose to his own
+lips, and he clenched his hands hard, dreading the terrible moment when he would
+have to face the woman he loved above all else on earth.</P>
+<P>It was her voice that brought him about. She had risen to her feet, and she
+stood before him panting like a hunted animal, and Billy saw in her face the
+thing which he had feared more than the sting of death. No longer were her blue
+eyes filled with the sweetness and faith of the angel who had come to him from
+out of the Barren. They were hard and terrible and filled with that madness
+which made him think she was about to leap upon him. In those eyes, in the
+quivering of her bare throat, in the sobbing rise and fall of her breast were
+the rage, the grief, and the fear of one whose faith had turned suddenly into
+the deadliest of all emotions; and Billy stood before her without a word on his
+lips, his face as cold and as bloodless as the snow under his feet.</P>
+<P>“And so you— <I>you</I> followed— after— that!�</P>
+<P>It was all she said, and yet the voice, the significance of the choking
+words, hurt him more than if she had struck him. In them there was none of the
+passion and condemnation he had expected. Quietly, almost whisperingly uttered,
+they stung him to the soul. He had meant to say to her what he had said to
+Deane— even more. But the crudeness of the wilderness had made him slow of
+tongue, and while his heart cried out for words Isobel turned and went to her
+husband. And then there came the thing he had been expecting. Down the ridge
+there raced a flurry of snow and a yelping of dogs. He loosened the revolver in
+his holster, and stood in readiness when Bucky Smith ran a few paces ahead of
+his men into the camp. At sight of his enemy’s face, torn between rage and
+disappointment, all of Billy’s old coolness returned to him.</P>
+<P>With a bound Bucky was at Scottie Deane’s side. He looked down at his
+manacled hands and at the woman who was clasping them in her own, and then he
+whirled on Billy with the quickness of a cat.</P>
+<P>“You’re a liar and a sneak!� he panted. “You’ll answer for this at
+headquarters. I understand now why you let ’em go back there. It was <I>her!
+She</I> paid you— paid you in her own way— to free <I>him!</I> But she won’t pay
+you again—�</P>
+<P>At his words Deane had started as if stung by a wasp. Billy saw Isobel’s
+whitened face. The meaning of Buck’s words had gone home to her as swiftly as a
+lightning flash, and for an instant her eyes had <I>turned to him!</I> Bucky got
+no further than those last words. Before he could add another syllable Billy was
+upon him. His fist shot out— once, twice— and the blows that fell sent Bucky
+crashing through the fire. Billy did not wait for him to regain his feet. A red
+light blazed before his eyes. He forgot the presence of Deane and Walker and
+Conway. His one thought was that the scoundrel he had struck down had flung at
+Isobel the deadliest insult that a man could offer a woman, and before either
+Conway or Walker could make a move he was upon Bucky. He did not know how long
+or how many times he struck, but when at last Conway and Walker succeeded in
+dragging him away Bucky lay upon his back in the snow, blood gushing from his
+mouth and nose. Walker ran to him. Panting for breath, Billy turned toward
+Isobel and Deane. He was almost sobbing. He made no effort to speak. But he saw
+that the thing he had dreaded was gone. Isobel was looking at him again— and
+there was the old faith in her eyes. At last— <I>she understood!</I> Dean’s
+handcuffed hands were clenched. The light of brotherhood shone in his eyes, and
+where a moment before there had been grief and despair in Billy’s heart there
+came now a warm glow of joy. Once more <I>they had faith in him!</I></P>
+<P>Walker had raised Bucky to a sitting posture, and was wiping the blood from
+his face when Billy went to them. The corporal’s hand made a limp move toward
+his revolver. Billy struck it away and secured the weapon. Then he spoke to
+Walker.</P>
+<P>“There is no doubt in your mind that I hold a sergeancy in the service, is
+there, Walker?� he asked.</P>
+<P>His tone was no longer one of comradeship. In it there was the ring of
+authority. Walker was quick to understand.</P>
+<P>“None, sir!�</P>
+<P>“And you are familiar with our laws governing insubordination and conduct
+unbecoming an officer of the service?�</P>
+<P>Walker nodded.</P>
+<P>“Then, as a superior officer and in the name of his Majesty the King, I place
+Corporal Bucky Smith under arrest, and commission you, under oath of the
+service, to take him under your guard to Churchill, along with the letter which
+I shall give you for the officer in charge there. I shall appear against him a
+little later with the evidence that will outlaw him from the service. Put the
+handcuffs on him!�</P>
+<P>Stunned by the sudden change in the situation, Walker obeyed without a word.
+Billy turned to Conway, the driver.</P>
+<P>“Deane is too badly injured to travel,� he explained, “ Put up your tent for
+him and his wife close to the fire. You can take mine in exchange for it as you
+go back.�</P>
+<P>He went to his kit and found a pencil and paper. Fifteen minutes later he
+gave Walker the letter in which he described to the commanding officer at
+Churchill certain things which he knew would hold Bucky a prisoner until he
+could personally appear against him. Meanwhile Conway had put up the tent and
+had assisted Deane into it. Isobel had accompanied him. Billy then had a
+five-minute confidential talk with Walker, and when the constable gave
+instructions for Conway to prepare the dogs for the return trip there was a
+determined hardness in his eyes as he looked at Bucky. In those five minutes he
+had heard the story of Rousseau, the young Frenchman down at Norway House, and
+of the wife whose faithlessness had killed him. Besides, he hated Bucky Smith,
+as all men hated him. Billy was confident that he could rely upon him.</P>
+<P>Not until dogs and sledge were ready did Bucky utter a word. The terrific
+beating he had received had stunned him for a few minutes; but now he jumped to
+his feet, not waiting for the command from Walker, and strode up close to Billy.
+There was a vengeful leer on his bloody face and his eyes blazed almost white,
+but his voice was so low that Conway and Walker could only hear the murmur of
+it. His words were meant for Billy alone.</P>
+<P>“For this I’m going to kill you, MacVeigh,� he said; and in spite of Billy’s
+contempt for the man there was a quality in the low voice that sent a curious
+shiver through him. “You can send me from the service, but you’re going to die
+for doing it!�</P>
+<P>Billy made no reply, and Bucky did not wait for one. He set off at the head
+of the sledge, with Conway a step behind them. Billy followed with Walker until
+they reached the foot of the ridge. There they shook hands, and Billy stood
+watching them until they passed over the cap of the ridge.</P>
+<P>He returned to the camp slowly. Deane had emerged from the tent, supported by
+Isobel. They waited for him, and in Deane’s face he saw the look that had filled
+it after he had struck down Bucky Smith. For a moment he dared not look at
+Isobel. She saw the change in him, and her cheeks flushed. Deane would have
+extended his hands, but she was holding them tightly in her own.</P>
+<P>“You’d better go into the tent and keep quiet,� advised Billy. “I haven’t had
+time yet to see if you’re badly hurt.�</P>
+<P>“It’s not bad,� Deane assured him. “I bumped into a rock sliding down the
+ridge, and it made me sick for a few minutes.�</P>
+<P>Billy knew that Isobel’s eyes were on him, and he could almost feel their
+questioning. He began to take wood from the sledge she had loaded and throw it
+on the fire. He wished that Scottie and she had remained in the tent for a
+little longer. His face burned and his blood seemed like fire when he caught a
+glimpse of the steel cuffs about Deane’s wrists. Through the smoke he saw Isobel
+still clasping her husband. He could see one of her little hands gripping at the
+steel band, and suddenly he sprang across and faced them, no longer fearing to
+meet Isobel’s eyes or Deane’s. Now his face was aflame, and he half held out his
+arms to them as he spoke, as though he would clasp them both to him in this
+moment of sacrifice and self-abnegation and the dawning of new life.</P>
+<P>“You know— you both know why I’ve done this!� he cried, “You heard what I
+said back there, Deane— when you was in the box; an’ all I said was true. She
+came to me out of that storm like an angel— an’ I’ll think of her as an angel
+all my life. I don’t know much about God— not the God they have down there,
+where they take an eye for an eye an’ a tooth for a tooth and kill because some
+one else has killed. But there’s <I>something up</I> here in the big open
+places, something that makes you think and makes you want to do what’s right and
+square; an’ <I>she’s</I> got all I know of God in that little Bible of mine— the
+blue flower. I gave the blue flower to her, an’ now an’ forever <I>she’s</I> my
+blue flower. I ain’t ashamed to tell you, Deane, because you’ve heard it before,
+an’ you know I’m not thinking it in a sinful way. It ’ll help me if I can see
+her face an’ hear her voice and know there’s such love as yours after you’re
+gone. For I’m going to let you go, Deane, old man. That’s what I came for, to
+save you from the others an’ give you back to <I>her.</I> I guess mebbe you’ll
+know— now— how I feel—�</P>
+<P>His voice choked him. Isobel’s glorious eyes were looking into his soul, and
+he looked straight back into them and saw all his reward there. He turned to
+Deane. His key clicked in the locks to the handcuffs, and as they fell into the
+snow the two men gripped hands, and in their strong faces was that rarest of all
+things— love of man for man.</P>
+<P>“I’m glad you know,� said Billy, softly. “It wouldn’t be fair if you didn’t,
+Scottie. I can think of her now, an’ it won’t be mean and low. And if you ever
+need help— if you’re down in South America or Africa— anywhere— I’ll come if you
+send word. You’d better go to South America. That’s a good place. I’ll report to
+headquarters that you died— from the fall. It’s a lie, but blue flower would do
+it, and so will I. Sometimes, you know, the friend who lies is the only friend
+who’s true— and <I>she’d</I> do it— a thousand times— for you.�</P>
+<P>“And for you,� whispered Isobel.</P>
+<P>She was holding out her hands, her blue eyes streaming with tears of
+happiness, and for a moment Billy accepted one of them and held it in his own.
+He looked over her head as she spoke.</P>
+<P>“God will bless you for this— some day,� she said; and a sob broke in her
+voice. “He will bring you happiness— happiness— in what you have dreamed of. You
+will find a blue flower— sweet and pure and loyal— and then you will know, even
+more fully, what life means to me with <I>him.�</I></P>
+<P>And then she broke down, sobbing like a child, and with her face buried in
+her hands turned into the tent.</P>
+<P>“Gawd!� whispered Billy, drawing a deep breath.</P>
+<P>He looked Deane in the eyes; and Deane smiled, a rare and beautiful
+smile.</P>
+<P>For a quarter of an hour they talked alone, and then Billy drew a wallet from
+his pocket.</P>
+<P>“You’ll need money, Scottie,� he said. “I don’t want you to lose a minute in
+getting out of the country. Make for Vancouver. I’ve got three hundred dollars
+here. You’ve got to take it or I’ll shoot you!�</P>
+<P>He thrust the money into Deane’s hands as Isobel came out of the tent. Her
+eyes were red, but she was smiling; and she held something in her hand. She
+showed it to the two men. It was the blue flower Billy had given her. But now
+its petals were torn apart, and nine of them lay in the palm of her hand.</P>
+<P>“It can’t go with one.� She spoke softly and the smile died on her lips.
+“There are nine petals, three for each of us.�</P>
+<P>She gave three to her husband and three to Billy, and for a moment the men
+stared at them as they lay in their rough and calloused palms. Then Billy drew
+out the bit of buckskin in which he had placed the strands of Isobel’s hair and
+slipped the blue petals in with them. Deane had drawn a worn envelope from his
+pocket. Billy spoke low to Deane.</P>
+<P>“I want to be alone for a while— until dinner-time. Will you go into the
+tent— with her?�</P>
+<P>When they were gone Billy went to the spot where he had dropped his pack
+before crawling up on Deane. He picked it up and slipped it over his shoulders
+as he walked. He went swiftly back over his old trail, and this time it was with
+a heart leaden with a deep and terrible loneliness. When he reached the ridge he
+tried to whistle, but his lips seemed thick, and there was something in his
+throat that choked him. From the cap of the ridge he looked down. A thin mist of
+smoke was rising from out of the spruce. It blurred before his eyes, and a
+sobbing break came in his low cry of Isobel’s name. Then he turned once more
+back into the loneliness and desolation of his old life.</P>
+<P>“I’m coming, Pelly,� he laughed, in a strained, hard way. “I haven’t given
+you exactly a square deal, old man, but I’ll hustle and make up for lost
+time!�</P>
+<P>A wind was beginning to moan in the spruce tops again. He was glad of that.
+It promised storm. And a storm would cover up all trails.</P>
+<H4>VII</H4>
+<H4>THE MADNESS OF PELLITER</H4>
+<P>Away up at Fullerton Point amid the storm and crash of the arctic gloom
+Pelliter fought himself through day after day of fever, waiting for MacVeigh. At
+first he had been filled with hope. That first glimpse of the sun they had seen
+through the little window on the morning that Billy left for Fort Churchill had
+come just in time to keep reason from snapping in his head. For three days after
+that he looked through the window at the same hour and prayed moaningly for
+another glimpse of that paradise in the southern sky. But the storm through
+which Isobel had struggled across the Barren gathered over his head and behind
+him, day after day of it, rolling and twisting and moaning with the roar of the
+cracking fields of ice, bringing back once more the thick death-gloom of the
+arctic night that had almost driven him mad. He tried to think only of Billy, of
+his loyal comrade’s race into the south, and of the precious letters he would
+bring back to him; and he kept track of the days by making pencil marks on the
+door that opened out upon the gray and purple desolation of the arctic sea.</P>
+<P>At last there came the day when he gave up hope. He believed that he was
+dying. He counted the marks on the door and found that there were sixteen. Just
+that many days ago Billy had set off with the dogs. If all had gone well he was
+a third of the way back, and within another week would be “home.�</P>
+<P>Pelliter’s thin, fever-flushed face relaxed into a wan smile as he counted
+the pencil marks again. Long before that week was ended he figured that he would
+be dead. The medicines— and the letters— would come too late, probably four or
+five days too late. Straight out from his last mark he drew a long line, and at
+the end of it added in a scrawling, almost unintelligible, hand: “Dear Billy, I
+guess this is going to be my last day.� Then he staggered from the door to the
+window.</P>
+<P>Out there was what was killing him— loneliness, a maddening desolation, a
+lifeless world that reached for hundreds of miles farther than his eyes could
+see. To the north and east there was nothing but ice, piled-up masses and
+grinning mountains of it, white at first, of a somber gray farther off, and then
+purple and almost black. There came to him now the low, never-ceasing thunder of
+the undercurrents fighting their way down from the Arctic Ocean, broken now and
+then by a growling roar as the giant forces sent a crack, like a great knife,
+through one of the frozen mountains. He had listened to those sounds for five
+months, and in those five months he had heard no other voice but his own and
+MacVeigh’s and the babble of an Eskimo. Only once in four months had he seen the
+sun, and that was on the morning that MacVeigh went south. So he had gone half
+mad. Others had gone completely mad before him. Through the window his eyes
+rested on the five rough wooden crosses that marked their graves. In the service
+of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police they were called heroes. And in a short
+time he, Constable Pelliter, would be numbered among them. MacVeigh would send
+the whole story down to her, the true little girl a thousand miles south; and
+she would always remember him— her hero— and his lonely grave at Point
+Fullerton, the northernmost point of the Law. But she would never see that
+grave. She could never come to put flowers on it, as she put flowers on the
+grave of his mother; she would never know the whole story, not a half of it— his
+terrible longing for a sound of her voice, a touch of her hand, a glimpse of her
+sweet blue eyes before he died. They were to be married in August, when his
+service in the Royal Mounted ended. She would be waiting for him. And in August—
+or July— word would reach her that he had died.</P>
+<P>With a dry sob he turned from the window to the rough table that he had drawn
+close to his bunk, and for the thousandth time he held before his red and
+feverish eyes a photograph. It was a portrait of a girl, marvelously beautiful
+to Tommy Pelliter, with soft brown hair and eyes that seemed always to talk to
+him and tell him how much she loved him. And for the thousandth time he turned
+the picture over and read the words she had written on the back:</P>
+<BLOCKQUOTE><I>“My own dear boy, remember that I am always with you, always
+  thinking of you, always praying for you; and I know, dear, that you will
+  always do what you would do if I were at your side.�</I></BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>“Good Lord!� groaned Pelliter. “I can’t die! I can’t! I’ve got to live— to
+see her—�</P>
+<P>He dropped back on his bunk exhausted. The fires burned in his head again. He
+grew dizzy, and he talked to her, or thought he was talking, but it was only a
+babble of incoherent sound that made Kazan, the one-eyed old Eskimo dog, lift
+his shaggy head and sniff suspiciously. Kazan had listened to Pelliter’s
+deliriums many times since MacVeigh had left them alone, and soon he dropped his
+muzzle between his forepaws and dozed again. A long time afterward he raised his
+head once more. Pelliter was quiet. But the dog sniffed, went to the door,
+whined softly, and nervously muzzled the sick man’s thin hand. Then he settled
+back on his haunches, turned his nose straight up, and from his throat there
+came that wailing, mourning cry, long-drawn and terrible, with which Indian dogs
+lament before the tepees of masters who are newly dead. The sound aroused
+Pelliter. He sat up again, and he found that once more the fire and the pain had
+gone from his head.</P>
+<P>“Kazan, Kazan,� he pleaded, weakly, “it isn’t time— yet!�</P>
+<P>Kazan had gone to the window that looked to the west, and stood with his
+forefeet on the sill. Pelliter shivered.</P>
+<P>“Wolves again,� he said, “or mebbe a fox.�</P>
+<P>He had grown into that habit of talking to himself, which is as common as
+human life itself in the far north, where one’s own voice is often the one thing
+that breaks a killing monotony. He edged his way to the window as he spoke and
+looked out with Kazan. Westward there stretched the lifeless Barren illimitable
+and void, without rock or bush and overhung by a sky that always made Pelliter
+think of a terrible picture he had once seen of Doré’s “Inferno.� It was a low,
+thick sky, like purple and blue granite, always threatening to pitch itself down
+in terrific avalanches, and between the earth and this sky was the thin,
+smothered world which MacVeigh had once called God’s insane asylum.</P>
+<P>Through the gloom Kazan’s one eye and Pelliter’s feverish vision could not
+see far, but at last the man made out an object toiling slowly toward the cabin.
+At first he thought it was a fox, and then a wolf, and then, as it loomed
+larger, a straying caribou. Kazan whined. The bristles along his spine rose
+stiff and menacing. Pelliter stared harder and harder, with his face pressed
+close against the cold glass of the window, and suddenly he gave a gasping cry
+of excitement. It was a man who was toiling toward the cabin! He was bent almost
+double, and he staggered in a zigzag fashion as he advanced. Pelliter made his
+way feebly to the door, unbarred it, and pushed it partly open. Overcome by
+weakness he fell back then on the edge of his bunk,</P>
+<P>It seemed an age before he heard steps. They were slow and stumbling, and an
+instant later a face appeared at the door. It was a terrible face, overgrown
+with beard, with wild and staring eyes; but it was a white man’s face. Pelliter
+had expected an Eskimo, and he sprang to his feet with sudden strength as the
+stranger came in.</P>
+<P>“Something to eat, mate, for the love o’ God give me something to eat!�</P>
+<P>The stranger fell in a heap on the floor and stared up at him with the
+ravenous entreaty of an animal. Pelliter’s first move was to get whisky, and the
+other drank it in great gulps. Then he dragged himself to his feet, and Pelliter
+sank in a chair beside the table.</P>
+<P>“I’m sick,� he said. “Sergeant MacVeigh has gone to Churchill, and I guess
+I’m in a bad way. You’ll have to help yourself. There’s meat— ’n’ bannock—�</P>
+<P>Whisky had revived the new-comer. He stared at Pelliter, and as he stared he
+grinned, ugly yellow teeth leering from between his matted beard. The look
+cleared Pelliter’s brain. For some reason which he could not explain, his pistol
+hand fell to the place where he usually carried his holster. Then he remembered
+that his service revolver was under the pillow.</P>
+<P>“Fever,� said the sailor; for Pelliter knew that he was a sailor.</P>
+<P>He took off his heavy coat and tossed it on the table. Then he followed
+Pelliter’s instructions in quest of food, and for ten minutes ate ravenously.
+Not until he was through and seated opposite him at the table did Pelliter
+speak.</P>
+<P>“Who are you, and where in Heaven’s name did you come from?� he asked.</P>
+<P>“Blake— Jim Blake’s my name, an’ I come from what I call Starvation Igloo
+Inlet, thirty miles up the coast. Five months ago I was left a hundred miles
+farther up to take care of a cache for the whaler <I>John B. Sidney,</I> and the
+cache was swept away by an overflow of ice. Then we struck south, hunting and
+starving, me ’n’ the woman—�</P>
+<P>“The woman!� cried Pelliter.</P>
+<P>“Eskimo squaw,� said Blake, producing a black pipe. “The cap’n bought her to
+keep me company— paid four sacks of flour an’ a knife to her husband up at
+Wagner Inlet. Got any tobacco?�</P>
+<P>Pelliter rose to get the tobacco. He was surprised to find that he was
+steadier on his feet and that Blake’s words were clearing his brain. That had
+been his and MacVeigh’s great fight— the fight to put an end to the white man’s
+immoral trade in Eskimo women and girls, and Blake had already confessed himself
+a criminal. Promise of action, quick action, momentarily overcame his sickness.
+He went back with the tobacco, and sat down.</P>
+<P>“Where’s the woman?� be asked.</P>
+<P>“Back in the igloo,� said Blake, filling his pipe. “We killed a walrus up
+there and built an icehouse. The meat’s gone. She’s probably gone by this time.�
+He laughed coarsely across at Pelliter as he lighted his pipe. “It seems good to
+get into a white man’s shack again.�</P>
+<P>“She’s not dead?� insisted Pelliter.</P>
+<P>“Will be— shortly,� replied Blake. “She was so weak she couldn’t walk when I
+left. But them Eskimo animals die hard, ’specially the women.�</P>
+<P>“Of course you’re going back for her?�</P>
+<P>The other stared for a moment into Pelliter’s flushed face, and then laughed
+as though he had just heard a good joke.</P>
+<P>“Not on your life, my boy. I wouldn’t hike that thirty miles again— an’
+thirty back— for all the Eskimo women up at Wagner.�</P>
+<P>The red in Pelliter’s eyes grew redder as he leaned over the table.</P>
+<P>“See here,� he said, “you’re going back— now! Do you understand? You’re going
+back!�</P>
+<P>Suddenly he stopped. He stared at Blake’s coat, and with a swiftness that
+took the other by surprise he reached across and picked something from it. A
+startled cry broke from his lips. Between his fingers he held a single filament
+of hair. It was nearly a foot long, and it was not an Eskimo woman’s hair. It
+shone a dull gold in the gray light that came through the window. He raised his
+eyes, terrible in their accusation of the man opposite him.</P>
+<P>“You lie!� he said. “She’s not an Eskimo!�</P>
+<P>Blake had half risen, his great hands clutching the ends of the table, his
+brutal face thrust forward, his whole body in an attitude that sent Pelliter
+back out of his reach. He was not an instant too soon. With an oath Blake sent
+the table crashing aside and sprang upon the sick man.</P>
+<P>“I’ll kill you!� he cried. “I’ll kill you, an’ put you where I’ve put her,
+’n’ when your pard comes back I’ll—�</P>
+<P>His hands caught Pelliter by the throat, but not before there had come from
+between the sick man’s lips a cry of “Kazan! Kazan!�</P>
+<P>With a wolfish snarl the old one-eyed sledge-dog sprang upon Blake, and the
+three fell with a crash upon Pelliter’s bunk. For an instant Kazan’s attack drew
+one of Blake’s powerful hands from Pelliter’s throat, and as he turned to strike
+off the dog Pelliter’s hand groped out under his flattened pillow. Blake’s
+murderous face was still turned when he drew out his heavy service revolver; and
+as Blake cut at Kazan with a long sheath-knife which he had drawn from his belt
+Pelliter fired. Blake’s grip relaxed. Without a groan he slipped to the floor,
+and Pelliter staggered back to his feet. Kazan’s teeth were buried in Blake’s
+leg.</P>
+<P>“There, there, boy,� said Pelliter, pulling him away. “That was a close
+one!�</P>
+<P>He sat down and looked at Blake. He knew that the man was dead. Kazan was
+sniffing about the sailor’s head with stiffened spines. And then a ray of light
+flashed for an instant through the window. It was the sun— the second time that
+Pelliter had seen it in four months. A cry of joy welled up from his heart. But
+it was stopped midway. On the floor close beside Blake something glittered in
+the fiery ray, and Pelliter was upon his knees in an instant. It was the short
+golden hair he had snatched from the dead man’s coat, and partly covering it was
+the picture of his sweetheart which had fallen when the table was overturned.
+With the photograph in one hand and that single thread of woman’s hair between
+the fingers of his other Pelliter rose slowly to his feet and faced the window.
+The sun was gone. But its coming had put a new life into him. He turned joyously
+to Kazan.</P>
+<P>“That means something, boy,� he said, in a low, awed voice, “the sun, the
+picture, and <I>this!</I> She sent it, do you hear, boy? She sent it! I can
+almost hear her voice, an’ she’s telling me to go. `Tommy,’ she’s saying, `you
+wouldn’t be a man if you didn’t go, even though you know you’re going to die on
+the way. You can take her something to eat,’ she’s saying, boy, `an’ you can
+just as well die in an igloo as here. You can leave word for Billy, an’ you can
+take her grub enough to last until he comes, an’ then he’ll bring her down here,
+an’ you’ll be buried out there with the others just the same.’ That’s what she’s
+saying, Kazan, so we’re going!� He looked about him a little wildly. “Straight
+up the coast,� he mumbled. “Thirty miles. We might make it.�</P>
+<P>He began filling a pack with food. Outside the door there was a small sledge,
+and after he had bundled himself in his traveling-clothes he dragged the pack to
+the sledge, and behind the pack tied on a bundle of firewood, a lantern,
+blankets, and oil. After he had done this he wrote a few lines to MacVeigh and
+pinned the paper to the door. Then he hitched old Kazan to the sledge and
+started off, leaving the dead man where he had fallen.</P>
+<P>“It’s what she’d have us do,� he said again to Kazan. “She sure would have us
+do this, Kazan. God bless her dear little heart!�</P>
+<H4>VIII</H4>
+<H4>LITTLE MYSTERY</H4>
+<P>Pelliter hung close to the ice-bound coast. He traveled slowly, leading the
+way for Kazan, who strained every muscle in his aged body to drag the sledge.
+For a time the excitement of what had occurred gave Pelliter a strength which
+soon began to ebb. But his old weakness did not entirely return. He found that
+his worst trouble at first was in his eyes. Weeks of fever had enfeebled his
+vision until the world about him looked new and strange. He could see only a few
+hundred paces ahead, and beyond this little circle everything turned gray and
+black. Singularly enough, it struck him that there was some humor as well as
+tragedy in the situation, that there was something to laugh at in the fact that
+Kazan had but one eye, and that he was nearly blind. He chuckled to himself and
+spoke aloud to the dog.</P>
+<P>“Makes me think of the games o’ hide-’n’-seek we used to play when we were
+kids, boy,� he said. “She used to tie her handkerchief over my eyes, ’n’ then
+I’d follow her all through the old orchard, and when I caught her it was a part
+of the game she’d have to let me kiss her. Once I bumped into an apple
+tree—�</P>
+<P>The toe of his snow-shoe caught in an ice-hummock and sent him face downward
+into the snow. He picked himself up and went on.</P>
+<P>“We played that game till we was grown-ups, old man,� he went on. “Last time
+we played it she was seventeen. Had her hair in a big brown braid, an’ it all
+came undone so that when I caught her an’ took off the handkerchief I could just
+see her eyes an’ her mouth laughing at me, and it was that time I hugged her up
+closer than ever and told her I was going out to make a home for us. Then I came
+up here.�</P>
+<P>He stopped and rubbed his eyes; and for an hour after that, as he plodded
+onward, he mumbled things which neither Kazan nor any other living thing could
+have understood. But whatever delirium found its way into his voice, the
+fighting spark in his brain remained sane. The igloo and the starving woman whom
+Blake had abandoned formed the one living picture which he did not for a moment
+forget. He must find the igloo, and the igloo was close to the sea. He could not
+miss it— if he lived long enough to travel thirty miles. It did not occur to him
+that Blake might have lied— that the igloo was farther than he had said, or
+perhaps much nearer.</P>
+<P>It was two o’clock when he stopped to make tea. He figured that he had
+traveled at least eighteen miles; the fact was he had gone but a little over
+half that distance. He was not hungry, and ate nothing, but he fed Kazan
+heartily of meat. The hot tea, strengthened with a little whisky, revived him
+for the time more than food would have done.</P>
+<P>“Twelve miles more at the most,� he said to Kazan. “We’ll make it. Thank God,
+we’ll make it!�</P>
+<P>If his eyes had been better he would have seen and recognized the huge
+snow-covered rock called the Blind Eskimo, which was just nine miles from the
+cabin. As it was, he went on, filled with hope. There were sharper pains in his
+head now, and his legs dragged wearily. Day ended at a little after two, but at
+this season there was not much change in light and darkness, and Pelliter
+scarcely noted the difference. The time came when the picture of the igloo and
+the dying woman came and went fitfully in his brain. There were dark spaces. The
+fighting spark was slowly giving way, and at last Pelliter dropped upon the
+sledge.</P>
+<P>“Go on, Kazan!� he cried, weakly. “Mush it— go on!�</P>
+<P>Kazan tugged, with gaping jaws; and Pelliter’s head dropped upon the
+food-filled pack.</P>
+<P>What Kazan heard was a groan. He stopped and looked back, whining softly. For
+a time he sat on his haunches, sniffing a strange thing which had come to him in
+the air. Then he went on, straining a little faster at the sledge and still
+whining. If Pelliter had been conscious he would have urged him straight ahead.
+But old Kazan turned away from the sea. Twice in the next ten minutes he stopped
+and sniffed the air, and each time he changed his course a little. Half an hour
+later he came to a white mound that rose up out of the level waste of snow, and
+then he settled himself back on his haunches, lifted his shaggy head to the dark
+night sky, and for the second time that day he sent forth the weird, wailing,
+mourning death-howl.</P>
+<P>It aroused Pelliter. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, staggered to his feet, and
+saw the mound a dozen paces away. Rest had cleared his brain again. He knew that
+it was an igloo. He could make out the door, and he caught up his lantern and
+stumbled toward it. He wasted half a dozen matches before he could make a light.
+Then he crawled in, with Kazan still in his traces close at his heels.</P>
+<P>There was a musty, uncomfortable odor in the snow-house. And there was no
+sound, no movement. The lantern lighted up the small interior, and on the floor
+Pelliter made out a heap of blankets and a bearskin. There was no life, and
+instinctively he turned his eyes down to Kazan. The dog’s head was stretched out
+toward the blankets, his ears were alert, his eyes burned fiercely, and a low,
+whining growl rumbled in his throat.</P>
+<P>He looked at the blankets again, moved slowly toward them. He pulled back the
+bearskin and found what Blake had told him he would find— a woman. For a moment
+he stared, and then a low cry broke from his lips as he fell upon his knees.
+Blake had not lied, for it was an Eskimo woman. She was dead. She had not died
+of starvation. Blake had killed her!</P>
+<P>He rose to his feet again and looked about him. After all, did that golden
+hair, that white woman’s hair, mean nothing? What was that? He sprang back
+toward Kazan, his weakened nerves shattered by a sound and a movement from the
+farthest and darkest part of the igloo. Kazan tugged at his traces, panting and
+whining, held back by the sledge wedged in the door. The sound came again, a
+human, wailing, sobbing cry.</P>
+<P>With his lantern in his hand Pelliter darted across to it. There was another
+roll of blankets on the floor, and as he looked he saw the bundle move. It took
+him but an instant to drop beside it, as he had dropped beside the other, and as
+he drew back the damp and partly frozen covering his heart leaped up and choked
+him. The lantern light fell full upon the thin, pale face and golden head of a
+little child. A pair of big frightened eyes were staring up at him; and as he
+knelt there, powerless to move or speak in the face of this miracle, the eyes
+closed again, and there came again the wailing, hungry note which Kazan had
+first heard as they approached the igloo. Pelliter flung back the blanket and
+caught the child in his arms.</P>
+<P>“It’s a girl— a little girl!� he almost shouted to Kazan. “Quick, boy— go
+back— get out!�</P>
+<P>He laid the child upon the other blankets, and then thrust back Kazan. He
+seemed suddenly possessed of the strength of two men as he tore at his own
+blankets and dumped the contents of the pack out upon the snow. “She sent us,
+boy,� he cried, his breath coming in sobbing gasps. “Where’s the milk ’n’ the
+stove—�</P>
+<P>In ten seconds more he was back in the igloo with a can of condensed cream, a
+pan, and the alcohol lamp. His fingers trembled so that he had difficulty in
+lighting the wick, and as he cut open the can with his knife he saw the child’s
+eyes flutter wide for an instant and then close again.</P>
+<P>“Just a minute, a half minute,� he pleaded, pouring the cream into the pan.
+“Hungry, eh, little one? Hungry? Starving?� He held the pan close down over the
+blue flame and gazed terrified at the white little face near him. Its thinness
+and quiet frightened him. He thrust his finger into the cream and found it
+warm.</P>
+<P>“A cup, Kazan! Why didn’t I bring a cup?� He darted out again and returned
+with a tin basin. In another moment the child was in his arms, and he forced the
+first few drops of cream between her lips. Her eyes shot open. Life seemed to
+spring into her little body; and she drank with a loud noise, one of her tiny
+hands gripping him by the wrist. The touch, the sound, the feel of life against
+<I>him</I> thrilled Pelliter. He gave her half of what the basin contained, and
+then wrapped her up warmly in his thick service blanket, so that all of her was
+hidden but her face and her tangled golden hair. He held her for a moment close
+to the lantern. She was looking at him now, wide-eyed and wondering, but not
+frightened.</P>
+<P>“God bless your little soul!� he exclaimed, his amazement growing. “Who are
+you, ’n’ where’d you come from? You ain’t more’n three years old, if you’re an
+hour. Where’s your mama ’n’ your papa?� He placed her back on the blankets.
+“Now, a fire, Kazan!� he said.</P>
+<P>He held the lantern above his head and found the narrow vent through the
+snow-and-ice wall which Blake had made for the escape of smoke. Then he went
+outside for the fuel, freeing Kazan on the way. In a few minutes more a small
+bright blaze of almost smokeless larchwood was lighting up and warming the
+interior of the igloo. To his surprise, Pelliter found the child asleep when he
+went to her again. He moved her gently and carried the dead body of the little
+Eskimo woman through the opening and half a hundred paces from the igloo. Not
+until then did he stop to marvel at the strength which had returned to him. He
+stretched his arms above his head and breathed deeply of the cold air. It seemed
+as though something had loosened inside of him, that a crushing weight had
+lifted itself from his eyes. Kazan had followed him, and he stared down at the
+dog.</P>
+<P>“It’s gone, Kazan,� he cried, in a low, half-credulous voice. “I don’t feel—
+sick— any more. It’s her—�</P>
+<P>He turned back to the igloo. The lantern and the fire made a cheerful glow
+inside, and it was growing warm. He threw off his heavy coat, drew the bearskin
+in front of the fire, and sat down with the child in his arms. She still slept.
+Like a starving man Pelliter stared down upon the little thin face. Gently his
+rough fingers stroked back the golden curls. He smiled. A light came into his
+eyes. His head bent lower and lower, slowly and a little fearfully. At last his
+lips touched the child’s cheek. And then his own rough grizzled face, toughened
+by wind and storm and intense cold, nestled against the little face of this new
+and mysterious life he had found at the top of the world.</P>
+<P>Kazan listened for a time, squatted on his haunches. Then he curled himself
+near the fire and slept. For a long time Pelliter sat rocking gently back and
+forth, thrilled by a happiness that was growing deeper and stronger in him each
+instant. He could feel the tiny beat of the little one’s heart against his
+breast; he could feel her breath against his cheek; one of her little hands had
+gripped him by his thumb.</P>
+<P>A hundred questions ran through his mind now. Who was this little abandoned
+mite? Who were her father and her mother, and where were they? How had she come
+to be with the Eskimo woman and Blake? Blake was not her father; the Eskimo
+woman was not her mother. What tragedy had placed her here? Somehow he was
+conscious of a sensation of joy as he reasoned that he would never be able to
+answer these questions. She belonged to him. He had found her. No one would ever
+come to dispossess him. Without awakening her, he thrust a hand into his breast
+pocket and drew out the photograph of the sweet-faced girl who was going to be
+his wife. It did not occur to him now that he might die. The old fear and the
+old sickness were gone. He knew that he was going to live.</P>
+<P>“You,� he breathed, softly, “you did it, and I know you’ll be glad when I
+bring her down to you.� And then to the little sleeping girl: “And if you ain’t
+got a name I guess I’ll have to call you Mystery— how is that?— my Little
+Mystery.�</P>
+<P>When he looked from the picture again Little Mystery’s eyes were open and
+gazing up at him. He dropped the picture and made a lunge for the pan of cream
+warming before the fire. The child drank as hungrily as before, with Pelliter
+babbling incoherent nonsense into her baby ears. When she had done he picked up
+the photograph, with a sudden and foolish inspiration that she might
+understand.</P>
+<P>“Looky,� he cried. “Pretty—�</P>
+<P>To his astonishment and joy, Little Mystery put out a hand and placed the tip
+of her tiny forefinger on the girl’s face. Then she looked up into Pelliter’s
+eyes.</P>
+<P>“Mama,� she lisped.</P>
+<P>Pelliter tried to speak, but something rose like a knot in his throat and
+choked him. A fire leaped all at once through his body; the joy of that one word
+blinded him with hot tears. When he spoke at last his voice was broken, like a
+sobbing woman’s.</P>
+<P>“That’s it.� he said. “You’re right, little one. She’s your mama!�</P>
+<H4>IX</H4>
+<H4>THE SECRET OF THE DEAD</H4>
+<P>On the eighth day after Pelliter found the Eskimo igloo Billy MacVeigh came
+up through a gray dawn with his footsore dogs, his letters, and his medicines.
+He had traveled all of the preceding night, and his feet dragged heavily. It was
+with a feeling of fear that he at last saw the black cliffs of Fullerton rising
+above the ice. He dreaded the first opening of the cabin door. What would he
+find? During the past forty-eight hours he had figured on Pelliter’s chances,
+and they were two to one that he would find his partner dead in his bunk.</P>
+<P>And if not, if Pelliter still lived, what a tale there would be to tell the
+sick man! For he knew that he must tell some one, and Pelliter would keep his
+secret. And he would understand. Day after day, as he had hurried straight into
+the north, Billy’s loneliness and heartbreak weighed more and more heavily upon
+him. He tried to force Isobel out of his thoughts, but it was impossible. A
+thousand visions of her rose before him, and each mile that he drew himself
+farther away from her seemed only to add to the nearness of her spirit at his
+side and to the strange pain in his heart that rose now and then to his lips in
+sobbing breaths that he fought with himself to stifle. And yet, with his own
+grief and hopelessness, he experienced more and more each day a compensating
+joy. It was the joy of knowing that he had given back life and hope to Isobel
+and her husband. Each day he figured their progress along with his own. From the
+Eskimo village he had sent a messenger back to Churchill with a long report for
+the officer in command there, and in that report he had lied. He reported
+Scottie Deane as having died of the injury he had received in the snow-slide.
+Not for a moment had he regretted the falsehood. He also promised to report at
+Churchill to testify against Bucky Smith as soon as he reached Pelliter and put
+him on his feet.</P>
+<P>On this last day, as he saw the towering cliffs of Fullerton ahead of him, he
+wondered how much he would tell to Pelliter if he found him alive. Mentally he
+rehearsed the amazing story of what came to him that night on the Barren, of the
+dogs coming across the snow, the great, dark, frightened eyes of the woman, and
+the long, narrow box on the sledge. He would tell pelliter all that. He would
+tell how he had made a camp for her that night, and how, later, he had told her
+that he loved her and had begged one kiss. And then the disclosures of the
+morning, the deserted tent, the empty box, the little note from Isobel, and the
+revelation that the box had contained the living body of the man for whom he and
+Pelliter had patrolled this desolate country for two thousand miles. But would
+he tell the truth of what had happened after that?</P>
+<P>He quickened his tired pace as the dogs climbed up from the ice of the Bay to
+the sloping ridge, and stared hard ahead of him. The dogs tugged harder as the
+smell of home entered their nostrils. At last the roof of the cabin came in
+view. MacVeigh’s bloodshot eyes were like an animal’s in their eagerness.</P>
+<P>“Pelly, old boy,� he gasped to himself. “Pelly—�</P>
+<P>He stared harder. And then he spoke a low word to the dogs and stopped. He
+wiped his face. A deep breath of relief fell from his lips.</P>
+<P>Straight up from the chimney of the cabin there rose a thick column of
+smoke!</P>
+<P>He came up to the door of the cabin quietly, wondering why Pelliter did not
+see him or hear the three or four sharp yelps the dogs had given. He twisted off
+his snow-shoes, chuckling as he thought of the surprise he would give his mate.
+His hand was on the door latch when he stopped. The smile left his lips.
+Startled wonderment filled his face as he bent close to the door and listened,
+and for a moment his heart throbbed with a terrible fear. He had returned too
+late— perhaps a day— two days. Pelliter had gone mad! He could hear him raving
+inside, filling the cabin with a laughter that sent a chill of horror through
+his veins. Mad! A sob broke from his lips, and he turned his face up to the gray
+sky. And then the laughter turned to song. It was the sweet love song which
+Pelliter had told him that the girl down south used to sing to him when they
+were alone out under the stars. Suddenly it broke off short, and in its place he
+heard <I>another</I> sound. With a cry he opened the door and burst in.</P>
+<P>“My God!� he cried. “Pelly— Pelly—�</P>
+<P>Pelliter was on his knees in the middle of the floor. But it was not the look
+of wonderment and joy in his face that Billy saw first. He stared at the little
+golden-haired creature on the floor in front of him. He had traveled hard,
+almost day and night, and for an instant it flashed upon him that what he saw
+was not real. Before he could move or speak again Pelliter was on his feet,
+wringing his hands and almost crying in his gladness. There was no sign of fever
+or madness in his face now. Like one in a dream Billy heard what he said.</P>
+<P>“God bless you, Billy! I’m glad you’ve come!� he cried. “We’ve been waiting
+’n’ watching, and not more’n a minute ago we were at the window looking along
+the edge of the Bay through the binoculars. You must have been under the ridge.
+My God! A little while ago I thought I was dying— I thought I was alone in the
+world— alone— alone. But look— <I>look,</I> Billy, I’ve got a fam’ly!�</P>
+<P>Little Mystery had climbed to her feet. She was looking at Billy wonderingly,
+her golden curls tousled about her pretty face, and gripping two or three of
+Pelliter’s old letters in her tiny hand. And then she smiled at Billy and held
+out the letters to him. In an instant he had dropped Pelliter’s hands and caught
+her up in his arms.</P>
+<P>“I’ve got letters for you in my pocket, Pelly,� he gasped. “But— first—
+you’ve got to tell me who she is and where you got her—�</P>
+<P>Briefly Pelliter told of Blake’s visit, the fight, and of the finding of
+Little Mystery.</P>
+<P>“I’d have died if it hadn’t been for her, Billy,� he finished. “She brought
+me back to life. But I don’t know who she is or where she came from. There
+wasn’t anything in his pockets or in the igloo to tell. I buried him out there—
+shallow— so you could take a look when you came back.�</P>
+<P>He snatched like a starving man for food at the letters MacVeigh pulled from
+his pocket. While he read Billy sat down with Little Mystery on his knees. She
+laughed and put her warm little hands up to his rough face. Her eyes were blue,
+like Isobel’s; and suddenly he crushed his face close down against her soft
+curls and held her so close to him that for a moment she was frightened. A
+little later Pelliter looked up. His eyes shone, his thin face was radiant with
+joy.</P>
+<P>“God bless the sweetest little girl in the world, Billy!� he whispered,
+huskily. “She says she’s lonely for me. She tells me to hurry— hurry down there
+to her. She says that if I don’t come soon she’ll come up to me! Read ’em,
+Billy!�</P>
+<P>He looked in astonishment at the change which he saw in MacVeigh’s face.
+Billy accepted the letters mechanically and placed them on the edge of the bunk
+near which he was sitting.</P>
+<P>“I’ll read them— after a while,� he said, slowly.</P>
+<P>Little Mystery clambered from his knee and ran to Pelliter. Billy was staring
+straight into the other’s face.</P>
+<P>“You’re sure you’ve told me everything, Pelly? There wasn’t anything in his
+pockets? You searched well?�</P>
+<P>“Yes. There was nothing.�</P>
+<P>“But— you were sick—�</P>
+<P>“That’s why I buried him shallow,� interrupted Pelliter. “He’s close to the
+last cross, just under the ice and snow. I wanted you to look— for
+yourself.�</P>
+<P>Billy rose to his feet. He took Little Mystery in his arms again and looked
+closely in her face. There was a strange look in his eyes. She laughed at him,
+but he did not seem to notice it. And then he held her out to Pelliter.</P>
+<P>“Pelly, did you ever— ever notice eyes— very closely?� he asked. <I>“Blue</I>
+eyes?�</P>
+<P>Pelliter stared at him amazed.</P>
+<P>“My Jeanne has blue eyes—�</P>
+<P>“And have they little brown dots in them like a wood violet?�</P>
+<P>“No-o-o—�</P>
+<P>“They’re blue, just <I>blue,</I> ain’t they?�</P>
+<P>“Yes.�</P>
+<P>“And I suppose most all blue eyes are just <I>blue,</I> without the little
+brown spots. Wouldn’t you think so?�</P>
+<P>“What in Heaven’s name are you driving at?� demanded Pelliter.</P>
+<P>“I just wanted you to notice that <I>her</I> eyes have little brown spots in
+them,� replied Billy. “I’ve only seen one other pair of eyes— just like hers.�
+He turned toward the door. “I’m going out to care for the dogs and dig up
+Blake,� he added. “I can’t rest until I’ve seen him.�</P>
+<P>Pelliter placed Little Mystery on her feet.</P>
+<P>“I’ll see to the dogs,� he said. “But I don’t want to look at Blake
+again.�</P>
+<P>The two men went out, and while Pelliter led the dogs to a lean-to behind the
+cabin Billy began to work with an ax and spade at the spot his comrade had
+pointed out to him. Ten minutes later he came to Blake. An excitement which he
+had tried to hide from Pelliter overcame his sense of horror as he dragged out
+the stiff and frozen corpse of the man. It was a terrible picture that the dead
+man made, with his coarse bearded face turned up to the sky and his teeth still
+snarling as they had snarled on the day he died. Billy knew most men who had
+come into the north above Churchill, but he had never looked upon Blake before.
+It was probable that the dead man had told a part of the truth, and that he was
+a sailor left on the upper coast by some whaler. He shivered as he began going
+through his pockets. Each moment added to his disappointment. He found a few
+things— a knife, two keys, several coins, a fire-flint, and other articles— but
+there was no letter or writing of any kind, and that was what he had hoped to
+find. There was nothing that might solve the mystery of the miracle that had
+descended upon them. He rolled the dead man into the grave, covered him over,
+and went into the cabin.</P>
+<P>Pelliter was in his usual place— on his hands and knees, with Little Mystery
+astride his back. He paused in a mad race across the cabin floor and looked up
+with inquiring eyes. The little girl held up her arms, and MacVeigh tossed her
+half-way to the ceiling and then hugged her golden head close up to his chilled
+face. Pelliter jumped to his feet; his face grew serious as Billy looked at him
+over the child’s tousled curls.</P>
+<P>“I found nothing— absolutely nothing of any account,� he said.</P>
+<P>He placed Little Mystery on one of the bunks and faced the other with a
+puzzled look in his eyes.</P>
+<P>“I wish you hadn’t been in a fever on that day of the fight, Pelly,� he said.
+“He <I>must</I> have said something— something that would give us a clue.�</P>
+<P>“Mebbe he did, Billy,� replied Pelliter, looking with a shiver at the few
+things MacVeigh had placed on the cabin table. “But there’s no use worrying any
+more about it. It ain’t in reason that she’s got any people up here, six hundred
+miles from the shack of a white man that ’d own a little beauty like her. She’s
+mine. I found her. She’s mine to keep.�</P>
+<P>He sat down at the table, and MacVeigh sat down opposite him, smiling
+sympathetically into Pelliter’s eyes.</P>
+<P>“I know you want her— want her bad, Pelly,� he said. “And I know the girl
+would love her. But she’s got people— somewhere, and it’s our duty to find ’em.
+She didn’t drop out of a balloon, Pelly. Do you suppose— the dead man— might be
+her father?�</P>
+<P>It was the first time he had asked this question, and he noted the other’s
+sudden shudder of revulsion.</P>
+<P>“I’ve thought of that. But it can’t be. He was a beast, and she— she’s a
+little angel. Billy, her mother must have been beautiful. And that’s what made
+me guess— fear—�</P>
+<P>Pelliter wiped his face uneasily, and the two young men stared into each
+other’s eyes. MacVeigh leaned forward, waiting.</P>
+<P>“I figured it all out last night, lying awake there in my bunk,� continued
+Pelliter, “and as the second best friend I have on earth <I>I</I> want to ask
+you not to go any farther, Billy. She’s mine. My Jeanne, down there, will love
+her like a real mother, and we’ll bring her up right. But if you go on, Billy,
+you’ll find something <I>unpleasant</I>— I— I— swear you will!�</P>
+<P>“You know—�</P>
+<P>“I’ve <I>guessed,�</I> interrupted the other. “Billy, sometimes a beast— a
+man beast— holds an attraction for a woman, and Blake was that sort of a beast.
+You remember— two years ago— a sailor ran away with the wife of a whaler’s
+captain away up at Narwhale Inlet. Well—�</P>
+<P>Again the two men stared silently at each other. MacVeigh turned slowly
+toward the child. She had fallen asleep, and he could see the dull shimmer of
+her golden curls as they lay scattered over Pelliter’s pillow.</P>
+<P>“Poor little devil!� he exclaimed, softly.</P>
+<P>“I believe that woman was Little Mystery’s mother,� Pelliter went on. “She
+couldn’t bear to leave the little kid when she went with Blake, so she took her
+along. Some women do that. And after a time she died. Then Blake took up with an
+Eskimo woman. You know what happened after that. We don’t want Little Mystery to
+know all this when she grows up. It’s better not. She’s too little to remember,
+ain’t she? She won’t ever know.�</P>
+<P>“I remember the ship,� said Billy, not taking his eyes off Little Mystery.
+“She was the <I>Silver Seal.</I> Her captain’s name was Thompson.�</P>
+<P>He did not look at Pelliter, but he could feel the quick, tense stiffening of
+the other’s body. There was a moment’s silence. Then Pelliter spoke in a low,
+unnatural voice.</P>
+<P>“Billy, you ain’t going to hunt him up, are you? That wouldn’t be fair to me
+or to the kid. My Jeanne ’ll love her, an’ mebbe— mebbe some day <I>your</I> kid
+’ll come along an’ marry her—�</P>
+<P>MacVeigh rose to his feet. Pelliter did not see the sudden look of grief that
+shot into his face.</P>
+<P>“What do you say, Billy?�</P>
+<P>“Think it over, Pelly,� came back Billy’s voice, huskily. “Think it over. I
+don’t want to hurt you, and I know you think a lot of her, but— think it over.
+You wouldn’t rob her father, would you? An’ she’s all he’s got left of the
+woman. Think it over, Pelly, good ’n’ hard. I’m going to bed an’ sleep a
+week!�</P>
+<H4>X</H4>
+<H4>IN DEFIANCE OF THE LAW</H4>
+<P>Billy slept all that day and the night that followed, and Pelliter did not
+awaken him. He aroused himself from his long sleep of exhaustion an hour or two
+before dawn of the following morning, and for the first time he had the
+opportunity of going over with himself all the things that had happened since
+his return to Fullerton Point. His first thought was Pelliter and Little
+Mystery. He could hear his comrade’s deep breathing in the bunk opposite him,
+and again he wondered if Pelliter had told him everything. Was it possible that
+Blake had said nothing to reveal Little Mystery’s identity, and that the igloo
+and the dead Eskimo woman had not given up the secret? It seemed inconceivable
+that there would not be something in the igloo that would help to clear up the
+mystery. And yet, after all, he had faith in Pelliter. He knew that he would
+keep nothing from him even though it meant possession of the child. And then his
+mind leaped to Isobel Deane. <I>Her</I> eyes were blue, and they had in them
+those same little spots of brown he had found in Little Mystery’s. They were
+unusual eyes, and he had noticed the brown in them because it had added to their
+loveliness and had made him think of the violets he had told Pelliter about. Was
+it possible, he asked himself, that there could be some association between
+Isobel and Little Mystery? He confessed that it was scarcely conceivable, and
+yet it was impossible for him to get the thought out of his mind.</P>
+<P>Before Pelliter awoke he had determined upon his own course of action. He
+would say nothing of what had happened to himself on the Barren, at least not
+for a time. He would not tell of his meeting with Isobel and her husband or of
+what had followed. Until he was absolutely certain that Pelliter was keeping
+nothing from him he would not confide the secret of his own treachery to him.
+For he had been a traitor— to the Law. He realized that. He could tell the
+story, with its fictitious ending, before they set out for Churchill, where he
+would give evidence against Bucky Smith. Meanwhile he would watch Pelliter, and
+wait for him to reveal whatever he might have hidden from him. He knew that if
+Pelliter was concealing something he was inspired by his almost insane worship
+of the little girl he had found who had saved him from madness and death. He
+smiled in the darkness as he thought that if Pelliter were working to achieve
+his own end— possession of Little Mystery— he was inspired by emotions no more
+selfish than his own in giving back life to Isobel Deane and her husband. On
+that score they were even.</P>
+<P>He was up and had breakfast started before Pelliter awoke. Little Mystery was
+still sleeping, and the two men moved about softly in their moccasined feet. On
+this morning the sun shone brilliantly over the southern ice-fields, and
+Pelliter aroused Little Mystery so that she might see it before it disappeared.
+But to-day it did not drop below the gray murkiness of the snow-horizon for
+nearly an hour. After breakfast Pelliter read his letters again, and then Billy
+read them. In one of the letters the girl had put a tress of sunny hair, and
+Pelliter kissed it shamelessly before his comrade.</P>
+<P>“She says she’s making the dress she’s going to wear when we’re married, and
+that if I don’t come home before it’s out of style she’ll never marry me at
+all,� he cried, joyously. “Look there, on that page she’s told me all about it.
+You’re— you’re goin’ to be there, ain’t you, Billy?�</P>
+<P>“If I can make it, Pelly.�</P>
+<P>“If you can <I>make</I> it! I thought you was going out of the Service when I
+did.�</P>
+<P>“I’ve sort of changed my mind.�</P>
+<P>“And you’re going to stick?�</P>
+<P>“Mebbe for another three years.�</P>
+<P>Life in the cabin was different after this. Pelliter and Little Mystery were
+happy, and Billy fought with himself every hour to keep down his own gloom and
+despair. The sun helped him. It rose earlier each day and remained longer in the
+sky, and soon the warmth of it began to soften the snow underfoot. The vast
+fields of ice began to give evidence of the approach of spring, and the air was
+more and more filled with the thunderous echoes of the “break up.� Great floes
+broke from the shore-runs, and the sea began to open. Down from the north the
+powerful arctic currents began to move their grinding, roaring avalanches. But
+it was a full month before Billy was sure that Pelliter was strong enough to
+begin the long trip south. Even then he waited for another week.</P>
+<P>Late one afternoon he went out alone and stood on the cliff watching the
+thunderous movement of arctic ice out in the Roes Welcome. Standing motionless
+fifty paces from the little storm-beaten cabin that represented Law at this
+loneliest outpost on the American continent, he looked like a carven thing of
+dun-gray rock, with a dun-gray world over his head and on all sides of him,
+broken only in its terrific monotony of deathlike sameness by the darker gloom
+of the sky and the whiter and ghostlier gloom that hung over the ice-fields. The
+wind was still bitter, and his vision was shut in by a near horizon which Billy
+had often thought of as the rim of hell. On this afternoon his heart was as
+leaden as the day. Under his feet the frozen earth shivered with the rumbling
+reverberations of the crashing and breaking mountains of ice. His ears were
+filled with a dull and steady roar, like the echoes of distant thunder, broken
+now and then— when an ice-mountain split asunder— with a report like that of a
+thirteen-inch gun. There were curious wailings, strange screeching sounds, and
+heartbreaking moanings in the air. Two days before MacVeigh had heard the roar
+of the ice ten miles inland, where he had gone for caribou.</P>
+<P>But he scarcely heard that roar now. He was looking toward the warring fields
+of ice, but he did not see them. It was not the dead gloom and the gray monotony
+that weighted his heart, but the sounds that he heard now and then in the cabin—
+the laughing of Little Mystery and of Pelliter. A few days more and he would
+lose <I>them.</I> And after that what would be left for him? A cry broke from
+his lips, and he gripped his hands in despair. He would be <I>alone.</I> There
+was no one waiting for him down in that world to which Pelliter was going, no
+girl to meet him, no father, no mother— nothing. He laughed in his pain as he
+faced the cold wind from the north. The sting of that wind was like the mocking
+ghost of his own past life. For all his life he had known only the stings of
+pain and of loneliness. And then, suddenly, there came Pelliter’s words to him
+again— “Mebbe some day <I>you’ll</I> have a kid.� A flood of warmth swept
+through his veins, and in the moment of forgetfulness and hope which came with
+it he turned his eyes into the south and west and saw the sweet face and
+upturned lips of Isobel Deane.</P>
+<P>He pulled himself together with a low laugh and faced the breaking seas of
+ice and the north. The gloom of night had drawn the horizon nearer. The rumble
+and thunder of crumbling floes came from out of a purple chaos that was growing
+blue-black in the distance. For several minutes he stood listening and looking
+into nothingness. The breaking of the ice, the moaning discontent in the air,
+and the growling monotone of the giant currents had driven other men mad; but
+they held a fascination for him. He knew what was happening, and he could almost
+measure the strength of the unseen hands of nature. No sound was new or strange
+to him. But now, as he stood there, there rose above all the other tumult a
+sound that he had not heard before. His body became suddenly tense and alert as
+he faced squarely to the north. For a full minute he listened, and then turned
+and ran to the cabin.</P>
+<P>Pelliter had lighted a lamp, and in its glow Billy’s face shone white with
+excitement.</P>
+<P>“Good God, Pelly, come here!� he cried from the door.</P>
+<P>As Pelliter ran out he gripped him by the shoulders.</P>
+<P>“Listen!� he commanded. <I>“Listen to that!�</I></P>
+<P>“Wolves!� said Pelliter.</P>
+<P>The wind was rising, and sent a whistling blast through the open door of the
+cabin. It awakened Little Mystery, who sat up with frightened cries.</P>
+<P>“No, it’s not wolves,� cried MacVeigh, and it did not sound like MacVeigh’s
+voice that spoke. “I never heard wolves like that. Listen!�</P>
+<P>He clutched Pelliter’s arm as on a fresh burst of the wind there came the
+strange and terrible sound from out of the night. It was rapidly drawing nearer—
+a wailing burst of savage voice, as if a great wolf pack had struck the fresh
+and blood-stained trail of game. But with this there was the other and more
+fearful sound, a shrieking and yelping as if half-human creatures were being
+torn by the fangs of beasts. As Pelliter and MacVeigh stood waiting for
+something to appear out of the gray-and-black mystery of the night they heard a
+sound that was like the slow tolling of a thing that was half bell and half
+drum.</P>
+<P>“It’s not wolves,� shouted Billy. “Whatever it is, there’s men with it!
+Hurry, Pelly, into the cabin with our dogs and sledge! Those are dogs we hear—
+dogs who are howling because they smell us— and there are hundreds of ’em! Where
+there’s dogs there’s men— but who in Heaven’s name can they be?�</P>
+<P>He dragged the sledge into the cabin while Pelliter unleashed the huskies
+from the lean-to. When he came in with the dogs Pelliter locked and bolted the
+door.</P>
+<P>Billy slipped a clipful of cartridges into his big-game Remington. His
+carbine was already on the table, and as Pelliter stood staring at him in
+indecision he pulled out two Savage automatics from under his bunk and gave one
+of them to his companion. His face was white and set.</P>
+<P>“Better get ready, Pelly,� he said, quietly. “I’ve been in this country a
+long time, and I tell you they’re dogs and men. Did you hear the drum? It’s made
+of seal belly, and there’s a bell on each side of it. They’re Eskimos, and there
+isn’t an Eskimo village within two hundred miles of us this winter. They’re
+Eskimos, and they’re not on a hunt, unless it’s for <I>us!�</I></P>
+<P>In an instant Pelliter was buckling on his revolver and cartridge-belt. He
+grinned as he looked at the wicked little blue-steeled Savage.</P>
+<P>“I hope you ain’t mistaken, Billy,� he said, “for it ’ll be the first
+excitement we’ve had in a year.�</P>
+<P>None of his enthusiasm revealed itself in MacVeigh’s face.</P>
+<P>“The Eskimo never fights until he’s gone mad, Pelly,� he said, “and you know
+what mad<I>men</I> are. I can’t guess what they’ve got to fight over, unless
+they want our grub. But if they do—� He moved toward the door, his swift-firing
+Remington in his hand. “Be ready to cover me, Pelly. I’m going out. Don’t fire
+until you hear me shoot.�</P>
+<P>He opened the door and stepped out. The howling had ceased now, but there
+came in its place strange barking voices and a cracking which Billy knew was
+made by the long Eskimo whips. He advanced to meet many dim forms which he saw
+breaking out of the wall of gloom, raising his voice in a loud holloa. From the
+Doorway Pelliter saw him suddenly lost in a mass of dogs and men, and half flung
+his carbine to his shoulder. But there was no shooting from MacVeigh. A score of
+sledges had drawn up about him, and the whips of dozens of little black men
+cracked viciously as their dogs sank upon their bellies in the snow. Both men
+and dogs were tired, and Billy saw that they had been running long and hard.
+Still as quick as animals the little men gathered about him, their
+white-and-black eyes staring at him out of round, thick, dumb-looking faces. He
+noted that they were half a hundred strong, and that all were armed, many with
+their little javelin-like narwhal harpoons, some with spears, and others with
+rifles. From the circle of strangely dressed and hideously visaged beings that
+had gathered about him one advanced and began talking to him in a language that
+was like the rapid clack of knuckle bones.</P>
+<P>“Kogmollocks!� Billy groaned, and he lifted both hands to show that he did
+not understand. Then he raised his voice. “Nuna-talmute,� he cried.
+“Nuna-talmute— Nuna-talmute! Ain’t there one of that lingo among you?�</P>
+<P>He spoke directly to the chief man, who stared at him in silence for a moment
+and then pointed both short arms toward the lighted cabin.</P>
+<P>“Come on!� said Billy. He caught the little Eskimo by one of his thick arms
+and led him boldly through the breach that was made for them in the circle. The
+chief man’s voice broke out in a few words of command, like a dozen quick, sharp
+yelps of a dog, and six other Eskimos dropped in behind them.</P>
+<P>“Kogmollocks— the blackest-hearted little devils alive when it comes to
+trading wives and fighting,� said MacVeigh to Pelliter, as he came up at the
+head of the seven little black men. “ Watch the door, Pelly. They’re coming
+in.�</P>
+<P>He stepped into the cabin, and the Eskimos followed. From Pelliter’s bunk
+Little Mystery looked at the strange visitors with eyes which suddenly widened
+with surprise and joy, and in another moment she had given the strange story
+that Pelliter or Billy had ever heard her utter. Scarcely had that cry fallen
+from her lips when one of the Eskimos sprang toward her. His black hands were
+already upon her, dragging the child from the bunk, when with a warning yell of
+rage Pelliter leaped from the door and sent him crashing back among his
+companions. In another instant both men were facing the seven Eskimos with
+leveled automatics.</P>
+<P>“If you fire don’t shoot to kill!� commanded MacVeigh.</P>
+<P>The chief man was pointing to Little Mystery, his weird voice rising until it
+was almost a scream. Suddenly he doubled himself back and raised his javelin.
+Simultaneously two streams of fire leaped from the automatics. The javelin
+dropped to the floor, and with a shrill cry which was half pain and half command
+the leader staggered back to the door, a stream of blood running from his
+wounded hand. The others sprang out ahead of him, and Pelliter closed and bolted
+the door. When he turned MacVeigh was closing and slipping the bolts to the
+heavy barricades of the two windows. From Pelliter’s bunk Little Mystery looked
+at them and laughed.</P>
+<P>“So it’s <I>you?�</I> said Billy, coming to her, and breathing hard. “It’s
+you they want, eh? Now, I wonder why?�</P>
+<P>Pelliter’s face was flushed with excitement. He was reloading his automatic.
+There was almost a triumph in his eyes as he met MacVeigh’s questioning
+gaze.</P>
+<P>They stood and listened, heard only the rumbling monotone of the drifting
+ice— not the breath of a sound from the scores of men and dogs.</P>
+<P>“We’ve given them a lesson,� said Pelliter, at last, smiling with the
+confidence of a man who was half a tenderfoot among the little brown men.</P>
+<P>Billy pointed to the door.</P>
+<P>“That door is about the only place vulnerable to their bullets,� he said, as
+though he had not heard Pelliter. “Keep out of its range. I don’t believe what
+guns they’ve got are heavy enough to penetrate the logs. Your bunk is out of
+line and safe.�</P>
+<P>He went to Little Mystery, and his stern face relaxed into a smile as she put
+up her arms to greet him.</P>
+<P>“So it’s <I>you,</I> is it?� he asked again, taking her warm little face and
+soft curls between his two hands. “They want you, an’ they want you bad. Well,
+they can have grub, an’ they can have <I>me,</I> but�— he looked up to meet
+Pelliter’s eyes— “I’m damned if they can have you,� he finished.</P>
+<P>Suddenly the night was broken by another sound, the sharp, explosive crack of
+rifles. They could hear the beat of bullets against the log wall of the cabin.
+One crashed through the door, tearing away a splinter as wide as a man’s arm,
+and as MacVeigh nodded to the path of the bullet he laughed. Pelliter had heard
+that laugh before. He knew what it meant. He knew what the death-whiteness of
+MacVeigh’s face meant. It was not fear, but something more terrible than fear.
+His own face was flushed. That is the difference in men.</P>
+<P>MacVeigh suddenly darted across the danger zone to the opposite half of the
+cabin.</P>
+<P>“If that’s your game, here goes,� he cried. “Now, damn y’, you’re so anxious
+to fight— get at it ’n’ fight!�</P>
+<P>He spoke the last words to Pelliter. Billy always swore when he went into
+action.</P>
+<H4>XI</H4>
+<H4>THE NIGHT OF PERIL</H4>
+<P>On his own side of the cabin Pelliter began tugging at a small, thin block
+laid between two of the logs. The shooting outside had ceased when the two men
+opened up the loopholes that commanded a range seaward. Almost immediately it
+began again, the dull red flashes showing the location of the Eskimos, who had
+drawn back to the ridge that sloped down to the Bay. As the last of five shots
+left his Remington Billy pulled in his gun and faced across to Pelliter, who was
+already reloading.</P>
+<P>“Pelly, I don’t want to croak,� he said, “but this is the last of Law at
+Fullerton Point— for you and me. Look at that!�</P>
+<P>He raised the muzzle of his rifle to one of the logs over his head. Pelliter
+could see the fresh splinters sticking out.</P>
+<P>“They’ve got some heavy calibers,� continued Billy, “and they’ve hidden
+behind the slope, where they’re safe from us for a thousand years. As soon as it
+grows light enough to see they’ll fill this shack as full of holes as an old
+cheese.�</P>
+<P>As if to verify his words a single shot rang out and a bullet plowed through
+a log so close to Pelliter that the splinters flew into his face.</P>
+<P>“I know these little devils, Pelly,� went on MacVeigh. “If they were
+Nuna-talmutes you could scare ’em with a sky-rocket. But they’re Kogmollocks.
+They’ve murdered the crews of half a dozen whalers, and I shouldn’t wonder if
+they’d got the kid in some such way. They wouldn’t let us off now, even if we
+gave her up. It wouldn’t do. They know better than to let the Law get any
+evidence against them. If we’re killed and the cabin burned, who’s going to say
+what happened to us? There’s just two things for us to do—�</P>
+<P>Another fusillade of shots came from the snow ridge, and a third bullet
+crashed into the cabin.</P>
+<P>“Just two things,� Billy went on, as he completely shaded the dimly burning
+lamp. “We can stay here ’n’ die— or run.�</P>
+<P><I>“Run!�</I></P>
+<P>This was an unknown word in the Service, and in Pelliter’s voice there were
+both amazement and contempt.</P>
+<P>“Yes, run,� said Billy, quietly. “Run— for the kid’s sake.�</P>
+<P>It was almost dark in the cabin, and Pelliter came close to his
+companion.</P>
+<P>“You mean—�</P>
+<P>“That it’s the only way to save the kid. We might give her up, then fight it
+out, but that means she’d go back to the Eskimos, ’n’ mebbe never be found
+again. The men and dogs out there are bushed. We are fresh. If we can get away
+from the cabin we can beat ’em out.�</P>
+<P>“We’ll run, then,� said Pelliter. He went to Little Mystery, who sat stunned
+into silence by the strange things that were happening, and hugged her up in his
+arms, his back turned to the possible bullet that might come through the wall.
+“We’re going to run, little sweetheart,� he mumbled, half laughingly, in her
+curls.</P>
+<P>Billy began to pack, and Pelliter put Little Mystery down on the bunk and
+started to harness the six dogs, ranging them close along the wall, with old
+one-eyed Kazan, the hero who had saved him from Blake, in the lead. Outside the
+firing had ceased. It was evident that the Eskimos had made up their minds to
+save their ammunition until dawn.</P>
+<P>Fifteen minutes sufficed to load the sledge; and while Pelliter was fastening
+the sledge traces MacVeigh bundled Little Mystery into her thick fur coat. The
+sleeves caught, and he turned it back, exposing the white edge of the lining. On
+that lining was something which drew him down close, and when the strange cry
+that fell from his lips drew Pelliter’s eyes toward him he was staring down into
+Little Mystery’s upturned face with the look of one who saw a vision.</P>
+<P>“Mother of Heaven!� he gasped, “she’s—� He caught himself, and smothered
+Little Mystery up close to him for a moment before he brought her to the sledge.
+“She’s the bravest little kid in the world,� he finished; and Pelliter wondered
+at the strangeness of his voice. He tucked her into a nest made of blankets and
+then tied her in securely with <I>babiche</I> rope. Pelliter stood up first and
+saw the hungry, staring look in MacVeigh’s face as he kept his eyes steadily
+upon Little Mystery.</P>
+<P>“What’s the matter, Mac?� he asked. “Are you very much afraid— for her?�</P>
+<P>“No,� said MacVeigh, without lifting his head. “If you’re ready, Pelly, open
+the door.� He rose to his feet and picked up his rifle. He did not seem like the
+old MacVeigh; but the dogs were nipping and whining, and there was no time for
+Pelliter’s questions.</P>
+<P>“I’m going out first, Billy,� he said. “You can make up your mind they’re
+watching the cabin pretty close, and as soon as the dogs nose the open air
+they’ll begin yapping ’n’ let ’em on to us. We can’t risk her under fire. So I’m
+going to back along the edge of the ridge and give it to ’em as fast as I can
+work the gun. They’ll all turn to me, and that’s the time for you to open the
+door and make your getaway. I’ll be with you inside of five minutes.�</P>
+<P>He turned out the lights as he spoke. Then he opened the door and slipped out
+into the darkness without a protesting word from MacVeigh. Hardly had he gone
+when the latter fell upon his knees beside Little Mystery and in the deep gloom
+crushed his rough face down against her soft, warm little body.</P>
+<P>“So it’s you, is it?� he cried, softly; and then he mumbled things which the
+little girl could not possibly have understood.</P>
+<P>Suddenly he sprang to his feet and ran to the door with a word to faithful
+old Kazan, the leader.</P>
+<P>From far down the snow-ridge there came the rapid firing of Pelliter’s
+rifle.</P>
+<P>For a moment Billy waited, his hand on the door, to give the watching Eskimos
+time to turn their attention toward Pelliter. He could perhaps have counted
+fifty before he gave Kazan the leash and the six dogs dragged the sledge out
+into the night. With his humanlike intelligence old Kazan swung quickly after
+his master, and the team darted like a streak into the south and west, giving
+tongue to that first sharp, yapping voice which it is impossible to beat or
+train out of a band of huskies. As he ran Billy looked back over his shoulder.
+In the hundred-yard stretch of gray bloom between the cabin and the snow-ridge
+he saw three figures speeding like wolves. In a flash the meaning of this
+unexpected move of the Eskimos dawned upon him. They were cutting Pelliter off
+from the cabin and his course of flight.</P>
+<P>“Go it, Kazan!� he cried, fiercely, bending low over the leader. “Moo-hoosh—
+moo-hoosh— moo-hoosh, old man!� And Kazan leaped into a swift run, nipping and
+whining at the empty air.</P>
+<P>Billy stopped and whirled about. Two other figures had joined the first
+three, and he opened fire. One of the running Eskimos pitched forward with a cry
+that rose shrill and scarcely human above the moaning and roar of the
+ice-fields, and the other four fell flat upon the snow to escape the hail of
+lead that sang close over their heads. From the snow-ridge there came a
+fusillade of shots, and a single figure darted like a streak in MacVeigh’s
+direction. He knew that it was Pelliter; and, running slowly after Kazan and the
+sledge, he rammed a fresh clipful of cartridges into the chamber of his rifle.
+The figures in the open had risen again, and Pelliter’s automatic Savage trailed
+out a stream of fire as he ran. He was breathing heavily when he reached
+Billy.</P>
+<P>“Kazan has got the kid well in the lead,� shouted the latter. “God bless that
+old scoundrel! I believe he’s human.�</P>
+<P>They set off swiftly, and the thick night soon engulfed all signs of the
+Eskimos. Ahead of them the sledge loomed up slowly, and when they reached it
+both men thrust their rifles under the blanket straps. Thus relieved of their
+weight, they forged ahead of Kazan.</P>
+<P>“Moo-hoosh— moo-hoosh!� encouraged Billy.</P>
+<P>He glanced at Pelliter on the opposite side. His comrade was running with one
+arm raised at the proper angle to reserve breath and endurance; the other hung
+straight and limp at his side. A sudden fear shot through him, and he darted
+ahead of the lead dog to Pelliter’s side. He did not speak, but touched the
+other’s arm.</P>
+<P>“One of the little devil’s winged me,� gasped Pelliter. “It’s not bad.�</P>
+<P>He was breathing as though the short run was already winding him, and without
+a word Billy ran up to Kazan’s head and stopped the team within twenty paces.
+The open blade of his knife was ripping up Pelliter’s sleeve before his comrade
+could find words to object. Pelliter was bleeding, and bleeding hard. His face
+was shot with pain. The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his
+forearm, but had fortunately missed the main artery. With the quick deftness of
+the wilderness-trained surgeon Billy drew the wound close and bound it tightly
+with his own and Pelliter’s handkerchiefs. Then he thrust Pelliter toward the
+sledge.</P>
+<P>“You’ve got to ride, Pelly,� he said. “If you don’t you’ll go under, and that
+means all of us.�</P>
+<P>Far behind them there rose the yapping and howling of dogs.</P>
+<P>“They’re after us with the dogs!� groaned Pelliter. “I can’t ride. I’ve got
+to run— and fight!�</P>
+<P>“You get on the sledge, or I’ll stave your head in!� commanded MacVeigh.
+“Face the enemy, Pelly, and give ’em hell. You’ve got three rifles there. You
+can do the shooting while I hustle on the dogs. And keep yourself in front of
+her,� he added, pointing to the almost completely buried Little Mystery.</P>
+<H4>XII</H4>
+<H4>LITTLE MYSTERY FINDS HER OWN</H4>
+<P>After convincing Pelliter that he must ride on the sledge Billy ran on ahead,
+and the dogs started with their heavier load.</P>
+<P>“Now for the timber-line,� he called down to Kazan. “It’s fifty miles, old
+boy, and you’ve got to make it by dawn. If we don’t—�</P>
+<P>He left the words unfinished, but Kazan tugged harder, as if he had heard and
+understood. The sledge had reached the unbroken sweep of the Barren now, and
+MacVeigh felt the wind in his face. It was blowing from the north and west, and
+with it came sudden gusts filled with fine particles of snow. After a few
+moments he fell back to see that Little Mystery’s face was completely covered.
+Pelliter was crouching low on the sledge, his feet braced in the blanket straps.
+His wound and the uncomfortable sensation of riding backward on a swaying sledge
+were making him dizzy, and he wondered if what he saw creeping up out of the
+night was a result of this dizziness or a reality. There was no sound from
+behind. But a darker spot had grown within his vision, at times becoming larger,
+then almost disappearing. Twice he raised his rifle. Twice he lowered it again,
+convinced that the thing behind was only a shadowy fabric of his imagination. It
+was possible that their pursuers would lose trace of them in the darkness, and
+so he held his fire.</P>
+<P>He was staring at the shadow when from out of it there leaped a little spurt
+of flame, and a bullet sang past the sledge, a yard to the right. It was a
+splendid shot. There was a marksman with the shadow, and Pelliter replied so
+quickly that the first shot had not died away before there followed the second.
+Five times his automatic sent its leaden messengers back into the night, and at
+the fifth shot there came a wild outburst of pain from one of the Eskimo
+dogs.</P>
+<P>“Hurrah!� shouted Billy. “That’s one team out of business, Pelly. We can beat
+’em in a running fight!�</P>
+<P>He heard the quick metallic snap of fresh cartridges as Pelliter slipped them
+into the chamber of his rifle, but beyond that sound, the wind, and the
+straining of the huskies there was no other. A grim silence fell behind. The
+roar of the distant ice grew less. The earth no longer seemed to shudder under
+their feet at the terrific explosions of the crumbling bergs. But in place of
+these the wind was rising and the fine snow was thickening. Billy no longer
+turned to look behind. He stared ahead and as far as he could see on each side
+of them. At the end of half an hour the panting dogs dropped into a walk, and he
+walked close beside his comrade.</P>
+<P>“They’ve given it up,� groaned Pelliter, weakly. “I’m glad of it, Mac, for
+I’m— I’m— dizzy.� He was lying on the sledge now, with his head bolstered up on
+a pile of blankets.</P>
+<P>“You know how the wolves hunt, Pelly,� said MacVeigh— “in a moon-shape half
+circle, you know, that closes in on the running game from <I>in front?</I> Well,
+that’s how the Eskimos hunt, and I’m wondering if they’re trying to get ahead of
+us— off there, and off there.� He motioned to the north and the south.</P>
+<P>“They can’t,� replied Pelliter, raising himself to his elbow with an effort.
+“Their dogs are bushed. Let me walk, Mac. I can—� He fell back with a sudden low
+cry. “Gawd, but I’m dizzy—�</P>
+<P>MacVeigh halted the dogs, and while they dropped upon their bellies, panting
+and licking up the snow, he kneeled beside Pelliter. Darkness concealed the fear
+in his eyes and face. His voice was strong and cheerful.</P>
+<P>“You’ve got to lie still, Pelly,� he warned, arranging the blankets so that
+the wounded man could rest comfortably. “You’ve got a pretty bad nip, and it’s
+best for all of us that you don’t make a move. You’re right about the Eskimos
+and their dogs. They’re bushed, and they’ve given the chase up as a bad job, so
+what’s the use of making a fool of yourself? Ride it out, Pelly. Go to sleep
+with Little Mystery if you can. She thinks she’s in a cradle.�</P>
+<P>He got up and started the dogs. For a long time he was alone. Little Mystery
+was sleeping and Pelliter was quiet. Now and then he dropped his mittened hand
+on Kazan’s head, and the faithful old leader whined softly at his touch. With
+the others it was different. They snapped viciously, and he kept his distance.
+He went on for hours, halting the team now and then for a few minutes’ rest. He
+struck a match each time and looked at Pelliter. His comrade breathed heavily,
+with his eyes closed. Once, long after midnight, he opened them and stared at
+the flare of the match and into MacVeigh’s white face.</P>
+<P>“I’m all right, Billy,� he said. “Let me walk—�</P>
+<P>MacVeigh forced him back gently, and went on. He was alone until the first
+cold, gray break of dawn. Then he stopped, gave each of the dogs a frozen fish,
+and with the fuel on the sledge built a small fire. He scraped up snow for tea,
+and hung the pail over the fire. He was frying bacon and toasting hard bannock
+biscuits when Pelliter aroused himself and sat up. Billy did not see him until
+he faced about.</P>
+<P>“Good morning, Pelly,� he grinned. “Have a good nap?�</P>
+<P>Pelliter groped about on the sledge.</P>
+<P>“Wish I could find a club,� he growled. “I’d— I’d brain you! You let me
+sleep!�</P>
+<P>He thrust out his uninjured arm, and the two shook hands. Once or twice
+before they had done this after hours of great peril. It was not an ordinary
+handshake.</P>
+<P>Billy rose to his feet. Half a mile away the edge of the big forest for which
+they had been fighting rose out of the dawn gloom.</P>
+<P>“If I’d known that,� he said, pointing, “we’d have camped in shelter. Fifty
+miles, Pelly. Not so bad, was it?�</P>
+<P>Behind them the gray Barren was lifting itself into the light of day. The two
+men ate and drank tea. During those few minutes neither gave attention to the
+forest or the Barren. Billy was ravenously hungry. Pelliter could not get enough
+of the tea. And then their attention went to Little Mystery, who awoke with a
+wailing protest at the smothering cover of blankets over her face. Billy dug her
+out and held her up to view the strange change since yesterday. It was then that
+Kazan stopped licking his ashy chops to send up a wailing howl.</P>
+<P>Both men turned their eyes toward the forest. Halfway between a figure was
+toiling slowly toward them. It was a man, and Billy gave a low cry of
+astonishment.</P>
+<P>But Kazan was facing the gray Barren, and he howled again, long and
+menacingly. The other dogs took up the cry, and when Pelliter and MacVeigh
+followed the direction of their warning they stood for a full quarter of a
+minute as if turned into stone.</P>
+<P>A mile away the Barren was dotted with a dozen swiftly moving sledges and a
+score of running men!</P>
+<P>After all, their last stand was to be made at the edge of the
+timber-line!</P>
+<P>In such situations men like MacVeigh and Pelliter do not waste precious
+moments in prearranging actions in words. Their mental processes are
+instantaneous and correlative— and they act. Without a word Billy replaced
+Little Mystery in her nest without even giving her a sip of the warm tea, and by
+the time the dogs were straightened in their traces Pelliter was handing him his
+Remington.</P>
+<P>“I’ve ranged it for three hundred and fifty yards,� he said. “We won’t want
+to waste our fire until they come that near.�</P>
+<P>They set out at a trot, Pelliter running with his wounded arm down at his
+side. Suddenly the lone figure between them and the forest disappeared. It had
+fallen flat in the snow, where it lay only a black speck. In a moment it rose
+again and advanced. Both Pelliter and Billy were looking when it fell for a
+second time.</P>
+<P>An unpleasant laugh came from MacVeigh’s lips.</P>
+<P>The figure was climbing to its feet for the fifth time, and was only on its
+hands and knees when the sledge drew up. It was a white man. His head was bare,
+his face deathlike. His neck was open to the cold wind, and, to the others’
+astonishment, he wore no heavier garment over his dark flannel shirt. His eyes
+burned wildly from out of a shaggy growth of beard and hair, and he was panting
+like one who had traveled miles instead of a few hundred yards.</P>
+<P>All this Billy saw at a glance, and then he gave a sudden unbelieving cry.
+The man’s red eyes rested on his, and every fiber in his body seemed for a
+moment to have lost the power of action. He gasped and stared, and Pelliter
+started as if stung at the words which came first from his lips.</P>
+<P>“Deane— Scottie Deane!�</P>
+<P><I>An</I> amazed cry broke from Pelliter. He looked at MacVeigh, his chief.
+He made an involuntary movement forward, but Billy was ahead of him. He had
+flung down his rifle, and in an instant was on his knees at Deane’s side,
+supporting his emaciated figure in his arms.</P>
+<P>“Good God! what does this mean, old man?� he cried, forgetting Pelliter.
+“What has happened? Why are you away up here? And where— where— is she?�</P>
+<P>He had gripped Deane’s hand. He was holding him tight; and Deane, looking up
+into his eyes, saw that he was no longer looking into the face of the Law, but
+that of a brother. He smiled feebly.</P>
+<P>“Cabin— back there— in edge— woods,� he gasped. “Saw you— coming. Thought
+mebbe you’d pass— so— came out. I’m done for— dying.�</P>
+<P>He drew a deep breath and tried to assist himself as Billy raised him to his
+feet. A little wailing cry came from the sledge. Startled, Deane turned his eyes
+toward that cry.</P>
+<P>“My God!� he screamed.</P>
+<P>He tore himself away from Billy and flung himself upon his knees beside
+Little Mystery, sobbing and talking like a madman as he clasped the frightened
+child in his arms. With her he leaped to his feet with new strength.</P>
+<P>“She’s mine— mine!� he cried, fiercely. “She’s what brought me back! I was
+going for her! Where did you get her? How—�</P>
+<P>There came to them now in sudden chorus the wild voice of the Eskimo dogs out
+on the plain. Deane heard the cry and faced with the others in their direction.
+They were not more than half a mile away, bearing down upon them swiftly. Billy
+knew that there was not a moment to lose. In a flash it had leaped upon him that
+in some way Deane and Isobel and Little Mystery were associated with that
+avenging horde, and as quickly as he could he told Deane what had happened.
+Sanity had come back into Deane’s eyes, and no sooner had he heard than he ran
+out in the face of the army of little brown men with Little Mystery in his arms.
+MacVeigh and Pelliter could hear him calling to them from a distance. They were
+in the edge of the forest when Deane met the Eskimos. There was a long wait, and
+then Deane and Little Mystery came back— on a sledge drawn by Eskimo dogs.
+Beside the sledge walked the chief who had been wounded in the cabin at
+Fullerton Point. Deane was swaying, his head was bowed half upon his breast, and
+the chief and another Eskimo were supporting him. He nodded to the right, and a
+hundred yards away they found a cabin. The powerful little northerners carried
+him in, still clutching Little Mystery in his arms, and he made a motion for
+Billy to follow him— alone. Inside the cabin they placed him on a low bunk, and
+with a weak cough he beckoned Billy to his side. MacVeigh knew what that cough
+meant. The sick man had suffered terrible exposure, and the tissue of his lungs
+was sloughing away. It was death, the most terrible death of the north.</P>
+<P>For a few moments Deane lay panting, clasping one of Billy’s hands. Little
+Mystery slipped to the floor and began to investigate the cabin. Deane smiled
+into Billy’s eyes.</P>
+<P>“You’ve come again— just in time,� he said, quite steadily. “Seems queer,
+don’t it, Billy?�</P>
+<P>For the first time he spoke the other’s name as if he had known him a
+lifetime. Billy covered him over gently with one of the blankets, and in spite
+of himself his eyes sought about him questioningly. Deane saw the look.</P>
+<P>“She didn’t come,� he whispered. “I left her—�</P>
+<P>He broke off with a racking cough that brought a crimson stain to his lips.
+Billy felt a choking grief.</P>
+<P>“You must be quiet,� he said. “Don’t try to talk now. You have no fire, and I
+will build one. Then I’ll make you something hot.�</P>
+<P>He went to move away, but one of Deane’s hands detained him.</P>
+<P>“Not until I’ve said something to you, Billy,� he insisted. “You know— you
+understand. I’m dying. It’s liable to come any minute now, and I’ve got to tell
+you— things. You must understand— before I go. I won’t be long. I killed a man,
+but I’m— not sorry. He tried to insult her— my wife— an’ you— you’d have killed
+him, too. You people began to hunt me, and for safety we went far north— among
+the Eskimos— an’ lived there— long time. The Eskimos— they loved the little girl
+an’ wife, specially little Isobel. Thought them angels— some sort. Then we heard
+you were goin’ to hunt for me— up there— among the Eskimos. So we set out with
+the box. Box was for her— to keep her from fearful cold. We didn’t dare take the
+baby— so we left her up there. We were going back— soon— after you’d made your
+hunt. When we saw your fire on the edge of the Barren she made me get in the
+box— an’ so— so you found us. You know— after that. You thought it was— coffin—
+an’ she told you I was dead. You were good— good to her— an’ you must go down
+there where she is, and take little Isobel. We were goin’ to do as you said— an’
+go to South America. But we had to have the baby, an’ I came back. Should have
+told you. We knew that— afterward. But we were afraid— to tell the secret— even
+to you—�</P>
+<P>He stopped, panting and coughing. Billy was crushing both his thin, cold
+hands in his own. He found no word to say. He waited, fighting to stifle the
+sobbing grief in his breath.</P>
+<P>“You were good— good— good— to her,� repeated Deane, weakly, “You loved her—
+an’ it was right— because you thought I was dead an’ she was alone an’ needed
+help. I’m glad— you love her. You’ve been good— ’n’ honest— an I want some one
+like you to love her an’ care for her. She ain’t got nobody but me— an’ little
+Isobel. I’m glad— glad— I’ve found a man— like <I>you!�</I></P>
+<P>He suddenly wrenched his hands free and took Billy’s tense face between them,
+staring straight into his eyes.</P>
+<P>“An’— an’— I give her to you,� he said. “She’s an angel, and she’s alone—
+needs some one— an’ you— you’ll be good to her. You must go down to her— Pierre
+Couchée’s cabin— on the Little Beaver. An’ you’ll be good to her— good to
+her—�</P>
+<P>“I will go to her,� said Billy, softly. “And I swear here on my knees before
+the great and good God that I will do what an honorable man should do!�</P>
+<P>Deane’s rigid body relaxed, and he sank back on his blankets with a sigh of
+relief.</P>
+<P>“I worried— for her,� he said. “I’ve always believed in a God— though I
+killed a man— an’ He sent you here in time!� A sudden questioning light came
+into his eyes. “The man who stole little Isobel,� he breathed— “who was he?�</P>
+<P>“Pelliter— the man out there— killed him when he came to the cabin,� said
+Billy. “He said his name was Blake— Jim Blake.�</P>
+<P><I>“Blake! Blake! Blake!�</I> Again Deane’s voice rose from the edge of death
+to a shriek. “Blake, you say? A great coarse sailorman, with red hair— red
+beard— yellow teeth like a walrus! Blake— Blake—� He sank back again, with a
+thrilling, half-mad laugh. “Then— then it’s all been a mistake— a funny
+mistake,� he said; and his eyes closed, and his voice spoke the words as though
+he were uttering them from out of a dream.</P>
+<P>Billy saw that the end was near. He bent down to catch the dying man’s last
+words. Deane’s hands were as cold as ice. His lips were white. And then Deane
+whispered:</P>
+<P>“We fought— I thought I killed him— an’ threw him into the sea. His right
+name was Samuelson. You knew him— by that name— but he went often— by Blake— Jim
+Blake. So— so— I’m not a murderer— after all. An’ he— he came back for revenge—
+and— stole— little— Isobel. I’m— I’m— not— a— murderer. You— you— will— tell—
+<I>her.</I> You’ll tell her— I didn’t kill him— after all. You’ll tell her— an’—
+be— good— good—�</P>
+<P>He smiled. Billy bent lower.</P>
+<P>“Again I swear before the good God that I will do what an honorable man
+should do,� he replied.</P>
+<P>Deane made no answer. He did not hear. The smile did not fade entirely from
+his lips. But Billy knew that in this moment death had come in through the cabin
+door. With a groan of anguish he dropped Deane’s stiffening hand. Little Isobel
+pattered across the floor to his side. She laughed; and suddenly Billy turned
+and caught her in his arms, and, crumpled down there on the floor beside the one
+brother he had known in life, he sobbed like a woman.</P>
+<H4>XIII</H4>
+<H4>THE TWO GODS</H4>
+<P>It was little Isobel who pulled MacVeigh together, and after a little he rose
+with her in his arms and turned her from the wall while he covered Deane’s face
+with the end of a blanket. Then he went to the door. The Eskimos were building
+fires. Pelliter was seated on the sledge a short distance from the cabin, and at
+Billy’s call he came toward him.</P>
+<P>“If you don’t mind, you can take her over to one of the fires for a little
+while,� said Billy. “Scottie is dead. Try and make the chief understand,�</P>
+<P>He did not wait for Pelliter to question him, but closed the door quietly and
+went back to Deane. He drew off the blanket and gazed for a moment into the
+still, bearded face.</P>
+<P>“My Gawd, an’ <I>she’s</I> waitin’ for you, ’n’ looking for you, an’ thinks
+you’re coming back soon,� he whispered. “You ’n’ the kid!�</P>
+<P>Reverently he began the task ahead of him. One after another he went into
+Deane’s pockets and drew forth what he found. In one pocket there was a small
+knife, some cartridges, and a match box. He knew that Isobel would prize these
+and keep them because her husband had carried them, and he placed them in a
+handkerchief along with other things he found. Last of all he found in Deane’s
+breast pocket a worn and faded envelope. He peered into the open end before he
+placed it on the little pile, and his heart gave a sudden throb when he saw the
+blue flower petals Isobel had given him. When he was done he crossed Deane’s
+hands upon his breast. He was tying the ends of the handkerchief when the door
+opened softly behind him.</P>
+<P>The little dark chief entered. He was followed by four other Eskimos. They
+had left their weapons outside. They seemed scarcely to breathe as they ranged
+themselves in a line and looked down upon Scottie Deane. Not a sign of emotion
+came into their expressionless faces, not the flicker of an eyelash did the
+immobility of their faces change. In a low, clacking monotone they began to
+speak, and there was no expression of grief in their voices. Yet Billy
+understood now that in the hearts of these little brown men Scottie Deane stood
+enshrined like a god. Before he was cold in death they had come to chant his
+deeds and his virtues to the unseen spirits who would wait and watch at his side
+until the beginning of the new day. For ten minutes the monotone continued. Then
+the five men turned and without a word, without looking at him, went out of the
+cabin. Billy followed them, wondering if Deane had convinced them that he and
+Pelliter were his friends. If he had not done that he feared that there would
+still be trouble over little Isobel. He was delighted when he found Pelliter
+talking with one of the men.</P>
+<P>“I’ve found a flunkey here whose lingo I can get along with,� cried Pelliter.
+“I’ve been telling ’em what bully friends we are, and have made ’em understand
+all about Blake. I’ve shaken hands with them all three or four times, and we
+feel pretty good. Better mix a little. They don’t like the idea of giving us the
+kid, now that Scottie’s dead. They’re asking for the woman.�</P>
+<P>Half an hour later MacVeigh and Pelliter returned to the cabin. At the end of
+that time he was confident that the Eskimos would give them no further trouble
+and that they expected to leave Isobel in their possession. The chief, however,
+had given Billy to understand that they reserved the right to bury Deane.</P>
+<P>Billy felt that he was now in a position where he would have to tell Pelliter
+some of the things that had happened to him on his return to Churchill. He had
+reported Deane’s death as having occurred weeks before as the result of a fall,
+and when he returned to Fort Churchill he knew that he would have to stick to
+that story. Unless Pelliter knew of Isobel, his love for her, and his own
+defiance of the Law in giving them their freedom, his comrade might let out the
+truth and ruin him.</P>
+<P>In the cabin they sat down at the table. Pelliter’s arm was in a sling. His
+face was drawn and haggard and blackened by powder. He drew his revolver,
+emptied it of cartridges, and gave it to little Isobel to play with. He kept up
+his spirits among the Eskimos, but he made no effort to conceal his dejection
+now.</P>
+<P>“I’ve lost her,� he said, looking at Billy. “You’re going to take her to her
+mother?�</P>
+<P>“Yes.�</P>
+<P>“It hurts. You don’t know how it’s goin’ to hurt to lose her,� he said.</P>
+<P>MacVeigh leaned across the table and spoke earnestly.</P>
+<P>“Yes, I know what it means, Pelly,� he replied. “I know what it means to love
+some one— and lose. I know. Listen.�</P>
+<P>Quickly he told Pelliter the story of the Barren, of the coming of Isobel,
+the mother, of the kiss she had given him, and of the flight, the pursuit, the
+recapture, and of that final moment when he had taken the steel cuffs from
+Deane’s wrists. Once he had begun the story he left nothing untold, even to the
+division of the blue-flower petals and the tress of Isobel’s hair. He drew both
+from his pocket and showed them to Pelliter, and at the tremble in his voice
+there came a mistiness in his comrade’s eyes. When he had finished Pelliter
+reached across with his one good arm and gripped the other’s hand.</P>
+<P>“An’ what she said about the blue flower is comin’ true, Billy,� he
+whispered. “It’s bringing happiness to you, just as she said, for you’re going
+down to her—�</P>
+<P>MacVeigh interrupted him.</P>
+<P>“No, it’s not,� he said, softly. “She loved him— as much as the girl down
+there will ever love you, Pelly, and when I tell her what has happened— her
+heart will break. <I>That</I> can’t bring happiness— for me!�</P>
+<P>The hours of that day bore leaden weights for Billy. The two men made their
+plans. A number of the Eskimos agreed to accompany Pelliter as far as Eskimo
+Point, whence he would make his way alone to Churchill. Billy would strike south
+to the Little Beaver in search of Couchée’s cabin and Isobel. He was glad when
+night came. It was late when he went to the door, opened it, and looked out.</P>
+<P>In the edge of the timber-line it was black, black not only with the gloom of
+night, but with the concentrated darkness of spruce and balsam and a sky so low
+and thick that one could almost hear the wailing swish of it overhead like the
+steady sobbing of surf on a seashore. It was black, save for the small circles
+of light made by the Eskimo fires, about which half a hundred of the little
+brown men sat or crouched. The masters of the camp were all awake, but twice as
+many dogs, exhausted and footsore, lay curled in heaps, as inanimate as if dead.
+There was present a strange silence and a strange and unnatural gloom that was
+not of the night alone, a silence broken only by the low moaning of the wind out
+on the Barren, the restlessness in the air above the tree-tops, and the
+crackling of the fires. The Eskimos were as motionless as so many dead men.
+Their round, expressionless eyes were wide open. They sat or crouched with their
+backs to the Barren, their faces turned into the still deeper blackness of the
+forest. Some distance away, like a star, there gleamed the small and steady
+light in the cabin window. For two hours the eyes of those about the fires had
+been fixed on that light. And at intervals there had risen from among the
+stony-faced watchers the little chief, whose clacking voice joined for a few
+moments each time the wailing of the wind, the swish of the low-hanging sky, and
+the crackling of the fires. But there was sound of no other voice or movement.
+He alone moved and spoke, for to the others the clacking sounds he made was
+speech, words spoken each time for the man who lay dead in the cabin.</P>
+<P>A dozen times Pelliter and MacVeigh had looked out to the fires, and looked
+each time at the hour. This time Billy said:</P>
+<P>“They’re moving, Pelly! They’re jumping to their feet and coming this way!�
+He looked at his watch again. “They’re mighty good guessers. It’s a quarter
+after twelve. When a chief or a big man dies they bury him in the first hour of
+the new day. They’re coming after Deane.�</P>
+<P>He opened the door and stepped out into the night. Pelliter joined him. The
+Eskimos advanced without a sound and stopped in a shadowy group twenty paces
+from the cabin. Five of these little fur-clad men detached themselves from the
+others and filed into the cabin, with the chief man at their head. As they bent
+over Deane they began to chant a low monotone which awakened little Isobel, who
+sat up and stared sleepily at the strange scene. Billy went to her and gathered
+her close in his arms. She was sleeping again when he put her down among the
+blankets. The Eskimos were gone with their burden. He could hear the low
+chanting of the tribe.</P>
+<P>“I found her, and I thought she was mine,� said Pelliter’s low voice at his
+side. “But she ain’t, Billy. She’s yours.�</P>
+<P>MacVeigh broke in on him as though he had not heard.</P>
+<P>“You better get to bed, Pelly,� he warned. “That arm needs rest. I’m going
+out to see where they bury him.�</P>
+<P>He put on his cap and heavy coat and went as far as the door, then turned
+back. From his kit he took a belt-ax and nails.</P>
+<P>The wind was blowing more strongly over the Barren, and MacVeigh could no
+longer hear the low lament of the Eskimos. He moved toward their fires, and
+found them deserted of men, only the dogs remained in their deathlike sleep. And
+then, far down the edge of the timber, he saw a flare of light. Five minutes
+later he stood hidden in a deep shadow, a few paces from the Eskimos. They had
+dug the grave early in the evening, out on the great snow-plain, free of the
+trees; and as the fire they had built lighted up their dark, round faces
+MacVeigh saw the five little black men who had borne forth Scottie Deane leaning
+over the shallow hole in the frozen earth. Scottie was already gone. The earth
+and ice and frozen moss were falling in upon him, and not a sound fell now from
+the thick lips of his savage mourners. In a few minutes the crude work was done,
+and like a thin black shadow the natives filed back to their camp. Only one
+remained, sitting cross-legged at the head of the grave, his long narwhal spear
+at his back. It was O-gluck-gluck, the Eskimo chief, guarding the dead man from
+the devils who come to steal body and soul during the first few hours of
+burial.</P>
+<P>Billy went deeper into the forest until he found a thin, straight sapling,
+which he cut down with half a dozen strokes of his belt-ax. From the sapling he
+stripped the bark, and then he chopped off a third of its length and nailed it
+crosswise to what remained. After that he sharpened the bottom end and returned
+to the grave, carrying the cross over his shoulder. Stripped to whiteness, it
+gleamed in the firelight. The Eskimo watcher stared at it for a moment, his dull
+eyes burning darker in the night, for he knew that after this two gods, and not
+one, were to guard the grave. Billy drove the cross deep, and as the blows of
+his ax fell upon it the Eskimo slunk back until he was swallowed in the gloom.
+When MacVeigh was done he pulled off his cap. But it was not to pray.</P>
+<P>“I’m sorry, old man,� he said to what was under the cross. “God knows I’m
+sorry. I wish you was alive. I wish you was going back to her— with the kid—
+instid o’ me. But I’ll keep that promise. I swear it. I’ll do— what’s right— by
+her.�</P>
+<P>From the forest he looked back. The Eskimo chief had returned to his somber
+watch. The cross gleamed a ghostly white against the thick blackness of the
+Barren. He turned his face away for the last time, and there filled him the
+oppression of a leaden hand, a thing that was both dread and fear. Scottie Deane
+was dead— dead and in his grave, and yet he walked with him now at his side. He
+could feel the presence, and that presence was like a warning, stirring strange
+thoughts within him. He turned back to the cabin and entered softly. Pelliter
+was asleep. Little Isobel was breathing the sweet forgetfulness of childhood. He
+stooped and kissed her silken curls, and for a long time he stood with one of
+those soft curls between his fingers. In a few years more, he thought, it would
+be the darker gold and brown of the woman’s hair— of the woman he loved. Slowly
+a great peace entered into him. After all, there was more than hope ahead for
+him. She— the older Isobel— knew that he loved her as no other man in the world
+could love her. He had given proof of that. And now he was going to her.</P>
+<H4>XIV</H4>
+<H4>THE SNOW-MAN</H4>
+<P>After his return from the scene of burial Billy undressed, put out the light,
+and went to bed. He fell asleep quickly, and his slumber was filled with many
+dreams. They were sweet and joyous at first, and he lived again his first
+meeting with the woman; he was once more in the presence of her beauty, her
+purity, her faith and confidence in him. And then more trouble visions came to
+him. He awoke twice, and each time he sat up, filled with the shuddering dread
+that had come to him at the graveside.</P>
+<P>A third time he awakened, and he struck a match to look at his watch. It was
+four o’clock. He was still exhausted. His limbs ached from the tremendous strain
+of the fifty-mile race across the Barren, but he could no longer sleep.
+Something— he did not attempt to ask himself what it was— was urging him to
+action. He got up and dressed.</P>
+<P>When Pelliter awoke two hours later MacVeigh’s pack and sledge were ready for
+the trip south. While they ate their breakfast the two men finished their plans.
+When the hour of parting came Billy left his comrade alone with little Isobel
+and went out to hitch up the dogs. When he returned there was a fresh redness in
+Pelliter’s eyes, and he puffed out thick clouds of smoke from his pipe to hide
+his face. MacVeigh thought of that parting often in the days that followed.
+Pelliter stood last in the door, and in his face was a look which MacVeigh
+wished that he had not seen. In his own heart was the dread and the fear, the
+thing which he could not name.</P>
+<P>For hours he could not shake off the gloom that oppressed him. He strode at
+the head of old Kazan, the leader, striking a course due south by compass. When
+he fell back for the third time to look at little Isobel he found the child
+buried deep in her blankets sound asleep. She did not awake until he stopped to
+make tea at noon. It was four o’clock when he halted again to make camp in the
+shelter of a clump of tall spruce. Isobel had slept most of the day. She was
+wide awake now, laughing at him as he dug her out of her nest.</P>
+<P>“Give me a kiss,� he demanded.</P>
+<P>Isobel complied, putting her two little hands to his face.</P>
+<P>“You’re a— a little peach,� he cried. “There ain’t been a whimper out of you
+all day. And now we’re going to have a fire— a big fire.�</P>
+<P>He set about his work, whistling for the first time since morning. He set up
+his silk Service tent, cut spruce and balsam boughs until he had them a foot
+deep inside, and then dragged in wood for half an hour. By that time it was dark
+and the big fire was softening the snow for thirty feet around. He had taken off
+Isobel’s thick, swaddling coat, and the child’s pretty face shone pink in the
+fireglow. The light danced red and gold in her tangled curls, and as they ate
+supper, both on the same blanket, Billy saw opposite him more and more of what
+he knew he would find in the woman. When they had finished he produced a small
+pocket comb and drew Isobel close up to him. One by one he smoothed the tangles
+out of her curls, his heart beating joyously as the silken touch of them ran
+through his fingers. Once he had felt that same soft touch of the woman’s hair
+against his face. It had been an accidental caress, but he had treasured it in
+his memory. It seemed real again now, and the thrill of it made him place little
+Isobel alone again on the blanket, while he rose to his feet. He threw fresh
+fuel on the fire, and then he found that the warmth had softened the snow until
+it clung to his feet. The discovery gave him an inspiration. A warmth that was
+not of the fire leaped into his face, and he gathered up the softened snow,
+raking it into piles with a snow-shoe; and before Isobel’s astonished and
+delighted eyes there grew into shape a snow-man almost as big as himself. He
+gave it arms and a head, and eyes of charred wood, and when it was done he
+placed his own cap on the crown of it and his pipe in its mouth. Little Isobel
+screamed with delight, and together, hand in hand, they danced around and around
+it, just as he and the other girls and boys had danced years and years ago. And
+when they stopped there were tears of laughter and joy in the child’s eyes and a
+filmy mist of another sort in Billy’s.</P>
+<P>It was the snow-man that brought back to him years and years of lost hopes.
+They flooded in upon him until it seemed as though the old life was the life of
+yesterday and waiting for him now just beyond the edge of the black forest. Long
+after Isobel was asleep in the tent he sat and looked at the snow-man; and more
+and more his heart sang with a new joy, until it seemed as though he must rise
+and cry out in the eagerness and hope that filled him. In the snow-man, slowly
+melting before the fire, there was a heart and a soul and voice. It was calling
+to him, urging him as nothing in the world had ever urged him before. He would
+go back to the old home down in God’s country, to the old playmates who were men
+and women now. They would welcome him— and they would welcome the woman. For he
+would take her. For the first time he made himself believe that she would go.
+And there, hand in hand, they would follow his boyhood footprints over the
+meadows and through the hills, and he would gather flowers for her in place of
+the mother that was gone, and he would tell her all the old stories of the days
+that were passed.</P>
+<P>It was the snow-man!</P>
+<H4>XV</H4>
+<H4>LE MORT ROUGE— AND ISOBEL</H4>
+<P>Until late that night Billy sat beside his campfire with the snow-man.
+Strange and new thoughts had come to him, and among these was the wondering one
+asking himself why he had never built a snow-man before. When he went to bed he
+dreamed of the snow-man and of little Isobel; and the little girl’s laughter and
+happiness when she saw the curious form the dissolving snow-man had taken in the
+heat of the fire when she awoke the following morning filled him again with
+those boyish visions of happiness that he had seen just ahead of him. At other
+times he would have told himself that he was no longer reasonable. After they
+had breakfasted and started on the day’s journey he laughed and talked with baby
+Isobel, and a dozen times in the forenoon he picked her up in his arms and
+carried her behind the dogs.</P>
+<P>“We’re going home,� he kept telling her over and over again. “We’re going
+home— down to mama— mama— <I>mama!�</I> He emphasized that; and each time
+Isobel’s pretty mouth formed the word mama after him his heart leaped
+exultantly. By the end of that day it had become the sweetest word in the world
+to him. He tried mother, but his little comrade looked at him blankly, and he
+did not like it himself. <I>“Mama, mama, mama,�</I> he said a hundred times that
+night beside their campfire, and before he tucked her away in her warm blankets
+he said something to her about “Now I lay me down to sleep.� Isobel was too
+tired and sleepy to comprehend much of that. Even after she was deep in slumber
+and Billy sat alone smoking his pipe he whispered that sweetest word in the
+world to himself, and took out the tress of shining hair and gazed at it
+joyously in the glow of the fire. By the end of the next day little Isobel could
+say almost the whole of the prayer his own mother had taught him years and years
+and years ago, so far back that his vision of her was not that of a woman, but
+of an elusive and wonderful angel; and the fourth day at noon she lisped the
+whole of it without a word of assistance from him.</P>
+<P>On the morning of the fifth day Billy struck the Gray Beaver, and little
+Isobel grew serious at the change in him. He no longer amused her, but urged the
+dogs along, never for an instant relaxing his vigilant quest for a sign of
+smoke, a trail, a blazed tree. At his heart there began to burn a suspense that
+was almost suffocating. In these last hours before he was to see Isobel there
+came the inevitable reaction within him. Gloom oppressed him where a little
+while before joyous anticipation had given him hope. The one terrible thought
+drove out all others now— he was bringing her news of death, her
+<I>husband’s</I> death. And to Isobel he knew that Deane had meant all that the
+world held of joy or hope— Deane and the baby.</P>
+<P>It was like a shock when he came suddenly upon the cabin, in the edge of a
+small clearing. For a moment he hesitated. Then he took Isobel in his arms and
+went to the door. It was slightly ajar, and after knocking upon it with his fist
+he thrust it open and entered.</P>
+<P>There was no one in the room in which he found himself, but there was a stove
+and a fire. At the end of the room was a second door, and it opened slowly. In
+another moment Isobel stood there. He had never seen her as he saw her now, with
+the light from a window falling upon her. She was dressed in a loose gown, and
+her long hair fell in disheveled profusion over her shoulders and bosom.
+MacVeigh would have cried out her name— he had told himself a hundred times what
+he would first say to her— but what he saw in her face startled him and held him
+silent while their eyes met. Her cheeks were flushed. Her lips burned an
+unnatural red. Her eyes were glowing with strange fires. She looked at him
+first, and her hands clutched at her bosom, crumpling the masses of her lustrous
+hair. Not until she had looked into his eyes did she recognize what he carried
+in his arms. When he held the child out to her she sprang forward with the
+strangest cry he had ever heard.</P>
+<P>“My baby!� she almost shrieked. “My baby— my baby—�</P>
+<P>She staggered back and sank into a chair near a table, with little Isobel
+clasped to her breast. For a time Billy heard only those words in her dry,
+sobbing voice as she crushed her burning face down against her child’s. He knew
+that she was sick, that it was fever which had sent the hot flush into her
+cheeks. He gulped hard, and went near to her. Trembling, he put out a hand and
+touched her. She looked up. A bit of that old, glorious light leaped into her
+eyes, the light which he had seen when in gratitude she had given him her lips
+to kiss.</P>
+<P>“You?� she whispered. “You— brought her—�</P>
+<P>She caught his hand, and the soft smother of her loose hair fell over it. He
+could feel the quick rise and fall of her bosom.</P>
+<P>“Yes,� he said.</P>
+<P>There was a demand in her face, her eyes, her parted lips. He went on, her
+hand clasping his tighter, until he could feel the swift beating of her heart.
+He had never thought that he could tell the story in as few words as he told it
+now, with more and more of the glorious light creeping into Isobel’s eyes. She
+stopped breathing when he told her of the fight in the cabin and the death of
+the man who had stolen little Isobel. A hundred words more brought him to the
+edge of the forest. He stopped there. But she still questioned him in silence.
+She drew him down nearer, until he could feel her breath. There was something
+terrible in the demand of her eyes. He tried to find words to say, but something
+rose up in his throat and choked him. She saw his effort.</P>
+<P>“Go on,� she said, softly.</P>
+<P>“And then— I brought her to you,� he said.</P>
+<P>“You met him?�</P>
+<P>Her question was so sudden that it startled him, and in an instant he had
+betrayed himself.</P>
+<P>Little Isobel slipped to the floor, and Isobel stood up. She came near to
+him, as she came that marvelous night out on the Barren, and in her eyes there
+was the same prayer as she put her two hands up to him and looked straight into
+his face.</P>
+<P>He thought it would be easier. But it was terrible. She did not move. No
+sound came from her tight-drawn lips as he told her of the meeting with Deane,
+and of her husband’s illness. She guessed what was coming before he had spoken
+it. At his words, telling of death, she drew away from him slowly. She did not
+cry out. Her only evidence that she had heard and understood was the low moan
+that fell from her lips. She covered her face with her hands and stood for a
+moment an arm’s length away, and in that moment all the force of his great love
+for her swept upon MacVeigh in an overwhelming flood. He opened his arms,
+longing to gather her into them and comfort her as he would have comforted a
+little child. In that love he would willingly have dropped dead at her feet if
+he could have given back to her the man she had lost. She raised her head in
+time to see his outstretched arms, she saw the love and the pleading in his
+face, and into her own eyes there leaped the fire of a tigress.</P>
+<P>“You— <I>you—�</I> she cried. “It was you who killed him! He had done no
+wrong— save to protect me and avenge me from the insult of a brute! He had done
+no wrong. But the Law— your Law— set you after him, and you hunted him like a
+beast; you drove him from our home, from me and the baby. You hunted him until
+he died up there— alone. You— you killed him.�</P>
+<P>With a sudden cry she turned and caught up little Isobel and ran toward the
+other door. <I>And</I> as she disappeared into the room from which she had first
+appeared Billy heard her moaning those terrible words.</P>
+<P>“You— you— you—�</P>
+<P>Like a man who had been struck a blow he swayed back to the outer door. Near
+his dogs and sledge he met Pierre Couchée and his half-French wife coming in
+from their trap line. He scarcely knew what explanation he gave to the
+half-breed, who helped him to put up his tent. But when the latter left to
+follow his wife into the cabin he said:</P>
+<P>“She ess seek, ver’ seek. An’ she grow more seek each day until— mon
+<I>Dieu!— my</I> wife, she ess scare!�</P>
+<P>He cut a few balsam boughs and spread out his blankets, but did not trouble
+to build a fire. When the half-breed returned to say that supper was waiting he
+told him that he was not hungry, and that he was going to sleep. He doubled
+himself up under his blankets, silent and staring, even neglecting to feed the
+dogs. He was awake when the stars appeared. He was awake when the moon rose. He
+was still awake when the light went out in Pierre Couchée’s cabin. The snow-man
+was gone from his vision— home and hope. He had never been hurt as he was hurt
+now. He was yet awake when the moon passed far over his head, sank behind the
+wilderness to the west, and blackness came. Toward dawn he fell into an uneasy
+slumber, and from that sleep he was awakened by Pierre Couchée’s voice.</P>
+<P>When he opened his eyes it was day, and the half-breed stood at the opening
+of the tent. His face was filled with horror. His voice was almost a scream when
+he saw that MacVeigh was awake and sitting up.</P>
+<P>“The great God in heaven!� he cried. “It is the plague, m’sieur— <I>le mort
+rouge—</I> the small pox! She is dying—�</P>
+<P>MacVeigh was on his feet, gripping him by the arms.</P>
+<P>He turned and ran toward the cabin, and Billy saw that the half-breed’s team
+was harnessed, and that Pierre’s wife was bringing forth blankets and bundles.
+He did not wait to question them, but hurried into the plague-stricken cabin.
+From the woman’s room came a low moaning, and he rushed in and fell upon his
+knees at her side. Her face was flushed with the fever, half hidden in the
+disheveled masses of her hair. She recognized him, and her dark eyes burned
+madly.</P>
+<P>“Take— the baby!� she panted. “My God— go— go with her!�</P>
+<P>Tenderly he put out a hand and stroked back her hair from her face.</P>
+<P>“You are sick— sick with the bad fever,� he said, gently.</P>
+<P>“Yes— yes, it is that. I did not think— until last night— what it might be.
+You— you love me! Then take her— take the baby and go— go— <I>go!�</I></P>
+<P>All his old strength came back to him now. He felt no fear. He smiled down
+into her face, and the silken touch of her hair set his heart leaping and the
+love into his eyes.</P>
+<P>“I will take her out there,� he said. “But she is all right— Isobel.� He
+spoke her name almost pleadingly. “She is all right. She will not take the
+fever.�</P>
+<P>He picked up the child and carried her out into the larger room. Pierre and
+his wife were at the door. They were dressed for travel, as he had seen them
+come in off the trap line the evening before. He dropped Isobel and sprang in
+front of them.</P>
+<P>“What do you mean?� he demanded. “You are not going away! You cannot go!� He
+turned almost fiercely upon the woman. “She will die— if you do not stay and
+care for her. You shall not run away!�</P>
+<P>“It is the plague,� said Pierre. “It is death to remain!�</P>
+<P>“You shall stay!� said MacVeigh, still speaking to Pierre’s wife. “You are
+the one woman— the only woman— within a hundred miles. She will die without you.
+You shall stay if I have to tie you!�</P>
+<P>With the quickness of a cat Pierre raised the butt of the heavy dog-whip
+which he held in his hand and it came down with a sickening thud on Billy’s
+head. As he staggered into the middle of the cabin floor, groping blindly for a
+moment before he fell, he heard a strange, terrified cry, and in the open inner
+door he saw the white-robed figure of Isobel Deane. Then he sank down into a pit
+of blackness.</P>
+<P>It was Isobel’s face that he first saw when he came from out of that black
+pit. He knew that it was her voice calling to him before he had opened his eyes.
+He felt the touch of her hands, and when he looked up her loose, soft hair swept
+his breast. His head was bolstered up, and so he could look straight into her
+face. It frightened him. He knew now what she had been saying to him as he lay
+there upon the floor.</P>
+<P>“You must get up! You must go!� he heard her mooning. “You must take my baby
+away. And you— <I>you—</I> must go!�</P>
+<P>He pulled himself half erect, then rose to his feet, swaying a little. He
+came to her then, with the look in his face she had first seen out on the Barren
+when he had told her that he was going with her through the forest.</P>
+<P>“No, I am not going away,� he said, firmly, and yet with that same old
+gentleness in his voice. “If I go you will die. So I am going to stay.�</P>
+<P>She stared at him, speechless.</P>
+<P>“You— you can’t,� she gasped, at last. “Don’t you see— don’t you understand?
+I’m a woman— and you can’t. You must take her— my baby— and go for help.�</P>
+<P>“There is no help,� said MacVeigh, quietly. “Within a few hours you will be
+helpless. I am going to stay and— and— I swear to God I will care for you— as
+he— would have done. He made me promise that— to care for you— to stick by
+you—�</P>
+<P>She looked straight into his eyes. He saw the twitching of her throat, the
+quiver of her lips. In another moment she would have fallen if he had not put a
+supporting arm about her.</P>
+<P>“If— anything— happens,� she gasped, brokenly, “you will take care— of her—
+my baby—�</P>
+<P>“Yes— always.�</P>
+<P>“And if I— get well—�</P>
+<P>Her head swayed dizzily and dropped to his breast.</P>
+<P>“If I get— well—�</P>
+<P>“Yes,� he urged. “Yes—�</P>
+<P>“If I—�</P>
+<P>He saw her struggle and fail.</P>
+<P>“Yes, I know— I understand,� he cried, quickly, as she grew heavier in his
+arms. “If you get well I will go. I swear to do that. I will go away. No one
+will ever know— no one— in the whole world. And I will be good to you— and care
+for you—�</P>
+<P>He stopped, brushed back her hair, and looked into her face. Then he carried
+her into the inner room; and when he came out little Isobel was crying.</P>
+<P>“You poor little kid,� he cried, and caught her up in his arms. “You poor
+little—�</P>
+<P>The child smiled at him through her tears, and Billy suddenly sat down on the
+edge of the table.</P>
+<P>“You’ve been a little brick from the beginning, and you’re going to keep it
+up, little one,� he said, taking her pretty face between his two big hands.
+“You’ve got to be good, for we’re going to have a— a—� He turned away, and
+finished under his breath. “We’re going to have a devil of a time!�</P>
+<H4>XVI</H4>
+<H4>THE LAW— MURDERER OF MEN</H4>
+<P>Seated on the table, little Isobel looked up into Billy’s face and laughed,
+and when the laugh ended in a half wail Billy found that his fingers had
+tightened on her little shoulder until they hurt. He tousled her hair to bring
+back her good-humor, and put her on the floor. Then he went back to the partly
+open door. It was quiet in the darkened room. He listened for a breath or a sob,
+and could hear neither. A curtain was drawn over the one window, and he could
+but indistinctly make out the darker shadow where Isobel lay on the bed. His
+heart beat faster as he softly called Isobel’s name. There was no answer. He
+looked back. Little Isobel had found something on the floor and was amusing
+herself with it. Again he called the mother, and still there was no answer. He
+was filled with a sort of horror. He wanted to go over to the dark shadow and
+assure himself that she was breathing, but a hand seemed to thrust him back. And
+then, piercing him like a knife, there came again those low, moaning words of
+accusation:</P>
+<P>“It was you— it was you— it was you—�</P>
+<P>In that voice, low and moaning as it was, he recognized some of Pelliter’s
+madness. It was the fever. He fell back a step and drew a hand across his
+forehead. It was damp, clammy with a cold perspiration. He felt a burning pain
+where he had been struck, and a momentary dizziness made him stagger. Then, with
+a tremendous effort, he threw himself together and turned to the little girl. As
+he carried her out through the door into the fresh air Isobel’s feverish words
+still followed him:</P>
+<P>“It was you— <I>you— you— you!�</I></P>
+<P>The cold air did him good, and he hurried toward the tent with baby Isobel.
+As he deposited her among the blankets and bearskins the hopelessness of his
+position impressed itself swiftly upon him. The child could not remain in the
+cabin, and yet she would not be immune from danger in the tent, for he would
+have to spend a part of his time with her. He shuddered as he thought of what it
+might mean. For himself he had no fear of the dread disease that had stricken
+Isobel. He had run the risk of contagion several times before and had remained
+unscathed, but his soul trembled with fear as he looked into little Isobel’s
+bright blue eyes and tenderly caressed the soft curls about her face, If Couchée
+and his wife had only taken <I>her!</I> At thought of them he sprang suddenly to
+his feet.</P>
+<P>“Looky, little one, you’ve got to stay here!� <I>he</I> commanded.
+“Understand? I’m going to pin down the tent-flap, and you mustn’t cry. If I
+don’t get that damned half-breed, dead or alive, my name ain’t Billy
+MacVeigh.�</P>
+<P>He fastened the tent-flap so that Isobel could not escape, and left her
+alone, quiet and wondering. Loneliness was not new to her. Solitude did not
+frighten her; and, listening with his ear close to the canvas, Billy soon heard
+her playing with the armful of things he had scattered about her. He hurried to
+the dogs and harnessed them to the sledge. Couchée and his wife did not have
+over half an hour the start of him— three-quarters at the most. He would run the
+race of his life for an hour or two, overtake them, and bring them back at the
+point of his revolver. If there had to be a fight he would fight.</P>
+<P>Where the trail struck into the forest he hesitated, wondering if he would
+not make better speed by leaving the team and sledge behind. The excited actions
+of the dogs decided him. They were sniffing at the scent left in the snow by the
+rival huskies, and were waiting eagerly for the command to pursue. Billy snapped
+his whip over their heads.</P>
+<P>“You want a fight, do you, boys?� he cried. “So do I. Get on with you!
+<I>M’hoosh! M’hoosh!�</I></P>
+<P>Billy dropped upon his knees on the sledge as the dogs leaped ahead. They
+needed no guidance, but followed swiftly in Couchée’s trail. Five minutes later
+they broke into thin timber, and then came out into a narrow plain, dotted with
+stunted scrub, through which ran the Beaver. Here the snow was soft and drifted,
+and Billy ran behind, hanging to the tail-rope to keep the sledge from leaving
+him if the dogs should develop an unexpected spurt. He could see that Couchée
+was exerting every effort to place distance between himself and the
+plague-stricken cabin, and it suddenly struck Billy that something besides fear
+of <I>le mort rouge</I> was adding speed to his heels. It was evident that the
+half-breed was spurred on by the thought of the blow he had struck in the cabin.
+Possibly he believed that he was a murderer, and Billy smiled as he observed
+where Couchée had whipped his dogs at a run through the soft drifts. He brought
+his own team down to a walk, convinced that the half-breed had lost his head,
+and that he would bush himself and his dogs within a few miles. He was
+confident, now that he would overtake them somewhere on the plain.</P>
+<P>With the elation of this thought there came again the sudden, sickening pain
+in his head. It was over in an instant, but in that moment the snow had turned
+black, and he had flung out his arms to keep himself from falling. The
+<I>babiche</I> rope had slipped from his hand, and when things cleared before
+his eyes again the sledge was twenty yards ahead of him. He overtook it, and
+dropped upon it, panting as though he had run a race. He laughed as he recovered
+himself, and looked over the gray backs of the tugging dogs, but in the same
+breath the laugh was cut short on his lips. It was as if a knife-blade had run
+in one lightning thrust from the back of his neck to his brain, and he fell
+forward on his face with a cry of pain. After all, Couchée’s blow had done the
+work. He realized that, and made an effort to call the dogs to a stop. For five
+minutes they went on, unheeding the half-dozen weak commands that he called out
+from the darkness that had fallen thickly about him. When at last he pulled
+himself up from his face and the snow turned white again, the dogs had halted.
+They were tangled in their traces and sniffing at the snow.</P>
+<P>Billy sat up. Darkness and pain left him as swiftly as they had come. He saw
+Couchée’s trail ahead, and then he looked at the dogs. They had swung at right
+angles to the sledge and had pulled the nose of it deep into a drift. With a
+sharp cry of command he sent the lash of his whip among them and went to the
+leader’s head. The dogs slunk to their bellies, snarling at him.</P>
+<P>“What the devil—� he began, and stopped.</P>
+<P>He stared at the snow. Straight out from Couchée’s trail there ran another— a
+snow-shoe trail. For a moment he thought that Couchée or his wife had for some
+reason struck out a distance from their sledge. A second glance assured him that
+in this supposition he was wrong. Both the half-breed and his wife wore the
+long, narrow “bush� snow-shoes, and this second trail was made by the big,
+basket-shaped shoes worn by Indians and trappers on the Barrens. In addition to
+this, the trail was well beaten. Whoever had traveled it recently had gone over
+it many times before, and Billy gave utterance to his joy in a low cry. He had
+struck a trap line. The trapper’s cabin could not be far away, and the trapper
+himself had passed that way not many minutes since. He examined the two trails
+and found where the blunt, round point of a snow-shoe had covered an imprint
+left by Couchée, and at this discovery Billy made a megaphone of his mittened
+hands and gave utterance to the long, wailing holloa of the forest man. It was a
+cry that would carry a mile. Twice he shouted, and the second time there came a
+reply. It was not far distant, and he responded with a third and still louder
+shout. In a flash there came again the terrible pain in his head, and he sank
+down on the sledge. This time he was roused from his stupor by the barking and
+snarling of the dogs and the voice of a man. When he lifted his head out of his
+arms he saw some one close to the dogs. He made an effort to rise, and staggered
+half to his feet. Then he fell back, and the darkness closed in about him more
+thickly than before. When he opened his eyes again <I>he</I> was in a cabin. He
+was conscious of warmth. The first sound that he heard was the crackling of a
+fire and the closing of a stove door. And then he heard some one say:</P>
+<P>“S’help me God, if it ain’t Billy MacVeigh!�</P>
+<P>He stared up into the face that was looking down at him. It was a white man’s
+face, covered with a scrubby red beard. The beard was new, but the eyes and the
+voice he would have recognized anywhere. For two years he had messed with Rookie
+McTabb down at Norway and Nelson House. McTabb had quit the Service because of a
+bad leg.</P>
+<P>“Rookie!� he gasped.</P>
+<P>He drew himself up, and McTabb’s hands grasped his shoulders.</P>
+<P>“S’help me, if it ain’t Billy MacVeigh!� he exclaimed again, amazement in his
+voice and face. “Joe brought you in five minutes ago, and I ain’t had a straight
+squint at you until now. Billy MacVeigh! Well, I’m—� He stopped to stare at
+Billy’s forehead, where there was a stain of blood. “Hurt?� he demanded,
+sharply. “Was it that damned half-breed?�</P>
+<P>Billy was gripping his hands now. Over near the stove, still kneeling before
+the closed door, he saw the dark face of an Indian turned toward him.</P>
+<P>“It was Couchée,� he said. “He hit me with the butt of his whip, and I’ve had
+funny spells ever since. Before I have another I want to tell you what I’m up
+against, Rookie. My Gawd, it’s a funny chance that ran me up against <I>you—</I>
+just in time! Listen.�</P>
+<P>He told McTabb briefly of Scottie Deane’s death, of Couchée’s flight from the
+cabin, and the present situation there.</P>
+<P>“There isn’t a minute to lose,� he finished, tightening his hold on McTabb’s
+hand. “There’s the kid and the mother, and I’ve got to get back to them, Rookie.
+The rest is up to you. We’ve got to get a woman. If we don’t— soon—�</P>
+<P>He rose to his feet and stood there looking at McTabb. The other nodded.</P>
+<P>“I understand,� he said. “You’re in a bad fix, Billy. It’s two hundred miles
+to the nearest white woman, away over near Du Brochet. You couldn’t get an
+Indian to go within half a mile of a cabin that’s struck by the plague, and I
+doubt if this white woman would come. The only game I can see is to send to Fort
+Churchill or Nelson House and have the force send up a nurse. It will take two
+weeks.�</P>
+<P>Billy gave a gesture of despair. Indian Joe had listened attentively, and now
+rose quietly from his position in front of the stove.</P>
+<P>“There’s Indian camp over on Arrow Lake,� he said, facing Billy. “I know
+squaw there who not afraid of plague.�</P>
+<P>“Sure as fate!� cried McTabb, exultantly. “Joe’s mother is over there, and if
+there is anything on earth she won’t do for Joe I can’t guess what it is. Early
+this winter she came a hundred and fifty miles— alone— to pay him a visit.
+She’ll come. Go after her, Joe. I’ll go Billy MacVeigh’s bond to get the Service
+to pay her five dollars a day from the hour she starts!� He turned to Billy.
+“How’s your head?� he asked.</P>
+<P>“Better. It was the run that fixed me, I guess.�</P>
+<P>“Then we’ll go over to Couchée’s cabin and I’ll bring back the kid.�</P>
+<P>They left Joe preparing for his three-day trip into the south and east, and
+outside the cabin McTabb insisted on Billy riding behind the dogs. They struck
+back for Couchée’s trail, and when they came to it McTabb laughed.</P>
+<P>“I’ll bet they’re running like rabbits,� he said. “What in thunder did you
+expect to do if you caught ’em, Billy? Drag the woman back by the hair of ’er
+’ead? I’m glad you tumbled where you did. You’ve got to beat a lynx to beat
+Couchée. He’d have perforated you from behind a snow-drift sure as your name’s
+Billy MacVeigh.�</P>
+<P>Billy felt that an immense load had been lifted from him, and he was partly
+inclined to tell his companion more about Isobel and himself. This, however, he
+did not do. As McTabb strode ahead and urged on the dogs he figured on the
+chances of Joe and his mother returning within a week. During that time he would
+be alone with Isobel, and in spite of the horrible fear that never for a moment
+left his heart it was impossible for him not to feel a thrill of pleasure at the
+thought. Those would be days of agony for himself as well as for her, and yet he
+would be near, always near, the woman he loved. And little Isobel would be safe
+in Rookie’s cabin. If anything happened—</P>
+<P>His hands gripped the edges of the sledge at the thought that leaped into his
+brain. It was Pelliter’s thought. If anything happened to Isobel the little girl
+would be his own, forever and forever. He thrust the thought from him as if it
+were the plague itself. Isobel would live. He would make her live, If she
+died—</P>
+<P>McTabb heard the low cry that broke from his lips. He could not keep it back.
+Good God, if <I>she</I> went, how empty the world would be! He might never see
+her again after these days of terror that were ahead of him; but if she lived,
+and he knew that the sun was shining in her bright hair, and that her blue eyes
+still looked up at the stars, and that in her sweet prayers she sometimes
+thought of him— along with Deane— life could not be quite so lonely for him.</P>
+<P>McTabb had dropped back to his side.</P>
+<P>“Head hurt?� he asked.</P>
+<P>“A little,� lied Billy. “There’s a level stretch ahead, Rookie. Hustle up the
+dogs!�</P>
+<P>Half an hour later the sledge drew up in front of Couchée’s cabin. Billy
+pointed to the tent.</P>
+<P>“The little one is in there,� he said. “Go over an’ get acquainted, Rookie.
+I’m going to take a look inside to see if everything is all right.�</P>
+<P>He entered the cabin quietly and closed the door softly behind him. The inner
+door was as he had left it, partly open, and he looked in, with a wildly beating
+heart. He could no longer hesitate. He stepped in and spoke her name.</P>
+<P>“Isobel!�</P>
+<P>There was a movement on the bed, and he was startled by the suddenness with
+which Isobel sprang to her feet. She drew aside the heavy curtain from the
+window and stood in the light. For a moment Billy saw her blue eyes filled with
+a strange fire as she stared at him. There was a wild flush in her cheeks, and
+he could hear her dry breath as it came from between her parted lips. Her hair
+was still undone and covered her in a shimmering veil.</P>
+<P>“I’ve found a trapper’s cabin, Isobel, and we’re taking the baby there,� he
+went on. “She will be safe. And we’re sending for help— for a woman—�</P>
+<P>He stopped, horror striking him dumb. He saw more plainly the feverish
+madness in Isobel’s eyes. She dropped the curtain, and they were in gloom. The
+whispered words he heard were more terrible than the madness in her eyes.</P>
+<P>“You won’t kill her?� she pleaded. “You won’t kill my baby? You won’t kill
+her—�</P>
+<P>She staggered, back toward the bed, whispering the words over and over again.
+Not until she had dropped upon it did Billy move. The blood in his body seemed
+to have turned cold. Be dropped upon his knees at her side. His hand buried
+itself in the soft smother of her hair, but he no longer felt the touch of it.
+He tried to speak, but words would not come. And then, suddenly, she thrust him
+back, and he could see the glow of her eyes in the half darkness. For a moment
+she seemed to have fought herself out of her delirium.</P>
+<P>“It was you— <I>you—</I> who helped to kill him!� she panted. “It was the
+Law— and you are the Law. It kills— kills— kills— and it never gives back when
+it makes a mistake. He was innocent, but you and the Law hounded him until he
+died. You are the murderers. You killed him. You have killed me. And you will
+never be punished— never— never— because you are the Law— and because the Law
+can kill— kill— kill—�</P>
+<P>She dropped back, moaning, and MacVeigh crouched at her side, his fingers
+buried in her hair, with no words to say. In a moment she breathed easier. He
+felt her tense body relax. He forced himself to his feet and dragged himself
+into the outer room, closing the door after him. Even in her delirium Isobel had
+spoken the truth. Forever she had digged for him a black abyss between them. The
+Law had killed Scottie Deane. And <I>he</I> was the Law. And for the Law there
+was no punishment, even though it took the life of an innocent man.</P>
+<P>He went outside. McTabb was in the tent. The gloom of evening was closing in
+on a desolate world. Overhead the sky was thick, and suddenly, with a great cry,
+Billy flung his arms straight up over his head and cursed that Law which could
+not be punished, the Law that had killed Scottie Deane. For he was that Law, and
+Isobel had called him a murderer.</P>
+<H4>XVII</H4>
+<H4>ISOBEL FACES THE ABYSS</H4>
+<P>It was not the face of MacVeigh— the old MacVeigh— that Rookie McTabb, the
+ex-constable, looked into a few moments later. Days of sickness could have laid
+no heavier hand upon him than had those few minutes in the darkened room of the
+cabin. His face was white and drawn. There were tense lines at the corners of
+his mouth and something strange and disquieting in his eyes. McTabb did not see
+the change until he came out into what remained of the day with little Isobel in
+his arms. Then he stared.</P>
+<P>“That blow got you bad,� he said. “You look sick. Mebbe I’d better stay with
+you here to-night.�</P>
+<P>“No, you hadn’t,� replied Billy, trying to throw off what he knew the other
+saw. “Take the kid over to the cabin. A night’s sleep and I’ll be as lively as a
+cat. I’m going to vaccinate her before you go.�</P>
+<P>He went into the tent and dug out from his pack the small rubber pouch in
+which he carried a few medicines and a roll of medicated cotton. In a small
+bottle there were three vaccine points. He returned with these and the
+cotton.</P>
+<P>“Watch her close,� he said, as he rolled back the child’s sleeve. “I’m going
+to give you an extra point, and if this doesn’t work by the seventh or eighth
+day you must do the job over again.�</P>
+<P>With the point of his knife he began to work gently on baby Isobel’s tender
+pink skin. He had expected that she would cry. But she was not frightened, and
+her big blue eyes followed his movements wonderingly. At last it began to hurt,
+and her lips quivered. But she made no sound, and as tears welled into her eyes
+Billy dropped his knife and caught her up close to his breast.</P>
+<P>“God bless your dear little heart,� he cried, smothering his face in her
+silken curls. “You’ve been hurt so much, an’ you’ve froze, an’ you’ve starved,
+an’ you ain’t never said a word about it since that day up at Fullerton! Little
+sweetheart—�</P>
+<P>McTabb heard him whispering things, and little Isobel’s arms crept tightly
+about his neck. After a little Billy held her out to him again, and a part of
+what Rookie had seen in his face was gone.</P>
+<P>“It won’t hurt any more,� he said, as he rubbed the vaccine point over the
+red spot on her arm. “You don’t want to be sick, do you? And that ’ll keep you
+from being sick. There—�</P>
+<P>He wound a strip of the cotton about her arm, tied it, and gave part of what
+remained to McTabb. Then he took her in his arms again and kissed her warm face
+and her soft curls, and after that bundled her in furs and put her on the
+sledge. Rookie was straightening out the dogs when, like a thief, he clipped off
+one of the curls with his knife. Isobel laughed gleefully when she saw the curl
+between his fingers. Before McTabb had turned it was in his pocket.</P>
+<P>“I won’t see her again— soon,� MacVeigh said; and he tried to keep a
+thickness out of his voice. “That is, I— I won’t see her to— to <I>handle</I>
+her. I’ll come over now and then an’ look at her from the edge of the woods. You
+bring ’er out, Rookie, an’ don’t you dare to let her know I’m out there. She
+wouldn’t know what it meant if I didn’t come to her.�</P>
+<P>He watched them as they disappeared into the gloom of night, and when they
+had gone a groan of anguish broke from his lips. For he knew that little Isobel
+was going from him forever. He would see her again— from the edge of the forest;
+but he would never hold her in his arms, nor feel again her tender arms about
+his neck or the soft smother of her hair against his face. Long before the dread
+menace of the plague was lifted from the cabin and from himself he would be
+gone. For that was what Isobel, the mother, had demanded, and he would keep his
+promise to her. She would never know what happened in these days of her
+delirium. She would not have to face him afterward. He knew already how he would
+go. When help came he would slip away quietly some night, and the big wilderness
+would swallow him up. His plans seemed to come without thought on his own part.
+He would go to Fort Churchill and testify against Bucky Smith. And then he would
+quit the Service. His term of enlistment expired in a month, and he would not
+re-enlist. <I>“It was the Law that killed him— and you are the Law. It kills—
+kills— kills— and it never gives back when it makes a mistake.�</I> Under the
+dark sky those words seemed never to end in his ears, and each moment they added
+to his hatred of the thing of which he had been a part for years. He seemed to
+hear Isobel’s accusing voice in the low soughing of the night wind in the spruce
+tops; and in the stillness of the world that hung heavy and close about him the
+words chased each other through his brain until they seemed to leave behind them
+a path of fire.</P>
+<P><I>“It kills— kills— kills— and it never gives back when it makes a
+mistake.�</I></P>
+<P>His lips were set tensely as he faced the cabin. He remembered now more than
+one instance where the Law had killed and had never given back. That was a part
+of the game of man-hunting. But he had never thought of it in Isobel’s way until
+she had painted for him in those few half-mad, accusing words a picture of
+himself. The fact that he had fought for Scottie Deane and had given him his
+freedom did not exonerate himself in his own eyes now. It was because of himself
+and Pelliter chiefly that Deane and Isobel had been forced to seek refuge among
+the Eskimos. From Fullerton they had watched and hunted for him as they would
+have hunted for an animal. He saw himself as Isobel must see him now— the
+murderer of her husband. He was glad, as he returned to the cabin, that he had
+happened to come in the second or third day of her fever. He dreaded her sanity
+now more than her delirium,</P>
+<P>He lighted a tin lamp in the cabin and listened for a moment at the inner
+door. Isobel was quiet. For the first time he made a more careful note of the
+cabin. Couchée and his wife had left plenty of food. He had noticed a frozen
+haunch of venison hanging outside the cabin, and he went out and chopped off
+several pieces of the meat. He did not feel hungry enough to prepare food for
+himself, but put the meat in a pot and placed it on the stove, that he might
+have broth for Isobel.</P>
+<P>He began to find signs of her presence in the room as he moved about. Hanging
+on a wooden peg in the log wall he saw a scarf which he knew belonged to her.
+Under the scarf there was a pair of her shoes, and then he noticed that the
+crude cabin table was covered with a litter of stuff which he had not observed
+before. There were needles and thread, some cloth, a pair of gloves, and a red
+bow of ribbon which Isobel had worn at her throat. What held his eyes were two
+bundles of old letters tied with blue ribbon, and a third pile, undone and
+scattered. In the light of the lamp he saw that all of the writing on the
+envelopes was in the same hand. The top envelope on the first pile was addressed
+to “Mrs. Isobel Deane, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan�; the first envelope of the
+other bundle to “Miss Isobel Rowland, Montreal, Canada.� Billy’s heart choked
+him as he gathered the loose letters in his hands and placed them, with the
+others, on a little shelf above the table. He knew that they were letters from
+Deane, and that in her fever and loneliness Isobel had been reading them when he
+brought to her news of her husband’s death.</P>
+<P>He was about to remove the other articles from the table where a folded
+newspaper clipping was uncovered by the removal of the cloth. It was a half page
+from a Montreal daily, and out of it there looked straight up at him the face of
+Isobel Deane. It was a younger, more girlish-looking face, but to him it was not
+half so beautiful as the face of the Isobel who had come to him from out of the
+Barren. His fingers trembled and his breath came more quickly as he held the
+paper in the light and read the few lines under the picture:</P>
+<BLOCKQUOTE>ISOBEL ROWLAND, ONE OF THE LAST OF MONTREAL’S DAUGHTERS OF THE
+  NORTH, WHO HAS SACRIFICED A FORTUNE FOR LOVE OF A YOUNG ENGINEER</BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>In spite of the feeling of shame that crept over him at thus allowing himself
+to be drawn into a past sacred to Isobel and the man who had died, Billy’s eyes
+sought the date-line. The paper was eight years old. And then he read what
+followed. In those few minutes, as the cold, black type revealed to him the
+story of Isobel and Deane, he forgot that he was in the cabin, and that he could
+almost hear the breathing of the woman whose sweet romance had ended now in
+tragedy. He was with Deane that day, years ago, when he had first looked into
+Isobel’s eyes in the little old cemetery of nameless and savage dead at Ste.
+Anne de Beaupré; he heard the tolling of the ancient bell in the church that had
+stood on the hillside for more than two hundred and fifty years; and he could
+hear Deane’s voice as he told Isobel the story of that bell and how, in the days
+of old, it had often called the settlers in to fight against the Indians. And
+then, as he read on, he could feel the sudden thrill in Deane’s blood when
+Isobel had told him who she was, and that Pierre Radisson, one of the great
+lords of the north, had been her great-grandfather; that he had brought
+offerings to the little old church, and that he had fought there and died close
+by, and that his body was somewhere among the nameless and unmarked dead. It was
+a beautiful story, and MacVeigh saw more of it between the lines than could ever
+have been printed. Once he had gone to Ste. Anne de Beaupré to see the pilgrims
+and the miracles there, and there flashed before him the sunlit slope
+overlooking the broad St. Lawrence, where Isobel and Deane had afterward met,
+and where she had told him how large a part the little old cracked bell, the
+ancient church, and the plot of nameless dead had played in her life ever since
+she could remember. His blood grew hot as he read of what followed the beginning
+of love at the pilgrims’ shrine. Isobel had no father or mother, the paper said.
+Her uncle and guardian was an iron master of the old blood— the blood that had
+been a part of the wilderness and the great company since the day the first
+“gentlemen adventurers� came over with Prince Rupert. He lived alone with Isobel
+in a big white house on the top of a hill, shut in by stone walls and iron
+pickets, and looked out upon the world with the cold hauteur of a feudal lord.
+He was young David Deane’s enemy from the moment he first heard about him,
+largely because he was nothing more than a struggling mining engineer, but
+chiefly because he was an American and had come from across the border. The
+stone walls and iron pickets were made a barrier to him. The heavy gates never
+opened for him. Then had come the break. Isobel, loyal in her love, had gone to
+Deane. The story ended there.</P>
+<P>For a few moments Billy stood with the paper in his hand, the type a blur
+before his eyes. He could almost see Isobel’s old home in Montreal. It was on
+the steep, shaded road leading up to Mount Royal, where he had once watched a
+string of horses “tacking� with their two-wheeled carts of coal in their arduous
+journey to Sir George Allen’s basement at the end of it. He remembered how that
+street had held a curious sort of fascination for him, with its massive stone
+walls, its old French homes, and that old atmosphere still clinging to it of the
+Montreal of a hundred years ago. Twelve years before he had gone there first and
+carved his name on the wooden stairway leading to the top of the mountain.
+Isobel had been there then. Perhaps it was she he had heard singing behind one
+of the walls.</P>
+<P>He put the paper with the letters, making a note of the uncle’s name. If
+anything happened it would be his duty to send word to him— perhaps. And then,
+deliberately, he tore into little pieces the slip of paper on which he had
+written the name. Geoffrey Renaud had cast off his niece. And if she died why
+should he— Billy MacVeigh— tell him anything about little Isobel? Since Isobel’s
+terrible castigation of himself and the Law duty had begun to hold a diferent
+meaning for him.</P>
+<P>Several times during the next hour Billy listened at the door. Then he made
+some tea and toast and took the broth from the stove. He went into the room,
+leaving these on the hearth of the stove so that they would not grow cold. He
+heard Isobel move, and as he went to her side she gave a little breathless
+cry.</P>
+<P>“David— David— is it you?� she moaned. “Oh, David, I’m so glad you have
+come!�</P>
+<P>Billy stood over her. In the darkness his face was ashen gray, for like a
+flash of fire in the lightless room the truth rushed upon him. Shock and fever
+had done their work. And in her delirium Isobel believed that he was Deane, her
+husband. In the gloom he saw that she was reaching up her arms to him.</P>
+<P>“David!� she whispered; and in her voice there were a love and gladness that
+thrilled and terrified him to the quick of his soul.</P>
+<H4>XVIII</H4>
+<H4>THE FULFILMENT OF A PROMISE</H4>
+<P>In the space of silence that followed Isobel’s whispered words there came to
+Billy a realization of the crisis which he faced. The thought of surrendering
+himself to his first impulse, and of taking Deane’s place in these hours of
+Isobel’s fever, filled him instantly with a revulsion that sent him back a step
+from the bed, his hands clenched until his nails hurt his calloused palms.</P>
+<P>“No, no, I am not David,� he began, but the words died in his throat.</P>
+<P>To tell her that, to make her know the truth— that her husband was dead—
+might kill her now. Hope, belief that he was alive and with her, would help to
+make her live. So quickly that he could not have spoken his thoughts in words
+these things flashed upon him. If Deane were alive and at her side his presence
+would save her. And if she believed that <I>he</I> was Deane he would save her.
+In the end she would never know. He remembered how Pelliter had forgotten things
+that had happened in his delirium. To Isobel, when she awakened into sanity, it
+would only seem like a dream at most. A few words from him then would convince
+her of that. If necessary, he would tell her that she had talked much about
+David in her fever and had imagined him with her. She would have no suspicion
+that <I>he</I> had played that part.</P>
+<P>Isobel had waited a moment, but now she whispered again, as if a little
+frightened at his silence.</P>
+<P>“David— David—�</P>
+<P>He stepped back quickly to the bed and his hands met those reaching up to
+him. They were hot and dry, and Isobel’s fingers tightened about his own almost
+fiercely, and drew his hands down on her breast. She gave a sigh, as though she
+would rest easier now that his hands were touching her.</P>
+<P>“I have been making some broth for you,� he said, scarcely daring to speak.
+“Will you take some of it, Isobel? You must— and sleep.�</P>
+<P>He felt the pressure of Isobel’s hands, and she spoke to him so calmly that
+for a breath he thought that she must surely be herself again.</P>
+<P>“I don’t like the dark, David,� she said. “I can’t see you. And I want to do
+up my hair. Will you bring in a light?�</P>
+<P>“Not until you are better,� he whispered. “A light will hurt your eyes. I
+will stay with you— near you—�</P>
+<P>She raised a hand in the darkness, and it stroked his face. In that touch
+were all the love and gentleness that had lived for the man who was dead, and
+the caress thrilled Billy until it seemed as though what was in his heart must
+burst forth in a sobbing breath. Suddenly her hand left his face, and he heard
+her moving restlessly.</P>
+<P>“My hair— David—�</P>
+<P>He put out a hand, and it fell in the soft smother of her hair. It was
+tangled about her face and neck, and he lifted her gently while he drew out the
+thick masses of it. He did not dare to speak while he smoothed out the rich
+tresses and pleated them into a braid. Isobel sighed restfully when he had
+done.</P>
+<P>“I am going to get the broth now,� he said then.</P>
+<P>He went into the outer room where the lamp was lighted. Not until he took up
+the cup of broth did he notice how his hand trembled. A bit of the broth spilled
+on the floor, and he dropped a piece of the toast. He, too, was passing through
+the crucible with Isobel Deane.</P>
+<P>He went back and lifted her so that her head rested against his shoulder and
+the warmth of her hair lay against his cheek and neck. Obediently she ate the
+half-dozen bits of toast he moistened in the broth, and then drank a few sips of
+the liquid. She would have rested there after that, with her face turned against
+his, and Billy knew that she would have slept. But he lowered her gently to the
+pillow.</P>
+<P>“You must go to sleep now,� he urged, softly. “Good night—�</P>
+<P>“David!�</P>
+<P>“Yes—�</P>
+<P>“You— you— haven’t— kissed— me—�</P>
+<P>There was a childish plaint in her voice, and with a sob in his own breath he
+bent over her. For an instant her arms clung about his neck. He felt the sweet,
+thrilling touch of her warm lips, and then he drew himself back; and, with her
+“Good night, David� following him to the door, he went into the outer room, and
+with a strange, broken cry flung himself on the cot in which Couchée had
+slept.</P>
+<P>It was an hour before he raised his face from the blankets. Yet he had not
+slept. In that hour, and in the half-hour that had preceded it in Isobel’s room,
+there had come lines into his face which made him look older. Once Isobel had
+kissed him, and he had treasured that kiss as the sweetest thing that had come
+to him in all his life. And to-night she had given him more than that, for there
+had been love, and not gratitude alone, in the warmth of her lips, in the caress
+of her hands and arms, and in the pressure of her feverish face against his own.
+But they brought him none of the pleasure of that which she had given to him on
+the Barren. Grief-stricken, he rose and faced the door. In spite of the fact
+that he knew there was no alternative for him, he regarded himself as worse than
+a thief. He was taking an advantage of her which filled him with a repugnance
+for himself, and he prayed for the hour when sanity would return to her, though
+it brought back the heartbreak and despair that were now lost in the oblivion of
+her fever. Always in the northland there is somewhere the dread trail of <I>le
+mort rouge,</I> the “red death,� and he was well acquainted with the course it
+would have to run. He believed that the fever had stricken Isobel the third or
+fourth day before, and there would follow three or four days more in which she
+would not be herself. Then would come the reaction. She would awaken to the
+truth then that her husband was dead, and that he had been with her alone all
+that time.</P>
+<P>He listened for a moment at the door. Isobel was resting quietly, and he went
+out of the cabin without making a sound. The night had grown blacker and
+gloomier. There was not a rift in the sullen darkness of the sky over him. A
+wind had risen from out of the north and east, just enough of a wind to set the
+tree-tops moaning and fill the closed-in world about him with uneasy sound. He
+walked toward the tent where little Isobel had been, and there was something in
+the air that choked him. He wished that he had not sent all of the dogs with
+McTabb. A terrible loneliness oppressed him. It was like a clammy hand
+smothering his heart in its grip, and it made him sick. He turned and looked at
+the light in the cabin. Isobel was there, and he had thought that where she was
+he could never be lonely. But he knew now that there lay between them a gulf
+which an eternity could not bridge.</P>
+<P>He shuddered, for with the night wind it seemed to him that there came again
+the presence of Scottie Deane. He gripped his hands and stared out into a pit of
+blackness. It was as if he had heard the Wild Horsemen passing that way, panting
+and galloping through the spruce tops on their mission of gathering the souls of
+the dead. Deane was with him, as his spirit had been with him on that night he
+had returned to Pelliter after putting the cross over Scottie’s grave. And in a
+moment or two the feeling of that presence seemed to lift the smothering weight
+from his heart. He knew that Deane could understand, and the presence comforted
+him. He went to the tent and looked in, though there was nothing to see. And
+then he turned back to the cabin. Thought of the grave with its sapling cross
+brought home to him his duty to the woman. From the rubber pouch he brought
+forth his pad of paper and a pencil.</P>
+<P>For more than an hour after that he worked. steadily in the dull glow of the
+lamp. He knew that Isobel would return to Deane. It might be soon— or a long
+time from now. But she would go. And step by step he mapped out for her the
+trail that led to the little cabin on the edge of the Barren. And after that he
+wrote in his big, rough hand what was overflowing from his heart.</P>
+<P><I>“May God take care of you always. I would give my life to give you back
+his. I won’t let his grave be lost. I will go back some day and plant blue
+flowers over it. I guess you will never know what I would do to give him back to
+you and make you happy.�</I></P>
+<P>He knew that he had not promised what he would fail to do. He would return to
+the lonely grave on the edge of the Barren. There was something that called him
+to it now, something that he could not understand, and which came of his own
+desolation. He folded the pages of paper, wrapped them in a clean sheet, and
+wrote Isobel Deans’s name on the outside. Then he placed the packet with the
+letters on the shelf over the table. He knew that she would find it with
+them.</P>
+<P>What happened during the terrible week that followed that night no one but
+MacVeigh would ever know. To him they were seven days of a fight whose memory
+would remain with him until the end of time. Sleepless nights and almost
+sleepless days. A bitter struggle, almost without rest, with the horrible
+specter that ever hovered within the inner room. A struggle that drew his cheeks
+in and put deep lines in his face; a struggle during which Isobel’s voice spoke
+tenderly and pleadingly with him in one hour and bitterly in the next. He felt
+the caress of her hands. More than once she drew him down to the soft thrill of
+her feverish lips. And then, in more terrible moments, she accused him of
+hunting to death the man who lay back under the sapling cross. The three days of
+torment lengthened into four, and the four into seven, To the bottom of his soul
+he suffered, for he understood what it all meant for him. On the third and the
+fifth and the seventh days he went over to McTabb’s cabin, and Rookie came out
+and talked with him at a distance through a birchbark megaphone. On the seventh
+day there was still no news of Indian Joe and his mother. And on this day Billy
+played his last part as Deane. He went into her room at noon with broth and
+toast and a dish of water, and after she had eaten a little he lifted her and
+made a prop of blankets at her back so that he could brush out and braid her
+beautiful hair. It was light in the room in spite of the curtain which he kept
+closely drawn. Outside the sun was shining brightly, and the pale luster of it
+came through the curtain and lit up the rich tresses he was brushing. When he
+was done he lowered her gently to her pillow. She was looking at him strangely.
+And then, with a shock that seemed to turn him cold to the depths of his soul,
+he saw what was in her eyes. Sanity and reason. He saw swiftly gathering in them
+the old terror, the old grief— recognition of his true self! He waited to hear
+no word, but turned as he had done a hundred times before and left the room.</P>
+<P>In the outer room he stood for a few silent minutes, gathering strength for
+the ordeal that was near. The end was at hand— for him. He choked back his
+weakness, and after a time returned to the inner door. But now he did not go in
+as he had entered before. He knocked. It was the first time. And Isobel’s voice
+bade him enter.</P>
+<P>His heart was filled with a sudden throbbing pain when he saw that she had
+turned so that she lay with her face turned away from him. He bent over her and
+said, softly:</P>
+<P>“You are better. The danger is past.�</P>
+<P>“I am better and— and— it is over?� he heard her whisper.</P>
+<P>“Yes.�</P>
+<P>“The— the baby?�</P>
+<P>“Is well— yes.�</P>
+<P>There was a moment’s silence. The room seemed to tremble with it. Then she
+said, faintly:</P>
+<P>“You have been alone?�</P>
+<P>“Yes— alone— for seven days.�</P>
+<P>She turned her eyes upon him fully. He could see the glow of them in the
+faint light. It seemed to him that she was reading him to the depths of his
+soul, and that in this moment <I>she knew!</I> She knew that he had taken the
+part of David, and suddenly she turned her face away from him again with a
+strange, choking sob. He could feel her trembling. She seemed, struggling for
+breath and strength, and he heard again the words <I>“You— you— you—�</I></P>
+<P>“Yes, yes— I know— I understand,� he said, and his heart choked him. “You
+must be quiet— now. I promised you that if you got well I would go. And— I will.
+No one will ever know. I will go.�</P>
+<P>“And you will never come to me again?� Her voice was terribly quiet and
+cold.</P>
+<P>“Never,� he said. “I swear that.�</P>
+<P>She had drawn away from him now until he could see nothing of her but the
+shimmer of her thick braid where it lay in a ray of light. But he could hear her
+sobbing breath. She scarcely knew when he left the room, he went so quietly. He
+closed her door after him, and this time he latched it. The outer door was open,
+and suddenly he heard that for which he had been waiting and listening— the
+short, sharp yelping of dogs, and a human voice.</P>
+<P>In three leaps he was out in the open. Halfway across the narrow clearing
+Indian Joe had halted with his team. One glance at the sledge showed Billy that
+Joe’s mother had not failed him. A thin, weazened little old woman scrambled
+from a pile of bearskins as he ran toward them. She had sunken eyes that watched
+his approach with a ratlike glitter, and her naked hands were so emaciated that
+they looked like claws; but in spite of her unprepossessing appearance Billy
+almost hugged her in his delight at their coming. Maballa was her name, Rookie
+had told him, and she understood and could talk English better than her son.
+Billy told her of the condition in the cabin, and when he had finished she took
+a small pack from the sledge, cackled a few words to Indian Joe, and followed
+him without a moment’s hesitation. That she had no fear of the plague added to
+Billy’s feeling of relief. As soon as she had taken off her hood and heavy
+blanket she went fearlessly into the inner room, and a moment later Billy heard
+her talking to Isobel.</P>
+<P>It took him but a few moments to gather up the few things he possessed and
+put them in his pack. Then he went out and took down his tent. Indian Joe had
+already gone, and he followed in his trail. An hour later McTabb appeared at the
+door of his cabin, summoned by Billy’s shout. He circled about and came up with
+the wind, until he stood within fifty paces of MacVeigh. Billy told him what he
+was going to do. He was going to Churchill, and would leave Isobel and the baby
+in his care. From Fort Churchill he would send back an escort to take the woman
+and little Isobel down to civilization. He wanted fresh clothes— anything he
+could wear. Those he had on he would be compelled to burn. He suggested that he
+could get into one of Indian Joe’s outfits, if he had any spare garments, and
+McTabb went back to the cabin, returning a few minutes later with an armful of
+clothes.</P>
+<P>“Here’s everything you’ll need, except an undershirt an’ drawers,� said
+McTabb, placing them in a pile on the snow. “I’ll wait a little while you’re
+changing. Better burn those quick. The wind might change, and I don’t want to be
+caught in a whiff of it.�</P>
+<P>He moved to a safe distance while Billy secured the clothes and went into the
+timber. From a birch tree he pulled off a pile of bark, and as he stripped he
+put his old clothes on it. McTabb could hear the crackling and snapping of the
+fire when Billy reappeared arrayed in Indian Joe’s “second best�— buckskin
+trousers, a worn and tattered fur coat, a fisher-skin cap, and moccasins a size
+too small for him. For fifteen minutes the two men talked, McTabb still drawing
+the dead-line at fifty paces. Then he went back and brought up Billy’s dogs and
+sledge.</P>
+<P>“I’d like to shake hands with you, Billy,� he apologized, “but I guess it’s
+best not to. I don’t suppose— we’d dare— bring out the kid?�</P>
+<P>“No,� said Billy. “Good-by, Mac. I’ll see you— sometime— later. Just go back—
+an’ bring her to the door, will you? I don’t want her to know I’m here, an’ I’ll
+take a look at her from the bush. She wouldn’t understand, you know, if she knew
+I was here an’ wouldn’t come up an’ see her.�</P>
+<P>He concealed himself among the spruce as McTabb went into the cabin. A moment
+later he reappeared. Isobel was in his arms, and Billy gulped back a sob. For an
+instant she turned her face his way, and he could see that she was pointing in
+his direction as Rookie talked to her, and then for another instant the sun lit
+up the child’s hair with a golden fire, as he had first seen it on that
+wonderful day at Fullerton. He wanted to cry out one word to her— at least one—
+but what came was only the sob he had fought to keep back. He turned his face
+into the forest. And this time he knew that the parting was final.</P>
+<H4>XIX</H4>
+<H4>A PILGRIMAGE TO THE BARREN</H4>
+<P>The fourth night after he had left the plague-stricken cabin Billy was camped
+on Lame Otter Creek, one hundred and eighty miles from Fort Churchill, over on
+Hudson’s Bay. He had eaten his supper, and was smoking his pipe. It was a clear
+and glorious night, with the sky afire with stars and a full moon. Several times
+Billy had stared at the moon. It was what the Indians called “the bleeding
+moon�— red as blood, with an uneven, dripping edge. It was the Indian
+superstition that it meant misfortune to those who did not keep it at their
+backs. For seven consecutive nights it had made a red trail through the skies in
+that terrible year of plague nineteen years before, when a quarter of the forest
+population of the north had died. Since then it had been known as the “plague
+moon.� Billy had seen it only twice before. He was not superstitious, but
+to-night he was filled with a strange sensation of uneasiness. He laughed an
+unpleasant laugh as he stared into the crackling birch flames and wondered what
+new misfortune could come to him.</P>
+<P>And then, slowly, something seemed to come to him from out of the wonderful
+night like a quieting hand to still the pain in his broken heart. At last, once
+more, he was <I>home.</I> For the wind-swept Barrens and the forest had been his
+home, and more than once he had told himself that life away from them would be
+impossible for him. More deeply than ever this thought came to him to-night. He
+had become a part of them and they a part of him. And as he looked up again at
+the red moon the sight of it no longer brought him uneasiness, but a strange
+sort of joy. For an hour he sat there, and the fire died down. About him the
+rustle and whisper of the wild closed in nearer. It was <I>his</I> world, and he
+breathed more deeply and listened. Lonely and sick at heart, he felt the life
+and sympathy and love of it creeping into him, grieving with him in his grief,
+warming him with its hope, pledging him again the eternal friendship of its
+trees, its mountains, and all of the wild that it held therein. A hundred times,
+in that strange man-play that comes of loneliness in the far north, he had given
+life and form to the star shadows about him, to the shadows of the tall spruce,
+the twisted shrub, the rocks, and even the mountains. And now it was no longer
+play. With each hour that passed this night, and with each day and night that
+followed, they became more real to MacVeigh; and the fires he built in the black
+gloom painted him pictures as they had never painted them before; and the trees
+and the rocks and the twisted shrub comforted him more and more in his
+loneliness, and gave to him the presence of life in their movement, in the
+coming and going of their shadow forms. Everywhere they were the same old
+friends, unvarying and changeless. The spruce shadow of to-night, nodding to him
+in its silent way, was the same that nodded to him last night— a hundred nights
+ago; the stars were the same, the winds whispering to him in the tree-tops were
+the same, everything was as it was yesterday— years ago. He knew that in these
+things, and in these things alone, he would always possess Isobel. She would
+return to civilization, and the shifting scenes of life down there would soon
+make her forget him— almost. But in <I>his</I> world there was no change. Ten
+years from now he might go over their old trail and still find the charred
+remains of the campfire he had built for her that night beside the Barren. The
+wilderness would bear memory of her so long as he was a part of it; and now, as
+he came nearer to Churchill, he knew that he would always be a part of it.</P>
+<P>Three weeks after he had left Couchée’s cabin he came into Fort Churchill. A
+month had changed him so that the factor did not recognize him at first. The
+inspector in charge stared at him twice, and then cried, “My God, is it you,
+MacVeigh?� To Pelliter alone, who was waiting for him, did Billy tell all that
+had happened down on the Little Beaver. There were several letters waiting for
+him at Churchill, and one of these told him that a silver property in which he
+was interested over at Cobalt had turned out well and that his share in the sale
+was something over ten thousand dollars. He used this unexpected piece of
+good-fortune as an excuse to the inspector when he refused to re-enlist. A week
+after his arrival at Churchill Bucky Smith was dishonorably discharged from the
+Service. There were several near them when Bucky came up to him with a smile on
+his face and offered to shake hands.</P>
+<P>“I don’t bear you any ill-will, Billy,� he said, loud enough for the others
+to hear. “Only you’ve made a big mistake.� And then, in words for Billy’s ears
+alone, he added: “Remember what I promised you! I’ll kill you for this if I have
+to hunt you round the world!�</P>
+<P>A few days later Pelliter left on the last of the slush snows in an effort to
+reach Nelson House before the sledging was gone.</P>
+<P>“I wish you’d go with me, Billy,� he entreated for the hundredth time. “My
+girl ’d love to have you come, an’ you know how <I>I’d</I> like it.�</P>
+<P>But Billy could not be moved.</P>
+<P>“I’ll come and see you some day— when you’ve got the kid,� he promised,
+trying to laugh, as he shook hands for the last time with his old comrade.</P>
+<P>For three days after Pelliter’s departure he remained at the post. On the
+morning of the fourth, with his pack on his back and without dogs, he struck off
+into the north and west.</P>
+<P>“I think I’ll spend next winter at Fond du Lac,� he told the inspector. “If
+there’s any mail for me you can send it there if you have a chance, and if I’m
+not at Fond du Lac it can be returned to Churchill.�</P>
+<P>He said Fond du Lac because Deane’s grave lay between Churchill and the old
+Hudson’s Bay Company’s post over in the country of the Athabasca. The Barrens
+were the one thing that called to him now— the one thing to which he dared
+respond. He would keep his promise to Isobel and visit Scottie’s grave. At least
+he tried to make himself believe that he was keeping a promise. But deep in him
+there was an undercurrent of feeling which he could not explain. It was as if
+there were a spirit with him at times, walking at his side, and hovering about
+his campfire at nights, and when he gave himself up to the right mood he felt
+that it was the presence of Deane. He believed in strong friendship, but he had
+never believed in the love of man for man. He had not thought that such a thing
+could exist, except, perhaps, between father and son. With him, in all the
+castles he had built and the dreams he had dreamed, the alpha and omega of love
+had remained with woman. For the first time he knew what it meant to love a man—
+the memory of a man.</P>
+<P>Something held him from telling the secret of his mission at Churchill even
+to Pelliter. The evening before he left he had smuggled an ax into the edge of
+the forest, and the second day he found use for this. He came to a
+straight-grained, thick birch, eighteen inches in diameter, and he put up his
+tent fifty paces from it. Before he rolled himself in his blankets that night he
+had cut down the tree. The next day he chopped off the butt, and before another
+nightfall had hewn out a slab two inches thick, a foot wide, and three feet
+long. When he took up the trail into the north and west again the following
+morning he left the ax behind.</P>
+<P>The fourth night he worked with his hunting-knife and his belt-ax, thinning
+down the slab and making it smooth. The fifth and the sixth nights he passed in
+the same way, and he ended the sixth night by heating the end of a small iron
+rod in the fire and burning the first three letters of Deane’s epitaph on the
+slab. For a time he was puzzled, wondering whether he should use the name
+Scottie or David. He decided on David.</P>
+<P>He did not travel fast, for to him spring was the most beautiful of all
+seasons in the wilderness. It was underfoot and overhead now. The snow-floods
+were singing between the ridges and gathering in the hollows. The poplar buds
+were swollen almost to the bursting point, and the bakneesh vines were as red as
+blood with the glow of new life. Seventeen days after he left Churchill he came
+to the edge of the big Barren. For two days he swung westward, and early in the
+forenoon of the third looked out over the gray waste, dotted with moving
+caribou, over which he and Pelliter had raced ahead of the Eskimos with little
+Isobel. He went to the cabin first and entered. It was evident that no one had
+been there since he had left, On the bunk where Deane had died he found one of
+baby Isobel’s little mittens. He had wondered where she had lost it, and had
+made her a new one of lynx-skin on the way down to Couchée’s cabin. The tiny bed
+that he had made for her on the floor was as she had last slept in it, and in
+the part of a blanket that he had used as a pillow was still the imprint of her
+head. On the wall hung a pair of old trousers that Deane had worn. Billy looked
+at these things, standing silently, with his pack at his feet. There was
+something in the cabin that closed in about him and choked him, and he struggled
+to overcome it by whistling. His lips seemed thick. At last he turned and went
+to the grave.</P>
+<P>The foxes had been there, and had dug a little about the sapling cross. There
+was no other change. During the remainder of the forenoon Billy cut down a
+heavier sapling and sunk the butt of it three feet into the half-frozen earth at
+the head of Deane’s grave. Then, with spikes he had brought with him, he nailed
+on the slab. He believed that no one would ever know what the words on that slab
+meant— no one except himself and the spirit of Scottie Deane. With the end of
+the heated rod he had burned into the wood:</P>
+<H4>DAVID DEANE</H4>
+<H4><I>Died Feb. 27, 1908</I></H4>
+<H4>BELOVED OF ISOBEL AND THE ONE</H4>
+<H4>WHO WISHES HE COULD TAKE</H4>
+<H4>YOUR PLACE AND GIVE</H4>
+<H4>YOU BACK TO</H4>
+<H4>HER</H4>
+<H4><I>W. M. April 15, 1908</I></H4>
+<P>He did not stop when it was time for dinner, but carried rocks from a ridge a
+couple of hundred yards away, and built a cairn four feet high around the
+sapling, so that storm or wild animals could not knock it down. Then he began a
+search in the warmest and sunniest parts of the forest, where the green tips of
+plant life were beginning to reveal themselves. He found snowflowers, redglow,
+and bakneesh, and dug up root after root, and at last, peeping out from between
+two rocks, he found the arrowlike tip of a blue flower. The bakneesh roots he
+planted about the cairn, and the blue flower he planted by itself at the head of
+the grave.</P>
+<P>It was long past midday when he returned to the cabin, and once more he was
+oppressed by the appalling loneliness of it. It was not as he had thought it
+would be. Deane’s spirit and companionship had seemed to be nearer to him beside
+his campfires and in the forest. He cooked a meal over the stove, but the
+snapping of the fire seemed strange and unnatural in the deserted room. Even the
+air he breathed was heavy with the oppression of death and broken hopes. He
+found it difficult to swallow the food he had cooked, though he had eaten
+nothing since morning. When he was done he looked at his watch. It was four
+o’clock. The northern sun had dropped behind the distant forests and was
+followed now by the thickening gloom of early evening. For a few moments Billy
+stood motionless outside the cabin. Behind him an owl hooted its lonely
+mating-song. Over his head a brush sparrow twittered. It was that hour, just
+between the end of day and the beginning of night, when the wilderness holds its
+breath and all is still. Billy clenched his hands and listened. He could not
+keep back the break that was in his breath. Something out there in the silence
+and the gathering darkness was calling him— calling him away from the cabin,
+away from the grave, and the gray, dead waste of the Barren. He turned back into
+the cabin and put his things into the pack. He took the little mitten to keep
+with his other treasures, and then he went out and closed the door behind him.
+He passed close to the grave and for the last time gazed upon the spot where
+Deane lay buried.</P>
+<P>“Good-by, old man,� he whispered. Goodby—�</P>
+<P>The owl hooted louder as he turned his face into the west. It made him
+shiver, and he hurried his steps into the unbroken wilderness that lay for
+hundreds of miles between him and the post at Fond du Lac.</P>
+<H4>XX</H4>
+<H4>THE LETTER</H4>
+<P>Days and weeks and months of a loneliness which Billy had never known before
+followed after his pilgrimage to Deane’s grave. It was more than loneliness. He
+had known loneliness, the heartbreak and the longing of it, in the black and
+silent chaos of the arctic night; he had almost gone mad of it, and he had seen
+Pelliter nearly die for a glimpse of the sun and the sound of a voice. But this
+was different. It was something that ate deeper at his soul each day and each
+night that he lived. He had believed that thought of Isobel and his memories of
+her would make him happier, even though he never saw her again. But in this he
+was mistaken. The wilderness does not lend to forgetfulness, and each day her
+voice seemed nearer and more real to him, and she became more and more
+insistently a part of his thoughts. Never an hour of the day passed that he did
+not ask himself where she was. He hoped that she and the baby Isobel had
+returned to the old home in Montreal, where they would surely find friends and
+be cared for. And yet the dread was upon him that she had remained in the
+wilderness, that her love for Deane would keep her there, and that she would
+find a woman’s work at some post between the Height of Land and the Barrens. At
+times there possessed him an overwhelming desire to return to McTabb’s cabin and
+find where they had gone. But he fought against this desire as a man fights
+against death. He knew that once he surrendered himself to the temptation to be
+near her again he would lose much that he had won in his struggle during the
+days of plague in Couchée’s cabin.</P>
+<P>So his feet carried him steadily westward, while the invisible hands tugged
+at him from behind. He did not go straight to Fond du Lac, but spent nearly
+three weeks with a trapper whom he ran across on the Pipestone River. It was
+June when he struck Fond du Lac, and he remained there a month. He had more than
+half expected to pass the winter there, but the factor at the post proved a
+disagreeable acquaintance, and he did not like the country. So early in July he
+set out deeper into the Athabasca country to the west, followed the northern
+shore of the big lake, and two months later came to Fort Chippewyan, near the
+mouth of the Slave River.</P>
+<P>He struck Chippewyan at a fortunate time. A government geological and
+map-making party was just preparing to leave for the <I>terra incognita</I>
+between the Great Slave and the Great Bear, and the three men who had come up
+from Ottawa urged Billy to join them. He jumped at the opportunity, and remained
+with them until the party returned to the Mackenzie River by the way of Fort
+Providence five months later. He remained at Fort Providence until late spring,
+and then came down to Fort Wrigley, where he had several friends in the service.
+Fifteen months of wandering had had their effect upon him. He could no longer
+resist the call of the wanderlust. It urged him from place to place, and
+stronger and stronger grew in him the desire to return to his old country along
+the shores of the big Bay far to the west. He had partly planned to join the
+railroad builders on the new trans-continental in the mountains of British
+Columbia, but in August, instead of finding himself at Edmonton or Tête Jaune
+Cache, he was at Prince Albert, three hundred and fifty miles to the east. From
+this point he struck northward with a party of company men into the Lac La Ronge
+country, and in October swung eastward alone through the Sissipuk and Burntwood
+waterways to Nelson House. He continued northward after a week’s rest, and on
+the eighteenth of December the first of the two great storms which made the
+winter of 1909-10 one of the most tragic in the history of the far northern
+people overtook him thirty miles from York Factory. It took him five days to
+reach the post, where he was held up for several weeks. These were the first of
+those terrible weeks of famine and intense cold during which more than fifteen
+hundred people died in the north country. From the Barren Lands to the edge of
+the southern watershed the earth lay under from four to six feet of snow, and
+from the middle of December until late in January the temperature did not rise
+above forty degrees below zero, and remained for the most of the time between
+fifty and sixty. From all points in the wilderness reports of starvation and
+death came to the company’s posts. Trap lines could not be followed because of
+the intense cold. Moose, caribou, and even the furred animals had buried
+themselves under the snow. Indians and half-breeds dragged themselves into the
+posts. Twice at York Factory Billy saw mothers who brought dead babies in their
+arms. One day a white trapper came in with his dogs and sledge, and on the
+sledge, wrapped in a bearskin, was his wife, who had died fifty miles back in
+the forest.</P>
+<P>During these terrible weeks Billy found it impossible to keep Isobel and the
+baby Isobel out of his mind night or day. The fear grew in him that somewhere in
+the wilderness they were suffering as others were suffering. So obsessed did he
+become with the thought that he had a terrible dream one night, and in that
+dream baby Isobel’s face appeared to him, a deathlike mask, white and cold and
+thinned by starvation. The vision decided him. He would go to Fort Churchill,
+and if McTabb had not been driven in he would go to his cabin, over on the
+Little Beaver, and learn what had become of Isobel and the little girl. A few
+days later, on the twenty-seventh day of January, there came a sudden rise in
+the temperature, and Billy prepared at once to take advantage of the change. A
+half-breed, on his way to Churchill, accompanied him, and they set out together
+the following morning. On the twentieth of February they arrived at Fort
+Churchill.</P>
+<P>Billy went immediately to detachment headquarters. There had been several
+changes in two years, and there was only one of the old force to shake hands
+with him. His first inquiry was about McTabb and Isobel Deane. Neither was at
+Churchill, nor had been there since the arrival of the new officer in charge.
+But there was mail for Billy— three letters. There had been half a dozen others,
+but they were now following up his old trails somewhere out in the wilderness.
+These three had been returned recently from Fond du Lac. One was from Pelliter,
+the fourth he had written, he said, without an answer. The “kid� had come— a
+girl— and he wondered if Billy was dead. The second letter was from his Cobalt
+partner.</P>
+<P>The third he turned over several times before he opened it. It did not look
+much like a letter. It was torn and ragged at the edges, and was so soiled and
+water-stained that the address on it was only partly legible. It had been to
+Fond du Lac, and from there it had followed him to Fort Chippewyan. He opened it
+and found that the writing inside was scarcely more legible than the inscription
+on the envelope. The last words were quite plain, and he gave a low cry when he
+found that it was from Rookie McTabb.</P>
+<P>He went close to a window and tried to make out what McTabb had written. Here
+and there, where water had not obliterated the writing, he could make out a line
+or a few words. Nearly all was gone but the last paragraph, and when Billy came
+to this and read the first words of it his heart seemed all at once to die
+within him, and he could not see. Word by word he made out the rest after that,
+and when he was done he turned his stony face to the white whirl of the storm
+outside the window, his lips as dry as though he had passed through a fever.</P>
+<P>A part of that last paragraph was unintelligible, but enough was left to tell
+him what had happened in the cabin down on the Little Beaver.</P>
+<P>McTabb had written:</P>
+<BLOCKQUOTE><I>“We thought she was getting well... took sick again.... did
+  everything... could. But it didn’t do any good,... died just five weeks to a
+  day after you left. We buried her just behind the cabin. God... that kid...
+  You don’t know how I got to love her, Billy.... give her up...�</I></BLOCKQUOTE>
+<P>McTabb had written a dozen lines after that, but all of them were a
+water-stained and unintelligible blur.</P>
+<P>Billy crushed the letter in his hand. The new inspector wondered what
+terrible news he had received as he walked out into the blinding chaos of the
+storm.</P>
+<H4>XXI</H4>
+<H4>THE FIGHTING SPARK</H4>
+<P>For ten minutes Billy buried himself blindly in the storm. He scarcely knew
+which direction he took, but at last he found himself in the shelter of the
+forest, and he was whispering Isobel’s name over and over again to himself.</P>
+<P>“Dead— dead—� he moaned. “She is dead— dead—�</P>
+<P>And then there rushed upon him, crushing back his deeper grief, a thought of
+the baby Isobel. She was still with McTabb down on the Little Beaver. In the
+blur of the storm he read again what he could make out of Rookie’s letter.
+Something in that last paragraph struck him with a deadly fear. <I>“God... that
+kid... You, don’t know how I got to love her, Billy,... give her up...�</I></P>
+<P>What did it mean? What had McTabb told him in that part of the letter that
+was gone?</P>
+<P>The reaction came as he put the letter back into his pocket. He walked
+swiftly back to the inspector’s office.</P>
+<P>“I’m going down to the Little Beaver. I’m going to start to-day,� he said.
+“Who is there in Churchill that I can get to go with me?�</P>
+<P>Two hours later Billy was ready to start, with an Indian as a companion. Dogs
+could not be had for love or money, and they set out on snowshoes with two
+weeks’ supply of provisions, striking south and west. The remainder of that day
+and the next they traveled with but little rest. Each hour that passed added to
+Billy’s mad impatience to reach McTabb’s cabin.</P>
+<P>With the morning of the third day began the second of those two terrible
+storms which swept over the northland in that winter of famine and death. In
+spite of the Indian’s advice to build a permanent camp until the temperature
+rose again Billy insisted on pushing ahead. The fifth night, in the wild Barren
+country west of the Etawney, his Indian failed to keep up the fire, and when
+Billy investigated he found him half dead with a strange sickness. He made the
+Indian’s balsam shelter snow and wind proof, cut wood, and waited. The
+temperature continued to fall, and the cold became intense. Each day the
+provisions grew less, and at last the time came when Billy knew that he was
+standing face to face with the Great Peril. He went farther and farther from
+camp in his search for game. Even the brush sparrows and snow-hawks were gone.
+Once the thought came to him that be might take what food was left and accept
+the little chance that remained of saving himself. But the idea never got
+farther than a first thought. On the twelfth day the Indian died. It was a
+terrible day. There was food for another twenty-four hours.</P>
+<P>Billy packed it, together with his blankets and a few pieces of tinware. He
+wondered if the Indian had died of a contagious disease. Anyway, he made up his
+mind to put out the warning for others if they came that way, and over the dead
+Indian’s balsam shelter he planted a sapling, and at the end of the sapling he
+fastened a strip of red cotton cloth— the plague signal of the north.</P>
+<P>Than he struck out through the deep snows and the twisting storm, knowing
+that there was no more than one chance in a thousand ahead of him, and that the
+one chance was to keep the wind at his back.</P>
+<P>At the end of his first day’s struggle Billy built himself a camp in a bit of
+scrub timber which was not much more than bush. He had observed that the timber
+and that every tree and bush he had passed since noon was stripped and dead on
+the side that faced the north. He cooked and ate his last food the following
+day, and went on. The small timber turned to scrub, and the scrub, in time, to
+vast snow wastes over which the storm swept mercilessly. All this day he looked
+for game, for a flutter of bird life; he chewed bark, and in the afternoon got a
+mouthful of foxbite, which made his throat swell until he could scarcely
+breathe. At night he made tea, but had nothing to eat. His hunger was acute and
+painful. It was torture the next day— the third— for the process of starvation
+is a rapid one in this country where only the fittest survive on from four to
+five meals a day. He camped, built a small bush-fire at night, and slept. He
+almost failed to rouse himself on the morning that followed, and when he
+staggered to his feet and felt the cutting sting of the storm still in his face
+and heard the swishing wail of it over the Barren he knew that at last the hour
+had come when he was standing face to face with the Almighty.</P>
+<P>For some strange reason he was not frightened at the situation. He
+found that even over the level spaces he could scarce drag his snow-shoes, but
+this had ceased to alarm him as he had been alarmed at first. He went on, hour
+after hour, weaker and weaker. Within himself there was still life which
+reasoned that if death were to come it could not come in a better way. It at
+least promised to be painless— even pleasant. The sharp, stinging pains of
+hunger, like little electrical knives piercing him, were gone; he no longer
+experienced a sensation of intense cold; he almost felt that he could lie down
+in the drifted snow and sleep peacefully. He knew what it would be— a sleep
+without end, with the arctic foxes to pick his bones afterward— and so he
+resisted the temptation and forced himself onward. The storm still swept
+straight west from Hudson’s Bay, bringing with it endless volleys of snow, round
+and hard as fine shot, snow that had at first seemed to pierce his flesh and
+which swished past his feet as if trying to trip him and tossed itself in
+windrows and mountains in his path. If he could only find timber, shelter! That
+was what he worked for now. When he had last looked at his watch it was nine
+o’clock in the morning; now it was late in the afternoon. It might as well have
+been night. The storm had long since half blinded him. He could not see a dozen
+paces ahead. But the little life in him still reasoned bravely. It was a heroic
+spark of life, a fighting spark, and hard to put out. It told him that when he
+came to shelter he would at least <I>feel</I> it, and that he must fight until
+the last. The pack on his back held no significance and no weight for him. He
+might have traveled a mile or ten miles an hour and he would not have sensed the
+difference. Most men would have buried themselves in the snow and died in
+comfort, dreaming the pleasant dreams that come as a sort of recompense to the
+unfortunate who dies of starvation and cold. But the fighting spark commanded
+Billy to die upon his feet if he died at all. It was this spark which brought
+him at last to a bit of timber thick enough to give him shelter from wind and
+snow. It burned a little more warmly then. It flared up and gave him new vision.
+And then, for the first time, he realized that it must be night. For a light was
+burning ahead of him, and all else was gloom. His first thought was that it was
+a campfire miles and miles away. Then it drew nearer, until he knew that it was
+a light in a cabin window. He dragged himself toward it, and when he came to the
+door he tried to shout. But no sound fell from his swollen lips. It seemed an
+hour before he could twist his feet out of his snow-shoes. Then he groped for a
+latch, pressed against the door, and plunged in.</P>
+<P>What he saw was like a picture suddenly revealed for an instant by a
+flashlight. In the cabin there were four men. Two sat at a table directly in
+front of him. One held a dice box poised in the air, and had turned a rough,
+bearded face toward him. The other was a younger man, and in this moment it
+struck Billy as strange that he should be clutching a can of beans between his
+hands. A third man stared from where he had been looking down upon the dice-play
+of the other two. As Billy came in he was in the act of lowering a half-filled
+bottle from his lips. The fourth man sat on the edge of a bunk, with a face so
+white and thin that he might have been taken for a corpse if it had not been for
+the dark glare in his sunken eyes. Billy smelled the odor of whisky; he smelled
+food. He saw no sign of welcome in the faces turned toward him, but he advanced
+upon them, mumbling incoherently. And then the spark, the fighting spark in him,
+gave out, and he crumpled down on the floor. He heard a voice which came to him
+from a great distance, and which said, “Who the hell is this?� and then, after
+what seemed to be a long time, he heard that same voice say, “Pitch him back
+into the snow.�</P>
+<P>After that he lost consciousness. But in that last moment between light and
+darkness he experienced a strange thrill that made him want to spring to his
+feet, for it seemed to him that he had recognized the voice that had said “Pitch
+him back into the snow.�</P>
+<H4>XXII</H4>
+<H4>INTO THE SOUTH</H4>
+<P>A long time before he awoke Billy knew that he was not in the snow, and that
+hot stuff was running down his throat. When he opened his eyes there was no
+longer a light burning in the cabin. It was day. He felt strangely comfortable,
+but there was something in the cabin that stirred him from his rest. It was the odor
+of frying bacon. All of his hunger had come back. The joy of life, of
+anticipation, shone in his thin face as he pulled himself up. Another face— the
+bearded face— red-eyed, almost animal-like in its fierce questioning, bent over
+him.</P>
+<P>“Where’s your grub, pardner?�</P>
+<P>The question was like a stab. Billy did not hear his own voice as he
+explained.</P>
+<P>“Got none!� The bearded man’s voice was like a bellow as he turned upon the
+others, “He’s got no grub!�</P>
+<P>In that moment Billy choked back the cry on his lips. He knew the voice now—
+<I>and the man.</I> It was Bucky Smith! He half rose to his feet and then
+dropped back. Bucky had not recognized him. His own beard, shaggy hair, and
+pinched face had saved him from recognition. Fate had played his way.</P>
+<P>“We’ll divvy up, Bucky,� came a weak voice. It was from the thin, white-faced
+man who had sat corpselike on the edge of his bunk the night before.</P>
+<P>“Divvy hell!� growled the other. “It’s up to you— you ’n’ Sweedy. You’re to
+blame!�</P>
+<P>You’re to blame!</P>
+<P>The words struck upon Billy’s ears with a chill of horror. Starvation was in
+the cabin. He had fallen among animals instead of men. He saw the thin-faced man
+who had spoken for him sitting again on the edge of his bunk. Mutely he looked
+to the others to see who was Sweedy. He was the young man who had clutched the
+can of beans. It was he who was frying bacon over the sheet-iron stove.</P>
+<P>“We’ll divvy, Henry and I,� he said. “I told you that last night.� He looked
+over at Billy. “Glad you’re better,� he greeted. “You see, you’ve struck us at a
+bad time. We’re on our last legs for grub. Our two Indians went out to hunt a
+week ago and never came back. They’re dead, or gone, and we’re as good as dead
+if the storm doesn’t let up pretty soon. You can have some of our grub— Henry’s
+and mine.�</P>
+<P>It was a cold invitation, lacking warmth or sympathy, and Billy felt that
+even this man wished that he had died before he reached the cabin. But the man
+was human; he had at least not cast his voice with the one that had wanted to
+throw him back into the snow, and he tried to voice his gratitude and at the
+same time to hide his hunger. He saw that there were three thin slices of bacon
+in the frying-pan, and it struck him that it would be bad taste to reveal a
+starvation appetite in the face of such famine. Bucky was looking straight at
+him as he limped to his feet, and he was sure now that the man he had driven
+from the Service had not recognized him. He approached Sweedy.</P>
+<P>“You saved my life,� he said, holding out a hand. “Will you shake?�</P>
+<P>Sweedy shook hands limply.</P>
+<P>“It’s hell,� he said, in a low voice. “We’d have had beans this morning if I
+hadn’t shook dice with him last night.� He nodded toward Bucky, who was cutting
+open the top of a can. “He won!�</P>
+<P>“My God—� began Billy.</P>
+<P>He didn’t finish. Sweedy turned the meat, and added:</P>
+<P>“He won a square meal off me yesterday— a quarter of a pound of bacon. Day
+before that he won Henry’s last can of beans. He’s got his share under his
+blanket over there, and swears he’ll shoot any one who goes to monkeyin’ with
+his bed— so you’d better fight shy of it. Thompson— he isn’t up yet— chose the
+whisky for <I>his</I> share, so you’d better fight shy of him, too. Henry and
+I’ll divvy up with you.�</P>
+<P>“Thanks,� said Billy, the one word choking him.</P>
+<P>Henry came from his bunk, bent and wabbling. He looked like a dying man, and
+for the first time Billy noticed that his hair was gray. He was a little man,
+and his thin hands shook as he held them out over the stove and nodded to Billy.
+Bucky had opened his can, and approached the stove with a pan of water, coming
+in beside Billy without noticing him. He brought with him a foul odor of stale
+tobacco smoke and whisky. After he had put his water over the fire he turned to
+one of the bunks and with half a dozen coarse epithets roused Thompson, who sat
+up stupidly, still half drunk. Henry had gone to a small table, and Sweedy
+followed him with the bacon. Billy did not move. He forgot his hunger. His pulse
+was beating quickly. Sensations filled him which he had never known or imagined
+before. Was it possible that these were people of his own kind? Had a madness of
+some sort driven all human instincts from them? He saw Thompson’s red eyes
+fastened upon him, and he turned his face to escape their questioning, stupid
+leer. Bucky was turning out the can of beans he had won. Beyond him the door
+creaked, and Billy heard the wail of the storm. It came to him now as a friendly
+sort of sound.</P>
+<P>“Better draw up, pardner,� he heard Sweedy say. “Here’s your share.�</P>
+<P>One of the thin slices of bacon and a hard biscuit were waiting for him on a
+tin plate. He ate as ravenously as Henry and Sweedy, and drank a cup of hot tea.
+In two minutes the meal was over. It was terribly inadequate. The few mouthfuls
+of food stirred up all his craving, and he found it impossible to keep his eyes
+from Bucky Smith and his beans. Bucky was the only one who seemed well fed, and
+his horror increased when Henry bent over him and said, in a low whisper: “He
+didn’t get my beans fair. I had three aces and a pair, of deuces, an’ he took it
+on three fives and two sixes. When I objected he called me a liar an’ hit me.
+Them’s my beans, or Sweedy’s!� There was something almost like murder in the
+little man’s red eyes.</P>
+<P>Billy remained silent. He did not care to talk or question. No one asked him
+who he was or whence he came, and he felt no inclination to know more of the men
+he had fallen among. Bucky finished, wiped his mouth with his hand, and looked
+across at Billy.</P>
+<P>“How about going out with me to get some wood?� he demanded.</P>
+<P>“I’m ready,� replied Billy.</P>
+<P>For the first time he took notice of himself. He was lame and sickeningly
+weak, but apparently sound in other ways. The intense cold had not frozen his
+ears or feet. He put on his heavy moccasins, his thick coat and fur cap, and
+followed Bucky to the door. He was filled with a strange uneasiness. He was sure
+that his old enemy had not recognized him, and yet he felt that recognition
+might come at any moment. If Bucky recognized him— when they were out alone—</P>
+<P>He was not afraid, but he shivered. He was too weak to put up a fight. He did
+not catch the ugly leer which Bucky turned upon Thompson. But Henry did, and his
+little eyes grew smaller and blacker. On snow-shoes the two men went out into
+the storm, Bucky carrying an ax. He led the way through the bit of thin timber,
+and across a wide open over which the storm swept so fiercely that their trail
+was covered behind them as they traveled. Billy figured that they had gone a
+quarter of a mile when they came to the edge of a ravine so steep that it was
+almost a precipice. For the first time Bucky touched him. He seized him by the
+arm, and in his voice there was an inhuman, taunting triumph.</P>
+<P>“Didn’t think I knew you, did you, Billy?� he asked. “Well, I did, and I’ve
+just been waiting to get you out alone. Remember my promise, Billy? I’ve
+changed my mind since then. I ain’t going to kill you. It’s too risky. It’s
+safer to let you die— by yourself— as you’re goin’ to die to-day or to-night. If
+you come back to the cabin— I’ll shoot you!�</P>
+<P>With a movement so quick that Billy had <I>no</I> chance to prepare himself
+for it Bucky sent him plunging headlong down the side of the ravine. The deep
+snow saved him in the long fall. For a few moments Billy lay stunned. Then he
+staggered to his feet and looked up. Bucky was gone. His first thought was to
+return to the cabin. He could easily find it and confront Bucky there before the
+others. And yet he did not move. His inclination to go back grew less and less,
+and after a brief hesitation he made up his mind to continue the struggle for
+life by himself. After all, his situation would not be much more desperate than
+that of the men he was leaving behind in the cabin. He buttoned himself up
+closely, saw that his snow-shoes were securely fastened, and climbed the
+opposite side of the ridge.</P>
+<P>The timber thinned out again, and Billy struck out boldly into the low bush.
+As he went he wondered what would happen in the cabin. He believed that Henry,
+of the four, would not pull through alive, and that Bucky would come out best.
+It was not until the following summer that he learned the facts of Henry’s
+madness, and of the terrible manner in which he avenged himself on Bucky Smith
+by sticking a knife under the latter’s ribs.</P>
+<P>Billy now found himself in a position to measure the amount of energy
+contained in a slice of bacon and a cold biscuit. It was not much. Long before
+noon his old weakness was upon him again. He found even greater difficulty in
+dragging his feet over the snow, and it seemed now as though all ambition had
+left him, and that even the fighting spark was becoming disheartened. He made up
+his mind to go on until the beginning of night, then he would stop, build a
+fire, and go to sleep in its warmth.</P>
+<P>During the afternoon he passed out of the scrub into a rougher country. His
+progress was slower, but more comfortable, for at times he found himself
+protected from the wind. A gloom darker and more somber than that of the storm
+was falling about him when he came to what appeared to be the end of the Barren
+country. The earth dropped away from under his feet, and far below him, in a
+ravine shut out from wind and storm, he saw the black tops of thick spruce. He
+began to scramble downward. His eyes were no longer fit to judge distance or
+chance, and he slipped. He slipped a dozen times in the first five minutes, and
+then there came the time when he did not make a recovery, but plunged down the
+side of the mountain like a rock. He stopped with a terrific jar, and for the
+first time during the fall he wanted to cry out with pain. But the voice that he
+heard did not come from his own lips. It was another voice— and then two, three,
+many of them, it seemed to him. His dazed eyes caught glimpses of dark objects
+floundering in the deep snow about him, and just beyond these objects were four
+or five tall mounds of snow, like tents, arranged in a circle. He knew what they
+meant. He had fallen into an Indian camp. In his joy he tried to call out words
+of greeting, but he had no tongue. Then the floundering figures caught him up,
+and he was carried to the circle of snow mounds. The last that he knew was that
+warmth was entering his lungs.</P>
+<P>It was a face that he first saw after that, a face that seemed to come to him
+slowly from out of night, approaching nearer and nearer until he knew that it
+was a girl’s face, with great, dark, strangely shining eyes. In these first
+moments of his returning consciousness the whimsical thought came to him that he
+was dying and the face was a part of a pleasant dream. If that were not so, he
+had fallen at last among friends. His eyes opened wider, he moved, and the face
+drew back. Movement stimulated returning life, and reason rehabilitated itself
+in great bounds. In a dozen flashes he went over all that had happened up to the
+point where he had fallen down the mountain and into the Cree camp. Straight
+above him he saw the funnel-like peak of a large birch wigwam, and beyond his
+feet he saw an opening in the birch-bark wall through which there drifted a blue
+film of smoke. He was in a wigwam. It was warm and exceedingly comfortable.
+Wondering if he was hurt, he moved. The movement drew a sharp exclamation of
+pain from him. It was the first real sound he had made, and in an instant the
+face was over him again. He saw it plainly this time, with its dark eyes and
+oval cheeks framed between two great braids of black hair. A hand touched his
+brow, cool and gentle, and a low voice soothed him in half a dozen musical
+words. The girl was a Cree.</P>
+<P>At the sound of her voice an indian woman came up beside the girl, looked
+down at him for a moment, and then went to the door of the wigwam, speaking in a
+low voice to some one who was outside. When she returned a man followed in after
+her. He was old and bent, and his face was thin. His cheek-bones shone, so
+tightly was the skin drawn over them. Behind him came a younger man, as straight
+as a tree, with strong shoulders and a head set like a piece of bronze
+sculpture. This man carried in his hand a frozen fish, which he gave to the
+woman. As he gave it to her he spoke words in Cree which Billy understood.</P>
+<P><I>“It is the last fish.�</I></P>
+<P>For a moment a terrible hand gripped at Billy’s heart and almost stopped its
+beating. He saw the woman take the fish and cut it into two equal parts with a
+knife, and one of these parts she dropped into a pot of boiling water which hung
+over the stone fireplace built under the vent in the wall. <I>They were dividing
+with him their last fish!</I> He made an effort and sat up. The younger man came
+to him and put a bearskin at his back. He had picked up some of the patois of
+half-blood French and English.</P>
+<P>“You seek,� he said, “you hurt— and hungry! You have eat soon.�</P>
+<P>He motioned with his hand to the boiling pot. There was not a flicker of
+animation in his splendid face. There was something god-like in his immobility,
+something that was awesome in the way he moved and breathed. He sat in silence
+as the half of the last fish was brought by the girl; and not until Billy
+stopped eating, choked by the knowledge that he was taking life from these
+people, did he speak, and then it was to urge him to finish the fish. When he
+had done, Billy spoke to the Indian in Cree. Instantly the Indian reached over
+his hand, his face lighting up, and Billy gripped it hard. Mukoki told him what
+had happened. There had been a camp of twenty-two, and there were now fifteen.
+Seven had died— four men, two women, and one child. Each day during the great
+storm the men had gone out on their futile search for game, and every few days
+one of them had failed to return. Thus four had died. The dogs were eaten. Corn
+and fish were gone; there remained but a little flour, and this was for the
+women and the children. The men had eaten nothing but bark and roots for five
+days. And there seemed to be no hope. It was death to stray far from camp. That
+morning two men had set out for the nearest post, but Mukoki said calmly that
+they would never return.</P>
+<P>That night and the next day and the terrible night and day that followed were
+filled with hours that Billy would never forget. He had sprained one hip badly
+in his fall, and could not rise from the cot Mukoki was often at his side, his
+face thinner, his eyes more lusterless. The second day, late in the afternoon,
+there came a low wailing grief from one of the tepees, a moaning sound that
+pitched itself to the key of the storm until it seemed to be a part of it. A
+child had died, and the mother was mourning. That night another of the camp
+huntsmen failed to return at dusk. But the next day there came at the same time
+the end of both storm and famine. With dawn the sun shone. And early in the day
+one of the hunters ran in from the forest nearly crazed with joy. He had
+ventured farther away than the others, and had found a moose-yard. He had killed
+two of the animals and brought with him meat for the first feast.</P>
+<P>This last great storm of the winter of 1910 passed well into the “break-up�
+season, and, once the temperature began to rise, the change was swift. Within a
+week the snow was growing soft underfoot. Two days later Billy hobbled from his
+cot for the first time. And then, in the passing of a single day and night, the
+glory of the northern spring burst upon the wilderness. <I>The</I> sun rose warm
+and golden. From the sides of the mountains and in the valleys water poured
+forth in rippling, singing floods. The red bakneesh glowed on bared rocks.
+Moose-birds and jays and wood-thrushes flitted about the camp, and the air was
+filled with the fragrant smells of new life bursting from earth and tree and
+shrub.</P>
+<P>With return of health and strength Billy’s impatience to reach McTabb’s cabin
+grew hourly. He would have set out before his hip was in condition to travel had
+not Mukoki kept him back. At last the day came when he bade his forest friends
+good-by and started into the south.</P>
+<H4>XXIII</H4>
+<H4>AT THE END OF THE TRAIL</H4>
+<P>The long days and nights of inactivity which Billy had passed in the Indian
+camp had given him the opportunity to think more calmly of the tragedy which had
+come into his life, and with returning strength he had drawn himself partly out
+from the pit of hopelessness and despair into which he had fallen. Deane was
+dead. Isobel was dead. But the baby Isobel still lived; and in the hope of
+finding and claiming her for his own he built other dreams for himself out of
+the ashes of all that had gone for him. He believed that he would find McTabb at
+the cabin and he would find the child there. So confident had he been that
+Isobel would live that he had not told McTabb of the uncle who had driven her
+from the old home in Montreal. He was glad that he had kept this to himself, for
+there would not be much of a chance of Rookie having found the child’s relative.
+And he made up his mind that he would not give the little Isobel up. He would
+keep her for himself. He would return to civilization, for he would have her to
+live for. He would build a home for her, with a garden and dogs and birds and
+flowers. With his silver-claim money he had fifteen thousand dollars laid away,
+and she would never know what it meant to be poor. He would educate her and buy
+her a piano and she would have no end of pretty dresses and things to make her a
+lady. They would be together and inseparable always, and when she grew up he
+prayed deep down in his soul that she would be like the older Isobel, her
+mother.</P>
+<P>His grief was deep. He knew that he could never forget, and that the old
+memories of the wilderness and of the woman he had loved would force themselves
+upon him, year after year, with their old pain. But these new thoughts and plans
+for the child made his grief less poignant.</P>
+<P>It was late in the afternoon of a day that had been filled with sunlight and
+the warmth of spring that he came to the Little Beaver, a short distance above
+McTabb’s cabin. He almost ran from there to the clearing, and the sun was just
+sinking behind the forest in the west when he paused on the edge of the break in
+the forest and saw the cabin. It was from here that he had last seen little
+Isobel. The bush behind which he had concealed himself was less than a dozen
+paces away. He noticed this, and then he observed things which made his heart
+sink in a strange, cold way. A path had led into the forest at the point where
+he stood. Now it was almost obliterated by a tangle of last year’s weeds and
+plants. Rookie must have made a new path, he thought. And then, fearfully, he
+looked about the clearing and at the cabin. Everywhere there was the air of
+desolation. There was no smoke rising from the chimney. The door was closed.
+There were no evidences of life outside. Not the sound of a dog, of a laugh, or
+of a voice broke the dead stillness.</P>
+<P>Scarcely breathing, Billy advanced, his heart choked more and more by the
+fear that gripped him. The door to the cabin was not barred. He opened it. There
+was nothing inside. The old stove was broken. The bare cots had not been used
+for months— perhaps for two years. As he took another step an ermine scampered
+away ahead of him. He heard the mouselike squeal of its young a moment later
+under the sapling floor. He went back to the door and stood in the open.</P>
+<P>“My God!� he moaned.</P>
+<P>He looked in the direction of Couchée’s cabin, where Isobel had died. Was
+there a chance there, he wondered? There was little hope, but he started quickly
+over the old trail. The gloom of evening fell swiftly about him. It was almost
+dark when he reached the other clearing. And again his voice broke in a groaning
+cry. There was no cabin here. McTabb had burned it after the passing of the
+plague. Where it had stood was now a black and charred mass, already partly
+covered by the verdure of the wilderness. Billy gripped his hands hard and
+walked back from it searchingly. A few steps away he found what McTabb had told
+him that he would find, a mound and a sapling cross. And then, in spite of all
+the fighting strength that was in him, he flung himself down upon Isobel’s
+grave, and a great, broken cry of grief burst from his lips.</P>
+<P>When he raised his head a long time afterward the stars were shimmering in
+the sky. It was a wonderfully still night, and all that he could hear was the
+ripple and song of the spring floods in the Little Beaver. He rose silently to
+his feet and stood for a few moments as motionless as a statue over the grave.
+Then he turned and went back over the old trail, and from the edge of the
+clearing he looked back and whispered to himself and to her:</P>
+<P>“I’ll come back for you, Isobel. I’ll come back.�</P>
+<P>At McTabb’s cabin he had left his pack. He put the straps over his shoulder
+and started south again. There was but one move for him to make now. McTabb was
+known at Le Pas. He got his supplies and sold his furs there. Some one at Le Pas
+would know where he had gone with little Isobel.</P>
+<P>Not until he was several miles distant from the scene of death and his own
+broken hopes did he spread out his blanket and lie down for the night. He was up
+and had breakfast at dawn. On the fourth day he came to the little wilderness
+outpost— the end of rail— on the Saskatchewan. Within an hour he discovered that
+Rookie McTabb had not been to Le Pas for nearly two years. No one had seen him
+with a child. That same night a construction train was leaving for Etomami, down
+on the main line, and Billy lost no time in making up his mind what he would do.
+He would go to Montreal. If little Isobel was not there she was still somewhere
+in the wilderness with McTabb. Then he would return, and he would find her if it
+took him a lifetime.</P>
+<P>Days and nights of travel followed, and during those days and nights Billy
+prayed that he would not find her in Montreal. If by some chance McTabb had
+discovered her relatives, if Isobel had revealed her secret to him before she
+died, his last hope in life was gone. He did not think of wasting time in the
+purchase of new clothes. That would have meant the missing of a train. He still
+wore his wilderness outfit, even to his fur cap. As he traveled farther eastward
+people began to regard him curiously. He got the porter to shave off his beard.
+But his hair was long. His moccasins and German socks were ragged and torn, and
+there were rents in his caribou-skin coat and his heavy Hudson’s Bay
+sweater-shirt. The hardships he had gone through had left their lines in his
+face. There was something about him, outside of his strange attire, that made
+men look at him more than once. Women, more keenly observant than the men, saw
+the deep-seated grief in his eyes. As he approached Montreal he kept himself
+more and more aloof from the others.</P>
+<P>When at last the train came to a stop at the big station in the heart of the
+city he walked through the gates and strode up the hill toward Mount Royal. It
+was an hour or more past noon, and he had eaten nothing since morning. But he
+had no thought of hunger. Twenty minutes later he was at the foot of the street
+on which Isobel had told him that she had lived. One by one he passed the old
+houses of brick and stone, sheltered behind their solid walls. There had been no
+change in the years since he had been there. Half-way up the hill to the base of
+the mountain he saw an old gardener trimming ivy about an ancient cannon near a
+driveway. He stopped and asked:</P>
+<P>“Can you tell me where Geoffrey Renaud lives?�</P>
+<P>The old gardener looked at him curiously for a moment without speaking. Then
+he said:</P>
+<P>“Renaud? Geoffrey Renaud? That is his house up there behind the red-sandstone
+wall. Is it the house you want to see— or Renaud?�</P>
+<P>“Both,� said Billy.</P>
+<P>“Geoffrey Renaud has been dead for three years,� informed the gardener. “Are
+you a— relative?�</P>
+<P>“No, no,� cried Billy, trying to keep his voice steady as he asked the next
+question. “There are others there. Who are they?�</P>
+<P>The old man shook his head.</P>
+<P>“I don’t know.�</P>
+<P>“There is a little girl there— four— five years old, with golden hair—�</P>
+<P>“She was playing in the garden when I came along a few moments ago,� replied
+the gardener. “I heard her— with the dog—�</P>
+<P>Billy waited to hear no more. Thanking his informant, he walked swiftly up
+the hill to the red-sandstone wall. Before he came to the rusted iron gate he,
+too, heard a child’s laughter, and it set his heart beating wildly. It was just
+over the wall. In his eagerness he thrust the toe of his moccasined foot into a
+break in the stone and drew himself up. He looked down into a great garden, and
+a dozen steps away, close to a thick clump of shrubbery, he saw a child playing
+with a little puppy. The sun gleamed in her golden hair. He heard her joyous
+laughter; and then, for an instant, her face was turned toward him.</P>
+<P>In that moment he forgot everything, and with a great, glad cry he drew
+himself up and sprang to the ground on the other side.</P>
+<P>“Isobel— Isobel— my little Isobel!�</P>
+<P>He was beside her, on his knees, with her in his hungry arms, and for a brief
+space the child was so frightened that she held her breath and stared at him
+without a sound.</P>
+<P>“Don’t you know me— don’t you know me—� he almost sobbed. “Little Mystery—
+Isobel—�</P>
+<P>He heard a sound, a strange, stifled cry, and he looked up. From behind the
+shrubbery there had come a woman, and she was staring at Billy MacVeigh with a
+face as white as chalk. He staggered to his feet, and he believed that at last
+he had gone mad. For it was the vision of Isobel Deane that he saw there, and
+her blue eyes were glowing at him as he had seen them for an instant that night
+a long time ago on the edge of the Barren. He could not speak. And then, as he
+staggered another step back toward the wall, he held out his ragged arms,
+without knowing what he was doing, and called her name as he had spoken it a
+hundred times at night beside his lonely campfires. Starvation, his injury,
+weeks of illness, and his almost superhuman struggle to reach McTabb’s cabin,
+and after that civilization, had consumed his last strength. For days he had
+lived on the reserve forces of a nervous energy that slipped away from him now,
+leaving him dizzy and swaying. He fought to overcome the weakness that seemed to
+have taken the last ounce of strength from his exhausted body, but in spite of
+his strongest efforts the sunlit garden suddenly darkened before his eyes. In
+that moment the vision became real, and as he turned toward the wall Isobel
+Deane called him by name; and in another moment she was at his side, clutching
+him almost fiercely by the arms and calling him by name over and over again. The
+weakness and dizziness passed from him in a moment, but in that space he seemed
+only to realize that he must get back— over the wall.</P>
+<P>“I wouldn’t have come— but— I— I— thought you were— dead,� he said. “They
+told me— you were dead. I’m glad— glad— but I wouldn’t have come—�</P>
+<P>She felt the weight of him for an instant on her arm. She knew the things
+that were in his face— starvation, pain, the signs of ravage left behind by
+fever. In these moments Billy did not see the wonderful look that had come into
+her own face or the wonderful glow in her eyes.</P>
+<P>“It was Indian Joe’s mother who died,� he heard her say. “And since then we
+have been waiting— waiting— waiting— little Isobel and I. I went away north, to
+David’s grave, and I saw what you had done, and what you had burned into the
+wood. Some day, I knew, you’d come back to me. We’ve been waiting— for you—�</P>
+<P>Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but Billy heard it; and all at once
+his dizziness was gone, and he saw the sunlight shining in Isobel’s bright hair
+and the look in her face and eyes.</P>
+<P>“I’m sorry— sorry— so sorry I said what I did— about you— killing him,� she
+went on. “You remember— I said that if I got well—�</P>
+<P>“Yes—�</P>
+<P>“And you thought I meant that if I got well you should go away— and you
+promised— and kept your promise. But I couldn’t finish. It didn’t seem right—
+then. I wanted to tell you— out there— that I was sorry— and that if I got well
+you could come to me again— some day somewhere— and then—�</P>
+<P>“Isobel!�</P>
+<P>“And now— you may tell me again what you told me out on the Barren— a long
+time ago.�</P>
+<P>“Isobel— Isobel—�</P>
+<P>“You understand�— she spoke softly— “you understand, it cannot happen now—
+perhaps not for another year. But now�— she drew a little nearer— “you may kiss
+me,� she said. “And then you must kiss little Isobel. And we don’t want you to
+go very far away again. It’s lonely— terribly lonely all by ourselves in the
+city— and we’re glad you’ve come— so glad—�</P>
+<P>Her voice broke to a sobbing whisper, and as Billy opened his great, ragged
+arms and caught her to him he heard that whisper again, saying, “We’re glad—
+glad— glad you’ve come back to us.�</P>
+<P>“And I— may— stay?�</P>
+<P>She raised her face, glorious in its welcome.</P>
+<P>“If you want me— still.�</P>
+<P>At last he believed. But he could not speak. He bent his face to hers, and
+for a moment they stood thus, while from behind the shrubbery came the sound of
+little Isobel’s joyous laughter.</P>
+<H4>THE END</H4>
+<HR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Isobel, by James Oliver Curwood
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Isobel, by James Oliver Curwood
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: Isobel
+
+Author: James Oliver Curwood
+
+Posting Date: March 19, 2014
+Release Date: October, 2004
+[This file was first posted on January 19, 2003]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ISOBEL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Norm Wolcott
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ Isobel
+
+ A Romance of the Northern Trail
+
+ by James Oliver Curwood, 1913
+
+                                  TO
+                               CARLOTTA
+                        WHO IS WITH ME AND TO
+                                VIOLA
+                WHO FILLS FOR ME A DREAM OF THE FUTURE
+                 I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THIS BOOK
+
+ I
+
+ THE MOST TERRIBLE THING IN THE WORLD
+
+At Point Fullerton, one thousand miles straight north of civilization,
+Sergeant William MacVeigh wrote with the stub end of a pencil between
+his fingers the last words of his semi-annual report to the
+Commissioner of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police at Regina.
+
+He concluded:
+
+  "I beg to say that I have made every effort to run down Scottie
+  Deane, the murderer. I have not given up hope of finding him, but I
+  believe that he has gone from my territory and is probably now
+  somewhere within the limits of the Fort Churchill patrol. We have
+  hunted the country for three hundred miles south along the shore of
+  Hudson's Bay to Eskimo Point, and as far north as Wagner Inlet.
+  Within three months we have made three patrols west of the Bay,
+  unraveling sixteen hundred miles without finding our man or word of
+  him. I respectfully advise a close watch of the patrols south of
+  the Barren Lands."
+
+"There!" said MacVeigh aloud, straightening his rounded shoulders with
+a groan of relief. "It's done."
+
+From his bunk in a corner of the little wind and storm beaten cabin
+which represented Law at the top end of the earth Private Pelliter
+lifted a head wearily from his sick bed and said: "I'm bloomin' glad
+of it, Mac. Now mebbe you'll give me a drink of water and shoot that
+devilish huskie that keeps howling every now and then out there as
+though death was after me."
+
+"Nervous?" said MacVeigh, stretching his strong young frame with
+another sigh of satisfaction. "What if you had to write this twice a
+year?" And he pointed at the report.
+
+"It isn't any longer than the letters you wrote to that girl of
+yours--"
+
+Pelliter stopped short. There was a moment of embarrassing silence.
+Then he added, bluntly, and with a hand reaching out: "I beg your
+pardon, Mac. It's this fever. I forgot for a moment that-- that you
+two-- had broken."
+
+"That's all right," said MacVeigh, with a quiver in his voice, as he
+turned for the water.
+
+"You see," he added, returning with a tin cup, "this report is
+different. When you're writing to the Big Mogul himself something gets
+on your nerves. And it has been a bad year with us, Pelly. We fell
+down on Scottie, and let the raiders from that whaler get away from
+us. And-- By Jo, I forgot to mention the wolves!"
+
+"Put in a P. S.," suggested Pelliter.
+
+"A P. S. to his Royal Nibs!" cried MacVeigh, staring incredulously at
+his mate. "There's no use of feeling your pulse any more, Pelly. The
+fever's got you. You're sure out of your head."
+
+He spoke cheerfully, trying to bring a smile to the other's pale face.
+Pelliter dropped back with a sigh.
+
+"No-- there isn't any use feeling my pulse," he repeated. "It isn't
+sickness, Bill-- not sickness of the ordinary sort. It's in my brain--
+that's where it is. Think of it-- nine months up here, and never a
+glimpse of a white man's face except yours. Nine months without the
+sound of a woman's voice. Nine months of just that dead, gray world
+out there, with the northern lights hissing at us every night like
+snakes and the black rocks staring at us as they've stared for a
+million centuries. There may be glory in it, but that's all. We're
+'eroes all right, but there's no one knows it but ourselves and the
+six hundred and forty-nine other men of the Royal Mounted. My God,
+what I'd give for the sight of a girl's face, for just a moment's
+touch of her hand! It would drive out this fever, for it's the fever
+of loneliness, Mac-- a sort of madness, and it's splitting my 'ead."
+
+"Tush, tush!" said MacVeigh, taking his mate's hand. "Wake up, Pelly!
+Think of what's coming. Only a few months more of it, and we'll be
+changed. And then-- think of what a heaven you'll be entering. You'll
+be able to enjoy it more than the other fellows, for they've never had
+this. And I'm going to bring you back a letter-- from the little
+girl--"
+
+Pelliter's face brightened.
+
+"God bless her!" he exclaimed. "There'll be letters from her-- a dozen
+of them. She's waited a long time for me, and she's true to the bottom
+of her dear heart. You've got my letter safe?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+MacVeigh went back to the rough little table and added still further
+to his report to the Commissioner of the Royal Mounted in the
+following words:
+
+  "Pelliter is sick with a strange trouble in his head. At times I
+  have been afraid he was going mad, and if he lives I advise his
+  transfer south at an early date. I am leaving for Churchill two
+  weeks ahead of the usual time in order to get medicines. I also
+  wish to add a word to what I said about wolves in my last report.
+  We have seen them repeatedly in packs of from fifty to one
+  thousand. Late this autumn a pack attacked a large herd of
+  traveling caribou fifteen miles in from the Bay, and we counted the
+  remains of one hundred and sixty animals killed over a distance of
+  less than three miles. It is my opinion that the wolves kill at
+  least five thousand caribou in this patrol each year.
+
+  "I have the honor to be, sir,
+
+                                              "Your obedient servant,
+                                      " WILLIAM MACVEIGH, Sergeant,
+                                     "In charge of detachment."
+
+He folded the report, placed it with other treasures in the waterproof
+rubber bag which always went into his pack, and returned to Pelliter's
+side.
+
+"I hate to leave you alone, Pelly," he said. "But I'll make a fast
+trip of it-- four hundred and fifty miles over the ice, and I'll do it
+in ten days or bust. Then ten days back, mebbe two weeks, and you'll
+have the medicines and the letters. Hurrah!"
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Pelliter.
+
+He turned his face a little to the wall. Something rose up in
+MacVeigh's throat and choked him as he gripped Pelliter's hand.
+
+"My God, Bill, is that the sun?" suddenly cried Pelliter.
+
+MacVeigh wheeled toward the one window of the cabin. The sick man
+tumbled from his bunk. Together they stood for a moment at the window,
+staring far to the south and east, where a faint red rim of gold shot
+up through the leaden sky.
+
+"It's the sun," said MacVeigh, like one speaking a prayer.
+
+"The first in four months," breathed Pelliter.
+
+Like starving men the two gazed through the window. The golden light
+lingered for a few moments, then died away. Pelliter went back to his
+bunk.
+
+Half an hour later four dogs, a sledge, and a man were moving swiftly
+through the dead and silent gloom of Arctic day. Sergeant MacVeigh was
+on his way to Fort Churchill, more than four hundred miles away.
+
+This is the loneliest journey in the world, the trip down from the
+solitary little wind-beaten cabin at Point Fullerton to Fort
+Churchill. That cabin has but one rival in the whole of the
+Northland-- the other cabin at Herschel Island, at the mouth of the
+Firth, where twenty-one wooden crosses mark twenty-one white men's
+graves. But whalers come to Herschel. Unless by accident, or to break
+the laws, they never come in the neighborhood of Fullerton. It is at
+Fullerton that men die of the most terrible thing in the world--
+loneliness. In the little cabin men have gone mad.
+
+The gloomy truth oppressed MacVeigh as he guided his dog team over the
+ice into the south. He was afraid for Pelliter. He prayed that
+Pelliter might see the sun now and then. On the second day he stopped
+at a cache of fish which they had put up in the early autumn for dog
+feed. He stopped at a second cache on the fifth day, and spent the
+sixth night at an Eskimo igloo at Blind Eskimo Point. Late on the
+ninth day he came into Fort Churchill, with an average of fifty miles
+a day to his credit.
+
+From Fullerton men came in nearer dead than alive when they made the
+hazard in winter. MacVeigh's face was raw from the beat of the wind.
+His eyes were red. He had a touch of runner's cramp. He slept for
+twenty-four hours in a warm bed without stirring. When he awoke he
+raged at the commanding officer of the barrack for letting him sleep
+so long, ate three meals in one, and did up his business in a hurry.
+
+His heart warmed with pleasure when he sorted out of his mail nine
+letters for Pelliter, all addressed in the same small, girlish hand.
+There was none for himself-- none of the sort which Pelliter was
+receiving, and the sickening loneliness within him grew almost
+suffocating.
+
+He laughed softly as he broke a law. He opened one of Pelliter's
+letters-- the last one written-- and calmly read it. It was filled
+with the sweet tenderness of a girl's love, and tears came into his
+red eyes. Then he sat down and answered it. He told the girl about
+Pelliter, and confessed to her that he had opened her last letter. And
+the chief of what he said was that it would be a glorious surprise to
+a man who was going mad (only he used loneliness in place of madness)
+if she would come up to Churchill the following spring and marry him
+there. He told her that he had opened her letter because he loved
+Pelliter more than most men loved their brothers. Then he resealed the
+letter, gave his mail to the superintendent, packed his medicines and
+supplies, and made ready to return.
+
+On this same day there came into Churchill a halfbreed who had been
+hunting white foxes near Blind Eskimo, and who now and then did scout
+work for the department. He brought the information that he had seen a
+white man and a white woman ten miles south of the Maguse River. The
+news thrilled MacVeigh.
+
+"I'll stop at the Eskimo camp," he said to the superintendent. "It's
+worth investigating, for I never knew of a white woman north of sixty
+in this country. It might be Scottie Deane."
+
+"Not very likely," replied the superintendent. "Scottie is a tall man,
+straight and powerful. Coujag says this man was no taller than
+himself, and walked like a hunchback. But if there are white people
+out there their history is worth knowing."
+
+The following morning MacVeigh started north. He reached the
+half-dozen igloos which made up the Eskimo village late the third day.
+Bye-Bye, the chief man, offered him no encouragement, MacVeigh gave
+him a pound of bacon, and in return for the magnificent present
+Bye-Bye told him that he had seen no white people. MacVeigh gave him
+another pound, and Bye-Bye added that he had not heard of any white
+people. He listened with the lifeless stare of a walrus while MacVeigh
+impressed upon him that he was going inland the next morning to search
+for white people whom he had heard were there. That night, in a
+blinding snow-storm, Bye-Bye disappeared from camp.
+
+MacVeigh left his dogs to rest up at the igloo village and swung
+northwest on snow-shoes with the break of arctic dawn, which was but
+little better than the night itself. He planned to continue in this
+direction until he struck the Barren, then patrol in a wide circle
+that would bring him back to the Eskimo camp the next night. From the
+first he was handicapped by the storm. He lost Bye-Bye's snow-shoe
+tracks a hundred yards from the igloos. All that day he searched in
+sheltered places for signs of a camp or trail. In the afternoon the
+wind died away, the sky cleared, and in the wake of the calm the cold
+became so intense that trees cracked with reports like pistol shots.
+
+He stopped to build a fire of scrub bush and eat his supper on the
+edge of the Barren just as the cold stars began blazing over his head.
+It was a white, still night. The southern timberline lay far behind
+him, and to the north there was no timber for three hundred miles.
+Between those lines there was no life, and so there was no sound. On
+the west the Barren thrust itself down in a long finger ten miles in
+width, and across that MacVeigh would have to strike to reach the
+wooded country beyond. It was over there that he had the greatest hope
+of discovering a trail. After he had finished his supper he loaded his
+pipe, and sat hunched close up to his fire, staring out over the
+Barren. For some reason he was filled with a strange and uncomfortable
+emotion, and he wished that he had brought along one of his tired dogs
+to keep him company.
+
+He was accustomed to loneliness; he had laughed in the face of things
+that had driven other men mad. But to-night there seemed to be
+something about him that he had never known before, something that
+wormed its way deep down into his soul and made his pulse beat faster.
+He thought of Pelliter on his fever bed, of Scottie Deane, and then of
+himself. After all, was there much to choose between the three of
+them?
+
+A picture rose slowly before him in the bush-fire, and in that picture
+he saw Scottie, the man-hunted man, fighting a great fight to keep
+himself from being hung by the neck until he was dead; and then he saw
+Pelliter, dying of the sickness which comes of loneliness, and beyond
+those two, like a pale cameo appearing for a moment out of gloom, he
+saw the picture of a face. It was a girl's face, and it was gone in an
+instant. He had hoped against hope that she would write to him again.
+But she had failed him.
+
+He rose to his feet with a little laugh, partly of joy and partly of
+pain, as he thought of the true heart that was waiting for Pelliter.
+He tied on his snow-shoes and struck out over the Barren. He moved
+swiftly, looking sharply ahead of him. The night grew brighter, the
+stars more brilliant. The zipp, zipp, zipp of the tails of his
+snow-shoes was the only sound he heard except the first faint, hissing
+monotone of the aurora in the northern skies, which came to him like
+the shivering run of steel sledge runners on hard snow.
+
+In place of sound the night about him began to fill with ghostly life.
+His shadow beckoned and grimaced ahead of him, and the stunted bush
+seemed to move. His eyes were alert and questing. Within himself he
+reasoned that he would see nothing, and yet some unusual instinct
+moved him to caution. At regular intervals he stopped to listen and to
+sniff the air for an odor of smoke. More and more he became like a
+beast of prey. He left the last bush behind him. Ahead of him the
+starlit space was now unbroken by a single shadow. Weird whispers came
+with a low wind that was gathering in the north.
+
+Suddenly MacVeigh stopped and swung his rifle into the crook of his
+arm. Something that was not the wind had come up out of the night. He
+lifted his fur cap from his ears and listened. He heard it again,
+faintly, the frosty singing of sledge runners. The sledge was
+approaching from the open Barren, and he cleared for action. He took
+off his heavy fur mittens and snapped them to his belt, replaced them
+with his light service gloves, and examined his revolver to see that
+the cylinder was not frozen. Then he stood silent and waited.
+
+ II
+
+ BILLY MEETS THE WOMAN
+
+Out of the gloom a sledge approached slowly. It took form at last in a
+dim shadow, and MacVeigh saw that it would pass very near to him. He
+made out, one after another, a human figure, three dogs, and the
+toboggan. There was something appalling in the quiet of this specter
+of life looming up out of the night. He could no longer hear the
+sledge, though it was within fifty paces of him. The figure in advance
+walked slowly and with bowed head, and the dogs and the sledge
+followed in a ghostly line. Human leader and animals were oblivious to
+MacVeigh, silent and staring in the white night. They were opposite
+him before he moved.
+
+Then he strode out quickly, with a loud holloa. At the sound of his
+voice there followed a low cry, the dogs stopped in their traces, and
+the figure ran back to the sledge. MacVeigh drew his revolver. Half a
+dozen long strides and he had reached the sledge. From the opposite
+side a white face stared at him, and with one hand resting on the
+heavily laden sledge, and his revolver at level with his waist,
+MacVeigh stared back in speechless astonishment.
+
+For the great, dark, frightened eyes that looked across at him, and
+the white, staring face he recognized as the eyes and the face of a
+woman. For a moment he was unable to move or speak, and the woman
+raised her hands and pushed back her fur hood so that he saw her hair
+shimmering in the starlight. She was a white woman. Suddenly he saw
+something in her face that struck him with a chill, and he looked down
+at the thing under his hand. It was a long, rough box. He drew back a
+step.
+
+"Good God!" he said. "Are you alone?"
+
+She bowed her head, and he heard her voice in a half sob.
+
+"Yes-- alone."
+
+He passed quickly around to her side. "I am Sergeant MacVeigh, of the
+Royal Mounted," he said, gently. "Tell me, where are you going, and
+how does it happen that you are out here in the Barren-- alone."
+
+Her hood had fallen upon her shoulder, and she lifted her face full to
+MacVeigh. The stars shone in her eyes. They were wonderful eyes, and
+now they were filled with pain. And it was a wonderful face to
+MacVeigh, who had not seen a white woman's face for nearly a year. She
+was young, so young that in the pale glow of the night she looked
+almost like a girl, and in her eyes and mouth and the upturn of her
+chin there was something so like that other face of which he had
+dreamed that he reached out and took her two hesitating hands in his
+own, and asked again:
+
+"Where are you going, and why are you out here-- alone?"
+
+"I am going-- down there," she said, turning her head toward the
+timber-line. "I am going with him-- my husband--"
+
+Her voice choked her, and, drawing her hands suddenly from him, she
+went to the sledge and stood facing him. For a moment there was a glow
+of defiance in her eyes, as though she feared him and was ready to
+fight for herself and her dead. The dogs slunk in at her feet, and
+MacVeigh saw the gleam of their naked fangs in the starlight.
+
+"He died three days ago," she finished, quietly, "and I am taking him
+back to my people, down on the Little Seul."
+
+"It is two hundred miles," said MacVeigh, looking at her as if she
+were mad. "You will die."
+
+"I have traveled two days," replied the woman. "I am going on."
+
+"Two days-- across the Barren!"
+
+MacVeigh looked at the box, grim and terrible in the ghostly radiance
+that fell upon it. Then he looked at the woman. She had bowed her head
+upon her breast, and her shining hair fell loose and disheveled. He
+saw the pathetic droop of her tired shoulders, and knew that she was
+crying. In that moment a thrilling warmth flooded every fiber of his
+body, and the glory of this that had come to him from out of the
+Barren held him mute. To him woman was all that was glorious and good.
+The pitiless loneliness of his life had placed them next to angels in
+his code of things, and before him now he saw all that he had ever
+dreamed of in the love and loyalty of womanhood and of wifehood.
+
+The bowed little figure before him was facing death for the man she
+had loved, and who was dead. In a way he knew that she was mad. And
+yet her madness was the madness of a devotion that was beyond fear, of
+a faithfulness that made no measure of storm and cold and starvation;
+and he was filled with a desire to go up to her as she stood crumpled
+and exhausted against the box, to take her close in his arms and tell
+her that of such a love he had built for himself the visions which had
+kept him alive in his loneliness. She looked pathetically like a
+child.
+
+"Come, little girl," he said. "We'll go on. I'll see you safely on
+your way to the Little Seul. You mustn't go alone. You'd never reach
+your people alive. My God, if I were he--"
+
+He stopped at the frightened look in the white face she lifted to him.
+
+"What?" she asked.
+
+"Nothing-- only it's hard for a man to die and lose a woman like you,"
+said MacVeigh. "There-- let me lift you up on the box."
+
+"The dogs cannot pull the load," she objected. "I have helped them--"
+
+"If they can't, I can," he laughed, softly; and with a quick movement
+he picked her up and seated her on the sledge. He stripped off his
+pack and placed it behind her, and then he gave her his rifle. The
+woman looked straight at him with a tense, white face as she placed
+the weapon across her lap.
+
+"You can shoot me if I don't do my duty," said MacVeigh. He tried to
+hide the happiness that came to him in this companionship of woman,
+but it trembled in his voice. He stopped suddenly, listening.
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"I heard nothing," said the woman. Her face was deadly white. Her eyes
+had grown black.
+
+MacVeigh turned, with a word to the dogs. He picked up the end of the
+babiche rope with which the woman had assisted them to drag their
+load, and set off across the Barren. The presence of the dead had
+always been oppressive to him, but to-night it was otherwise. His
+fatigue of the day was gone, and in spite of the thing he was helping
+to drag behind him he was filled with a strange elation. He was in the
+presence of a woman. Now and then he turned his head to look at her.
+He could feel her behind him, and the sound of her low voice when she
+spoke to the dogs was like music to him. He wanted to burst forth in
+the wild song with which he and Pelliter had kept up their courage in
+the little cabin, but he throttled his desire and whistled instead. He
+wondered how the woman and the dogs had dragged the sledge. It sank
+deep in the soft drift-snow, and taxed his strength. Now and then he
+paused to rest, and at last the woman jumped from the sledge and came
+to his side.
+
+"I am going to walk," she said. "The load is too heavy."
+
+"The snow is soft," replied MacVeigh. "Come."
+
+He held out his hand to her; and, with the same strange, white look in
+her face, the woman gave him her own. She glanced back uneasily toward
+the box, and MacVeigh understood. He pressed her fingers a little
+tighter and drew her nearer to him. Hand in hand, they resumed their
+way across the Barren. MacVeigh said nothing, but his blood was
+running like fire through his body. The little hand he held trembled
+and started uneasily. Once or twice it tried to draw itself away, and
+he held it closer. After that it remained submissively in his own,
+warm and thrilling. Looking down, he could see the profile of the
+woman's face.
+
+A long, shining tress of her hair had freed itself from under her
+hood, and the light wind lifted it so that it fell across his arm.
+Like a thief he raised it to his lips, while the woman looked straight
+ahead to where the timber-line began to show in a thin, black streak.
+His cheeks burned, half with shame, half with tumultuous joy. Then he
+straightened his shoulders and shook the floating tress from his arm.
+
+Three-quarters of an hour later they came to the first of the timber.
+He still held her hand. He was still holding it, with the brilliant
+starlight falling upon them, when his chin shot suddenly into the air
+again, alert and fighting, and he cried, softly:
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"Nothing," said the woman. "I heard nothing-- unless it was the wind
+in the trees."
+
+She drew away from him. The dogs whined and slunk close to the box.
+Across the Barren came a low, wailing wind.
+
+"The storm is coming back," said MacVeigh. "It must have been the wind
+that I heard."
+
+ III
+
+ IN HONOR OF THE LIVING
+
+For a few moments after uttering those words Billy stood silent
+listening for a sound that was not the low moaning of the wind far out
+on the Barren. He was sure that he had heard it-- something very near,
+almost at his feet, and yet it was a sound which he could not place or
+understand. He looked at the woman. She was gazing steadily at him.
+
+"I hear it now," she said. "It is the wind. It has frightened me. It
+makes such terrible sounds at times-- out on the Barren. A little
+while ago-- I thought-- I heard-- a child crying--"
+
+Billy saw her clutch a hand at her throat, and there were both terror
+and grief in the eyes that never for an instant left his face. He
+understood. She was almost ready to give way under the terrible strain
+of the Barren. He smiled at her, and spoke in a voice that he might
+have used to a little child.
+
+"You are tired, little girl?"
+
+"Yes-- yes-- I am tired--"
+
+"And hungry and cold?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then we will camp in the timber."
+
+They went on until they came to a growth of spruce so dense that it
+formed a shelter from both snow and wind, with a thick carpet of brown
+needles under foot. They were shut out from the stars, and in the
+darkness MacVeigh began to whistle cheerfully. He unstrapped his pack
+and spread out one of his blankets close to the box and wrapped the
+other about the woman's shoulders.
+
+"You sit here while I make a fire," he said.
+
+He piled up dry needles over a precious bit of his birchbark and
+struck a flame. In the glowing light he found other fuel, and added to
+the fire until the crackling blaze leaped as high as his head. The
+woman's face was hidden, and she looked as though she had fallen
+asleep in the warmth of the fire. For half an hour Mac-Veigh dragged
+in fuel until he had a great pile of it in readiness.
+
+Then he forked out a deep bed of burning coals and soon the odor of
+coffee and frying bacon aroused his companion. She raised her head and
+threw back the blanket with which he had covered her shoulders. It was
+warm where she sat, and she took off her hood while he smiled at her
+companionably from over the fire. Her reddish-brown hair tumbled about
+her shoulders, rippling and glistening in the fire glow, and for a few
+moments she sat with it falling loosely about her, with her eyes upon
+MacVeigh. Then she gathered it between her fingers, and MacVeigh
+watched her while she divided it into shining strands and pleated it
+into a big braid.
+
+"Supper is ready," he said. "Will you eat it there?"
+
+She nodded, and for the first time she smiled at him. He brought bacon
+and bread and coffee and other things from his pack and placed them on
+a folded blanket between them. He sat opposite her, cross-legged. For
+the first time he noticed that her eyes were blue and that there was a
+flush in her cheeks. The flush deepened as he looked at her, and she
+smiled at him again.
+
+The smile, the momentary drooping of her eyes, set his heart leaping,
+and for a little while he was unconscious of taste in the food he
+swallowed. He told her of his post away up at Point Fullerton, and of
+Pelliter, who was dying of loneliness.
+
+"It's been a long time since I've seen a woman like you," he confided.
+"And it seems like heaven. You don't know how lonely I am!" His voice
+trembled. "I wish that Pelliter could see you-- just for a moment," he
+added. "It would make him live again."
+
+Something in the soft glow of her eyes urged other words to his lips.
+
+"Mebbe you don't know what it means not to see a white woman in-- in--
+all this time," he went on. "You won't think that I've gone mad, will
+you, or that I'm saying or doing anything that's wrong? I'm trying to
+hold myself back, but I feel like shouting, I'm that glad. If Pelliter
+could see you--" He reached suddenly in his pocket and drew out the
+precious packet of letters. "He's got a girl down south-- just like
+you," he said. "These are from her. If I get 'em up in time they'll
+bring him round. It's not medicine he wants. It's woman-- just a sight
+of her, and sound of her, and a touch of her hand."
+
+She reached across and took the letters. In the firelight he saw that
+her hand was trembling.
+
+"Are they-- married?" she asked, softly.
+
+"No, but they're going to be," he cried, triumphantly. "She's the most
+beautiful thing in the world, next to--"
+
+He paused, and she finished for him.
+
+"Next to one other girl-- who is yours."
+
+"No, I wasn't going to say that. You won't think I mean wrong, will
+you, if I tell you? I was going to say next to-- you. For you've come
+out of the blizzard-- like an angel to give me new hope. I was sort of
+broke when you came. If you disappeared now and I never saw you again
+I'd go back and fight the rest of my time out, an' dream of pleasant
+things. Gawd! Do you know a man has to be put up here before he knows
+that life isn't the sun an' the moon an' the stars an' the air we
+breathe. It's woman-- just woman."
+
+He was returning the letters to his pocket. The woman's voice was
+clear and gentle. To Billy it rose like sweetest music above the
+crackling of the fire and the murmuring of the wind in the spruce
+tops.
+
+"Men like you-- ought to have a woman to care for," she said. "He was
+like that."
+
+"You mean--" His eyes sought the long, dark box.
+
+"Yes-- he was like that."
+
+"I know how you feel," he said; and for a moment he did not look at
+her. "I've gone through-- a lot of it. Father an' mother and a sister.
+Mother was the last, and I wasn't much more than a kid-- eighteen, I
+guess-- but it don't seem much more than yesterday. When you come up
+here and you don't see the sun for months nor a white face for a year
+or more it brings up all those things pretty much as though they
+happened only a little while ago.'"
+
+"All of them are-- dead?" she asked.
+
+"All but one. She wrote to me for a long time, and I thought she'd
+keep her word. Pelly-- that's Pelliter-- thinks we've just had a
+misunderstanding, and that she'll write again. I haven't told him that
+she turned me down to marry another fellow. I didn't want to make him
+think any unpleasant things about his own girl. You're apt to do that
+when you're almost dying of loneliness."
+
+The woman's eyes were shining. She leaned a little toward him.
+
+"You should be glad," she said. "If she turned you down she wouldn't
+have been worthy of you-- afterward. She wasn't a true woman. If she
+had been, her love wouldn't have grown cold because you were away. It
+mustn't spoil your faith-- because that is-- beautiful."
+
+He had put a hand into his pocket again, and drew out now a thin
+package wrapped in buckskin. His face was like a boy's.
+
+"I might have-- if I hadn't met you," he said. "I'd like to let you
+know-- some way-- what you've done for me. You and this."
+
+He had unfolded the buckskin, and gave it to her. In it were the big
+blue petals and dried stem of a blue flower.
+
+"A blue flower!" she said.
+
+"Yes. You know what it means. The Indians call it i-o-waka, or
+something like that, because they believe that it is the flower spirit
+of the purest and most beautiful thing in the world. I have called it
+woman."
+
+He laughed, and there was a joyous sort of note in the laugh.
+
+"You may think me a little mad," he said, "but do you care if I tell
+you about that blue flower?"
+
+The woman nodded. There was a little quiver at her throat which Billy
+did not see.
+
+"I was away up on the Great Bear," he said, "and for ten days and ten
+nights I was in camp-- alone-- laid up with a sprained ankle. It was a
+wild and gloomy place, shut in by barren ridge mountains, with stunted
+black spruce all about, and those spruce were haunted by owls that
+made my blood run cold nights. The second day I found company. It was
+a blue flower. It grew close to my tent, as high as my knee, and
+during the day I used to spread out my blanket close to it and lie
+there and smoke. And the blue flower would wave on its slender stem,
+an' bob at me, an' talk in sign language that I imagined I understood.
+Sometimes it was so funny and vivacious that I laughed, and then it
+seemed to be inviting me to a dance. And at other times it was just
+beautiful and still, and seemed listening to what the forest was
+saying-- and once or twice, I thought, it might be praying. Loneliness
+makes a fellow foolish, you know. With the going of the sun my blue
+flower would always fold its petals and go to sleep, like a little
+child tired out by the day's play, and after that I would feel
+terribly lonely. But it was always awake again when I rolled out in
+the morning. At last the time came when I was well enough to leave. On
+the ninth night I watched my blue flower go to sleep for the last
+time. Then I packed. The sun was up when I went away the next morning,
+and from a little distance I turned and looked back. I suppose I was
+foolish, and weak for a man, but I felt like crying. Blue flower had
+taught me many things I had not known before. It had made me think.
+And when I looked back it was in a pool of sunlight, and it was waving
+at me! It seemed to me that it was calling-- calling me back-- and I
+ran to it and picked it from the stem, and it has been with me ever
+since that hour. It has been my Bible an' my comrade, an' I've known
+it was the spirit of the purest and the most beautiful thing in the
+world-- woman. I--" His voice broke a little. "I-- I may be foolish,
+but I'd like to have you take it, an' keep it-- always-- for me."
+
+He could see now the quiver of her lips as she looked across at him.
+
+"Yes, I will take it," she said. "I will take it and keep it--
+always."
+
+"I've been keeping it for a woman-- somewhere," he said. "Foolish
+idea, wasn't it? And I've been telling you all this, when I want to
+hear what happened back there, and what you are going to do when you
+reach your people. Do you mind-- telling me?"
+
+"He died-- that's all," she replied, fighting to speak calmly. "I
+promised to take him back-- to my people, And when I get there-- I
+don't know-- what I shall-- do--"
+
+She caught her breath. A low sob broke from her lips.
+
+"You don't know-- what you will do--"
+
+Billy's voice sounded strange even to himself. He rose to his feet and
+looked down into her upturned face, his hands clenched, his body
+trembling with the fight he was making. Words came to his lips and
+were forced back again-- words which almost won in their struggle to
+tell her again that she had come to him from out of the Barren like an
+angel, that within the short space since their meeting he had lived a
+lifetime, and that he loved her as no man had ever loved a woman
+before. Her blue eyes looked at him questioningly as he stood above
+her.
+
+And then he saw the thing which for a moment he had forgotten-- the
+long, rough box at the woman's back. His fingers dug deeper into his
+palms, and with a gasping breath he turned away. A hundred paces back
+in the spruce he had found a bare rock with a red bakneesh vine
+growing over it. With his knife he cut off an armful, and when he
+returned with it into the light of the fire the bakneesh glowed like a
+mass of crimson flowers. The woman had risen to her feet, and looked
+at him speechlessly as he scattered the vine over the box. He turned
+to her and said, softly:
+
+"In honor of the dead!"
+
+The color had faded from her face, but her eyes shone like stars.
+Billy advanced toward her with his hands reaching out. But suddenly he
+stopped and stood listening. After a moment he turned and asked again:
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"I heard the dogs-- and the wind," she replied.
+
+"It's something cracking in my head, I guess," said MacVeigh. "It
+sounded like--" He passed a hand over his forehead and looked at the
+dogs huddled in deep sleep beside the sledge. The woman did not see
+the shiver that passed through him. He laughed cheerfully, and seized
+his ax.
+
+"Now for the camp," he announced. "We're going to get the storm within
+an hour."
+
+On the box the woman carried a small tent, and he pitched it close to
+the fire, filling the interior two feet deep with cedar and balsam
+boughs. His own silk service tent he put back in the deeper shadows of
+the spruce. When he had finished he looked questioningly at the woman
+and then at the box.
+
+"If there is room-- I would like it in there-- with me," she said, and
+while she stood with her face to the fire he dragged the box into the
+tent. Then he piled fresh fuel upon the fire and came to bid her good
+night. Her face was pale and haggard now, but she smiled at him, and
+to MacVeigh she was the most beautiful thing in the world. Within
+himself he felt that he had known her for years and years, and he took
+her hands and looked down into her blue eyes and said, almost in a
+whisper:
+
+"Will you forgive me if I'm doing wrong? You don't know how lonesome
+I've been, and how lonesome I am, and what it means to me to look once
+more into a woman's face. I don't want to hurt you, and I'd-- I'd"--
+his voice broke a little--"I'd give him back life if I could, just
+because I've seen you and know you and-- and love you."
+
+She started and drew a quick, sharp breath that came almost in a low
+cry.
+
+"Forgive me, little girl," he went on. "I may be a little mad. I guess
+I am. But I'd die for you, and I'm going to see you safely down to
+your people-- and-- and-- I wonder-- I wonder-- if you'd kiss me good
+night--"
+
+Her eyes never left his face. They were dazzlingly blue in the
+firelight. Slowly she drew her hands away from him, still looking
+straight into his eyes, and then she placed them against each of his
+arms and slowly lifted her face to him. Reverently he bent and kissed
+her.
+
+"God bless you!" he whispered.
+
+For hours after that he sat beside the fire. The wind came up stronger
+across the Barren; the storm broke fresh from the north, the spruce
+and the balsam wailed over his head, and he could hear the moaning
+sweep of the blizzard out in the open spaces. But the sounds came to
+him now like a new kind of music, and his heart throbbed and his soul
+was warm with joy as he looked at the little tent wherein there lay
+sleeping the woman whom he loved.
+
+He still felt the warmth of her lips, he saw again and again the blue
+softness that had come for an instant into her eyes, and he thanked
+God for the wonderful happiness that had come to him. For the
+sweetness of the woman's lips and the greater sweetness of her blue
+eyes told him what life held for him now. A day's journey to the south
+was an Indian camp. He would take her there, and would hire runners to
+carry up Pelliter's medicines and his letters. Then he would go on--
+with the woman-- and he laughed softly and joyously at the glorious
+news which he would take back to Pelliter a little later. For the kiss
+burned on his lips, the blue eyes smiled at him still from out of the
+firelit gloom, and he knew nothing but hope.
+
+It was late, almost midnight, when he went to bed. With the storm
+wailing and twisting more fiercely about him, he fell asleep. And it
+was late when he awoke. The forest was filled with a moaning sound.
+The fire was low. Beyond it the flap of the woman's tent was still
+down, and he put on fresh fuel quietly, so that he would not awaken
+her. He looked at his watch and found that he had been sleeping for
+nearly seven hours. Then he returned to his tent to get the things for
+breakfast. Half a dozen paces from the door flap he stopped in sudden
+astonishment.
+
+Hanging to his tent in the form of a great wreath was the red bakneesh
+which he had cut the night before, and over it, scrawled in charcoal
+on the silk, there stared at him the crudely written words:
+
+"In honor of the living."
+
+With a low cry he sprang back toward the other tent, and then, as
+sudden as his movement, there flashed upon him the significance of the
+bakneesh wreath. The woman was saying to him what she had not spoken
+in words. She had come out in the night while he was asleep and had
+hung the wreath where he would see it in the morning. The blood rushed
+warm and joyous through his body, and with something which was not a
+laugh, but which was an exultant breath from the soul itself, he
+straightened himself, and his hand fell in its old trick to his
+revolver holster. It was empty.
+
+He dragged out his blankets, but the weapon was not between them. He
+looked into the corner where he had placed his rifle. That, too, was
+gone. His face grew tense and white as he walked slowly beyond the
+fire to the woman's tent. With his ear at the flap he listened. There
+was no sound within-- no sound of movement, of life, of a sleeper's
+breath; and like one who feared to reveal a terrible picture he drew
+back the flap. The balsam bed which he had made for the woman was
+empty, and across it had been drawn the big rough box. He stepped
+inside. The box was open-- and empty, except for a mass of worn and
+hard-packed balsam boughs in the bottom. In another instant the truth
+burst in all its force upon MacVeigh. The box had held life, and the
+woman--
+
+Something on the side of the box caught his eyes. It was a folded bit
+of paper, pinned where he must see it. He tore it off and staggered
+with it back into the light of day. A low, hard cry came from his lips
+as he read what the woman had written to him:
+
+  "May God bless you for being good to me. In the storm we have
+  gone-- my husband and I. Word came to us that you were on our
+  trail, and we saw your fire out on the Barren. My husband made the
+  box for me to keep me from cold and storm. When we saw you we
+  changed places, and so you met me with my dead. He could have
+  killed you-- a dozen times, but you were good to me, and so you
+  live. Some day may God give you a good woman who will love you as I
+  love him. He killed a man, but killing is not always murder. We
+  have taken your weapons, and the storm will cover our trail. But
+  you would not follow. I know that. For you know what it means to
+  love a woman, and so you know what life means to a woman when she
+  loves a man.           MRS. ISOBEL DEANE."
+
+ IV
+
+ THE MAN-HUNTERS
+
+Like one dazed by a blow Billy read once more the words which Isobel
+Deane had left for him. He made no sound after that first cry that had
+broken from his lips, but stood looking into the crackling flames of
+the fire until a sudden lash of the wind whipped the note from between
+his fingers and sent it scurrying away in a white volley of fine snow.
+The loss of the note awoke him to action. He started to pursue the bit
+of paper, then stopped and laughed. It was a short, mirthless laugh,
+the kind of a laugh with which a strong man covers pain. He returned
+to the tent again and looked in. He flung back the tent flaps so that
+the light could enter and he could see into the box. A few hours
+before that box had hidden Scottie Deane, the murderer. And she was
+his wife! He turned back to the fire, and he saw again the red
+bakneesh hanging over his tent flap, and the words she had scrawled
+with the end of a charred stick, "In honor of the living." That meant
+him. Something thick and uncomfortable rose in his throat, and a blur
+that was not caused by snow or wind filled his eyes. She had made a
+magnificent fight. And she had won. And it suddenly occurred to him
+that what she had said in the note was true, and that Scottie Deane
+could easily have killed him. The next moment he wondered why he had
+not done that. Deane had taken a big chance in allowing him to live.
+They had only a few hours' start of him, and their trail could not be
+entirely obliterated by the storm. Deane would be hampered in his
+flight by the presence of his wife. He could still follow and overtake
+them. They had taken his weapons, but this would not be the first time
+that he had gone after his man without weapons.
+
+Swiftly the reaction worked in him. He ran beyond the fire, and
+circled quickly until he came upon the trail of the outgoing sledge.
+It was still quite distinct. Deeper in the forest it could be easily
+followed. Something fluttered at his feet. It was Isobel Deane's note.
+He picked it up, and again his eyes fell upon those last words that
+she had written: But you would not follow. I know that. For you know
+what it means to love a woman, and so you know what life means to a
+woman when she loves a man. That was why Scottie Deane had not killed
+him. It was because of the woman. And she had faith in him! This time
+he folded the note and placed it in his pocket, where the blue flower
+had been. Then he went slowly back to the fire.
+
+"I told you I'd give him back his life-- if I could," he said. "And I
+guess I'm going to keep my word." He fell into his old habit of
+talking to himself-- a habit that comes easily to one in the big open
+spaces-- and he laughed as he stood beside the fire and loaded his
+pipe. "If it wasn't for her!" he added, thinking of Scottie Deane.
+"Gawd-- if it wasn't for her!"
+
+He finished loading his pipe, and lighted it, staring off into the
+thicker spruce forest into which Scottie and his wife had fled. The
+entire force was on the lookout for Scottie Deane. For more than a
+year he had been as elusive as the little white ermine of the woods.
+He had outwitted the best men in the service, and his name was known
+to every man of the Royal Mounted from Calgary to Herschel Island.
+There was a price on his head, and fame for the man who captured him.
+Those who dreamed of promotions also dreamed of Scottie Deane; and as
+Billy thought of these things something that was not the man-hunting
+instinct rose in him and his blood warmed with a strange feeling of
+brotherhood. Scottie Deane was more than an outlaw to him now, more
+than a mere man. Hunted like a rat, chased from place to place, he
+must be more than those things for a woman like Isobel Deane still to
+cling to. He recalled the gentleness of her voice, the sweetness of
+her face, the tenderness of her blue eyes, and for the first time the
+thought came to him that such a woman could not love a man who was
+wholly bad. And she did love him. A twinge of pain came with that
+truth, and yet with it a thrill of pleasure. Her loyalty was a
+triumph-- even for him. She had come to him like an angel out of the
+storm, and she had gone from him like an angel. He was glad. A living,
+breathing reality had taken the place of the dream vision in his
+heart, a woman who was flesh and blood, and who was as true and as
+beautiful as the blue flower he had carried against his breast. In
+that moment he would have liked to grip Scottie Deane by the hand,
+because he was her husband and because he was man enough to make her
+love him. Perhaps it was Deane who had hung the wreath of bakneesh on
+his tent and who had scribbled the words in charcoal. And Deane surely
+knew of the note his wife had written. The feeling of brotherhood grew
+stronger in Billy, and thought of their faith in him filled him with a
+strange elation.
+
+The fire was growing low, and he turned to add fresh fuel. His eyes
+caught sight of the box in the tent, and he dragged it out. He was
+about to throw it on the fire when he hesitated and examined it more
+closely. How far had they come, he wondered? It must have been from
+the other side of the Barren, for Deane had built the box to protect
+Isobel from the fierce winds of the open. It was built of light, dry
+wood, hewn with a belt ax, and the corners were fastened with babiche
+cord made of caribou skin in place of nails. The balsam that had been
+placed in it for Isobel was still in the box, and Billy's heart beat a
+little more quickly as he drew it out. It had been Isobel's bed. He
+could see where the balsam was thicker, where her head had rested.
+With a sudden breathless cry he thrust the box on the fire.
+
+He was not hungry, but he made himself a pot of coffee and drank it.
+Until now he had not observed that the storm was growing steadily
+worse. The thick, low-hanging spruce broke the force of it. Beyond the
+shelter of the forest he could hear the roar of it as it swept through
+the thin scrub and open spaces of the edge of the Barren. It recalled
+him once more to Pelliter. In the excitement of Isobel's presence and
+the shock and despair that had followed her flight he had been guilty
+of partly forgetting Pelliter. By the time he reached the Eskimo
+igloos there would be two days lost. Those two days might mean
+everything to his sick comrade. He jumped to his feet, felt in his
+pocket to see that the letters were safe, and began to arrange his
+pack. Through the trees there came now fine white volleys of
+blistering snow. It was like the hardest granulated sugar. A sudden
+blast of it stung his eyes; and, leaving his pack and tent, he made
+his way anxiously toward the more open timber and scrub. A few hundred
+yards from the camp he was forced to bow his head against the snow
+volleys and pull the broad flaps of his cap down over his cheeks and
+ears. A hundred yards more and he stopped, sheltering himself behind a
+gnarled and stunted banskian. He looked out into the beginning of the
+open. It was a white and seething chaos into which he could not see
+the distance of a pistol shot. The Eskimo igloos were twenty miles
+across the Barren, and Billy's heart sank. He could not make it. No
+man could live in the storm that was sweeping straight down from the
+Arctic, and he turned back to the camp. He had scarcely made the move
+when he was startled by a strange sound coming with the wind. He faced
+the white blur again, a hand dropping to his empty pistol holster. It
+came again, and this time he recognized it. It was a shout, a man's
+voice. Instantly his mind leaped to Deane and Isobel. What miracle
+could be bringing them back?
+
+A shadow grew out of the twisting blur of the storm. It quickly
+separated itself into definite parts-- a team of dogs, a sledge, three
+men. A minute more and the dogs stopped in a snarling tangle as they
+saw Billy. Billy stepped forth. Almost instantly he found a revolver
+leveled at his breast.
+
+"Put that up, Bucky Smith," he called. "If you're looking for a man
+you've found the wrong one!"
+
+The man advanced. His eyes were red and staring. His pistol arm
+dropped as he came within a yard of Billy.
+
+"By-- It's you, is it, Billy MacVeigh!" he exclaimed. His laugh was
+harsh and unpleasant. Bucky was a corporal in the service, and when
+Billy had last heard of him he was stationed at Nelson House. For a
+year the two men had been in the same patrol, and there was bad blood
+between them. Billy had never told of a certain affair down at Norway
+House, the knowledge of which at headquarters would have meant Bucky's
+disgraceful retirement from the force. But he had called Bucky out in
+fair fight and had whipped him within an inch of his life. The old
+hatred burned in the corporal's eyes as he stared into Billy's face.
+Billy ignored the look, and shook hands with the other men. One of
+them was a Hudson's Bay Company's driver, and the other was Constable
+Walker, from Churchill.
+
+"Thought we'd never live to reach shelter," gasped Walker, as they
+shook hands. "We're out after Scottie Deane, and we ain't losing a
+minute. We're going to get him, too. His trail is so hot we can smell
+it. My God, but I'm bushed!"
+
+The dogs, with the company man at their head, were already making for
+the camp. Billy grinned at the corporal as they followed.
+
+"Had a pretty good chance to get me, if you'd been alone, didn't you,
+Bucky?" he asked, in a voice that Walker did not hear. "You see, I
+haven't forgotten your threat."
+
+There was a steely hardness behind his laugh. He knew that Bucky Smith
+was a scoundrel whose good fortune was that he had never been found
+out in some of his evil work. In a flash his mind traveled back to
+that day at Norway House when Rousseau, the half Frenchman, had come
+to him from a sick-bed to tell him that Bucky had ruined his young
+wife. Rousseau, who should have been in bed with his fever, died two
+days later. Billy could still hear the taunt in Bucky's voice when he
+had cornered him with Rousseau's accusation, and the fight had
+followed. The thought that this man was now close after Isobel and
+Deane filled him with a sort of rage, and as Walker went ahead he laid
+a hand on Bucky's arm.
+
+"I've been thinking about you of late, Bucky," he said. "I've been
+thinking a lot about that affair down at Norway, an' I've been lacking
+myself for not reporting it. I'm going to do it-- unless you cut a
+right-angle track to the one you're taking. I'm after Scottie Deane
+myself!"
+
+In the next breath he could have cut out his tongue for having uttered
+the words. A gleam of triumph shot into Bucky's eyes.
+
+"I thought we was right," he said. "We sort of lost the trail in the
+storm. Glad we found you to set us right. How much of a start of us
+has he and that squaw that's traveling with him got?"
+
+Billy's mittened hands clenched fiercely. He made no reply, but
+followed quickly after Walker. His mind worked swiftly. As he came in
+to the fire he saw that the dogs had already dropped down in their
+traces and that they were exhausted. Walker's face was pinched, his
+eyes half closed by the sting of the snow. The driver was half
+stretched out on the sledge, his feet to the fire. In a glance he had
+assured himself that both dogs and men had gone through a long and
+desperate struggle in the storm. He looked at Bucky, and this time
+there was neither rancor nor threat in his voice when he spoke.
+
+"You fellows have had a hard time of it," he said. "Make yourselves at
+home. I'm not overburdened with grub, but if you'll dig out some of
+your own rations I'll get it ready while you thaw out."
+
+Bucky was looking curiously at the two tents.
+
+"Who's with you?" he asked.
+
+Billy shrugged his shoulders. His voice was almost affable.
+
+"Hate to tell you who was with me, Bucky," he laughed, "I came in late
+last night, half dead, and found a half-breed camped here-- in that
+silk tent. He was quite chummy-- mighty fine chap. Young fellow, too--
+almost a kid. When I got up this morning--" Billy shrugged his
+shoulders again and pointed to his empty pistol holster. "Everything
+was gone-- dogs, sledge, extra tent, even my rifle and automatic. He
+wasn't quite bad, though, for he left me my grub. He was a funny cuss,
+too. Look at that!" He pointed to the bakneesh wreath that still hung
+to the front of his tent. "'In honor of the living,'" he read, aloud,
+"Just a sort of reminder, you know, that he might have hit me on the
+head with a club if he'd wanted to." He came nearer to Bucky, and
+said, good-naturedly: "I guess you've got me beat this time, Bucky.
+Scottie Deane is pretty safe from me, wherever he is. I haven't even
+got a gun!"
+
+"He must have left a trail," remarked Bucky, eying him shrewdly.
+
+"He did-- out there!"
+
+As Bucky went to examine what was left of the trail Billy thanked
+Heaven that Deane had placed Isobel on the sledge before he left camp.
+There was nothing to betray her presence. Walker had unlaced their
+outfit, and Billy was busy preparing a meal when Bucky returned. There
+was a sneer on his lips.
+
+"Didn't know you was that easy," he said. "Wonder why he didn't take
+his tent! Pretty good tent, isn't it?"
+
+He went inside. A minute later he appeared at the flap and called to
+Billy.
+
+"Look here!" he said, and there was a tremble of excitement in his
+voice. His eyes were blazing with an ugly triumph. "Your half-breed
+had pretty long hair, didn't he?"
+
+He pointed to a splinter on one of the light tent-poles. Billy's heart
+gave a sudden jump. A tress of Isobel's long, loose hair had caught in
+the splinter, and a dozen golden-brown strands had remained to give
+him away. For a moment he forgot that Bucky Smith was watching him. He
+saw Isobel again as she had last entered the tent, her beautiful hair
+flowing in a firelit glory about her, her eyes still filled with
+tender gratitude. Once more he felt the warmth of her lips, the touch
+of her hand, the thrill of her presence near him. Perhaps these
+emotions covered any suspicious movement or word by which he might
+otherwise have betrayed himself. By the time they were gone he had
+recovered himself, and he turned to his companion with a low laugh.
+
+"It's a woman's hair, all right, Bucky. He told me all sorts of nice
+things about a girl `back home.' They must have been true."
+
+The eyes of the two men met unflinchingly. There was a sneer on Buck's
+lips; Billy was smiling.
+
+"I'm going to follow this Frenchman after we've had a little rest,"
+said the corporal, trying to cover a certain note of excitement and
+triumph in his voice. "There's a woman traveling with Scottie Deane,
+you know-- a white woman-- and there's only one other north of
+Churchill. Of course, you're anxious to get back your stolen outfit?"
+
+"You bet I am," exclaimed Billy, concealing the effect of the
+bull's-eye shot Bucky had made. "I'm not particularly happy in the
+thought of reporting myself stripped in this sort of way. The breed
+will hang to thick cover, and it won't be difficult to follow his
+trail."
+
+He saw that Bucky was a little taken aback by his ready acquiescence,
+and before the other could reply he hurried out to join Walker in the
+preparation of breakfast. He made a gallon of tea, fried some bacon,
+and brought out and toasted his own stock of frozen bannock. He made a
+second kettle of tea while the others were eating, and shook out the
+blankets in his own tent. Walker had told him that they had traveled
+nearly all night.
+
+"Better have an hour or two of sleep before you go on," he invited.
+
+The driver's name was Conway. He was the first to accept Billy's
+invitation. When he had finished eating, Walker followed him into the
+tent. When they were gone Bucky looked hard at Billy.
+
+"What's your game?" he asked.
+
+"The Golden Rule, that's all," replied Billy, proffering his tobacco.
+"The half-breed treated me square and made me comfortable, even if he
+did take his pay afterward. I'm doing the same."
+
+"And what do you expect to take-- afterward?"
+
+Billy's eyes narrowed as he returned the other's searching look.
+
+"Bucky, I didn't think you were quite a fool," he said. "You've got a
+little decency in your hide, haven't you? A man might as well be in
+jail as up here without a gun. I expect you to contribute one-- when
+you go after the half-breed-- you or Walker. He'll do it if you won't.
+Better go in with the others. I'll keep up the fire."
+
+Bucky rose sullenly. He was still suspicious of Billy's hospitality,
+but at the same time he could see the strength of Billy's argument and
+the importance of the price he was asking. He joined Walker and
+Conway. Fifteen minutes later Billy approached the tent and looked in.
+The three men were in the deep sleep of exhaustion. Instantly Billy's
+actions changed. He had thrown his pack outside the tent to make more
+room, and he quickly slipped a spare blanket in with his provisions.
+Then he entered the other tent, and a flush spread over his face, and
+he felt his blood grow warmer.
+
+"You may be a fool, Billy MacVeigh," he laughed, softly. "You may be a
+fool, but we're going to do it!"
+
+Gently he disentangled the long silken strands of golden brown from
+the tent-pole. He wound the hair about his fingers, and it made a soft
+and shining ring. It was all that he would ever possess of Isobel
+Deane, and his breath came more quickly as he pressed it for a moment
+to his rough and storm-beaten face. He put it in his pocket, carefully
+wrapped in Isobel's note, and then once more he went back to the tent
+in which the three men were sleeping. They had not moved. Walker's
+holster was within reach of his hand. For a moment the temptation to
+reach out and pluck the gun from it was strong. He pulled himself
+away. He would win in this fight with Bucky as surely as he had won in
+the other, and he would win without theft. Quickly he threw his pack
+over his shoulder and struck the trail made by Deane in his flight. On
+his snow-shoes he followed it in a long, swift pace. A hundred yards
+from the camp he looked back for an instant. Then he turned, and his
+face was grim and set.
+
+"If you've got to be caught, it's not going to be by that outfit back
+there, Mr. Scottie Deane," he said to himself. "It's up to yours
+truly, and Billy MacVeigh is the man who can do the trick, if he
+hasn't got a gun!"
+
+ V
+
+ BILLY FOLLOWS ISOBEL
+
+From the first Billy could see the difficulty with which Deane and his
+dogs had made their way through the soft drifts of snow piled up by
+the blizzard. In places where the trees had thinned out Deane had
+floundered ahead and pulled with the team. Only once in the first mile
+had Isobel climbed from the sledge, and that was where traces,
+toboggan, and team had all become mixed up in the snow-covered top of
+a fallen tree. The fact that Deane was compelling his wife to ride
+added to Billy's liking for the man. It was probable that Isobel had
+not gone to sleep at all after her hard experience on the Barren, but
+had lain awake planning with her husband until the hour of their
+flight. If Isobel had been able to travel on snow-shoes Billy reasoned
+that Deane would have left the dogs behind, for in the deep, soft snow
+he could have made better time without them, and snow-shoe trails
+would have been obliterated by the storm hours ago. As it was, he
+could not lose them. He knew that he had no time to lose if he made
+sure of beating out Bucky and his men. The suspicious corporal would
+not sleep long. While he had the advantage of being comparatively
+fresh, Billy's snow-shoes were smoothing and packing the trail, and
+the others, if they followed, would be able to travel a mile or two an
+hour faster than himself. That Bucky would follow he did not doubt for
+a moment. The corporal was already half convinced that Scottie Deane
+had made the trail from camp and that the hair he had found entangled
+in the splinter on the tent-pole belonged to the outlaw's wife. And
+Scottie Deane was too big a prize to lose.
+
+Billy's mind worked rapidly as he bent more determinedly to the
+pursuit. He knew that there were only two things that Bucky could do
+under the circumstances. Either he would follow after him with Walker
+and the driver or he would come alone. If Walker and Conway
+accompanied him the fight for Scottie Deane's capture would be a fair
+one, and the man who first put manacles about the outlaw's wrists
+would be the victor. But if he left his two companions in camp and
+came after him alone--
+
+The thought was not a pleasant one. He was almost sorry that he had
+not taken Walker's gun. If Bucky came alone it would be with but one
+purpose in mind-- to make sure of Scottie Dean by "squaring up" with
+him first. Billy was sure that he had measured the man right, and that
+he would not hesitate to carry out his old threat by putting a bullet
+into him at the first opportunity. And here would be opportunity. The
+storm would cover up any foul work he might accomplish, and his reward
+would be Scottie Deane-- unless Deane played too good a hand for him.
+
+At thought of Deane Billy chuckled. Until now he had not taken him
+fully into consideration, and suddenly it dawned upon him that there
+was a bit of humor as well as tragedy in the situation. He cheerfully
+conceded to himself that for a long time Deane had proved himself a
+better man than either Bucky or himself, and that, after all, he was
+the man who held the situation well in hand even now. He was well
+armed. He was as cautions as a fox, and would not be caught napping.
+And yet this thought filled Billy with satisfaction rather than fear.
+Deane would be more than a match for Bucky alone if he failed in
+beating out the corporal. But if he did beat him out--
+
+Billy's lips set grimly, and there was a hard light in his eyes as he
+glanced back over his shoulder. He would not only beat him out, but he
+would capture Scottie Deane. It would be a game of fox against fox,
+and he would win. No one would ever know why he was playing the game
+as he had planned to play it. Bucky would never know. Down at
+headquarters they would never know. And yet deep down in his heart he
+hoped and believed that Isobel would guess and understand. To save
+Deane, to save Isobel, he must keep them out of the hands of Bucky
+Smith, and to do that he must make them his own prisoners. It would be
+a terrible ordeal at first. A picture of Isobel rose before him, her
+faith and trust in him broken, her face white and drawn with grief and
+despair, her blue eyes flashing at him-- hatred. But he felt now that
+he could stand those things. One moment-- the fatal moment, when she
+would understand and know that he had remained true-- would repay him
+for what he might suffer.
+
+He traveled swiftly for an hour, and paused then to get his wind where
+the partly covered trail dipped down into a frozen swamp. Here Isobel
+had climbed from the sledge and had followed in the path of the
+toboggan. In places where the spruce and balsam were thick overhead
+Billy could make out the imprints of her moccasins. Deane had led the
+dogs in the darkness of the storm, and twice Billy found the burned
+ends of matches, where he had stopped to look at his compass. He was
+striking a course almost due west. At the farther edge of the swamp
+the trail struck a lake, and straight across this Deane had led his
+team. The worst of the storm was over now. The wind was slowly
+shifting to the south and east, and the fine, steely snow had given
+place to a thicker and softer downfall. Billy shuddered as he thought
+of what this lake must have been a few hours before, when Isobel and
+Deane had crossed it in the thick blackness of the blizzard that had
+swept it like a hurricane.
+
+It was half a mile across the lake, and here, fifty yards from shore,
+the trail was completely covered. Billy lost no time by endeavoring to
+find signs of it in the open, but struck directly for the opposite
+timber field and swung along in the shelter of the scrub forest. He
+picked up the trail easily. Half an hour later he stopped. Spruce and
+balsam grew thick about him, shutting out what was left of the wind.
+Here Scottie Deane had stopped to build a fire. Close to the charred
+embers was a mass of balsam boughs on which Isobel had rested. Scottie
+had made a pot of boiling tea and had afterward thrown the grounds on
+the snow. The warm bodies of the dogs had made smooth, round pits in
+the snow, and Billy figured that the fugitives had rested for a couple
+of hours. They had traveled eight miles through the blizzard without a
+fire, and his heart was filled with a sickening pain as he thought of
+Isobel Deane and the suffering he had brought to her. For a few
+moments there swept over him a revulsion for that thing which he stood
+for-- the Law. More than once in his experience he had thought that
+its punishment had been greater than the crime. Isobel had suffered,
+and was suffering, far more than if Deane had been captured a year
+before and hanged. And Deane himself had paid a penalty greater than
+death in being a witness of the suffering of the woman who had
+remained loyal to him. Billy's heart went out to them in a low,
+yearning cry as he looked at the balsam bed and the black char of the
+fire. He wished that he could give them, life and freedom and
+happiness, and his hands clenched tightly as he thought that he was
+willing to surrender everything, even to his own honor, for the woman
+he loved.
+
+Fifteen minutes after he had struck the shelter of the camp he was
+again in pursuit. His blood leaped a little excitedly when he found
+that Scottie Deane's trail was now almost as straight as a plumb-line
+and that the sledge no longer became entangled in hidden windfalls and
+brush. It was proof that it was light when Deane and Isobel had left
+their camp. Isobel was walking now, and their sledge was traveling
+faster. Billy encouraged his own pace, and over two or three open
+spaces he broke into a long, swinging run. The trail was comparatively
+fresh, and at the end of another hour he knew that they could not be
+far ahead of him. He had followed through a thin swamp and had climbed
+to the top of a rough ridge when he stopped. Isobel had reached the
+bald cap of the ridge exhausted. The last twenty yards he could see
+where Deane had assisted her; and then she had dropped down in the
+snow, and he had placed a blanket under her. They had taken a drink of
+tea made back over the fire, and a little of it had fallen into the
+snow. It had not yet formed ice, and instinctively he dropped behind a
+rock and looked down into the wooded valley at his feet. In a few
+moments he began to descend.
+
+He had almost reached the foot of the ridge when he brought himself
+short with a sudden low cry of horror. He had reached a point where
+the side of the ridge seemed to have broken off, leaving a precipitous
+wall. In a flash he realized what had happened. Deane and Isobel had
+descended upon a "snow trap," and it had given way under their weight,
+plunging them to the rocks below. For no longer than a breath he stood
+still, and in that moment there came a sound from far behind that sent
+a strange thrill through him. It was the howl of a dog. Bucky and his
+men were in close pursuit, and they were traveling with the team.
+
+He swung a little to the left to escape the edge of the trap and
+plunged recklessly to the bottom. Not until he saw where Scottie Deane
+and the team had dragged themselves from the snow avalanche did he
+breathe freely again. Isobel was safe! He laughed in his joy and wiped
+the nervous sweat from his face as he saw the prints of her moccasins
+where Deane had righted the sledge. And then, for the first time, he
+observed a number of small red stains on the snow. Either Isobel or
+Deane had been injured in the fall, perhaps slightly. A hundred yards
+from the "trap" the sledge had stopped again, and from this point it
+was Deane who rode and Isobel who walked!
+
+He followed more cautiously now. Another hundred yards and he stopped
+to sniff the air. Ahead of him the spruce and balsam grew close and
+thick, and from that shelter he was sure that something was coming to
+him on the air. At first he thought it was the odor of the balsam. A
+moment later he knew that it was smoke.
+
+Force of habit brought his hand for the twentieth time to his empty
+pistol holster. Its emptiness added to the caution with which he
+approached the thick spruce and balsam ahead of him. Taking advantage
+of a mass of low snow-laden bushes, he swung out at a right angle to
+the trail and began making a wide circle. He worked swiftly. Within
+half or three-quarters of an hour Bucky would reach the ridge.
+Whatever he accomplished must be done before then. Five minutes after
+leaving the trail he caught his first glimpse of smoke and began to
+edge in toward the fire. The stillness oppressed him. He drew nearer
+and nearer, yet he heard no sound of voice or of the dogs. At last he
+reached a point where he could look out from behind a young ground
+spruce and see the fire. It was not more than thirty feet away. He
+held his breath tensely at what he saw. On a blanket spread out close
+to the fire lay Scottie Deane, his head pillowed on a pack-sack. There
+was no sign of Isobel, and no sign of the sledge and dogs. Billy's
+heart thumped excitedly as he rose to his feet. He did not stop to ask
+himself where Isobel and the dogs had gone. Deane was alone, and lay
+with his back toward him. Fate could not have given him a better
+opportunity, and his moccasined feet fell swiftly and quietly in the
+snow. He was within six feet of Scottie before the injured man heard
+him, and scarcely had the other moved when he was upon him. He was
+astonished at the ease with which he twisted Deane upon his back and
+put the handcuffs about his wrists. The work was no sooner done than
+he understood. A rag was tied about Deane's head, and it was stained
+with blood. The man's arms and body were limp. He looked at Billy with
+dulled eyes, and as he slowly realized what had happened a groan broke
+from his lips.
+
+In an instant Billy was on his knees beside him. He had seen Deane
+twice before, over at Churchill, but this was the first time that he
+had ever looked closely into his face. It was a face worn by hardship
+and mental torture. The cheeks were thinned, and the steel-gray eyes
+that looked up into Billy's were reddened by weeks and months of
+fighting against storm. It was the face, not of a criminal, but of a
+man whom Billy would have trusted-- blonde-mustached, fearless, and
+filled with that clean-cut strength which associates itself with
+fairness and open fighting. Hardly had he drawn a second breath when
+Billy realized why this man had not killed him when he had the chance.
+Deane was not of the sort to strike in the dark or from behind. He had
+let Billy live because he still believed in the manhood of man, and
+the thought that he had repaid Deane's faith in him by leaping upon
+him when he was down and wounded filled Billy with a bitter shame. He
+gripped one of Deane's hands in his own.
+
+"I hate to do this, old man," he cried, quickly. "It's hell to put
+those things on a man who's hurt. But I've got to do it. I didn't mean
+to come-- no, s'elp me God, I didn't-- if Bucky Smith and two others
+hadn't hit your trail back at the old camp. They'd have got you--
+sure. And she wouldn't have been safe with them. Understand? She
+wouldn't have been safe! So I made up my mind to beat on ahead and
+take you myself. I want you to understand. And you do know, I guess.
+You must have heard, for I thought you were sure-enough dead in the
+box, an' I swear to Heaven I meant all I said then. I wouldn't have
+come. I was glad you two got away. But this Bucky is a skunk and a
+scoundrel-- and mebbe if I take you-- I can help you-- later on.
+They'll be here in a few minutes."
+
+He spoke quickly, his voice quivering with the emotion that inspired
+his words, and not for an instant did Scottie Deane allow his eyes to
+shift from Billy's face. When Billy stopped he still looked at him for
+a moment, judging the truth of what he had heard by what he saw in the
+other's face. And then Billy felt his hand tighten for an instant
+about his own.
+
+"I guess you're pretty square, MacVeigh," he said, "and I guess it had
+to come pretty soon, too. I'm not sorry that it's you-- and I know
+you'll take care of her."
+
+"I'll do it-- if I have to fight-- and kill!"
+
+Billy had withdrawn his hand, and both were clenched. Into Deane's
+eyes there leaped a sudden flash of fire.
+
+"That's what I did," he breathed, gripping his fingers hard. "I
+killed-- for her. He was a skunk-- and a scoundrel-- too. And you'd
+have done it!" He looked at Billy again. "I'm glad you said what you
+did-- when I was in the box," he added. "If she wasn't as pure and as
+sweet as the stars I'd feel different. But it's just sort of in my
+bones that you'll treat her like a brother. I haven't had faith in
+many men. I've got it in you."
+
+Billy leaned low over the other. His face was flushed, and his voice
+trembled.
+
+"God bless you for that, Scottie!" he said.
+
+A sound from the forest turned both men's eyes.
+
+"She took the dogs and went out there a little way for a load of
+wood," said Deane. "She's coming back."
+
+Billy had leaped to his feet, and turned his face toward the ridge.
+He, too, had heard a sound-- another sound, and from another
+direction. He laughed grimly as he turned to Deane.
+
+"And they're coming, too, Scottie," he replied. "They're climbing the
+ridge. I'll take your guns, old man. It's just possible there may be a
+fight!"
+
+He slipped Deane's revolver into his holster and quickly emptied the
+chamber of the rifle that stood near.
+
+"Where's mine?" he asked.
+
+"Threw 'em away," said Deane. "Those are the only guns in the outfit."
+
+Billy waited while Isobel Deane came through low-hanging spruce with
+the dogs.
+
+ VI
+
+ THE FIGHT
+
+There was a smile for Deane on Isobel's lips as she struggled through
+the spruce, knee-deep in snow, the dogs tugging at the sledge behind
+her. And then in a moment she saw MacVeigh, and the smile froze into a
+look of horror on her face. She was not twenty feet distant when she
+emerged into the little opening, and Billy heard the rattling cry in
+her throat. She stopped, and her hands went to her breast. Deane had
+half raised himself, his pale, thin face smiling encouragingly at her;
+and with a wild cry Isobel rushed to him and flung herself upon her
+knees at his side, her hands gripping fiercely at the steel bands
+about his wrists. Billy turned away. He could hear her sobbing, and he
+could hear the low, comforting voice of the injured man. A groan of
+anguish rose to his own lips, and he clenched his hands hard, dreading
+the terrible moment when he would have to face the woman he loved
+above all else on earth.
+
+It was her voice that brought him about. She had risen to her feet,
+and she stood before him panting like a hunted animal, and Billy saw
+in her face the thing which he had feared more than the sting of
+death. No longer were her blue eyes filled with the sweetness and
+faith of the angel who had come to him from out of the Barren. They
+were hard and terrible and filled with that madness which made him
+think she was about to leap upon him. In those eyes, in the quivering
+of her bare throat, in the sobbing rise and fall of her breast were
+the rage, the grief, and the fear of one whose faith had turned
+suddenly into the deadliest of all emotions; and Billy stood before
+her without a word on his lips, his face as cold and as bloodless as
+the snow under his feet.
+
+"And so you-- you followed-- after-- that!"
+
+It was all she said, and yet the voice, the significance of the
+choking words, hurt him more than if she had struck him. In them there
+was none of the passion and condemnation he had expected. Quietly,
+almost whisperingly uttered, they stung him to the soul. He had meant
+to say to her what he had said to Deane-- even more. But the crudeness
+of the wilderness had made him slow of tongue, and while his heart
+cried out for words Isobel turned and went to her husband. And then
+there came the thing he had been expecting. Down the ridge there raced
+a flurry of snow and a yelping of dogs. He loosened the revolver in
+his holster, and stood in readiness when Bucky Smith ran a few paces
+ahead of his men into the camp. At sight of his enemy's face, torn
+between rage and disappointment, all of Billy's old coolness returned
+to him.
+
+With a bound Bucky was at Scottie Deane's side. He looked down at his
+manacled hands and at the woman who was clasping them in her own, and
+then he whirled on Billy with the quickness of a cat.
+
+"You're a liar and a sneak!" he panted. "You'll answer for this at
+headquarters. I understand now why you let 'em go back there. It was
+her! She paid you-- paid you in her own way-- to free him! But she
+won't pay you again--"
+
+At his words Deane had started as if stung by a wasp. Billy saw
+Isobel's whitened face. The meaning of Buck's words had gone home to
+her as swiftly as a lightning flash, and for an instant her eyes had
+turned to him! Bucky got no further than those last words. Before he
+could add another syllable Billy was upon him. His fist shot out--
+once, twice-- and the blows that fell sent Bucky crashing through the
+fire. Billy did not wait for him to regain his feet. A red light
+blazed before his eyes. He forgot the presence of Deane and Walker and
+Conway. His one thought was that the scoundrel he had struck down had
+flung at Isobel the deadliest insult that a man could offer a woman,
+and before either Conway or Walker could make a move he was upon
+Bucky. He did not know how long or how many times he struck, but when
+at last Conway and Walker succeeded in dragging him away Bucky lay
+upon his back in the snow, blood gushing from his mouth and nose.
+Walker ran to him. Panting for breath, Billy turned toward Isobel and
+Deane. He was almost sobbing. He made no effort to speak. But he saw
+that the thing he had dreaded was gone. Isobel was looking at him
+again-- and there was the old faith in her eyes. At last-- she
+understood! Dean's handcuffed hands were clenched. The light of
+brotherhood shone in his eyes, and where a moment before there had
+been grief and despair in Billy's heart there came now a warm glow of
+joy. Once more they had faith in him!
+
+Walker had raised Bucky to a sitting posture, and was wiping the blood
+from his face when Billy went to them. The corporal's hand made a limp
+move toward his revolver. Billy struck it away and secured the weapon.
+Then he spoke to Walker.
+
+"There is no doubt in your mind that I hold a sergeancy in the
+service, is there, Walker?" he asked.
+
+His tone was no longer one of comradeship. In it there was the ring of
+authority. Walker was quick to understand.
+
+"None, sir!"
+
+"And you are familiar with our laws governing insubordination and
+conduct unbecoming an officer of the service?"
+
+Walker nodded.
+
+"Then, as a superior officer and in the name of his Majesty the King,
+I place Corporal Bucky Smith under arrest, and commission you, under
+oath of the service, to take him under your guard to Churchill, along
+with the letter which I shall give you for the officer in charge
+there. I shall appear against him a little later with the evidence
+that will outlaw him from the service. Put the handcuffs on him!"
+
+Stunned by the sudden change in the situation, Walker obeyed without a
+word. Billy turned to Conway, the driver.
+
+"Deane is too badly injured to travel," he explained, " Put up your
+tent for him and his wife close to the fire. You can take mine in
+exchange for it as you go back."
+
+He went to his kit and found a pencil and paper. Fifteen minutes later
+he gave Walker the letter in which he described to the commanding
+officer at Churchill certain things which he knew would hold Bucky a
+prisoner until he could personally appear against him. Meanwhile
+Conway had put up the tent and had assisted Deane into it. Isobel had
+accompanied him. Billy then had a five-minute confidential talk with
+Walker, and when the constable gave instructions for Conway to prepare
+the dogs for the return trip there was a determined hardness in his
+eyes as he looked at Bucky. In those five minutes he had heard the
+story of Rousseau, the young Frenchman down at Norway House, and of
+the wife whose faithlessness had killed him. Besides, he hated Bucky
+Smith, as all men hated him. Billy was confident that he could rely
+upon him.
+
+Not until dogs and sledge were ready did Bucky utter a word. The
+terrific beating he had received had stunned him for a few minutes;
+but now he jumped to his feet, not waiting for the command from
+Walker, and strode up close to Billy. There was a vengeful leer on his
+bloody face and his eyes blazed almost white, but his voice was so low
+that Conway and Walker could only hear the murmur of it. His words
+were meant for Billy alone.
+
+"For this I'm going to kill you, MacVeigh," he said; and in spite of
+Billy's contempt for the man there was a quality in the low voice that
+sent a curious shiver through him. "You can send me from the service,
+but you're going to die for doing it!"
+
+Billy made no reply, and Bucky did not wait for one. He set off at the
+head of the sledge, with Conway a step behind them. Billy followed
+with Walker until they reached the foot of the ridge. There they shook
+hands, and Billy stood watching them until they passed over the cap of
+the ridge.
+
+He returned to the camp slowly. Deane had emerged from the tent,
+supported by Isobel. They waited for him, and in Deane's face he saw
+the look that had filled it after he had struck down Bucky Smith. For
+a moment he dared not look at Isobel. She saw the change in him, and
+her cheeks flushed. Deane would have extended his hands, but she was
+holding them tightly in her own.
+
+"You'd better go into the tent and keep quiet," advised Billy. "I
+haven't had time yet to see if you're badly hurt."
+
+"It's not bad," Deane assured him. "I bumped into a rock sliding down
+the ridge, and it made me sick for a few minutes."
+
+Billy knew that Isobel's eyes were on him, and he could almost feel
+their questioning. He began to take wood from the sledge she had
+loaded and throw it on the fire. He wished that Scottie and she had
+remained in the tent for a little longer. His face burned and his
+blood seemed like fire when he caught a glimpse of the steel cuffs
+about Deane's wrists. Through the smoke he saw Isobel still clasping
+her husband. He could see one of her little hands gripping at the
+steel band, and suddenly he sprang across and faced them, no longer
+fearing to meet Isobel's eyes or Deane's. Now his face was aflame, and
+he half held out his arms to them as he spoke, as though he would
+clasp them both to him in this moment of sacrifice and self-abnegation
+and the dawning of new life.
+
+"You know-- you both know why I've done this!" he cried, "You heard
+what I said back there, Deane-- when you was in the box; an' all I
+said was true. She came to me out of that storm like an angel-- an'
+I'll think of her as an angel all my life. I don't know much about
+God-- not the God they have down there, where they take an eye for an
+eye an' a tooth for a tooth and kill because some one else has killed.
+But there's something up here in the big open places, something that
+makes you think and makes you want to do what's right and square; an'
+she's got all I know of God in that little Bible of mine-- the blue
+flower. I gave the blue flower to her, an' now an' forever she's my
+blue flower. I ain't ashamed to tell you, Deane, because you've heard
+it before, an' you know I'm not thinking it in a sinful way. It 'll
+help me if I can see her face an' hear her voice and know there's such
+love as yours after you're gone. For I'm going to let you go, Deane,
+old man. That's what I came for, to save you from the others an' give
+you back to her. I guess mebbe you'll know-- now-- how I feel--"
+
+His voice choked him. Isobel's glorious eyes were looking into his
+soul, and he looked straight back into them and saw all his reward
+there. He turned to Deane. His key clicked in the locks to the
+handcuffs, and as they fell into the snow the two men gripped hands,
+and in their strong faces was that rarest of all things-- love of man
+for man.
+
+"I'm glad you know," said Billy, softly. "It wouldn't be fair if you
+didn't, Scottie. I can think of her now, an' it won't be mean and low.
+And if you ever need help-- if you're down in South America or
+Africa-- anywhere-- I'll come if you send word. You'd better go to
+South America. That's a good place. I'll report to headquarters that
+you died-- from the fall. It's a lie, but blue flower would do it, and
+so will I. Sometimes, you know, the friend who lies is the only friend
+who's true-- and she'd do it-- a thousand times-- for you."
+
+"And for you," whispered Isobel.
+
+She was holding out her hands, her blue eyes streaming with tears of
+happiness, and for a moment Billy accepted one of them and held it in
+his own. He looked over her head as she spoke.
+
+"God will bless you for this-- some day," she said; and a sob broke in
+her voice. "He will bring you happiness-- happiness-- in what you have
+dreamed of. You will find a blue flower-- sweet and pure and loyal--
+and then you will know, even more fully, what life means to me with
+him."
+
+And then she broke down, sobbing like a child, and with her face
+buried in her hands turned into the tent.
+
+"Gawd!" whispered Billy, drawing a deep breath.
+
+He looked Deane in the eyes; and Deane smiled, a rare and beautiful
+smile.
+
+For a quarter of an hour they talked alone, and then Billy drew a
+wallet from his pocket.
+
+"You'll need money, Scottie," he said. "I don't want you to lose a
+minute in getting out of the country. Make for Vancouver. I've got
+three hundred dollars here. You've got to take it or I'll shoot you!"
+
+He thrust the money into Deane's hands as Isobel came out of the tent.
+Her eyes were red, but she was smiling; and she held something in her
+hand. She showed it to the two men. It was the blue flower Billy had
+given her. But now its petals were torn apart, and nine of them lay in
+the palm of her hand.
+
+"It can't go with one." She spoke softly and the smile died on her
+lips. "There are nine petals, three for each of us."
+
+She gave three to her husband and three to Billy, and for a moment the
+men stared at them as they lay in their rough and calloused palms.
+Then Billy drew out the bit of buckskin in which he had placed the
+strands of Isobel's hair and slipped the blue petals in with them.
+Deane had drawn a worn envelope from his pocket. Billy spoke low to
+Deane.
+
+"I want to be alone for a while-- until dinner-time. Will you go into
+the tent-- with her?"
+
+When they were gone Billy went to the spot where he had dropped his
+pack before crawling up on Deane. He picked it up and slipped it over
+his shoulders as he walked. He went swiftly back over his old trail,
+and this time it was with a heart leaden with a deep and terrible
+loneliness. When he reached the ridge he tried to whistle, but his
+lips seemed thick, and there was something in his throat that choked
+him. From the cap of the ridge he looked down. A thin mist of smoke
+was rising from out of the spruce. It blurred before his eyes, and a
+sobbing break came in his low cry of Isobel's name. Then he turned
+once more back into the loneliness and desolation of his old life.
+
+"I'm coming, Pelly," he laughed, in a strained, hard way. "I haven't
+given you exactly a square deal, old man, but I'll hustle and make up
+for lost time!"
+
+A wind was beginning to moan in the spruce tops again. He was glad of
+that. It promised storm. And a storm would cover up all trails.
+
+ VII
+
+ THE MADNESS OF PELLITER
+
+Away up at Fullerton Point amid the storm and crash of the arctic
+gloom Pelliter fought himself through day after day of fever, waiting
+for MacVeigh. At first he had been filled with hope. That first
+glimpse of the sun they had seen through the little window on the
+morning that Billy left for Fort Churchill had come just in time to
+keep reason from snapping in his head. For three days after that he
+looked through the window at the same hour and prayed moaningly for
+another glimpse of that paradise in the southern sky. But the storm
+through which Isobel had struggled across the Barren gathered over his
+head and behind him, day after day of it, rolling and twisting and
+moaning with the roar of the cracking fields of ice, bringing back
+once more the thick death-gloom of the arctic night that had almost
+driven him mad. He tried to think only of Billy, of his loyal
+comrade's race into the south, and of the precious letters he would
+bring back to him; and he kept track of the days by making pencil
+marks on the door that opened out upon the gray and purple desolation
+of the arctic sea.
+
+At last there came the day when he gave up hope. He believed that he
+was dying. He counted the marks on the door and found that there were
+sixteen. Just that many days ago Billy had set off with the dogs. If
+all had gone well he was a third of the way back, and within another
+week would be "home."
+
+Pelliter's thin, fever-flushed face relaxed into a wan smile as he
+counted the pencil marks again. Long before that week was ended he
+figured that he would be dead. The medicines-- and the letters-- would
+come too late, probably four or five days too late. Straight out from
+his last mark he drew a long line, and at the end of it added in a
+scrawling, almost unintelligible, hand: "Dear Billy, I guess this is
+going to be my last day." Then he staggered from the door to the
+window.
+
+Out there was what was killing him-- loneliness, a maddening
+desolation, a lifeless world that reached for hundreds of miles
+farther than his eyes could see. To the north and east there was
+nothing but ice, piled-up masses and grinning mountains of it, white
+at first, of a somber gray farther off, and then purple and almost
+black. There came to him now the low, never-ceasing thunder of the
+undercurrents fighting their way down from the Arctic Ocean, broken
+now and then by a growling roar as the giant forces sent a crack, like
+a great knife, through one of the frozen mountains. He had listened to
+those sounds for five months, and in those five months he had heard no
+other voice but his own and MacVeigh's and the babble of an Eskimo.
+Only once in four months had he seen the sun, and that was on the
+morning that MacVeigh went south. So he had gone half mad. Others had
+gone completely mad before him. Through the window his eyes rested on
+the five rough wooden crosses that marked their graves. In the service
+of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police they were called heroes. And in
+a short time he, Constable Pelliter, would be numbered among them.
+MacVeigh would send the whole story down to her, the true little girl
+a thousand miles south; and she would always remember him-- her hero--
+and his lonely grave at Point Fullerton, the northernmost point of the
+Law. But she would never see that grave. She could never come to put
+flowers on it, as she put flowers on the grave of his mother; she
+would never know the whole story, not a half of it-- his terrible
+longing for a sound of her voice, a touch of her hand, a glimpse of
+her sweet blue eyes before he died. They were to be married in August,
+when his service in the Royal Mounted ended. She would be waiting for
+him. And in August-- or July-- word would reach her that he had died.
+
+With a dry sob he turned from the window to the rough table that he
+had drawn close to his bunk, and for the thousandth time he held
+before his red and feverish eyes a photograph. It was a portrait of a
+girl, marvelously beautiful to Tommy Pelliter, with soft brown hair
+and eyes that seemed always to talk to him and tell him how much she
+loved him. And for the thousandth time he turned the picture over and
+read the words she had written on the back:
+
+  "My own dear boy, remember that I am always with you, always
+  thinking of you, always praying for you; and I know, dear, that you
+  will always do what you would do if I were at your side."
+
+"Good Lord!" groaned Pelliter. "I can't die! I can't! I've got to
+live-- to see her--"
+
+He dropped back on his bunk exhausted. The fires burned in his head
+again. He grew dizzy, and he talked to her, or thought he was talking,
+but it was only a babble of incoherent sound that made Kazan, the
+one-eyed old Eskimo dog, lift his shaggy head and sniff suspiciously.
+Kazan had listened to Pelliter's deliriums many times since MacVeigh
+had left them alone, and soon he dropped his muzzle between his
+forepaws and dozed again. A long time afterward he raised his head
+once more. Pelliter was quiet. But the dog sniffed, went to the door,
+whined softly, and nervously muzzled the sick man's thin hand. Then he
+settled back on his haunches, turned his nose straight up, and from
+his throat there came that wailing, mourning cry, long-drawn and
+terrible, with which Indian dogs lament before the tepees of masters
+who are newly dead. The sound aroused Pelliter. He sat up again, and
+he found that once more the fire and the pain had gone from his head.
+
+"Kazan, Kazan," he pleaded, weakly, "it isn't time-- yet!"
+
+Kazan had gone to the window that looked to the west, and stood with
+his forefeet on the sill. Pelliter shivered.
+
+"Wolves again," he said, "or mebbe a fox."
+
+He had grown into that habit of talking to himself, which is as common
+as human life itself in the far north, where one's own voice is often
+the one thing that breaks a killing monotony. He edged his way to the
+window as he spoke and looked out with Kazan. Westward there stretched
+the lifeless Barren illimitable and void, without rock or bush and
+overhung by a sky that always made Pelliter think of a terrible
+picture he had once seen of Dore's "Inferno." It was a low, thick sky,
+like purple and blue granite, always threatening to pitch itself down
+in terrific avalanches, and between the earth and this sky was the
+thin, smothered world which MacVeigh had once called God's insane
+asylum.
+
+Through the gloom Kazan's one eye and Pelliter's feverish vision could
+not see far, but at last the man made out an object toiling slowly
+toward the cabin. At first he thought it was a fox, and then a wolf,
+and then, as it loomed larger, a straying caribou. Kazan whined. The
+bristles along his spine rose stiff and menacing. Pelliter stared
+harder and harder, with his face pressed close against the cold glass
+of the window, and suddenly he gave a gasping cry of excitement. It
+was a man who was toiling toward the cabin! He was bent almost double,
+and he staggered in a zigzag fashion as he advanced. Pelliter made his
+way feebly to the door, unbarred it, and pushed it partly open.
+Overcome by weakness he fell back then on the edge of his bunk,
+
+It seemed an age before he heard steps. They were slow and stumbling,
+and an instant later a face appeared at the door. It was a terrible
+face, overgrown with beard, with wild and staring eyes; but it was a
+white man's face. Pelliter had expected an Eskimo, and he sprang to
+his feet with sudden strength as the stranger came in.
+
+"Something to eat, mate, for the love o' God give me something to
+eat!"
+
+The stranger fell in a heap on the floor and stared up at him with the
+ravenous entreaty of an animal. Pelliter's first move was to get
+whisky, and the other drank it in great gulps. Then he dragged himself
+to his feet, and Pelliter sank in a chair beside the table.
+
+"I'm sick," he said. "Sergeant MacVeigh has gone to Churchill, and I
+guess I'm in a bad way. You'll have to help yourself. There's meat--
+'n' bannock--"
+
+Whisky had revived the new-comer. He stared at Pelliter, and as he
+stared he grinned, ugly yellow teeth leering from between his matted
+beard. The look cleared Pelliter's brain. For some reason which he
+could not explain, his pistol hand fell to the place where he usually
+carried his holster. Then he remembered that his service revolver was
+under the pillow.
+
+"Fever," said the sailor; for Pelliter knew that he was a sailor.
+
+He took off his heavy coat and tossed it on the table. Then he
+followed Pelliter's instructions in quest of food, and for ten minutes
+ate ravenously. Not until he was through and seated opposite him at
+the table did Pelliter speak.
+
+"Who are you, and where in Heaven's name did you come from?" he asked.
+
+"Blake-- Jim Blake's my name, an' I come from what I call Starvation
+Igloo Inlet, thirty miles up the coast. Five months ago I was left a
+hundred miles farther up to take care of a cache for the whaler John
+B. Sidney, and the cache was swept away by an overflow of ice. Then we
+struck south, hunting and starving, me 'n' the woman--"
+
+"The woman!" cried Pelliter.
+
+"Eskimo squaw," said Blake, producing a black pipe. "The cap'n bought
+her to keep me company-- paid four sacks of flour an' a knife to her
+husband up at Wagner Inlet. Got any tobacco?"
+
+Pelliter rose to get the tobacco. He was surprised to find that he was
+steadier on his feet and that Blake's words were clearing his brain.
+That had been his and MacVeigh's great fight-- the fight to put an end
+to the white man's immoral trade in Eskimo women and girls, and Blake
+had already confessed himself a criminal. Promise of action, quick
+action, momentarily overcame his sickness. He went back with the
+tobacco, and sat down.
+
+"Where's the woman?" be asked.
+
+"Back in the igloo," said Blake, filling his pipe. "We killed a walrus
+up there and built an icehouse. The meat's gone. She's probably gone
+by this time." He laughed coarsely across at Pelliter as he lighted
+his pipe. "It seems good to get into a white man's shack again."
+
+"She's not dead?" insisted Pelliter.
+
+"Will be-- shortly," replied Blake. "She was so weak she couldn't walk
+when I left. But them Eskimo animals die hard, 'specially the women."
+
+"Of course you're going back for her?"
+
+The other stared for a moment into Pelliter's flushed face, and then
+laughed as though he had just heard a good joke.
+
+"Not on your life, my boy. I wouldn't hike that thirty miles again--
+an' thirty back-- for all the Eskimo women up at Wagner."
+
+The red in Pelliter's eyes grew redder as he leaned over the table.
+
+"See here," he said, "you're going back-- now! Do you understand?
+You're going back!"
+
+Suddenly he stopped. He stared at Blake's coat, and with a swiftness
+that took the other by surprise he reached across and picked something
+from it. A startled cry broke from his lips. Between his fingers he
+held a single filament of hair. It was nearly a foot long, and it was
+not an Eskimo woman's hair. It shone a dull gold in the gray light
+that came through the window. He raised his eyes, terrible in their
+accusation of the man opposite him.
+
+"You lie!" he said. "She's not an Eskimo!"
+
+Blake had half risen, his great hands clutching the ends of the table,
+his brutal face thrust forward, his whole body in an attitude that
+sent Pelliter back out of his reach. He was not an instant too soon.
+With an oath Blake sent the table crashing aside and sprang upon the
+sick man.
+
+"I'll kill you!" he cried. "I'll kill you, an' put you where I've put
+her, 'n' when your pard comes back I'll--"
+
+His hands caught Pelliter by the throat, but not before there had come
+from between the sick man's lips a cry of "Kazan! Kazan!"
+
+With a wolfish snarl the old one-eyed sledge-dog sprang upon Blake,
+and the three fell with a crash upon Pelliter's bunk. For an instant
+Kazan's attack drew one of Blake's powerful hands from Pelliter's
+throat, and as he turned to strike off the dog Pelliter's hand groped
+out under his flattened pillow. Blake's murderous face was still
+turned when he drew out his heavy service revolver; and as Blake cut
+at Kazan with a long sheath-knife which he had drawn from his belt
+Pelliter fired. Blake's grip relaxed. Without a groan he slipped to
+the floor, and Pelliter staggered back to his feet. Kazan's teeth were
+buried in Blake's leg.
+
+"There, there, boy," said Pelliter, pulling him away. "That was a
+close one!"
+
+He sat down and looked at Blake. He knew that the man was dead. Kazan
+was sniffing about the sailor's head with stiffened spines. And then a
+ray of light flashed for an instant through the window. It was the
+sun-- the second time that Pelliter had seen it in four months. A cry
+of joy welled up from his heart. But it was stopped midway. On the
+floor close beside Blake something glittered in the fiery ray, and
+Pelliter was upon his knees in an instant. It was the short golden
+hair he had snatched from the dead man's coat, and partly covering it
+was the picture of his sweetheart which had fallen when the table was
+overturned. With the photograph in one hand and that single thread of
+woman's hair between the fingers of his other Pelliter rose slowly to
+his feet and faced the window. The sun was gone. But its coming had
+put a new life into him. He turned joyously to Kazan.
+
+"That means something, boy," he said, in a low, awed voice, "the sun,
+the picture, and this! She sent it, do you hear, boy? She sent it! I
+can almost hear her voice, an' she's telling me to go. `Tommy,' she's
+saying, `you wouldn't be a man if you didn't go, even though you know
+you're going to die on the way. You can take her something to eat,'
+she's saying, boy, `an' you can just as well die in an igloo as here.
+You can leave word for Billy, an' you can take her grub enough to last
+until he comes, an' then he'll bring her down here, an' you'll be
+buried out there with the others just the same.' That's what she's
+saying, Kazan, so we're going!" He looked about him a little wildly.
+"Straight up the coast," he mumbled. "Thirty miles. We might make it."
+
+He began filling a pack with food. Outside the door there was a small
+sledge, and after he had bundled himself in his traveling-clothes he
+dragged the pack to the sledge, and behind the pack tied on a bundle
+of firewood, a lantern, blankets, and oil. After he had done this he
+wrote a few lines to MacVeigh and pinned the paper to the door. Then
+he hitched old Kazan to the sledge and started off, leaving the dead
+man where he had fallen.
+
+"It's what she'd have us do," he said again to Kazan. "She sure would
+have us do this, Kazan. God bless her dear little heart!"
+
+ VIII
+
+ LITTLE MYSTERY
+
+Pelliter hung close to the ice-bound coast. He traveled slowly,
+leading the way for Kazan, who strained every muscle in his aged body
+to drag the sledge. For a time the excitement of what had occurred
+gave Pelliter a strength which soon began to ebb. But his old weakness
+did not entirely return. He found that his worst trouble at first was
+in his eyes. Weeks of fever had enfeebled his vision until the world
+about him looked new and strange. He could see only a few hundred
+paces ahead, and beyond this little circle everything turned gray and
+black. Singularly enough, it struck him that there was some humor as
+well as tragedy in the situation, that there was something to laugh at
+in the fact that Kazan had but one eye, and that he was nearly blind.
+He chuckled to himself and spoke aloud to the dog.
+
+"Makes me think of the games o' hide-'n'-seek we used to play when we
+were kids, boy," he said. "She used to tie her handkerchief over my
+eyes, 'n' then I'd follow her all through the old orchard, and when I
+caught her it was a part of the game she'd have to let me kiss her.
+Once I bumped into an apple tree--"
+
+The toe of his snow-shoe caught in an ice-hummock and sent him face
+downward into the snow. He picked himself up and went on.
+
+"We played that game till we was grown-ups, old man," he went on.
+"Last time we played it she was seventeen. Had her hair in a big brown
+braid, an' it all came undone so that when I caught her an' took off
+the handkerchief I could just see her eyes an' her mouth laughing at
+me, and it was that time I hugged her up closer than ever and told her
+I was going out to make a home for us. Then I came up here."
+
+He stopped and rubbed his eyes; and for an hour after that, as he
+plodded onward, he mumbled things which neither Kazan nor any other
+living thing could have understood. But whatever delirium found its
+way into his voice, the fighting spark in his brain remained sane. The
+igloo and the starving woman whom Blake had abandoned formed the one
+living picture which he did not for a moment forget. He must find the
+igloo, and the igloo was close to the sea. He could not miss it-- if
+he lived long enough to travel thirty miles. It did not occur to him
+that Blake might have lied-- that the igloo was farther than he had
+said, or perhaps much nearer.
+
+It was two o'clock when he stopped to make tea. He figured that he had
+traveled at least eighteen miles; the fact was he had gone but a
+little over half that distance. He was not hungry, and ate nothing,
+but he fed Kazan heartily of meat. The hot tea, strengthened with a
+little whisky, revived him for the time more than food would have
+done.
+
+"Twelve miles more at the most," he said to Kazan. "We'll make it.
+Thank God, we'll make it!"
+
+If his eyes had been better he would have seen and recognized the huge
+snow-covered rock called the Blind Eskimo, which was just nine miles
+from the cabin. As it was, he went on, filled with hope. There were
+sharper pains in his head now, and his legs dragged wearily. Day ended
+at a little after two, but at this season there was not much change in
+light and darkness, and Pelliter scarcely noted the difference. The
+time came when the picture of the igloo and the dying woman came and
+went fitfully in his brain. There were dark spaces. The fighting spark
+was slowly giving way, and at last Pelliter dropped upon the sledge.
+
+"Go on, Kazan!" he cried, weakly. "Mush it-- go on!"
+
+Kazan tugged, with gaping jaws; and Pelliter's head dropped upon the
+food-filled pack.
+
+What Kazan heard was a groan. He stopped and looked back, whining
+softly. For a time he sat on his haunches, sniffing a strange thing
+which had come to him in the air. Then he went on, straining a little
+faster at the sledge and still whining. If Pelliter had been conscious
+he would have urged him straight ahead. But old Kazan turned away from
+the sea. Twice in the next ten minutes he stopped and sniffed the air,
+and each time he changed his course a little. Half an hour later he
+came to a white mound that rose up out of the level waste of snow, and
+then he settled himself back on his haunches, lifted his shaggy head
+to the dark night sky, and for the second time that day he sent forth
+the weird, wailing, mourning death-howl.
+
+It aroused Pelliter. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, staggered to his
+feet, and saw the mound a dozen paces away. Rest had cleared his brain
+again. He knew that it was an igloo. He could make out the door, and
+he caught up his lantern and stumbled toward it. He wasted half a
+dozen matches before he could make a light. Then he crawled in, with
+Kazan still in his traces close at his heels.
+
+There was a musty, uncomfortable odor in the snow-house. And there was
+no sound, no movement. The lantern lighted up the small interior, and
+on the floor Pelliter made out a heap of blankets and a bearskin.
+There was no life, and instinctively he turned his eyes down to Kazan.
+The dog's head was stretched out toward the blankets, his ears were
+alert, his eyes burned fiercely, and a low, whining growl rumbled in
+his throat.
+
+He looked at the blankets again, moved slowly toward them. He pulled
+back the bearskin and found what Blake had told him he would find-- a
+woman. For a moment he stared, and then a low cry broke from his lips
+as he fell upon his knees. Blake had not lied, for it was an Eskimo
+woman. She was dead. She had not died of starvation. Blake had killed
+her!
+
+He rose to his feet again and looked about him. After all, did that
+golden hair, that white woman's hair, mean nothing? What was that? He
+sprang back toward Kazan, his weakened nerves shattered by a sound and
+a movement from the farthest and darkest part of the igloo. Kazan
+tugged at his traces, panting and whining, held back by the sledge
+wedged in the door. The sound came again, a human, wailing, sobbing
+cry.
+
+With his lantern in his hand Pelliter darted across to it. There was
+another roll of blankets on the floor, and as he looked he saw the
+bundle move. It took him but an instant to drop beside it, as he had
+dropped beside the other, and as he drew back the damp and partly
+frozen covering his heart leaped up and choked him. The lantern light
+fell full upon the thin, pale face and golden head of a little child.
+A pair of big frightened eyes were staring up at him; and as he knelt
+there, powerless to move or speak in the face of this miracle, the
+eyes closed again, and there came again the wailing, hungry note which
+Kazan had first heard as they approached the igloo. Pelliter flung
+back the blanket and caught the child in his arms.
+
+"It's a girl-- a little girl!" he almost shouted to Kazan. "Quick,
+boy-- go back-- get out!"
+
+He laid the child upon the other blankets, and then thrust back Kazan.
+He seemed suddenly possessed of the strength of two men as he tore at
+his own blankets and dumped the contents of the pack out upon the
+snow. "She sent us, boy," he cried, his breath coming in sobbing
+gasps. "Where's the milk 'n' the stove--"
+
+In ten seconds more he was back in the igloo with a can of condensed
+cream, a pan, and the alcohol lamp. His fingers trembled so that he
+had difficulty in lighting the wick, and as he cut open the can with
+his knife he saw the child's eyes flutter wide for an instant and then
+close again.
+
+"Just a minute, a half minute," he pleaded, pouring the cream into the
+pan. "Hungry, eh, little one? Hungry? Starving?" He held the pan
+close down over the blue flame and gazed terrified at the white little
+face near him. Its thinness and quiet frightened him. He thrust his
+finger into the cream and found it warm.
+
+"A cup, Kazan! Why didn't I bring a cup?" He darted out again and
+returned with a tin basin. In another moment the child was in his
+arms, and he forced the first few drops of cream between her lips. Her
+eyes shot open. Life seemed to spring into her little body; and she
+drank with a loud noise, one of her tiny hands gripping him by the
+wrist. The touch, the sound, the feel of life against him thrilled
+Pelliter. He gave her half of what the basin contained, and then
+wrapped her up warmly in his thick service blanket, so that all of her
+was hidden but her face and her tangled golden hair. He held her for a
+moment close to the lantern. She was looking at him now, wide-eyed and
+wondering, but not frightened.
+
+"God bless your little soul!" he exclaimed, his amazement growing.
+"Who are you, 'n' where'd you come from? You ain't more'n three years
+old, if you're an hour. Where's your mama 'n' your papa?" He placed
+her back on the blankets. "Now, a fire, Kazan!" he said.
+
+He held the lantern above his head and found the narrow vent through
+the snow-and-ice wall which Blake had made for the escape of smoke.
+Then he went outside for the fuel, freeing Kazan on the way. In a few
+minutes more a small bright blaze of almost smokeless larchwood was
+lighting up and warming the interior of the igloo. To his surprise,
+Pelliter found the child asleep when he went to her again. He moved
+her gently and carried the dead body of the little Eskimo woman
+through the opening and half a hundred paces from the igloo. Not until
+then did he stop to marvel at the strength which had returned to him.
+He stretched his arms above his head and breathed deeply of the cold
+air. It seemed as though something had loosened inside of him, that a
+crushing weight had lifted itself from his eyes. Kazan had followed
+him, and he stared down at the dog.
+
+"It's gone, Kazan," he cried, in a low, half-credulous voice. "I don't
+feel-- sick-- any more. It's her--"
+
+He turned back to the igloo. The lantern and the fire made a cheerful
+glow inside, and it was growing warm. He threw off his heavy coat,
+drew the bearskin in front of the fire, and sat down with the child in
+his arms. She still slept. Like a starving man Pelliter stared down
+upon the little thin face. Gently his rough fingers stroked back the
+golden curls. He smiled. A light came into his eyes. His head bent
+lower and lower, slowly and a little fearfully. At last his lips
+touched the child's cheek. And then his own rough grizzled face,
+toughened by wind and storm and intense cold, nestled against the
+little face of this new and mysterious life he had found at the top of
+the world.
+
+Kazan listened for a time, squatted on his haunches. Then he curled
+himself near the fire and slept. For a long time Pelliter sat rocking
+gently back and forth, thrilled by a happiness that was growing deeper
+and stronger in him each instant. He could feel the tiny beat of the
+little one's heart against his breast; he could feel her breath
+against his cheek; one of her little hands had gripped him by his
+thumb.
+
+A hundred questions ran through his mind now. Who was this little
+abandoned mite? Who were her father and her mother, and where were
+they? How had she come to be with the Eskimo woman and Blake? Blake
+was not her father; the Eskimo woman was not her mother. What tragedy
+had placed her here? Somehow he was conscious of a sensation of joy as
+he reasoned that he would never be able to answer these questions. She
+belonged to him. He had found her. No one would ever come to
+dispossess him. Without awakening her, he thrust a hand into his
+breast pocket and drew out the photograph of the sweet-faced girl who
+was going to be his wife. It did not occur to him now that he might
+die. The old fear and the old sickness were gone. He knew that he was
+going to live.
+
+"You," he breathed, softly, "you did it, and I know you'll be glad
+when I bring her down to you." And then to the little sleeping girl:
+"And if you ain't got a name I guess I'll have to call you Mystery--
+how is that?-- my Little Mystery."
+
+When he looked from the picture again Little Mystery's eyes were open
+and gazing up at him. He dropped the picture and made a lunge for the
+pan of cream warming before the fire. The child drank as hungrily as
+before, with Pelliter babbling incoherent nonsense into her baby ears.
+When she had done he picked up the photograph, with a sudden and
+foolish inspiration that she might understand.
+
+"Looky," he cried. "Pretty--"
+
+To his astonishment and joy, Little Mystery put out a hand and placed
+the tip of her tiny forefinger on the girl's face. Then she looked up
+into Pelliter's eyes.
+
+"Mama," she lisped.
+
+Pelliter tried to speak, but something rose like a knot in his throat
+and choked him. A fire leaped all at once through his body; the joy of
+that one word blinded him with hot tears. When he spoke at last his
+voice was broken, like a sobbing woman's.
+
+"That's it." he said. "You're right, little one. She's your mama!"
+
+ IX
+
+ THE SECRET OF THE DEAD
+
+On the eighth day after Pelliter found the Eskimo igloo Billy MacVeigh
+came up through a gray dawn with his footsore dogs, his letters, and
+his medicines. He had traveled all of the preceding night, and his
+feet dragged heavily. It was with a feeling of fear that he at last
+saw the black cliffs of Fullerton rising above the ice. He dreaded the
+first opening of the cabin door. What would he find? During the past
+forty-eight hours he had figured on Pelliter's chances, and they were
+two to one that he would find his partner dead in his bunk.
+
+And if not, if Pelliter still lived, what a tale there would be to
+tell the sick man! For he knew that he must tell some one, and
+Pelliter would keep his secret. And he would understand. Day after
+day, as he had hurried straight into the north, Billy's loneliness and
+heartbreak weighed more and more heavily upon him. He tried to force
+Isobel out of his thoughts, but it was impossible. A thousand visions
+of her rose before him, and each mile that he drew himself farther
+away from her seemed only to add to the nearness of her spirit at his
+side and to the strange pain in his heart that rose now and then to
+his lips in sobbing breaths that he fought with himself to stifle. And
+yet, with his own grief and hopelessness, he experienced more and more
+each day a compensating joy. It was the joy of knowing that he had
+given back life and hope to Isobel and her husband. Each day he
+figured their progress along with his own. From the Eskimo village he
+had sent a messenger back to Churchill with a long report for the
+officer in command there, and in that report he had lied. He reported
+Scottie Deane as having died of the injury he had received in the
+snow-slide. Not for a moment had he regretted the falsehood. He also
+promised to report at Churchill to testify against Bucky Smith as soon
+as he reached Pelliter and put him on his feet.
+
+On this last day, as he saw the towering cliffs of Fullerton ahead of
+him, he wondered how much he would tell to Pelliter if he found him
+alive. Mentally he rehearsed the amazing story of what came to him
+that night on the Barren, of the dogs coming across the snow, the
+great, dark, frightened eyes of the woman, and the long, narrow box on
+the sledge. He would tell pelliter all that. He would tell how he had
+made a camp for her that night, and how, later, he had told her that
+he loved her and had begged one kiss. And then the disclosures of the
+morning, the deserted tent, the empty box, the little note from
+Isobel, and the revelation that the box had contained the living body
+of the man for whom he and Pelliter had patrolled this desolate
+country for two thousand miles. But would he tell the truth of what
+had happened after that?
+
+He quickened his tired pace as the dogs climbed up from the ice of the
+Bay to the sloping ridge, and stared hard ahead of him. The dogs
+tugged harder as the smell of home entered their nostrils. At last the
+roof of the cabin came in view. MacVeigh's bloodshot eyes were like an
+animal's in their eagerness.
+
+"Pelly, old boy," he gasped to himself. "Pelly--"
+
+He stared harder. And then he spoke a low word to the dogs and
+stopped. He wiped his face. A deep breath of relief fell from his
+lips.
+
+Straight up from the chimney of the cabin there rose a thick column of
+smoke!
+
+He came up to the door of the cabin quietly, wondering why Pelliter
+did not see him or hear the three or four sharp yelps the dogs had
+given. He twisted off his snow-shoes, chuckling as he thought of the
+surprise he would give his mate. His hand was on the door latch when
+he stopped. The smile left his lips. Startled wonderment filled his
+face as he bent close to the door and listened, and for a moment his
+heart throbbed with a terrible fear. He had returned too late--
+perhaps a day-- two days. Pelliter had gone mad! He could hear him
+raving inside, filling the cabin with a laughter that sent a chill of
+horror through his veins. Mad! A sob broke from his lips, and he
+turned his face up to the gray sky. And then the laughter turned to
+song. It was the sweet love song which Pelliter had told him that the
+girl down south used to sing to him when they were alone out under the
+stars. Suddenly it broke off short, and in its place he heard another
+sound. With a cry he opened the door and burst in.
+
+"My God!" he cried. "Pelly-- Pelly--"
+
+Pelliter was on his knees in the middle of the floor. But it was not
+the look of wonderment and joy in his face that Billy saw first. He
+stared at the little golden-haired creature on the floor in front of
+him. He had traveled hard, almost day and night, and for an instant it
+flashed upon him that what he saw was not real. Before he could move
+or speak again Pelliter was on his feet, wringing his hands and almost
+crying in his gladness. There was no sign of fever or madness in his
+face now. Like one in a dream Billy heard what he said.
+
+"God bless you, Billy! I'm glad you've come!" he cried. "We've been
+waiting 'n' watching, and not more'n a minute ago we were at the
+window looking along the edge of the Bay through the binoculars. You
+must have been under the ridge. My God! A little while ago I thought I
+was dying-- I thought I was alone in the world-- alone-- alone. But
+look-- look, Billy, I've got a fam'ly!"
+
+Little Mystery had climbed to her feet. She was looking at Billy
+wonderingly, her golden curls tousled about her pretty face, and
+gripping two or three of Pelliter's old letters in her tiny hand. And
+then she smiled at Billy and held out the letters to him. In an
+instant he had dropped Pelliter's hands and caught her up in his arms.
+
+"I've got letters for you in my pocket, Pelly," he gasped. "But--
+first-- you've got to tell me who she is and where you got her--"
+
+Briefly Pelliter told of Blake's visit, the fight, and of the finding
+of Little Mystery.
+
+"I'd have died if it hadn't been for her, Billy," he finished. "She
+brought me back to life. But I don't know who she is or where she came
+from. There wasn't anything in his pockets or in the igloo to tell. I
+buried him out there-- shallow-- so you could take a look when you
+came back."
+
+He snatched like a starving man for food at the letters MacVeigh
+pulled from his pocket. While he read Billy sat down with Little
+Mystery on his knees. She laughed and put her warm little hands up to
+his rough face. Her eyes were blue, like Isobel's; and suddenly he
+crushed his face close down against her soft curls and held her so
+close to him that for a moment she was frightened. A little later
+Pelliter looked up. His eyes shone, his thin face was radiant with
+joy.
+
+"God bless the sweetest little girl in the world, Billy!" he
+whispered, huskily. "She says she's lonely for me. She tells me to
+hurry-- hurry down there to her. She says that if I don't come soon
+she'll come up to me! Read 'em, Billy!"
+
+He looked in astonishment at the change which he saw in MacVeigh's
+face. Billy accepted the letters mechanically and placed them on the
+edge of the bunk near which he was sitting.
+
+"I'll read them-- after a while," he said, slowly.
+
+Little Mystery clambered from his knee and ran to Pelliter. Billy was
+staring straight into the other's face.
+
+"You're sure you've told me everything, Pelly? There wasn't anything
+in his pockets? You searched well?"
+
+"Yes. There was nothing."
+
+"But-- you were sick--"
+
+"That's why I buried him shallow," interrupted Pelliter. "He's close
+to the last cross, just under the ice and snow. I wanted you to look--
+for yourself."
+
+Billy rose to his feet. He took Little Mystery in his arms again and
+looked closely in her face. There was a strange look in his eyes. She
+laughed at him, but he did not seem to notice it. And then he held her
+out to Pelliter.
+
+"Pelly, did you ever-- ever notice eyes-- very closely?" he asked.
+"Blue eyes?"
+
+Pelliter stared at him amazed.
+
+"My Jeanne has blue eyes--"
+
+"And have they little brown dots in them like a wood violet?"
+
+"No-o-o--"
+
+"They're blue, just blue, ain't they?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And I suppose most all blue eyes are just blue, without the little
+brown spots. Wouldn't you think so?"
+
+"What in Heaven's name are you driving at?" demanded Pelliter.
+
+"I just wanted you to notice that her eyes have little brown spots in
+them," replied Billy. "I've only seen one other pair of eyes-- just
+like hers." He turned toward the door. "I'm going out to care for the
+dogs and dig up Blake," he added. "I can't rest until I've seen him."
+
+Pelliter placed Little Mystery on her feet.
+
+"I'll see to the dogs," he said. "But I don't want to look at Blake
+again."
+
+The two men went out, and while Pelliter led the dogs to a lean-to
+behind the cabin Billy began to work with an ax and spade at the spot
+his comrade had pointed out to him. Ten minutes later he came to
+Blake. An excitement which he had tried to hide from Pelliter overcame
+his sense of horror as he dragged out the stiff and frozen corpse of
+the man. It was a terrible picture that the dead man made, with his
+coarse bearded face turned up to the sky and his teeth still snarling
+as they had snarled on the day he died. Billy knew most men who had
+come into the north above Churchill, but he had never looked upon
+Blake before. It was probable that the dead man had told a part of the
+truth, and that he was a sailor left on the upper coast by some
+whaler. He shivered as he began going through his pockets. Each moment
+added to his disappointment. He found a few things-- a knife, two
+keys, several coins, a fire-flint, and other articles-- but there was
+no letter or writing of any kind, and that was what he had hoped to
+find. There was nothing that might solve the mystery of the miracle
+that had descended upon them. He rolled the dead man into the grave,
+covered him over, and went into the cabin.
+
+Pelliter was in his usual place-- on his hands and knees, with Little
+Mystery astride his back. He paused in a mad race across the cabin
+floor and looked up with inquiring eyes. The little girl held up her
+arms, and MacVeigh tossed her half-way to the ceiling and then hugged
+her golden head close up to his chilled face. Pelliter jumped to his
+feet; his face grew serious as Billy looked at him over the child's
+tousled curls.
+
+"I found nothing-- absolutely nothing of any account," he said.
+
+He placed Little Mystery on one of the bunks and faced the other with
+a puzzled look in his eyes.
+
+"I wish you hadn't been in a fever on that day of the fight, Pelly,"
+he said. "He must have said something-- something that would give us a
+clue."
+
+"Mebbe he did, Billy," replied Pelliter, looking with a shiver at the
+few things MacVeigh had placed on the cabin table. "But there's no use
+worrying any more about it. It ain't in reason that she's got any
+people up here, six hundred miles from the shack of a white man that
+'d own a little beauty like her. She's mine. I found her. She's mine
+to keep."
+
+He sat down at the table, and MacVeigh sat down opposite him, smiling
+sympathetically into Pelliter's eyes.
+
+"I know you want her-- want her bad, Pelly," he said. "And I know the
+girl would love her. But she's got people-- somewhere, and it's our
+duty to find 'em. She didn't drop out of a balloon, Pelly. Do you
+suppose-- the dead man-- might be her father?"
+
+It was the first time he had asked this question, and he noted the
+other's sudden shudder of revulsion.
+
+"I've thought of that. But it can't be. He was a beast, and she--
+she's a little angel. Billy, her mother must have been beautiful. And
+that's what made me guess-- fear--"
+
+Pelliter wiped his face uneasily, and the two young men stared into
+each other's eyes. MacVeigh leaned forward, waiting.
+
+"I figured it all out last night, lying awake there in my bunk,"
+continued Pelliter, "and as the second best friend I have on earth I
+want to ask you not to go any farther, Billy. She's mine. My Jeanne,
+down there, will love her like a real mother, and we'll bring her up
+right. But if you go on, Billy, you'll find something unpleasant-- I--
+I-- swear you will!"
+
+"You know--"
+
+"I've guessed," interrupted the other. "Billy, sometimes a beast-- a
+man beast-- holds an attraction for a woman, and Blake was that sort
+of a beast. You remember-- two years ago-- a sailor ran away with the
+wife of a whaler's captain away up at Narwhale Inlet. Well--"
+
+Again the two men stared silently at each other. MacVeigh turned
+slowly toward the child. She had fallen asleep, and he could see the
+dull shimmer of her golden curls as they lay scattered over Pelliter's
+pillow.
+
+"Poor little devil!" he exclaimed, softly.
+
+"I believe that woman was Little Mystery's mother," Pelliter went on.
+"She couldn't bear to leave the little kid when she went with Blake,
+so she took her along. Some women do that. And after a time she died.
+Then Blake took up with an Eskimo woman. You know what happened after
+that. We don't want Little Mystery to know all this when she grows up.
+It's better not. She's too little to remember, ain't she? She won't
+ever know."
+
+"I remember the ship," said Billy, not taking his eyes off Little
+Mystery. "She was the Silver Seal. Her captain's name was Thompson."
+
+He did not look at Pelliter, but he could feel the quick, tense
+stiffening of the other's body. There was a moment's silence. Then
+Pelliter spoke in a low, unnatural voice.
+
+"Billy, you ain't going to hunt him up, are you? That wouldn't be fair
+to me or to the kid. My Jeanne 'll love her, an' mebbe-- mebbe some
+day your kid 'll come along an' marry her--"
+
+MacVeigh rose to his feet. Pelliter did not see the sudden look of
+grief that shot into his face.
+
+"What do you say, Billy?"
+
+"Think it over, Pelly," came back Billy's voice, huskily. "Think it
+over. I don't want to hurt you, and I know you think a lot of her,
+but-- think it over. You wouldn't rob her father, would you? An' she's
+all he's got left of the woman. Think it over, Pelly, good 'n' hard.
+I'm going to bed an' sleep a week!"
+
+ X
+
+ IN DEFIANCE OF THE LAW
+
+Billy slept all that day and the night that followed, and Pelliter did
+not awaken him. He aroused himself from his long sleep of exhaustion
+an hour or two before dawn of the following morning, and for the first
+time he had the opportunity of going over with himself all the things
+that had happened since his return to Fullerton Point. His first
+thought was Pelliter and Little Mystery. He could hear his comrade's
+deep breathing in the bunk opposite him, and again he wondered if
+Pelliter had told him everything. Was it possible that Blake had said
+nothing to reveal Little Mystery's identity, and that the igloo and
+the dead Eskimo woman had not given up the secret? It seemed
+inconceivable that there would not be something in the igloo that
+would help to clear up the mystery. And yet, after all, he had faith
+in Pelliter. He knew that he would keep nothing from him even though
+it meant possession of the child. And then his mind leaped to Isobel
+Deane. Her eyes were blue, and they had in them those same little
+spots of brown he had found in Little Mystery's. They were unusual
+eyes, and he had noticed the brown in them because it had added to
+their loveliness and had made him think of the violets he had told
+Pelliter about. Was it possible, he asked himself, that there could be
+some association between Isobel and Little Mystery? He confessed that
+it was scarcely conceivable, and yet it was impossible for him to get
+the thought out of his mind.
+
+Before Pelliter awoke he had determined upon his own course of action.
+He would say nothing of what had happened to himself on the Barren, at
+least not for a time. He would not tell of his meeting with Isobel and
+her husband or of what had followed. Until he was absolutely certain
+that Pelliter was keeping nothing from him he would not confide the
+secret of his own treachery to him. For he had been a traitor-- to the
+Law. He realized that. He could tell the story, with its fictitious
+ending, before they set out for Churchill, where he would give
+evidence against Bucky Smith. Meanwhile he would watch Pelliter, and
+wait for him to reveal whatever he might have hidden from him. He knew
+that if Pelliter was concealing something he was inspired by his
+almost insane worship of the little girl he had found who had saved
+him from madness and death. He smiled in the darkness as he thought
+that if Pelliter were working to achieve his own end-- possession of
+Little Mystery-- he was inspired by emotions no more selfish than his
+own in giving back life to Isobel Deane and her husband. On that score
+they were even.
+
+He was up and had breakfast started before Pelliter awoke. Little
+Mystery was still sleeping, and the two men moved about softly in
+their moccasined feet. On this morning the sun shone brilliantly over
+the southern ice-fields, and Pelliter aroused Little Mystery so that
+she might see it before it disappeared. But to-day it did not drop
+below the gray murkiness of the snow-horizon for nearly an hour. After
+breakfast Pelliter read his letters again, and then Billy read them.
+In one of the letters the girl had put a tress of sunny hair, and
+Pelliter kissed it shamelessly before his comrade.
+
+"She says she's making the dress she's going to wear when we're
+married, and that if I don't come home before it's out of style she'll
+never marry me at all," he cried, joyously. "Look there, on that page
+she's told me all about it. You're-- you're goin' to be there, ain't
+you, Billy?"
+
+"If I can make it, Pelly."
+
+"If you can make it! I thought you was going out of the Service when I
+did."
+
+"I've sort of changed my mind."
+
+"And you're going to stick?"
+
+"Mebbe for another three years."
+
+Life in the cabin was different after this. Pelliter and Little
+Mystery were happy, and Billy fought with himself every hour to keep
+down his own gloom and despair. The sun helped him. It rose earlier
+each day and remained longer in the sky, and soon the warmth of it
+began to soften the snow underfoot. The vast fields of ice began to
+give evidence of the approach of spring, and the air was more and more
+filled with the thunderous echoes of the "break up." Great floes broke
+from the shore-runs, and the sea began to open. Down from the north
+the powerful arctic currents began to move their grinding, roaring
+avalanches. But it was a full month before Billy was sure that
+Pelliter was strong enough to begin the long trip south. Even then he
+waited for another week.
+
+Late one afternoon he went out alone and stood on the cliff watching
+the thunderous movement of arctic ice out in the Roes Welcome.
+Standing motionless fifty paces from the little storm-beaten cabin
+that represented Law at this loneliest outpost on the American
+continent, he looked like a carven thing of dun-gray rock, with a
+dun-gray world over his head and on all sides of him, broken only in
+its terrific monotony of deathlike sameness by the darker gloom of the
+sky and the whiter and ghostlier gloom that hung over the ice-fields.
+The wind was still bitter, and his vision was shut in by a near
+horizon which Billy had often thought of as the rim of hell. On this
+afternoon his heart was as leaden as the day. Under his feet the
+frozen earth shivered with the rumbling reverberations of the crashing
+and breaking mountains of ice. His ears were filled with a dull and
+steady roar, like the echoes of distant thunder, broken now and then--
+when an ice-mountain split asunder-- with a report like that of a
+thirteen-inch gun. There were curious wailings, strange screeching
+sounds, and heartbreaking moanings in the air. Two days before
+MacVeigh had heard the roar of the ice ten miles inland, where he had
+gone for caribou.
+
+But he scarcely heard that roar now. He was looking toward the warring
+fields of ice, but he did not see them. It was not the dead gloom and
+the gray monotony that weighted his heart, but the sounds that he
+heard now and then in the cabin-- the laughing of Little Mystery and
+of Pelliter. A few days more and he would lose them. And after that
+what would be left for him? A cry broke from his lips, and he gripped
+his hands in despair. He would be alone. There was no one waiting for
+him down in that world to which Pelliter was going, no girl to meet
+him, no father, no mother-- nothing. He laughed in his pain as he
+faced the cold wind from the north. The sting of that wind was like
+the mocking ghost of his own past life. For all his life he had known
+only the stings of pain and of loneliness. And then, suddenly, there
+came Pelliter's words to him again-- "Mebbe some day you'll have a
+kid." A flood of warmth swept through his veins, and in the moment of
+forgetfulness and hope which came with it he turned his eyes into the
+south and west and saw the sweet face and upturned lips of Isobel
+Deane.
+
+He pulled himself together with a low laugh and faced the breaking
+seas of ice and the north. The gloom of night had drawn the horizon
+nearer. The rumble and thunder of crumbling floes came from out of a
+purple chaos that was growing blue-black in the distance. For several
+minutes he stood listening and looking into nothingness. The breaking
+of the ice, the moaning discontent in the air, and the growling
+monotone of the giant currents had driven other men mad; but they held
+a fascination for him. He knew what was happening, and he could almost
+measure the strength of the unseen hands of nature. No sound was new
+or strange to him. But now, as he stood there, there rose above all
+the other tumult a sound that he had not heard before. His body became
+suddenly tense and alert as he faced squarely to the north. For a full
+minute he listened, and then turned and ran to the cabin.
+
+Pelliter had lighted a lamp, and in its glow Billy's face shone white
+with excitement.
+
+"Good God, Pelly, come here!" he cried from the door.
+
+As Pelliter ran out he gripped him by the shoulders.
+
+"Listen!" he commanded. "Listen to that!"
+
+"Wolves!" said Pelliter.
+
+The wind was rising, and sent a whistling blast through the open door
+of the cabin. It awakened Little Mystery, who sat up with frightened
+cries.
+
+"No, it's not wolves," cried MacVeigh, and it did not sound like
+MacVeigh's voice that spoke. "I never heard wolves like that. Listen!"
+
+He clutched Pelliter's arm as on a fresh burst of the wind there came
+the strange and terrible sound from out of the night. It was rapidly
+drawing nearer-- a wailing burst of savage voice, as if a great wolf
+pack had struck the fresh and blood-stained trail of game. But with
+this there was the other and more fearful sound, a shrieking and
+yelping as if half-human creatures were being torn by the fangs of
+beasts. As Pelliter and MacVeigh stood waiting for something to appear
+out of the gray-and-black mystery of the night they heard a sound that
+was like the slow tolling of a thing that was half bell and half drum.
+
+"It's not wolves," shouted Billy. "Whatever it is, there's men with
+it! Hurry, Pelly, into the cabin with our dogs and sledge! Those are
+dogs we hear-- dogs who are howling because they smell us-- and there
+are hundreds of 'em! Where there's dogs there's men-- but who in
+Heaven's name can they be?"
+
+He dragged the sledge into the cabin while Pelliter unleashed the
+huskies from the lean-to. When he came in with the dogs Pelliter
+locked and bolted the door.
+
+Billy slipped a clipful of cartridges into his big-game Remington. His
+carbine was already on the table, and as Pelliter stood staring at him
+in indecision he pulled out two Savage automatics from under his bunk
+and gave one of them to his companion. His face was white and set.
+
+"Better get ready, Pelly," he said, quietly. "I've been in this
+country a long time, and I tell you they're dogs and men. Did you hear
+the drum? It's made of seal belly, and there's a bell on each side of
+it. They're Eskimos, and there isn't an Eskimo village within two
+hundred miles of us this winter. They're Eskimos, and they're not on a
+hunt, unless it's for us!"
+
+In an instant Pelliter was buckling on his revolver and
+cartridge-belt. He grinned as he looked at the wicked little
+blue-steeled Savage.
+
+"I hope you ain't mistaken, Billy," he said, "for it 'll be the first
+excitement we've had in a year."
+
+None of his enthusiasm revealed itself in MacVeigh's face.
+
+"The Eskimo never fights until he's gone mad, Pelly," he said, "and
+you know what madmen are. I can't guess what they've got to fight
+over, unless they want our grub. But if they do--" He moved toward the
+door, his swift-firing Remington in his hand. "Be ready to cover me,
+Pelly. I'm going out. Don't fire until you hear me shoot."
+
+He opened the door and stepped out. The howling had ceased now, but
+there came in its place strange barking voices and a cracking which
+Billy knew was made by the long Eskimo whips. He advanced to meet many
+dim forms which he saw breaking out of the wall of gloom, raising his
+voice in a loud holloa. From the Doorway Pelliter saw him suddenly
+lost in a mass of dogs and men, and half flung his carbine to his
+shoulder. But there was no shooting from MacVeigh. A score of sledges
+had drawn up about him, and the whips of dozens of little black men
+cracked viciously as their dogs sank upon their bellies in the snow.
+Both men and dogs were tired, and Billy saw that they had been running
+long and hard. Still as quick as animals the little men gathered about
+him, their white-and-black eyes staring at him out of round, thick,
+dumb-looking faces. He noted that they were half a hundred strong, and
+that all were armed, many with their little javelin-like narwhal
+harpoons, some with spears, and others with rifles. From the circle of
+strangely dressed and hideously visaged beings that had gathered about
+him one advanced and began talking to him in a language that was like
+the rapid clack of knuckle bones.
+
+"Kogmollocks!" Billy groaned, and he lifted both hands to show that he
+did not understand. Then he raised his voice. "Nuna-talmute," he
+cried. "Nuna-talmute-- Nuna-talmute! Ain't there one of that lingo
+among you?"
+
+He spoke directly to the chief man, who stared at him in silence for a
+moment and then pointed both short arms toward the lighted cabin.
+
+"Come on!" said Billy. He caught the little Eskimo by one of his thick
+arms and led him boldly through the breach that was made for them in
+the circle. The chief man's voice broke out in a few words of command,
+like a dozen quick, sharp yelps of a dog, and six other Eskimos
+dropped in behind them.
+
+"Kogmollocks-- the blackest-hearted little devils alive when it comes
+to trading wives and fighting," said MacVeigh to Pelliter, as he came
+up at the head of the seven little black men. " Watch the door, Pelly.
+They're coming in."
+
+He stepped into the cabin, and the Eskimos followed. From Pelliter's
+bunk Little Mystery looked at the strange visitors with eyes which
+suddenly widened with surprise and joy, and in another moment she had
+given the strange story that Pelliter or Billy had ever heard her
+utter. Scarcely had that cry fallen from her lips when one of the
+Eskimos sprang toward her. His black hands were already upon her,
+dragging the child from the bunk, when with a warning yell of rage
+Pelliter leaped from the door and sent him crashing back among his
+companions. In another instant both men were facing the seven Eskimos
+with leveled automatics.
+
+"If you fire don't shoot to kill!" commanded MacVeigh.
+
+The chief man was pointing to Little Mystery, his weird voice rising
+until it was almost a scream. Suddenly he doubled himself back and
+raised his javelin. Simultaneously two streams of fire leaped from the
+automatics. The javelin dropped to the floor, and with a shrill cry
+which was half pain and half command the leader staggered back to the
+door, a stream of blood running from his wounded hand. The others
+sprang out ahead of him, and Pelliter closed and bolted the door. When
+he turned MacVeigh was closing and slipping the bolts to the heavy
+barricades of the two windows. From Pelliter's bunk Little Mystery
+looked at them and laughed.
+
+"So it's you?" said Billy, coming to her, and breathing hard. "It's
+you they want, eh? Now, I wonder why?"
+
+Pelliter's face was flushed with excitement. He was reloading his
+automatic. There was almost a triumph in his eyes as he met MacVeigh's
+questioning gaze.
+
+They stood and listened, heard only the rumbling monotone of the
+drifting ice-- not the breath of a sound from the scores of men and
+dogs.
+
+"We've given them a lesson," said Pelliter, at last, smiling with the
+confidence of a man who was half a tenderfoot among the little brown
+men.
+
+Billy pointed to the door.
+
+"That door is about the only place vulnerable to their bullets," he
+said, as though he had not heard Pelliter. "Keep out of its range. I
+don't believe what guns they've got are heavy enough to penetrate the
+logs. Your bunk is out of line and safe."
+
+He went to Little Mystery, and his stern face relaxed into a smile as
+she put up her arms to greet him.
+
+"So it's you, is it?" he asked again, taking her warm little face and
+soft curls between his two hands. "They want you, an' they want you
+bad. Well, they can have grub, an' they can have me, but"-- he looked
+up to meet Pelliter's eyes-- "I'm damned if they can have you," he
+finished.
+
+Suddenly the night was broken by another sound, the sharp, explosive
+crack of rifles. They could hear the beat of bullets against the log
+wall of the cabin. One crashed through the door, tearing away a
+splinter as wide as a man's arm, and as MacVeigh nodded to the path of
+the bullet he laughed. Pelliter had heard that laugh before. He knew
+what it meant. He knew what the death-whiteness of MacVeigh's face
+meant. It was not fear, but something more terrible than fear. His own
+face was flushed. That is the difference in men.
+
+MacVeigh suddenly darted across the danger zone to the opposite half
+of the cabin.
+
+"If that's your game, here goes," he cried. "Now, damn y', you're so
+anxious to fight-- get at it 'n' fight!"
+
+He spoke the last words to Pelliter. Billy always swore when he went
+into action.
+
+ XI
+
+ THE NIGHT OF PERIL
+
+On his own side of the cabin Pelliter began tugging at a small, thin
+block laid between two of the logs. The shooting outside had ceased
+when the two men opened up the loopholes that commanded a range
+seaward. Almost immediately it began again, the dull red flashes
+showing the location of the Eskimos, who had drawn back to the ridge
+that sloped down to the Bay. As the last of five shots left his
+Remington Billy pulled in his gun and faced across to Pelliter, who
+was already reloading.
+
+"Pelly, I don't want to croak," he said, "but this is the last of Law
+at Fullerton Point-- for you and me. Look at that!"
+
+He raised the muzzle of his rifle to one of the logs over his head.
+Pelliter could see the fresh splinters sticking out.
+
+"They've got some heavy calibers," continued Billy, "and they've
+hidden behind the slope, where they're safe from us for a thousand
+years. As soon as it grows light enough to see they'll fill this shack
+as full of holes as an old cheese."
+
+As if to verify his words a single shot rang out and a bullet plowed
+through a log so close to Pelliter that the splinters flew into his
+face.
+
+"I know these little devils, Pelly," went on MacVeigh. "If they were
+Nuna-talmutes you could scare 'em with a sky-rocket. But they're
+Kogmollocks. They've murdered the crews of half a dozen whalers, and I
+shouldn't wonder if they'd got the kid in some such way. They wouldn't
+let us off now, even if we gave her up. It wouldn't do. They know
+better than to let the Law get any evidence against them. If we're
+killed and the cabin burned, who's going to say what happened to us?
+There's just two things for us to do--"
+
+Another fusillade of shots came from the snow ridge, and a third
+bullet crashed into the cabin.
+
+"Just two things," Billy went on, as he completely shaded the dimly
+burning lamp. "We can stay here 'n' die-- or run."
+
+"Run!"
+
+This was an unknown word in the Service, and in Pelliter's voice there
+were both amazement and contempt.
+
+"Yes, run," said Billy, quietly. "Run-- for the kid's sake."
+
+It was almost dark in the cabin, and Pelliter came close to his
+companion.
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"That it's the only way to save the kid. We might give her up, then
+fight it out, but that means she'd go back to the Eskimos, 'n' mebbe
+never be found again. The men and dogs out there are bushed. We are
+fresh. If we can get away from the cabin we can beat 'em out."
+
+"We'll run, then," said Pelliter. He went to Little Mystery, who sat
+stunned into silence by the strange things that were happening, and
+hugged her up in his arms, his back turned to the possible bullet that
+might come through the wall. "We're going to run, little sweetheart,"
+he mumbled, half laughingly, in her curls.
+
+Billy began to pack, and Pelliter put Little Mystery down on the bunk
+and started to harness the six dogs, ranging them close along the
+wall, with old one-eyed Kazan, the hero who had saved him from Blake,
+in the lead. Outside the firing had ceased. It was evident that the
+Eskimos had made up their minds to save their ammunition until dawn.
+
+Fifteen minutes sufficed to load the sledge; and while Pelliter was
+fastening the sledge traces MacVeigh bundled Little Mystery into her
+thick fur coat. The sleeves caught, and he turned it back, exposing
+the white edge of the lining. On that lining was something which drew
+him down close, and when the strange cry that fell from his lips drew
+Pelliter's eyes toward him he was staring down into Little Mystery's
+upturned face with the look of one who saw a vision.
+
+"Mother of Heaven!" he gasped, "she's--" He caught himself, and
+smothered Little Mystery up close to him for a moment before he
+brought her to the sledge. "She's the bravest little kid in the
+world," he finished; and Pelliter wondered at the strangeness of his
+voice. He tucked her into a nest made of blankets and then tied her in
+securely with babiche rope. Pelliter stood up first and saw the
+hungry, staring look in MacVeigh's face as he kept his eyes steadily
+upon Little Mystery.
+
+"What's the matter, Mac?" he asked. "Are you very much afraid-- for
+her?"
+
+"No," said MacVeigh, without lifting his head. "If you're ready,
+Pelly, open the door." He rose to his feet and picked up his rifle. He
+did not seem like the old MacVeigh; but the dogs were nipping and
+whining, and there was no time for Pelliter's questions.
+
+"I'm going out first, Billy," he said. "You can make up your mind
+they're watching the cabin pretty close, and as soon as the dogs nose
+the open air they'll begin yapping 'n' let 'em on to us. We can't risk
+her under fire. So I'm going to back along the edge of the ridge and
+give it to 'em as fast as I can work the gun. They'll all turn to me,
+and that's the time for you to open the door and make your getaway.
+I'll be with you inside of five minutes."
+
+He turned out the lights as he spoke. Then he opened the door and
+slipped out into the darkness without a protesting word from MacVeigh.
+Hardly had he gone when the latter fell upon his knees beside Little
+Mystery and in the deep gloom crushed his rough face down against her
+soft, warm little body.
+
+"So it's you, is it?" he cried, softly; and then he mumbled things
+which the little girl could not possibly have understood.
+
+Suddenly he sprang to his feet and ran to the door with a word to
+faithful old Kazan, the leader.
+
+From far down the snow-ridge there came the rapid firing of Pelliter's
+rifle.
+
+For a moment Billy waited, his hand on the door, to give the watching
+Eskimos time to turn their attention toward Pelliter. He could perhaps
+have counted fifty before he gave Kazan the leash and the six dogs
+dragged the sledge out into the night. With his humanlike intelligence
+old Kazan swung quickly after his master, and the team darted like a
+streak into the south and west, giving tongue to that first sharp,
+yapping voice which it is impossible to beat or train out of a band of
+huskies. As he ran Billy looked back over his shoulder. In the
+hundred-yard stretch of gray bloom between the cabin and the
+snow-ridge he saw three figures speeding like wolves. In a flash the
+meaning of this unexpected move of the Eskimos dawned upon him. They
+were cutting Pelliter off from the cabin and his course of flight.
+
+"Go it, Kazan!" he cried, fiercely, bending low over the leader.
+"Moo-hoosh-- moo-hoosh-- moo-hoosh, old man!" And Kazan leaped into a
+swift run, nipping and whining at the empty air.
+
+Billy stopped and whirled about. Two other figures had joined the
+first three, and he opened fire. One of the running Eskimos pitched
+forward with a cry that rose shrill and scarcely human above the
+moaning and roar of the ice-fields, and the other four fell flat upon
+the snow to escape the hail of lead that sang close over their heads.
+From the snow-ridge there came a fusillade of shots, and a single
+figure darted like a streak in MacVeigh's direction. He knew that it
+was Pelliter; and, running slowly after Kazan and the sledge, he
+rammed a fresh clipful of cartridges into the chamber of his rifle.
+The figures in the open had risen again, and Pelliter's automatic
+Savage trailed out a stream of fire as he ran. He was breathing
+heavily when he reached Billy.
+
+"Kazan has got the kid well in the lead," shouted the latter. "God
+bless that old scoundrel! I believe he's human."
+
+They set off swiftly, and the thick night soon engulfed all signs of
+the Eskimos. Ahead of them the sledge loomed up slowly, and when they
+reached it both men thrust their rifles under the blanket straps. Thus
+relieved of their weight, they forged ahead of Kazan.
+
+"Moo-hoosh-- moo-hoosh!" encouraged Billy.
+
+He glanced at Pelliter on the opposite side. His comrade was running
+with one arm raised at the proper angle to reserve breath and
+endurance; the other hung straight and limp at his side. A sudden fear
+shot through him, and he darted ahead of the lead dog to Pelliter's
+side. He did not speak, but touched the other's arm.
+
+"One of the little devil's winged me," gasped Pelliter. "It's not
+bad."
+
+He was breathing as though the short run was already winding him, and
+without a word Billy ran up to Kazan's head and stopped the team
+within twenty paces. The open blade of his knife was ripping up
+Pelliter's sleeve before his comrade could find words to object.
+Pelliter was bleeding, and bleeding hard. His face was shot with pain.
+The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his forearm, but had
+fortunately missed the main artery. With the quick deftness of the
+wilderness-trained surgeon Billy drew the wound close and bound it
+tightly with his own and Pelliter's handkerchiefs. Then he thrust
+Pelliter toward the sledge.
+
+"You've got to ride, Pelly," he said. "If you don't you'll go under,
+and that means all of us."
+
+Far behind them there rose the yapping and howling of dogs.
+
+"They're after us with the dogs!" groaned Pelliter. "I can't ride.
+I've got to run-- and fight!"
+
+"You get on the sledge, or I'll stave your head in!" commanded
+MacVeigh. "Face the enemy, Pelly, and give 'em hell. You've got three
+rifles there. You can do the shooting while I hustle on the dogs. And
+keep yourself in front of her," he added, pointing to the almost
+completely buried Little Mystery.
+
+ XII
+
+ LITTLE MYSTERY FINDS HER OWN
+
+After convincing Pelliter that he must ride on the sledge Billy ran on
+ahead, and the dogs started with their heavier load.
+
+"Now for the timber-line," he called down to Kazan. "It's fifty miles,
+old boy, and you've got to make it by dawn. If we don't--"
+
+He left the words unfinished, but Kazan tugged harder, as if he had
+heard and understood. The sledge had reached the unbroken sweep of the
+Barren now, and MacVeigh felt the wind in his face. It was blowing
+from the north and west, and with it came sudden gusts filled with
+fine particles of snow. After a few moments he fell back to see that
+Little Mystery's face was completely covered. Pelliter was crouching
+low on the sledge, his feet braced in the blanket straps. His wound
+and the uncomfortable sensation of riding backward on a swaying sledge
+were making him dizzy, and he wondered if what he saw creeping up out
+of the night was a result of this dizziness or a reality. There was no
+sound from behind. But a darker spot had grown within his vision, at
+times becoming larger, then almost disappearing. Twice he raised his
+rifle. Twice he lowered it again, convinced that the thing behind was
+only a shadowy fabric of his imagination. It was possible that their
+pursuers would lose trace of them in the darkness, and so he held his
+fire.
+
+He was staring at the shadow when from out of it there leaped a little
+spurt of flame, and a bullet sang past the sledge, a yard to the
+right. It was a splendid shot. There was a marksman with the shadow,
+and Pelliter replied so quickly that the first shot had not died away
+before there followed the second. Five times his automatic sent its
+leaden messengers back into the night, and at the fifth shot there
+came a wild outburst of pain from one of the Eskimo dogs.
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Billy. "That's one team out of business, Pelly. We
+can beat 'em in a running fight!"
+
+He heard the quick metallic snap of fresh cartridges as Pelliter
+slipped them into the chamber of his rifle, but beyond that sound, the
+wind, and the straining of the huskies there was no other. A grim
+silence fell behind. The roar of the distant ice grew less. The earth
+no longer seemed to shudder under their feet at the terrific
+explosions of the crumbling bergs. But in place of these the wind was
+rising and the fine snow was thickening. Billy no longer turned to
+look behind. He stared ahead and as far as he could see on each side
+of them. At the end of half an hour the panting dogs dropped into a
+walk, and he walked close beside his comrade.
+
+"They've given it up," groaned Pelliter, weakly. "I'm glad of it, Mac,
+for I'm-- I'm-- dizzy." He was lying on the sledge now, with his head
+bolstered up on a pile of blankets.
+
+"You know how the wolves hunt, Pelly," said MacVeigh-- "in a
+moon-shape half circle, you know, that closes in on the running game
+from in front? Well, that's how the Eskimos hunt, and I'm wondering if
+they're trying to get ahead of us-- off there, and off there." He
+motioned to the north and the south.
+
+"They can't," replied Pelliter, raising himself to his elbow with an
+effort. "Their dogs are bushed. Let me walk, Mac. I can--" He fell
+back with a sudden low cry. "Gawd, but I'm dizzy--"
+
+MacVeigh halted the dogs, and while they dropped upon their bellies,
+panting and licking up the snow, he kneeled beside Pelliter. Darkness
+concealed the fear in his eyes and face. His voice was strong and
+cheerful.
+
+"You've got to lie still, Pelly," he warned, arranging the blankets so
+that the wounded man could rest comfortably. "You've got a pretty bad
+nip, and it's best for all of us that you don't make a move. You're
+right about the Eskimos and their dogs. They're bushed, and they've
+given the chase up as a bad job, so what's the use of making a fool of
+yourself? Ride it out, Pelly. Go to sleep with Little Mystery if you
+can. She thinks she's in a cradle."
+
+He got up and started the dogs. For a long time he was alone. Little
+Mystery was sleeping and Pelliter was quiet. Now and then he dropped
+his mittened hand on Kazan's head, and the faithful old leader whined
+softly at his touch. With the others it was different. They snapped
+viciously, and he kept his distance. He went on for hours, halting the
+team now and then for a few minutes' rest. He struck a match each time
+and looked at Pelliter. His comrade breathed heavily, with his eyes
+closed. Once, long after midnight, he opened them and stared at the
+flare of the match and into MacVeigh's white face.
+
+"I'm all right, Billy," he said. "Let me walk--"
+
+MacVeigh forced him back gently, and went on. He was alone until the
+first cold, gray break of dawn. Then he stopped, gave each of the dogs
+a frozen fish, and with the fuel on the sledge built a small fire. He
+scraped up snow for tea, and hung the pail over the fire. He was
+frying bacon and toasting hard bannock biscuits when Pelliter aroused
+himself and sat up. Billy did not see him until he faced about.
+
+"Good morning, Pelly," he grinned. "Have a good nap?"
+
+Pelliter groped about on the sledge.
+
+"Wish I could find a club," he growled. "I'd-- I'd brain you! You let
+me sleep!"
+
+He thrust out his uninjured arm, and the two shook hands. Once or
+twice before they had done this after hours of great peril. It was not
+an ordinary handshake.
+
+Billy rose to his feet. Half a mile away the edge of the big forest
+for which they had been fighting rose out of the dawn gloom.
+
+"If I'd known that," he said, pointing, "we'd have camped in shelter.
+Fifty miles, Pelly. Not so bad, was it?"
+
+Behind them the gray Barren was lifting itself into the light of day.
+The two men ate and drank tea. During those few minutes neither gave
+attention to the forest or the Barren. Billy was ravenously hungry.
+Pelliter could not get enough of the tea. And then their attention
+went to Little Mystery, who awoke with a wailing protest at the
+smothering cover of blankets over her face. Billy dug her out and held
+her up to view the strange change since yesterday. It was then that
+Kazan stopped licking his ashy chops to send up a wailing howl.
+
+Both men turned their eyes toward the forest. Halfway between a figure
+was toiling slowly toward them. It was a man, and Billy gave a low cry
+of astonishment.
+
+But Kazan was facing the gray Barren, and he howled again, long and
+menacingly. The other dogs took up the cry, and when Pelliter and
+MacVeigh followed the direction of their warning they stood for a full
+quarter of a minute as if turned into stone.
+
+A mile away the Barren was dotted with a dozen swiftly moving sledges
+and a score of running men!
+
+After all, their last stand was to be made at the edge of the
+timber-line!
+
+In such situations men like MacVeigh and Pelliter do not waste
+precious moments in prearranging actions in words. Their mental
+processes are instantaneous and correlative-- and they act. Without a
+word Billy replaced Little Mystery in her nest without even giving her
+a sip of the warm tea, and by the time the dogs were straightened in
+their traces Pelliter was handing him his Remington.
+
+"I've ranged it for three hundred and fifty yards," he said. "We won't
+want to waste our fire until they come that near."
+
+They set out at a trot, Pelliter running with his wounded arm down at
+his side. Suddenly the lone figure between them and the forest
+disappeared. It had fallen flat in the snow, where it lay only a black
+speck. In a moment it rose again and advanced. Both Pelliter and Billy
+were looking when it fell for a second time.
+
+An unpleasant laugh came from MacVeigh's lips.
+
+The figure was climbing to its feet for the fifth time, and was only
+on its hands and knees when the sledge drew up. It was a white man.
+His head was bare, his face deathlike. His neck was open to the cold
+wind, and, to the others' astonishment, he wore no heavier garment
+over his dark flannel shirt. His eyes burned wildly from out of a
+shaggy growth of beard and hair, and he was panting like one who had
+traveled miles instead of a few hundred yards.
+
+All this Billy saw at a glance, and then he gave a sudden unbelieving
+cry. The man's red eyes rested on his, and every fiber in his body
+seemed for a moment to have lost the power of action. He gasped and
+stared, and Pelliter started as if stung at the words which came first
+from his lips.
+
+"Deane-- Scottie Deane!"
+
+An amazed cry broke from Pelliter. He looked at MacVeigh, his chief.
+He made an involuntary movement forward, but Billy was ahead of him.
+He had flung down his rifle, and in an instant was on his knees at
+Deane's side, supporting his emaciated figure in his arms.
+
+"Good God! what does this mean, old man?" he cried, forgetting
+Pelliter. "What has happened? Why are you away up here? And where--
+where-- is she?"
+
+He had gripped Deane's hand. He was holding him tight; and Deane,
+looking up into his eyes, saw that he was no longer looking into the
+face of the Law, but that of a brother. He smiled feebly.
+
+"Cabin-- back there-- in edge-- woods," he gasped. "Saw you-- coming.
+Thought mebbe you'd pass-- so-- came out. I'm done for-- dying."
+
+He drew a deep breath and tried to assist himself as Billy raised him
+to his feet. A little wailing cry came from the sledge. Startled,
+Deane turned his eyes toward that cry.
+
+"My God!" he screamed.
+
+He tore himself away from Billy and flung himself upon his knees
+beside Little Mystery, sobbing and talking like a madman as he clasped
+the frightened child in his arms. With her he leaped to his feet with
+new strength.
+
+"She's mine-- mine!" he cried, fiercely. "She's what brought me back!
+I was going for her! Where did you get her? How--"
+
+There came to them now in sudden chorus the wild voice of the Eskimo
+dogs out on the plain. Deane heard the cry and faced with the others
+in their direction. They were not more than half a mile away, bearing
+down upon them swiftly. Billy knew that there was not a moment to
+lose. In a flash it had leaped upon him that in some way Deane and
+Isobel and Little Mystery were associated with that avenging horde,
+and as quickly as he could he told Deane what had happened. Sanity had
+come back into Deane's eyes, and no sooner had he heard than he ran
+out in the face of the army of little brown men with Little Mystery in
+his arms. MacVeigh and Pelliter could hear him calling to them from a
+distance. They were in the edge of the forest when Deane met the
+Eskimos. There was a long wait, and then Deane and Little Mystery came
+back-- on a sledge drawn by Eskimo dogs. Beside the sledge walked the
+chief who had been wounded in the cabin at Fullerton Point. Deane was
+swaying, his head was bowed half upon his breast, and the chief and
+another Eskimo were supporting him. He nodded to the right, and a
+hundred yards away they found a cabin. The powerful little northerners
+carried him in, still clutching Little Mystery in his arms, and he
+made a motion for Billy to follow him-- alone. Inside the cabin they
+placed him on a low bunk, and with a weak cough he beckoned Billy to
+his side. MacVeigh knew what that cough meant. The sick man had
+suffered terrible exposure, and the tissue of his lungs was sloughing
+away. It was death, the most terrible death of the north.
+
+For a few moments Deane lay panting, clasping one of Billy's hands.
+Little Mystery slipped to the floor and began to investigate the
+cabin. Deane smiled into Billy's eyes.
+
+"You've come again-- just in time," he said, quite steadily. "Seems
+queer, don't it, Billy?"
+
+For the first time he spoke the other's name as if he had known him a
+lifetime. Billy covered him over gently with one of the blankets, and
+in spite of himself his eyes sought about him questioningly. Deane saw
+the look.
+
+"She didn't come," he whispered. "I left her--"
+
+He broke off with a racking cough that brought a crimson stain to his
+lips. Billy felt a choking grief.
+
+"You must be quiet," he said. "Don't try to talk now. You have no
+fire, and I will build one. Then I'll make you something hot."
+
+He went to move away, but one of Deane's hands detained him.
+
+"Not until I've said something to you, Billy," he insisted. "You
+know-- you understand. I'm dying. It's liable to come any minute now,
+and I've got to tell you-- things. You must understand-- before I go.
+I won't be long. I killed a man, but I'm-- not sorry. He tried to
+insult her-- my wife-- an' you-- you'd have killed him, too. You
+people began to hunt me, and for safety we went far north-- among the
+Eskimos-- an' lived there-- long time. The Eskimos-- they loved the
+little girl an' wife, specially little Isobel. Thought them angels--
+some sort. Then we heard you were goin' to hunt for me-- up there--
+among the Eskimos. So we set out with the box. Box was for her-- to
+keep her from fearful cold. We didn't dare take the baby-- so we left
+her up there. We were going back-- soon-- after you'd made your hunt.
+When we saw your fire on the edge of the Barren she made me get in the
+box-- an' so-- so you found us. You know-- after that. You thought it
+was-- coffin-- an' she told you I was dead. You were good-- good to
+her-- an' you must go down there where she is, and take little Isobel.
+We were goin' to do as you said-- an' go to South America. But we had
+to have the baby, an' I came back. Should have told you. We knew
+that-- afterward. But we were afraid-- to tell the secret-- even to
+you--"
+
+He stopped, panting and coughing. Billy was crushing both his thin,
+cold hands in his own. He found no word to say. He waited, fighting to
+stifle the sobbing grief in his breath.
+
+"You were good-- good-- good-- to her," repeated Deane, weakly, "You
+loved her-- an' it was right-- because you thought I was dead an' she
+was alone an' needed help. I'm glad-- you love her. You've been good--
+'n' honest-- an I want some one like you to love her an' care for her.
+She ain't got nobody but me-- an' little Isobel. I'm glad-- glad--
+I've found a man-- like you!"
+
+He suddenly wrenched his hands free and took Billy's tense face
+between them, staring straight into his eyes.
+
+"An'-- an'-- I give her to you," he said. "She's an angel, and she's
+alone-- needs some one-- an' you-- you'll be good to her. You must go
+down to her-- Pierre Couchee's cabin-- on the Little Beaver. An'
+you'll be good to her-- good to her--"
+
+"I will go to her," said Billy, softly. "And I swear here on my knees
+before the great and good God that I will do what an honorable man
+should do!"
+
+Deane's rigid body relaxed, and he sank back on his blankets with a
+sigh of relief.
+
+"I worried-- for her," he said. "I've always believed in a God--
+though I killed a man-- an' He sent you here in time!" A sudden
+questioning light came into his eyes. "The man who stole little
+Isobel," he breathed-- "who was he?"
+
+"Pelliter-- the man out there-- killed him when he came to the cabin,"
+said Billy. "He said his name was Blake-- Jim Blake."
+
+"Blake! Blake! Blake!" Again Deane's voice rose from the edge of death
+to a shriek. "Blake, you say? A great coarse sailorman, with red
+hair-- red beard-- yellow teeth like a walrus! Blake-- Blake--" He
+sank back again, with a thrilling, half-mad laugh. "Then-- then it's
+all been a mistake-- a funny mistake," he said; and his eyes closed,
+and his voice spoke the words as though he were uttering them from out
+of a dream.
+
+Billy saw that the end was near. He bent down to catch the dying man's
+last words. Deane's hands were as cold as ice. His lips were white.
+And then Deane whispered:
+
+"We fought-- I thought I killed him-- an' threw him into the sea. His
+right name was Samuelson. You knew him-- by that name-- but he went
+often-- by Blake-- Jim Blake. So-- so-- I'm not a murderer-- after
+all. An' he-- he came back for revenge-- and-- stole-- little--
+Isobel. I'm-- I'm-- not-- a-- murderer. You-- you-- will-- tell-- her.
+You'll tell her-- I didn't kill him-- after all. You'll tell her--
+an'-- be-- good-- good--"
+
+He smiled. Billy bent lower.
+
+"Again I swear before the good God that I will do what an honorable
+man should do," he replied.
+
+Deane made no answer. He did not hear. The smile did not fade entirely
+from his lips. But Billy knew that in this moment death had come in
+through the cabin door. With a groan of anguish he dropped Deane's
+stiffening hand. Little Isobel pattered across the floor to his side.
+She laughed; and suddenly Billy turned and caught her in his arms,
+and, crumpled down there on the floor beside the one brother he had
+known in life, he sobbed like a woman.
+
+ XIII
+
+ THE TWO GODS
+
+It was little Isobel who pulled MacVeigh together, and after a little
+he rose with her in his arms and turned her from the wall while he
+covered Deane's face with the end of a blanket. Then he went to the
+door. The Eskimos were building fires. Pelliter was seated on the
+sledge a short distance from the cabin, and at Billy's call he came
+toward him.
+
+"If you don't mind, you can take her over to one of the fires for a
+little while," said Billy. "Scottie is dead. Try and make the chief
+understand,"
+
+He did not wait for Pelliter to question him, but closed the door
+quietly and went back to Deane. He drew off the blanket and gazed for
+a moment into the still, bearded face.
+
+"My Gawd, an' she's waitin' for you, 'n' looking for you, an' thinks
+you're coming back soon," he whispered. "You 'n' the kid!"
+
+Reverently he began the task ahead of him. One after another he went
+into Deane's pockets and drew forth what he found. In one pocket there
+was a small knife, some cartridges, and a match box. He knew that
+Isobel would prize these and keep them because her husband had carried
+them, and he placed them in a handkerchief along with other things he
+found. Last of all he found in Deane's breast pocket a worn and faded
+envelope. He peered into the open end before he placed it on the
+little pile, and his heart gave a sudden throb when he saw the blue
+flower petals Isobel had given him. When he was done he crossed
+Deane's hands upon his breast. He was tying the ends of the
+handkerchief when the door opened softly behind him.
+
+The little dark chief entered. He was followed by four other Eskimos.
+They had left their weapons outside. They seemed scarcely to breathe
+as they ranged themselves in a line and looked down upon Scottie
+Deane. Not a sign of emotion came into their expressionless faces, not
+the flicker of an eyelash did the immobility of their faces change. In
+a low, clacking monotone they began to speak, and there was no
+expression of grief in their voices. Yet Billy understood now that in
+the hearts of these little brown men Scottie Deane stood enshrined
+like a god. Before he was cold in death they had come to chant his
+deeds and his virtues to the unseen spirits who would wait and watch
+at his side until the beginning of the new day. For ten minutes the
+monotone continued. Then the five men turned and without a word,
+without looking at him, went out of the cabin. Billy followed them,
+wondering if Deane had convinced them that he and Pelliter were his
+friends. If he had not done that he feared that there would still be
+trouble over little Isobel. He was delighted when he found Pelliter
+talking with one of the men.
+
+"I've found a flunkey here whose lingo I can get along with," cried
+Pelliter. "I've been telling 'em what bully friends we are, and have
+made 'em understand all about Blake. I've shaken hands with them all
+three or four times, and we feel pretty good. Better mix a little.
+They don't like the idea of giving us the kid, now that Scottie's
+dead. They're asking for the woman."
+
+Half an hour later MacVeigh and Pelliter returned to the cabin. At the
+end of that time he was confident that the Eskimos would give them no
+further trouble and that they expected to leave Isobel in their
+possession. The chief, however, had given Billy to understand that
+they reserved the right to bury Deane.
+
+Billy felt that he was now in a position where he would have to tell
+Pelliter some of the things that had happened to him on his return to
+Churchill. He had reported Deane's death as having occurred weeks
+before as the result of a fall, and when he returned to Fort Churchill
+he knew that he would have to stick to that story. Unless Pelliter
+knew of Isobel, his love for her, and his own defiance of the Law in
+giving them their freedom, his comrade might let out the truth and
+ruin him.
+
+In the cabin they sat down at the table. Pelliter's arm was in a
+sling. His face was drawn and haggard and blackened by powder. He drew
+his revolver, emptied it of cartridges, and gave it to little Isobel
+to play with. He kept up his spirits among the Eskimos, but he made no
+effort to conceal his dejection now.
+
+"I've lost her," he said, looking at Billy. "You're going to take her
+to her mother?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It hurts. You don't know how it's goin' to hurt to lose her," he
+said.
+
+MacVeigh leaned across the table and spoke earnestly.
+
+"Yes, I know what it means, Pelly," he replied. "I know what it means
+to love some one-- and lose. I know. Listen."
+
+Quickly he told Pelliter the story of the Barren, of the coming of
+Isobel, the mother, of the kiss she had given him, and of the flight,
+the pursuit, the recapture, and of that final moment when he had taken
+the steel cuffs from Deane's wrists. Once he had begun the story he
+left nothing untold, even to the division of the blue-flower petals
+and the tress of Isobel's hair. He drew both from his pocket and
+showed them to Pelliter, and at the tremble in his voice there came a
+mistiness in his comrade's eyes. When he had finished Pelliter reached
+across with his one good arm and gripped the other's hand.
+
+"An' what she said about the blue flower is comin' true, Billy," he
+whispered. "It's bringing happiness to you, just as she said, for
+you're going down to her--"
+
+MacVeigh interrupted him.
+
+"No, it's not," he said, softly. "She loved him-- as much as the girl
+down there will ever love you, Pelly, and when I tell her what has
+happened-- her heart will break. That can't bring happiness-- for me
+!"
+
+The hours of that day bore leaden weights for Billy. The two men made
+their plans. A number of the Eskimos agreed to accompany Pelliter as
+far as Eskimo Point, whence he would make his way alone to Churchill.
+Billy would strike south to the Little Beaver in search of Couchee's
+cabin and Isobel. He was glad when night came. It was late when he
+went to the door, opened it, and looked out.
+
+In the edge of the timber-line it was black, black not only with the
+gloom of night, but with the concentrated darkness of spruce and
+balsam and a sky so low and thick that one could almost hear the
+wailing swish of it overhead like the steady sobbing of surf on a
+seashore. It was black, save for the small circles of light made by
+the Eskimo fires, about which half a hundred of the little brown men
+sat or crouched. The masters of the camp were all awake, but twice as
+many dogs, exhausted and footsore, lay curled in heaps, as inanimate
+as if dead. There was present a strange silence and a strange and
+unnatural gloom that was not of the night alone, a silence broken only
+by the low moaning of the wind out on the Barren, the restlessness in
+the air above the tree-tops, and the crackling of the fires. The
+Eskimos were as motionless as so many dead men. Their round,
+expressionless eyes were wide open. They sat or crouched with their
+backs to the Barren, their faces turned into the still deeper
+blackness of the forest. Some distance away, like a star, there
+gleamed the small and steady light in the cabin window. For two hours
+the eyes of those about the fires had been fixed on that light. And at
+intervals there had risen from among the stony-faced watchers the
+little chief, whose clacking voice joined for a few moments each time
+the wailing of the wind, the swish of the low-hanging sky, and the
+crackling of the fires. But there was sound of no other voice or
+movement. He alone moved and spoke, for to the others the clacking
+sounds he made was speech, words spoken each time for the man who lay
+dead in the cabin.
+
+A dozen times Pelliter and MacVeigh had looked out to the fires, and
+looked each time at the hour. This time Billy said:
+
+"They're moving, Pelly! They're jumping to their feet and coming this
+way!" He looked at his watch again. "They're mighty good guessers.
+It's a quarter after twelve. When a chief or a big man dies they bury
+him in the first hour of the new day. They're coming after Deane."
+
+He opened the door and stepped out into the night. Pelliter joined
+him. The Eskimos advanced without a sound and stopped in a shadowy
+group twenty paces from the cabin. Five of these little fur-clad men
+detached themselves from the others and filed into the cabin, with the
+chief man at their head. As they bent over Deane they began to chant a
+low monotone which awakened little Isobel, who sat up and stared
+sleepily at the strange scene. Billy went to her and gathered her
+close in his arms. She was sleeping again when he put her down among
+the blankets. The Eskimos were gone with their burden. He could hear
+the low chanting of the tribe.
+
+"I found her, and I thought she was mine," said Pelliter's low voice
+at his side. "But she ain't, Billy. She's yours."
+
+MacVeigh broke in on him as though he had not heard.
+
+"You better get to bed, Pelly," he warned. "That arm needs rest. I'm
+going out to see where they bury him."
+
+He put on his cap and heavy coat and went as far as the door, then
+turned back. From his kit he took a belt-ax and nails.
+
+The wind was blowing more strongly over the Barren, and MacVeigh could
+no longer hear the low lament of the Eskimos. He moved toward their
+fires, and found them deserted of men, only the dogs remained in their
+deathlike sleep. And then, far down the edge of the timber, he saw a
+flare of light. Five minutes later he stood hidden in a deep shadow, a
+few paces from the Eskimos. They had dug the grave early in the
+evening, out on the great snow-plain, free of the trees; and as the
+fire they had built lighted up their dark, round faces MacVeigh saw
+the five little black men who had borne forth Scottie Deane leaning
+over the shallow hole in the frozen earth. Scottie was already gone.
+The earth and ice and frozen moss were falling in upon him, and not a
+sound fell now from the thick lips of his savage mourners. In a few
+minutes the crude work was done, and like a thin black shadow the
+natives filed back to their camp. Only one remained, sitting
+cross-legged at the head of the grave, his long narwhal spear at his
+back. It was O-gluck-gluck, the Eskimo chief, guarding the dead man
+from the devils who come to steal body and soul during the first few
+hours of burial.
+
+Billy went deeper into the forest until he found a thin, straight
+sapling, which he cut down with half a dozen strokes of his belt-ax.
+From the sapling he stripped the bark, and then he chopped off a third
+of its length and nailed it crosswise to what remained. After that he
+sharpened the bottom end and returned to the grave, carrying the cross
+over his shoulder. Stripped to whiteness, it gleamed in the firelight.
+The Eskimo watcher stared at it for a moment, his dull eyes burning
+darker in the night, for he knew that after this two gods, and not
+one, were to guard the grave. Billy drove the cross deep, and as the
+blows of his ax fell upon it the Eskimo slunk back until he was
+swallowed in the gloom. When MacVeigh was done he pulled off his cap.
+But it was not to pray.
+
+"I'm sorry, old man," he said to what was under the cross. "God knows
+I'm sorry. I wish you was alive. I wish you was going back to her--
+with the kid-- instid o' me. But I'll keep that promise. I swear it.
+I'll do-- what's right-- by her."
+
+From the forest he looked back. The Eskimo chief had returned to his
+somber watch. The cross gleamed a ghostly white against the thick
+blackness of the Barren. He turned his face away for the last time,
+and there filled him the oppression of a leaden hand, a thing that was
+both dread and fear. Scottie Deane was dead-- dead and in his grave,
+and yet he walked with him now at his side. He could feel the
+presence, and that presence was like a warning, stirring strange
+thoughts within him. He turned back to the cabin and entered softly.
+Pelliter was asleep. Little Isobel was breathing the sweet
+forgetfulness of childhood. He stooped and kissed her silken curls,
+and for a long time he stood with one of those soft curls between his
+fingers. In a few years more, he thought, it would be the darker gold
+and brown of the woman's hair-- of the woman he loved. Slowly a great
+peace entered into him. After all, there was more than hope ahead for
+him. She-- the older Isobel-- knew that he loved her as no other man
+in the world could love her. He had given proof of that. And now he
+was going to her.
+
+ XIV
+
+ THE SNOW-MAN
+
+After his return from the scene of burial Billy undressed, put out the
+light, and went to bed. He fell asleep quickly, and his slumber was
+filled with many dreams. They were sweet and joyous at first, and he
+lived again his first meeting with the woman; he was once more in the
+presence of her beauty, her purity, her faith and confidence in him.
+And then more trouble visions came to him. He awoke twice, and each
+time he sat up, filled with the shuddering dread that had come to him
+at the graveside.
+
+A third time he awakened, and he struck a match to look at his watch.
+It was four o'clock. He was still exhausted. His limbs ached from the
+tremendous strain of the fifty-mile race across the Barren, but he
+could no longer sleep. Something-- he did not attempt to ask himself
+what it was-- was urging him to action. He got up and dressed.
+
+When Pelliter awoke two hours later MacVeigh's pack and sledge were
+ready for the trip south. While they ate their breakfast the two men
+finished their plans. When the hour of parting came Billy left his
+comrade alone with little Isobel and went out to hitch up the dogs.
+When he returned there was a fresh redness in Pelliter's eyes, and he
+puffed out thick clouds of smoke from his pipe to hide his face.
+MacVeigh thought of that parting often in the days that followed.
+Pelliter stood last in the door, and in his face was a look which
+MacVeigh wished that he had not seen. In his own heart was the dread
+and the fear, the thing which he could not name.
+
+For hours he could not shake off the gloom that oppressed him. He
+strode at the head of old Kazan, the leader, striking a course due
+south by compass. When he fell back for the third time to look at
+little Isobel he found the child buried deep in her blankets sound
+asleep. She did not awake until he stopped to make tea at noon. It was
+four o'clock when he halted again to make camp in the shelter of a
+clump of tall spruce. Isobel had slept most of the day. She was wide
+awake now, laughing at him as he dug her out of her nest.
+
+"Give me a kiss," he demanded.
+
+Isobel complied, putting her two little hands to his face.
+
+"You're a-- a little peach," he cried. "There ain't been a whimper out
+of you all day. And now we're going to have a fire-- a big fire."
+
+He set about his work, whistling for the first time since morning. He
+set up his silk Service tent, cut spruce and balsam boughs until he
+had them a foot deep inside, and then dragged in wood for half an
+hour. By that time it was dark and the big fire was softening the snow
+for thirty feet around. He had taken off Isobel's thick, swaddling
+coat, and the child's pretty face shone pink in the fireglow. The
+light danced red and gold in her tangled curls, and as they ate
+supper, both on the same blanket, Billy saw opposite him more and more
+of what he knew he would find in the woman. When they had finished he
+produced a small pocket comb and drew Isobel close up to him. One by
+one he smoothed the tangles out of her curls, his heart beating
+joyously as the silken touch of them ran through his fingers. Once he
+had felt that same soft touch of the woman's hair against his face. It
+had been an accidental caress, but he had treasured it in his memory.
+It seemed real again now, and the thrill of it made him place little
+Isobel alone again on the blanket, while he rose to his feet. He threw
+fresh fuel on the fire, and then he found that the warmth had softened
+the snow until it clung to his feet. The discovery gave him an
+inspiration. A warmth that was not of the fire leaped into his face,
+and he gathered up the softened snow, raking it into piles with a
+snow-shoe; and before Isobel's astonished and delighted eyes there
+grew into shape a snow-man almost as big as himself. He gave it arms
+and a head, and eyes of charred wood, and when it was done he placed
+his own cap on the crown of it and his pipe in its mouth. Little
+Isobel screamed with delight, and together, hand in hand, they danced
+around and around it, just as he and the other girls and boys had
+danced years and years ago. And when they stopped there were tears of
+laughter and joy in the child's eyes and a filmy mist of another sort
+in Billy's.
+
+It was the snow-man that brought back to him years and years of lost
+hopes. They flooded in upon him until it seemed as though the old life
+was the life of yesterday and waiting for him now just beyond the edge
+of the black forest. Long after Isobel was asleep in the tent he sat
+and looked at the snow-man; and more and more his heart sang with a
+new joy, until it seemed as though he must rise and cry out in the
+eagerness and hope that filled him. In the snow-man, slowly melting
+before the fire, there was a heart and a soul and voice. It was
+calling to him, urging him as nothing in the world had ever urged him
+before. He would go back to the old home down in God's country, to the
+old playmates who were men and women now. They would welcome him-- and
+they would welcome the woman. For he would take her. For the first
+time he made himself believe that she would go. And there, hand in
+hand, they would follow his boyhood footprints over the meadows and
+through the hills, and he would gather flowers for her in place of the
+mother that was gone, and he would tell her all the old stories of the
+days that were passed.
+
+It was the snow-man!
+
+ XV
+
+ LE MORT ROUGE-- AND ISOBEL
+
+Until late that night Billy sat beside his campfire with the snow-man.
+Strange and new thoughts had come to him, and among these was the
+wondering one asking himself why he had never built a snow-man before.
+When he went to bed he dreamed of the snow-man and of little Isobel;
+and the little girl's laughter and happiness when she saw the curious
+form the dissolving snow-man had taken in the heat of the fire when
+she awoke the following morning filled him again with those boyish
+visions of happiness that he had seen just ahead of him. At other
+times he would have told himself that he was no longer reasonable.
+After they had breakfasted and started on the day's journey he laughed
+and talked with baby Isobel, and a dozen times in the forenoon he
+picked her up in his arms and carried her behind the dogs.
+
+"We're going home," he kept telling her over and over again. "We're
+going home-- down to mama-- mama-- mama!" He emphasized that; and each
+time Isobel's pretty mouth formed the word mama after him his heart
+leaped exultantly. By the end of that day it had become the sweetest
+word in the world to him. He tried mother, but his little comrade
+looked at him blankly, and he did not like it himself. "Mama, mama,
+mama," he said a hundred times that night beside their campfire, and
+before he tucked her away in her warm blankets he said something to
+her about "Now I lay me down to sleep." Isobel was too tired and
+sleepy to comprehend much of that. Even after she was deep in slumber
+and Billy sat alone smoking his pipe he whispered that sweetest word
+in the world to himself, and took out the tress of shining hair and
+gazed at it joyously in the glow of the fire. By the end of the next
+day little Isobel could say almost the whole of the prayer his own
+mother had taught him years and years and years ago, so far back that
+his vision of her was not that of a woman, but of an elusive and
+wonderful angel; and the fourth day at noon she lisped the whole of it
+without a word of assistance from him.
+
+On the morning of the fifth day Billy struck the Gray Beaver, and
+little Isobel grew serious at the change in him. He no longer amused
+her, but urged the dogs along, never for an instant relaxing his
+vigilant quest for a sign of smoke, a trail, a blazed tree. At his
+heart there began to burn a suspense that was almost suffocating. In
+these last hours before he was to see Isobel there came the inevitable
+reaction within him. Gloom oppressed him where a little while before
+joyous anticipation had given him hope. The one terrible thought drove
+out all others now-- he was bringing her news of death, her husband's
+death. And to Isobel he knew that Deane had meant all that the world
+held of joy or hope-- Deane and the baby.
+
+It was like a shock when he came suddenly upon the cabin, in the edge
+of a small clearing. For a moment he hesitated. Then he took Isobel in
+his arms and went to the door. It was slightly ajar, and after
+knocking upon it with his fist he thrust it open and entered.
+
+There was no one in the room in which he found himself, but there was
+a stove and a fire. At the end of the room was a second door, and it
+opened slowly. In another moment Isobel stood there. He had never seen
+her as he saw her now, with the light from a window falling upon her.
+She was dressed in a loose gown, and her long hair fell in disheveled
+profusion over her shoulders and bosom. MacVeigh would have cried out
+her name-- he had told himself a hundred times what he would first say
+to her-- but what he saw in her face startled him and held him silent
+while their eyes met. Her cheeks were flushed. Her lips burned an
+unnatural red. Her eyes were glowing with strange fires. She looked at
+him first, and her hands clutched at her bosom, crumpling the masses
+of her lustrous hair. Not until she had looked into his eyes did she
+recognize what he carried in his arms. When he held the child out to
+her she sprang forward with the strangest cry he had ever heard.
+
+"My baby!" she almost shrieked. "My baby-- my baby--"
+
+She staggered back and sank into a chair near a table, with little
+Isobel clasped to her breast. For a time Billy heard only those words
+in her dry, sobbing voice as she crushed her burning face down against
+her child's. He knew that she was sick, that it was fever which had
+sent the hot flush into her cheeks. He gulped hard, and went near to
+her. Trembling, he put out a hand and touched her. She looked up. A
+bit of that old, glorious light leaped into her eyes, the light which
+he had seen when in gratitude she had given him her lips to kiss.
+
+"You?" she whispered. "You-- brought her--"
+
+She caught his hand, and the soft smother of her loose hair fell over
+it. He could feel the quick rise and fall of her bosom.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+There was a demand in her face, her eyes, her parted lips. He went on,
+her hand clasping his tighter, until he could feel the swift beating
+of her heart. He had never thought that he could tell the story in as
+few words as he told it now, with more and more of the glorious light
+creeping into Isobel's eyes. She stopped breathing when he told her of
+the fight in the cabin and the death of the man who had stolen little
+Isobel. A hundred words more brought him to the edge of the forest. He
+stopped there. But she still questioned him in silence. She drew him
+down nearer, until he could feel her breath. There was something
+terrible in the demand of her eyes. He tried to find words to say, but
+something rose up in his throat and choked him. She saw his effort.
+
+"Go on," she said, softly.
+
+"And then-- I brought her to you," he said.
+
+"You met him?"
+
+Her question was so sudden that it startled him, and in an instant he
+had betrayed himself.
+
+Little Isobel slipped to the floor, and Isobel stood up. She came near
+to him, as she came that marvelous night out on the Barren, and in her
+eyes there was the same prayer as she put her two hands up to him and
+looked straight into his face.
+
+He thought it would be easier. But it was terrible. She did not move.
+No sound came from her tight-drawn lips as he told her of the meeting
+with Deane, and of her husband's illness. She guessed what was coming
+before he had spoken it. At his words, telling of death, she drew away
+from him slowly. She did not cry out. Her only evidence that she had
+heard and understood was the low moan that fell from her lips. She
+covered her face with her hands and stood for a moment an arm's length
+away, and in that moment all the force of his great love for her swept
+upon MacVeigh in an overwhelming flood. He opened his arms, longing to
+gather her into them and comfort her as he would have comforted a
+little child. In that love he would willingly have dropped dead at her
+feet if he could have given back to her the man she had lost. She
+raised her head in time to see his outstretched arms, she saw the love
+and the pleading in his face, and into her own eyes there leaped the
+fire of a tigress.
+
+"You-- you--" she cried. "It was you who killed him! He had done no
+wrong-- save to protect me and avenge me from the insult of a brute!
+He had done no wrong. But the Law-- your Law-- set you after him, and
+you hunted him like a beast; you drove him from our home, from me and
+the baby. You hunted him until he died up there-- alone. You-- you
+killed him."
+
+With a sudden cry she turned and caught up little Isobel and ran
+toward the other door. And as she disappeared into the room from which
+she had first appeared Billy heard her moaning those terrible words.
+
+"You-- you-- you--"
+
+Like a man who had been struck a blow he swayed back to the outer
+door. Near his dogs and sledge he met Pierre Couchee and his
+half-French wife coming in from their trap line. He scarcely knew what
+explanation he gave to the half-breed, who helped him to put up his
+tent. But when the latter left to follow his wife into the cabin he
+said:
+
+"She ess seek, ver' seek. An' she grow more seek each day until-- mon
+Dieu!-- my wife, she ess scare!"
+
+He cut a few balsam boughs and spread out his blankets, but did not
+trouble to build a fire. When the half-breed returned to say that
+supper was waiting he told him that he was not hungry, and that he was
+going to sleep. He doubled himself up under his blankets, silent and
+staring, even neglecting to feed the dogs. He was awake when the stars
+appeared. He was awake when the moon rose. He was still awake when the
+light went out in Pierre Couchee's cabin. The snow-man was gone from
+his vision-- home and hope. He had never been hurt as he was hurt now.
+He was yet awake when the moon passed far over his head, sank behind
+the wilderness to the west, and blackness came. Toward dawn he fell
+into an uneasy slumber, and from that sleep he was awakened by Pierre
+Couchee's voice.
+
+When he opened his eyes it was day, and the half-breed stood at the
+opening of the tent. His face was filled with horror. His voice was
+almost a scream when he saw that MacVeigh was awake and sitting up.
+
+"The great God in heaven!" he cried. "It is the plague, m'sieur-- le
+mort rouge-- the small pox! She is dying--"
+
+MacVeigh was on his feet, gripping him by the arms.
+
+He turned and ran toward the cabin, and Billy saw that the
+half-breed's team was harnessed, and that Pierre's wife was bringing
+forth blankets and bundles. He did not wait to question them, but
+hurried into the plague-stricken cabin. From the woman's room came a
+low moaning, and he rushed in and fell upon his knees at her side. Her
+face was flushed with the fever, half hidden in the disheveled masses
+of her hair. She recognized him, and her dark eyes burned madly.
+
+"Take-- the baby!" she panted. "My God-- go-- go with her!"
+
+Tenderly he put out a hand and stroked back her hair from her face.
+
+"You are sick-- sick with the bad fever," he said, gently.
+
+"Yes-- yes, it is that. I did not think-- until last night-- what it
+might be. You-- you love me! Then take her-- take the baby and go--
+go-- go!"
+
+All his old strength came back to him now. He felt no fear. He smiled
+down into her face, and the silken touch of her hair set his heart
+leaping and the love into his eyes.
+
+"I will take her out there," he said. "But she is all right-- Isobel."
+He spoke her name almost pleadingly. "She is all right. She will not
+take the fever."
+
+He picked up the child and carried her out into the larger room.
+Pierre and his wife were at the door. They were dressed for travel, as
+he had seen them come in off the trap line the evening before. He
+dropped Isobel and sprang in front of them.
+
+"What do you mean?" he demanded. "You are not going away! You cannot
+go!" He turned almost fiercely upon the woman. "She will die-- if you
+do not stay and care for her. You shall not run away!"
+
+"It is the plague," said Pierre. "It is death to remain!"
+
+"You shall stay!" said MacVeigh, still speaking to Pierre's wife. "You
+are the one woman-- the only woman-- within a hundred miles. She will
+die without you. You shall stay if I have to tie you!"
+
+With the quickness of a cat Pierre raised the butt of the heavy
+dog-whip which he held in his hand and it came down with a sickening
+thud on Billy's head. As he staggered into the middle of the cabin
+floor, groping blindly for a moment before he fell, he heard a
+strange, terrified cry, and in the open inner door he saw the
+white-robed figure of Isobel Deane. Then he sank down into a pit of
+blackness.
+
+It was Isobel's face that he first saw when he came from out of that
+black pit. He knew that it was her voice calling to him before he had
+opened his eyes. He felt the touch of her hands, and when he looked up
+her loose, soft hair swept his breast. His head was bolstered up, and
+so he could look straight into her face. It frightened him. He knew
+now what she had been saying to him as he lay there upon the floor.
+
+"You must get up! You must go!" he heard her mooning. "You must take
+my baby away. And you-- you-- must go!"
+
+He pulled himself half erect, then rose to his feet, swaying a little.
+He came to her then, with the look in his face she had first seen out
+on the Barren when he had told her that he was going with her through
+the forest.
+
+"No, I am not going away," he said, firmly, and yet with that same old
+gentleness in his voice. "If I go you will die. So I am going to
+stay."
+
+She stared at him, speechless.
+
+"You-- you can't," she gasped, at last. "Don't you see-- don't you
+understand? I'm a woman-- and you can't. You must take her-- my baby--
+and go for help."
+
+"There is no help," said MacVeigh, quietly. "Within a few hours you
+will be helpless. I am going to stay and-- and-- I swear to God I will
+care for you-- as he-- would have done. He made me promise that-- to
+care for you-- to stick by you--"
+
+She looked straight into his eyes. He saw the twitching of her throat,
+the quiver of her lips. In another moment she would have fallen if he
+had not put a supporting arm about her.
+
+"If-- anything-- happens," she gasped, brokenly, "you will take care--
+of her-- my baby--"
+
+"Yes-- always."
+
+"And if I-- get well--"
+
+Her head swayed dizzily and dropped to his breast.
+
+"If I get-- well--"
+
+"Yes," he urged. "Yes--"
+
+"If I--"
+
+He saw her struggle and fail.
+
+"Yes, I know-- I understand," he cried, quickly, as she grew heavier
+in his arms. "If you get well I will go. I swear to do that. I will go
+away. No one will ever know-- no one-- in the whole world. And I will
+be good to you-- and care for you--"
+
+He stopped, brushed back her hair, and looked into her face. Then he
+carried her into the inner room; and when he came out little Isobel
+was crying.
+
+"You poor little kid," he cried, and caught her up in his arms. "You
+poor little--"
+
+The child smiled at him through her tears, and Billy suddenly sat down
+on the edge of the table.
+
+"You've been a little brick from the beginning, and you're going to
+keep it up, little one," he said, taking her pretty face between his
+two big hands. "You've got to be good, for we're going to have a--
+a--" He turned away, and finished under his breath. "We're going to
+have a devil of a time!"
+
+ XVI
+
+ THE LAW-- MURDERER OF MEN
+
+Seated on the table, little Isobel looked up into Billy's face and
+laughed, and when the laugh ended in a half wail Billy found that his
+fingers had tightened on her little shoulder until they hurt. He
+tousled her hair to bring back her good-humor, and put her on the
+floor. Then he went back to the partly open door. It was quiet in the
+darkened room. He listened for a breath or a sob, and could hear
+neither. A curtain was drawn over the one window, and he could but
+indistinctly make out the darker shadow where Isobel lay on the bed.
+His heart beat faster as he softly called Isobel's name. There was no
+answer. He looked back. Little Isobel had found something on the floor
+and was amusing herself with it. Again he called the mother, and still
+there was no answer. He was filled with a sort of horror. He wanted to
+go over to the dark shadow and assure himself that she was breathing,
+but a hand seemed to thrust him back. And then, piercing him like a
+knife, there came again those low, moaning words of accusation:
+
+"It was you-- it was you-- it was you--"
+
+In that voice, low and moaning as it was, he recognized some of
+Pelliter's madness. It was the fever. He fell back a step and drew a
+hand across his forehead. It was damp, clammy with a cold
+perspiration. He felt a burning pain where he had been struck, and a
+momentary dizziness made him stagger. Then, with a tremendous effort,
+he threw himself together and turned to the little girl. As he carried
+her out through the door into the fresh air Isobel's feverish words
+still followed him:
+
+"It was you-- you-- you-- you!"
+
+The cold air did him good, and he hurried toward the tent with baby
+Isobel. As he deposited her among the blankets and bearskins the
+hopelessness of his position impressed itself swiftly upon him. The
+child could not remain in the cabin, and yet she would not be immune
+from danger in the tent, for he would have to spend a part of his time
+with her. He shuddered as he thought of what it might mean. For
+himself he had no fear of the dread disease that had stricken Isobel.
+He had run the risk of contagion several times before and had remained
+unscathed, but his soul trembled with fear as he looked into little
+Isobel's bright blue eyes and tenderly caressed the soft curls about
+her face, If Couchee and his wife had only taken her! At thought of
+them he sprang suddenly to his feet.
+
+"Looky, little one, you've got to stay here!" he commanded.
+"Understand? I'm going to pin down the tent-flap, and you mustn't cry.
+If I don't get that damned half-breed, dead or alive, my name ain't
+Billy MacVeigh."
+
+He fastened the tent-flap so that Isobel could not escape, and left
+her alone, quiet and wondering. Loneliness was not new to her.
+Solitude did not frighten her; and, listening with his ear close to
+the canvas, Billy soon heard her playing with the armful of things he
+had scattered about her. He hurried to the dogs and harnessed them to
+the sledge. Couchee and his wife did not have over half an hour the
+start of him-- three-quarters at the most. He would run the race of
+his life for an hour or two, overtake them, and bring them back at the
+point of his revolver. If there had to be a fight he would fight.
+
+Where the trail struck into the forest he hesitated, wondering if he
+would not make better speed by leaving the team and sledge behind. The
+excited actions of the dogs decided him. They were sniffing at the
+scent left in the snow by the rival huskies, and were waiting eagerly
+for the command to pursue. Billy snapped his whip over their heads.
+
+"You want a fight, do you, boys?" he cried. "So do I. Get on with you!
+M'hoosh! M'hoosh!"
+
+Billy dropped upon his knees on the sledge as the dogs leaped ahead.
+They needed no guidance, but followed swiftly in Couchee's trail. Five
+minutes later they broke into thin timber, and then came out into a
+narrow plain, dotted with stunted scrub, through which ran the Beaver.
+Here the snow was soft and drifted, and Billy ran behind, hanging to
+the tail-rope to keep the sledge from leaving him if the dogs should
+develop an unexpected spurt. He could see that Couchee was exerting
+every effort to place distance between himself and the plague-stricken
+cabin, and it suddenly struck Billy that something besides fear of le
+mort rouge was adding speed to his heels. It was evident that the
+half-breed was spurred on by the thought of the blow he had struck in
+the cabin. Possibly he believed that he was a murderer, and Billy
+smiled as he observed where Couchee had whipped his dogs at a run
+through the soft drifts. He brought his own team down to a walk,
+convinced that the half-breed had lost his head, and that he would
+bush himself and his dogs within a few miles. He was confident, now
+that he would overtake them somewhere on the plain.
+
+With the elation of this thought there came again the sudden,
+sickening pain in his head. It was over in an instant, but in that
+moment the snow had turned black, and he had flung out his arms to
+keep himself from falling. The babiche rope had slipped from his hand,
+and when things cleared before his eyes again the sledge was twenty
+yards ahead of him. He overtook it, and dropped upon it, panting as
+though he had run a race. He laughed as he recovered himself, and
+looked over the gray backs of the tugging dogs, but in the same breath
+the laugh was cut short on his lips. It was as if a knife-blade had
+run in one lightning thrust from the back of his neck to his brain,
+and he fell forward on his face with a cry of pain. After all,
+Couchee's blow had done the work. He realized that, and made an effort
+to call the dogs to a stop. For five minutes they went on, unheeding
+the half-dozen weak commands that he called out from the darkness that
+had fallen thickly about him. When at last he pulled himself up from
+his face and the snow turned white again, the dogs had halted. They
+were tangled in their traces and sniffing at the snow.
+
+Billy sat up. Darkness and pain left him as swiftly as they had come.
+He saw Couchee's trail ahead, and then he looked at the dogs. They had
+swung at right angles to the sledge and had pulled the nose of it deep
+into a drift. With a sharp cry of command he sent the lash of his whip
+among them and went to the leader's head. The dogs slunk to their
+bellies, snarling at him.
+
+"What the devil--" he began, and stopped.
+
+He stared at the snow. Straight out from Couchee's trail there ran
+another-- a snow-shoe trail. For a moment he thought that Couchee or
+his wife had for some reason struck out a distance from their sledge.
+A second glance assured him that in this supposition he was wrong.
+Both the half-breed and his wife wore the long, narrow "bush"
+snow-shoes, and this second trail was made by the big, basket-shaped
+shoes worn by Indians and trappers on the Barrens. In addition to
+this, the trail was well beaten. Whoever had traveled it recently had
+gone over it many times before, and Billy gave utterance to his joy in
+a low cry. He had struck a trap line. The trapper's cabin could not be
+far away, and the trapper himself had passed that way not many minutes
+since. He examined the two trails and found where the blunt, round
+point of a snow-shoe had covered an imprint left by Couchee, and at
+this discovery Billy made a megaphone of his mittened hands and gave
+utterance to the long, wailing holloa of the forest man. It was a cry
+that would carry a mile. Twice he shouted, and the second time there
+came a reply. It was not far distant, and he responded with a third
+and still louder shout. In a flash there came again the terrible pain
+in his head, and he sank down on the sledge. This time he was roused
+from his stupor by the barking and snarling of the dogs and the voice
+of a man. When he lifted his head out of his arms he saw some one
+close to the dogs. He made an effort to rise, and staggered half to
+his feet. Then he fell back, and the darkness closed in about him more
+thickly than before. When he opened his eyes again he was in a cabin.
+He was conscious of warmth. The first sound that he heard was the
+crackling of a fire and the closing of a stove door. And then he heard
+some one say:
+
+"S'help me God, if it ain't Billy MacVeigh!"
+
+He stared up into the face that was looking down at him. It was a
+white man's face, covered with a scrubby red beard. The beard was new,
+but the eyes and the voice he would have recognized anywhere. For two
+years he had messed with Rookie McTabb down at Norway and Nelson
+House. McTabb had quit the Service because of a bad leg.
+
+"Rookie!" he gasped.
+
+He drew himself up, and McTabb's hands grasped his shoulders.
+
+"S'help me, if it ain't Billy MacVeigh!" he exclaimed again, amazement
+in his voice and face. "Joe brought you in five minutes ago, and I
+ain't had a straight squint at you until now. Billy MacVeigh! Well,
+I'm--" He stopped to stare at Billy's forehead, where there was a
+stain of blood. "Hurt?" he demanded, sharply. "Was it that damned
+half-breed?"
+
+Billy was gripping his hands now. Over near the stove, still kneeling
+before the closed door, he saw the dark face of an Indian turned
+toward him.
+
+"It was Couchee," he said. "He hit me with the butt of his whip, and
+I've had funny spells ever since. Before I have another I want to tell
+you what I'm up against, Rookie. My Gawd, it's a funny chance that ran
+me up against you-- just in time! Listen."
+
+He told McTabb briefly of Scottie Deane's death, of Couchee's flight
+from the cabin, and the present situation there.
+
+"There isn't a minute to lose," he finished, tightening his hold on
+McTabb's hand. "There's the kid and the mother, and I've got to get
+back to them, Rookie. The rest is up to you. We've got to get a woman.
+If we don't-- soon--"
+
+He rose to his feet and stood there looking at McTabb. The other
+nodded.
+
+"I understand," he said. "You're in a bad fix, Billy. It's two hundred
+miles to the nearest white woman, away over near Du Brochet. You
+couldn't get an Indian to go within half a mile of a cabin that's
+struck by the plague, and I doubt if this white woman would come. The
+only game I can see is to send to Fort Churchill or Nelson House and
+have the force send up a nurse. It will take two weeks."
+
+Billy gave a gesture of despair. Indian Joe had listened attentively,
+and now rose quietly from his position in front of the stove.
+
+"There's Indian camp over on Arrow Lake," he said, facing Billy. "I
+know squaw there who not afraid of plague."
+
+"Sure as fate!" cried McTabb, exultantly. "Joe's mother is over there,
+and if there is anything on earth she won't do for Joe I can't guess
+what it is. Early this winter she came a hundred and fifty miles--
+alone-- to pay him a visit. She'll come. Go after her, Joe. I'll go
+Billy MacVeigh's bond to get the Service to pay her five dollars a day
+from the hour she starts!" He turned to Billy. "How's your head?" he
+asked.
+
+"Better. It was the run that fixed me, I guess."
+
+"Then we'll go over to Couchee's cabin and I'll bring back the kid."
+
+They left Joe preparing for his three-day trip into the south and
+east, and outside the cabin McTabb insisted on Billy riding behind the
+dogs. They struck back for Couchee's trail, and when they came to it
+McTabb laughed.
+
+"I'll bet they're running like rabbits," he said. "What in thunder did
+you expect to do if you caught 'em, Billy? Drag the woman back by the
+hair of 'er 'ead? I'm glad you tumbled where you did. You've got to
+beat a lynx to beat Couchee. He'd have perforated you from behind a
+snow-drift sure as your name's Billy MacVeigh."
+
+Billy felt that an immense load had been lifted from him, and he was
+partly inclined to tell his companion more about Isobel and himself.
+This, however, he did not do. As McTabb strode ahead and urged on the
+dogs he figured on the chances of Joe and his mother returning within
+a week. During that time he would be alone with Isobel, and in spite
+of the horrible fear that never for a moment left his heart it was
+impossible for him not to feel a thrill of pleasure at the thought.
+Those would be days of agony for himself as well as for her, and yet
+he would be near, always near, the woman he loved. And little Isobel
+would be safe in Rookie's cabin. If anything happened--
+
+His hands gripped the edges of the sledge at the thought that leaped
+into his brain. It was Pelliter's thought. If anything happened to
+Isobel the little girl would be his own, forever and forever. He
+thrust the thought from him as if it were the plague itself. Isobel
+would live. He would make her live, If she died--
+
+McTabb heard the low cry that broke from his lips. He could not keep
+it back. Good God, if she went, how empty the world would be! He might
+never see her again after these days of terror that were ahead of him;
+but if she lived, and he knew that the sun was shining in her bright
+hair, and that her blue eyes still looked up at the stars, and that in
+her sweet prayers she sometimes thought of him-- along with Deane--
+life could not be quite so lonely for him.
+
+McTabb had dropped back to his side.
+
+"Head hurt?" he asked.
+
+"A little," lied Billy. "There's a level stretch ahead, Rookie. Hustle
+up the dogs!"
+
+Half an hour later the sledge drew up in front of Couchee's cabin.
+Billy pointed to the tent.
+
+"The little one is in there," he said. "Go over an' get acquainted,
+Rookie. I'm going to take a look inside to see if everything is all
+right."
+
+He entered the cabin quietly and closed the door softly behind him.
+The inner door was as he had left it, partly open, and he looked in,
+with a wildly beating heart. He could no longer hesitate. He stepped
+in and spoke her name.
+
+"Isobel!"
+
+There was a movement on the bed, and he was startled by the suddenness
+with which Isobel sprang to her feet. She drew aside the heavy curtain
+from the window and stood in the light. For a moment Billy saw her
+blue eyes filled with a strange fire as she stared at him. There was a
+wild flush in her cheeks, and he could hear her dry breath as it came
+from between her parted lips. Her hair was still undone and covered
+her in a shimmering veil.
+
+"I've found a trapper's cabin, Isobel, and we're taking the baby
+there," he went on. "She will be safe. And we're sending for help--
+for a woman--"
+
+He stopped, horror striking him dumb. He saw more plainly the feverish
+madness in Isobel's eyes. She dropped the curtain, and they were in
+gloom. The whispered words he heard were more terrible than the
+madness in her eyes.
+
+"You won't kill her?" she pleaded. "You won't kill my baby? You won't
+kill her--"
+
+She staggered, back toward the bed, whispering the words over and over
+again. Not until she had dropped upon it did Billy move. The blood in
+his body seemed to have turned cold. Be dropped upon his knees at her
+side. His hand buried itself in the soft smother of her hair, but he
+no longer felt the touch of it. He tried to speak, but words would not
+come. And then, suddenly, she thrust him back, and he could see the
+glow of her eyes in the half darkness. For a moment she seemed to have
+fought herself out of her delirium.
+
+"It was you-- you-- who helped to kill him!" she panted. "It was the
+Law-- and you are the Law. It kills-- kills-- kills-- and it never
+gives back when it makes a mistake. He was innocent, but you and the
+Law hounded him until he died. You are the murderers. You killed him.
+You have killed me. And you will never be punished-- never-- never--
+because you are the Law-- and because the Law can kill-- kill--
+kill--"
+
+She dropped back, moaning, and MacVeigh crouched at her side, his
+fingers buried in her hair, with no words to say. In a moment she
+breathed easier. He felt her tense body relax. He forced himself to
+his feet and dragged himself into the outer room, closing the door
+after him. Even in her delirium Isobel had spoken the truth. Forever
+she had digged for him a black abyss between them. The Law had killed
+Scottie Deane. And he was the Law. And for the Law there was no
+punishment, even though it took the life of an innocent man.
+
+He went outside. McTabb was in the tent. The gloom of evening was
+closing in on a desolate world. Overhead the sky was thick, and
+suddenly, with a great cry, Billy flung his arms straight up over his
+head and cursed that Law which could not be punished, the Law that had
+killed Scottie Deane. For he was that Law, and Isobel had called him a
+murderer.
+
+ XVII
+
+ ISOBEL FACES THE ABYSS
+
+It was not the face of MacVeigh-- the old MacVeigh-- that Rookie
+McTabb, the ex-constable, looked into a few moments later. Days of
+sickness could have laid no heavier hand upon him than had those few
+minutes in the darkened room of the cabin. His face was white and
+drawn. There were tense lines at the corners of his mouth and
+something strange and disquieting in his eyes. McTabb did not see the
+change until he came out into what remained of the day with little
+Isobel in his arms. Then he stared.
+
+"That blow got you bad," he said. "You look sick. Mebbe I'd better
+stay with you here to-night."
+
+"No, you hadn't," replied Billy, trying to throw off what he knew the
+other saw. "Take the kid over to the cabin. A night's sleep and I'll
+be as lively as a cat. I'm going to vaccinate her before you go."
+
+He went into the tent and dug out from his pack the small rubber pouch
+in which he carried a few medicines and a roll of medicated cotton. In
+a small bottle there were three vaccine points. He returned with these
+and the cotton.
+
+"Watch her close," he said, as he rolled back the child's sleeve. "I'm
+going to give you an extra point, and if this doesn't work by the
+seventh or eighth day you must do the job over again."
+
+With the point of his knife he began to work gently on baby Isobel's
+tender pink skin. He had expected that she would cry. But she was not
+frightened, and her big blue eyes followed his movements wonderingly.
+At last it began to hurt, and her lips quivered. But she made no
+sound, and as tears welled into her eyes Billy dropped his knife and
+caught her up close to his breast.
+
+"God bless your dear little heart," he cried, smothering his face in
+her silken curls. "You've been hurt so much, an' you've froze, an'
+you've starved, an' you ain't never said a word about it since that
+day up at Fullerton! Little sweetheart--"
+
+McTabb heard him whispering things, and little Isobel's arms crept
+tightly about his neck. After a little Billy held her out to him
+again, and a part of what Rookie had seen in his face was gone.
+
+"It won't hurt any more," he said, as he rubbed the vaccine point over
+the red spot on her arm. "You don't want to be sick, do you? And that
+'ll keep you from being sick. There--"
+
+He wound a strip of the cotton about her arm, tied it, and gave part
+of what remained to McTabb. Then he took her in his arms again and
+kissed her warm face and her soft curls, and after that bundled her in
+furs and put her on the sledge. Rookie was straightening out the dogs
+when, like a thief, he clipped off one of the curls with his knife.
+Isobel laughed gleefully when she saw the curl between his fingers.
+Before McTabb had turned it was in his pocket.
+
+"I won't see her again-- soon," MacVeigh said; and he tried to keep a
+thickness out of his voice. "That is, I-- I won't see her to-- to
+handle her. I'll come over now and then an' look at her from the edge
+of the woods. You bring 'er out, Rookie, an' don't you dare to let her
+know I'm out there. She wouldn't know what it meant if I didn't come
+to her."
+
+He watched them as they disappeared into the gloom of night, and when
+they had gone a groan of anguish broke from his lips. For he knew that
+little Isobel was going from him forever. He would see her again--
+from the edge of the forest; but he would never hold her in his arms,
+nor feel again her tender arms about his neck or the soft smother of
+her hair against his face. Long before the dread menace of the plague
+was lifted from the cabin and from himself he would be gone. For that
+was what Isobel, the mother, had demanded, and he would keep his
+promise to her. She would never know what happened in these days of
+her delirium. She would not have to face him afterward. He knew
+already how he would go. When help came he would slip away quietly
+some night, and the big wilderness would swallow him up. His plans
+seemed to come without thought on his own part. He would go to Fort
+Churchill and testify against Bucky Smith. And then he would quit the
+Service. His term of enlistment expired in a month, and he would not
+re-enlist. "It was the Law that killed him-- and you are the Law. It
+kills-- kills-- kills-- and it never gives back when it makes a
+mistake." Under the dark sky those words seemed never to end in his
+ears, and each moment they added to his hatred of the thing of which
+he had been a part for years. He seemed to hear Isobel's accusing
+voice in the low soughing of the night wind in the spruce tops; and in
+the stillness of the world that hung heavy and close about him the
+words chased each other through his brain until they seemed to leave
+behind them a path of fire.
+
+"It kills-- kills-- kills-- and it never gives back when it makes a
+mistake."
+
+His lips were set tensely as he faced the cabin. He remembered now
+more than one instance where the Law had killed and had never given
+back. That was a part of the game of man-hunting. But he had never
+thought of it in Isobel's way until she had painted for him in those
+few half-mad, accusing words a picture of himself. The fact that he
+had fought for Scottie Deane and had given him his freedom did not
+exonerate himself in his own eyes now. It was because of himself and
+Pelliter chiefly that Deane and Isobel had been forced to seek refuge
+among the Eskimos. From Fullerton they had watched and hunted for him
+as they would have hunted for an animal. He saw himself as Isobel must
+see him now-- the murderer of her husband. He was glad, as he returned
+to the cabin, that he had happened to come in the second or third day
+of her fever. He dreaded her sanity now more than her delirium,
+
+He lighted a tin lamp in the cabin and listened for a moment at the
+inner door. Isobel was quiet. For the first time he made a more
+careful note of the cabin. Couchee and his wife had left plenty of
+food. He had noticed a frozen haunch of venison hanging outside the
+cabin, and he went out and chopped off several pieces of the meat. He
+did not feel hungry enough to prepare food for himself, but put the
+meat in a pot and placed it on the stove, that he might have broth for
+Isobel.
+
+He began to find signs of her presence in the room as he moved about.
+Hanging on a wooden peg in the log wall he saw a scarf which he knew
+belonged to her. Under the scarf there was a pair of her shoes, and
+then he noticed that the crude cabin table was covered with a litter
+of stuff which he had not observed before. There were needles and
+thread, some cloth, a pair of gloves, and a red bow of ribbon which
+Isobel had worn at her throat. What held his eyes were two bundles of
+old letters tied with blue ribbon, and a third pile, undone and
+scattered. In the light of the lamp he saw that all of the writing on
+the envelopes was in the same hand. The top envelope on the first pile
+was addressed to "Mrs. Isobel Deane, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan"; the
+first envelope of the other bundle to "Miss Isobel Rowland, Montreal,
+Canada." Billy's heart choked him as he gathered the loose letters in
+his hands and placed them, with the others, on a little shelf above
+the table. He knew that they were letters from Deane, and that in her
+fever and loneliness Isobel had been reading them when he brought to
+her news of her husband's death.
+
+He was about to remove the other articles from the table where a
+folded newspaper clipping was uncovered by the removal of the cloth.
+It was a half page from a Montreal daily, and out of it there looked
+straight up at him the face of Isobel Deane. It was a younger, more
+girlish-looking face, but to him it was not half so beautiful as the
+face of the Isobel who had come to him from out of the Barren. His
+fingers trembled and his breath came more quickly as he held the paper
+in the light and read the few lines under the picture:
+
+  ISOBEL ROWLAND, ONE OF THE LAST OF MONTREAL'S DAUGHTERS OF THE
+  NORTH, WHO HAS SACRIFICED A FORTUNE FOR LOVE OF A YOUNG ENGINEER
+
+In spite of the feeling of shame that crept over him at thus allowing
+himself to be drawn into a past sacred to Isobel and the man who had
+died, Billy's eyes sought the date-line. The paper was eight years
+old. And then he read what followed. In those few minutes, as the
+cold, black type revealed to him the story of Isobel and Deane, he
+forgot that he was in the cabin, and that he could almost hear the
+breathing of the woman whose sweet romance had ended now in tragedy.
+He was with Deane that day, years ago, when he had first looked into
+Isobel's eyes in the little old cemetery of nameless and savage dead
+at Ste. Anne de Beaupre; he heard the tolling of the ancient bell in
+the church that had stood on the hillside for more than two hundred
+and fifty years; and he could hear Deane's voice as he told Isobel the
+story of that bell and how, in the days of old, it had often called
+the settlers in to fight against the Indians. And then, as he read on,
+he could feel the sudden thrill in Deane's blood when Isobel had told
+him who she was, and that Pierre Radisson, one of the great lords of
+the north, had been her great-grandfather; that he had brought
+offerings to the little old church, and that he had fought there and
+died close by, and that his body was somewhere among the nameless and
+unmarked dead. It was a beautiful story, and MacVeigh saw more of it
+between the lines than could ever have been printed. Once he had gone
+to Ste. Anne de Beaupre to see the pilgrims and the miracles there,
+and there flashed before him the sunlit slope overlooking the broad
+St. Lawrence, where Isobel and Deane had afterward met, and where she
+had told him how large a part the little old cracked bell, the ancient
+church, and the plot of nameless dead had played in her life ever
+since she could remember. His blood grew hot as he read of what
+followed the beginning of love at the pilgrims' shrine. Isobel had no
+father or mother, the paper said. Her uncle and guardian was an iron
+master of the old blood-- the blood that had been a part of the
+wilderness and the great company since the day the first "gentlemen
+adventurers" came over with Prince Rupert. He lived alone with Isobel
+in a big white house on the top of a hill, shut in by stone walls and
+iron pickets, and looked out upon the world with the cold hauteur of a
+feudal lord. He was young David Deane's enemy from the moment he first
+heard about him, largely because he was nothing more than a struggling
+mining engineer, but chiefly because he was an American and had come
+from across the border. The stone walls and iron pickets were made a
+barrier to him. The heavy gates never opened for him. Then had come
+the break. Isobel, loyal in her love, had gone to Deane. The story
+ended there.
+
+For a few moments Billy stood with the paper in his hand, the type a
+blur before his eyes. He could almost see Isobel's old home in
+Montreal. It was on the steep, shaded road leading up to Mount Royal,
+where he had once watched a string of horses "tacking" with their
+two-wheeled carts of coal in their arduous journey to Sir George
+Allen's basement at the end of it. He remembered how that street had
+held a curious sort of fascination for him, with its massive stone
+walls, its old French homes, and that old atmosphere still clinging to
+it of the Montreal of a hundred years ago. Twelve years before he had
+gone there first and carved his name on the wooden stairway leading to
+the top of the mountain. Isobel had been there then. Perhaps it was
+she he had heard singing behind one of the walls.
+
+He put the paper with the letters, making a note of the uncle's name.
+If anything happened it would be his duty to send word to him--
+perhaps. And then, deliberately, he tore into little pieces the slip
+of paper on which he had written the name. Geoffrey Renaud had cast
+off his niece. And if she died why should he-- Billy MacVeigh-- tell
+him anything about little Isobel? Since Isobel's terrible castigation
+of himself and the Law duty had begun to hold a diferent meaning for
+him.
+
+Several times during the next hour Billy listened at the door. Then he
+made some tea and toast and took the broth from the stove. He went
+into the room, leaving these on the hearth of the stove so that they
+would not grow cold. He heard Isobel move, and as he went to her side
+she gave a little breathless cry.
+
+"David-- David-- is it you?" she moaned. "Oh, David, I'm so glad you
+have come!"
+
+Billy stood over her. In the darkness his face was ashen gray, for
+like a flash of fire in the lightless room the truth rushed upon him.
+Shock and fever had done their work. And in her delirium Isobel
+believed that he was Deane, her husband. In the gloom he saw that she
+was reaching up her arms to him.
+
+"David!" she whispered; and in her voice there were a love and
+gladness that thrilled and terrified him to the quick of his soul.
+
+ XVIII
+
+ THE FULFILMENT OF A PROMISE
+
+In the space of silence that followed Isobel's whispered words there
+came to Billy a realization of the crisis which he faced. The thought
+of surrendering himself to his first impulse, and of taking Deane's
+place in these hours of Isobel's fever, filled him instantly with a
+revulsion that sent him back a step from the bed, his hands clenched
+until his nails hurt his calloused palms.
+
+"No, no, I am not David," he began, but the words died in his throat.
+
+To tell her that, to make her know the truth-- that her husband was
+dead-- might kill her now. Hope, belief that he was alive and with
+her, would help to make her live. So quickly that he could not have
+spoken his thoughts in words these things flashed upon him. If Deane
+were alive and at her side his presence would save her. And if she
+believed that he was Deane he would save her. In the end she would
+never know. He remembered how Pelliter had forgotten things that had
+happened in his delirium. To Isobel, when she awakened into sanity, it
+would only seem like a dream at most. A few words from him then would
+convince her of that. If necessary, he would tell her that she had
+talked much about David in her fever and had imagined him with her.
+She would have no suspicion that he had played that part.
+
+Isobel had waited a moment, but now she whispered again, as if a
+little frightened at his silence.
+
+"David-- David--"
+
+He stepped back quickly to the bed and his hands met those reaching up
+to him. They were hot and dry, and Isobel's fingers tightened about
+his own almost fiercely, and drew his hands down on her breast. She
+gave a sigh, as though she would rest easier now that his hands were
+touching her.
+
+"I have been making some broth for you," he said, scarcely daring to
+speak. "Will you take some of it, Isobel? You must-- and sleep."
+
+He felt the pressure of Isobel's hands, and she spoke to him so calmly
+that for a breath he thought that she must surely be herself again.
+
+"I don't like the dark, David," she said. "I can't see you. And I want
+to do up my hair. Will you bring in a light?"
+
+"Not until you are better," he whispered. "A light will hurt your
+eyes. I will stay with you-- near you--"
+
+She raised a hand in the darkness, and it stroked his face. In that
+touch were all the love and gentleness that had lived for the man who
+was dead, and the caress thrilled Billy until it seemed as though what
+was in his heart must burst forth in a sobbing breath. Suddenly her
+hand left his face, and he heard her moving restlessly.
+
+"My hair-- David--"
+
+He put out a hand, and it fell in the soft smother of her hair. It was
+tangled about her face and neck, and he lifted her gently while he
+drew out the thick masses of it. He did not dare to speak while he
+smoothed out the rich tresses and pleated them into a braid. Isobel
+sighed restfully when he had done.
+
+"I am going to get the broth now," he said then.
+
+He went into the outer room where the lamp was lighted. Not until he
+took up the cup of broth did he notice how his hand trembled. A bit of
+the broth spilled on the floor, and he dropped a piece of the toast.
+He, too, was passing through the crucible with Isobel Deane.
+
+He went back and lifted her so that her head rested against his
+shoulder and the warmth of her hair lay against his cheek and neck.
+Obediently she ate the half-dozen bits of toast he moistened in the
+broth, and then drank a few sips of the liquid. She would have rested
+there after that, with her face turned against his, and Billy knew
+that she would have slept. But he lowered her gently to the pillow.
+
+"You must go to sleep now," he urged, softly. "Good night--"
+
+"David!"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"You-- you-- haven't-- kissed-- me--"
+
+There was a childish plaint in her voice, and with a sob in his own
+breath he bent over her. For an instant her arms clung about his neck.
+He felt the sweet, thrilling touch of her warm lips, and then he drew
+himself back; and, with her "Good night, David" following him to the
+door, he went into the outer room, and with a strange, broken cry
+flung himself on the cot in which Couchee had slept.
+
+It was an hour before he raised his face from the blankets. Yet he had
+not slept. In that hour, and in the half-hour that had preceded it in
+Isobel's room, there had come lines into his face which made him look
+older. Once Isobel had kissed him, and he had treasured that kiss as
+the sweetest thing that had come to him in all his life. And to-night
+she had given him more than that, for there had been love, and not
+gratitude alone, in the warmth of her lips, in the caress of her hands
+and arms, and in the pressure of her feverish face against his own.
+But they brought him none of the pleasure of that which she had given
+to him on the Barren. Grief-stricken, he rose and faced the door. In
+spite of the fact that he knew there was no alternative for him, he
+regarded himself as worse than a thief. He was taking an advantage of
+her which filled him with a repugnance for himself, and he prayed for
+the hour when sanity would return to her, though it brought back the
+heartbreak and despair that were now lost in the oblivion of her
+fever. Always in the northland there is somewhere the dread trail of
+le mort rouge, the "red death," and he was well acquainted with the
+course it would have to run. He believed that the fever had stricken
+Isobel the third or fourth day before, and there would follow three or
+four days more in which she would not be herself. Then would come the
+reaction. She would awaken to the truth then that her husband was
+dead, and that he had been with her alone all that time.
+
+He listened for a moment at the door. Isobel was resting quietly, and
+he went out of the cabin without making a sound. The night had grown
+blacker and gloomier. There was not a rift in the sullen darkness of
+the sky over him. A wind had risen from out of the north and east,
+just enough of a wind to set the tree-tops moaning and fill the
+closed-in world about him with uneasy sound. He walked toward the tent
+where little Isobel had been, and there was something in the air that
+choked him. He wished that he had not sent all of the dogs with
+McTabb. A terrible loneliness oppressed him. It was like a clammy hand
+smothering his heart in its grip, and it made him sick. He turned and
+looked at the light in the cabin. Isobel was there, and he had thought
+that where she was he could never be lonely. But he knew now that
+there lay between them a gulf which an eternity could not bridge.
+
+He shuddered, for with the night wind it seemed to him that there came
+again the presence of Scottie Deane. He gripped his hands and stared
+out into a pit of blackness. It was as if he had heard the Wild
+Horsemen passing that way, panting and galloping through the spruce
+tops on their mission of gathering the souls of the dead. Deane was
+with him, as his spirit had been with him on that night he had
+returned to Pelliter after putting the cross over Scottie's grave. And
+in a moment or two the feeling of that presence seemed to lift the
+smothering weight from his heart. He knew that Deane could understand,
+and the presence comforted him. He went to the tent and looked in,
+though there was nothing to see. And then he turned back to the cabin.
+Thought of the grave with its sapling cross brought home to him his
+duty to the woman. From the rubber pouch he brought forth his pad of
+paper and a pencil.
+
+For more than an hour after that he worked. steadily in the dull glow
+of the lamp. He knew that Isobel would return to Deane. It might be
+soon-- or a long time from now. But she would go. And step by step he
+mapped out for her the trail that led to the little cabin on the edge
+of the Barren. And after that he wrote in his big, rough hand what was
+overflowing from his heart.
+
+"May God take care of you always. I would give my life to give you
+back his. I won't let his grave be lost. I will go back some day and
+plant blue flowers over it. I guess you will never know what I would
+do to give him back to you and make you happy."
+
+He knew that he had not promised what he would fail to do. He would
+return to the lonely grave on the edge of the Barren. There was
+something that called him to it now, something that he could not
+understand, and which came of his own desolation. He folded the pages
+of paper, wrapped them in a clean sheet, and wrote Isobel Deans's name
+on the outside. Then he placed the packet with the letters on the
+shelf over the table. He knew that she would find it with them.
+
+What happened during the terrible week that followed that night no one
+but MacVeigh would ever know. To him they were seven days of a fight
+whose memory would remain with him until the end of time. Sleepless
+nights and almost sleepless days. A bitter struggle, almost without
+rest, with the horrible specter that ever hovered within the inner
+room. A struggle that drew his cheeks in and put deep lines in his
+face; a struggle during which Isobel's voice spoke tenderly and
+pleadingly with him in one hour and bitterly in the next. He felt the
+caress of her hands. More than once she drew him down to the soft
+thrill of her feverish lips. And then, in more terrible moments, she
+accused him of hunting to death the man who lay back under the sapling
+cross. The three days of torment lengthened into four, and the four
+into seven, To the bottom of his soul he suffered, for he understood
+what it all meant for him. On the third and the fifth and the seventh
+days he went over to McTabb's cabin, and Rookie came out and talked
+with him at a distance through a birchbark megaphone. On the seventh
+day there was still no news of Indian Joe and his mother. And on this
+day Billy played his last part as Deane. He went into her room at noon
+with broth and toast and a dish of water, and after she had eaten a
+little he lifted her and made a prop of blankets at her back so that
+he could brush out and braid her beautiful hair. It was light in the
+room in spite of the curtain which he kept closely drawn. Outside the
+sun was shining brightly, and the pale luster of it came through the
+curtain and lit up the rich tresses he was brushing. When he was done
+he lowered her gently to her pillow. She was looking at him strangely.
+And then, with a shock that seemed to turn him cold to the depths of
+his soul, he saw what was in her eyes. Sanity and reason. He saw
+swiftly gathering in them the old terror, the old grief-- recognition
+of his true self! He waited to hear no word, but turned as he had done
+a hundred times before and left the room.
+
+In the outer room he stood for a few silent minutes, gathering
+strength for the ordeal that was near. The end was at hand-- for him.
+He choked back his weakness, and after a time returned to the inner
+door. But now he did not go in as he had entered before. He knocked.
+It was the first time. And Isobel's voice bade him enter.
+
+His heart was filled with a sudden throbbing pain when he saw that she
+had turned so that she lay with her face turned away from him. He bent
+over her and said, softly:
+
+"You are better. The danger is past."
+
+"I am better and-- and-- it is over?" he heard her whisper.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The-- the baby?"
+
+"Is well-- yes."
+
+There was a moment's silence. The room seemed to tremble with it. Then
+she said, faintly:
+
+"You have been alone?"
+
+"Yes-- alone-- for seven days."
+
+She turned her eyes upon him fully. He could see the glow of them in
+the faint light. It seemed to him that she was reading him to the
+depths of his soul, and that in this moment she knew! She knew that he
+had taken the part of David, and suddenly she turned her face away
+from him again with a strange, choking sob. He could feel her
+trembling. She seemed, struggling for breath and strength, and he
+heard again the words "You-- you-- you--"
+
+"Yes, yes-- I know-- I understand," he said, and his heart choked him.
+"You must be quiet-- now. I promised you that if you got well I would
+go. And-- I will. No one will ever know. I will go."
+
+"And you will never come to me again?" Her voice was terribly quiet
+and cold.
+
+"Never," he said. "I swear that."
+
+She had drawn away from him now until he could see nothing of her but
+the shimmer of her thick braid where it lay in a ray of light. But he
+could hear her sobbing breath. She scarcely knew when he left the
+room, he went so quietly. He closed her door after him, and this time
+he latched it. The outer door was open, and suddenly he heard that for
+which he had been waiting and listening-- the short, sharp yelping of
+dogs, and a human voice.
+
+In three leaps he was out in the open. Halfway across the narrow
+clearing Indian Joe had halted with his team. One glance at the sledge
+showed Billy that Joe's mother had not failed him. A thin, weazened
+little old woman scrambled from a pile of bearskins as he ran toward
+them. She had sunken eyes that watched his approach with a ratlike
+glitter, and her naked hands were so emaciated that they looked like
+claws; but in spite of her unprepossessing appearance Billy almost
+hugged her in his delight at their coming. Maballa was her name,
+Rookie had told him, and she understood and could talk English better
+than her son. Billy told her of the condition in the cabin, and when
+he had finished she took a small pack from the sledge, cackled a few
+words to Indian Joe, and followed him without a moment's hesitation.
+That she had no fear of the plague added to Billy's feeling of relief.
+As soon as she had taken off her hood and heavy blanket she went
+fearlessly into the inner room, and a moment later Billy heard her
+talking to Isobel.
+
+It took him but a few moments to gather up the few things he possessed
+and put them in his pack. Then he went out and took down his tent.
+Indian Joe had already gone, and he followed in his trail. An hour
+later McTabb appeared at the door of his cabin, summoned by Billy's
+shout. He circled about and came up with the wind, until he stood
+within fifty paces of MacVeigh. Billy told him what he was going to
+do. He was going to Churchill, and would leave Isobel and the baby in
+his care. From Fort Churchill he would send back an escort to take the
+woman and little Isobel down to civilization. He wanted fresh
+clothes-- anything he could wear. Those he had on he would be
+compelled to burn. He suggested that he could get into one of Indian
+Joe's outfits, if he had any spare garments, and McTabb went back to
+the cabin, returning a few minutes later with an armful of clothes.
+
+"Here's everything you'll need, except an undershirt an' drawers,"
+said McTabb, placing them in a pile on the snow. "I'll wait a little
+while you're changing. Better burn those quick. The wind might change,
+and I don't want to be caught in a whiff of it."
+
+He moved to a safe distance while Billy secured the clothes and went
+into the timber. From a birch tree he pulled off a pile of bark, and
+as he stripped he put his old clothes on it. McTabb could hear the
+crackling and snapping of the fire when Billy reappeared arrayed in
+Indian Joe's "second best"-- buckskin trousers, a worn and tattered
+fur coat, a fisher-skin cap, and moccasins a size too small for him.
+For fifteen minutes the two men talked, McTabb still drawing the
+dead-line at fifty paces. Then he went back and brought up Billy's
+dogs and sledge.
+
+"I'd like to shake hands with you, Billy," he apologized, "but I guess
+it's best not to. I don't suppose-- we'd dare-- bring out the kid?"
+
+"No," said Billy. "Good-by, Mac. I'll see you-- sometime-- later. Just
+go back-- an' bring her to the door, will you? I don't want her to
+know I'm here, an' I'll take a look at her from the bush. She wouldn't
+understand, you know, if she knew I was here an' wouldn't come up an'
+see her."
+
+He concealed himself among the spruce as McTabb went into the cabin. A
+moment later he reappeared. Isobel was in his arms, and Billy gulped
+back a sob. For an instant she turned her face his way, and he could
+see that she was pointing in his direction as Rookie talked to her,
+and then for another instant the sun lit up the child's hair with a
+golden fire, as he had first seen it on that wonderful day at
+Fullerton. He wanted to cry out one word to her-- at least one-- but
+what came was only the sob he had fought to keep back. He turned his
+face into the forest. And this time he knew that the parting was
+final.
+
+ XIX
+
+ A PILGRIMAGE TO THE BARREN
+
+The fourth night after he had left the plague-stricken cabin Billy was
+camped on Lame Otter Creek, one hundred and eighty miles from Fort
+Churchill, over on Hudson's Bay. He had eaten his supper, and was
+smoking his pipe. It was a clear and glorious night, with the sky
+afire with stars and a full moon. Several times Billy had stared at
+the moon. It was what the Indians called "the bleeding moon"-- red as
+blood, with an uneven, dripping edge. It was the Indian superstition
+that it meant misfortune to those who did not keep it at their backs.
+For seven consecutive nights it had made a red trail through the skies
+in that terrible year of plague nineteen years before, when a quarter
+of the forest population of the north had died. Since then it had been
+known as the "plague moon." Billy had seen it only twice before. He
+was not superstitious, but to-night he was filled with a strange
+sensation of uneasiness. He laughed an unpleasant laugh as he stared
+into the crackling birch flames and wondered what new misfortune could
+come to him.
+
+And then, slowly, something seemed to come to him from out of the
+wonderful night like a quieting hand to still the pain in his broken
+heart. At last, once more, he was home. For the wind-swept Barrens and
+the forest had been his home, and more than once he had told himself
+that life away from them would be impossible for him. More deeply than
+ever this thought came to him to-night. He had become a part of them
+and they a part of him. And as he looked up again at the red moon the
+sight of it no longer brought him uneasiness, but a strange sort of
+joy. For an hour he sat there, and the fire died down. About him the
+rustle and whisper of the wild closed in nearer. It was his world, and
+he breathed more deeply and listened. Lonely and sick at heart, he
+felt the life and sympathy and love of it creeping into him, grieving
+with him in his grief, warming him with its hope, pledging him again
+the eternal friendship of its trees, its mountains, and all of the
+wild that it held therein. A hundred times, in that strange man-play
+that comes of loneliness in the far north, he had given life and form
+to the star shadows about him, to the shadows of the tall spruce, the
+twisted shrub, the rocks, and even the mountains. And now it was no
+longer play. With each hour that passed this night, and with each day
+and night that followed, they became more real to MacVeigh; and the
+fires he built in the black gloom painted him pictures as they had
+never painted them before; and the trees and the rocks and the twisted
+shrub comforted him more and more in his loneliness, and gave to him
+the presence of life in their movement, in the coming and going of
+their shadow forms. Everywhere they were the same old friends,
+unvarying and changeless. The spruce shadow of to-night, nodding to
+him in its silent way, was the same that nodded to him last night-- a
+hundred nights ago; the stars were the same, the winds whispering to
+him in the tree-tops were the same, everything was as it was
+yesterday-- years ago. He knew that in these things, and in these
+things alone, he would always possess Isobel. She would return to
+civilization, and the shifting scenes of life down there would soon
+make her forget him-- almost. But in his world there was no change.
+Ten years from now he might go over their old trail and still find the
+charred remains of the campfire he had built for her that night beside
+the Barren. The wilderness would bear memory of her so long as he was
+a part of it; and now, as he came nearer to Churchill, he knew that he
+would always be a part of it.
+
+Three weeks after he had left Couchee's cabin he came into Fort
+Churchill. A month had changed him so that the factor did not
+recognize him at first. The inspector in charge stared at him twice,
+and then cried, "My God, is it you, MacVeigh?" To Pelliter alone, who
+was waiting for him, did Billy tell all that had happened down on the
+Little Beaver. There were several letters waiting for him at
+Churchill, and one of these told him that a silver property in which
+he was interested over at Cobalt had turned out well and that his
+share in the sale was something over ten thousand dollars. He used
+this unexpected piece of good-fortune as an excuse to the inspector
+when he refused to re-enlist. A week after his arrival at Churchill
+Bucky Smith was dishonorably discharged from the Service. There were
+several near them when Bucky came up to him with a smile on his face
+and offered to shake hands.
+
+"I don't bear you any ill-will, Billy," he said, loud enough for the
+others to hear. "Only you've made a big mistake." And then, in words
+for Billy's ears alone, he added: "Remember what I promised you! I'll
+kill you for this if I have to hunt you round the world!"
+
+A few days later Pelliter left on the last of the slush snows in an
+effort to reach Nelson House before the sledging was gone.
+
+"I wish you'd go with me, Billy," he entreated for the hundredth time.
+"My girl 'd love to have you come, an' you know how I'd like it."
+
+But Billy could not be moved.
+
+"I'll come and see you some day-- when you've got the kid," he
+promised, trying to laugh, as he shook hands for the last time with
+his old comrade.
+
+For three days after Pelliter's departure he remained at the post. On
+the morning of the fourth, with his pack on his back and without dogs,
+he struck off into the north and west.
+
+"I think I'll spend next winter at Fond du Lac," he told the
+inspector. "If there's any mail for me you can send it there if you
+have a chance, and if I'm not at Fond du Lac it can be returned to
+Churchill."
+
+He said Fond du Lac because Deane's grave lay between Churchill and
+the old Hudson's Bay Company's post over in the country of the
+Athabasca. The Barrens were the one thing that called to him now-- the
+one thing to which he dared respond. He would keep his promise to
+Isobel and visit Scottie's grave. At least he tried to make himself
+believe that he was keeping a promise. But deep in him there was an
+undercurrent of feeling which he could not explain. It was as if there
+were a spirit with him at times, walking at his side, and hovering
+about his campfire at nights, and when he gave himself up to the right
+mood he felt that it was the presence of Deane. He believed in strong
+friendship, but he had never believed in the love of man for man. He
+had not thought that such a thing could exist, except, perhaps,
+between father and son. With him, in all the castles he had built and
+the dreams he had dreamed, the alpha and omega of love had remained
+with woman. For the first time he knew what it meant to love a man--
+the memory of a man.
+
+Something held him from telling the secret of his mission at Churchill
+even to Pelliter. The evening before he left he had smuggled an ax
+into the edge of the forest, and the second day he found use for this.
+He came to a straight-grained, thick birch, eighteen inches in
+diameter, and he put up his tent fifty paces from it. Before he rolled
+himself in his blankets that night he had cut down the tree. The next
+day he chopped off the butt, and before another nightfall had hewn out
+a slab two inches thick, a foot wide, and three feet long. When he
+took up the trail into the north and west again the following morning
+he left the ax behind.
+
+The fourth night he worked with his hunting-knife and his belt-ax,
+thinning down the slab and making it smooth. The fifth and the sixth
+nights he passed in the same way, and he ended the sixth night by
+heating the end of a small iron rod in the fire and burning the first
+three letters of Deane's epitaph on the slab. For a time he was
+puzzled, wondering whether he should use the name Scottie or David. He
+decided on David.
+
+He did not travel fast, for to him spring was the most beautiful of
+all seasons in the wilderness. It was underfoot and overhead now. The
+snow-floods were singing between the ridges and gathering in the
+hollows. The poplar buds were swollen almost to the bursting point,
+and the bakneesh vines were as red as blood with the glow of new life.
+Seventeen days after he left Churchill he came to the edge of the big
+Barren. For two days he swung westward, and early in the forenoon of
+the third looked out over the gray waste, dotted with moving caribou,
+over which he and Pelliter had raced ahead of the Eskimos with little
+Isobel. He went to the cabin first and entered. It was evident that no
+one had been there since he had left, On the bunk where Deane had died
+he found one of baby Isobel's little mittens. He had wondered where
+she had lost it, and had made her a new one of lynx-skin on the way
+down to Couchee's cabin. The tiny bed that he had made for her on the
+floor was as she had last slept in it, and in the part of a blanket
+that he had used as a pillow was still the imprint of her head. On the
+wall hung a pair of old trousers that Deane had worn. Billy looked at
+these things, standing silently, with his pack at his feet. There was
+something in the cabin that closed in about him and choked him, and he
+struggled to overcome it by whistling. His lips seemed thick. At last
+he turned and went to the grave.
+
+The foxes had been there, and had dug a little about the sapling
+cross. There was no other change. During the remainder of the forenoon
+Billy cut down a heavier sapling and sunk the butt of it three feet
+into the half-frozen earth at the head of Deane's grave. Then, with
+spikes he had brought with him, he nailed on the slab. He believed
+that no one would ever know what the words on that slab meant-- no one
+except himself and the spirit of Scottie Deane. With the end of the
+heated rod he had burned into the wood:
+
+ DAVID DEANE
+
+ Died Feb. 27, 1908
+
+ BELOVED OF ISOBEL AND THE ONE
+
+ WHO WISHES HE COULD TAKE
+
+ YOUR PLACE AND GIVE
+
+ YOU BACK TO
+
+ HER
+
+ W. M. April 15, 1908
+
+He did not stop when it was time for dinner, but carried rocks from a
+ridge a couple of hundred yards away, and built a cairn four feet high
+around the sapling, so that storm or wild animals could not knock it
+down. Then he began a search in the warmest and sunniest parts of the
+forest, where the green tips of plant life were beginning to reveal
+themselves. He found snowflowers, redglow, and bakneesh, and dug up
+root after root, and at last, peeping out from between two rocks, he
+found the arrowlike tip of a blue flower. The bakneesh roots he
+planted about the cairn, and the blue flower he planted by itself at
+the head of the grave.
+
+It was long past midday when he returned to the cabin, and once more
+he was oppressed by the appalling loneliness of it. It was not as he
+had thought it would be. Deane's spirit and companionship had seemed
+to be nearer to him beside his campfires and in the forest. He cooked
+a meal over the stove, but the snapping of the fire seemed strange and
+unnatural in the deserted room. Even the air he breathed was heavy
+with the oppression of death and broken hopes. He found it difficult
+to swallow the food he had cooked, though he had eaten nothing since
+morning. When he was done he looked at his watch. It was four o'clock.
+The northern sun had dropped behind the distant forests and was
+followed now by the thickening gloom of early evening. For a few
+moments Billy stood motionless outside the cabin. Behind him an owl
+hooted its lonely mating-song. Over his head a brush sparrow
+twittered. It was that hour, just between the end of day and the
+beginning of night, when the wilderness holds its breath and all is
+still. Billy clenched his hands and listened. He could not keep back
+the break that was in his breath. Something out there in the silence
+and the gathering darkness was calling him-- calling him away from the
+cabin, away from the grave, and the gray, dead waste of the Barren. He
+turned back into the cabin and put his things into the pack. He took
+the little mitten to keep with his other treasures, and then he went
+out and closed the door behind him. He passed close to the grave and
+for the last time gazed upon the spot where Deane lay buried.
+
+"Good-by, old man," he whispered. Goodby--"
+
+The owl hooted louder as he turned his face into the west. It made him
+shiver, and he hurried his steps into the unbroken wilderness that lay
+for hundreds of miles between him and the post at Fond du Lac.
+
+ XX
+
+ THE LETTER
+
+Days and weeks and months of a loneliness which Billy had never known
+before followed after his pilgrimage to Deane's grave. It was more
+than loneliness. He had known loneliness, the heartbreak and the
+longing of it, in the black and silent chaos of the arctic night; he
+had almost gone mad of it, and he had seen Pelliter nearly die for a
+glimpse of the sun and the sound of a voice. But this was different.
+It was something that ate deeper at his soul each day and each night
+that he lived. He had believed that thought of Isobel and his memories
+of her would make him happier, even though he never saw her again. But
+in this he was mistaken. The wilderness does not lend to
+forgetfulness, and each day her voice seemed nearer and more real to
+him, and she became more and more insistently a part of his thoughts.
+Never an hour of the day passed that he did not ask himself where she
+was. He hoped that she and the baby Isobel had returned to the old
+home in Montreal, where they would surely find friends and be cared
+for. And yet the dread was upon him that she had remained in the
+wilderness, that her love for Deane would keep her there, and that she
+would find a woman's work at some post between the Height of Land and
+the Barrens. At times there possessed him an overwhelming desire to
+return to McTabb's cabin and find where they had gone. But he fought
+against this desire as a man fights against death. He knew that once
+he surrendered himself to the temptation to be near her again he would
+lose much that he had won in his struggle during the days of plague in
+Couchee's cabin.
+
+So his feet carried him steadily westward, while the invisible hands
+tugged at him from behind. He did not go straight to Fond du Lac, but
+spent nearly three weeks with a trapper whom he ran across on the
+Pipestone River. It was June when he struck Fond du Lac, and he
+remained there a month. He had more than half expected to pass the
+winter there, but the factor at the post proved a disagreeable
+acquaintance, and he did not like the country. So early in July he set
+out deeper into the Athabasca country to the west, followed the
+northern shore of the big lake, and two months later came to Fort
+Chippewyan, near the mouth of the Slave River.
+
+He struck Chippewyan at a fortunate time. A government geological and
+map-making party was just preparing to leave for the terra incognita
+between the Great Slave and the Great Bear, and the three men who had
+come up from Ottawa urged Billy to join them. He jumped at the
+opportunity, and remained with them until the party returned to the
+Mackenzie River by the way of Fort Providence five months later. He
+remained at Fort Providence until late spring, and then came down to
+Fort Wrigley, where he had several friends in the service. Fifteen
+months of wandering had had their effect upon him. He could no longer
+resist the call of the wanderlust. It urged him from place to place,
+and stronger and stronger grew in him the desire to return to his old
+country along the shores of the big Bay far to the west. He had partly
+planned to join the railroad builders on the new trans-continental in
+the mountains of British Columbia, but in August, instead of finding
+himself at Edmonton or Tete Jaune Cache, he was at Prince Albert,
+three hundred and fifty miles to the east. From this point he struck
+northward with a party of company men into the Lac La Ronge country,
+and in October swung eastward alone through the Sissipuk and Burntwood
+waterways to Nelson House. He continued northward after a week's rest,
+and on the eighteenth of December the first of the two great storms
+which made the winter of 1909-10 one of the most tragic in the history
+of the far northern people overtook him thirty miles from York
+Factory. It took him five days to reach the post, where he was held up
+for several weeks. These were the first of those terrible weeks of
+famine and intense cold during which more than fifteen hundred people
+died in the north country. From the Barren Lands to the edge of the
+southern watershed the earth lay under from four to six feet of snow,
+and from the middle of December until late in January the temperature
+did not rise above forty degrees below zero, and remained for the most
+of the time between fifty and sixty. From all points in the wilderness
+reports of starvation and death came to the company's posts. Trap
+lines could not be followed because of the intense cold. Moose,
+caribou, and even the furred animals had buried themselves under the
+snow. Indians and half-breeds dragged themselves into the posts. Twice
+at York Factory Billy saw mothers who brought dead babies in their
+arms. One day a white trapper came in with his dogs and sledge, and on
+the sledge, wrapped in a bearskin, was his wife, who had died fifty
+miles back in the forest.
+
+During these terrible weeks Billy found it impossible to keep Isobel
+and the baby Isobel out of his mind night or day. The fear grew in him
+that somewhere in the wilderness they were suffering as others were
+suffering. So obsessed did he become with the thought that he had a
+terrible dream one night, and in that dream baby Isobel's face
+appeared to him, a deathlike mask, white and cold and thinned by
+starvation. The vision decided him. He would go to Fort Churchill, and
+if McTabb had not been driven in he would go to his cabin, over on the
+Little Beaver, and learn what had become of Isobel and the little
+girl. A few days later, on the twenty-seventh day of January, there
+came a sudden rise in the temperature, and Billy prepared at once to
+take advantage of the change. A half-breed, on his way to Churchill,
+accompanied him, and they set out together the following morning. On
+the twentieth of February they arrived at Fort Churchill.
+
+Billy went immediately to detachment headquarters. There had been
+several changes in two years, and there was only one of the old force
+to shake hands with him. His first inquiry was about McTabb and Isobel
+Deane. Neither was at Churchill, nor had been there since the arrival
+of the new officer in charge. But there was mail for Billy-- three
+letters. There had been half a dozen others, but they were now
+following up his old trails somewhere out in the wilderness. These
+three had been returned recently from Fond du Lac. One was from
+Pelliter, the fourth he had written, he said, without an answer. The
+"kid" had come-- a girl-- and he wondered if Billy was dead. The
+second letter was from his Cobalt partner.
+
+The third he turned over several times before he opened it. It did not
+look much like a letter. It was torn and ragged at the edges, and was
+so soiled and water-stained that the address on it was only partly
+legible. It had been to Fond du Lac, and from there it had followed
+him to Fort Chippewyan. He opened it and found that the writing inside
+was scarcely more legible than the inscription on the envelope. The
+last words were quite plain, and he gave a low cry when he found that
+it was from Rookie McTabb.
+
+He went close to a window and tried to make out what McTabb had
+written. Here and there, where water had not obliterated the writing,
+he could make out a line or a few words. Nearly all was gone but the
+last paragraph, and when Billy came to this and read the first words
+of it his heart seemed all at once to die within him, and he could not
+see. Word by word he made out the rest after that, and when he was
+done he turned his stony face to the white whirl of the storm outside
+the window, his lips as dry as though he had passed through a fever.
+
+A part of that last paragraph was unintelligible, but enough was left
+to tell him what had happened in the cabin down on the Little Beaver.
+
+McTabb had written:
+
+  "We thought she was getting well... took sick again.... did
+  everything... could. But it didn't do any good,... died just five
+  weeks to a day after you left. We buried her just behind the cabin.
+  God... that kid... You don't know how I got to love her, Billy....
+  give her up..."
+
+McTabb had written a dozen lines after that, but all of them were a
+water-stained and unintelligible blur.
+
+Billy crushed the letter in his hand. The new inspector wondered what
+terrible news he had received as he walked out into the blinding chaos
+of the storm.
+
+ XXI
+
+ THE FIGHTING SPARK
+
+For ten minutes Billy buried himself blindly in the storm. He scarcely
+knew which direction he took, but at last he found himself in the
+shelter of the forest, and he was whispering Isobel's name over and
+over again to himself.
+
+"Dead-- dead--" he moaned. "She is dead-- dead--"
+
+And then there rushed upon him, crushing back his deeper grief, a
+thought of the baby Isobel. She was still with McTabb down on the
+Little Beaver. In the blur of the storm he read again what he could
+make out of Rookie's letter. Something in that last paragraph struck
+him with a deadly fear. "God... that kid... You, don't know how I got
+to love her, Billy,... give her up..."
+
+What did it mean? What had McTabb told him in that part of the letter
+that was gone?
+
+The reaction came as he put the letter back into his pocket. He walked
+swiftly back to the inspector's office.
+
+"I'm going down to the Little Beaver. I'm going to start to-day," he
+said. "Who is there in Churchill that I can get to go with me?"
+
+Two hours later Billy was ready to start, with an Indian as a
+companion. Dogs could not be had for love or money, and they set out
+on snowshoes with two weeks' supply of provisions, striking south and
+west. The remainder of that day and the next they traveled with but
+little rest. Each hour that passed added to Billy's mad impatience to
+reach McTabb's cabin.
+
+With the morning of the third day began the second of those two
+terrible storms which swept over the northland in that winter of
+famine and death. In spite of the Indian's advice to build a permanent
+camp until the temperature rose again Billy insisted on pushing ahead.
+The fifth night, in the wild Barren country west of the Etawney, his
+Indian failed to keep up the fire, and when Billy investigated he
+found him half dead with a strange sickness. He made the Indian's
+balsam shelter snow and wind proof, cut wood, and waited. The
+temperature continued to fall, and the cold became intense. Each day
+the provisions grew less, and at last the time came when Billy knew
+that he was standing face to face with the Great Peril. He went
+farther and farther from camp in his search for game. Even the brush
+sparrows and snow-hawks were gone. Once the thought came to him that
+be might take what food was left and accept the little chance that
+remained of saving himself. But the idea never got farther than a
+first thought. On the twelfth day the Indian died. It was a terrible
+day. There was food for another twenty-four hours.
+
+Billy packed it, together with his blankets and a few pieces of
+tinware. He wondered if the Indian had died of a contagious disease.
+Anyway, he made up his mind to put out the warning for others if they
+came that way, and over the dead Indian's balsam shelter he planted a
+sapling, and at the end of the sapling he fastened a strip of red
+cotton cloth-- the plague signal of the north.
+
+Than he struck out through the deep snows and the twisting storm,
+knowing that there was no more than one chance in a thousand ahead of
+him, and that the one chance was to keep the wind at his back.
+
+At the end of his first day's struggle Billy built himself a camp in a
+bit of scrub timber which was not much more than bush. He had observed
+that the timber and that every tree and bush he had passed since noon
+was stripped and dead on the side that faced the north. He cooked and
+ate his last food the following day, and went on. The small timber
+turned to scrub, and the scrub, in time, to vast snow wastes over
+which the storm swept mercilessly. All this day he looked for game,
+for a flutter of bird life; he chewed bark, and in the afternoon got a
+mouthful of foxbite, which made his throat swell until he could
+scarcely breathe. At night he made tea, but had nothing to eat. His
+hunger was acute and painful. It was torture the next day-- the
+third-- for the process of starvation is a rapid one in this country
+where only the fittest survive on from four to five meals a day. He
+camped, built a small bush-fire at night, and slept. He almost failed
+to rouse himself on the morning that followed, and when he staggered
+to his feet and felt the cutting sting of the storm still in his face
+and heard the swishing wail of it over the Barren he knew that at last
+the hour had come when he was standing face to face with the Almighty.
+
+For some strange reason he was not frightened at the situation. He
+found that even over the level spaces he could scarce drag his
+snow-shoes, but this had ceased to alarm him as he had been alarmed at
+first. He went on, hour after hour, weaker and weaker. Within himself
+there was still life which reasoned that if death were to come it
+could not come in a better way. It at least promised to be painless--
+even pleasant. The sharp, stinging pains of hunger, like little
+electrical knives piercing him, were gone; he no longer experienced a
+sensation of intense cold; he almost felt that he could lie down in
+the drifted snow and sleep peacefully. He knew what it would be-- a
+sleep without end, with the arctic foxes to pick his bones afterward--
+and so he resisted the temptation and forced himself onward. The storm
+still swept straight west from Hudson's Bay, bringing with it endless
+volleys of snow, round and hard as fine shot, snow that had at first
+seemed to pierce his flesh and which swished past his feet as if
+trying to trip him and tossed itself in windrows and mountains in his
+path. If he could only find timber, shelter! That was what he worked
+for now. When he had last looked at his watch it was nine o'clock in
+the morning; now it was late in the afternoon. It might as well have
+been night. The storm had long since half blinded him. He could not
+see a dozen paces ahead. But the little life in him still reasoned
+bravely. It was a heroic spark of life, a fighting spark, and hard to
+put out. It told him that when he came to shelter he would at least
+feel it, and that he must fight until the last. The pack on his back
+held no significance and no weight for him. He might have traveled a
+mile or ten miles an hour and he would not have sensed the difference.
+Most men would have buried themselves in the snow and died in comfort,
+dreaming the pleasant dreams that come as a sort of recompense to the
+unfortunate who dies of starvation and cold. But the fighting spark
+commanded Billy to die upon his feet if he died at all. It was this
+spark which brought him at last to a bit of timber thick enough to
+give him shelter from wind and snow. It burned a little more warmly
+then. It flared up and gave him new vision. And then, for the first
+time, he realized that it must be night. For a light was burning ahead
+of him, and all else was gloom. His first thought was that it was a
+campfire miles and miles away. Then it drew nearer, until he knew that
+it was a light in a cabin window. He dragged himself toward it, and
+when he came to the door he tried to shout. But no sound fell from his
+swollen lips. It seemed an hour before he could twist his feet out of
+his snow-shoes. Then he groped for a latch, pressed against the door,
+and plunged in.
+
+What he saw was like a picture suddenly revealed for an instant by a
+flashlight. In the cabin there were four men. Two sat at a table
+directly in front of him. One held a dice box poised in the air, and
+had turned a rough, bearded face toward him. The other was a younger
+man, and in this moment it struck Billy as strange that he should be
+clutching a can of beans between his hands. A third man stared from
+where he had been looking down upon the dice-play of the other two. As
+Billy came in he was in the act of lowering a half-filled bottle from
+his lips. The fourth man sat on the edge of a bunk, with a face so
+white and thin that he might have been taken for a corpse if it had
+not been for the dark glare in his sunken eyes. Billy smelled the odor
+of whisky; he smelled food. He saw no sign of welcome in the faces
+turned toward him, but he advanced upon them, mumbling incoherently.
+And then the spark, the fighting spark in him, gave out, and he
+crumpled down on the floor. He heard a voice which came to him from a
+great distance, and which said, "Who the hell is this?" and then,
+after what seemed to be a long time, he heard that same voice say,
+"Pitch him back into the snow."
+
+After that he lost consciousness. But in that last moment between
+light and darkness he experienced a strange thrill that made him want
+to spring to his feet, for it seemed to him that he had recognized the
+voice that had said "Pitch him back into the snow."
+
+ XXII
+
+ INTO THE SOUTH
+
+A long time before he awoke Billy knew that he was not in the snow,
+and that hot stuff was running down his throat. When he opened his
+eyes there was no longer a light burning in the cabin. It was day. He
+felt strangely comfortable, but there was something in the cabin that
+stirred him from his rest. It was the odor of frying bacon. All of his
+hunger had come back. The joy of life, of anticipation, shone in his
+thin face as he pulled himself up. Another face-- the bearded face--
+red-eyed, almost animal-like in its fierce questioning, bent over him.
+
+"Where's your grub, pardner?"
+
+The question was like a stab. Billy did not hear his own voice as he
+explained.
+
+"Got none!" The bearded man's voice was like a bellow as he turned
+upon the others, "He's got no grub!"
+
+In that moment Billy choked back the cry on his lips. He knew the
+voice now-- and the man. It was Bucky Smith! He half rose to his feet
+and then dropped back. Bucky had not recognized him. His own beard,
+shaggy hair, and pinched face had saved him from recognition. Fate had
+played his way.
+
+"We'll divvy up, Bucky," came a weak voice. It was from the thin,
+white-faced man who had sat corpselike on the edge of his bunk the
+night before.
+
+"Divvy hell!" growled the other. "It's up to you-- you 'n' Sweedy.
+You're to blame!"
+
+You're to blame!
+
+The words struck upon Billy's ears with a chill of horror. Starvation
+was in the cabin. He had fallen among animals instead of men. He saw
+the thin-faced man who had spoken for him sitting again on the edge of
+his bunk. Mutely he looked to the others to see who was Sweedy. He was
+the young man who had clutched the can of beans. It was he who was
+frying bacon over the sheet-iron stove.
+
+"We'll divvy, Henry and I," he said. "I told you that last night." He
+looked over at Billy. "Glad you're better," he greeted. "You see,
+you've struck us at a bad time. We're on our last legs for grub. Our
+two Indians went out to hunt a week ago and never came back. They're
+dead, or gone, and we're as good as dead if the storm doesn't let up
+pretty soon. You can have some of our grub-- Henry's and mine."
+
+It was a cold invitation, lacking warmth or sympathy, and Billy felt
+that even this man wished that he had died before he reached the
+cabin. But the man was human; he had at least not cast his voice with
+the one that had wanted to throw him back into the snow, and he tried
+to voice his gratitude and at the same time to hide his hunger. He saw
+that there were three thin slices of bacon in the frying-pan, and it
+struck him that it would be bad taste to reveal a starvation appetite
+in the face of such famine. Bucky was looking straight at him as he
+limped to his feet, and he was sure now that the man he had driven
+from the Service had not recognized him. He approached Sweedy.
+
+"You saved my life," he said, holding out a hand. "Will you shake?"
+
+Sweedy shook hands limply.
+
+"It's hell," he said, in a low voice. "We'd have had beans this
+morning if I hadn't shook dice with him last night." He nodded toward
+Bucky, who was cutting open the top of a can. "He won!"
+
+"My God--" began Billy.
+
+He didn't finish. Sweedy turned the meat, and added:
+
+"He won a square meal off me yesterday-- a quarter of a pound of
+bacon. Day before that he won Henry's last can of beans. He's got his
+share under his blanket over there, and swears he'll shoot any one who
+goes to monkeyin' with his bed-- so you'd better fight shy of it.
+Thompson-- he isn't up yet-- chose the whisky for his share, so you'd
+better fight shy of him, too. Henry and I'll divvy up with you."
+
+"Thanks," said Billy, the one word choking him.
+
+Henry came from his bunk, bent and wabbling. He looked like a dying
+man, and for the first time Billy noticed that his hair was gray. He
+was a little man, and his thin hands shook as he held them out over
+the stove and nodded to Billy. Bucky had opened his can, and
+approached the stove with a pan of water, coming in beside Billy
+without noticing him. He brought with him a foul odor of stale tobacco
+smoke and whisky. After he had put his water over the fire he turned
+to one of the bunks and with half a dozen coarse epithets roused
+Thompson, who sat up stupidly, still half drunk. Henry had gone to a
+small table, and Sweedy followed him with the bacon. Billy did not
+move. He forgot his hunger. His pulse was beating quickly. Sensations
+filled him which he had never known or imagined before. Was it
+possible that these were people of his own kind? Had a madness of some
+sort driven all human instincts from them? He saw Thompson's red eyes
+fastened upon him, and he turned his face to escape their questioning,
+stupid leer. Bucky was turning out the can of beans he had won. Beyond
+him the door creaked, and Billy heard the wail of the storm. It came
+to him now as a friendly sort of sound.
+
+"Better draw up, pardner," he heard Sweedy say. "Here's your share."
+
+One of the thin slices of bacon and a hard biscuit were waiting for
+him on a tin plate. He ate as ravenously as Henry and Sweedy, and
+drank a cup of hot tea. In two minutes the meal was over. It was
+terribly inadequate. The few mouthfuls of food stirred up all his
+craving, and he found it impossible to keep his eyes from Bucky Smith
+and his beans. Bucky was the only one who seemed well fed, and his
+horror increased when Henry bent over him and said, in a low whisper:
+"He didn't get my beans fair. I had three aces and a pair, of deuces,
+an' he took it on three fives and two sixes. When I objected he called
+me a liar an' hit me. Them's my beans, or Sweedy's!" There was
+something almost like murder in the little man's red eyes.
+
+Billy remained silent. He did not care to talk or question. No one
+asked him who he was or whence he came, and he felt no inclination to
+know more of the men he had fallen among. Bucky finished, wiped his
+mouth with his hand, and looked across at Billy.
+
+"How about going out with me to get some wood?" he demanded.
+
+"I'm ready," replied Billy.
+
+For the first time he took notice of himself. He was lame and
+sickeningly weak, but apparently sound in other ways. The intense cold
+had not frozen his ears or feet. He put on his heavy moccasins, his
+thick coat and fur cap, and followed Bucky to the door. He was filled
+with a strange uneasiness. He was sure that his old enemy had not
+recognized him, and yet he felt that recognition might come at any
+moment. If Bucky recognized him-- when they were out alone--
+
+He was not afraid, but he shivered. He was too weak to put up a fight.
+He did not catch the ugly leer which Bucky turned upon Thompson. But
+Henry did, and his little eyes grew smaller and blacker. On snow-shoes
+the two men went out into the storm, Bucky carrying an ax. He led the
+way through the bit of thin timber, and across a wide open over which
+the storm swept so fiercely that their trail was covered behind them
+as they traveled. Billy figured that they had gone a quarter of a mile
+when they came to the edge of a ravine so steep that it was almost a
+precipice. For the first time Bucky touched him. He seized him by the
+arm, and in his voice there was an inhuman, taunting triumph.
+
+"Didn't think I knew you, did you, Billy?" he asked. "Well, I did, and
+I've just been waiting to get you out alone. Remember my promise,
+Billy? I've changed my mind since then. I ain't going to kill you.
+It's too risky. It's safer to let you die-- by yourself-- as you're
+goin' to die to-day or to-night. If you come back to the cabin-- I'll
+shoot you!"
+
+With a movement so quick that Billy had no chance to prepare himself
+for it Bucky sent him plunging headlong down the side of the ravine.
+The deep snow saved him in the long fall. For a few moments Billy lay
+stunned. Then he staggered to his feet and looked up. Bucky was gone.
+His first thought was to return to the cabin. He could easily find it
+and confront Bucky there before the others. And yet he did not move.
+His inclination to go back grew less and less, and after a brief
+hesitation he made up his mind to continue the struggle for life by
+himself. After all, his situation would not be much more desperate
+than that of the men he was leaving behind in the cabin. He buttoned
+himself up closely, saw that his snow-shoes were securely fastened,
+and climbed the opposite side of the ridge.
+
+The timber thinned out again, and Billy struck out boldly into the low
+bush. As he went he wondered what would happen in the cabin. He
+believed that Henry, of the four, would not pull through alive, and
+that Bucky would come out best. It was not until the following summer
+that he learned the facts of Henry's madness, and of the terrible
+manner in which he avenged himself on Bucky Smith by sticking a knife
+under the latter's ribs.
+
+Billy now found himself in a position to measure the amount of energy
+contained in a slice of bacon and a cold biscuit. It was not much.
+Long before noon his old weakness was upon him again. He found even
+greater difficulty in dragging his feet over the snow, and it seemed
+now as though all ambition had left him, and that even the fighting
+spark was becoming disheartened. He made up his mind to go on until
+the beginning of night, then he would stop, build a fire, and go to
+sleep in its warmth.
+
+During the afternoon he passed out of the scrub into a rougher
+country. His progress was slower, but more comfortable, for at times
+he found himself protected from the wind. A gloom darker and more
+somber than that of the storm was falling about him when he came to
+what appeared to be the end of the Barren country. The earth dropped
+away from under his feet, and far below him, in a ravine shut out from
+wind and storm, he saw the black tops of thick spruce. He began to
+scramble downward. His eyes were no longer fit to judge distance or
+chance, and he slipped. He slipped a dozen times in the first five
+minutes, and then there came the time when he did not make a recovery,
+but plunged down the side of the mountain like a rock. He stopped with
+a terrific jar, and for the first time during the fall he wanted to
+cry out with pain. But the voice that he heard did not come from his
+own lips. It was another voice-- and then two, three, many of them, it
+seemed to him. His dazed eyes caught glimpses of dark objects
+floundering in the deep snow about him, and just beyond these objects
+were four or five tall mounds of snow, like tents, arranged in a
+circle. He knew what they meant. He had fallen into an Indian camp. In
+his joy he tried to call out words of greeting, but he had no tongue.
+Then the floundering figures caught him up, and he was carried to the
+circle of snow mounds. The last that he knew was that warmth was
+entering his lungs.
+
+It was a face that he first saw after that, a face that seemed to come
+to him slowly from out of night, approaching nearer and nearer until
+he knew that it was a girl's face, with great, dark, strangely shining
+eyes. In these first moments of his returning consciousness the
+whimsical thought came to him that he was dying and the face was a
+part of a pleasant dream. If that were not so, he had fallen at last
+among friends. His eyes opened wider, he moved, and the face drew
+back. Movement stimulated returning life, and reason rehabilitated
+itself in great bounds. In a dozen flashes he went over all that had
+happened up to the point where he had fallen down the mountain and
+into the Cree camp. Straight above him he saw the funnel-like peak of
+a large birch wigwam, and beyond his feet he saw an opening in the
+birch-bark wall through which there drifted a blue film of smoke. He
+was in a wigwam. It was warm and exceedingly comfortable. Wondering if
+he was hurt, he moved. The movement drew a sharp exclamation of pain
+from him. It was the first real sound he had made, and in an instant
+the face was over him again. He saw it plainly this time, with its
+dark eyes and oval cheeks framed between two great braids of black
+hair. A hand touched his brow, cool and gentle, and a low voice
+soothed him in half a dozen musical words. The girl was a Cree.
+
+At the sound of her voice an indian woman came up beside the girl,
+looked down at him for a moment, and then went to the door of the
+wigwam, speaking in a low voice to some one who was outside. When she
+returned a man followed in after her. He was old and bent, and his
+face was thin. His cheek-bones shone, so tightly was the skin drawn
+over them. Behind him came a younger man, as straight as a tree, with
+strong shoulders and a head set like a piece of bronze sculpture. This
+man carried in his hand a frozen fish, which he gave to the woman. As
+he gave it to her he spoke words in Cree which Billy understood.
+
+"It is the last fish."
+
+For a moment a terrible hand gripped at Billy's heart and almost
+stopped its beating. He saw the woman take the fish and cut it into
+two equal parts with a knife, and one of these parts she dropped into
+a pot of boiling water which hung over the stone fireplace built under
+the vent in the wall. They were dividing with him their last fish! He
+made an effort and sat up. The younger man came to him and put a
+bearskin at his back. He had picked up some of the patois of
+half-blood French and English.
+
+"You seek," he said, "you hurt-- and hungry! You have eat soon."
+
+He motioned with his hand to the boiling pot. There was not a flicker
+of animation in his splendid face. There was something god-like in his
+immobility, something that was awesome in the way he moved and
+breathed. He sat in silence as the half of the last fish was brought
+by the girl; and not until Billy stopped eating, choked by the
+knowledge that he was taking life from these people, did he speak, and
+then it was to urge him to finish the fish. When he had done, Billy
+spoke to the Indian in Cree. Instantly the Indian reached over his
+hand, his face lighting up, and Billy gripped it hard. Mukoki told him
+what had happened. There had been a camp of twenty-two, and there were
+now fifteen. Seven had died-- four men, two women, and one child. Each
+day during the great storm the men had gone out on their futile search
+for game, and every few days one of them had failed to return. Thus
+four had died. The dogs were eaten. Corn and fish were gone; there
+remained but a little flour, and this was for the women and the
+children. The men had eaten nothing but bark and roots for five days.
+And there seemed to be no hope. It was death to stray far from camp.
+That morning two men had set out for the nearest post, but Mukoki said
+calmly that they would never return.
+
+That night and the next day and the terrible night and day that
+followed were filled with hours that Billy would never forget. He had
+sprained one hip badly in his fall, and could not rise from the cot
+Mukoki was often at his side, his face thinner, his eyes more
+lusterless. The second day, late in the afternoon, there came a low
+wailing grief from one of the tepees, a moaning sound that pitched
+itself to the key of the storm until it seemed to be a part of it. A
+child had died, and the mother was mourning. That night another of the
+camp huntsmen failed to return at dusk. But the next day there came at
+the same time the end of both storm and famine. With dawn the sun
+shone. And early in the day one of the hunters ran in from the forest
+nearly crazed with joy. He had ventured farther away than the others,
+and had found a moose-yard. He had killed two of the animals and
+brought with him meat for the first feast.
+
+This last great storm of the winter of 1910 passed well into the
+"break-up" season, and, once the temperature began to rise, the change
+was swift. Within a week the snow was growing soft underfoot. Two days
+later Billy hobbled from his cot for the first time. And then, in the
+passing of a single day and night, the glory of the northern spring
+burst upon the wilderness. The sun rose warm and golden. From the
+sides of the mountains and in the valleys water poured forth in
+rippling, singing floods. The red bakneesh glowed on bared rocks.
+Moose-birds and jays and wood-thrushes flitted about the camp, and the
+air was filled with the fragrant smells of new life bursting from
+earth and tree and shrub.
+
+With return of health and strength Billy's impatience to reach
+McTabb's cabin grew hourly. He would have set out before his hip was
+in condition to travel had not Mukoki kept him back. At last the day
+came when he bade his forest friends good-by and started into the
+south.
+
+ XXIII
+
+ AT THE END OF THE TRAIL
+
+The long days and nights of inactivity which Billy had passed in the
+Indian camp had given him the opportunity to think more calmly of the
+tragedy which had come into his life, and with returning strength he
+had drawn himself partly out from the pit of hopelessness and despair
+into which he had fallen. Deane was dead. Isobel was dead. But the
+baby Isobel still lived; and in the hope of finding and claiming her
+for his own he built other dreams for himself out of the ashes of all
+that had gone for him. He believed that he would find McTabb at the
+cabin and he would find the child there. So confident had he been that
+Isobel would live that he had not told McTabb of the uncle who had
+driven her from the old home in Montreal. He was glad that he had kept
+this to himself, for there would not be much of a chance of Rookie
+having found the child's relative. And he made up his mind that he
+would not give the little Isobel up. He would keep her for himself. He
+would return to civilization, for he would have her to live for. He
+would build a home for her, with a garden and dogs and birds and
+flowers. With his silver-claim money he had fifteen thousand dollars
+laid away, and she would never know what it meant to be poor. He would
+educate her and buy her a piano and she would have no end of pretty
+dresses and things to make her a lady. They would be together and
+inseparable always, and when she grew up he prayed deep down in his
+soul that she would be like the older Isobel, her mother.
+
+His grief was deep. He knew that he could never forget, and that the
+old memories of the wilderness and of the woman he had loved would
+force themselves upon him, year after year, with their old pain. But
+these new thoughts and plans for the child made his grief less
+poignant.
+
+It was late in the afternoon of a day that had been filled with
+sunlight and the warmth of spring that he came to the Little Beaver, a
+short distance above McTabb's cabin. He almost ran from there to the
+clearing, and the sun was just sinking behind the forest in the west
+when he paused on the edge of the break in the forest and saw the
+cabin. It was from here that he had last seen little Isobel. The bush
+behind which he had concealed himself was less than a dozen paces
+away. He noticed this, and then he observed things which made his
+heart sink in a strange, cold way. A path had led into the forest at
+the point where he stood. Now it was almost obliterated by a tangle of
+last year's weeds and plants. Rookie must have made a new path, he
+thought. And then, fearfully, he looked about the clearing and at the
+cabin. Everywhere there was the air of desolation. There was no smoke
+rising from the chimney. The door was closed. There were no evidences
+of life outside. Not the sound of a dog, of a laugh, or of a voice
+broke the dead stillness.
+
+Scarcely breathing, Billy advanced, his heart choked more and more by
+the fear that gripped him. The door to the cabin was not barred. He
+opened it. There was nothing inside. The old stove was broken. The
+bare cots had not been used for months-- perhaps for two years. As he
+took another step an ermine scampered away ahead of him. He heard the
+mouselike squeal of its young a moment later under the sapling floor.
+He went back to the door and stood in the open.
+
+"My God!" he moaned.
+
+He looked in the direction of Couchee's cabin, where Isobel had died.
+Was there a chance there, he wondered? There was little hope, but he
+started quickly over the old trail. The gloom of evening fell swiftly
+about him. It was almost dark when he reached the other clearing. And
+again his voice broke in a groaning cry. There was no cabin here.
+McTabb had burned it after the passing of the plague. Where it had
+stood was now a black and charred mass, already partly covered by the
+verdure of the wilderness. Billy gripped his hands hard and walked
+back from it searchingly. A few steps away he found what McTabb had
+told him that he would find, a mound and a sapling cross. And then, in
+spite of all the fighting strength that was in him, he flung himself
+down upon Isobel's grave, and a great, broken cry of grief burst from
+his lips.
+
+When he raised his head a long time afterward the stars were
+shimmering in the sky. It was a wonderfully still night, and all that
+he could hear was the ripple and song of the spring floods in the
+Little Beaver. He rose silently to his feet and stood for a few
+moments as motionless as a statue over the grave. Then he turned and
+went back over the old trail, and from the edge of the clearing he
+looked back and whispered to himself and to her:
+
+"I'll come back for you, Isobel. I'll come back."
+
+At McTabb's cabin he had left his pack. He put the straps over his
+shoulder and started south again. There was but one move for him to
+make now. McTabb was known at Le Pas. He got his supplies and sold his
+furs there. Some one at Le Pas would know where he had gone with
+little Isobel.
+
+Not until he was several miles distant from the scene of death and his
+own broken hopes did he spread out his blanket and lie down for the
+night. He was up and had breakfast at dawn. On the fourth day he came
+to the little wilderness outpost-- the end of rail-- on the
+Saskatchewan. Within an hour he discovered that Rookie McTabb had not
+been to Le Pas for nearly two years. No one had seen him with a child.
+That same night a construction train was leaving for Etomami, down on
+the main line, and Billy lost no time in making up his mind what he
+would do. He would go to Montreal. If little Isobel was not there she
+was still somewhere in the wilderness with McTabb. Then he would
+return, and he would find her if it took him a lifetime.
+
+Days and nights of travel followed, and during those days and nights
+Billy prayed that he would not find her in Montreal. If by some chance
+McTabb had discovered her relatives, if Isobel had revealed her secret
+to him before she died, his last hope in life was gone. He did not
+think of wasting time in the purchase of new clothes. That would have
+meant the missing of a train. He still wore his wilderness outfit,
+even to his fur cap. As he traveled farther eastward people began to
+regard him curiously. He got the porter to shave off his beard. But
+his hair was long. His moccasins and German socks were ragged and
+torn, and there were rents in his caribou-skin coat and his heavy
+Hudson's Bay sweater-shirt. The hardships he had gone through had left
+their lines in his face. There was something about him, outside of his
+strange attire, that made men look at him more than once. Women, more
+keenly observant than the men, saw the deep-seated grief in his eyes.
+As he approached Montreal he kept himself more and more aloof from the
+others.
+
+When at last the train came to a stop at the big station in the heart
+of the city he walked through the gates and strode up the hill toward
+Mount Royal. It was an hour or more past noon, and he had eaten
+nothing since morning. But he had no thought of hunger. Twenty minutes
+later he was at the foot of the street on which Isobel had told him
+that she had lived. One by one he passed the old houses of brick and
+stone, sheltered behind their solid walls. There had been no change in
+the years since he had been there. Half-way up the hill to the base of
+the mountain he saw an old gardener trimming ivy about an ancient
+cannon near a driveway. He stopped and asked:
+
+"Can you tell me where Geoffrey Renaud lives?"
+
+The old gardener looked at him curiously for a moment without
+speaking. Then he said:
+
+"Renaud? Geoffrey Renaud? That is his house up there behind the
+red-sandstone wall. Is it the house you want to see-- or Renaud?"
+
+"Both," said Billy.
+
+"Geoffrey Renaud has been dead for three years," informed the
+gardener. "Are you a-- relative?"
+
+"No, no," cried Billy, trying to keep his voice steady as he asked the
+next question. "There are others there. Who are they?"
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"There is a little girl there-- four-- five years old, with golden
+hair--"
+
+"She was playing in the garden when I came along a few moments ago,"
+replied the gardener. "I heard her-- with the dog--"
+
+Billy waited to hear no more. Thanking his informant, he walked
+swiftly up the hill to the red-sandstone wall. Before he came to the
+rusted iron gate he, too, heard a child's laughter, and it set his
+heart beating wildly. It was just over the wall. In his eagerness he
+thrust the toe of his moccasined foot into a break in the stone and
+drew himself up. He looked down into a great garden, and a dozen steps
+away, close to a thick clump of shrubbery, he saw a child playing with
+a little puppy. The sun gleamed in her golden hair. He heard her
+joyous laughter; and then, for an instant, her face was turned toward
+him.
+
+In that moment he forgot everything, and with a great, glad cry he
+drew himself up and sprang to the ground on the other side.
+
+"Isobel-- Isobel-- my little Isobel!"
+
+He was beside her, on his knees, with her in his hungry arms, and for
+a brief space the child was so frightened that she held her breath and
+stared at him without a sound.
+
+"Don't you know me-- don't you know me--" he almost sobbed. "Little
+Mystery-- Isobel--"
+
+He heard a sound, a strange, stifled cry, and he looked up. From
+behind the shrubbery there had come a woman, and she was staring at
+Billy MacVeigh with a face as white as chalk. He staggered to his
+feet, and he believed that at last he had gone mad. For it was the
+vision of Isobel Deane that he saw there, and her blue eyes were
+glowing at him as he had seen them for an instant that night a long
+time ago on the edge of the Barren. He could not speak. And then, as
+he staggered another step back toward the wall, he held out his ragged
+arms, without knowing what he was doing, and called her name as he had
+spoken it a hundred times at night beside his lonely campfires.
+Starvation, his injury, weeks of illness, and his almost superhuman
+struggle to reach McTabb's cabin, and after that civilization, had
+consumed his last strength. For days he had lived on the reserve
+forces of a nervous energy that slipped away from him now, leaving him
+dizzy and swaying. He fought to overcome the weakness that seemed to
+have taken the last ounce of strength from his exhausted body, but in
+spite of his strongest efforts the sunlit garden suddenly darkened
+before his eyes. In that moment the vision became real, and as he
+turned toward the wall Isobel Deane called him by name; and in another
+moment she was at his side, clutching him almost fiercely by the arms
+and calling him by name over and over again. The weakness and
+dizziness passed from him in a moment, but in that space he seemed
+only to realize that he must get back-- over the wall.
+
+"I wouldn't have come-- but-- I-- I-- thought you were-- dead," he
+said. "They told me-- you were dead. I'm glad-- glad-- but I wouldn't
+have come--"
+
+She felt the weight of him for an instant on her arm. She knew the
+things that were in his face-- starvation, pain, the signs of ravage
+left behind by fever. In these moments Billy did not see the wonderful
+look that had come into her own face or the wonderful glow in her
+eyes.
+
+"It was Indian Joe's mother who died," he heard her say. "And since
+then we have been waiting-- waiting-- waiting-- little Isobel and I. I
+went away north, to David's grave, and I saw what you had done, and
+what you had burned into the wood. Some day, I knew, you'd come back
+to me. We've been waiting-- for you--"
+
+Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but Billy heard it; and all
+at once his dizziness was gone, and he saw the sunlight shining in
+Isobel's bright hair and the look in her face and eyes.
+
+"I'm sorry-- sorry-- so sorry I said what I did-- about you-- killing
+him," she went on. "You remember-- I said that if I got well--"
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"And you thought I meant that if I got well you should go away-- and
+you promised-- and kept your promise. But I couldn't finish. It didn't
+seem right-- then. I wanted to tell you-- out there-- that I was
+sorry-- and that if I got well you could come to me again-- some day
+somewhere-- and then--"
+
+"Isobel!"
+
+"And now-- you may tell me again what you told me out on the Barren--
+a long time ago."
+
+"Isobel-- Isobel--"
+
+"You understand"-- she spoke softly-- "you understand, it cannot
+happen now-- perhaps not for another year. But now"-- she drew a
+little nearer-- "you may kiss me," she said. "And then you must kiss
+little Isobel. And we don't want you to go very far away again. It's
+lonely-- terribly lonely all by ourselves in the city-- and we're glad
+you've come-- so glad--"
+
+Her voice broke to a sobbing whisper, and as Billy opened his great,
+ragged arms and caught her to him he heard that whisper again, saying,
+"We're glad-- glad-- glad you've come back to us."
+
+"And I-- may-- stay?"
+
+She raised her face, glorious in its welcome.
+
+"If you want me-- still."
+
+At last he believed. But he could not speak. He bent his face to hers,
+and for a moment they stood thus, while from behind the shrubbery came
+the sound of little Isobel's joyous laughter.
+
+ THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Isobel, by James Oliver Curwood
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