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PHILIP STEELE

-. 1. »■ »

PHILIP STEELE

Of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police

JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD

AUTHOR or

The Dinger Trail
Hie Honor ol the Big 8iioffi» Bie»

GAYLE H08KIN8

£..C<

INDIAN APOUS

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

-V /

a c'

-.'.Al.iii'H

TO MY WIFE

CONTENTS

IV
V

vn
vm

DC
X

xn
xm

XIV

XVI

xvn
xvm

Tta HYAcmTH Lirm
A Face Out of the Nicsrr
A Skull and a FtuiTATioif »

The Silken Scarf • • •
Beauty-Pkoof . • • •
Philip Follows a PitErnr Face •
The Tragedy in the Cabin
Another Letter for Philif •
Phiuf Takes Up the Trail
IsoBEL*s Disappearance
The Law Verstts the Man .
The Fight— and a Strange Visitor
The Great Love Experiment
What Came of the Great Lotb
Philip's Last Assignment •
A Lock of Golden Hair
The Girl in the Wreck
T^ Battlb in the Camyqh

H
96

54
68

82
100
125
1S6
ISO
174
191
209
229
255
265
276
286

PHILIP STEELE

CHAPTER I

THE HYACINTH LETTER

PHILIP STEELE'S pencil drove steadily
over the paper, as if the mere writing of
a letter he might never mail in some way less-
ened the loneliness.

The wind is blowing a furious gale outside.
From off the lake come volleys of sleet, like
shot from guns, and all the wild demons of
this black night in the wilderness seem bent on
tearing apart the huge end-locked logs that
form my cabin home. In truth, it is a terrible
night to be afar from human companionship,
with naught but this roaring desolation about
and the air above filled with screeching terrors.
Even through thick log walls I can hear the
surf roaring among the rocks and beating the

PHIUP STEELE

white driftwood like a thousand battering-
rams, almost at my door. It is a night to make
one shiver, and in the lulls of the storm the tall
pines above me whistle and wail mournfully as
they straighten their twisted heads after the
blasts.

To-morrow this will be a desolation of snow.
There will be snow from here to Hudson's
Bay, from the Bay to the Arctic, and where
now there is all this fury and strife of wind
and sleet there will be unending quiet — the
stillness which breeds our tongueless people of
the North. But this is small comfort for to-
night Yesterday I caught a little mouse in my
flour and killed him. I am sorry now, for
surely all this trouble and thunder in the night
would have driven him out from his home in
the wall to keep me company.

It would not be so bad if it were not for the
ikuIL Three times in the last half-hour I have
■tarted to take it down from its shelf over my
crude stone fireplace, where pine logs are bias-

THE HYACINTH LETTER

ing. But each time I have fallen back, shiver-
ing, into the bed-like chair I have made for
myself out of saplings and caribou skin. It is
a human skull. Only a short time ago it was a
living man, with a voice, and eyes, and brain —
and that is what makes me uncomfortable. If
it were an old skull, it would be different But
it is a new skull. Almost I fancy at times that
there is life lurking in the eyeless sockets,
where the red firelight from the pitch-weighted
logs plays in grewsome flashes; and I fancy,
too, that in the brainless cavities of the skull
there must still be some of the old passion,
stirred into spirit life by the very madness of
this night A hundred times I have been sorry
that I kept the thing, but never more so than
now.

How the wind howls and the pines screech
above me! A pailful of snow, plunging down
my chimney, sends the chills up my spine as if
it were the very devil himself, and the steam
of it surges out and upward and hides the

PHILIP STEELE

skull. It IS absurd to go to bed, to make an
effort to sleep, for I know what my dreams
would be. To-night they would be filled with
this skull — and with visions of a face, a wom-
an's face —

Thus far had Steele written, when with a
nervous laugh he sprang from his chair, and
with something that sounded very near to an
oath, in the wild tumult of the storm, crum-
pled the paper in his hand and flung it among
the blazing logs he had described but a few
moments before.

"Confound it, this will never do!" he ex-
claimed, falling into his own peculiar habit of
communing with himself. "I say it won't do,
Phil Steele; deuce take it if it will! You're
getting nervous, sentimental, almost homesick.
Ugh, what a beast of a night!"

He turned to the rude stone fireplace again
as another blast of snow plunged down the
chimney.

THE HYACINTH LETTER

"Wish I'd built a fire in the stove instead of
there," he went on, filling his pipe. "Thought
It would be a little more cheerful, you know.
Lord preserve us, listen to that !"

He began walking up and down the hewn
log floor of the cabin, his hands deep in his
pockets, puffing out voluminous clouds of
smoke. It was not often that Philip Steele's
face was unpleasant to look upon, but to-night
it wore anything but its natural good humor.
It was a strong, thin face, set off by a square
jaw, and with clear, steel-gray eyes in which
just now there shone a strange glitter, as they
rested for a moment upon the white skull over
the fire. From his scrutiny of the skull Steele
turned to a rough board table, lighted by a
twisted bit of cotton cloth, three-quarters sub-
merged in a shallow tin of caribou grease. In
the dim light of this improvised lamp there
were two letters, opened and soiled, which an
Indian had brought up to him from Nelson
House the day before. One of them was short

PHILIP STEELE

and to the point It was an official note f rcxn
headquarters ordering him to join a certain
Buck Nome at Lac Bain, a hundred miles far-
ther north.

It was the second letter which Steele took in
his hands for the twentieth time since it had
come to him here, three hundred miles into the
wilderness. There were half-a-dozen pages of
it, written in a woman's hand, and from it there
rose to his nostrils the faint, sweet perfvune of
hyacinth. It was this odor that troubled him
— ^that had troubled him since yesterday, and
that made him restless and almost homesick to-
night. It took him back to things — ^to the days
of not so very long ago when he had been a
part of the life from which the letter came, and
when the world had seemed to hold for him all
that one could wish. In a retrospective flash
there passed before him a vision of those days,
when he, Mr. Philip Steele, son of a multi-
millionaire banker, was one of the favored few
in the social life of a great city; when fashion-

THE HYACINTH LETTER

able clubs opened their doors to him, and beau-
tiful women smiled upon him, and when,
among others, this girl of the hyacinth letter
held out to him the tempting lure of her heart
Her heart ? Or was it the tempting of his own
wealth? Steele laughed, and his strong white
teeth gleamed in a half -contemptuous smile as
he turned again toward the fire.

He sat down, with the letter still in his
hands, and thought of some of those others
whom he had known. What had become of
Jack Moody, he wondered — the good old Jack
of his college days, who had loved this girl of
the hyacinth with the whole of his big, honest
heart, but who hadn't been given half a show
because of his poverty? And where was
Whittemore, the young broker whose hopes
had fallen with his own financial ruin; and
Fordney, who would have cut off ten years of
his life for her — and half-a-dozen others he
might name?

Her heart! Steele laughed softly as he

PHILIP STEELE

lifted the letter so that the sweet perfume of it
came to him more strongly. How she had
tempted him for a time I Almost — ^that night
of the Hawkins' ball — he had surrendered to
her. He half -closed his eyes, and as the logs
crackled in the fireplace and the wind roared
outside, he saw her again as he had seen her
that night — gloriously beautiful; memory of
the witchery of her voice, her hair, her eyes
firing his blood like strong wine. And this
beauty might have been for him, was still his,
if he chose. A word from out of the wilder-
ness, a few lines that he might write to-night —
With a sudden jerk Steele sat bolt upright.
One after another he crumpled the sheets of
paper in his hand and tossed all but the signa-
ture page into the fire. The last sheet he kept,
studied it for a little — as if her name were the
answer to a problem — ^then laid it aside. For
a few moments there remained still the haunt-
ing sweetness of the hyacinth. When it was
gone, he gave a last searching sniff, rose to his

THE HYACINTH LETTER

feet with a laugh in which there was some re-
turn of his old spirit, hid that final page of her
letter in his traveling kit and proceeded to re-
fill his pipe.

More than once Philip Steele had told him-
self that he was bom a century or two after his
time. He had admitted this much to a few of
his friends, and the> had laughed at him. One
evening he had opened his heart a little to the
girl of the hyacinth letter, and after thai she
had called him eccentric Within himself he
knew that he was unlike otlier men, that the
blood in him was calling back to almost for-
gotten generations, when strong hearts and
steady hands cotmted for manhood rather than
stocks- and bonds, and when romance and ad-
venture were not quite dead. At college he
took civil engineering, because it seemed to him
to breathe the spirit of outdoors ; and when he
had finished he incurred the wrath of those at
home by burying himself for a whole year with
a surveying expedition in Central America.

PHILIP STEELE

It was this expedition that put the finishing
touch to Philip Steele. He came back a big
hearted, clear minded young fellow, as bronzed
as an Aztec — a hater of cities and the hot-
house varieties of pleasure to which he had
been bom, and as far removed from anticipa-
tion of his father's millions as though they had
never been. He possessed a fortune in his own
right, but as yet he had found no use for the
income that was piling up. A second expedi-
tion, this time to Brazil, and then he came back
— ^to meet the girl of the hyacinth letter. And
after that, after he had broken from the bond-
age which held Moody, and Fordney, and
Whittemore, he went back to his many adven-
tures.

It was the North that held him. In the un«
ending desolations of snow and forest and
plain, between Hudson's Bay and the wild
country of the Athabasca, he found the few
people and the mystery and romance which
carried him back, and linked him to the dust-

THE HYACINTH LETTER

covered generations he had lost. One day a
slender, athletically built young man enlisted at
Regina for service in the Northwest Mounted
Police. Within six months he had made sev-
eral records for himself, and succeeded in hav-
ing himself detailed to service in the extreme
North, where man-hunting became the thrilling
game of One against One in an empty and
voiceless world. And no one, not even the girl
of the hyacinth letter, would have dreamed
that the man who was officially listed as "Pri-
vate Phil Steele, of the N. W. M. P.," was
Philip Steele, millionaire and gentleman ad-
venturer.

None appreciated the humor of this fact
more than Steele himself, and he fell again into
his wholesome laugh as he placed a fresh pine
log on the fire, wondering what his aristocratic
friends — and especially the girl of the hyacinth
letter — ^would say if they could see him and his
environment just at the present moment. In a
slow, chuckling sxurey he took in the heavy

PHILIP STEELE

German socks which he had hung to dry close
to the fire; his worn shoe-packs, shining in a
thick coat of caribou grease, and his single suit
of steaming underwear that he had washed
after supper, and which hung suspended from
the ceiling, looking for all the world, in the
half dusk of the cabin, like a very thin and
headless man. In this gloom, indeed, but one
thing shone out white and distinct — ^the skull
on the little shelf above the fire. As his eyes
rested on it, Steele's lips tightened and his face
grew dark. With a sudden movement he
reached up and took it in his hands, holding it
for a moment so that the light from the fire
flashed full upon it In the left side, on a line
with the eyeless socket and above the ear, was
a hole as large as a small egg.

"So I'm ordered up to join Nome, the man
who did this, eh?" he muttered, fingering the
ragged edge. *1 could kill him for what hap-
pened down there at Nelson House, M'sieur
Janette. Some day — I may."

THE HYACINTH LETTER

He balanced the skull on his finger tips, level
with his chin.

"Nice sort of a chap for a Hamlet, I am,"
he went on, whimsically. "I believe Til chuck
you into the fire, M'sieur Janette. You're get-
ting on my nerves."

He stopped suddenly and lowered the skull
to the table.

"No, I won't bum you," he continued. "I've
brought you this far and I'll pack you up to Lac
Bain with me. Some morning I'll give you to
Bucky Nome for breakfast. And then, M'sieur
— ^then we shall see what we shall see."

Later that night he wrote a few words on a

slip of paper and tacked the paper to the inside
of his door. To any who might follow in his

footsteps it conveyed this information and ad-
vice:

NOTICE!
This cabin and what's in it are quasheed by
me. Fill yoiu" gizzard but not your pockets.

Steele, Northwest Mounted.

CHAPTER n

A FACE OUT OF THE XIGHT

STEELE came up to the Hudson's Bay
Company's post at Lac Bain on the sev-
enth day after the big storm, and Breed, the
factor, confided two important bits of informa-
tion to him while he was thawing out before
the big box-stove in the company's deserted
and supply-stripped store. The first was that
a certain Colonel Becker and his wife had left
Fort Churchill, on Hudson's Bay, to make a
visit at Lac Bain ; the second, that Buck Nome
had gone westward a week before and had not
returned. Breed was worried, not over Nome's
prolonged absence, but over the anticipated ar-
rival of the other two. According to the letter
which had come to him from the Churchill
factor. Colonel Becker and his wife had come

A FACE OUT OF THE NIGHT

over on the last supply ship from London, and
the colonel was a high official in the company's
service. Also, he was an old gentleman. Os-
tensibly he had no business at Lac Bain, but was
merely on a vacation, and wished to see a bit
of real life in the wilderness.

Breed's grizzled face was miserable.

'•Why don't they send 'em down to York
Factory or Nelson House?" he demanded of
Steele. "They've got duck feathers, three
women, and a civilized factor at the Nelson,
and there ain't any of 'em here — not even a
woman 1"

Steele shrugged his shoulders as Breed men-
tioned the three women at Nelson.

"There are only two women there now," he
replied. "Since a certain Bucky Nome passed
that way, one of them has gone into the South."

"Well, two, then," said Breed, who had not
caught the flash of fire in the other's eyes. "But
I tell you there ain't a one here, Steele, not even
an Indian — and that dirty Cree, Jack, is doing

PHIUP STEELE

the cooking. Blessed Saints, I caught him
mixing biscuit dough in the wash basin the
other day, and I've been eating those biscuits
ever since our people went out to their trap-
lines! There's you, and Nome, two Crees, a
Tialf ' and myself — ^and that's every soul there'll
be at Lac Bain until the mid-winter run of fur.
Now, what in Heaven's name is the poor old
Mrs. Colonel going to do ?"

"Got a bed for her?"

"A bunk — hard as nails 1"
'Good grub?"

'Rotten !" groaned the factor. "Every trap-
per's son of them took out big supplies this fall
and we're stripped. Beans, flour, sugar'n'
prunes — ^and caribou until I feel like turning
inside out every time I smell it. I'd give a
month's commission for a pound of pork. Look
here ! If this letter ain't 'quality' you can cut
me into jiggers. Bet the Mrs. Colonel wrote it
for her hubby."

From an inside pocket Breed drew forth a

«1

A FACE OUT OF THE NIGHT

square white envelope with a broken seal of
red wax, and from it extracted a folded sheet
of cream-tinted paper. Scarcely had Steele
taken the note in his hands when a quick thrill
passed through him. Before he had read the
first line he was conscious again of that haunt-
ing sweetness in the air he breathed — ^the per-
fume of hyacinth. There was not only this
perfume, but the same paper, the same deli-
cately pretty writing of the letter he had burned
more than a week before. He made no effort
to suppress the exclamation of astonishment
that broke from his lips. Breed was staring at
, him when he lifted his eyes.

"This is a mighty strange coincidence,
Breed," he said, regaining his composure. "I
could almost swear that I know this writing,
and yet of course such a thing is impossible.
Still, it's mighty queer. Will you let me keep
the letter until to-night ? Fd like to take it over
to the cabin and compare it — "

"Needn't return it at all," interrupted the

PHILIP STEELE

factor. "Hope you find something interesting
to tell me at supper — five sharp. It will be a
blessing if you know 'em."

Ten minutes later Steele was in the little
cabin which he jand Nome occupied while at
Lac Bain. Jack, the Cree, had built a rousing
fire in the long sheet-iron stove, and as Steele
opened its furnace-like door, a flood of light
poured out into the gathering gloom of early
evening. Drawing a chair full into the light,
he again opened the letter. Line for line and
word for word he scrutinized the writing, and
with each breath that he drew he found himself
more deeply thrilled by a curious mental excite-
ment which it was impossible for him to ex-
plain. According to the letter, Colonel and Mrs.
Becker had arrived at Churchill aboard the
London ship a little over a month previously.
He remembered that the date on the letter from
the girl was six weeks old. At the time it was
written. Colonel Becker and his wife were
either in London or Liverpool, or crossing the

A FACE OUT OF THE NIGHT

Atlantic- No matter how similar the two let-
ters appeared to him, he realized that, under the
circumstances, the same person could not have
written them both. For many minutes he sat
back in his chair, with his eyes half-closed, ab-
sorbing the comforting heat of the fire. Again
the old vision returned to him. In a subcon-
scious sort of way he found himself fighting
against it, as he had struggled a score of times
to throw off its presence, since the girl's letter
had come to him. And this time, as before, his
effort was futile. He saw her again — ^and al-
ways as on that night of the Hawkins' ball,
eyes and lips smiling at him, the light shining
gloriously in the deep red gold of her hair.

With an effort Steele aroused himself and
looked at his watch. It was a quarter of five.
He stooped to close the stove door, and stopped
suddenly, his hand reaching out, head and
shoulders htmched over. Across his knee, shin-
ing in the firelight, like a thread of spun gold,
lay a single filament of a woman's hair.

J9d

PHILIP STEELE

He rose slowly, holding the hair between him
and the light. His lingers trembled, his breath
came quickly. The hair had fallen upon his
knee from the letter — or the envelope, and it
was wonderfully like her hair I

From the direction of the factor's quarters
came the deep bellowing of Breed's moose-
horn, calling him to supper. Before he re-
sponded to it, Steele wound the silken thread of
gold about his finger, then placed it carefully
among the papers and cards which he carried in
his leather wallet. His face was flushed when
he joined the factor. Not since the night at
the Hawkins' ball, when he had felt the touch
of a beautiful woman's hands, the warmth of
her breath, the soft sweep of her hair against
his lips as he had leaned over her in his half-
surrender, had thought of woman stirred him
as he felt himself stirred now. He was glad
that Breed was too much absorbed in his own
troubles to observe any possible change in him-
self or to ask questions about the letter.

A FACE OUT OF THE NIGHT

**I tdl you, it may mean the short birch for
mc, Steele," said the factor gloomily. "Lac
Bain is just now the emptiest, most fallen-to-
pieces, unbusiness-like post between the Atha-
basca and the Bay. We've had two bad seasons
running, and ever3rthing has gone wrong. Colo-
nel Becker is a big one with the company. Ain't
no doubt about that, and ten to one he'll think
it's a new man that's wanted here."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Steele. A sudden
flash shot into his face as he looked hard at
Breed. "See here, how would you like to have
me go out to meet them?" he asked. "Sort of
a welcoming committee of one, you know. Be-
fore they got here I could casually give 'em to
understand what Lac Bain has been up against
during the last two seasons."

Breed's face brightened in an instant.

"That might save us, Steele. Will you do
it?"

"With pleasure."

Philip was conscious of an increasing

PHILIP STEELE

warmth in his face as he bent over his plate.
"You're sure — ^they're elderly people?*' he
asked.

"That is what MacVeigh wrote me from
Churchill; at least he said the colonel was an
old man."

"And his wife?"

"Has got her nerve," growled Breed irrev-
erently. "It wouldn't be so bad if it was only
the colonel. But an old woman — ^ugh ! What
he doesn't think of she'll remind him of, you
can depend on that."

Steele thought of his mother, who looked at
things through a magnifying lorgnette, and
laughed a little cheerlessly.

"I'll go out and meet them, anyway," he
comforted. "Have Jack fix me up for the hike
in the morning. Breed. I'll start after break-
fast"

He was glad when supper was over and he
was back in his own cabin smoking his pipe. It
was almost with a feeling of shame that he took

A FACE OUT OF THE NIGHT

the golden hair from his wallet and held it once
more so that it shone before his eyes in the
firelight

"You're crazy, Phil Steele," he assured him-
self. "You're an unalloyed idiot. What the
deuce has Colonel Becker's wife got to do with
you — even if she has golden hair and uses
cream-tinted paper soaked in hyacinth? Con-
found it — there!" and he released the shining
hair from his fingers so that the air currents
sent it floating back into the deeper gloom of
the cabin.

It was midnight before he went to bed. He
was up with the first cold gray of dawn. All
that day he strode steadily eastward on snow-
shoes, over the company's trail to the bay. Two
hours before dusk he put up his light tent,
gathered balsam for a bed, and built a fire of
dry spruce against the face of a huge rock in
front of his shelter. It was still light when he
wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down
on the balsam, with his feet stretched out to the

PHILIP STEELE

reflected heat of the big rock. It seemed to
Steele that there was an unnatural stillness in
the air, as the night thickened beyond the rim
of firelight, and, as the gloom grew still deeper,
blotting out his vision in inky blackness, there
crept over him slowly a feeling of loneliness.
It was a new sensation to Steele, and he shiv-
ered as he sat up and faced the fire. It was this
same quiet, this same unending mystery of
voiceless desolation that had won him to the
North. Until to-night he had loved it. But
now there was something oppressive about it,
something that made him strain his eyes to see
beyond the rock and the fire, and set his ears
in tense listening for sounds which did not
exist. He knew that in this hour he was long*
ing for companionship— not that of Breed, nor
of men with whom he hunted men, but of men
and women whom he had once known and in
whose lives he had played a part — ages ago, it
seemed to him. He knew, as he sat with
clenched hands and staring eyes, that chiefly
24

A FACE OUT OF THE NIGHT

he was longing for a woman — a woman whose
eyes and Hps and sunny hair haunted him after
months of forgetfulness, and whose face smiled
at him luringly, now, from out the leaping
flashes of fire — tempting him, calling him over
a thousand miles of space. And if he yielded —

The thought sent his nails biting into the
flesh of his palms and he sank back with a curse
that held more of misery than blasphemy.
Physical exhaustion rather than desire for sleep
dosed his eyes, at last, in half -slumber, and
after that the face seemed nearer and more real
to him, until it was close at his side, and was
speaking to him. He heard again the soft, rip-
pling laugh, girlishly sweet, that had fascinated
him at Hawkins' ball ; he heard the distant hum
and chatter of other voices, and then one loud
and close — ^that of Chesbro, who had unwit-
tingly interrupted them, and saved him, just in
the nick of time.

Steele moved restlessly; after a moment
wriggled to his elbow and looked toward the

PHILIP STEELE

fire He seemed to hear Chesbro's voice
again as he awoke, and a thrill as keen as
an electric shock set his nerves tingling when
he heard once more the laughing voice of his
dream, hushed and low. In amazement he sat
bolt upright and stared. Was he still dream-
ing ? The fire was burning brightly and he was
aware that he had scarce fallen into sleep.

A movement — ^a sound of feet crunching
softly in the snow, and a figure came between
him and the fire.

It was a woman.

He choked back the cty that rose to his lips
and sat motionless and without sound. The
figure approached a step nearer, peering into
the deep gloom of the tent. He caught the sil-
ver glint in the firelight on heavy fur, the white-
ness of a hand touching lightly the flap of his
tent, and then for an instant he saw a face. In
that instant he sat as rigid as if he had stopped
the beat of his own life. A pair of dark eyes
laughing in at him, a flash of laughing teeth, a

A FACE OUT OF THE NIGHT

low titter that was scarce more than a rippling
throat-note, and the face was gone, leaving him
still staring into the blank space where it had
been.

With a cough to give warning of his wake-
fulness, Steele flung off his blanket and drew
himself through the low opening of the tent.
On the extreme right of the fire stood a man
and woman, warming themselves over the
coals. They straightened from their leaning
posture as he appeared.

"This is too bad, too bad, Mr. Steele," ex-
claimed the man, advancing quickly. "I was
afraid we'd make a blunder and awaken you.
We were about to camp on a mountain back
there when we saw your fire and drove on to
it I'm sorry — "

"Wouldn't have had you miss me for any-
thing," interrupted Steele, gripping the other's
proflFered hand. "You see, I'm out from
Lac Bain to meet Colonel and Mrs. Becker,
' He hesitated purposely, his white teeth

PHILIP STEELE

gleaming in the frank smile which made people
like him immensely, from the first,

"You've met them," completed the laughing
voice from across the fire. "Please, Mr. Steele,
will you forgive me for looking in at you and
waking you up? But your feet looked so ter-
ribly funny, and I assure you that was all I
could see, though I tried awfully hard. Any-
way, I saw your name printed on the flap of
your tent."

Steele felt a slow fire burning in his cheeks
as he encountered the beautiful eyes glowing at
him from behind the colonel. The woman was
smiling at him. In the heat of the fire she had
pushed back her fur turban, and he saw that her
hair was the same shining red gold that had
come to him in the letter, and that her lips and
eyes and the glorious color in her face were re-
markably like those of which he had dreamed,
and of which waking visions had come with the
hyacinth letter to fill him with unrest and home-
sickness. In spite of himself he had reasoned
28

A FACE OUT OF THE NIGHT

that she would be young and that she would
have golden hair, but these other things, the
laughing beauty of her face, the luring depth of
her eyes.

He caught himself staring.

"I — I was dreaming," he almost stammered.
He pulled himself together quickly. "I was
dreaming of a face, Mrs. Becker. It seems
strange that this should happen — away up here,
in -this way. The face that I dreamed of is a
thousand miles from here, and it is wonderfully
like yours."

The colonel was laughing at him when he
turned. He was a little man, as straight as a
gun rod, pale of face except for his nose, which
was nipped red by the cold, and with a pointed
beard as white as the snow under his feet.
That part of his countenance which exposed
itself above the top of his great fur coat and
below his thick beaver cap was alive with good
cheer, notwithstanding its pallor.

"Glad you're good humored about it, Steele,"

PHILIP STEELE

he cried with an immediate tone of comrade-
ship. "We wouldn't have ventured into your
camp if it hadn't been for Isobel. She was
positively insistent, sir. Wanted to see who
was here and what it looked Uke. Eh, Isobel,
my dear, are you satisfied ?"

"I surely didn't expect to find 'It' asleep at
this time of the day," said Mrs. Becker. She
laughed straight into Philip's face, and so
roguishly sweet was the curve of her red lips
and the light in her eyes that his heart quick-
ened its beating, and the flush deepened in bis
cheeks.

"It's only six," he said, looking at his watch.
"I don't usually turn in this early. I was
tired to-night — though I am not, now," he
added quickly. "I could sit up until morning
— and talk. We don't often meet people from
outside, you know. Where are the others?"

"Back there," said the colonel, waving an
arm into the gloom. "Isobel made 'em sit down
and be guiet, dogs and all, sir, while we came
30

A FACE OUT OF THE NIGHT

on alone. There are Indians, two sledges, and
a ton of duff."

"Call them," said Steele. "There's room
for your tent beside mine. Colonel, close
against the face of this rock. It's as good as
a furnace."

The colonel moved a little out into the gloom
and shouted to those behind. Philip turned to
find Mrs. Becker looking at him in a timid,
questioning sort of way, the laughter gone
f rcmi her eyes. For a moment she seemed to
be on the point of speaking to him, then picked
up a short stick and began toying with the
coals.

"You must be tired, Mrs. Becker," he said.
"Now that you are near a fire, I would sug-
gest that you throw off your heavy coat. You
Mrill be more comfortable, and I will bring you
a blanket to sit on."

He dived into his tent and a moment later
reappeared with a blanket, which he spread
close against the butt of a big spruce within

PHILIP STEELE

half a dozen feet of the fire. When he turned
toward her, the colonel's wife had thrown off
her coat and turbin and stood before him, a
slim and girlish figure, bewitchingly pretty as
she smiled her gratitude and nestled down into
the place he had prepared for her. For a mo-
ment he bent over her, tucking the thick fur
about her feet and knees, and in that moment
he breathed from the heavy coils of her shin-
ing hair the flower-like sweetness which had
already stirred him to the depths of his soul.

Colonel Becker was smiling down upon
them when he straightened up, and at the hu-
morous twinkle in his eyes, as he gazed from
one to the other, Steele felt that the guilt of
his own thoughts was blazing in his face. He
was glad that the Indians came up with the
sledges just at this moment, and as he went
back to help them with the dogs and packs he
swore softly at himself for the heat that was
in his blood and the strange madness that was
firing his brain. And inwardly he cursed him-

A FACE OUT OF THE NIGHT

self still more when he returned to the fire.
From out the deep gloom he saw the colonel
sitting with his back against the spruce and
Mrs. Becker nestling against him, her head
resting upon his shoulder, talking and laughing
up into his face. Even as he hesitated for an
instant, scarce daring to break upon the scene,
he saw her pull the gray-bearded face down to
hers and kiss it, and in the ineffable content-
ment and happiness shining in the two faces
in the firelight Philip Steele knew that he was
looking upon that which had broken for ever
the haunting image of another woman in his
heart. In its place would remain this picture
of love — ^love as he had dreamed of it, as he
had hoped for it, and which he had found at
last — but not for himself — in the heart of a
wilderness.

He saw now something childishly sweet and
ptu'e in the face that smiled welcome to him as
he came noisily through the snow-crust; and
something, too, in the colonel's face, which

133

PHILIP STEELE

reached out and gripped at his very heart-
strings, and filled him with a warm glow that
was new and strange to him, and which was
almost the happiness of these two. It swept
from him the sense of loneliness which had
oppressed him a short time before, and when
at last, after they had talked for a long time
beside the fire, the colonel's wife lifted her
pretty head drowsily and asked if she might
go to bed, he laughed in sheer joy at the pout-
ing tenderness with which she rubbed her pink
cheek against the grizzled face above her, and
at the gentle light in the colonel's eyes as he
half carried her into the tent.

For a long time after he had rolled himself
in his own blanket Philip lay awake, wonder-
ing at the strangeness of this thing that had
happened to him. It was Her hair that he had
seen shining this night under the old spruce,
lustrous and soft, and coiled in its simple glory,
as he had seen it last on the night when Ches-
bro had broken in on them at the ball. It was

A FACE OUT OF THE NIGHT

very easy for him to imagine that it had been
Her face, with soul and heart and love added
to its beauty. More than ever he knew what
had been missing for him now, and blessed
Chesbro for his blundering, and fell asleep to
dream of the new face, and to awaken hours
later to the unpleasant realization that his
visions were but dream-fabric after all, and
that the woman was the wife of Colonel
Becken

CHAPTER III

A SKULL AND A FLIRTATION

IT was late afternoon when they came into
Lac Bain, and as soon as Philip had turned
over the colonel and his wife to Breed, he hur-
ried to his own cabin. At the door he en-
countered Buck Nome. The two men had not
met since a month before at Nelson House,
and there was but little cordiality in Steele's
greeting as he went through the formality of
shaking hands with his associate.

"Fm going to say howdy to 'em," explained
Nome, pausing for a moment. "Deuce of a
good joke on you, Steele! How do you like
the job of bringing in an old colonel's frozen
wife, or a frozen colonel's old wife, eh?"

Every fiber in Steele's body grew tense at
the banter in the other's voice. He whirled

A SKULL AND A FLIRTATION

upon Nome, who had partly turned away.
"You remember — ^you Hed down there at Nel-
son to get just such a 'job' as this," he re-
minded. "Have you forgotten what happened
— ^af ter that ?"

"Don't get miffed about it, man," returned
Nome with an irritating laugh. "All's fair in
love and war. That was love down there,
'pon my word of honor it was> and this is
about as near the other thing as I want to

come."

There was something in his laugh that drew
Steele's lips in a tight line as he entered the
cabin. It was not the first time that he had
listened to Nome's gloating chuckle at the
mention of certain women. It was this more
than anything else that made him hate the man.
Physically, Nome was a magnificent specimen,
beyond doubt the handsomest man in the serv-
ice north of Winnipeg; so that while other men
despised him for what they knew, women ad-
mired and loved him — ^until, now and then too

PHILIP STEELE

late for their own salvation, they discovered
that his moral code was rotten to the core.
Such a thing had happened at Nelson House,
and Philip felt himself burning with a desire
to choke the life out of Nome as he recalled
the tragedy there. And what would happen —
now?" The thought came to him like a dash
of cold water, and yet, after a moment, his
teeth gleamed in a smile as a vision rose before
him of the love and purity which he had seen
in the sweet face of the colonel's wife. He
chuckled softly to himself as he dragged out a
pack from under his bunk; but there was no
humor in the chuckle. From it he took a
bundle wrapped in soft birch-bark, and from
this produced the skull that he had brought up
with him from the South. There was a trem-
ble of excitement in his low laugh as he
glanced about the gloomy interior of the cabin.
From the log ceiling hung a big oil lamp with
a tin reflector, and under this he hung the skull.
"You'll make a pretty ornament, M'sieiu*

A SKULt; AND A FLIRTATION

Janette/* he exclaimed, standing off to con-
template the white thing leering and bobbing
at him from the end of its string. **Mon Dieu,
I tell you that when the lamp is lighted Bucky
Nome must be blind if he doesn't recognize
you, even though you're dead, M'sieur !"

He lighted a smaller lamp, shaved himself,
and changed his clothes. It was dark when
he was ready for supper, and Nome had not
returned. He waited a quarter of an hour
longer, then put on his cap and coat and lighted
the big oil lamp. At the door he turned to
look back. The cavernous sockets of the skull
stared at him. From where he stood he could
see the ragged hole above the ear.

"It's your game to-night, M'sieur Janette,"
he cried back softly, and closed the door behind
him.

They were gathered before a huge fire of
logs in the factor's big living-room when
Philip joined the others. A glance told him
why Nome had not returned to the cabin.

PHILIP STEELE

Breed and the colonel were smoking cigars
over a ragged ledger of stupendous size, which
the factor had spread out upon a small table,
and both were deeply absorbed. Mrs. Becker
was facing the fire, and close beside her sat
Nome, leaning toward her and talking in a
voice so low that only a murmur of it came to
Steele's ears. The man's face was flushed
when he looked up, and his eyes shone with
the old fire which made Philip hate him.

As the woman turned to greet him Steele
felt a suddenly sickening sensation grip at his
heart. Her cheeks, too, were flushed, and the
color in them deepened still more when he
bowed to her and joined the two men at the
table. The colonel shook hands with him, and
Philip noticed that once or twice after that his
eyes shifted uneasily in the direction of the
two before the fire, and that whenever the low
laughter of Mrs. Becker and Nome came to
them he paid less attention to the columns of
figures which Breed was pointing out to him.

A SKULL AND A FLIRTATION

When they rose to go into supper, Philip's
blood boiled as Nome offered his arm to Mrs.
Becker, who accepted it with a swift, laughing
glance at the colonel. There was no response
in the older man's pale face, and Philip's
fingers dug hard into the palms of his hands.
At the table Nome's attentions to Mrs. Becker
were even more marked. Once, under pretext
of helping her to a dish, he whispered words
which brought a deeper flush to her cheeks,
and when she looked at the colonel his eyes
were fixed upon her in stem reproof. It was
abominable! Was Nome mad? Was the
woman —

Steele did not finish the thought in his own
mind His eyes encountered those of the
colonel's wife across the table. He saw a sud-
den, quick catch of breath in her throat ; even
as he looked the flush faded from her face, and
she rose from her seat, her gaze still upon him.

"I— I am not feeling well," she said "Will
you please excuse me ?"

PHILIP STEELE

In an instant Nome was at her side, but she
turned quickly from him to the colonel, who
had risen from his chair.

"Please take me to my room," she begged.
"Then — ^then you can come back."

Once more her face turned to Steele. There
was a pallor in it now that startled him. For
a few moments he stood alone, as Breed and
Nome left the table. He listened, and heard
the opening and closing of a second door.
Then a footstep, and Nome reappeared.

"By Heaven, but she's a beauty!" he ex-
claimed. "I tell you, Steele—"

Something in his companion's eyes stopped
him. Two red spots burned in Steele's cheeks
as he advanced and gripped the other fiercely
by the arm.

"Yes, she is pretty — ^very pretty," he said
quietly, his fingers sinking deeper into Nome's
arm. "Get your hat and coat, Nome. I want
to see you in the cabin."

Behind them the door opened and closed

A SKULL AND A FLIRTATION

again, and Steele shoved past his associate to
meet Breed.

"Buck and I have a little matter to attend to
over at the cabin," he explained. "When they
— ^when the colonel returns tell him we'll be
over to smoke an after-supper pipe with him
a little later, will you ? And give our compli-
ments to — ^her." With a half-sneer on his lips
he rejoined Nome, who stared hard at him,
and followed him through the outer door.

"Now, what the devil does this mean?"
Nome demanded when they were outside. "If
you have anything on your mind, Steele — "

"I have," interrupted Philip, "and I'm go-
ing to relieve myself of it. Pretty? She's as
beautiful as an angel, Buck — ^the colonel's wife,
I mean. And you — " He laughed harshly.
"You're always the lucky dog, Buck Nome.
You think she's half in love with you now.
Too bad she was taken ill just at the psycho-
logical moment, as you might say. Buck.
Wonder what was the matter?"

PHILIP STEELE

'T5on't Know," growled Nome, conscious of
something in the other's voice which darkness
concealed in his face.

"Of course, you don't," replied Steele.
"That's why I am bringing you over to the
cabin. I am going to tell you just what hap-
pened when Mrs. Becker was taken ill, and
when she turned a trifle pale, if you noticed
sharply. Buck. It's a good joke, a mighty
good joke, and I know you will thoroughly ap-
preciate it."

He drew a step back when they came near
the cabin, and Nome entered first. Very coolly
Philip turned and bolted the door. Then,
throwing off his coat, he pointed to the white
skull dangling under the lamp.

"Allow me to introduce an old friend of
mine, Buck — M'sieur Janette, of Nelson
House."

With a sudden curse Nome leaped toward
his companion, his face flaming, his hands
clenched to strike — only to look into the shin-

A SKULL AND A FLIRTATION

ing muzzk of Steele's revolver, with Steele's
cold gray eyes glittering dangerously behind it.

"Sit down, Nome — right there, under the
man you killed!" he commanded. "Sit down,
or by the gods I'll blow your head off where
you stand ! There — ^and I'll sit here, like this,
so that the cur's heart within you is a bull's-eye
for this gun. It's M'sieur Janette's turn to-
night/' he went on, leaning over the little
table, the red spots in his cheeks growing red-
der and brighter as Nome cringed before his
revolver. "M'sieur Janette's — ^and the col-
onel's; but mostly Janette's. Remember that,
Nome. It's for Janette. I'm not thinking
much about Mrs. Becker — ^just now."

Steele's breath came quickly and his lips
were almost snarling in his hatred of the man
before him.

"It's a lie!" gasped Nome chokingly, his
face ashen white. "You lie when you say I
killed— Janette."

The fingers of Steele's pistol hand twitched.

PHIUP STEELE

How rd Ukc to kai you!" he breathed.
You won his wife, Nome; you broke his
heart — ^and after that he killed himself. You
sent a report into headquarters that he killed
himself by accident. You lied. It was you
who killed him — ^by taking his wife. I got his
skull because I thought I might need it against
you to show that it was a pistol instead of a
rifle that killed him. And this isn't the first
man you've sent to hell, Nome, and is isn't the
first woman. But your next won't be Mrs.
Becker I"

He thrust his revolver almost into the other
man's face as Nome opened his lips to speak.

"Shut up!" he cried. "If you open your
dirty mouth again I'll be tempted to kill you
where you sit! Don't you know what hap-
pened to-night? Don't you know that Mrs.
Becker forgot herself, and remembered again,
just in time, and that you've taken a little
blood from the colonel's heart as you took all
of it from— his?" He reached up and broke

A SKULL AND A FLIRTATION

the string that held the skull, turning the empty
face of the thing toward Nome. "Look at it,
you scoundrel ! That's the man you killed, as
you would kill the colonel if you could. That's
Janette!"

His voice fell to a hissing whisper as he
shoved the skull slowly across the table, so
close that a sudden movement would have sent
it against the other's breast

"We've been fixing this thing up between us,
Bucky — M'sieur Janette and I," he went on,
"and we've come to the conclusion that we
won't kill you, but that you don't belong to the
service. Understand?"

"You mean — ^to drive me out — " One of
Nome's hands had stolen to his side, and
Steele's pistol arm grew tense.

"On the table with your hands, Bucky!
There, that's better," he laughed softly.

"Yes, we're going to drive you out. You're
going to pack up a few things right away,
Bucky, and you're going to nm like the devil

4Sl

PHILIP STEELE

away from this place. I'd advise you to go
straight back to headquarters and resign from
the Northwest Mounted. MacGregor knows
you pretty well, Bucky, and knows one or two
things you've done, even though your whole
record is not an open book to him. I don't be-
lieve he'll put any obstacles in the way of your
discharge although your enlistment hasn't ex-
pired. Disability is an easy plea, you know.
But if the inspector should think so much of
you that he is loath to let you go, then M'sieur
Janette and I will have to fix up the story for
headquarters, and I don't mind telling you
we'll add just a little for interest, and that the
woman and the people at Nelson House will
swear to it. You've the making of a good out-
law, Bucky," he smiled tauntingly, "and if you
follow your natural bent you'll have some of
your old friends after you, good and hard.
You'd better steer clear of that though, and
try your hand at being honest for once.
M*sieur Janette wants to give you this chancSt

IB'

A SKULL AND A FLIRTATION

and you'd better make good time. So get a
move on, Bucky. You'll need a blanket and a
little grub, that's all"

"Steele, you don't mean this! Good God,
man — " Nome had half risen to his feet. "You
don't mean this !"

With his free hand Philip took out his
watch.

"I mean that if you are not gone within fif-
teen minutes I'll march you over to Breed and
the colonel, tell them the story of M'sieur Ja-
nette, here, and hold you until we hear from
headquarters," he said quickly. "Which will it
be, Nome?"

Like one stunned by a blow Nome rose
slowly to his feet. He spoke no word as he
carefully filled his pack with the necessities of
a long journey. At the door, as he opened it
to go, he turned for just an instant upon
Steele, who was still holding the revolver in his
hand.

"Remember, Bucky," admonished Philip in

PHILIP STEELE

a quiet voice, "it's all for the good of yourself
and the service."

Fear had gone from Nome's face. It was
filled now with a hatred so intense that his
teeth shone like the fangs of a snarling animal.

"To hell with you," he said, "and to hell
with the service; but remember, Philip Steele,
remember that some day we'll meet again."

"Some day," laughed Philip. "Good-by,
Bucky Nome — deserter!"

The door closed and Nome was gone,

"Now, M'sieur Janette, it's our turn," cried
Steele, smiling companionably upon the skull
and loading his pipe. "It's our turn."

He laughed aloud, and for some time
puffed out luxurious clouds of smoke in si-
lence.

"It's the best day's work I've done in my
life," he continued, with his eyes still upon the
skull. "The very best, and it would be com-
plete, M'sieur, if I could send you down to the
woman who helped to kill you."

A SKUIX AND A FLIRTATION

He stopped, and his eyes leaped with a sud-
den fire. "By George!" he exclaimed, under
his breatl^. His pipe went out ; for many min-
utes he stared with set face at the skull, as if
it had spoken to him and its voice had trans-
fixed him where he stood. Then he tossed his
pipe upon the table, collected his service equip-
ment and strapped it in his pack. After that
he returned to the table with a pad of paper
and a pencil and sat down. His face was
strangely white as he took the skull in his
hands.

"1*11 do it, so help me all the gods, I'll do
it !" he breathed excitedly. "M'sieur, a woman
killed you — ^as much as Bucky Nome, a woman
did it. You couldn't do her any good — ^but
you might — another. I'm going to send you
to her, M'sieur. You're a terrible lesson, and
I may be a beast ; but you're preaching a pow-
erful sermon, and I guess — ^perhaps — ^you may
do her good. I'll tell her your story, old man,
and the story of the woman who madfi yfai so

PHILIP STEELE

nice and white and clean. Perhaps she'll see the
moral, M'sieur. Eh? Perhaps!"

For a long time he wrote, and when he had
done he sealed the writing, put the envelope
and the skull together in a box, and tied the
whole with babiche string. On the outside he
fastened another note to Breed, the factor, in
which he explained that he and Bucky Nome
had found it necessary to leave that very night
for the West. And he heavily underscored the
lines in which he directed the factor to see that
the box was delivered to Mrs. Colonel Becker,
and that, as he valued the honor and the
friendship of the service, and especially of
Philip Steele, all knowledge of it should be
kept from the colonel himself.

It was eight o'clock when he went out into
the night with his pack upon his back. He
grunted approval when he found it was snow-
ing, for the track of himself and Nome would
be covered. Through the thickening gloom
the two or three lights in the factor's home

A SKULL AND A FLIRTATION

gleamed like distant stars. One of them was
brighter than the others, and he knew that it
came from the rooms which Breed had fitted
up for the colonel and his wife. As Philip
halted for a moment, his eyes drawn by a
haunting fascination to that window, the light
grew clearer and brighter, and he fancied that
he saw a face looking out into the night — ^to-
ward his cabin. A moment later he knew that it
was the woman's face. Then a door opened,
and a figure hurried across the open. He
stepped back into the gloom of his own cabin
and waited. It was the colonel. Three times
he knocked loudly at the cabin ^oor.

"I'd like to go out and shake his hand," mut-
tered Steele. "I'd like to tell him that he isn't
the only man who's had an idol broken, and
that Mrs. B.'s little flirtation isn't a circum-
stance — ^to what might have happened."

Instead, he moved silently away, and turned
his face into the thin trail that buried itself in
the black forests of the West.

CHAPTER ly

THE SILKEN SCARF

A LONELINESS deeper than he had ever
known — a yearning that was ahnost
pain, oppressed Philip as he left Lac Bain be-
hind him. Half a mile from the post he
stopped under a shelter of dense spruce, and
stood listening as there came to him faintly the
distant howling of a dog. After all, had he
done right ? He laughed harshly and his hands
clenched as he thought of Bucky Nome. He
had done right by him. But the skull — Mrs.
Becker — ^was that right? Like a flash there
came to him out of the darkness a picture of
the scene beside the fire — of Mrs. Becker and
the colonel, of the woman's golden head rest-
ing on her husband's shoulder, her sweet blue
eyes filled with all the truth and glory of wom-

THE SILKEN SCARF

anhood as she had looked up into his grizzled
face. And then there took its place the scene
beside the fire in the factor's room. He saw
the woman's flushed cheeks as she listened to
the low voice of Bucky Nome, he saw again
what looked like 3rielding softness in her eyes
— ^the grayish pallor in the colonel's face as he
had looked upon the flirtation. Yes, he had
done right. She had recovered herself in time,
but she had taken a little bit of life from the
colonel, and from him. She had broken his
ideal — ^the ideal he had always hoped for, and
had sought for, but had never found, and he
told himself that now she was no better than
the girl of the hyacinth letter, whose golden
beauty and eyes as clear as an angel's had con-
cealed this same deceit that wrecked men's
lives. M'sieur Janette's clean, white skull and
the story of how and why M'sieur Janette had
died would not be too great a ptmishment for
her.
He resumed his journey, striving to concen-

PHILIP STEELE

trate his mind on other things. Seven or eight
miles to the south and west was the cabin of
Jacques Pierrot, a half-breed, who had a
sledge and dogs. He would hire Jacques to
accompany him on his patrol in place of Bucky
Nome. Then he would return to Nelson House
and send in his report of Bucky Nome's deser-
tion, since he knew well enough after the final
remarks of that gentleman that he did not in-
tend to sever his connection with the Northwest
Mounted in the regular way. After that — He
shrugged his shoulders as he thought of the
fourteen months' of service still ahead of him.
Until now his adventure as a member of the
Royal Mounted had not grown monotonous
for an hour. Excitement, action, fighting
against odds, had been the spice of life to him,
and he struggled to throw oflF the change that
had taken hold of him the moment he had
opened the hyacinth-scented letter of Mrs.
Becker. "You're a fool," he argued. "You're
as big a fool as Bucky Nome. My God — ^you

THE SILKEN SCARF

— Phil Steele — ^letting a married woman upset
you like this !"

It was near midnight when he came to Pier-
rot's cabin, but a light was still burning in the
half-breed's log home. Philip kicked off his
snow shoes and knocked at the door. In a
moment Pierrot opened it, stepped back, and
stared at the white figure that came in out of
the storm.

"ilf on Dieu — ^it ees you — Mee-sair Philip !"

Philip held out his hand to Jacques, and
shot a quick glance about him. There had
been a change in the cabin since he had visited
it last One of Pierrot's hands was done up
in a sling, his face was thin and pale, and his
dark eyes were sunken and lusterless. In the
little wilderness home there was an air of de-
sertion and neglect, and Philip wondered
where Pierrot's rosy-cheeked, black-haired
wife and his half dozen children had gone.

"Mon Dieu — it ees you, Mee-sair Philip,"
cried Pierrot again, his face lighting up with

PHILIP STEELE

pleasure. "You come late. .You are hon-
grce ?"

"I've had supper," replied Philip. "I've just
come from Lac Bain. But what's up, old
man — ?" He pointed to Pierrot's hand, and
looked questionably about the cabin again.

"Eh — lowla — ^my wife — she is at Churchill,
over on the bay," groaned Jacques. "And so
are the children. What ! You did not hear
at Lac Bain? lowla is taken seek — ^ver' seek
— ^with a strange thing which — ^ugh! — ^has to
be fixed with a knife, Mee-sair Philip. An' so
I take her to the doctor over at Churchill, an'
he fix her — ^an' she is growing well now, an'
will soon come home. She keep the children
with her. She say they mak' her think of
Jacques^ on his trap-line. Eh — ^it ees lonely —
dam*— dam' lonely, and I have been gone from
my lowla but two weeks to-morrow."

"You have been with her at Fort Church-
ill?"' asked Philip, taking off his pack and
coat.

THE SILKEN SCARF

''Out, M'sicur," said Jacques, falling into his
French. "I have been there since November.
What I They did not tell you at Lac Bain ?"

"No— they did not tell me. But I was there
but a few hours, Jacques. Listen — " He
pulled out his pipe and began filling it, with
his back to the stove. "You saw people —
strangers — at Fort Churchill, Jacques? They
came over on the London ship, and among
them there was a woman — "

Pierrot's pale face flashed up with sudden
animation.

"Ah— zee angel!" he cried. "That is what
my lowla called her, M'sieur. See!" He
pointed to his bandaged hand. "Wan day that
bete — ^the Indian dog of mine — did that, an'
w'en I jumped up from the snow in front of
the company's store, the blood running from
me, I see her standing there, white an* scared.
An' then she run to me with a little scream, an'
tear something from her neck, an* tie it round
my hand. Then she go with me to my cabin,

PHILIP STEELE

and every day after that she come to see my
lowla an' the children. She wash little Pierre,
an' cut his hair. She wash Jean an' Mabelle.
She laugh an' sing an' hoi' the baby, an' my
lowla laugh an' sing; an' she takes down my
lowla's hair, which is so long that it falls to
her knees, an' does it up in a wonderful way
an' says she would give everything she got if
she could have that hair. An' my lowla laugh
at her, because her hair is like an angel's — ^like
fire w'en the sun is on it; an' my lowla tak'
hers down, all red an' gold, an' do it up in the
Cree way. And w'en she brings the man with
her — ^he laughs an' plays with the kids, an'
says he knows the doctor and that there will
be nothing to pay for all that hef is done. Ah
^-she ees wan be-e-eautiful-H angel! An' this
—this is w'at she tied around my hand."

With new life Pierrot went to a covered box
nailed against one of the log walls and a mo-
ment later placed in Philip's hands a long,
white, silken neck-scarL Once more there

THE SILKEN SCARF

rose to his nostrils the sweet, faint scent of
hyacinth, and with a sudden low cry Philip
crushed the dainty fabric in a mass to his face.
In that moment it seemed as though the sweet-
ness of the woman herself was with him, stir-
ring him at last to confess the truth — ^the thing
which he had fought against so fiercely in those
few hours at Lac Bain ; and the knowledge that
he had surrendered to himself, that in going
from Lac Bain he was leaving all that the
world hpld for him in the way of woman and
love, drew his breath from him in another
broken, stifled cry.

When he lowered the scarf his face was
white. Pierrot was staring at him.

"It makes me think — of home," he ex-
plained lamely. "Sometimes I get lonely, too.
There's a girl— down there — who wears a
scarf like this, and what she wears smells like
a flower, just as this does — "

"Out, I understand," said Pierrot softly. "It
is the way I feel when my lowla is gone."

f PHIUP STEELE

He replaced the scarf in the box, and when
he returned to the stove Philip explained why
he had come to his cabin. With Pierrot's prom-
ise to accompany him with dogs and sledge on
his patrol the next day he prepared to go to
bed. Pierrot also was undressing, and Philip
said to him casually.

"This woman — at Churchill — Jacques —
what if some one should tell you that she is not
so much of an angel after all — that she is, per-
haps, something like — like the woman over at
Lac la Biche, who ran away with the En^ish-
man?"

Pierrot straightened as though Philip had
thrust a knife-point into his back. He broke
forth suddenly into French.

"I would call him a liar, M'sieur," he cried
fiercely. "I would call him a liar, once — twice
— three times, and then if he said it again I
would fight him. Mon Dieu, but it would be
no sin to kill one with a mouth like that!"

Philip was conscious of the hot blood n:sh-

THE SILKEN SCARF

ing to his face as he bent over his bunk. The
depths of Pierrot's faith shamed him, and he
crawled silently between the blankets and
turned his face to the wall. Pierrot extin-
guished the light, and a little later Philip could
hear his deep breathing. But sleep refused to
close his own eyes, and he lay on his back,
painfully awake. In spite of the resolution he
had made to think no more of the woman at
Lac Bain, his mind swept him back to her ir-
resistibly. He recalled every incident that had
occurred, every word that she had spoken,
since he had first looked upon her beautiful
face out on the Churchill trail. He could find
nothing but purity and sweetness until he came
with her for that fatal hour or two into the
company of Bucky Nome. And then, again,
his blood grew hot. But — after all — ^was there
not some little excuse for her? He thought of
the htmdreds of women he had known, and
wondered if there was one among them all
who had not at some time fallen into this same

PHILIP STEELE

little error as Mrs. Becker. For the first time
he began to look at himself. Mrs. Becker had
laughed with Bucky Nome, her cheeks had
grown a little flushed, her eyes had shone radi-
antly — ^but were those things a sin? Had
those same eyes not looked up into his own,
filled with a sweetness that thrilled him, when
he bent over her beside the fire out on the
Churchill trail? Was there not that same
lovely flush in her face when his lips had al-
most touched her hair? And had not the
colonel's sudden return brought a flush into
both their faces? He smiled to himself, and
for a moment he thrilled ecstatically. The re-
action came like a shock. In an instant other
scenes— other faces — flashed upon him, and
again he saw the luring, beautiful face of
Eileen Hawkins, who smiled on men as Mrs.
Becker had smiled on Bucky Nome and on
him.

He closed his eyes and tried to force him-

THE SILKEN SCARF

self into sleep, but failed. At last he rose si-
lently from his bunk, filled his pipe, and sat
down in the darkness beside the stove. The
storm had increased to a gale, wailing and
moaning over the cabin outside, and the sound
carried him back to the last night in the cabin
far to the south, when he had destroyed the
hyacinth-scented letter. The thought of the
letter moved him restlessly. He listened to
Pierrot's breathing, and knew that the half-
breed was asleep. Then he rose to his feet and
laid his pipe on the table. A curious feeling
of guilt came over him as he moved toward
the box in which Jacques had placed the silken
scarf. His breath came quickly; in the dark
his eyes shone; a tingling thrill of strange
pleasure shot through him as his fingers
touched the thing for which they were search-
ing. He drew the scarf out, and returned to
the stove with it, crushing it in both his hands.
The sweetness of it came to him again like the

PHILIP STEELE

woman's breath. It was the sweetness of Her
hair, of the golden coils massed in the firelight ;
a part of the woman herself, of her glorious
eyes, her lips, her face — and suddenly ho
crushed the fabric to his own face, and stood
there, trembling in the darkness, while Jacques
Pierrot slept and the storm wailed and moaned
over his head. For he knew — ^now — ^that he
would do more for this woman than Jacques
Pierrot could ever do; more, perhaps, than
even the colonel, her husband, would do. His
heart seemed bursting with a new and terrible
pain, and the truth at last seemed to rise and
choke him. He loved her. He loved this
woman, the wife of another man. He loved
her as he had never dreamed that he could love
a woman, and with the scarf still smothering
his lips and face he stood for many minutes,
silent and motionless, gathering himself slowly
from out of the appalling depths into which he
had allowed himself to plunge.
Then he folded the scarf, and instead of re-

THE SILKEN SCARF

turning it to the box, put it in one of the pock-
ets of his coat

"Pierrot won't care," he excused himself.
"And it's the only thing, little girl — ^the only
thing — ^I'll ever have— of yoiL"

CHAPTER V

BEAUTY-PROOF

T was Pierrot who aroused Philip in the

morning.

*'Mon Dieu, but you have slept like a bear,"
he exclaimed. 'The storm has cleared and it
will be fine traveling. Eh — ^you have not
heard ? I wonder why they are firing guns off
toward Lac Bain !"

Philip jumped from his bed, and his first
look was in the direction of the box. He was
criminal enough to hope that Jacques would
not discover that the scarf was missing.

"A moose — ^probably," he said. 'There
were tracks close up to the post a day or two
ago.

He was anxious to begin their journey, and
assisted Pierrot in preparing breakfast. The

BEAUTY-PROOF

sound of guns impressed upon him the pos-
sibility of some one from Lac Bain calling at
the half-breed's cabin, and he wished to avoid
further association with people from the post
— ^at least for a time. At nine o'clock Pierrot
bolted the door and the two set off into the
south and west. On the third day they swung
to the eastward to strike the Indians living
along Reindeer Lake, and on the sixth cut a
trail by compass straight for Nelson House.
A week later they arrived at the post, and
Philip found a letter awaiting him calling him
to Prince Albert. In a way the summons was
a relief to him. He bade Pierrot good-by, and
set out for Le Pas in company with two In-
dians. From that point he took the work train
to Etomami, and three hours later was in
Prince Albert.

"Rest up for a time, Steele," Inspector Mac-
Gregor told him, after he had made a personal
report on Bucky Nome.

During the week that followed Philip had

PHILIP STEELE

plenty of leisure in which to tell himself that
he was a fool, and that he was deliberately
throwing away what a muniJScent fortune had
placed in his hands. MacGregor's announce-
ment that he was in line for promotion in the
near future did not stir him as it would have
done a few weeks before. In his little bar-
racks room he laughed ironically as he recalled
MacGregor's words, "We're going to make a
corporal or a sergeant of you." He — Philip
Steele — ^millionaire, club man, son of a western
king of finance — a corporal or a sergeant ! For
the first time the thought amused him, and
then it maddened him. He had played the
part of an idiot, and all because there had been
born within him a love of adventure and the
big, free life of the open. No wonder some
of his old club friends regarded him as a
scapegrace and a ne'er-do-well. He had
thrown away position, power, friends and
home as carelessly as he might have tossed
away the end of a cigar. And all — for this!

BEAUTY-PROOF

He looked about his cramped quarters, a half
sneer on his lips. He had tied himself to this I
To his ears there came faintly the thunder of
galloping hoofs. Sergeant Moody was train-
ing his rookies to ride. The sneer left his lips,
and was replaced by a quick, alert smile as
he heard a rattle of revolver shots and the
cheering of voices. After all, it was not so
bad. It was a service that made men, and he
thought of the English remittance-man, whose
father was a lord of something-or-other, and
who was learning to ride and shoot out there
with red-headed, raucous-voiced Moody. There
began to stir in him again the old desire for
action, and he was glad when word was sent to
him that Inspector MacGregor wished to see
him in his office.

The big inspector was pacing back and forth
when Philip came in.

Sit down, Steele, sit down," he said.
Take it easy, man — and have a cigar."
If MacGregor had suddenly gone into a fit

PHILIP STEELE

Philip could not have been more surprised than
at these words, as he stood with his cap in his
hand before the desk of the fiery-mustached
inspector, who was passing his box of choice
Havanas. There are tightly drawn lines of
distinction in the Royal Mounted. As Philip
had once heard the commissioner say, "Every
man in the service is a king — ^but there are dif-
ferent degrees of kings," and for a barracks
man to be asked to sit in the inspector's office
and smoke was a sensational breach of the
usual code. But as he had distinctly heard the
invitation to sit, and to smoke, Philip pro-
ceeded to do both, and waited in silence for
the next mine to explode under his feet. And
there was a certain ease in his manner of do-
ing these things which would have assured
most men that he was not unaccustomed to
sitting in the presence of greatness.

The inspector seemed to notice this. For
a moment he stood squarely in front of Steele,
his hands shoved deep into his pockets, a twin-

BEAUTY-PROOF

kle in the cold, almost colorless eyes which
rookies dreaded even more than the fiercely
turned red mustaches. Then he laughed, a
rumbling, chuckling, companionable laugh,
such as finds its vent in the fellowship of
equals, but which is seldom indulged in by a
superior before an inferior in the R. N. W. M.
Police.

"Mighty good cigars, eh, Steele?" he asked,
turning slowly toward the window. "The com-
missioner sent 'cm up to me from Regina.
Nothing like a good cigar on a dreary day like
this. Whew, listen to the wind— straight from
Medicine Hat r

For a few moments he looked out upon the
cheerless drab roofs of the barracks, with their
wisps of pale smoke swirling upward into the
leaden sky; counted the dozen gnarled and
scrubby trees, as had become a habit with him ;
rested his eyes upon the black and shriveled
remnants of summer flower-beds thrusting
their frost-shrunken stalks through the snow,

PHILIP STEELE

and then, almost as if he were speaking to
himself, he said, "Steele, are you beauty-
proof?"

There was no banter in his voice. It was
low, so low that it had in it the ring of some-
thing more than mere desire for answer, and
when the inspector turned, Philip observed a
thing that he had never seen before — a flush in
MacGregor's face. His pale eyes gleamed.
His voice was filled with an intense earnest-
ness as he repeated the question. "I want to
know, Steele. Are you beauty-proof?"

In spite of himself Philip felt the fire rising
in his own face. In that moment the inspector
could have hit on no words that would have
thrilled him more deeply than those which he
had spoken. Beauty-proof! Did MacGregor
know ? Was it possible — He took a step for-
ward, words came to his lips, but he caught
himself before he had given voice to them.

Beauty-proof !

BEAUTY-PROOF

He laughed, softly, as the inspector had
laughed a few moments before. But there was
a strange tenseness in his face — something
which MacGregor saw, but could not under-
stand.

"Beauty-proof?" He repeated the words,
looking keenly at the other. "Yes, I think I
am, sir."

"You think you are?"

"I am quite sure that I am. Inspector. That
is as far as I can go."

The inspector seated himself at his desk and
opened a drawer. From it he took a photo-
graph. For some time he gazed at it in si-
lence, puffing out clouds of smoke from his
dgar. Then, without lifting his eyes from the
picture, he said : "I am going to put you up
against a queer case, Steele, and the strangest
thing about it is its very simplicity. It's a job
for the gi-eenest rookie in the service, and yet
I swear that there isn't another man in Sas-

PHILIP STEELE

katchewan to whom I would talk as I am about
to talk to you. Rather paradoxical, isn't it ?"

"Rather," agreed Philip.

"And yet not when you come to understand
the circumstances," continued the inspector,
placing the photograph face down on the table
and looking at the other through a purple cloud
of tobacco smoke. "You see, Steele, I know
who you are. I know that your father is
Philip Steele, the big Chicago banker. I know
that you are up here for romance and adven-
ture rather than for any other thing there is in
the service, I know, too, that you are no
prairie chicken, and that most of your life has
been spent where you see beautiful women
every hour of the day, and where soft voices
and tender smiles aren't the most wonderful
things in the world, as they sometimes are up
here. Fact is, we have a way of our own of
running down records — "

"And a confounded clever one it must be,"
interrupted Philip irreverently. "Had you any

BEAUTY-PROOF

— any particular reason for supposing me to
be 'beauty-proof/ as you call it?" he added
coldly.

"I've told you my only reason," said the in-
spector, leaning over his desk. "You've seen
so many pretty faces, Steele, and you've as-
sociated with them so long that one up here
isn't going to turn your head. Now — "

MacGregor hesitated, and laughed. The
flush grew deeper in his cheeks, and he looked
again at the photograph.

"I'm going to be frank with you," he went
on. "This young woman called on me yester-
day, and within a quarter of an hour — fifteen
minutes, mind you! — she had me going like a
fool! Understand? I'm not proof — ^against
her — and yet I'm growing old in the service and
haven't had a love affair since — a long time
ago. Fm going to send you up to the Wekusko
camp, above Le Pas, to bring down a prisoner.
The man is her husband, and he almost killed
Hodges, who is chief of construction up there.

PHILIP STEELE

The minimum he'll get is ten years, and this
woman is moving heaven and earth to save
him. So help me God, Steele, if I was one of
the youngsters, and she came to me as she did
yesterday, I believe Fd let him give me the
slip ! But it mustn't happen. Understand ? It
mustn't happen. We've got to bring that man
down, and we've got to give him the law. Sim-
ple thing, isn't it — this bringing a prisoner
down from Wekusko! Any rookie could do
it, couldn't he ? And yet — "

The inspector paused to light his cigar,
which had gone out. Then he added: "If
you'll do this, Steele — and care for it — I'll see
that you get your promotion."

As he finished, he tossed the photograph
across the desk. "That's she. Don't ask me
how I got the picture."

A curious thrill shot through Philip as he
picked up the bit of cardboard. It was a won-
drously sweet face that looked squarely out of
it into his eyes, a face so youthful, so filled

BEAUTY-PROOF

with childish prettiness that an exclamation of
surprise rose to his lips. Under other circum-
stances he would have sworn that it was the
picture of a school-girl. He looked up, about
to speak, but MacGregor had turned again to
the window, clouds of smoke about his head.
He spoke without turning his head.

"That was taken nearly ten years ago," he
said, and Philip knew that he was making an
effort to keep an luinatural break out of his
voice. "But there has been little change —
almost none. His name is Thorpe. I will
send you a written order this afternoon and
you can start to-night."

Philip rose, and waited.

"Is there nothing more?" he asked, after a
moment. "This woman — "

"There is nothing more," interrupted the in-
spector, still looking out through the window.
"Only this, Steele — you must bring him back.
Whatever happens, bring back your prisoner."

As he turned to leave, Philip fancied that

PHILIP STEELE

he caught something else — ^a stifled, choking
breath, a sound that made him turn his head
again as he went through the door. The in-
spector had not moved.

"Now what the deuce does this mean?" he
asked himself, closing the door softly behind
him. "You're up against something queer this
time, Philip Steele, Til wager dollars to dough-
nuts. Promotion for bringing in a prisoner!
What in thunder—"

He stopped for a moment in one of the
cleared paths. From the big low roofed drill
enclosure a hundred yards away came the dull
thud of galloping hoofs and the voice of Ser-
geant Moody thundering instructions to the
rookies. Moody had a heart like flint and
would have faced blazing cannon to perform
his duty. He had grown old and ugly in the
service and was as beauty-proof as an ogre of
stone. Why hadn't MacGregor sent him ?

Beauty-proof I The words sent a swift rush
of thought, of regret, of the old homesickness

BEAUTY-PROOF

and longing through Philip as he returned to
his quarters. He wondered just how much
MacGregor knew, and he sat down to bring up
before him for the thousandth time a vision of
the two faces that had played their part in his
life — the face of the girl at home, as beautiful
as a Diane de Poitiers, as soulless as a sphinx,
who had offered herself to him in return for
his name and millions, and of that other which
he had met away up in the frozen barrens of
Lac Bain. Beauty-proof! He laughed and
loaded his pipe. MacGregor had made a good
guess, even though he did not know what had
passed that winter before he came north to
seek adventure, or of the fight he had made for
another woman, with Mr, Bucky Nome — de-
serter I

CHAPTER VI

PHILIP FOLLOWS A PRETTY FACE

IT was late in the afternoon when Philip's
instructions came from the inspector. They
were tersely official in form, gave him all nec-
essary authority, and ordered him to leave for
Le Pas that night. Pinned to the order was
a small slip of paper, and on this MacGregor
had repeated in writing his words of a few
hours before : "Whatever happens, bring back
your prisoner."

There was no signature to this slip, and the
first two words were heavily underscored.
What did this double caution mean.'^ Coming
from a man like MacGregor, who was as
choice as a king of his advice, Philip knew that
it was of unusual significance. If it was in-
tended as a warning, why had not the inspector

PHILIP FOLLOWS A PRETTY FACE

given him more detail? During the hour in
which he was preparing for his journey he
racked his brain for some clew to the situation.
The task which he was about to perform
seemed simple enough. A man named Thorpe
had attempted murder at Wekusko. He was
already a prisoner, and he was to bring him
down. The biggest coward in Saskatchewan,
or a man from a hospital bed, could do this
much, and yet— ^

He read the inspector's words over and over
again. 'Whatever happens !" In spite of him-
self a little stir of excitement crept into his
blood. Since that thrilling hour in which he
had seen Bucky Nome desert from the service
he had not felt himself moved as now, and in a
moment of mental excitement he found him*
self asking a question which a few minutes
before he would have regarded as a mark of
insanity. Was it possible that in the whole
of the Northland there could be another
woman as beautiful as Colonel Becker's wife

PHILIP STEELE

— B, woman so beautiful that she had turned
even Inspector MacGregor's head, as Mrs.
Becker had turned Bucky Nome's — and his?
Was it possible that between these two women
— ^between this wife of an attempted murderer
and Mrs. Becker there was some connecting
link — some association —

He cut his thoughts short with a low ex-
clamation of disgust. The absurdity of the
questions he had asked himself brought a flush
into his face. But he could not destroy the
undercurrent of emotions they had aroused
Anyway, something was going to happen. He
was sure of that. The inspector's actions, his
words, his mysterious nervousness, the strange
catch in bis voice as they parted, all assured
him that there was a good reason for the re-
peated warning. And whatever did happen
was to be brought about by the woman whose
girlish beauty he had looked upon in the pic-
ture. That MacGregor was aware of the na-
ture of his peril, if he was to run into danger

84.

PHILIP FOLLOWS A PRETTY FACE

at all, he was sure, and he was equally certain
that some strong motive restrained the inspect-
or from saying more than he had. Already
he began to scent in the adventure ahead of
him those elements of mystery, of excitement,
even of romance, the craving for which was
an inherited part of his being. And with these
things there came another sensation, one that
surprised and disquieted him. A few days be-
fore his one desire had been to get out of the
north country, to place as much distance as
possible between himself and Lac Bain. And
now he found himself visibly affected by the
thought that his duty was to take him once
more in the direction of the woman whose
sweet face had become an indissoluble part of
his existence. He would not see her. Even at
Wekusko he would be many days' journey
from Lac Bain. But she would be nearer to
him, and it was this that quickened his pulse.

He was ten minutes early for his train, and
employed that interval in mingling among the

PHILIP STEELE

people at the station. MacGregor had as much
as told him that whatever unusual thing might
develop depended entirely upon the appearance
of the woman and he began to look for her.
She was not at the station. Twice he walked
through the coaches of his train without dis-
covering a face that resembled that in the
photograph.

It was late when he arrived at Etomami,
where the sixty mile line of the Hudson's Bay
Railroad branches off to the north. At dawn
he entered the caboose of the work train, which
was to take him up through the wilderness to
Le Pas. He was the only passenger.

"There ain't even a hand-car gone up ahead
of us," informed the brakeman in response to
his inquiry. "This is the only train in five
days.'^

After all, it was to be a tame affair, in spite
of the inspector's uneasiness and warnings,
thought Philip. The woman was not ahead
of him. Two days before she had been in

PHILIP FOLLOWS A PRETTY FACE

MacGregor's office, and under the circum-
stances it was impossible for her to be at Le
Pas or at Wekusko, unless she had traveled
steadily on dog sledge. Philip swore softly to
himself in his disappointment, ate breakfast
with the train gang, went to sleep, and awoke
when they plowed their way into the snow-
smothered outpost on the Saskatchewan.

The brakeman handed him a letter.

*This came on the Le Pas mail," he ex-
plained. "I kept it out for you instead of
sending it to the office."

"Thank you," said Philip. "A special —
from headquarters. Why in thunder didn't
they send me a messenger instead of a letter,
Braky? They could have caught me on the
train."

He tore open the departmental envelope as
he spoke and drew forth a bit of folded paper.
It was not the official letter-head, but at a
glance Philip recognized the inspector's scrawl-
ing writing and his signature. It was one of

PHILIP STEELE

MacGregor's quiet boasts that the man did not
live who could forge his name.

An astonished whistle broke from his lips as
he read these few lines :

Follow your conscience, whatever you do.
Both God and man will reward you in the end.

Felix MacGregor.

And this was all. There was no date, no
word of explanation; even his own name had
been omitted from this second order. He
picked up the envelope which had fallen to the
floor and looked at the postmark. It had been
stamped four-thirty. It was after five, an hour
later, that he had received his verbal instruc-
tions from MacGregor! The inspector must
have written the note before their interview of
the preceding afternoon — before his repeated
injunction of "Whatever happens, bring back
your prisoner!" But this letter was evidently
intended as final instructions since it had been
sent so as to reach him at this time. What did

PHILIP FOLLOWS A PRETTY FACE

it mean ? The question buzzed in Philip's brain,
repeated itself twenty times, fifty times, as he
hurried through the gathering darkness of the
semi-polar night toward the log hotel of the
place. He was convinced that there was some
hidden motive in the inspector's actions. What
was he to understand ?

Suddenly he stopped, a hundred yards from
the glimmering lights of the Little Saskatche-
wan hotel, and chuckled audibly as he stuffed
his pipe. It flashed upon him now why Mac-
Gregor had chosen him instead of an ordinary
service man to bring down the prisoner from
Wekusko. MacGregor knew that he, Philip
Steele, college man and man of the world,
would reason out the key to this little puzzle,
whereas Sergeant Moody and others of his type
would turn back for explanations. And In-
spector MacGregor, twenty years in the service,
and recognized as the shrewdest man-hunter
between the coasts, wished to give no ex-
planation. Philip's blood tingled with fresh

PHILIP STEELE

excitement as the tremendous risk which the
inspector himself was running, dawned upon
him. Publicity of the note which he held in his
hand would mean the disgrace and retirement
even of Felix MacGregor.

He thrust the letter in his pocket and hur-
ried on. The lights of the settlement were
already agleam. From the edge of the frozen
river there came the sound of a wheezy ac-
cordion in a Chinese cafe, and the howling of
a dog, either struck by man or worsted in a
fight. Where the more numerous lights of the
one street shone red against the black back-
grotmd of forest, a drunken half-breed was
chanting in half-Cree, half-French, the chorus
of the caribou song. He heard the distant
snapping of a whip, the yelping response of
huskies, and a moment later a sledge and six
dogs passed him so close that he was com-
pelled to leap from their path. This was Le
Pas — the wilderness ! Beyond it, just over the
frozen river which lay whit? and silent before

PHILIP FOLLOWS A PRETTY FACE

him, stretched that endless desolation of ro-
mance and mystery which he had grown to
love, a world of deep snows, of silent-tongued
men, of hardship and battle for life where the
law of nature was the survival of the fittest,
and that of man, "Do unto others as ye would
that they should do unto you." Never did
Philip Steele's heart throb with the wild, free
pulse of life and joy as in such moments as
these, when his fortune, his clubs, and his
friends were a thousand miles away, and he
stood on the edge of the big northern Un-
known.

As he had slept through the trainmen's din-
ner hour, he was as hungry as a wolf, and he
lost no time in seating himself in a warm cor-
ner of the low, log-ceilinged dining-room of
the Little Saskatchewan. Although a quarter
of an hour early, he had hardly placed himself
at his table when another person entered the
room. Casually he glanced up from the two
letters which he had spread out before him.

PHILIP STEELE

The one who had followed him was a woman.
She had turned sharply upon seeing him and
seated herself at the next table, her back so
toward him that he caught only her half pro-
file.

It was enough to assure him that she was
young and pretty. On her head she wore a
turban of silver lynx fur, and about this she
had drawn her glossy brown hair, which shone
like burnished copper in the lamp-glow, and
had gathered it in a bewitchingly coquettish
knot low on her neck, where it shone with a
new richness and a new warmth with every
turn of her head. But not once did she turn
so that Philip could see more than the tan-
talizing pink of her cheek and the prettiness of
her chin, which at times was partly concealed
in a collarette of the same silver gray lynx fur.

He ate his supper almost mechanically, in
spite of his hunger, for his mind was deep in
the mysterious problem which confronted him.
Half a dozen times he broke in upon his

PHILIP FOLLOWS A PRETTY FACE

thoughts to glance at the girl at the opposite
table. Once he was sure that she had been
looking at him and that she had turned just in
time to keep her face from him. Philip ad-
mired pretty women, and of all beauty in
woman he loved beautiful hair, so that more
and more frequently his eyes traveled to the
shining wealth of copper-colored tresses near
him. He had almost finished his supper when
a movement at the other table drew his eyes
up squarely, and his heart gave a sudden jump.
The girl had risen. She was facing him, and
as for an instant their eyes met she hesitated,
as if she were on the point of speaking. In
that moment he recognized her.

It was the girl in the photograph, older,
more beautiful — the same soft, sweet contour
of face, the same dark eyes that had looked at
him in MacGregor's office, filled with an inde-
scribable sadness now, instead of the laughing
joy of girlhood. In another moment he would
have responded to her hesitation, to the fia^

PHILIP STEELE

thetic tremble of her lips, but before words
could form themselves she had turned and was
gone. And yet at the door, even as she dis-
appeared, he saw her face turned to him again,
pleadingly, entreatingly, as if she knew his
mission and sent to him a silent prayer for
mercy.

Thrusting back his chair, he caught up his
hat from a rack and followed. He was in time
to see her pass through the low door out into
the night Without hesitation his mind had
leaped to a definite purpose. He would over-
take her outside, introduce himself, and then
perhaps he would understand the conflicting
orders of Inspector MacGregor.

The girl was passing swiftly down the main
street when he took up the pursuit. Suddenly
she turned into a path dug through the snow
that led riverward. Ahead of her there was
only the starlit gloom of night and the distant
blackness of the wilderness edge. Philip's
blood ran a little faster. She had expected that

PHILIP FOLLOWS A PRETTY FACE

he would follow, knew that he was close be-
hind her, and had turned down into this de-
serted place that they might not be observed!
He made no eflfort now to overtake her, but
kept the same distance between them, whistling
carelessly and knowing that she would stop to
wait for him. Ahead of them there loomed up
out of the darkness a clump of sapling spruce,
and into their shadow the girl disappeared.

A dozen paces more and PhiUp himself was
buried in the thick gloom. He heard quick,
light footsteps in the snow-crust ahead of him.
Then there came another sound — ^ step close
behind him, a noise of disturbed brush, a low
voice which was not that of a woman, and be-
fore his hand could slip to the holster at his
belt a human form launched itself upon him
from the side, and a second form from behind,
and under their weight he fell a helpless heap
into the snow. Powerful hands wrenched his
arms behind his back and other hands drew a
doth about his mouth. A stout cord was

PHILIP STEELE

twisted around his wrists, his legs were tied»
and then his captors relieved him of their
weight

Not a word had been spoken during the brief
struggle. Not a word was spoken now as his
mysterious assailants hoisted him between them
and followed in the footsteps of the womaiC
Scarcely a hundred paces beyond the spruce
the dark shadow of a cabin came into view.
Into this he was carried and placed on some-
thing which he took to be a box. Then a light
was struck.

For the first time Philip's astonished eyes
had a view of his captors. One of them was an
old man, a giant in physique, with a long gray
beard and grayish yellow hair that fell to his
shoulders. His companion was scarcely more
than a boy, yet in his supple body, as he moved
about, Philip recognized the animal-like
strength of the forest breed. A word spoken
in a whisper by the boy revealed the fact that
the two were father and son. From that side

'lliey lifti'd liiiii bodily i

«v»

r^>'**...«-

PHILIP FOLLOWS A PRETTY FACE

of the room which was at Philip's back they
dragged forth a long pine box, and were en-
gaged in this occupation when the door opened
and a third man entered. Never had Philip
looked on a more unprepossessing face than
that of the newcomer, in whose little black
eyes there seemed to be a gloating triumph as
he leered at the prisoner. He was short, with
a huge breadth of shoulders. His eyes and
mouth and nose were all but engulfed in super-
fluous flesh, and as he turned from Philip to the
man and boy over the box he snapped the joints
of his fingers in a startling manner.

"Howdy, howdy !" he wheezed, like one af-
flicted with asthma. "Good! good I" With
these four words he lapsed into the silence of
the older man and the boy.

As the box was dragged full into the light, a
look of horror shot into Philip's eyes. It was
the rough-box of a coffin! Without a word,
and apparently without a signal, the three sur-
rounded him and lifted him bodily into it. To

97.

PHILIP STEELE

his surprise he found himself l3ring upon some-
thing soft, as if the interior of his strange
prison had been padded with cushions. Then,
with extreme caution, his arms were freed
from under his back and strapped to his side,
and other straps, broad and firm, were fastened
from side to side of the box across his limbs
and body, as if there were danger of his flying
up and out through the top. Another moment
and a shadow fell above him, pitch gloom en-
gulfed him.

They were dragging on the cover to the box !
He heard the rapid beating of a hammer, the
biting of nails into wood, and he writhed and
struggled to free his hands, to cry out, to gain
the use of his legs, but not the fraction of an
inch could he relieve himself of his fetters.
After a time his straining muscles relaxed, and
he stopped to get his breath and listen. Faintly
there came to him the sound of subdued voices,
and he caught a glimmer of light, then another,
and still a third. He saw now that half a dozen

PHILIP FOLLOWS A PRETTY FACE

holes had been bored into the cover and sides
of the box. The discovery brought with it a
sense of relief. At least he was not to be suf-
focated. He founds after an interval, that he
was even comfortable, and that his captors had
not only given him a bed to lie upon, but had
placed a pillow tmder his head.

'V^v\;i^i^

CHAPTER VII

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

A FEW moments later Philip heard the
movement of heavy feet, the opening
and closing of a door, and for a time after that
there was silence. Had MacGregor anticipated
this, he wondered ? Was this a part of the pro-
gram which the inspector had foreseen that he
would play ? His blood wanned at the thought
and he clenched his fists. Then he began to
think more calmly. His captors had not re-
lieved him of his weapons. They had placed
his service cap in the box with him and had
unbuckled his cartridge belt so that he would
rest more comfortably. What did all this
mean ? For the hundredth time he asked him-
self the question.

Returning footsteps interrupted his thoughts.

JOQ

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

The cabin door opened, people entered, again
he heard whispering voices.

He strained his ears. At first he could have
sworn that he heard the soft, low tones of a
woman's voice, but they were not repeated.
Hands caught hold of the box, dragged it
across the floor, and then he felt himself lifted
bodily, and, after a dozen steps, placed care-
fully upon some object in the snow. His
amazement increased when he understood what
was occurring.

He was on a sledge. Through the air-holes
in his prison he heard the scraping of strap-
thongs as they were laced through the runner-
slits and over the box, the restless movement of
dogs, a gaping whine, the angry snap of a pair
of jaws. Then, slowly, the sledge began to
move. A whip cracked loudly above him, a
voice rose in a loud shout, and the dogs were
urged to a trot. Again there came to Philip s
ears the wheezing notes of the accordion. By
a slight effort he found that he could turn his

lOI

PHILIP STEELE

head sufficiently to look through a hole on a
level with his eyes in the side of the box. The
sledge had turned from the dark trail into the
lighted street, and stopped at last before a bril-
liantly lighted front from which there issued
the sound of coarse voices, of laughter and
half -drunken song.

One of his captors went into the bar while
the other seated himself on the box, with one
leg shutting out Philip's vision by dangling it
over the hole through which he was looking.
What's up, Fingy?" inquired a voice.
'Wekusko," replied the man on the box, in
the husky, flesh-smothered tones of the person
who had entered last into the cabin

"Another dead one up there, eh?" persisted
the same voice.

"No. Maps 'n' things f 'r Hodges, up at the
camp. Devil of a hurry, ain't he, to order us

up at night ? Tell to hustle out with the

bottle, will you ?"

The speaker sent the lash of his whip snap-

I02

it'

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

ping through the air in place of supplying a
name.

"Maps and things — for Hodges — Wekus-
ko!" gasped Philip inwardly.

He listened for further information. None
came, and soon the man called Fingy jumped
from the box, cracked his whip with a wheez-
ing command to the dogs, and the sledge
moved on.

And so his captors were taking him to We-
kusko? — and more than that, to Hodges, chief
of construction, whose life had been attempted
by the prisoner whom Inspector MacGregor
had ordered him to bring down! Had Fingy
spoken the truth? And, if so, was this another
part of the mysterious plot foreseen by the in-
spector?

During the next half hour, in which the
sledge traveled steadily over the smooth, hard
trail into the north, Philip asked himself these
and a score of other questions equally perplex-
ing. He was certain that the beautiful young

103

PHILIP STEELE

woman whom he had followed had purposdy
lured him into the ambush. He considered
himself her prisoner. Then why should he be
consigned, like a parcel of freight, to Hodges,
her husband's accuser, and the man who de-
manded the full penalty of the law for his as-
sailant ?

The more he added to the questions that
leaped into his mind the more mystified he be-
came. The conflicting orders, the strange de-
meanor of his chief, the pathetic appeal that he
had seen in the young woman's eyes, the am-
bush, and now this unaccountable ride to We-
kusko, strapped in a coflin box, all combined to
plunge him into a chaos of wonder from which
it was impossible for him to struggle forth.
However, he assured himself of two things ; he
was comparatively comfortable, and within
two hours at the most they would reach
Hodges' headquarters, if the Wekusko camp
were really to be their destination. Something
must develop then.

Z04

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

It had ceased to occur to him that there was
peril in his strange position. If that were so,
would his captors have left him in possession
of his weapons, even imprisoned as he was?
If they had intended him harm, would they
have cushioned his box and placed a pillow
imder his head so that the cloth about his
mouth would not cause him discomfort? It
struck him as peculiarly significant, now that
he had suffered no injury in the short struggle
on the trail, that no threats or intimidation had
been offered after his capture. This was a part
of the game which he was to play ! He became
more and more certain of it as the minutes
passed, and there occurred to him again and
again the inspector's significant words, "What-
ever happens!" MacGregor had spoken the
words with particular emphasis, had repeated
them more than once. Were they intended to
give him a warning of this, to put him on his
guard, as well as at his ease ?"

And with these thoughts, many, conflicting

105

PHILIP STEELE

and mystifying, he found it impossible to keep
from associating other thoughts of Bucky
Nome, and of the woman whom he now
frankly confessed to himself that he loved. If
conditions had been a little different, if the in-
cidents had not occurred just as they had, he
might have suspected the hand of Bucky Nome
in what was transpiring now. But he discarded
that suspicion the instant that it came to him.
That which remained with him more and more
deeply as the minutes passed was a mental pic-
ture of the two women — of this woman who
was fighting to save her husband, and of the
other, whom he loved, and for whom be had
fought to aave her for her husband It wo
with a dull feeling of pain that he compared the
love, the faith, and the honor of this woman
whose husband had committed a crime with
that one night's indiscretion of Mrs. Becker.
It was in her eyes and face that he had seen a
purity like that of an angel, and the pain
soexziod to stab him deepv when he thought

io6

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

that, after all, it was the criminars wife who
was proving herself, not Mrs. Becker.

He strove to unburden his mind for a time,
and turned his head so that he could peer
through the hole in the side of the box. The
moon had risen, and now and then he caught
flashes of the white snow in the opens, but
more frequently only the black shadows of the
forest through which they were passing. They
had not left Le Pas more than two hours be-
hind when the sledge stopped again and Philip
saw a few scattered lights a short distance
away.

"Must be Wekusko," he thought. "Hello,
what's that ?"

A voice came sharply from the opposite side
of the box.

"Is that you, Fingy?" it demanded. "What
the devil have you got there ?"

"Your maps and things, sir," replied Fingy
hoarsely. "Couldn't come up to-morrow, so
thought we'd do it to-night"

I07

PHILIP STEELE

PhiHp heard the closing of a door, and foot-
steps crunched in the snow close to his ears.

"Love o' God!" came the voice again.
"What's this you've brought them up in,
Fingy ?"

"CofBn box, sir. Only thing the maps 'd fit
into, and it's been layin' around useless since
MacVee kem down in it. Mebby you can find
use for it, later," he chuckled grewsomely.
"Ho-ho-ho ! mebby you can 1'*

A moment later the box was lifted and
Philip knew that he was being carried up a step
and through a door, then with a suddenness
that startled him he found himself standing
upright His prison had been set on end !

"Not that way, man," objected Hodges, for
Philip was now certain that he was in the pres-
ence of the chief of construction. "Put it
down— over there in the comer."

"Not on your life," retorted Fingy, cracking
his finger bones fiercely. "See here, Mister
Hodges, I ain't a coward, but I b'lieve in bein'

io8

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

respectful to the dead, 'n' to a box that's held
one. It says on that red card, 'Head — This
end up/ an', s'elp me, it's going to be up, un-
less you put it down. I ain't goin' to be ha'nted
by no ghosts ! Ho, ho, ho — " He approached
close to the box. "I'll take this red card off.
Mister Hodges. It ain't nat'ral when there
ain't nothing but maps 'n' things in it."

If the cloth had not been about his mouth, it
is possible that Philip would not have re-
strained audible expression of his astonish-
ment at what happened an instant later. The
card was torn off, and a ray of light shot into
his eyes. Through a narrow slit not more than
a quarter of an inch wide, and six inches long,
he found himself staring out into the room.
The huge gray-bearded man who had set upon
him from the ambush was at the door, about to
leave. Fingy was close behind him. And in
the rear of these two, as if eager for their de-
parture, was Hodges, chief of construction.

No sooner had the men gone than Hodges

109

PHILIP STEELE

turned back to the table in the center of the
office. It was not difficult for Philip to see that
the man's face was flushed and that he was
laboring under some excitement. He sat down,
fumbled over some papers, rose quickly to his
feet, looked at his watch, and began pacing
back and forth across the room.

"So she's coming," he chuckled gleefully.
"She's coming, at last!" He looked at his
watch again, straightened his cravat before a
mirror, and rubbed his hands with a low laugh.
"The little beauty has surrendered," he went
on, his face turning for an instant toward the
coffin box. "And it's time — ^past time."

A light knock soimded at the door, and the
chief sprang to open it. A figure darted past
him, and for but a breath a white, beautiful
face was turned toward Philip and his prison —
the face of the young woman whom he had
seen but two hours before in Le Pas, the face
that had pleaded with him that night, that had
smiled upon him from the photograph, and that

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

Mtmed to be masked now in a cold marble-like
horror, as its glorious eyes, like pools of glow-
ing fire, seemed searching him out through that
narrow slit in the coffin box.

Hodges had advanced, with arms reaching
out, and the woman turned with a low, sobbing
breath breaking from her lips.

Another step and Hodges would have taken
her in his arms, but she evaded him with a
quick movement, and pointed to a chair at oat
side of the table.

"Sit down!" she cried softly. "Sit down,
and listen!"

Was it fancy, or did her eyes turn with al-
most a prayer in them to the box against the
wall ? Philip's heart was beating like a drum.
That one word he knew was intended for him.

"Sit down," she repeated, as Hodges hesi-
tated. "Sit down — ^there — and I will sit here.
Before — before you touch me, I want an un-
derstanding. You will let me talk, and listen
—listen!"

8XS

PHILIP STEELE

Again that one word — "listen!" — Philip
knew was intended for him.

The chief had dropped into his chair, and his
visitor seated herself opposite him, with her
face toward Philip. She flung back the fur
from about her shoulders, and took off her fur
turban, so that the light of the big hanging
lamp fell full upon the glory of her hair, and
set off more vividly the ivory pallor of her
cheeks, in which a short time before Philip had
seen the rich crimson glow of life, and some-
thing that was not fear.

"We must come to an understanding," she
repeated, fixing her eyes steadily upon the man
before her. "I would sacrifice my life for him
— for my husband — ^and you are demanding
that I do more than that. I must be sure of the
reward I"

Hodges leaned forward eagerly, as if about
to speak, but she interrupted him.

"Listen !" s)ie cried, a fire beginning to bum
through the whiteness of her cheeks. "It was

112

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

you who urged him to come up here when,
through misfortune, we lost our little home
down in Marion. You offered him work, and
he accepted it, believing you a friend. He still
thought you a friend when I knew that you
were a traitor, planning and scheming to wreck
his life, and mine. He would not listen when
I spoke to him, without arousing his suspicions,
of my abhorrence of you. He trusted you. He
was ready to fight for you. And you — you — "

In her excitement the young woman's hands
gripped the edges of the table. For a few mo-
ments her breath seemed to choke her, and then
she continued, her voice trembling with pas-
sion.

*'And you — ^you followed me about like a
serpent, making every hour of my life one of
misery, because he believed in you, and I dared
not tell him. So I kept it from him — until that
night you came to our cabin when he was away,
and dared to take me in your arms, to kiss me,
and I — I told him then, and he htmted you

113

PHILIP STEELE

down and would have killed you if there hadn't
been others near to give you help. My God, I
love him more because of that! But I was
wrong. I should have killed you 1"

She stopped, her breath breaking in a sob.
With a sudden movement Hodges sprang from
his chair and came toward her, his face flushed,
his lips smiling ; but, quicker than he, Thorpe's
wife was upon her feet, and from his prison
Philip saw the rapid rising and falling of her
bosom, the threatening Are in her beautiful
eyes as she faced him.

''Ah, but you are beautiful!" he heard the
man say.

With a cry, in which there was mingled all
the passion and gloating joy of triimiph,
Hodges caught her in his arms. In that mo-
ment every vein in Philip's body seemed flood-
ed with fire. He saw the woman's face again,
now tense and white in an agony of terror, saw
her struggle to free herself, heard the smoth-
ered cry that fell from her lips. For the first

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

time he strained to free himself, to cry out
through the thick bandage that gagged him.
The box trembled. His mightiest effort almost
sent it crashing to the floor. Sweating, power-
less, he looked again through the narrow slit.
In the struggle the woman's hair had loosened,
and tumbled now in shining masses down her
back. Her hands were gripping at Hodges'
throat Then one of them crept down to her
bosom, and with that movement there came a
terrible, muffled report With a groan the chief
staggered back and sank to the floor.

For a moment, stupefied by what she had
done, Thorpe's wife stood with smoking pistol
m her hand, gazing upon the still form at her
feet Then, slowly, like one facing a terrible
accuser, she turned straight to the coffin box.
The weapon that she held fell to the floor.
Without a tremor in her beautiful face she
went to one side of the room, picked up a small
belt-ax, and began prying off the cover to
Philip's prison. Th^e was still no hcaitatiODi

J15

PHILIP STEELE

no tremble of fear in her face or hands when
the cover gave way and Philip stood revealed,
his face as white as her own and bathed in a
perspiration of excitement and horror. Caknly
she took away the cloth about his mouth, loos-
ened the straps about his legs and arms and
body, and then she stood back, still speechless,
her hands clutching at her bosom while she
waited for him to step forth.

His first movement was to fall upon his
knees beside Hodges. He bowed his head, lis-
tened, and held his hand under the man's
waistcoat Then he looked up. The woman
was bending over him, her eyes meeting his
own unflinchingly.

'He is dead!" he said quietly.
'Yes, my brother, he is dead !"

The sweet, low tones of the woman's voice
rose scarcely above a whisper. The meaning
of her words sank into his very soul.

"My sister — " he repeated, hardly knowing
that the words were on his lips. "My — •'*

ii6

«'

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

€ii

'Or — ^your wife/* she interrupted, and her
hand rested gently for a moment upon his
shoulder. "Or your wife — ^what would you
have had her do?"

Her voice — ^the gentleness of her touch, sent
his mind flashing back to that other tragic mo-
ment in a little cabin far north, when he had
almost killed a man, and for less than this that
he had heard and seen. It seemed, for an in-
stant, as though the voice so near to him was
coming, faintly, pleadingly, from that other
woman at Lac Bain — the woman who had al-
most caused a tragedy similar to this, only with
the sexes changed. He would have excused
Colonel Becker for killing Bucky Nome, for
defending his own honor and his wife's. And
here — now — ^was a woman who had fought and
killed for her own honor, and to save her hus-
band. His sister — ^his wife — Would he have
had them do this? Would he have Mrs.
Becker, the woman he loved, defend her honor
as this woman had defended hers? Would he

PHILIP STEELE

not have loved her ten times— a hundred times
— more for doing so ?

He rose to his feet, making an effort to steel
himself against the justice of what he had seen
— ^against the glory of love, of womanhood, of
triumph which he saw shining in her eyes.

"I understand now," he said. "You had me
brought here — in this way — that I might hear
what was said, and use it as evidence. But — '*

"Oh, my God, I did not mean to do this,"
the cried, as if knowing what he was about to
say. "I thought that if he betrayed his vileness
to you— if he knew that the world would know,
through you, how he had attempted to destroy
a home, and how he offered my husband's free-
dom in exchange for — but you saw, you heard,
you must understand! He would not dare to
go on when he knew that all this would become
public. My husband would have been free.
But now — "

''You have kiUed him," said PhiKp.

Th«r» was no sympathy in hit voice. It wit

11x8

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

the cold, passionless accusation of a man of the
law, and the woman bowed her face in her
hands. He put on his service cap, tightened
his belt, and touched her gently on the arm.

"Do you know where your husband is con-
fined?" he asked. "I will take you there, and
you may remain with him to-night."

She brightened instantly. "Yes," she said.
"Gomel"

They passed through the door, closing it
carefully behind them, and the woman led the
way to a dark, windowless building a hundred
3rards from the dead chief's headquarters.

"This is the camp prison," she whispered.

A man clad in a great bear-skin coat was on
guard at the door. In the moonlight he recog-
nized Philip's uniform.

"Here are orders from the inspector," said
Philip, holding out MacGregor's letter. "I am
to have charge of the prisoner. Mrs. Thorpe
is to spend the night with him."

A moment later the door was opened and the

119

PHILIP STEELE

woman passed in. As he turned away Philip
heard a low sobbing cry, a man's startled voice.
Then the door swung heavily on its hinges and
there was silence.

Five minutes later Philip was bending again
over the dead man. A surprising transforma-
tion had come over him now. His face was
flushed and his strong teeth shone in sneering
hatred as he covered the body with a blanket.
On the wall hung a pair of overalls and a
working-man's heavy coat. These and Hodges*
hat he quickly put on in place of his own uni-
form. Once more he went out into the night

This time he came up back of the prison.
The guard was pacing back and forth in his
beaten path, so thickly muffled about the ears
that he did not hear Philip's cautious footsteps
behind him. When he turned he found the
muzzle of a revolver within arm's length of his
face.

"Hands up I" commanded Philip.

The astonished man obeyed without a word.

Z20

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

"If you make a move or the slightest sound
ril kill you!" continued Philip threateningly.
"Drop your hands behind you — there, like
that!"

With the quickness and skill which he had
acquired imder Sergeant Moody he secured the
guard's wrists with one of the coffin box straps,
and gagged him with the same cloth that had
been used upon himself. He had observed that
his prisoner carried the key to the padlocked
cabin in one of his coat pockets, and after pos-
sessing himself of this he made him seat him-
self in the deep shadow, strapped his ankles,
and then tmlocked the prison door.

There was a light inside, and from beyond
this the white faces of the man and the woman
stared at him as he entered. The man was
leaning back in his cot, and Philip knew that
the wife had risen suddenly, for one arm was
still encircling his shoulders, and a hand was
resting on his cheek as if she had been stroking
it caressingly when he interrupted them. Her

121

PHILIP STEELE

beautiful, startled eyes gazed at him half defi-
antly now.

He advanced into the light, took off his hat,
and smiled.

With a cry Thorpe's wife sprang to her feet.

"Sh-h-h-h-h !" warned Philip, raising a hand
and pointing to the door behind them.

Thorpe had risen. Without a word Philip
advanced and held out his hand. Only half
understanding, the prisoner reached forth his
own. As, for an instant, the two men stood in
this position, one smiling, the other transfixed
with wonder, there came a stifled, sobbing cry
ffom behind. Philip turned. The woman
stood in the lamp glow, her arms reaching out
to him — ^to both — and never, not even at Lac
Bain, had he seen a woman more beautiful than
Thorpe's wife at that moment.

As if nothing had happened, he went to the
table, where there was a pen and ink and a pad
of paper.

"Perhaps your wife hasn't told you every-

122

THE TRAGEDY IN THE CABIN

thing that has happened to-night, Thorpe/' he
said. "If she hasn't, she will — soon. Now,
listen !"

He had pulled a small book from an inner
pocket and was writing.

"My name is Steele, Philip Steele, of the
Royal Mounted. Down in Chicago I've got a
father, Philip Egbert Steele, a banker, who's
worth half a dozen millions or so. You're go-
ing down to him as fast as dog-sledge and train
can carry you, and you'll give him this note. It
says that your name is Johnson, and that for
my sake he's going to put you on your feet, so
that it is going to be pretty blamed comfortable
for yourself — and the noblest little woman I've
ever met. Do you understand, Thorpe ?"

He looked up. Thorpe's wife had gone to
her husband. She stood now, half in his arms,
and looking at him; as they were, they re-
minded him of a couple who had played the
finale in a drama which he had seen a year
before.

123

PHILIP STEELE

"There is one favor which you must do me,
Thorpe," he went on. "At home I am rich.
Up here I'm only Phil Steele, of the Royal
Mounted. Fm telling you so that you won't
think that I'm stripping myself when I make
you take this. It's a little ready cash, and a
check for a thousand dollars. Some day, if
you want to, you can pay it back. Now hustle
up and get on your clothes. I imagine that
your friends are somewhere near — with the
sledge that brought me up from Le Pas. To-
morrow, of course, I shall be compelled to take
up the pursuit. But if you hurry I don't be-
lieve that I shall catch you."

He rose and put on his hat, leaving the
money and the check on the table. The woman
staggered toward him, the man following in a
dazed, stunned sort of way. He saw the wom-
an's arms reaching out to him again, a look in
her beautiful face that he would never forget.

In another moment he had opened the door
and was gone.

I24j

CHAPTER Vm

ANOTHER LETTER FOR PHILIP

FROM beside his prisoner in the deep gloom
Philip saw Thorpe and his wife come out
of the cabin a minute later and hurry away
through the night. Then he dragged the guard
into the prison, relocked the door, left the key
in the lock, and returned to Hodges' office to
replace the old clothes for his uniform.

Not until he stood looking down upon the
dead body again did the enormity of his own
offense begin to crowd upon him. But he was
not frightened nor did he regret what he had
done. He turned out the light, sat down, coolly
filled his pipe, and began turning the affair
over, detail by detail, in his mind. He had, at
least, followed Inspector MacGregor's injunc-
tion — ^he had followed his conscience. Hodges

tI25

PHIUP STEELE

had got what he deserved, and he had saved a
man and a woman.

But in spite of his first argument, he knew
that MacGregor had not foreseen a tragedy of
this sort, and that, in the eyes of the law, he
was guilty of actively assisting in the flight of
two people who could not possibly escape the
penalty of justice — if caught. But they would
not be caught. He assured himself of that,
smiling grimly in the darkness. No one at
Wekusko could explain what had happened
He was positive that the guard had not recog-
nized him, and that he would think one of
Thorpe's friends had effected the rescue. And
MacGregor —

Philip chuckled as he thought of the con-
demning evidence in his possession, the strange
orders which would mean dismissal for the
inspector, and perhaps a greater punishment, if
he divulged them. He would be safe in telling
MacGregor something of what had occurred in
the little cabin. And then, as he sat in this

126

' ANOTHER LETTER FOR PHILIP

frim atmosphere of death, a thought came to
him of M'sieur Janette's skull, of Bucky Nome,
and of the beautiful young wife at Lac Bain.
If Mrs. Becker could know of this, too— if
Bucky Nome, buried somewhere deep in the
northern wilderness, could only see Hodges as
he lay there, dead on the cabin floor! To the
one it would be a still greater punishment, to
the other a warning. And yet, even as he
thought of the colonel's wife and of her flirta-
tion with Nome, a vision of her face came to
him again, filled with the marvelous sweetness,
the purity, and the love which had enthralled
him beside the camp-fire. In these moments it
was almost impossible for him to convince him-
self that she had forgotten her dignity as a
wife even for an hour. Could he have been
mistaken? Had he looked at her with eyes
heated by his own love, fired by jealousy ? If
she had smiled upon him instead of upon
Bucky Nome, if her cheeks had flushed at his
words« would he have thought that she had

13/

PHILIP STEELE

done wrong? As if in answer to his own que
tions, he saw again the white, tense face of tt
colonel, her husband, and he laughed harshly.

For several hours Philip remained in tt
shelter of Hodges' office. With early dawn 1:
stole out into the forest, and a little later mac
his appearance in camp, saying that he ha
spent the night at Le Pas. Not until an hoi
later was it discovered that Hodges had bee
killed, the guard made a prisoner, and thj
Thorpe and his wife were gone. Philip at one
took charge of affairs and put a strain on h
professional knowledge by declaring thj
Thorpe had undoubtedly fled into the Nortl
Early in the afternoon he started in pursuit.

A dozen miles north of the Wekusko can:
he swung at right angles to the west, travek
fifteen miles, then cut a straight course souti
It was three days later before he showed up j
Le Pas, and learned that no one had seen c
heard of Thorpe and his wife. Two days lat<
he walked into MacGregor's office. The ii

128

ANOTHER LETTER FOR PHILIP

spector fairly leaped from his chair to greet
him.

"You got them, Steele !" he cried. "You got
them after the mur — the killing bf Hodges?"

Philip handed him a crumpled bit of paper.

"Those were your latest instructions, sir," he
replied quietly. "I followed them to the letter."

MacGregor read, and his face turned as
white as the paper he held. "Good God!" he
gasped.

He reeled rather than walked back to his
desk, dropped into a chair and buried his face
in his arms, his shoulders shaking like those of
a sobbing boy. It was a long time before he
looked up, and during these minutes Philip,
with his head bowed low to the other, told him
of all that had happened in the little room at
Wekusko. But he did not say that it was he
who had surprised the guard and released
Thorpe and his wife.

At last MacGregor raised his head.

"Philip," he said, taking the young man's

129

PHILIP STEELE

hand in both his own, '"since she was a little
girl and I a big, strapping pla)miate of nine-
teen, I have loved her. She is the only girl
— ^the only woman — I have ever loved. You
understand ? I am almost old enough to be her
father. She was never intended for me. But
things like this happen — sometimes, and when
she came to plead with me the other day I al-
most yielded. That is why I chose you, warned
you — "

He stopped, and a sob rose in his breast.

**And at last you did yield," said Philip.

The inspector gazed at him for a moment in
silence. Then he said : "It was ten years ago,
on her seventeenth birthday, that I made her a
present of a little silver-bound autograph book,
and on the first page of that book I wrote the
words which saved her husband — and her. Do
you understand now, Philip? It was her last
card, and she played it well."

He smiled faintly, and then said, as if to no
one but himself, "God bless her I"

130

fii

ANOTHER LETTER FOR PHILIP

He looked down on the big, tawny head that
was bowed again upon the desk, and placed his
hands on the other's shoulders.

'God bless her !" echoed Philip.

'You are not alone in your sorrows, F*elix
MacGregor," he said softly. "You asked me if
I was beauty-proof. Yes, I am. And it is be-
cause of something like this, because of a face
and a soul that have filled my heart, because of
a woman that is not mine, and never can be
mine, because of a love which ever bums, and
must never be known— it is because of this
that I am beauty-proof. God bless this little
woman, MacGregor — ^and you-'^-and I~»will
never ask where she has gone.'*

MacGregor's hand reached out and gripped
his own in silence. In that hand-clasp there
was sealed a pact between them, and Philip re-
turned to his barracks room to write a letter, in
care of his father, to the man and woman
whom he had helped to escape into the south.
He spent the greater part of that day writing.

131

PHILIP STEELE

It was late in the afternoon that Moody came
in with the mail.

"One for you, Phil," he said, tossing a letter
on Philip's table. "Looks as though it had
been through a war."

Philip picked up the letter as the sergeant
left him. He dropped his pen with a low
whistle. He could see at a glance that the let-
ter had come an unusual journey. It was dirty,
and crumpled, and ragged at the ends — ^and
then, on the back of it, he found written in ink,
''Lac Bain." His fingers trembled as he tore
open the envelope. Swiftly he read. His
breath came in a gasping cry from between his
lips, his face turned as white as the crumpled
paper, and then, as suddenly, a flush of excite-
ment leaped into his cheeks, replacing the pal-
lor. His eyes seemed blinded before he had
half finished the letter, and his heart was
pounding with suffocating force.

This was what he read :

132

ANOTHER LETTER FOR PHILIF

My Dear Philip.Steele :

Your letter, and the skull, came to us to-day.
I thank God that chance brought me into my
Isobel's room in time, or I fear for what might
have happened. It was a terrible punishment,
my dear Steele, for her — and for me. But I
deserved it more than she. That very night —
after Isobel left the table — she insisted that I
explain. When I returned to the room 'below,
you were gone. I waited, and then went to
your cabin. You know why I did not find you.
Steele, Isobel is not my wife. She is my
daughter.

Mrs. Becker had planned tocome with me to
Lac Bain from Fort Churchill, and we wrote
the factor to that effect. But we changed our
plans. Mrs. Becker returned on the London
ship, and Isobel came with me. In a spirit of
fun she suggested that for the first few hours
she be allowed to pass as — well, you under-
stand. The joke was carried too far. When
she met you — and Bucky Nome — it ceased to
be a joke, and almost became a tragedy. For
those few minutes before the fire Isobel used
her disguise as a test She came to me, before

133

PHIUP STEELE

jrou joined us, and whispered to me that Nome
was a scoundrel, and that she would punish him
before the evening was oven In the short space
of that evening she knew that she had met one
of the most despicable of blackguards in Nome,
and one of the noblest of men in you. And not
until she saw on you the effect of what she was
doing did everything dawn fully upon her.

You know what happened. She left the
table suddenly, overcome by shame and terror.
When I returned later, and told her that I could
not find you, it was impossible to comfort her.
She lay in her bed crying all that night. I am
telling you all this, because to me my daughter
is one of the two most precious things on earth,
the sweetest and purest little girl that ever
breathed. I can not describe to you the effect
upon her of the skull and the letter. Forgive
us — forgive me. Some day we may meet
again Sylvester Becker.

Like one in a dream Philip picked up the
torn envelope. Something dropped from it
upon the table — a tiny cluster of violets that

134

ANOTHER LETTER FOR PHILIP

had been pressed and dried between the pages
of a book, and when he took them in his fingers
he found that their stems were tied with a sin-
gle thread of golden hair !

135

CHAPTER IX

PHILIP TAKES UP THF TRAIL

THE letter — the flowers — that one shining
golden hair, wound in a gHstening thread
about their shriveled stems, seemed for a short
space to lift Philip Steele from out of the
world he was in, to another in which his mind
was only vaguely conscious, stunned by this
letter that had come with the unexpectedness
of a thunderbolt to change, in a single instant,
every current of life in his body. For a few
moments he made no effort to grasp the indi-
vidual significance of the letter, the flowers,
the golden hair. One thought filled his brain —
one great, overpowering truth, which excluded
everything else — ^and this was the realization
that the woman he loved was not Colonel
Becker's wife. She was free. And for him —

136

PHILIP TAKES UP THE TRAIL

Philip Steele — there was hope — hope — Sud-
denly it dawned upon him what the flowers
meant. The colonel had written the letter, and
Isobel had sent the faded violets, with their
golden thread. It was her message to him — a
message without words, and yet with a deeper
meaning for him than words could have ex-
pressed. In a flood there rushed back upon him
all the old visions which he had fought against,
and he saw her again in the glow of the camp-
fire, and on the trail, glorious in her beauty, his
ideal of all that a woman should be.

He rose to his feet and locked his door, fear-
ing that some one might enter. He wanted to
be alone, to realize f tdly what had happened, to
regain control of his emotions. If Isobel
Becker had merely written him a line or two, a
note exculpating herself of what her father
had already explained away, he would still have
thought that a world lay between them. But,
in place of that, she had sent him the faded
flowers, with their golden thread !

PHIUP STEELE

For many minutes he paced back and forth
across his narrow room, and never had a room
looked more like a prison cell to him than this
one did now. He was filled with but one im-
pulse, and that was to return to Lac Bain, to
humble himself at the feet of the woman he
loved, and ask her forgiveness for the heinous
thing he had done. He wanted to tell her that
he had driven Bucky Nome into outlawry, that
he had fought for her, and run away himself —
because he loved her. It was Sergeant Moody's
voice, vibrant with the rasping unpleasantness
of a file, that jarred him back into his practical
self. He thrust the letter and the flowers into
his breast pocket, and opened the door.

Moody came in.

"What in blazes are you locked up for V he
demanded, his keen little eyes scrutinizing
Philip's feverish face. **Afraid somebodyll
walk in and steal you, Phil ?"

"Headache," said Philip, putting a hand to
his head. "One of the kind that makes you

I138

PHILIP TAKES UP THE TRAIL

think your brain must be a hard ball bumping
around inside your skull."

The sergeant laid his hand on Philip's arm.

"Go take a walk, Phil," he said, in a softer
voice. "It will do you good. I just came in to
tell you the news. They've got track of DeBar
again, up near Lac la Biche. But we can talk
about that later. Go take a walk."

"Thanks for the suggestion," said Philip. "I
believe I'll do it."

He passed beyond the barracks, and hit the
sleigh-worn road that led out of town, walking
faster and faster, as his brain began working.
He would return to Lac Bain. That was set-
tled in his mind without argument. Nothing
could hold him back after what he had received
that afternoon. If the letter and the violet
message had come to him from the end of the
earth it would have made no difference; his de-
termination would have been the same. He
would return to Lac Bain — ^but how? That
was the question which puzzled him. He still

139

PHILIP STEELE

had thirteen months of service ahead of him.
He was not in line for a furlough. It would
take at least three months of official red tape to
purchase his discharge. These facts rose like
barriers in his way. It occurred to him that he
might confide in MacGregor, and that the in-
spector would make an opportunity for him to
return into the north immediately. MacGregor
had the power to do that, and he believed that
he would do it. But he hesitated to accept this
last alternative.

And then, all at once, Sergeant Moody's
words came back to him — "They Ve got track
of DeBar again, up near Lac la Biche." The
idea that burst upon him with the recalling of
those words stopped Philip suddenly, and he
turned back toward the barracks. He had
heard a great deal about DeBar, the cleverest
criminal in all the northland, and whom no
man or combination of men had been clever
enough to catch. And now this man was near
Lac la Biche, in the Churchill and Lac Bain

140

PHILIP TAKES UP THE TRAIL

country. If he could get permission from Mac-
Gregor to go after DeBar his own difficulty
would be settled in the easiest possible way.
The assignment would take him for a long and
indefinite time into the north. It would take
him back to Isobel Becker.

He went immediately to his room upon
reaching the barracks, and wrote out his re-
quest to MacGregor. He sent it over to head-
quarters by a rookie. After that he waited.

Not until the following morning did Moody
bring him a summons to appear in MacGregor's
office. Five minutes later the inspector greeted
him with outstretched hand, gave him a grip
that made his fingers snap, and locked the office
door. He was holding Philip's communication
when the young man entered.

"I dbn't know what to say to this, Steele,"
he began, seating himself at his desk and mo-
tioning Philip to a chair. "To be frank with
you, this proposition of yours is entirely
against my best judgment"

141

PHILIP STEELE

'In other words, you haven't sufEcimt confi-
dence in me," added Philip. *

"No, I don't mean that. There isn't a man
on the force in whom I have greater confidence
than you. But, if I was to gamble, I'd wager
ten to one that you'd lose out if I sent you up to
take this man DeBar."

"I'll accept that wager— only reverse the
odds," said Philip daringly.

The inspector twisted one of his long red
mustaches and smiled a little grimly at the
other.

"If I were to follow my own judgment I'd
not send one man, but two," he went on. "I
don't mean to underestimate the value of my
men when I say that our friend DeBar, who
has evaded us for years, is equal to any two
men I've got. I wouldn't care to go after him
myself — ^alone. I'd want another hand with
me, and a mighty good one — a man who was
cool, cautious, and who knew all of the ins and
outs of the game as well as myself. And

142

PHILIP TAKES UP THE TRAIL

here — '[ He interrupted himself, and chuckled
audibly^, **.iere you are asking permission to go
after him alone ! Why, man, it's the very next
thing to inviting yourself to commit suicide!
Now, if I were to send you, and along with you
a good, level-headed man like Moody — **

"I have had enough of double-harness worlc,
unless I am commanded to go, Mr. Mac-
Gregor," interrupted Philip. "I realize that
DeBar is a dangerous man, but I believe that I
can bring him down. Will you give me the
opportunity ?"

MacGregor laid his cigar on the edge of the
desk and leaned across toward his companion,
the long white fingers of his big hands clasped
in front of him. He always took this position,
with a cigar smoldering beside him, when about
to say those things which he wished to be in-
delibly impressed on the memory of his lis-
tener.

"Yes, Fm going to give you the opportunty,"
he said slowly, "and I am also going to give

143

PHILIP STEELE

you permission to change your mind after
have told you something about DeBar, who:
we know as the Seventh Brother. I repe
that, if you go alone, it's just ten to one th;
you don't get him. Since '99 four men ha)
gone out after him, and none has come bac
There was Forbes, who went in that yeai
Bannock, who took up the trial in 1902 ; Fleisl
am in 1904, and Gresham in 1907. Since tl
time of Gresham's disappearance we have lo
sight of DeBar, and only recently, as yc
know, have we got trace of him again. He
somewhere up on the edge of the Barre
Lands. I have private information which leac
me to believe that the factor at Fond du L2
can take you directly to him."

MacGregor unclasped his hands to pick up
worn paper from a small pile on the desk.

"He is the last of seven brothers," he adde<
"His father was hanged."

"A good beginning," interjected Philip.

"There's just the trouble," said the inspectc

144

.' PHILIP TAKES UP THE TRAIL

quickly. "It wasn't a good beginning. This is
one of those peculiar cases of outlawry for
which the law itself is largely responsible, and
I don't know of any one I would say this to but
you. The father was hanged, as I have said.
Six months later it was discovered, beyond a
doubt, that the law had taken the life of an in-
nocent man, and that DeBar had been sent to
the gallows by a combination of evidence fabri-
cated entirely by the perjury of enemies. The
law should have vindicated itself. But it didn't.
Two of those who had plotted against DeBar
were arrested, tried — and acquitted, a fact
which goes to prove the statement of a certain
great man that half of the time law is not jus-
tice. There is no need of going into greater
detail about the trials and the popular senti-
ment afterward. In December of '96 DeBar's
seven sons took justice into their own hands.
In one night they killed the three men chiefly
instrumental in sending their father to his
death, and fled into the North."

PHILIP STEELE

"Good!" exclaimed Philip.

The word shot from him before he had
thought At first he flushed, then sat bolt up-
right and smiled frankly into the inspector's
face as he watched the effect of his indiscretion.

"So many people thought at the time," said
MacGregor, eying him with curious sharpness.
"Especially the women. For that reason the
first three who were caught were merely con-
victed of manslaughter instead of murder.
They served their sentences, were given two
years each for good behavior, and are some-
where in South America. The fourth killed
himself when he was taken near Moose Fac-
tory, and the other three went what the law
calls *bad.' Henry, the oldest of them all,
killed the officer who was bringing him down
from Prince Albert in '99, and was afterward
executed. Paul, the sixth, returned to his na-
tive town seven years after the hanging of his
father and was captured after wounding two

146

PHILIP TAKES UP THE TRAIL

of the officers who went in pursuit of him. He
is now in an insane asylum."

The inspector paused, and ran his eyes ov«r a '
fresh slip of paper.

"And all this," said Philip in a low voice,
"because of a crime committed by the law
itself. Five men hung, one a suicide, three in
prison and one in an insane asylum — ^because
of a blunder of the law !"

"The king can do no wrong," said Mac-
Gregor with gentle irony, "and neither can the
law. Remember that, Philip, as long as you
are in the service. The law may break up
homes, ruin states, set itself a Nemesis on inno-
cent men's heels — but it can do no wrong. It
is the Juggernaut before which we all must bow
our heads, even you and I, and when by any
chance it makes a mistake, it is still law, and
unassailable. It is the greatest weapon of the
clever and the rich, so it bears a moral. Be
clever, or be rich."

147

PHILIP STEELE

"And William DeBar, the seventh broth-
er — " began Philip.

"Is tremendously clever, but not rich," fin-
ished the inspector. "He has caused us more
trouble than any other man in Canada. He is
the youngest of the seven brothers, and you
know there are curious superstitions about sev-
enth brothers. In the first pursuit after the
private hanging he shot two men. He killed a
third in an attempt to save his brother at Moose
Factory. Since then, Forbes, Bannock, Fleish-
am and Gresham have disappeared, and they
all went out after him. They were all good
men, powerful physically, skilled in the ways of
the wilderness, and as brave as tigers. Yet
they all failed. And not only that, they lost
their lives. Whether DeBar killed them, or led
them on to a death for which his hands were
not directly responsible, we have never known.
The fact remains that they went out after De
Bar — ^and died. I am not superstitious, but I
am beginning to think that DeBar is more than

PHILIP TAKES UP THE TRAIL

a match for any one man. What do you say ?
Will you go with Moody, or — "

"FU go alone, with your permission," said
Philip.

The inspector's voice at once fell into its for-
mal tone of command.

"Then you may prepare to leave at once," he
said. "The factor at Fond du Lac will put you
next to your man. Whatever else you require
I will give you in writing some time to-day."

Philip accepted this as signifying that the in-
terview was at an end, and rose from his seat.

That night he added a postscript to the letter
which he had written home, saying that for a
long time he would not be heard from again.
The midnight train was bearing him toward
LePas.

149

CHAPTER X

ISOBEL's DlSArrEARANCE

FOUR hundred miles as an arrow might
fly, five hundred by snowshoes and dog-
sledge ; up the Pelican Lake waterway, straight
north along the edge of the Geikie Barrens, and
from Wollaston westward, Philip hurried — ^not
toward the hiding place of William DeBar, but
toward Lac Bain.

A sledge and six dogs with a half-breed
driver took him from Le Pas as far as the
Churchill; with two Crees, on snow-shoes, he
struck into the Reindeer country, and two
weeks later bought a sledge and three dogs at
an Indian camp on the Waterfound. On the
second day, in the barrens to the west, one of
the dogs slit his foot on a piece of ice ; on the
third day the two remaining dogs went lame,

150

ISOBEL'S DISAPPEARANCE

and Philip and his guide struck camp at the
headwater of the Gray Beaver, sixty miles
from Lac Bain. It was impossible for the dogs
to move the following day, so Philip left his
Indian to bring them in later and struck out
alone.

That day he traveled nearly thirty miles,
over a country broken by timbered ridges, and
toward evening came to the beginning of the
open country that lay between him and the for-
ests about Lac Bain. It had been a hard day's
travel, but he did not feel exhausted. The full
moon was rising at nine o'clock, and Philip
rested for two hours, cooking and eating his
supper, and then resumed his journey, deter-
mined to make sufficient progress before camp-
ing to enable him to reach the post by the
following noon. It was midnight when he put
up his light tent, built a fire, and went to sleep.
He was up again at dawn. At two o'clock he
came into the clearing about Lac Bain. As he
hurried to Breed's quarters he wondered if

151

PHILIP STEELE

G^lonel Becker or Isobel had seen him from
their window. He had noticed that the curtain
was up, and that a thin spiral of smoke was
rising from the clay chimney that descended to
the fireplace in their room.

He found Breed, the factor, poring over one
of the ledgers which he and Colonel Becker had
examined. He started to his feet when he saw
Philip.

"Where in the name of blazes have you
been?" were his first words, as he held out a
hand. "I've been hunting the country over for
you, and had about come to the conclusion that
you and Bucky Nome were dead."

"Hunting forme," said Philip. "What for?"

Breed shrugged his shoulders.

"The colonel an' — Miss Isobel," he said.
"They wanted to see you so bad that I had men
out for three days after you'd gone looking for
you. Couldn't even find your trail. I'm curi-
ous to know what was up."

Philip laughed. He felt a tingling joy run-

152

ISOBEL'S" DISAPPEARANCE

« rij *>: -

ning through every vein in his body. It was
difficult for him to repress the trembling eager-
ness in his voice, as he said : "Well, I'm here.
I wonder if they want to see me — ^now."

"Suppose they do," replied Breed, slowly
lighting his pipe. "But you've hung off too
long. They're gone."

"Gone ?" Philip stared at the factor.

"Gone ?" he demanded again.

"Left this morning — for Churchill," af-
firmed Breed. "Two sledges, two Indians, the
colonel and Miss Isobel."

For a few moments Philip stood in silence,
staring straight out through the one window of
the room with his back to the factor.

"Did they leave any word for me ?" he asked.

"No."

"Then — I must follow them !" He spoke the
words more to himself than to Breed. The
factor regarded him in undisguised astonish-
ment and Philip, turning toward him, hastened
to add : "I can't tell you why. Breed — ^but it's

PHILIP STEELE

necessary that I overtake them as soon as pos-
sible. I don't want to lose a day — not an hour.
Can you lend me a team and a driver?"

"I've got a scrub team," said Breed, 'l^ut
there isn't another man that I can spare from
the post. There's LeCroix, ten miles to the
west. If you can wait until to-morrow — "

"I must follow this afternoon — now," in-
terrupted Philip. "They will have left a clean
trail behind, and I can overtake them some
time to-morrow. Will you have the team made
ready for me — a light sledge, if you've got it"

By three o'clock he was on the trail again.
Breed had spoken truthfully when he said that
his dogs were scrubs. There were four of
them, two mongrels, one blind huskie, and a
mamelute that ran lame. And besides this
handicap, Philip found that his own endurance
was fast reaching the ebbing point He had
traveled sixty miles in a day and a half, and
his legs and back began to show signs of the
staift. In sgitb of this fact, his ^rits rose

154

ISOBEL'S DISAPPEARANCE

with every mile he placed behind him. He
knew that it would be impossible for Isobel and
her father to stand the hardship of fast and
continued travel. At the most they would not
make more than twenty miles in a day, and
even with his scrub team he could make thirty,
and would probably overtake them at the end
of the next day. And then it occurred to him,
with a pleasurable thrill, that to find Isobel
again on the trail, as he had first seen her»
would be a hundred^ times better than finding
her at Lac Bain. He would accompany her
and the colonel to Churchill. They would be
together for days, and at the end of that time —
He laughed, low and joyously, and for a
spell he urged the dogs into a swifter pace.
That he had correctly estimated the speed of
those ahead of him he was convinced, when,
two hours later, he came upon the remains of
their mid-day camp-fire, nine or ten miles from
Lac Bain. It was dark when he reached this
point. There were glowing embers still in the

PHILIP STEELE

fire, and these he stirred into life, adding arm-
fuls of dry wood to the flames. About him in
the snow he found the prints of Isobel's little
feet, and in the flood of joy and hope that was
sweeping more and more into his life he sang
and whistled, and forgot that he was alone in
a desolation of blackness that made even the
dogs sUnk nearer to the fire. He would camp
here — ^where Isobel had been only a few hours
before. If he traveled hard he would overtake
them by the next noon. ^

But he had imderestimated his own exhaus-
tion. After he had put up his tent before the
fire he made himself a bed of balsam boughs
and fell into a deep sleep, from which neither
dawn nor the restless movements of the dogs
could awaken him. When at last he opened
his eyes it was broad day. He jumped to his
feet and looked at his watch. It was nine
o'clock, and after ten before he again took up
the pursuit of the two sledges. Not until sev-
eral hours later did he give up hope of overtak-

156

ISOBEL'S DISAPPEARANCE

ing Isobel and her father as he had planned,
and he reproved himself roundly for having
overslept. The afternoon was half gone be-
fore he struck their camp of the preceding
evening, and he knew that, because of his own
loss of time, Isobel was still as far ahead of
him as when he had left Lac Bain.

He made up some of this time by following
the trail for an hour when the moon was at
its highest, and then pitched his tent. He was
up again the next morning and breaking camp
before it was light. Scarcely had he traveled
an hour over the clear-cut trail ahead of him
when he suddenly halted his dogs with a loud
cry of command and astonishment. In a small
open the trails of the two sledges separated.
One continued straight east, toward Churchill,
while the other turned almost at right angles
into the south. For a few moments he could
find no explanation for this occurrence. Then
he decided that one of the Indians had struck
southward, either to hunt, or on some short

157

PHILIP STEELE

mission, and that he would join the other
sledge farther on. Convinced that this was
the right solution, Philip continued over the
Churchill trail. A little later, to his despair, it
began to snow so heavily that the trail which
he was following was quickly obliterated.
There was but one thing for him to do now,
and that was to hasten on to Fort Churchill,
giving up all hope of finding Isobel and the
colonel before he met them there.

Four days later he came into the post. The
news that awaited him struck him dumb. Iso-
bel and her father, with one Indian, had gone
with the sledge into the South. The Indian
who had driven on to Churchill could give no
further information, except that he knew the
colonel and his daughter had suddenly changed
their minds about coming to Churchill. Per-
haps they had gone to Nelson House, or York
Factory — or even to Le Pas. He did not know.

It was with a heavy heart that Philip turned
his face once more toward Lac Bain. He

158

ISOBEL'S DISAPPEARANCE

could not repress a laugh, bitter and filled with
disappointment, as he thought how fate was
playing against him. If he had not overslept
he would have caught up with the sledges be-
fore they separated, if he had not forced him-
self into this assignment it was possible that
Isobel and her father would have come to him.
They knew that his detachment was at Prince
Albert — and they were going south. He had
little doubt but that they were striking for
Nelson House, and from Nelson House to civ-
ilization there was but one trail, that which led
to Le Pas and Etomami. And Etomami was
but two hours by rail from Prince Albert

He carried in his breast pocket a bit of writ-
ten information which he had obtained from
the Churchill factor — ^that helped to soften, in
a way, the sting of his disappointment. It was
Colonel Becker's London address — ^and Iso-
bel's, and he quickly laid out for himself new
plans of action. He would write to Mac-
Gregor from Lac Bain, asking him to put in

159

PHILIP STEELE

at once the necessary application for the pur-
chase of his release from the service. As soon
as he was free he would go to London. He
would call on Isobel like a gentleman, he told
himself. Perhaps, after all, it would be the
better way.

But first, there was DeBar.

As he had been feverishly anxious to return
into the North, so, now, he was anxious to
have this affair with DeBar over with. He
lost no time at Lac Bain, writing his letter to
Inspector MacGregor on the same day that he
arrived. Only two of the dogs which the In-
dian had brought into the post were fit to
travel, and with these, and a light sledge on
which he packed his equipment he set off alone
for Fond du Lac. A week later he reached the
post. He found Hutt, the factor, abed with a
sprained knee, and the only other men at the
post were three Chippewayans, who could
neither talk nor understand English.

"DeBar is gone," groaned Hutt, after

1 60

ISOBEL'S DISAPPEARANCE

Philip had made himself known. ^'A rascal of
a Frenchman came in last night on his way
to the Grand Rapid, and this morning DeBar
was missing. I had the Chippewayans in, and
they say he left early in the night with his
sledge and one big bull of a hound that he
hangs to like grim death. I'd kill that damned
Indian you came up with. I believe it was he
that told the Frenchman there was an officer
on the way."

"Is the Frenchman here ?" asked Philip.

"Gone!" groaned Hutt again, turning his
twisted knee. "He left for the Grand Rapid
this morning, and there isn't another dog or
sledge at the post. This winter has been death
on the dogs, and what few are left are out on
the trap-Unes. DeBar knows you're after him,
sure as fate, and he's taken a trail toward the
Athabasca. The best I can do is to let you
have a Chippewayan who'll go with you as far
as the Chariot. That's the end of his territory,
and what you'll do after that God only knows."

i6i

PHILIP STEELE

«TM

I'll take the chance," said Philip. "We'll
start after dinner. I've got two dogs, a little
lame, but even at that they'll have DeBar's
outfit handicapped."

It was less than two hours later when Philip
and the Chippewayan set off into the western
forests, the Indian ahead and Philip behind,
with the dogs and sledge between them. Both
men were traveling light. Philip had even
strapped his carbine and small emergency bag
to the toboggan, and carried only his service
revolver at his belt. It was one o'clock and
the last slanting beams of the winter sun, heat-
less and only cheering to the eye, were fast
dying away before the first dull gray approach
of desolate gloom which precedes for a few
hours the northern night. As the black forest
grew more and more somber about them, he
looked over the grayish yellow back of the
tugging huskies at the silent Indian striding
over the outlaw's trail, and a slight shiver
passed through him, a shiver that was nei-

162

ISOBEL'S DISAPPEARANCE

ther of cold nor fear, yet which was accom-
panied by an oppression which it was hard
for him to shake off. Deep down in his
heart Philip had painted a picture of William
DeBar — of the man — and it was a picture to
his liking. Such men he would like to know
and to call his friends. But now the deepening
gloom, the darkening of the sky above, the
gray picture ahead of him — the Chippewayan,
as silent as the trees, the dogs pulling noise-
lessly in their traces like slinking shadows, the
ghost-like desolation about him, all recalled
him to that other factor in the game, who was
DeBar the outlaw, and not DeBar the man.
In this same way, he imagined, Forbes, Ban-
nock, Fleisham and Gresham had begun the
game, and they had lost Perhaps they, too,
had gone out weakened by visions of the equity
of things, for the sympathy of man for man is
strong when they meet above the sixtieth.

DeBar was ahead of him — DeBar the out-
law» watching and scheming as he had watched

163

PHILIP STEELE

and schemed when the other four had played
against him. The game had grown old to him.
It had brought him victim after victim, and
each victim had made of him a more deadly
enemy of the next. Perhaps at this moment he
was not very far ahead, waiting to send him the
way of the others. The thought urged new
fire into Philip's blood. He spurted past the
dogs and stopped the Chippewayan, and then
examined the trail. It was old. The frost had
hardened in the huge footprints of DeBar's
big hound ; it had built a webby film over the
square impressions of his snow-sho.i thongs.
But what of that ? Might not the trail still be
old, and DeBar a few hundred yards ahead of
him, waiting— watching?

He went back to the sledge and unstrapped
his carbine. In a moment the first picture, the
first sympathy, was gone. It was not the law
which DeBar was fighting now. It was him-
self. He walked ahead of the Indian, alert,
listening and prepared. The crackling of a

164

ISOBEL'S DISAPPEARANCE

frost-bitten tree .startled him into stopping; the
snapping of a twig under its weight of ice and
snow sent strange thrills through him which
left him almost sweating. The sounds were
repeated again and again as they advanced, un-
til he became accustomed to them. Yet at each
new sound his fingers gripped tighter about his
carbine and his heart beat a little faster. Once
or twice he spoke to the Indian, who under-
stood no word he said and remained silent.
They built a fire and cooked their supper when
it grew too dark to travel.

Later, when it became lighter, they went on
hour after hour, through the night. At dawn
the trail was still old. There were the same
cobwebs of frost, the same signs to show that
DeBar and his Mackenzie hound had pre-
ceded them a long time before. During the
next day and night they spent sixteen hours on
their snow-shoes and the lacework of frost in
DeBar's trail grew thinner. The next day
they traveled fourteen and the next twelve,

165

PHILIP STEELE

and there was no lacework of frost at all.
There were hot coals under the ashes of De-
Bar's fires. The crumbs of his bannock were
soft. The toes of his Mackenzie hound left
warm, sharp imprints. ^It was then that they
came to the frozen water of the Chariot The
Chippewayan turned back to Fond du Lac, and
Philip went on alone, the two dogs limping be-
hind him with his outfit.

It was still early in the day when Philip
crossed the river into the barrens and with
each step now his pulse beat faster. DeBar
could not be far ahead of him. He was sure
of that. Very soon he must overtake him.
And then — there would be a fight. In the
tense minutes that followed, the vision of Iso-
bel's beautiful face grew less and less distinct
in his mind. It was filled with something more
grim, something that tightened his muscles,
kept him ceaselessly alert He would come on
DeBar — and there would be a fight DeBar
would not be taken by surprise.

1 66

ISOBEL'S DISAPPEARANCE

At noon he halted and built a small fire be-
tween two rocks, over which he boiled some tea
and warmed his meat. Each day he had built
three fires, but at the end of this day, when
darkness stopped him again, it occurred to him
that since that morning DeBar had built but
one. Gray dawn had scarcely broken when he
again took up the pursuit. It was bitterly cold,
and a biting wind swept down across the bar-
rens from the Arctic icebergs. His pocket ther-
mometer registered sixty degrees below zero
when he left it open on the sledge, and six
times between dawn and dusk he built himself
fires. Again DeBar built but one, and this time
he found no bannock crumbs.

For the last twenty miles DeBar had gone
straight into the North. He continued straight
into the North the next day and several times
Philip scrutinized his map, which told him in
that direction there lay nothing but peopleless
barrens as far as the Great Slave.

There was growing in him now a fear — a

167

PHILIP STEELE

fear that DeBar would beat him out in the
race. His limbs began to ache with a strange
pain and his progress was becoming slower. At
intervals he stopped to rest, and after each of
these intervals the pain seemed to g[naw deeper
at his bones, forcing him to limp, as the dogs
were limping behind him. He had felt it once
before, beyond Lac Bain, and knew what it
meant. His legs were giving out — and DeBar
would beat him yet ! The thought stirred him
on, and before he stopped again he came to
the edge of a little lake. DeBar had started
to cross the lake, and then, changing his mind,
had turned back and skirted the edge of it.
Philip followed the outlaw's trail with his eyes
and saw that he could strike it again and save
distance by crossing the snow-covered ice.

He went on, with dogs and sledge at his
heels, unconscious of the warning under-
foot that had turned DeBar back. In mid-
lake he turned to urge the dogs into a faster
pace, and it was then that he heard imder him

J68

ISOBEL'S DISAPPEARANCE

a hollow, trembling sound, growing in volume
even as he hesitated, until it surged in under
his feet from every shore, like the rolling
thunder of a ten-pin ball. With a loud cry to
the dogs he darted forward, but it was too late.
Behind him the ice crashed like brittle glass
and he saw sledge and dogs disappear as if
into an abyss. In an instant he had begun a
mad race to the shore a hundred feet ahead of
him. Ten paces more and he would have
reached it, when the toe of his snow-shoe
caught in a hummock of snow and ice. For a
flash it stopped him, and the moment's pause
was fatal. Before he could throw himself for-
ward on his face in a last effort to save himself,
the ice gave way and he plunged through. In
his extremity he thought of DeBar, of possible
help even from the outlaw, and a terrible cry
for that help burst from his lips as he felt him-
self going. The next instant he was sorry that
he had shouted. He was to his waist in water,
but bi3 f^et were on bottom. He saw now

169

PHILIP STEELE

what had happened, that the surface of the
water was a foot below the shell of ice, which
was scarcely more than an inch in thickness.
It was not difficult for him to kick off his
snow-shoes under the water, and he began
breaking his way ashore.

Five minutes later he dragged himself out,
stiff with the cold, his drenched clothing freez-
ing as it came into contact with the air. His
first thought was of fire, and he ran up the
shore, his teeth chattering, and began tearing
off handfuls of bark from a birch. Not until
he was done and the bark was piled in a heap
beside the tree did the full horror of his situa-
tion dawn upon him. His emergency pouch
was on the sledge, and in that pouch was his
waterproof box of matches!

He ran back to the edge of broken ice, un-
conscious that he was almost sobbing in his
despair. There was no sign of the sledge, no
sound of the dogs, who might still be strug-
gling in their traces. They were gone-^cvery-

170

ISOBEL'S DISAPPEARANCE

thing — food, fire, life itself. He dug out his
flint and steel from the bottom of a stiffening
pocket and knelt beside the bark, striking them
again and again, yet knowing that his efforts
were futile. He continued to strike until his
hands were purple and numb and his freezing
clothes almost shackled him to the ground.

"Good God !" he breathed.

He rose slowly, with a long, shuddering
breath and turned his eyes to where the out-
law's trail swung from the lake into the North.
Even in that moment, as the blood in his veins
seemed congealing with the icy chill of death,
the irony of the situation was not lost upon
Philip.

"It's the law versus God, Billy," he chattered,
as if DeBar stood before him. "The law
wouldn't vindicate itself back there — ten years
ago— but I guess it's doing it now."

He dropped into DeBar's trail and began to
trot.

"At least it looks as if you're on the side of

171

PHILIP STEELE

the Mighty," he continued. "But we'll
very scK)n — Billy — "

Ahead of him the trail ran up a ridge,
broken and scattered with rocks and stunted
scrub, and the sight of it gave him a little
hope. Hope died when he reached the top and
stared out over a mile of lifeless barren.

"You're my only chance, Billy," he shiv-
ered. "Mebby, if you knew what had hap-
pened, you'd turn back and give me the loan
of a match."

He tried to laugh at his own little joke, but
it was a ghastly attempt and his purpling lips
closed tightly as he stumbled down the ridge.
As his legs grew weaker and his blood more
sluggish, his mind seemed to work faster, and
the multitude of thoughts that surged through
his brain made him oblivious of the first gnaw-
ing of a strange dull pain. He was freezing.
He knew that without feeling pain. He had
before him, not hours, but minutes of life, and
he knew that, too. His arms might have been

^^2

ISOBEL'S DISAPPEARANCE

cut off at the shoulders for all feeling that was
left in them; he noticed, as he stumbled along
in a half run, that he could not bend his fingers.
At every step his legs grew heavier and his feet
were now leaden weights. Yet he was sur-
prised to find that the first horror of his situa-
tion had left him. It did not seem that death
was only a few hundred yards away, and he
found himself thinking of MacGregor, of
home, and then only of Isobel. He wondered,
after that, if some one of the other four had
played the game, and lost, in this same way;
and he wondered, too, if his bones would never
be found, as theirs had never been.

He stopped again on a snow ridge. He had
come a quarter of a mile, though it seemed that
he had traveled ten times that distance.

"Sixty degrees below zero — and it's the vin-
dication of the law !"

His voice scarcely broke between his purple
lips now, and the bitter sweep of wind swayed
him as he stood.

173

CHAPTER XI

THE LAW VERSUS THE MAN

SUDDENLY a great thrill shot through
Philip, and for an instant he stood rigid.
What was that he saw out in the gray gloom
of Arctic desolation, creeping up, up, up, al-
most black at its beginning, and djring away
like a ghostly winding-sheet? A gurgling cry
rose in his throat, and he went on, panting now
like a broken-winded beast in his excitement.
It grew near, blacker, warmer. He fancied
that he could feel its heat, which was the new
fire of life blazing within him.

He went down between two great drifts into
a pit which seemed bottomless. He crawled to
the top of the second, using his pulseless hands
like sticks in the snow, and at the top some-
thing rose from the other side of the drift to
meet him.

174

THE LAW VERSUS THE MAN

It was a face, a fierce, bearded face, the
gaunt starvation in it hidden by his own blind-
ness. It seemed like the face of an ogre, ter-
rible, threatening, and he knew that it was the
face of William DeBar, the seventh brother.

He launched himself forward, and the other
launched himself forward, and they met in a
struggle which was pathetic in its weakness,
and rolled together to the bottom of the drift.
Yet the struggle was no less terrible because of
that weakness. It was a struggle between two
lingering sparks of human life and when these
two sparks had flickered and blazed and died
down, the two men lay gasping, an arm's reach
from each other.

Philip's eyes went to the fire. It was a small
fire, burning more brightly as he looked, and
he longed to throw himself upon it so that the
flames might eat into his flesh. He had mum-
bled something about police, arrest and murder
during the struggle, but DeBar spoke for the
first time now.

^7$

PHILIP STEELE

"You're cold," he said.

*Tm freezing to death/' said Philip.

''And I'm — starving."

DeBar rose to his feet. Philip drew him-
self together, as if expecting an attack, but in
place of it DeBar held out a warmly mittencd
hand.

"You've got to get those clothes off — quick
—or you'll die," he said. "Here !"

Mechanically Philip reached up his hand,
and DeBar took him to his sledge behind the
fire and wrapped about him a thick blanket.
Then he drew out a sheath knife and ripped
the frozen legs of his trousers up and the
sleeves of his coat down, cut the string of his
shoe-packs and slit his heavy German socks,
and after that he rubbed his feet and legs and
arms until Philip began to feel a sting like the
prickly bite of nettles.

"Ten minutes more and you'd been gone,"
said DeBar.

He wrapped a second blanket around Philip,

176

THE LAW VERSUS THE MAN

and dragged the sledge on which he was lying
still nearer to the fire. Then he threw on a
fresh armful of dry sticks and from a pocket
of his coat drew forth something small and
red and frozen, which was the carcass of a bird
about the size of a robin. DeBar held it up
between his forefinger and thumb, and looking
at Philip, the flash of a smile passed for an
instant over his grizzled face.

"Dinner," he said, and Philip could not fail
to catch the low chuckling note of humor in
his voice. "It's a Whisky Jack, man, an he's
the first and last living thing I've seen in the
way of fowl between here and Fond du Lac.
He weighs four ounces if he weighs an ounce,
and we'll feast on him shortly. I haven't had
a full mouth of grub since day before yester-
day morning, but you're welcome to a half of
him, if you're hungry enough."

"Where'd your chuck go?" asked Philip.

He was conscious of a new warmth and
comfort in his veins, but it was not this that

177

PHILIP STEELE

sent a heat into his face at the outlaw's offer.
DeBar had saved his life, and now, when De-
Bar might have killed him, he was offering him
food. The man was spitting the bird on the
sharpened end of a stick, and when he had done
this he pointed to the big Mackenzie hound,
iiied to the broken stub of a dead sapling.

"I brought enough bannock to carry me to
Chippewayan, but he got into it the first night,
and what he left was crumbs. You lost yours
in the lake, eh?"

"Dogs and everything," said Philip. "Even
matches."

"Those ice-traps are bad," said DeBar com-
panionably, slowly turning the bird. "You al-
ways want to test the lakes in this country.
Most of 'em come from bog springs, and after
they freeze, the water drops. Guess you'd had
me pretty soon if it hadn't been for the lake,
wouldn't you ?"

He grinned, and to his own astonishment
Philip grinned.

J78

THE LAW VERSUS THE MAN

"I was tight after you, Bill."

"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed the outlaw. "That
sounds good! I've gone by another name, of
course, and that's the first time I've heard my

own since — "

He stopped suddenly, and the laugh left his
voice and face.

"It sounds — ^homelike," he added more
gently. "What's yours, pardner?"

"Steele— Philip Steele, of the R. N. W. M.
P.," said Philip.

"Used to know a Steele once," went on De-
Bar. "That was back — ^where it happened.
He was one of my friends."

For a moment he turned his eyes on Philip.
They were deep gray eyes, set well apart in a
face that among a hundred others Philip would
have picked out for its frankness and courage.
He knew that the man before him was not
much more than his own age, yet he appeared
ten years older.

He sat up on his sledge as DeBar left his

179

PHILIP STEELE

bird to thrust sticks into the snow, on the ends
of which he hung Philip's frozen garments
close to the fire. From the man Philip's eyes
traveled to the dog. The hound yawned in the
heat and he saw that one of his fangs was
gone.

"If you're starving, why don't you kill the
dog?" he asked.

DeBar turned quickly, his white teeth gleam-
ing through his beard.

"Because he's the best friend I've got on
earth, or next to the best," he said warmly.
"He's stuck to me through thick and thin for
ten years. He starved with me, and fought
with me, and half died with me, and he's going
to live with me as long as I live. Would you
cat the flesh of your brother, Steele? He's my
brother — ^the last that your glorious law has
left to me. Would you kill him if you were
me?"

Something stuck hard and fast in Philip's
throat, and be made no reply. DeBar came

j8o

THE LAW VERSUS THE MAN

toward him with the hot bird on the end of his
stick. With his knife the outlaw cut the bird
into two equal parts, and one of these parts he
cut into quarters. One of the smaller pieces
he tossed to the hound, who devoured it at a
gulp. The half he stuck on the end of his
knife and offered to his companion.

"No," said Philip. "I can't."

The eyes of the two men met, and DeBar,
on his knees, slowly settled back, still gazing
at the other. In the eyes of one there was
understanding, in those of the other stem de-
termination.

"See here," said DeBar, after a moment,
"don't be a fool, Steele. Let's forget, for a
little while. God knows what's going to hap-
pen to both of us to-morrow or next day, and
it'll be easier to die with company than alone,
won't it ? Let's forget that you're the Law
and I'm the Man, and that I've killed one or
two. We're both in the same boat, and we
might as well be a little bit friendly for a few

i8i

PHILIP STEELE

hours, and shake hands, and be at peace when
the last minute comes. If we get out of this,
and find grub, we'll fight fair and square, and
the best man wins. Be square with me, old
man, and Til be square with you, s'elp me
Ckxir

He reached out a hand, gnarled, knotted,
covered with callouses and scars, and with a
strange sound in his throat Philip caught it
tightly in his own.

"ril be square. Bill!" he cried "I swear
that ril be square — on those conditions. If we
find grub, and live, we'll fight it out — alone —
and the best man wins. But I've had food to-
day, and you're starving. Eat that and I'll
still be in better condition than you. Eat it,
and we'll smoke. Praise God I've got my pipe
and tobacco !"

They settled back close in the lee of the drift,
and the wind swirled white clouds of snow-
mist over their heads, while DeBar ate his
bird and Philip smoked. The food that went

182

THE LAW VERSUS THE MAN

down DeBar's throat was only a morsel, but it
put new life into him, and he gathered fresh
armfuls of sticks and sapling boughs until the
fire burned Philip's face and his drying clothes
sent up clouds of steam. Once, a hundred
yards out in the plain, Philip heard the outlaw
burst into a snatch of wild forest song as he
pulled down a dead stub.

"Seems good to have comp'ny," he said,
when he came back with his load. "My God,
do you know I've never felt quite like this — so
easy and happy like, since years and years? I
wonder if it is because I know the end is near?"

There's still hope," replied Philip.

'Hope!" cried DeBar. "It's more than
hope, man. It's a certainty for me — ^the end,
I mean. Don't you see, Phil — " He came and
sat down close to the other on the sledge, and
spoke as if he had known him for years. "It's
got to be the end for me, and I guess that's
what makes me cheerful like. I'm going to
tell you about it, if you don't mind."

183

^^^

PHILIP STEELE

1 don't mind ; I want to hear," said Philip,
and he edged a little nearer, until they sat
shoulder to shoulder.

"It's got to be the end," repeated DeBar, in
a low voice. "If we get out of this, and fight,
and you win, it'll be because I'm dead, Phil.
D'ye understand? I'll be dead when the fight
ends, if you win. That'll be one end."

"But if you win. Bill."

A flash of joy shot into DeBar's eyes.

"Then that'll be the other end," he said more
softly still. He pointed to the big Mackenzie
hound. "I said he was next to my best friend
on earth, Phil. The other — is a girl — who lived
back there — ^when it happened, years and years
ago. She's thirty now, and she's stuck to me,
and prayed for me, and believed in me for —
a'most since we were kids together, an' she's
written to me — Trank Symmonds' — once a
month for ten years. God bless her heart!
That is what's kept me alive, and in every let-
ter she's begged me to let her come to me,

184

THE LAW VERSUS THE MAN

wherever I was. But — I guess the devil didn't
get quite all of me, for I couldn't, 'n' wouldn't
But I've give in now, and we've fixed it up be-
tween us. By this time she's on her way to
my brothers in South America, and'if I vrin —
when we fight — I'm going where she is. - And
that's the other end, Phil, so you see why I'm
happy. There's sure to be an end of it for me

— soon."

He bowed his wild, unshorn head in his mit-
tened hands, and for a time there was silence
between them.

Philip broke it, almost in a whisper.

"Why don't you kill me — here — ^now — ^while
I'm sitting helpless beside you, and you've a
knife in your belt ?"

DeBar lifted his head sbwly and looked
with astonishment into his companion's face.

"Fm not a murderer I" he said.

"But you've killed other men/' persisted
Philip.

"Three, besides those we hung,'* replied Do-

183

PHILIP STEELE

Bar calmly. "One at Moose Factory, when I
tried to help John, and the other two up here.
They were like you — ^hunting me down, and I
killed 'em in fair fight. Was that murder?
Should I stand by and be shot like an animal
just because it's the law that's doing it?
Would you?"

He rose without waiting for an answer and
felt of the clothes beside the fire.

"Dry enough," he said. "Put 'cm on and
we'll be hiking."

Philip dressed, and looked at his compass.

"Still north?" he asked. "Chippcwayan is
south and west"

"North," said DeBar. '1 know of a breed
who lives on Red Porcupine Creek, which runs
into the Slave. If we can find him we'll gtt
grub, and if we don't — "

He laughed openly into the other's face.

"We won't fight," said Philip, understand-
ing him.

"No, we won't fight, but we'll wrap up in the

i86

THE LAW VERSUS THE MAN

same blankets, and die, with Woonga, there,
keeping our backs warm until the last. Eh,
Woonga, will you do that ?"

He turned cheerily to the dog, and Woonga
rose slowly and with unmistakable stiffness of
limb, and was fastened in the sledge traces.

They went on through the desolate gloom of
afternoon, which in late winter is, above the
sixtieth, all but night. Ahead of them there
seemed to rise billow upon billow of snow-
mountains, which dwarfed themselves into
drifted dunes when they approached, and the
heaven above them, and the horizon on all
sides of them were shut out from their vision
by a white mist which was intangible and with-
out substance and yet which rose like a wall
before their eyes. It was one chaos of white
mingling with another chaos of white, a chaos
of white earth smothered and torn by the Arc-
tic wind under a chaos of white sky; and
through it all, saplings that one might have
twisted and broken over his knee were magni-

187

PHILIP STEELE

fied into giants at a distance of half a hundred
paces, and men and dog looked like huge spec-
ters moving with bowed heads through a world
that was no longer a world of life, but of dead
and silent things. And up out of this, after a
time, rose DeBar's voice, chanting in tones
filled with the savagery of the North, a wild
song that was half breed and half French,
which the forest men sing in their joy when
coming very near to home.

They went on, hour after hour, until day
gloom thickened into night, and night drifted
upward to give place to gray dawn, plodding
steadily north, resting now and then, fighting
each mile of the way to the Red Porcupine
against the stinging lashes of the Arctic wind.
And through it all it was DeBar's voice that
rose in encouragement to the dog limping be-
hind him and to the man limping behind the
dog — ^now in song, now in the wild shouting
of the sledge-driver, his face thin and gaunt
in its starved whiteness, but his eyes alive with

i88

THE LAW VERSUS THE MAN

a strange fire. And it was DeBar who lifted
his mittened hands to the leaden chaos of sky
when they came to the frozen streak that was
the Red Porcupine, and said, in a voice through
which there ran a strange thrill of something
deep and mighty, "God in Heaven be praised,
this is the end !"

He started into a trot now, and the dog
trotted behind him, and behind the dog trotted
Philip, wondering, as he had wondered a dozen
times before that night, if DeBar were going
mad. Five hundred yards down the stream
DeBar stopped in his tracks, stared for a mo-
ment into the breaking gloom of the shore, and
turned to Philip. He spoke in a voice low and
trembling, as if overcome for the moment by
some strong emotion.

"See — see there 1" he whispered. "I've hit
it, Philip Steele, and what does it mean ? I've
come over seventy miles of barren, through
night an' storm, an' I've hit Pierre Thoreau's
cabin as fair as a shot! Oh, man, man, I

189

PHIUP STEELE

«'<

(€'

couldn't do it once in ten thousand times !" He
gripped Philip's arm, and his voice rose in ex-
cited triumph. "I tell 'ee, it means that — ^that
God — *r something — ^must be with me !"

'With us," said Philip, staring hard.

'With me," replied DeBar so fiercely that
the other started involuntarily. "It's a mir-
acle, an omen, and it means that I'm going to
win 1" His fingers gripped deeper, and he said
more gently, "Phil, I've grown to like you, and
if you believe in God as we believe in Him up
here — if you believe He tells things in the
stars, the winds and things like this, if you're
afraid of death — take some grub and go back !
I mean it, Phil, for if you stay, an' fight, there
is going to be but one end. I will kill youl"

190

CHAPTER XII

THE FIGHT — ^AND A STRANGE VISITOR

AT DeBar's words the. blood leaped swiftly
through Philip's veins, and he laughed
as he flung the outlaw's hand from his arm.

"I'm not afraid of death," he cried angrily.
"Don't take me for a child, William DeBar.
How long since you found this God of yours?"

He spoke the words half tauntingly, and as
soon regretted them, for in a voice that be-
trayed no anger at the slur DeBar said : "Ever
since my mother taught me the first prayer,
Phil. I've killed three men and I've helped to
hang three others, and still I believe in a God,
and I've half a notion He believes a little bit in
me, in spite of the laws made down in Ottawa."

The cabin loomed up amid a shelter of spruce
like a black shadow, and when they climbed up

191

PHILIP STEELE

the bank to it they found the snow drifted high
under the window and against the door.

"He's gone — Pierre, I mean," said DeBar
over his shoulder as he kicked the snow away.
"He hasn't come back from New Year's at
Fort Smith."

The door had no lock or bolt, and they en-
tered. It was yet too dark for them to see dis-
tinctly, and DeBar struck a match. On the
table was a tin oil lamp, which he lighted. It
revealed a neatly kept interior about a dozen
feet square, with two bunks, several chairs, a
table, and a sheet iron stove behind which was
piled a supply of wood. DeBar pointed to a
shelf on which were a number of tin boxes,
their covers weighted down by chunks of wood.

"Grub!" he said.

And Philip, pointing to the wood, added,
"Fire — fire and grub."

There was something in his voice which the
other could not fail to understand, and there
was an uncomfortable silence as Philip gut fuel

192

THE FIGHT— A STRANGE VISITOR

into the stove and DeBar searched among the
food cans.

"Here's bannock and cooked meat — frozen,"
he said, "and beans."

He placed tins of each on the stove and then
sat down beside the roaring fire, which was
already beginning to diffuse a heat. He held
out his twisted and knotted hands, blue and
shaking with cold, and looked up at Philip, who
stood opposite him.

He spoke no words, and yet there was some-
thing in his eyes which made the latter cry out
softly, and with a feeling which he tried to
hide : "DeBar, I wish to God it was over !"

"So do I," said DeBar.

He rubbed his hands and tv/isted them until
the knuckles cracked.

"I'm not afraid and I know that you're not,
Phil," he went on, with his eyes on the top of
the stove, "but I wish it was over, just the
same. Somehow I'd a'most rather stay up here
another year or two than — ^kill you."

193

PHILIP STEELE

"Kill me!" exclaimed Philip, the old fire
leaping back into his veins.

DeBar's quiet voice, his extraordinary self-
confidence, sent a flush of anger into Philip's
face.

"You're talking to me again as if I were a
child, DeBar. My instructions were to bring
you back, dead or alive — and Fm going to !"

"We won't quarrel about it, Phil," replied
the outlaw as quietly as before. "Only I wish
it wasn't you I'm going to fight. I'd rather kill
half-a-dozen like the others than you."

"I see," said Philip, with a perceptible snee?:
in his voice. "You're trying to work upon my
sympathy so that I will follow your suggestion
— and go back. Eh ?"

"You'd be a coward if you did that," re-
torted DeBar quickly. "How are we going to
settle it, Phil?"

Philip drew his frozen revolver from its
holster and held it over the stove.

"If I wasn't a crack shot, and couldn't center

194

THE FIGHT— A STRANGE VISITOR

a two-inch buU's-eyc three times out of four at
thirty paces, I'd say pistols."

"I can't do that," said DeBar unhesitatingly,
"but I have hit a wolf twice out of five shots.
It'll be a quick, easy way, and we'll settle it
with our revolvers. Going to shoot to kill ?"

"No, if I can help it. In the excitement a
shot may kill, but I want to take you back alive,
so I'll wing you once or twice first."

"I always shoot to kill," replied DeBar, with-
out lifting his head. "Any word you'd like to
have sent home, Phil ?"

In the other's silence DeBar looked up.

"I mean it," he said, in a low earnest voice.
"Even from your point of view it might hap-
pen, Phil, and you've got friends somewhere.
If anything should happen to me you'll find a
letter in my pocket. I want you to write to —
to her — ^an' tell her I died in — ^an accident.
Will you?"

"Yes," replied Philip. "As for me, you'll
find addresses in my pocket, too. Let's shake !"

I9S

PHILIP STEELE

Over the stove they gripped hands.

"My eyes hurt," said DeBar. "It's the snow
and wind, I guess. Do you mind a little sleep
— after we eat ? I haven't slept a wink in three
days and nights."

"Sleep until you're ready," urged Philip. "I
don't want to fight bad eyes."

They ate, mostly in silence, and when the
meal was done Philip carefully cleaned his re-
volver and oiled it with bear grease, which he
found in a bottle on the shelf.

DeBar watched him as he wiped his weapon
and saw that Philip lubricated each of the five
cartridges which he put in the chamber.

Afterward they smoked.

Then DeBar stretched himself out in one of
the two bunks, and his heavy breathing soon
gave evidence that he was sleeping.

For a time Philip sat beside the stove, his
eyes upon the inanimate form of the outlaw.
Drowsiness overcame him then, and he rolled
into the other bunk. He was awakened several

196

lit

THE FIGHT— A STRANGE VISITOR

hours later by DeBar, who was filling the stove
with wood.

How's the eyes?" he asked, sitting up.
Good," said the other. "Glad you're awake.
The light will be bad inside of an hour,"

He was rubbing and warming his hands, and
Philip came to the opposite side of the stove
and rubbed and warmed 'his hands. For some
reason he found it difficult to look at DeBar,
and he knew that DeBar was not looking at
him.

It was the outlaw who broke the suspense.
I've been outside," he said in a low voice.
There's an open in front of the cabin, just a
hundred paces across. It wouldn't be a bad
idea for us to stand at opposite sides of the
open and at a given signal approach, firing as
we want to."

"Couldn't be better," exclaimed Philip
briskly, turning to pull his revolver from its
holster.
DcBar watched him with tensely anxious

197

PHILIP STEELE

eyes as he broke the breech, looked at the shin-
ing circle of cartridges, and closed it again.

Without a word he went to the door, opened
it, and with his pistol arm trailing at his side,
strode off to the right. For a moment Philip
stood looking after him, a queer lump in his
throat. He would have liked to shake hands,
and yet at the same time he was glad that De-
Bar had gone in this way. He turned to the
left — and saw at a glance that the outlaw had
given him the best light. DeBar was facing
him when he reached his ground.
'Are you ready ?" he shouted.
'Ready!" cried Philip.

DeBar ran forward, shoulders hunched low,
his pistol arm half extended, and Philip ad-
vanced to meet him. At seventy paces, with-
out stopping in his half trot, the outlaw fired,
and his bullet passed in a hissing warning three
feet over Philip's head. The latter had planned
to hold his fire until he was sure of hitting the
outlaw in the arm or shoulder, but a second

198

ii^

THE FIGHT— A STRANGE VISITOR

shot from him, which seemed to Philip almost
to nip him in the face, stopped him short, and
at fifty paces he returned the fire.

DeBar ducked low and Philip thought that
he was hit.

Then with a fierce yell he darted forward,
firing as he came.

Again, and still a third time Philip fired, and
as DeBar advanced, unhurt, after each shot, a
cry of amazement rose to his lips. At forty
paces he could nip a four-inch bull's-eye three
times out of five, and here he missed a man!
At thirty he held an unbeaten record — and at
thirty, here in the broad open, he still missed
his man !

He had felt the breath of DeBar's fourth
shot, and now with one cartridge each the men
advanced foot by foot, until DeBar stopped
and deliberately aimed at twenty paces. Their
pistols rang out in one report, and, standing
unhurt, a feeling of horror swept over Philip
as he looked at the other. The outlaw's anfis

199

PHILIP STEELE

fell to his side. His empty pistol dropped to
the snow, and for a moment he stood rigid,
with his face half turned to the gloomy sky,
while a low cry of grief burst from Philip's
lips.

In that momentary posture of DeBar he saw,
not the effect of a wound only, but the grim,
terrible rigidity of death. He dropped his own
weapon and ran forward, and in that instant
DeBar leaped to meet him with the fierceness
of a beast I

It was a terrible bit of play on DeBar's part,
and for a moment took Philip off his guard.
He stepped aside, and, with the cleverness of a
trained boxer, he sent a straight cut to the out-
law's face as he closed in. But the blow lacked
force, and he staggered back under the other's
weight, boiling with rage at the advantage
which DeBar had taken of him.

The outlaw's hands gripped at his throat and
his fingers sank into his neck like cords of steel.
With a choking gasp he clutched at DeBar's

200

"■■" h.k-,1 (.„„.

THE FIGHT— A STRANGE VISITOR

wrists, knowing that another minute — a half-
minute of that death clutch would throttle him.
He saw the triumph in DeBar's eyes, and with
a last supreme eflfort drew back his arm and
sent a terrific short-arm punch into the other's
stomach.

The grip at his throat relaxed. A second, a
third, and a fourth blow, his arm traveling
swiftly in and out, like a piston-rod, and the
triumph in DeBar's eyes was replaced by a look
of agony. The fingers at his throat loosened
still more, and with a sudden movement Philip
freed himself and sprang back a step to gather
force for the final blow.

The move was fatal. Behind him his heel
caught in a snow-smothered log and he pitched
backward with DeBar on top of him.

Again the iron fingers burned at his throat
But this time he made no resistance, and after
a moment the outlaw rose to his feet and stared
down into the white, still face half buried in
the snow. Then he gently lifted Philip's head

201

PHILIP STEELE

in his arms. There was a crimson blotch in the
snow and close to it the black edge of a hidden
rock.

As quickly as possible DeBar carried Philip
into the cabin and placed him on one of the
cots. Then he gathered certain articles of food
from Pierre's stock and put them in his pack.
He had carried the pack half way to the door
when he stopped, dropped his load gently to the
floor, and thrust a hand inside his coat pocket.
From it he drew forth a letter. It was a wom-
an's letter — ^and he read it now with bowed
head, a letter of infinite faith, and hope, and
love, and when once more he turned toward
Philip his face wras filled with the flush of a
great happiness.

"Mebby you don't just understand, Phil," he
whispered, as if the other were listening to him.
"I'm going to leave this."

With the stub of a pencil he scribbled a few
words at the bottom of the crumpled letter.

He wrote in a crude, awkward hand :

202

THE FIGHT— A STRANGE VISITOR

You'd won if it hadn't been for the rock.
But I guess mebby that it was God who put the
rock there, Phil. While you was asleep I took
the bullets out of your cartridges and put in
damp paper, for I didn't want to see any harm
done with the guns. I didn't shoot to hit you,
and after all, I'm glad it was the rock that hurt
you instead of me.

He leaned over the cot to assure himself that
Philip's breath was coming steadier and
stronger, and then laid the letter on the young
man's breast

Five minutes later he was plodding steadily
ahead of his big Mackenzie hound into the
peopleless barrens to the south and west.

And still later Philip opened his eyes and
saw what DeBar had left for him. He strug-
gled into a sitting posture and read the few
lines which the outlaw had written.

"Here's to you, Mr. Felix MacGregor," he
chuckled feebly, balancing himself on the edge
of the bunk. "You're right It'll take two

203

PHILIP STEELE

men to lay out Mr. William DeBar — ^if you
ever get him at all !"

Three days later, still in the cabin, he raised
a hand to his bandaged head with an odd
grimace, half of pain, half of laughter.

"You're a good one, you are!" he said to
himself, limping back and forth across the
narrow space of the cabin. "YouVe got them
all beaten to a rag when it comes to playing the
chump, Phil Steele. Here you go up to Big
Chief MacGregor, throw out your chest, and
say to him, 'I can get that man,' and when the
big chief says you can't, you call him a four-
ply ignoramus in your mind, and get permission
to go after him anyway — ^just because you're
in love. You follow your man up here — four
hundred miles or so— and what's the conse-
quence ? You lose all hope of finding her, and
your 'man* does just what the big chief said
he would do, and lays you out — ^though it
wasn't your fault after all. Then you take
possession of another man's shack when he isn't

204>

THE FIGHT— A STRANGE VISITOR

at home, eat his grub, nurse a broken head, and
wonder why the devil you ever joined the
glorious Royal Mounted when you've got
money to bum. You're a wise one, you are,
Phil Steele — but you've learned something
new. You've learned there's never a man so
good but there's a better one somewhere— even
if he is a man-killer like Mr. William DeBar."
He lighted his pipe and went to the door.
For the first time in days the sun was shining
in a cold blaze of fire over the southeastern
edge of the barrens, which swept away in a
limitless waste of snow-dune and rock and
stunted scrub among which occasional Indian
and half-breed trappers set their dead- falls and
poison baits for the northern fox. Sixty miles
to the west was Fort Smith. A htmdred miles
to the south lay the Hudson's Bay Company's
post at Chippewayan ; a hundred and fifty miles
to the south and east was the post at Fond du
Lac, and to the north — ^nothing. A thousand
miles or so up there one would have struck the

205

PHILIP STEELE

polar sea and the Eskimo, and it was widi this
thought of the lifelessness and mystery of a
dead and empty world that Philip turned his
eyes from the sun into the gray desolation that
reached from Pierre Thoreau's door to the end
of the earth. Far off to the north he saw a
black speck moving in the chaos of white. It
might have been a fox coming over a snow-
dune a rifle-shot away, for distances are elusive
where the sky and the earth seem to meet in a
cold gray rim about one ; or it might have been
a musk-ox or a caribou at a greater distance,
but the longer he looked the more convinced he
became that it was none of these — but a man.
It moved slowly, disappeared for a few minutes
in one of the dips of the plain, and came into
view again much nearer. This time he made
out a man, and behind, a sledge and dogs.

"It's Pierre," he shivered, closing the door
and coming back to the stove. "I wonder what
the deuce the breed will say when he finds a
stranger here and his grub half gone."

206

THE FIGHT— A STRANGE VISITOR

After a little he heard the shrill creaking of
a sledge on the crust outside and then a man's
voice. The sounds stopped close to the cabin
and were followed by a knock at the door.

"Come in!" cried Philip, and in the same
breath it flashed upon him that it could not be
the breed, and that it must be a mighty partic-
ular and unusual personage to knock at all.

The door opened and a man came in. He
was a little man, and was bundled in a great
beaver overcoat and a huge beaver cap that
concealed all of his face but his eyes, the tip
of his nose, and the frozen end of a beard
which stuck out between the laps of his tumed-
up collar like a horn. For all the world he
looked like a diminutive dnmi-major, and
Philip rose speechless, his pipe still in his
mouth, as his strange visitor closed the door
behind him and approached.

"Beg pardon," said the stranger in a smoth-
ered voice, walking as though he were ice to
the marrow and afraid of breaking himself.

207

PHILIP STEELE

''It's so beastly cold that I have taken the lib-
erty of dropping in to get warm."

"It is cold — beastly cold," replied Philip, em-
phasizing the word. "It was down to sixty
last night Take off your things."

"Devil of a country — ^this," shivered the
man, unbuttoning his coat. "I'd rather roast
of the fever than freeze to death." Philip
limped forward to assist him, and the stranger
eyed him sharply for a moment.

"Limp not natural," he said quickly, his
voice freeing itself at last from the depths of
his coat collar. "Bandage a Uttle red, eyes
feverish, lips too pale. Sick, or hurt ?"

Philip laughed as the little man hopped to
the stove and began rubbing his hands.

"Hurt," he said. "If you weren't four hun-
dred miles from nowhere I'd say that you were
a doctor."

"So I am," said the other. "Edward Wal-
lace Boffin, M. D., 900 North Wabash Avenue,
Chicago."

208

«1

<(1

CHAPTER XIII

THE GREAT LOVE EXPERIMENT

FOR a full half minute after the other's
words Philip stared in astonishment
Then, with a joyful shout, he suddenly reached
out his hand across the stove.

'By thunder," he cried, "you're from homel"
'Home !" exclaimed the other. There was a
startled note in his voice. "You're — ^you're a
Chicago man?" he asked, staring strangely at
Philip and gripping his hand at the same time.

"Ever hear of Steele — Philip Egbert Steele ?
I'm his son."

"Good Heavens!" drawled the doctor, gaz-
ing still harder at him and pinching the ice
from his beard, "what are you doing up here ?"
"Prodigal son," grinned Philip. "Waiting
for the calf to get good and fat. What are you
doing?"

209

PHILIP STEELE

•

"Making a fool of myself/' replied the doc-
tor, looking at the top of the stove and rubbing
his hands until his fingers snapped.

At the North Pole, if they had met there,
Philip would have known him for a profes-
sional man. His heavy woolen suit was tailor
made. He wore a collar and a fashionable tie.
A lodge signet dangled at his watch chain. He
was clean-shaven and his blond Van Dyke
beard was immaculately trimmed. Ever5rthing
about him, from the top of his head to the bot-
tom of his laced boots, shouted profession, even
in the Arctic snow. He might- have gone far-
ther and guessed that he was a physician — sl
surgeon, perhaps — from his hands, and from
the supple manner in which he twisted his long
white fingers about one another over the stove.
He was a man of about forty, with a thin sen-
sitive face, strong rather than handsome, and
remarkable eyes. They were not large, nor far
apart, but were like twin dynamos, reflecting
the life of the man within. They were the sort

2IO

THE GREAT LjOVE EXPERIMENT

of eyes which Philip had always associated
with great mental power. ,

The doctor had now finished rubbing his
hands, and, unbuttoning his under coat, he
drew a small silver cigarette case from his
waistcoat pocket.

"They're not poison," he smiled, opening it
and offering the cigarettes to Philip. "I have
them made especially for myself." A sound
outside the door made him pause with a lighted
match between his fingers. "How about dogs
and Indian?" he asked. "May they come in?"

Philip began hobbling toward the door.

"So exciting to meet a man from home that
I forgot all about 'em," he exclaimed.

With three or four quick steps the doctor
overtook him and caught him by the arm.

"Just a moment," he said quickly. "How
far is Fort Smith f roiti here ?"

"About sixty miles."

"Do you suppose I could get there without —
his assistance ?"

211)

PHILIP STEELE

*1f you're willing to bunk here for a few
days — ^yes," said Philip. "Fm going on to
Fort Smith myself as soon as I am able to
walk."

An expression of deep relief came into the
doctor's eyes.

"That's just what I want, Steele," he ex-
claimed, unfeignedly delighted at Philip's sug-
gestion. "I'm not well, and I require a little
rest. Call him in."

No sooner had the Indian entered than to
Philip's astonishment the little doctor began
talking rapidly to him in Cree. The guide's
eyes lighted up intelligently, and at the end he
replied with a single word, nodded, and
grinned. Philip noticed that as he talked a
slight flush gathered in the doctor's smooth
cheeks, and that not only by his voice but by
the use of his hands as well he seemed anxious
to impress upon his listener the importance of
what he was sa)ring.

"He'll start back for Chippewayan this after-

2lZ

THE GREAT LOVE EXPERIMENT

noon," he explained to Philip a moment later.
"The dogs and sledge are mine, and he says
that he can make it easily on snow-shoes."
Then he lighted his cigarette and added sug-
gestively, "He can't understand English."

The Indian had caught a glimpse of Philip's
belt and holster, and now muttered a few low
words, as though he were grumbling at the
stove. The doctor poised his cigarette midway
to his lips and looked quickly across at Philip.

"Possibly you belong to* the Northwest
Mounted Police," he suggested

"Yes."

"Heavens," drawled the doctor again, "and
you the son of a millionaire banker! What you
doing it for ?"

"Fun," answered Philip, half laughing.
"And I'm not getting it in sugar-coated pellet
form either, Doctor. I came up here to, get a
man, found him, and was gloriously walloped
for my trouble. I'm not particularly sorry,
either. Rather glad he got away/'

213

PHILIP STEELE

'*Why?" asked the doctor.

In spite of their short acquaintance Philip
began to feel a sort of comradeship for the man
opposite him.

"Well," he said hesitatingly, "you see, he
was one of those criminals who are made crim-
inals. Some one else was responsible — a case

of one man suffering because of another man's

* 19
sms.

If the doctor had received the thrust of a pin
he could not have jumped from his chair with
more startling suddenness than he did at
Philip's words.

"That's it !" he cried excitedly, beginning to
pace back and forth across the cabin floor.
"It's more than a theory — it's a truth — ^that
people suffer more because of other people than
on account of themselves. We're bom to it
and we keep it up, inflicting a thousand pricks
and a thousand sorrows to gain one selfish end
and it isn't once in a hundred times that the
boomerang comes home and strikes the right

214

THE GREAT LOVE EXPERIMENT
one down. But when it does — ^when it does,

sir—"

As suddenly as he had begun, the doctor
stopped, and he laughed a little unnaturally.
"Bosh !*' he exclaimed. "Let's see that head of
yours, Steele. Speaking of pains and pricks
reminds me that, being a surgeon, I may be of
some assistance to you."

Philip knew that he had checked himself
with an effort, and as his new acquaintance be-
gan to loosen the bandage he found himself
wondering what mysterious mission could have
sent a Chicago surgeon up to Fort Smith. The
doctor interrupted his thoughts.

"Queer place for a blow," he said briskly.
"Nothing serious — slight abrasion — ^trifle fe-
verish. We'll set you to rights immediately."
He bustled to his greatcoat and from one of the
deep pockets drew forth a leather medicine
case. "Queer place, queer place," he chuckled,
returning with a vial in his hand. "Were you
running when it happened ?"

215

PHILIP STEELE

Philip laughed with him, and by the time the
doctor had finished he had given him an ac-
coimt of his affair with DeBar. Not until
hours later, when the Cree had left on his re-
turn trip and they sat smoking before a roaring
fire after supper, did it occur to him how confi-
dential he had become. Seldom had Philip
met a man who impressed him as did the little
surgeon. He liked him immensely. He felt
that he had known him for years instead of
hours, and chatted freely of his adventures and
asked a thousand questions about home. He
found that the doctor was even better ac-
quainted with his home city than himself, and
that he knew many people whom he knew, and
lived in a fashionable quarter. He was puzzled
even as they talked and laughed and smoked
their cigarettes and pipes. The doctor said
nothing about himself or his personal affairs,
and cleverly changed the conversation when-
ever it threatened to drift in that direction.

It was late when Philip rose from his chair,

216

THE GREAT LOVE EXPERIMENT

suggesting that they go to bed. He laughed
frankly across into the other's face.

Boffin — Boffin — Boffin," he mused.
Strange I've never heard of you down south.
Doctor. Now what the deuce can you be doing
up here ?"

There was a point-blank challenge in his
eyes. The doctor leaned a little toward him, as
if about to speak, but caught himself. For
several moments his keen eyes gazed squarely
into Philip's, and when he broke the silence the
same nervous flush that Philip had noticed be-
fore rose into his cheeks.

"I know your father," he said at last, in a
low, restrained voice. "I know him well, and
of course I read what the papers said when you
broke away from society to go roughing it
down in South America. I believe you're hon-
est — on the square."

Philip stared at him in amazement

"If I didn't," he went on, rubbing his hands
again over the stove, "I'd follow your sugges-

217

PHILIP STEELE

tion, and go to bed. As it is, Tin going to tell
you why I'm up here, on your word of honor
to maintain secrecy. I've got a selfish end in
view; for you may be able to assist me. But
nothing must go beyond yourself. What do
you say to the condition ?"

"I will not break your confidence — ^unless
you have murdered some one," laughed Philip,
stooping to light a fresh pipe. "In that event
you'd better keep quiet, as I'd have to haul you
back to headquarters."

He did not see the deepening of the flush in
the other's face.

"Good/* said the doctor. "Sit down, Steele.
I take it for granted that you will help me — ^if
you can. First I 8i4>pose I ought to confess
that my name is not Bofiin, but McGill — Dud-
ley McGill, professor of neurology and diseases
of the brain — "

Philip almost dropped his pipe. "Great
Scott, and it was you who wrote — " He
stopped, staring in amazement

?i8

THE GREAT LOVE EXPERIMENT

"Yes, It was I who wrote Freda, if that's
what you refer to," finished the doctor. "It
catised a little sensation, as you may know, and
nearly got me ousted from the college. But it
sold up to two hundred thousand copies, so it
wasn't a bad turn," he added.

"It was published while I was away," said
Philip. "I got a copy in Rio Janeiro, and it
haunted me for weeks after I read it. Great
Heaven, you can't believe — "

"I did," interrupted the doctor sharply. "I
believed everything that I wrote — and more.
It was my theory of life." He sprang from
his chair and began walking back and forth in
his quick, excited way. The flush had gone
from his face now and was replaced by a
strange paleness. His lips were tense, the fin-
gers of his hands tightly clenched, his voice
was quick, sharp, incisive when he spoke.

"It was my theory of life," he repeated al-
most fiercely, "and that is the beginning of why
I am up here. My theory was that there existed

219

PHILIP STEELE

no such thing as 'the divine spark of love' be-
tween men and women not related by blood, no
reaching out of one soul for another — ^no faith,
no purity, no union between man and woman
but that could be broken by low passions. My
theory was that man and woman were but ma-
chines, and that passion, and not the love
which we dream and read of, united these
machines; and that every machine, whether it
was a man or a woman, could be broken and
destroyed in a moral sense by some other ma-
chine of the opposite sex — if conditions were
right. Do you understand me? My theory
was destructive of homes, of happiness, of
moral purity. It was bad. I argued my point
in medical journals, ancl I wrote a book based
on it. But I lacked proof, the actual proof of
experience. So I set out to experiment."

He seemed to have forgotten now that Philip
was in the room, and went on bitterly, as if
arraigning himself for something which he had
not yet disclosed.

220

THE GREAT LOVE EXPERIMENT

"It made me a — a — almost a criminal/' he
continued. "I had no good thoughts for hu-
manity, beyond my small endeavors in my
little field of science. I was a machine myself,
cold, passionless, caring little for women — thus
proving, if I had stopped to consider myself,
the unreasonableness of my own theory. Coolly
and without a thought of the consequences, I
set out to prove myself right. When I think of
it now my action appals me. It was heinous,
for the mere proving of my theory meant mis-
ery and unhappiness for those who were to
prove it to me. I was not cramped for money.
So I determined to experiment with six ma-
chines — three young men and three young
women. I planned that each person should be
unconscious of the part he or she was playing,
and that each pair should be thrown constantly
together — not in society, mind you, for my the-
ory was that conditions must be right.
Through a trusted and highly paid agent I hired
my people — the men. Through another, who

22U

PHILIP STEELE

senseless ones, in scientific work. Madmen
have made the world's greatness. Our most
wonderful inventors, our greatest men of all
ages, have in a way been insane — for they have
been abnormal, and what is that but a certain
form of insanity?"

He looked at Philip through his cigarette
smoke as if expecting a reply, but Philip only
wet his lips, and remained silent.

"I got six months' leave of absence," he re-
sumed, "and set out to see the results of my
experiments. First I went to Rio, and from
there to the place where the first couple had
gone. As a consequence, five weeks passed be-
tween the date of the last letters of my experi-
menters and the day I joined them. Heavens,
man! When I made it known that I wanted
them, where do you think they took me ?" He
dropped his half-burned cigarette and his voice
was husky as he turned on Philip. "Where —
where do you think they took me?" he de-
manded.

924

THE GREAT LOVE EXPERIMENT

"God knows!" exclaimed Philip, tremu-
lously. "Where?"

"To two freshly made graves just outside the
village," groaned the doctor. "I learned their
story after a little. The girl, finding herself
useless there, had begun to teach the little chil-
dren. Tm — I'm — going to skip quickly over
this." His voice broke to a whisper. "She
was an angel. The poor half-naked women
told me that through my interpreter. The chil-
dren cried for her when she died. The men
had brought flowering trees from miles away
to shade her grave — ^and the other. They had
met, as I had planned — ^the man and the girl,
but it didn't turn out — ^my way. It was a beau-
tiful love, I believe, as pure and sweet as any in
the whole world. They say that they made the
whole village happy, and that each Stmday the
girl and the man would sing to them beautiful
songs which they could not imderstand, but
which made even the sick smile with happiness.
It was a low, villainous place for a village, half

22S

PHILIP STEELE

encircled by a swampy river, and the terrible
heat of the summer sun brought with it a
strange sickness. It was a deadly, fatal sick-
ness, and many died, and always there were, the
man and the girl, working and singing and
striving to do good through all the hours of
day and night What need is there of saying
more ?" the doctor cried, his voice choking him.
"What need to say more — except that the man
went first, and that the girl died a week later,
and that they were buried side by side under
the mangum trees ? What need — ^unless it is to
say that I am their murderer ?"

'There have been many mistakes made in the
name of science," said Philip, clearing his
throat. "This was one. Your theory was
wrong."

"Yes, it was wrong," said the doctor, more
gently. "I saved myself by killing them. My
theory died with them, and as fast as I could
travel I hurried to that other place in Central
America."

226

THE GREAT LOVE EXPERIMENT

A soft glow entered into his eyes now, and
he came around the stove and took one of
PhiHp's hands between his own, and looked
steadily down into his face, while there came a
curious twitching about the muscles of his
throat

"Nothing had happened," he said, barely
above a whisper. "I found her, and I thank
God for that I loved her, and my theory was
doubly shattered, a thousand times cursed. She
is my wife, and I am the happiest of men— ex-
cept for these hatmting memories. Before I
married her I told her all, and together we have
tried to make restitution for my crime, for I
shall always deem it such. I found that the
man who died was supporting a mother, and
that the girl's parents lived on a little mort-
gaged farm in Michigan. We sent the mother
ten thousand dollars, and the parents the same.
We have built a little church in the village
where they died. The third couple," finished
the doctor^ dropping Philip's hand, ''came up

227

PHILIP STEELE

here. When I got back from the south I found
that several of my checks had been returned. I
wrote letter after letter, but could find no trace
of these last of my experimenters. I sent an
agent into the North and he returned without
news of thenx They had never appeared at
Fort Smith. And now — I have come up to
hunt for them myself. Perhaps, in your future
wanderings, you may be of some assistance to
me. That is why I have told you this — ^with
the hope that you will help me, if you can."

With a flash of his old, quick coolness the
doctor turned to one of Pierre Thoreau's bunks.

"Now," he said, with a strained laugh, "1*11
follow your suggestion and go to bed. Good-
night"

229

CHAPTER XIV

WHAT CAME OF THE GREAT LOVE EXPERIMENT

FOR an hour after he had gone to bed Philip
lay awake thinking of the doctor's story.
He dreamed of it when he fell asleep. In a way
for which he could not account, the story had a
peculiar effect upon him, and developed in him
a desire to know the end. He awoke in the
morning anxious to resume the subject with
McGill, but the doctor disappointed him. Dur-
ing the whole of the day he made no direct ref-
erence to his mission in the North, and when
Philip once or twice brought hmi back to the
matter he evaded any discussion of it,' giving*
him to understand, without saying so, that the
matter was a closed incident between them,
only to be reopened when he was able to give
some help in the search. The doctor talked

229

PHILIP STEELE

freely of his home, of the beauty and the good-
ness of his wife, and of a third member whom
they expected in their little family circle in the
spring. They discussed home topics — ^politics,
clubs and sport. The doctor disliked society,
though for professional reasons he was com-
pelled to play a small part in it, and in this dis-
like the two men found themselves on common
ground. They became more and more confi-
dential in all ways but one. They passed hours
in playing cribbage with a worn pack of
Pierre's cards, and the third night sang old
college songs which both had nearly forgotten.
It was on this evening that they planned to re-
main one more day in Pierre's cabin and then
leave for Fort Smith.

"You have hope — there," said Philip in a
casual way, as they were undressing.

"Little hope, but the search will begin from
there," replied the doctor. "I have more hope
at Chippewayan, where we struck a clew. I
sent back my Indian to follow it up."

230

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT

They went to bed. How long he had slept
Philip had no idea, when he was awakened by
a slight noise. In a sub-conscious sort of way,
with his eyes still closed,, he lay without mov-
ing and listened. The sound came again, like
the soft, cautious tread of feet near him. Still
without moving he opened his eyes. The oil
lamp which he had put out on retiring was burn-
ing low. In its dim light stood the doctor, half
dressed, in a tense attitude of listening.

"What's the matter?" asked Philip.

The professor started, and turned toward the
stove.

"Nervousness, I guess," he said gloomily.
"I was afraid I would awaken you. I've been
up three times during the last hour — ^listening
for a voice."

"A voice?"

"Yes, back there in the bunk I could have
sworn that I heard it calling somewhere out in
the night. But when I get up I can't hear it.
I've stood at the door until I'm frozen."

231

PHILIP STEELE

"It's the wind," said Philip. "It has troubled
me many times out on the snow plains. I've
heard it wail like children crying among the
dunes, and again like women screaming, and
men shouting. You'd better go to bed,"

"Listen!"

The doctor stiffened, his white face turned to
the door.

"Good Heavens, was that the wind?" he
asked after a moment.

Philip had rolled from his bunk and was
pulling on his clothes.

"Dress and we'll find out," he advised.

Together they went to the door, opened it,
and stepped outside. The sky was thick and
heavy, with only a white blurr where the moon
was smothered. Fifty yards away the gray
gloom became opaque. Over the thousand
miles of drift to the north there came a faint
whistling wind, rising at times in fitful sweeps
of flinty snow, and at intervals dying away
until it became only a lulling sotmd. In one of

232

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT

these intervals both men held their breath.
From somewhere out of the night, and yet
from nowhere that they could point, there
came a human voice.

"Pier-r-r-r-e Thoreau — Pier-r-r-r-e Thoreau
— Ho, Pierre Thoreau-u-u-u !"

"Off there !" shivered the doctor.

"No— out there!" said Philip.

He raised his own voice in an answering
shout, and in response there came again the cry
for Pierre Thoreau.

"I'm right!" cried the doctor. "Come!"

He darted away, his greatcoat making a dark
blur in the night ahead of Philip, who paused
again to shout through the megaphone of his
hands. There came no reply. A second and a
third time he shouted, and still there was no
response.

"Queer," he thought "What the devil can
it mean ?"

The doctor had disappeared, and he followed
in the direction he had gone. A hundred yards

233

PHILIP STEELE

more and he saw the dark blur again, close to
the ground. The doctor was bending over a
human form stretched out in the snow.

"Just in time/' he said to Philip as he came
up. Excitement had gone from his voice now.
It was cool and professional, and he spoke in
a commanding way to his companion. ''You're
heavier than I, so take him by the shoulders and
hold his head well up. I don't believe it's the
cold, for his body is warm and comfortable. I
feel something wet and thick on his shirt, and
it may be blood. So hold his head well up.'*

Between them they carried him back to the
cabin, and with the quick alertness of a man
accustomed to every emergency of his profes-
sion the doctor stripped off his two coats while
Philip looked at the face of the man whom they
had placed in his bunk. His own experience
had acquainted him with violence and blood-
shed, but in spite of that fact he shuddered
slightly as he gazed on the unconscious form.
It was that of a young man of splendid

234

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT

physique, with a closely shaven face, short
blond hair, and a magnificent pair of shoulders.
Beyond the fact that he knew the face wore no
beard he could scarce have told if it were white
or black. From chin to hair it was covered
with stiffened blood.

The doctor came to his side.

"Looks bad, doesn't he?" he said cheerfully.
"Thought it wasn't the cold. Heart beating too
fast, pulse too active. Ah — ^hot water if you
please, Philip !"

He loosened the man's coat and shirt, and a
few moments later, when Philip brought a
towel and a basin of water, he rose from his
examination.

"Just in time — as I said before," he ex-
claimed with satisfaction. "You'd never have
heard another Tierre Thoreau' out of him,
Philip," he went on, speaking the young man's
name as if he had been accustomed to doing it
for a long time. "Wound on the head — skull
sotmd — loss of blood from over-exertion. We'll

23s

PHILIP STEELE

have him drinking coffee within an hour if
you'll make some."

The doctor rolled up his shirt sleeves and be-
gan to wash away the blood.

"A good-looking chap," he said over his
shoulder. "Face clean cut, fine mouth, a
frontal bone that must have brain behind it,
square chin — " He broke off to ask : "What
do you suppose happened to him?"

"Haven't got the slightest idea," said Philip,
putting the coffee pot on the stove. "A blow,
isn't it?"

Philip was turning up the wick of the lamp
when a sudden startled cry came from the bed-
side. Something in it, low and suppressed,
made him turn so quickly that by a clumsy twist
of his fingers the lamp was extinguished. He
lighted it again and faced the doctor. McGill
was upon his knees, terribly pale.

"Good Heaven!" he gasped. "What's the
matter?"

"Nothing, nothing, Phil— it was he! He let

236

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT
it out of him so unexpectedly that it startled

me."

I thought it was your voice," said Philip.
No, no, it was his. See, he is returning to

consciousness."

The wounded man's eyes opened slowly, and
closed again. He heaved a great sigh and
stretched out his arms as if about to awaken
from a deep slumber. The doctor sprang to his
feet.

"We must have ice, Phil — finely chopped ice
from the creek down there. Will you take the
ax and those two pails and bring back both pails
full? No hurry, but we'll jieed it within an
hour."

Philip bundled himself in his coat and went
out with the ax and pails.

"Ice !" he muttered to himself. "Now what
can he want of ice?"

He dug down through three feet of snow
and chopped for half an hour. When he re-
turned to the cabin the wotuided man was

237

PHILIP STEELE

bolstered up in bed, and the doctor was pacing
back and forth across the room, evidently
worked to a high pitch of excitement.

"Murder — robbery— outrage ! Right under
our noses, that's what it was !" he cried. "Pierre
Thoreau is dead — killed by the scoundrels who
left this man for dead beside himl They set
upon them late yesterday afternoon as Pierre
and his partner were coming home, intending
to kill them for their outfit. The murderers,
who are a breed and a white trapper, have prob-
ably gone to their shack half a dozen miles up
the creek. Now, Mr. Philip Steele, here's a
little work for you !"

MacGregor himself had never stirred Philip
Steele's blood as did the doctor's unexpected
words, but the two men watching him saw noth-
ing unusual in their effect. He set down his ice
and coolly took off his coat, then advanced to
the side of the wounded man.

"I'm glad you're better," he said, looking
down into the other's strong, pale face. "It was

238

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT

a pretty close shave. Guess you were a little
out of your head, weren't you ?"

For an instant the man's eyes shifted past
Philip to where the doctor was standing

"Yes — I must have been. He says I was
calling for Pierre, and Pierre was dead. I left
him ten miles back there in the snow." He
closed his eyes with a groan of pain and con-
tinued, after a moment, "Pierre and I have been
trapping foxes. We were coming back with
supplies to last us until late spring when — it
happened. The white man's name is Dobson,
and there's a breed with him. Their shack is
six or seven miles up the creek."

Philip saw the doctor examining a revolver
which he had taken from the pocket of his big
coat. He came over to the bunkside with it
in his hand.

"That's enough, Phil," he said softly. "He
must not talk any more for an hour or two or
we'll have him in a fever. Get on your coat.
I'm going with you."

239

PHILIP STEELE

tiTK

Tm going alone," said Phil shortly. "You
attend to your patient." He drank a cup of
coffee, ate a piece of toasted bannock, and with
the first gray breaking of dawn started up the
creek on a pair of Pierre's old snow-shoes. The
doctor followed him to the creek and watched
him until he was out of sight.

The wounded man was sitting on the edge
of the cot when McGill reentered the cabin.
His exertion had brought a flush of color back
into his face, which lighted up with a smile as
the other came through the door.

"It was a close shave, thanks to you," he
said, repeating Philip's words.

"Just so," replied the doctor. He had placed
a brace of short bulldog revolvers on the table
and offered one of them now to his companion.
"The shaving isn't over yet, Falkner."

They ate breakfast, each with a gun beside
his tin plate. Now and then the doctor inter-
rupted his meal to go to the door and peer over
the broadening vista of the barrens. They had

240

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT

nearly finished when he came back from one of
these observations, his lips set a little tighter, a
barely perceptible tremor in his voice when he
spoke.

"They're coming, Falkner!"

They picked up their revolvers and the doc-
tor buttoned his coat tight up about his neck.
For ten minutes they sat silent and listening.
Not until the crunching beat of snow-shoes
came to their ears did the doctor move. Thrust-
ing his weapon into his coat pocket, he went
to the door. Falkner followed him, and stood
well out of sight when he opened it. Two men
and a dog team were crossing the opening.
McGill's dogs were fastened under a brush
lean-to built against the cabin, and as the rival
team of huskies began filling the air with their
clamor for a fight, the stranger team halted and
one of the two men came forward alone. He
stopped with some astonishment before the
aristocratic-looking little man waiting for him
in Pierre's doorway.

241

PHILIP STEELE

"Is Pierre Thoreau at home ?" he demanded.

"Fm a stranger here, so I can not say," re-
plied the doctor, inspecting the questioner with
marked coolness. "It is possible, however, that
he is — for I picked up a man half dead out in
the snow last night, and I'm waiting for him to
come back to life. A smooth-faced, blond fel-
low, with a cut on his head. It may be this
Pierre Thoreau."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth
when the man kicked off his snow-shoes and
with an, excited wave of his arm to his com-
panion with the dogs, almost ran past the doc-
tor.

"It's him — ^the man I want to see !" he cried
in a low voice. "My name's Dobson, of the — "

What more he had meant to say was never
finished. Falkner's powerful arms had gripped
his head and throat in a vise-like clutch from
which no smother of sound escaped, and three
or four minutes later, when the second man
came through the door, he found his comrade

242

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT

flat on his back, bound and gagged, and the
shining muzzles of two short and murderous-
looking revolvers leveled at his breast. He was
a swarthy breed, scarcely larger than the doc-
tor himself, and his only remonstrance as his
hands were fastened behind his back was a
brief outburst of very bad and very excited
French which the professor stopped with a
threatening flourish of his gun.

"You'll do," he said, standing off to survey
his prisoner. "I believe you're harmless enough
to have the use of your legs and mouth." With
a comic bow the little doctor added, "M'sieur,
I'm going to ask you to drive us back to Fort
Smith, and if you so much as look the wrong
way out of your eyes I'll blow off your head.
You and your friend are to answer for the kill-
ing of Pierre Thoreau and for the attempted
murder of this young man, who will follow us
to Fort Smith to testify against you."

It was evident that the half-breed did not
understand, and the doctor added a few explan-

243

PHILIP STEELE

atory words in French. The man on the floor
groaned and struggled until he was red in
the face.

"Easy, easy," soothed the doctor. "I appre-
ciate the fact that it is pretty tough luck. Dob-
son, but you'll have to take your medicine.
Falkner, if you'll lend a hand in getting me off
I won't lose much time in starting for Fort
Smith."

It was a strange-looking outfit that set out
from Pierre Thoreau's cabin half an hour later.
Ahead of the team which had come that morn-
ing walked the breed, his left arm bound to his
side with a bdbiche thong. On the sledge be-
hind him lay an inanimate and blanket-
wrapped bundle, which was Dobson ; and close
at the rear of the sledge, stripped of his great-
coat and more than ever like a diminutive
drum-major, followed Dudley McGill, profes-
sor of neurology and diseases of the brain,
with a bulldog revolver in his mittened hand.

From the door Falkner watched them go.

244

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT

Six hours later Philip returned from the
east. Falkner saw him coming up from the
creek and went to meet him.

"I found the cabin, but no one was there,"
said Philip. "It has been deserted for a long
time. No tracks in the snow, everything inside
frozen stiff, and what signs I did find were of
a woman !"

The muscles of Falkner's face gave a sudden
twitch. "A woman !" he exclaimed.

"Yes, a woman,'' repeated Philip, "and there
was a photograph of her on a table in the bed-
room. Did this Dobson have a wife?"

Falkner had fallen a step behind him as they
entered the cabin.

"A long time ago— a woman was there," he
said. "She was a young woman, and — and
almost beautiful. But she wasn't his wife."

"She was pretty," replied Philip, "so pretty
that I brought her picture along for my col-
lection at home." He looked about for McGill.
"Where's the doctor?"

345

PHILIP STEELE

Falkner's face was very white as he
plained what had happened during the other^s
absence. ' \

"He said that he would camp early this after- f
noon so that you could overtake them," he fin-
ished after he had described the capture and the ^
doctor's departure. "The doctor thought yott .i
would want to lose no time in getting the piis- ;
oners to Fort Smith, and that he could get a
good start before night. To-morrow or the '"
next day I am going to follow with the other
team. Td go with you if he hadn't comtnandcd
me to remain here and nurse my head for anr
other twenty-four hours."

Philip shrugged his shoulders, and the two
had little to say as they ate their dinnen.
After an hour's rest he prepared a light pack
and took up the doctor's trail. Inwardly he
rankled at the unusual hand which the little
professor was playing in leaving Pierre's cabin;
wilh the prisoners, and yet he was confident
rhat AIcGill would wait for him. Mile aftet

246

i: . :■

. «• •

•r '

fROFKKTf

OF THt

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT

mile he traveled down the creek. At dusk there
was no sign of his new friend. Just before
dark he climbed a dead stub at the summit of
a high ridge and half a dozen miles of the tm-
broken barren stretched out before his eyes.
At six o'clock he stopped to cook some tea and
warm his meat and bannock. After that he
traveled until ten, then built a big fire and gave
up the pursuit until morning. At dawn he
started again, and not until the forenoon was
half gone did he find where the doctor had
stopped to camp.

The ashes of his fire were still warm beneath
and the snow was trampled hard around them.
In the north the clouds were piling up, betoken-
ing a storm such as it was not well for a man
in Philip's condition of fatigue to face. Al-
ready some flavor of the approaching blizzard
was carried to him on the wind.

So he hurried on. Fortunately the storm
died away after an hour or two of fierce wind.
Still he did not come up with McGill, and he

247

PHILIP STEELE

camped again for the night, cursing the little
professor who was racing on ahead of him.

It was noon of the following day when he
came in sight of the few log cabins at Fort
Smith, situated in a treeless and snow-smoth-
ered sweep of the plain on the other side of
the Slave. He crossed the river and hurried
past the row of buildings that led to post head-
quarters. In front of the company office were
gathered a little crowd of men, women and
children. He pushed his way through and
stopped at the bottom of the three log steps
which led up to the door.

At the top was Professor McGill, coming out.
His face was a puzzle. His eyes had in them
a stony stare as he gazed down at Philip. Then
he descended slowly, like one moving in a
dream.

"Good Heavens,'* he said huskily, and only
for Philip's ears, "do you know what I've done,
Phil?"

"WTiat ?" demanded Philip.

248

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT

The doctor came down to the last step.

"Phil," he whispered, "that fellow we found
with a broken head played a nice game on me.
He was a criminal, and I've brought back to
Fort Smith no less person than the man sent
out to arrest him, Corporal Dobson, of the
Mounted Police, and his driver, Francois
Something-or-Other. Heavens, ain't it funny ?"

That same afternoon Corporal Dobson and
the half-breed set out again in quest of Falk-
ner, and this time they were accompanied by
Pierre Thoreau, who learned for the first time
what had happened in his cabin. The doctor
disappeared for the rest of the day, but early
the next morning he hunted Phil up and took
him to a cabin half a mile down the river. A
team of powerful dogs, an unusually large
sledge, and two Indians were at the door.

"I bought 'em last night," explained the doc-
tor, "and we're going to leave for the south
to-day."

PHILIP STEELE*

«1

'Giving up your hunt ?" asked Philip.

'No, it's ended," replied McGill in a matter-
of-fact way. "It ended at Pierre Thoreau's
cabin. Falkner was the third man to work out
my experiment."

Philip stopped in his tracks, and the doctor
stopped, and turned toward him.

"But the third—" Philip began.

The little doctor continued to smile.

"There are more things in Heaven and earth,
Philip," he quoted, "than are dreamed of in
your philosophy. This love experiment has
turned out wrongly, as far as preconceived
theories are concerned, but when I think of the
broader, deeper significance of it all I am —
pleased is not the word."

"What I can't see — " Philip was stopped
by the doctor's lifted hand.

"You see, I am relying on your word of
honor, Phil," he explained, laughing softly at
the amazement which he saw in the other's
face. "It's all so wonderful that I want you

250

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT

to know the end of it, and how happily it has
turned out for me — and the little woman wait-
ing for me back home. It was I and not Falk-
ner who cried out just before you turned the
lamp-wick down. A letter had fallen from his
coat pocket, and it was one of my letters — ^sent
through my agent. Understand? I sent you
for the ice, and while you were gone*I told him
who I was, and he told me why I had never
heard from him, and why he was in Pierre
Thoreau's cabin. My agent had sent him north
with five hundred dollars as a first payment.
To cut a long story short, he got into a card
game in Prince Albert — as the best of us do
at times — ^and as a result become mixed up in
a quarrel, in which he pretty nearly killed a
man. They've been after him ever since, and
almost had him when we found him, injured by
a blow which he received in an ugly fall earlier
in the night. It's the last and total wrecking
of my theory."

"But the girl—" urged Philip)

251'

PHILIP STEELE

"We're going to see her now, and she will
tell you the whole story as she told it to me,"
said the doctor, as calmly as before. "Ah, but
it's wonderful, man — this great, big, human
love that fills the world ! They two met at Nel-
son House, as I had planned they should, and
four months after that they smashed my theory
by being married by a missionary from York
Factory. I mean that they smashed the bad
part of it, Phil, but all three couples proved the
other — that there exist no such things as 'soul
affinities,' and that two normal people of oppo-
site sexes, if thrown together under certain
environment, will as naturally mate as two
birds, and will fight and die for one an-
other afterward, too. There may not be one
in ten thousand who believes it, but I do-
still. At the last moment the man in Falkner
tritunphed over his love and he told her what
he was, that up until the moment he met her he
drank and gambled, and that for his shooting
a man in Prince Albert he would sooner or

252

WHAT CAME OF THE EXPERIMENT

later get a term in prison. And she? I tell
you that she busted my theory to a frazzle!
She loved him, as I now believe every woman in
the world is capable of loving, and she married
him, and stuck to him through thick and thin,
fled with him when he was compelled to nm —
and her faith in him now is like that of a child
in its God. For a time they lived in that cabin
above Pierre Thorcau's, and perhaps they
wouldn't have been found out if they hadn't
come up to Fort Smith for a holiday. Falkner
told me that his pursuers would surely stop at
Pierre's, and so we fixed up that little scheme
to get rid of you so that you would in no way
be to blame for what happened. He told me
where I'd find his wife. By this time he has a
good start for the States, and will be there by
the time I get his wife down."

Philip had not spoken a word. Almost me-
chanically he pulled the photograph from his
pocket.

"And this—" he said,

25a

PHILIP STEELE

The doctor laughed as he took the picture
from his hand.

"Is Mrs. William Falkncr, Phil. Come in.
I'm anxious to have you meet her/'

CHAPTER XV

Philip's last assignment

PHILIP, instead of following the doctor,
laid a detaining hand upon his arm.

"Wait !" he said.

Something in the seriousness of his manner
drew a quick look of apprehension over the
other's face.

"I want to talk with you," continued Philip.
*'Let us walk a little way down the trail."

The doctor eyed him suspiciously as they
turned away from the cabin.

"See here, Phil Steele," he said, and there
was a hard ring in his voice, "I've had all sorts
of confidence in you, and I've told you more,
perhaps, than I ought. I don't suppose you
have a suspicion that you ought to break it ?"

'Nq, it isn't that/' replied Philip, laughing

PHILIP STEELE

a little uneasily. "Fm glad you got away with
Falkner, and so far as I am concerned no one
will ever know what has happened. It's I who
want to place a little confidence in you now. I
am positively at my wits* end, and all over a
situation which seems to place you and me in a
class by ourselves — sort of brothers in trouble,
you know," and he told McGill, briefly, of Iso-
bel, and his search for her.

"I lost them between Lac Bain and Fort
Churchill," he finished. "The two sledges sep-
arated, one continuing to Churchill, and the
other turning into the South. I followed the
Churchill sledge — ^and was wrong. When I
came back the snow had covered the other
trail."

The little professor stopped suddenly and
squared himself directly in Philip's path.

"You don't say!" he gasped. There was a
look of amazement on his face.

"What a wonderfully little world this is,
Phil," he added, smiling in a curious way.

256

PHILIP'S LAST ASSIGNMENT

"What a wonderfully, wonderfully little world
it is ! It's only a playground, after all, and the
funny part of it is that it is not even large
enough to play a game of hide-and-seek in,
successfully. I've proved that beyond question.
And here — ^you — "

"What?" demanded Philip, puzzled by the
other's attitude.

"Well, you see, I went first to Nelson
House," said McGill, "and from there up to the
Hudson's Bay Company's post in the Cochrane
River, hunting for Falkner and this girl — ^a
man and a woman. And at the Cochrane Post
a Frenchman told me that there was a strange
man and woman up at Lac Bain, and I set oft
for there. That must have been just about the
time you were starting for Churchill, for on
the third day up I met a sledge that turned me
off the Lac Bain trail to take up the nearer trail
to Chippewayan. With this sledge were the
two who had been at Lac Bain, Colonel Becker
and his daughter."

257

PHILIP STEELE

For a moment Philip could not speak. He
caught the other's hand excitedly.

"You — ^you found where they were going?"
he asked, when McGill did not continue.

"Yes. We ate dinner together, and the colo-
nel said they were bound for Nelson House,
and that they would probably go from there
to Winnipeg. I didn't ask which way they
would go."

"From Nelson House it would be by the
Saskatchewan and Le Pas trail," cried Philip.
He was looking straight over the little doctor's
head. "If it wasn't for this damnable DeBar
— ^whom I ought to go after again — "

"Drop DeBar," interrupted McGill quietly.
"He's got too big a start of you anyway —
so what's the use? Drop 'im. I dropped a
whole lot of things when I came up here."

"But the law—"

"Damn the law !" exploded the doctor with
unexpected vehemence. "Sometimes I think
the world would be just as happy without it"

258

PHILIP'S LAST ASSIGNMENT

Their eyes met, sharp and understanding.

"You're a professor in a college," chuckled
Philip, his voice trembling again with hope and
eagerness. "You ought to know more than
I do. What would you do if you were in my
place?"

"I'd hustle for a pair of wings and fly," re-
plied the little professor promptly. "Grood
Lord, Phil — ^if it was my wife — and I hadn't
got her yet — I wouldn't let up until I'd chased
her from one end of the earth to the other.
What's a little matter of duty compared to that
girl hustling toward Winnipeg? Next to my
own little girl at home she's the prettiest thing
I ever laid my eyes on."

Philip laughed aloud.

"Thanks, McGill. By Heaven, I'll go ! When
do you start ?"

"The dogs are ready, and so is Mrs. William
Falkner."

Philip turned about quickly.

I'll go over and say good-by to the detach-

259

«TM

PHILIP STEELE

ment, and get my pack," he said over his shoul-
der. "I'll be back inside of half an hour."

It was a slow trip down. The snow was be-
ginning to soften in the warmth of the first
spring suns by the time they arrived at Lac
la Crosse. Two days before they reached the
post at Montreal Lake, Philip began to feel the
first discomfort of a strange sickness, of which
he said nothing. But the sharp eyes of the doc-
tor detected that something was wrong, and
before they came to Montreal House he rec-
ognized the fever that had begun to bum in
Philip's body.

"You've set too fast a pace," he told him.
"It's that — ^and the blow you got when DeBar
threw you against the rock. You'll have to lay
up for a spell."

In spite of his protestations, the doctor com-
pelled him to go to bed when they arrived at
the post. He grew rapidly worse, and for five
weeks the doctor and Falkner's wife nursed

260

PHILIP'S LAST ASSIGNMENT

him through the fever. When they left for the
South, late in May, he was still too weak to
travel, and it was a month later before he pre-
sented himself, pale and haggard, before In-
spector MacGregor at Prince Albert. Again
disappointment was awaiting him. There had
been delay in purchasing his discharge, and he
found that he would have to wait until August
MacGregor gave him a three weeks' furlough,
and his first move was to go up to Etomami and
Le Pas. Colonel Becker and Isobel had been
at those places six weeks before. He could find
no trace of their having stopped at Prince Al-
bert. He ran down to Winnipeg and spent sev-
eral days in making inquiries which proved the
hopelessness of any longer expecting to find
Isobel in Canada. He assured himself that by
this time they were probably in London and he
made his plans accordingly. His discharge
would come to him by the tenth of August, and
he would immediately set off for England
Upon his return to Prince Albert h« was de-

261

PHILIP STEELE

tailed to a big prairie stretch of country where
there was little to do but wait. On the first day
of August he was at Hymers when the Limited
plunged down the embankment into Blind In-
dian River. The first word of it came over the
wire from Bleak House Station a little before
midnight, while he and the agent were playing
cribbage. Pink-cheeked little Gunn, agent, oper-
ator, and one-third of the total population of
Hymers, had lifted a peg to make a count when
his hand stopped in mid-air, and with a gasp-
ing break in his voice he sprang to his feet.

The instrument on the little table near the
window was clicking frantically. It was Bill-
inger, at Bleak House, crying out for head-
quarters, clear lines, the right of way. The
Transcontinental— engine, tender, baggage car,

two coaches and a sleeper, had gone to the
devil. Those, in his excitement, where his first
words. From fifty to a hundred were dead.
Gunn almost swore Billinger's next words to
the line. It was not an accident I Human hands

262

PHILIP'S LAST ASSIGNMENT

had torn up three sections of rail. The same
human hands had rolled a two-ton boulder in
the right of way. He did not know whether the
express car — or what little remained of it —
had been robbed or not.

From midnight until two o'clock the lines
were hot. A wrecking train was on its way
from the east, another from division head-
quarters to the west. Ceaselessly headquarters
demanded new information, and bit by bit the
terrible tragedy was told even as the men and
women in it died and the few souls from the
prairies around Bleak House Station fought to
save lives. Then a new word crept in on the
wires. It called for Philip Steele at Hymers.
It commanded him in the name of Inspector
MacGregor of the Royal Mounted to reach
Bleak House Station without delay. What he
was to do when he arrived at the scene of the
wreck was left to his own judgment.

The wire from MacGregor aroused Philip
from the stupor of horror into which he had

263

PHILIP STEELE

fallen. Gunn's girlish face was as white as a
sheet.

"I've got a jigger," he said, "and you can
take it. It's forty miles to Bleak House and
you can make it in three hours. There won't
be a train for six."

Philip scribbled a few words for MacGregor
and shoved them into Gunn's nervous hand.
While the operator was sending them off he
rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and buckled on
his revolver belt. Then Gimn hurried him
through the door and they lifted the velocipede
on the track.

"Wire Billinger I'm coming," called back
Philip as Gunn started him off with a nmning
shove.

264

CHAPTER XVI

A LOCK OF GOLDEN HAIR

AS the sun was rising in a burning August
JljL glare over the edge of the parched
prairie, Philip saw ahead of him the unpainted
board shanty that was called Bleak House Sta-
tion, and a few moments later he saw a man
run out into the middle of the track and stare
down at him from under the shade of his
hands. It was Billinger, his English-red face
as white as he had left Gunn's, his shirt in rags,
arms bare, and his tremendous blond mus-
taches crisped and seared by fire. Gose to the
station, fastened to posts, were two saddle-
horses. A mile beyond these things a thin film
of smoke clouded the sky.

As the jigger stopped Philip jumped from
his seat and held out a blistered hand. 'I'm

265

PHILIP STEELE

Steele— Philip ' Steele, of the Northwest
Mounted."

"And I'm Billinger — ^agent," said the other.
Philip noticed that the hand that gripped his
own was raw and bleeding. "I got your word,
and Fve received instructions from the depart-
ment to place myself at your service. My wife
is at the key. I've found the trail, and I've
got two horses. But there isn't another man
who'll le^ve up there for love o' God or money.
It's horrible ! Two hours ago you'd 'ave heard
their screams from where you're standing — ^thc
hurt, I mean. They won't leave the wreck —
not a man, and I don't blame 'em."

A pretty, brown-haired young woman had
come to the door and Billinger ran to her.
"Good-by," he cried, taking her for a moment
in his big arms. "Take care of the key !" He
turned as. quickly to the horses, talking as they
mounted. "It was robbery," he said — and they
set off at a canter, side by side. "There was
two hundred thousand in currency in the ex-

266

A LOCK OF GOLDEN HAIR

press car, and it's gone. I found their trail this
morning, going into the North. They're hitting
for what we call the Bad Lands over beyond
the Coyote, twenty miles from here. I don't
suppose there's any time to lose — "

"No," said Philip. "How many are there?'*

"Four — ^mebby more."

Billinger started his horse into a gallop and
Philip purposely held his mount behind to look
at the other man. The first law of MacGreg-
or's teaching was to study men, and to suspect.
It was the first law of the splendid service of
which he was a part — and so he looked hard at
Billinger. The Englishman was hatless. His
sandy hair was cropped short, and his mus-
taches floated out like flexible horns from the
sides of his face. His shirt was in tatters. In
one place it was ripped clean of the shoulder
and Philip saw a purplish bruise where the
flesh was bare. He knew these for the marks
of Billinger's presence at the wreck. Now the
man was equipped for other business. A huge

267

PHILIP STEELE

"forty- four" hung at his waist, a short carbine
swung at his saddle-bow ; and there was some-
thing in the manner of his riding, in the hunch
of his shoulders, and in the vicious sweep of
his long mustaches, that satisfied Philip he was
a man who could use them. He rode up along-
side of him with a new confidence. They were
coming to the top of a knoll; at the summit
Billinger stopped and pointed down into a hol-
low a quarter of a mile away.

"It will be a loss of time to go down there,"
he said, "and it will do no good. See that thing
that looks like a big log in the river? That's
the top of the day coach. It went in right side
up, and the conductor — ^who wasn't hurt — says
there were twenty people in it. We watched it
settle from the shore, and we couldn't do a
thing — while they were dying in there like so
many caged rats ! The other coach burned, and
that heap of stuff you see there is what's left of
the Pullman and the baggage car. There's
twenty-seven dead stretched out along the

268

A LOCK OF GOLDEN HAIR

track, and a good many hurt. Great Heavens,
listen to that !"

He shuddered, and Philip shuddered, at the
wailing sound of grief and pain that came up
to them.

"It'U be a loss of time — ^to go down," re-
peated the agent.

"Yes, it would be a loss of time," agreed
Philip.

His blood was burning at fever heat when he
raised his eyes from the scene below to Billin-
ger's face. Every fighting fiber in his body was
tingling for action, and at the responsive glare
which he met in Billinger's eyes he thrust his
hand half over the space that separated them.

"Well get 'em, BiUinger," he cried. "By
God, we'll get 'em !"

There was something ferocious in the crush
of the other's hand. The Englishman's teeth
gleamed for an instant between his seared mus-
taches as he heeled his mount into a canter
along the back of the ridge. Five minutes later

269

PHILIP STEELE

the knoll dipped again into the plain and at the
foot of it Billinger stopped his horse for a sec-
ond and pointed to fresh hoof-marks in the
prairie sod. Philip jumped from his horse and
examined the ground.

"There are five in the gang, Billinger," he
said shortly. "All of them were galloping —
but one." He looked up to catch Billinger lean-
ing over the pommel of his saddle staring at
something almost directly under his horse's
feet.

"What's that?" he demanded. "A hand-
kerchief?"

Philip picked it up— a dainty bit of fine linen,
crumpled and sodden by dew, and held it out
between the forefinger and thumb of both
hands.

"Yes, and a woman's handkerchief. Now
what the devil — "

He stopped at the look in Billinger's face as
he reached down for the handkerchief. The
square jaws of the man were set like steel

270

A LOCK OF GOLDEN HAIR

springs, but Philip noticed that his hand was
trembling.

"A woman in the gang/' he laughed as
Philip mounted.

They started out at a canter, Billinger still
holding the bit of linen close under his eyes.
After a little he passed it back to Philip who
was riding close beside him.

"Something happened last night," he said,
looking straight ahead of him, "that I can't
understand. I didn't tell my wife. I haven't
told any one. But I guess you ought to know.
It's interesting, anyway — and has made a
wreck of my nerves." He wiped his face with
a blackened rag which he drew from his hip
pocket. "We were working hard to get out the
living, leaving the dead where they were for a
time, and I had crawled under the wreck of the
sleeper. I was sure that I had heard a cry, and
crawled in among the debris, shoving a lantern
ahead of me. About where Berth Number Ten
should have been, the timbers had telescoped

271

PHILIP STEELE

upward, leaving an open space four or five feet
high. I was on my hands and knees, bare-
headed, and my lantern lighted up things as
plain as day. At first I saw nothing, and was
listening again for the cry when I felt some-
thing soft and light sweeping down over me,
and I looked up. Heavens — "

Billinger was mopping his face again, leaving
streaks of char-black where the perspiration
had started.

"Pinned up there in the mass of twisted steel
and broken wood was a woman," he went on.
"She was the most beautiful thing I have ever
looked upon. Her arms were reaching down to
me ; her face was turned a little to one side, but
still looking at me — ^and all but her face and
part of her arms was smothered in a mass of
red-gold hair that fell down to my shoulders. I
could have sworn that she was alive. Her lips
Were red, and I thought for a moment that she
was going to speak to me. I could have sworn,
too, that there was color in her face, but it must

272

A LOCK OF GOLDEN HAIR

have been something in the lantern light and
the red-gold of her hair, for when I spoke, and
then reached up, she was cold."

Billinger shivered and urged his horse into a
faster gait.

"I went out and helped with the injured then.
I guess it must have been two hours later when
I returned to take out her body. But the place
where I had seen her was empty. She was
gone. At first I thought that some of the
others had carried her out, and I looked among
the dead and injured. She was not among
them. I searched again when day came, with
the same result. No one has seen her. She has
completely disappeared — and with the excep-
tion of my shanty there isn*t a house within ten
miles of here where she could have been taken.
What do you make of it, Steele?"

Philip had listened with tense interest.

"Perhaps you didn't return to the right
place," he suggested. "Her body may still be
in the wreck."

273

PHILIP STEELE

Billinger glanced toward him with a nervous
laugh.

"But it was the right place," he said. "She
had evidently not gone to bed, and was dressed.
When I returned I found a part of her skirt
in the debris above. A heavy tress of her hair
had caught around a steel ribbing, and it was
cut off! Some one had been there during my
absence and had taken the body. I — I'm al-
most ready to believe that I was mistaken, and
that she was alive. I found nothing there, noth-
ing — that could prove her death.

"Is it possible — " began Philip, holding out
the handkerchief.

It was not necessary for him to finish. Bill-
inger understood, and nodded his head.

"That's what I'm thinking," he said. "Is
it possible? What in God's name would they
want of her, unless — '*

"Unless she was alive," added Philip. "Un-
less one or more of the scoundrels searching for
valuables in there during the excitement, saw

274

A LOCK OF GOLDEN HAIR

her and carried her oflF with their other booty.
It's up to us, BilHnger !"

Billinger had reached inside his shirt, and
now he drew forth a small paper parcel.

"I don't know why — ^but I kept the tress of
hair," he said. "See—"

From between his fingers, as he turned to-
ward Philip, there streamed out a long silken
tress that shone a marvelous gold in the sun,
and in that same instant there fell from Philip's
lips a cry such as Billinger had not heard, even
from the lips of the wounded; and before he
could recover from his astonishment, he had
leaned over and snatched the golden tress from
him, and sat in his saddle staring at it like a
madman.

275

CHAPTER XVII

THE GIRL IN THE WRECK

IN that moment of terrible shock — in the one
moment when it seemed to him as though
no other woman in the world could have worn
that golden tress of hair but Isobel, Philip had
stopped his horse, and his face had gone as
white as death. With a tremendous effort he
recovered himself, and saw Billinger staring at
him as though the hot sun had for an instant
blinded him of reason. But the lock of hair
still rippled and shone before his eye& Only
twice in his life could he remember having seen
hair just like this-*that peculiar reddish gold
that changed its lights with every passing cloud
He had seen it on Isobel, in the firelight of the
camp, at Lac Bain — ^and he had seen it crown-
ing the beautiful head of the girl back home,

2j6

THE GIRL IN THE WRECK

the girl of the hyacinth letter. He struggled to
calm himself under the questioning gaze of
Billinger's eyes. He laughed, wound the hair
carefully about his fingers, and put it in his coat
pocket.

"You — ^you have given me a shock," he said,
straining to keep his voice even. "I'm glad you
had foresight enough to keep the lock of hair,
Billinger. At first — I jumped to a conclusion.
But there's only one chance in a hundred that
I'm right. If I should be right — I know the
girl. Do you understand — why it startled me ?
Now for the chase, Billinger. Lead away !"

Leaning low over their saddles they galloped
into the North. For a time the trail of the five
outlaws was so distinct that they rode at a
speed which lathered their horses. Then the
short prairie grass, crisp and sun-dried, gave
place to a broad sweep of wire grass above
which the yellow backs of coyotes were visible
as now and then they bobbed up in their quick,
short leaps to look over the top of it In this

277

PHILIP STEELE

brown sea all trace of the trail was lost from
the saddle and both men dismounted. Foot by
foot they followed the faint signs ahead of
them, while over their backs the sun rose higher
and began to bum with the dry furnace-like
heat that had scorched the prairies. So slow
was their progress that after a time Billinger
straightened himself with a nervous curse. The
perspiration was running in dirty streaks down
his face. Before he had spoken Philip read the
fear that was in his eyes and tried to hide the
reflection of it in his own. It was too hot to
smoke, but he drew forth a case of cigarettes
and offered one to Billinger. The agent ac-
cepted one, and both lighted in silence, eying
each other over their matches.

"Won't do," said Billinger, spitting on his
match before tossing it among the grass. "It's
ten miles across this wire-dip, and we won't
make it until night — if we make it at all. I've
got an idea. You're a better trailer than I am/
so you follow this through. I'll ride on and

278

THE GIRL IN THE WRECK

see if I can pick up the trail somewhere in the
edge of the clean prairie. What do you say?"

"Good!" said Philip. "I believe you can
do it."

Billinger leaped into his saddle and was off
at a gallop. Philip was almost eagerly anxious
for this opportimity, and scarcely had the other
gone when he drew the linen handkerchief and
the crumpled lock of hair from his pocket and
held them in his hand as he looked after the
agent. Then, slowly, he raised the handker-
chief to his face. For a full minute he stood
with the dainty fabric pressed to his lips and
nose. Back there — ^when he had first held the
handkerchief — ^he thought that he imagined.
But now he was sure. Faintly the bit of soiled
fabric breathed to him the sweet scent of h)ra-
cinth. His eyes shone in an eager bloodshot
glare as he watched Billinger disappear over a
roll in the prairie a mile away.

"Making a fool of yourself again/' he mut-
tered, again winding the golden hair about his

279

PHILIP STEELE

fingers. "There are other women in the rorld
who use hyacinth besides her. And there are
other women with red-gold hair — ^and pretty,
pretty as Billinger says she was, aren't there ?"

He laughed, but there was something uneasy
and unnatural in the laugh. In spite of his ef-
forts to argue the absurdity of his thoughts, he
could feel that he was trembling in every nerve
of his body. And twice — ^three times he held
the handkerchief to his face before he reached
the rise in the prairie over which Billinger had
disappeared. The agent had been gone an hour
when the trail of the outlaws brought him to
the knoll. From the top of it Philip looked
over the prairie to the North.

A horseman was galloping toward him. He
knew that it was Billinger, and stood up in his
stirrups so that the other would see him. Half
a mile away the agent stopped and Philip could
see him signaling frantically with both arms.
Five minutes later Philip rode up to him,
Billinger's horse was half-winded» and in

280

THE GIRL IN THE WRECK

Billingcr*s face there were tense lines of ex-
citement.

"There's some one out on the prairie," he
called, as Philip reined in. "I couldn't make
out a horse, but there's a man in the trail be-
yond the second ridge. I believe they've
stopped to water their horses and feed at a
little lake just this side of the rough country."

Billinger had loosened his carbine, and was
examining the breech. He glanced anxiously
at Philip's empty saddle-straps.

"It'll be long-range shooting, if they've got
guns," he said. "Sorry I couldn't find a gun
for you."

Philip drew one of his two long-barreled
service revolvers and set his lips in a grim and
reassuring smile as he followed the bobbing
head of a coyote some distance away.

"We're not considered proficient in the serv-
ice unless we can make use of these things at
two hundred yards, Billinger," he replied, re-
placing the weapon in its holsten "If it's a

2811

PHILIP STEELE

running fight I'd rather have 'em than a car-
bine. If it isn't a running fight we'll come in
close."

Philip looked at the agent as they galloped
side by side through the long grass, and Bil-
linger looked at him. In the face of each there
was something which gave the other assurance.
For the first time it struck Philip that his com-
panion was something more than an operator
at Bleak House Station. He was a fighter. He
was a man of the stamp needed down at Head-
quarters, and he was bound to tell him so be-
fore this affair was over. He was thinking of
it when they came to the second ridge-
Five miles to the north and west loomed the
black line of the Bad Lands. To a tenderfoot
they would not have appeared to be more than
a mile distant. Midway in the prairie between
there toiled a human figure. Even at that dis-
tance Philip and Billinger could see that it was
moving, though with a slowness that puzzled
them. For several minutes they stood breath-

2Si

THE GIRL IN THE WRECK

ing their horses, their eyes glued on the object
ahead of them. Twice in a space of a hundred
yards it seemed to stumble and fall. The sec-
ond time that it rose Philip knew that it was
standing motionless. Then it disappeared
again. He stared until the rolling heat waves
of the blistered prairie stung his eyes. The ob-
ject did not rise. Blinking, he looked at Bil-
linger, and through the sweat and grime of the
other's face he saw the question that was on his
own lips. Without a word they spurred down
the slope, and after a time Billinger swept to
the right and Philip to the left, each with his
eyes searching the low prairie grass. The
agent saw the thing first, still a htmdred yards
to his right He was off his horse wfhen
Philip whirled at his shout and galloped across
to him.

**It's her — ^the girl I found in the wreck," he
said. Something seemed to be choking hint
His neck muscles twitched and his long, lean
fingers were digging into his own flesh.

28a

PHILIP STEELE

In an instant Philip was on his feet. He
saw nothing of the girl's face, hidden under
a mass of hair in which the sun burned like
golden fire. He saw nothing but the crumpled,
lifeless form, smothered under the shining
mass, and yet in this moment he knew. With
a fierce cry he dropped upon his knees and
drew away the girl's hair until her lovely face
lay revealed to him in terrible pallor and still-
ness, and as Billinger stood there, tense and
staring, he caught that face close to his breast,
and began talking to it as though he had gone
mad.

"Isobcl — Isobel — Isobel — " he moaned. "My
God, my Isobel — "

He had repeated the name a hundred times,
when Billinger, who began to understand, put
his hand on Philip's shoulder and gave him
his water canteen.

"She's not dead, man," he said, as Philip's
red eyes glared up at him. "Here — ^water."

"Mjr God — it's strange," almost moaned

THE GIRL IN THE WRECK

Philip. *'Billinger — ^you understand — she's go-
ing to be my wife — if she lives — "

That was all of the story he told, but Bil-
linger knew what those few words meant.

"She's going to live," he said. "See —
there's color coming back into her face — she's
breathing." He bathed her face in water, and
placed the canteen to her lips.

A moment later Philip bent down and kissed
her. "Isobel — ^my sweetheart — " he whispered.

"We must hurry with her to the water hole,"
said Billinger, laying a sympathetic hand on
Philip's shoulder. "It's the stm. Thank God,
nothing has happened to her, Steele. It's the
Sim — ^this terrible heat — "

He almost pulled Philip to his feet, and when
he had mounted Billinger lifted the girl very
gently and gave her to him.

Then, with the agent leading in the trail of
the outlaws, they set off at a walk through the
sickening sun-glare for the water hole in the
edge of the Bad Lands.

2851

CHAPTER XVIII

TBE BATTLE IN TBE CAHTtOV

HUNCHED over, with Isobd's head shel-
tered against his breast, Philip rode a
dozen paces behind the agent. It seemed as if
the sun had suddenly burst in molten fire upon
the back of his neck, and for a time it made
him dizzy. His bridle reins hung loosely over
the pommel. He made no effort to guide his
horse, which followed after Billinger's.

It was Billinger who brought him back to
himself. The agent waited for them, and
when he swung over in one stirrup to look at
the girl it was the animal ferocity in his face,
and not his words, that aroused Philip.

"She's coming to," he said, straining to keep
the tremble out of his voice. "I don't believe
she's much hurt. You take this canteen. I'm
going ahead."

286

THE BATTLE IN THE CANYON

He gave Philip the water and leaned over
again to gaze into the girl's face.

"I don't believe she's much hurt," he re-
peated in a hoarse, dry whisper. ''You can
leave her at the water hole just beyond that
hill off there — ^and then you can follow me."

Philip clutched the girl tighter to him as the
agent rode off. He saw the first faint flush
returning into her cheeks, t)ie reddening of her
lips, the gentle tremor of her silken lashes, and
forgetful of all else but her, he moaned her
name, cried out his love for her, again and
again, even as her eyes opened and she stared
up into the face of the man who had come to
her first at Lac Bain, and who had fought for
her there. For a breath or two the wonder of
this thing that was happening held her speech-
less and still lifeless, though her senses were
adjusting themselves with lightning swiftness.
At first Philip had not seen her open eyes, and
he believed that she did not hear the words of
love he whispered in her hair. When he raised

28a

PHILIP STEELE

her face a little from his breast she was loolc-
ing at him with all the sweet sanity in tfaa
world.

A moment there was silence — a silence of
even the breath in Philip's body, the beating of
his heart. His arms loosened a little. He
drew himself up rigid, and the girl lifted her
head a trifle, so that their eyes met squarely,
and a world of question and understanding
passed between them in an instant

As swift as morning glow a flush mounted
into Isobel's face, then ebbed as swiftly, and
Philip cried : "You were hurt — ^hurt back there
in the wreck. But you're safe now. The
train was wrecked by outlaws. We came out
after them, and I — I found you — back there on
the prairie. You're safe now."

His arms tightened about her again.

"You're all right now," he repeated gently.
He was not conscious of the sobbing break in
his voice, or of the great, throbbing love that
it breathed to her. He tried to speak calmly.

288

THE BATTLE IN THE CANYON

"There's nothing wrong — ^nothing. The heat
made you sick. But you're all right now — "

From beyond the hill there came a sotmd
that made him break off with a sudden, quick
breath. It was the sharp, stinging report of
Billinger's carbine 1 Once, twice, three times —
and then there followed more distant shots 1

"He's come up with theml" he cried. The
fury of fight, of desire for vengeance, blazed
anew in his face. There was pain in the grip
of his arm about the girL "Do you feel strong
— strong enough to ride fast?" he asked.
'There's only one man with me, and there are
five of thenL It's murder to let him fight it
alone!"

"Yes— yes — " whispered the girl, her arms
tightening round him. "Ride fast— or put me
off. I can follow — "

It was the first time that h^ had heard her
voice since that last evening up at Lac Bain,
many months before, and the sound of it
thrilled him.

289

PHILIP STEELE

"Hold tight!" he breathed.

Like the wind they swept across the prairie
and up the slope of the hill. At the top Philip
reined in. Three or four hundred yards dis-
tant lay a thick clump of poplar trees and a
thousand yards beyond that the first black es-
carpments of the Bad Lands. In the space
between a horseman was galloping fiercely to
the west It was not Billinger. With a quick
movement Philip slipped the girl to the ground,
and when she sprang a step back, looking up at
him in white terror, he had whipped out one of
his big service revolvers.

"There's a little lake over there among those
trees," he said. "Wait there — ^until I come
back!"

He raced down the slope — ^not to cut off the
flying horseman — but toward the clump of
poplars. It was Billinger he was thinking of
now. The agent had fired three shots. There
had followed other shots, not Billinger's, and
after that his carbine had remained silent.

290

THE BATTLE IN THE CANYON

Billinger was among the poplars. He was hurt
or dead.

A well-worn trail, beaten down by transient
rangers, cut through the stunted growth of
prairie timber, and without checking his speed
Philip sped along it, only his head and shoul-
ders and his big revolver showing over his
horse's ears. A hundred paces and the timber
gave place to a sandy dip, in the center of
which was the water hole. The dip was not
more than an acre in extent. Up to his knees
in the hole was Billinger's riderless horse,
and a little way. up the sand was Billinger,
doubled over on his hands and knees beside
two black objects that Philip knew were men,
stretched out like the dead back at the wreck.
Billinger's yellow-mustached face, pallid and
twisted with pain, looked over- them as Philip
galloped across the open and sprang out of his
saddle. With a terrible grimace he raised
himself to his knees, anticipating the question
on Philip's lips.

PHILIP STEELE

"Nothing very bad, Steele," he said. "One
of the cusses pinked me through the leg, and
broke it, I guess. Painful, but not killing.
Now look at that!"

He nodded to the two men l3ring with their
faces turned up to the hot glare of the sun.
One glance was enough to tell Philip that they
were dead, and that it was not Billinger who
had killed them. Their bearded faces had
stiffened in the first agonies of death. Their
breasts were soaked with blood and their arms
had been drawn down close to their sides.

As he looked the gleam of a metal buckle on
the belt of the dead man nearest him, caught
Philip's eye. He took a step nearer to examine
it and then drew back. This bit of metal told
the story— it bore the letters R. N. W. M. P.

"I thought so," he muttered with a slight
catch in his voice. "You didn't follow my good
advice, Bucky Nome, and now you reap the
harvest of your folly. You have paid your
debt to M'sieur Janettc."

29?

THE BATTLE IN THE CANYON

Then Philip turned quickly and looked back
at Billinger. In his hand the agent held a pa*
per package, which he had torn open. A second
and similar package lay in the sand in front
of him.

"Currency!" he gasped. *T[t's a part of the
money stolen from the express car. The two
hundred thousand was done up in five pack-
ages, and here are two of 'em. Those men
were dead when I came, and each had a pack-
age lying on his breast. The fellow who
pinked me was just leaving the dip 1"

He dropped the package and began ripping
down his trouser leg with a knife. Philip
dropped on his knees beside him, but Billinger
motioned him back.

"It's not bleeding bad," he said. "I can fix
it alone."

"You're certain, Billinger — "

"Sure I" laughed the agent, though he was
biting his lips until they were flecked with
blood. "There's no need of you watting time.""

393

PHILIP STEELE *

For a moment Philip clutched the other's
hand.

"We can't understand what this all means,
old man — the carrying off ofr— of Isobcl — and
the money here, but we'll find out soon !"

"Leave that confounded carbine," exclaimed
Billinger, as the other rose to mount. "I did
rotten work with it, and the other fellow fixed
me with a pistol. That's why I'm not bleed-
ing very much."

The outlaw had disappeared in the black
edge of the Bad Lands when Philip dashed up
out of the dip into the plain. There was only
one break ahead of him, and toward this he
urged his horse. In the entrance to the break
there was another sandy but waterless dip, and
across this trailed the hoof-prints of the out-
laws' mounts, two at a walk— one at a gallop.
At one time, ages before, the break had been
the outlet of a stream pouring itself out be-
tween jagged and cavernous walls of rock from
the black heart of the upheaved country within.

294

THE BATTLE IN THE CANYON

Now the bed of it was strewn with broken trap
and masses of boulders, cracked and dried by
centuries of blistering sun.

Philip's heart beat a little faster as he urged
his horse ahead, and not for an instant did his
cocked revolver drop from its guard over the
mare's ears. He knew, if he overtook the out-
laws in retreat, that there would be a fight, and
that it would be three against one. That was
what he hoped for. It was an ambush that he
dreaded. He realized that if the outlaws
stopped and waited for him he would be at a
terrible disadvantage. In open fight he was con-
fident His prairie-bred mount took the rough
trail at a swift canter, evading the boulders
and knife-edged trap in the same guarded man-
ner that she galloped over prairie-dog and
badger holes out upon the plain. Twice in
the ten minutes that followed their entrance
into the chasm Philip saw movement ahead of
him, and each time his revolver leaped to it.
Once it was a wolf, again the swiftly moving

295

PHILIP STEELE

shadow of an eagle sweeping with spread
wings between him and the sun. He watched
every concealment as he approached and half
swung in his saddle in passing, ready to fire.

A quick turn in the creek bed, where the
rock walls hugged in close, and his mare
planted her forefeet with a suddenness that
nearly sent him over her head. Directly in
their path, struggling to rise from among the
rocks, was a riderless horse. Two htmdred
yards beyond a man on foot was running
swiftly up the chasm, and a pistol shot beyond
him two others on horseback had turned and
were waiting.

"Lord, if I had Billinger's gun now!"
groaned Philip.

At the sound of his voice and the pressure
of his heels in her flank the mare vaulted over
the animal in their path. The clatter of pur-
suing hoofs stopped the runner for an instant,
and in that same instant Philip halted and rose
in his stirrups to fire. As his finger pressed the

296

THE BATTLE IN THE CANYON

trigger there came to his ears a thrilling sound
from behind him — the sharp galloping beat of
steel upon rock! Billinger was coming — Bil-
linger, with his broken leg and his carbine!
He could have shouted for joy as he fired.
Once — twice, and the outlaw was speeding
ahead of him again, unhurt A third shot and
the man stumbled among the rocks and disap-
peared. There was no movement toward re-
treat on the part of the mounted men, and
Philip listened as he slipped in fresh cartridges.
His horse was panting; he could hear the ex-
cited and joyous tumult of his own heart — but
above it all he heard the steady beat, beat, beat
of those approaching hoofs! Billinger would
be there soon — in time to use his carbine at a
deadly rate, while he got into closer qtnrters
with his revolver. God bless Billinger— and
his broken leg !

He was filled with the craze of fight now
and it found vent in a yell of defiance as he
spurred on toward the outlaws. They were

297

PHILIP STEELE

not going to run. They were waiting for him.
He caught the gleam of the hot sim on their
revolvers, and saw that they meant business as
they swung a little apart to divide his fire. At
one hundred yards Philip still held his gun at
his side; at sixty he pulled in his mare, flat-
tened along her neck like an Indian, his pistol
arm swinging free between her ears. It was
one of the cleverest fighting tricks of the serv-
ice, and he made the movement as the guns of
the others leaped before their faces. Two
shots sang over his head, so close that they
would have swept him from the saddle if he
had been erect. In another moment the rock-
bound chasm echoed with the steady roar of
the three revolvers. In front of the flaming
end of his own gun Philip saw the outlaw on
the right pitch forward in his saddle and fall
to the ground. He sent his last shot at the
man on the left and drew his second gun. Be-
fore he could fire again his mare gave a tre-
mendous lunge forward and stumbled upon

298

THE BATTLE IN THE CANYON

her knees, and with a gasp of horror Philip
felt the saddle-girth slip as he swung to free
himself.

In the few terrible seconds that followed
Philip was conscious of two things — ^that death
was very near, and that Billinger was a mo-
ment too late. Less than ten paces away the
outlaw was deliberately taking aim at him,
while his own pistol arm was pinned under the
weight of his body. For a breath he ceased to
struggle, looking up in frozen calmness at the
man whose finger was already crooked to fire.
When a shot suddenly rang out, it passed
through him in a lightning flash that it was the
shot intended for him. But he saw no move-
ment in the outlaw's arm; no smoke from his
gun. For a moment the man sat rigid and stiff
in his saddle. Then his arm dropped. His
revolver fell with a clatter among the stones.
He slipped sidewise with a low groan and
tumbled limp and lifeless almost at Philip's
feet.

299

PHILIP STEELE

"BilHnger— BilUnger— ''

The words came in a sob of joy from Philip's
lips. BillingerTiad come in time — just in time !
He struggled so that he could turn his head
and look down the chasm. Yes, there was
Billinger — a hundred yards away, hunched
over his saddle. Billinger, with his broken
leg, his magnificent courage, his —

With a wild cry Philip jerked himself free.
Good Gk)d, it was not Billinger! It was Iso-
bel ! She had slipped from the saddle — he saw
her as she tottered a few steps among the
rocks and then sank down among them. With
his pistol still in his hand he ran back to where
Billinger's horse was standing. The girl was
crumpled against the side of a boulder, with
her head in her arms — and she was crying. In
an instant he was beside her, and all that he
had ever dreamed of, all that he had ever hoped
for, burst from his lips as he caught her and
held her close against his breast. Yet he never
could have told what he said. Only he knew

300

THE BATTLE IN THE CANYON

that her arms were clasped about his neck, and
that, as she pressed her face against him, she
sobbed over and over again something about
the old days at Lac Bain — and that she loved
him, loved him! Then his eyes turned up the
chasm, and what he saw there made him bend
low behind the boulder and brought a strange
thrill into his voice.

"You will stay here — a little while," he
whispered, running his fingers through her
shining hair. There was a tone of gentle com-
mand in his words as he placed her against the
rock. "I must go back for a few minutes.
There is no danger — now."

He stooped and picked up the carbine which
had fallen from her hand. There was one
cartridge still in the breech. Replacing his re-
volver in its holster he rose above the rocks,
ready to swing the rifle to his shoulder. Up
where the outlaws lay, a man was standing in
the trail. He v/as making no effort to conceal
himself, and did not see Philip until he was

301

PHILIP STEELE

within fifty paces of him. Even then he did
not show surprise. Apparently he was un-
armed, and Philip dropped the muzzle of his
carbine. The man motioned for him to ad-
vance, standing with a spread hand resting on
either hip. He was hatless and coatless. His
hair was long. His face was covered with a
scraggly growth of red beard, too short to
hide his sunken cheeks. He might have been
a man half starved, and yet there was strength
in his bony frame and his eyes were as keen as
a serpent's.

"Got in just in time to miss the fun after
all," he said coolly. "Queer game, wasn't it?
I was ahead of you up as far as the water hole.
Saw what happened there."

Philip's hand dropped on the butt of his re-
volver.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Me? I'm Blackstone — ^Jim Blackstone,
from over beyond the elbow. I guess everybody
for fifty miles round here knows me. And I

302

THE BATTLE IN THE CANYON

guess I'm the only one who knows what's hap-
pened — and why." He had stepped behind a
huge rock that shut out the lower trail from
them and Philip followed, his hand still on his
revolver. "They're both dead," added the
stranger, signifying with a nod of his head that
he meant the outlaws. "One of them was
alive when I came up, but I ran my knife be-
tween his ribs, and he's dead now."

"The devil !" cried Philip, half drawing his
revolver at the ferocious leer in the other's
face.

"Wait," exclaimed the man, "and see if Tm
not right. The man who was responsible for
the wreck back there is my deadliest enemy —
has been for years, and now I'm even up with
him. And I guess in the eyes of the law I've
got the right to it. What do you say?"

"Go on," said Philip.

The snake-like eyes of the man burned with
a dull flame and yet he spoke calmly.

"He came out here from England four years

303

PHILIP STEELE

ago," he went on. "He was forced to come.
Understand ? He was such a devil back among
his people — ^half a criminal even then — ^that be
was sent out here on a regular monthly remit-
tance. After that ever3rthing went the way of
his younger brother. His father married
again, and the second year he became even less
than a remittance man, for his allowance was
cut off. He was bad — ^bad from the start, and
he went from bad to worse out here. He
gambled, fought, robbed, and became the head
of a gang of scoundrels as dangerous as him-
self. He brooded over what he considered his
wrongs until he went a little mad. He lived
only to avenge himself. At the first opportu-
nity he was prepared to kill his father and his
step-mother. Then, a few weeks ago, he
learned that these two were coming to America
and that on their way to Vancouver they would
pass through Bleak House Station. He went
completely mad then, and planned to destroy
them, and rob the train. You know how he

304

THE BATTLE IN THE CANYON

and his gang did the job. After it was over and
they had got the money, he let his gang go on
ahead of him while he went back to the wreck
of the sleeper. He wanted to make sure that
they were dead. Do you see ?"

"Yes," said Philip tensely, "go on."
"And when he got there," continued the
other, bowing his head as he filled an old briar
pipe with tobacco, "he found some one else.
It's strange — and you may wonder how I know
it all. But it's true. Back in England he had
worshipped a young girl. Like the others, she
detested him; and yet he loved her and would
have died for her. And in the wreck of the
sleeper he found her and her father — ^both
dead. He brought her out, and when no one
was near carried her through the night to his
horse. The knowledge that he had killed her —
the only creature in the world that he loved —
brought him back to sanity. It filled him with
a new desire for vengeance — ^but vengeance of
another kind. To achieve this vengeance he

305

PHILIP STEELE

was compelled to leave her dead body miles
out on the prairie. Then he hurried to over-
take his comrades. As their leader he had
kept possession of the money they had taken
from the express car. The division was to be
made at the water hole. The gang was wait-
ing for him there. The money was divided,
and two of the gang rode ahead. The other
two were to go in another direction so as to di-
vide the pursuit. The remittance man remained
with them, and when the others had gone a
distance he killed them both. He was sane
now, you imderstand. He had committed a
great crime and he was employing his own
method of undoing it. Then he was going
back to bury — ^her."

The man's voice broke. A great sob shook
his frame. When he looked up, Philip had
drawn his revolver.

"And the remittance man — " he began.

"Is myself — Jim Blackstone — at your serv-

ice."

306

THE BATTLE IN THE CANYON

The man turned his back to Philip, hunched
over, as if bent in grief. For a moment he
stood thus. There followed in that same mo-
ment the loud report of a pistol, and when
Philip leaped to catch his tottering form the
glaze of death was in the outlaw's eyes.

"I was going to do this — back there — be-
side her," he gasped faintly. A shiver ran
through him and his head dropped limply for-
ward.

Philip laid him with his face toward a rock
and stepped out from his concealment The
girl had heard the pistol shot and was running
up the trail.

"What was that?" she asked, when he had
hurried to her.

"The last shot, sweetheart," he answered
softly, catching her in his arms. "We're go-
ing back to Billinger now, and then — home."

THE END

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