"Wolves again," he said, "or mebbe a fox."

He had grown into that habit of talking to himself, which is as common as human life itself in the far north, where one's own voice is often the one thing that breaks a killing monotony. He edged his way to the window as he spoke and looked out with Kazan. Westward there stretched the lifeless Barren illimitable and void, without rock or bush and overhung by a sky that always made Pelliter think of a terrible picture he had once seen of Dor's "Inferno." It was a low, thick sky, like purple and blue granite, always threatening to pitch itself down in terrific avalanches, and between the earth and this sky was the thin, smothered worldrM which MacVeigh had once called God's insane asylum.

Through the gloom Kazan's one eye and Pelliter's feverish vision could not see far, but at last the man made out an object toiling slowly toward the cabin. At first he thought it was a fox, and then a wolf, and then, as it loomed larger, a straying caribou. Kazan whined. The bristles along his spine rose stiff and menacing. Pelliter stared harder and harder, with his face pressed close against the cold glass of the window, and suddenly he gave a gasping cry of excitement. It was a man who was toiling toward the cabin! He was bent almost double, and he staggered in a zigzag fashion as he advanced. Pelliter made his way feebly to the door, unbarred it, and pushed it partly open. Overcome by weakness he fell back then on the edge of his bunk,

It seemed an age before he heard steps. They were slow and stumbling, and an instant later a face appeared at the door. It was a terrible face, overgrown with beard, with wild and staring eyes; but it was a white man's face. Pelliter had expected an Eskimo, and he sprang to his feet with sudden strength as the stranger came in.

"Something to eat, mate, for the love o' God give me something to eat!"

The stranger fell in a heap on the floor and stared up at him with the ravenous entreaty of an animal. Pelliter's first move was to get whisky, and the other drank it in great gulps. Then he dragged himself to his feet, and Pelliter sank in a chair beside the table.

"I'm sick," he said. "Sergeant MacVeigh has gone to Churchill, and I guess I'm in a bad way. You'll have to help yourself. There's meat— 'n' bannock—"

Whisky had revived the new-comer. He stared at Pelliter, and as he stared he grinned, ugly yellow teeth leering from between his matted beard. The look cleared Pelliter's brain. For some reason which he could not explain, his pistol hand fell to the place where he usually carried his holster. Then he remembered that his service revolver was under the pillow.

"Fever," said the sailor; for Pelliter knew that he was a sailor.

He took off his heavy coat and tossed it on the table. Then he followed Pelliter's instructions in quest of food, and for ten minutes ate ravenously. Not until he was through and seated opposite him at the table did Pelliter speak.

"Who are you, and where in Heaven's name did you come from?" he asked.

"Blake— Jim Blake's my name, an' I come from what I call Starvation Igloo Inlet, thirty miles up the coast. Five months ago I was left a hundred miles farther up to take care of a cache for the whaler John B. Sidney, and the cache was swept away by an overflow of ice. Then we struck south, hunting and starving, me 'n' the woman—"

"The woman!" cried Pelliter.

"Eskimo squaw," said Blake, producing a black pipe. "The cap'n bought her to keep me company— paid four sacks of flour an' a knife to her husband up at Wagner Inlet. Got any tobacco?"

Pelliter rose to get the tobacco. He was surprised to find that he was steadier on his feet and that Blake's words were clearing his brain. That had been his and MacVeigh's great fight— the fight to put an end to the white man's immoral trade in Eskimo women and girls, and Blake had already confessed himself a criminal. Promise of action, quick action, momentarily overcame his sickness. He went back with the tobacco, and sat down.

"Where's the woman?" be asked.

"Back in the igloo," said Blake, filling his pipe. "We killed a walrus up there and built an icehouse. The meat's gone. She's probably gone by this time." He laughed coarsely across at Pelliter as he lighted his pipe. "It seems good to get into a white man's shack again."

"She's not dead?" insisted Pelliter.

"Will be— shortly," replied Blake. "She was so weak she couldn't walk when I left. But them Eskimo animals die hard, 'specially the women."

"Of course you're going back for her?"

The other stared for a moment into Pelliter's flushed face, and then laughed as though he had just heard a good joke.

"Not on your life, my boy. I wouldn't hike that thirty miles again— an' thirty back— for all the Eskimo women up at Wagner."

The red in Pelliter's eyes grew redder as he leaned over the table.

"See here," he said, "you're going back— now! Do you understand? You're going back!"

Suddenly he stopped. He stared at Blake's coat, and with a swiftness that took the other by surprise he reached across and picked something from it. A startled cry broke from his lips. Between his fingers he held a single filament of hair. It was nearly a foot long, and it was not an Eskimo woman's hair. It shone a dull gold in the gray light that came through the window. He raised his eyes, terrible in their accusation of the man opposite him.

"You lie!" he said. "She's not an Eskimo!"

Blake had half risen, his great hands clutching the ends of the table, his brutal face thrust forward, his whole body in an attitude that sent Pelliter back out of his reach. He was not an instant too soon. With an oath Blake sent the table crashing aside and sprang upon the sick man.

"I'll kill you!" he cried. "I'll kill you, an' put you where I've put her, 'n' when your pard comes back I'll—"

His hands caught Pelliter by the throat, but not before there had come from between the sick man's lips a cry of "Kazan! Kazan!"

With a wolfish snarl the old one-eyed sledge-dog sprang upon Blake, and the three fell with a crash upon Pelliter's bunk. For an instant Kazan's attack drew one of Blake's powerful hands from Pelliter's throat, and as he turned to strike off the dog Pelliter's hand groped out under his flattened pillow. Blake's murderous face was still turned when he drew out his heavy service revolver; and as Blake cut at Kazan with a long sheath-knife which he had drawn from his belt Pelliter fired. Blake's grip relaxed. Without a groan he slipped to the floor, and Pelliter staggered back to his feet. Kazan's teeth were buried in Blake's leg.

"There, there, boy," said Pelliter, pulling him away. "That was a close one!"

He sat down and looked at Blake. He knew that the man was dead. Kazan was sniffing about the sailor's head with stiffened spines. And then a ray of light flashed for an instant through the window. It was the sun— the second time that Pelliter had seen it in four months. A cry of joy welled up from his heart. But it was stopped midway. On the floor close beside Blake something glittered in the fiery ray, and Pelliter was upon his knees in an instant. It was the short golden hair he had snatched from the dead man's coat, and partly covering it was the picture of his sweetheart which had fallen when the table was overturned. With the photograph in one hand and that single thread of woman's hair between the fingers of his other Pelliter rose slowly to his feet and faced the window. The sun was gone. But its coming had put a new life into him. He turned joyously to Kazan.

"That means something, boy," he said, in a low, awed voice, "the sun, the picture, and this! She sent it, do you hear, boy? She sent it! I can almost hear her voice, an' she's telling me to go. 'Tommy,' she's saying, 'you wouldn't be a man if you didn't go, even though you know you're going to die on the way. You can take her something to eat,' she's saying, boy, 'an' you can just as well die in an igloo as here. You can leave word for Billy, an' you can take her grub enough to last until he comes, an' then he'll bring her down here, an' you'll be buried out there with the others just the same.' That's what she's saying, Kazan, so we're going!" He looked about him a little wildly. "Straight up the coast," he mumbled. "Thirty miles. We might make it."

He began filling a pack with food. Outside the door there was a small sledge, and after he had bundled himself in his traveling-clothes he dragged the pack to the sledge, and behind the pack tied on a bundle of firewood, a lantern, blankets, and oil. After he had done this he wrote a few lines to MacVeigh and pinned the paper to the door. Then he hitched old Kazan to the sledge and started off, leaving the dead man where he had fallen.

"It's what she'd have us do," he said again to Kazan. "She sure would have us do this, Kazan. God bless her dear little heart!"

VIII

LITTLE MYSTERY

Pelliter hung close to the ice-bound coast. He traveled slowly, leading the way for Kazan, who strained every muscle in his aged body to drag the sledge. For a time the excitement of what had occurred gave Pelliter a strength which soon began to ebb. But his old weakness did not entirely return. He found that his worst trouble at first was in his eyes. Weeks of fever had enfeebled his vision until the world about him looked new and strange. He could see only a few hundred paces ahead, and beyond this little circle everything turned gray and black. Singularly enough, it struck him that there was some humor as well as tragedy in the situation, that there was something to laugh at in the fact that Kazan had but one eye, and that he was nearly blind. He chuckled to himself and spoke aloud to the dog.

"Makes me think of the games o' hide-'n'-seek we used to play when we were kids, boy," he said. "She used to tie her handkerchief over my eyes, 'n' then I'd follow her all through the old orchard, and when I caught her it was a part of the game she'd have to let me kiss her. Once I bumped into an apple tree—"

The toe of his snow-shoe caught in an ice-hummock and sent him face downward into the snow. He picked himself up and went on.

"We played that game till we was grown-ups, old man," he went on. "Last time we played it she was seventeen. Had her hair in a big brown braid, an' it all came undone so that when I caught her an' took off the handkerchief I could just see her eyes an' her mouth laughing at me, and it was that time I hugged her up closer than ever and told her I was going out to make a home for us. Then I came up here."

He stopped and rubbed his eyes; and for an hour after that, as he plodded onward, he mumbled things which neither Kazan nor any other living thing could have understood. But whatever delirium found its way into his voice, the fighting spark in his brain remained sane. The igloo and the starving woman whom Blake had abandoned formed the one living picture which he did not for a moment forget. He must find the igloo, and the igloo was close to the sea. He could not miss it— if he lived long enough to travel thirty miles. It did not occur to him that Blake might have lied— that the igloo was farther than he had said, or perhaps much nearer.

It was two o'clock when he stopped to make tea. He figured that he had traveled at least eighteen miles; the fact was he had gone but a little over half that distance. He was not hungry, and ate nothing, but he fed Kazan heartily of meat. The hot tea, strengthened with a little whisky, revived him for the time more than food would have done.

"Twelve miles more at the most," he said to Kazan. "We'll make it. Thank God, we'll make it!"

If his eyes had been better he would have seen and recognized the huge snow-covered rock called the Blind Eskimo, which was just nine miles from the cabin. As it was, he went on, filled with hope. There were sharper pains in his head now, and his legs dragged wearily. Day ended at a little after two, but at this season there was not much change in light and darkness, and Pelliter scarcely noted the difference. The time came when the picture of the igloo and the dying woman came and went fitfully in his brain. There were dark spaces. The fighting spark was slowly giving way, and at last Pelliter dropped upon the sledge.

"Go on, Kazan!" he cried, weakly. "Mush it— go on!"

Kazan tugged, with gaping jaws; and Pelliter's head dropped upon the food-filled pack.

What Kazan heard was a groan. He stopped and looked back, whining softly. For a time he sat on his haunches, sniffing a strange thing which had come to him in the air. Then he went on, straining a little faster at the sledge and still whining. If Pelliter had been conscious he would have urged him straight ahead. But old Kazan turned away from the sea. Twice in the next ten minutes he stopped and sniffed the air, and each time he changed his course a little. Half an hour later he came to a white mound that rose up out of the level waste of snow, and then he settled himself back on his haunches, lifted his shaggy head to the dark night sky, and for the second time that day he sent forth the weird, wailing, mourning death-howl.

It aroused Pelliter. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, staggered to his feet, and saw the mound a dozen paces away. Rest had cleared his brain again. He knew that it was an igloo. He could make out the door, and he caught up his lantern and stumbled toward it. He wasted half a dozen matches before he could make a light. Then he crawled in, with Kazan still in his traces close at his heels.

There was a musty, uncomfortable odor in the snow-house. And there was no sound, no movement. The lantern lighted up the small interior, and on the floor Pelliter made out a heap of blankets and a bearskin. There was no life, and instinctively he turned his eyes down to Kazan. The dog's head was stretched out toward the blankets, his ears were alert, his eyes burned fiercely, and a low, whining growl rumbled in his throat.

He looked at the blankets again, moved slowly toward them. He pulled back the bearskin and found what Blake had told him he would find— a woman. For a moment he stared, and then a low cry broke from his lips as he fell upon his knees. Blake had not lied, for it was an Eskimo woman. She was dead. She had not died of starvation. Blake had killed her!

He rose to his feet again and looked about him. After all, did that golden hair, that white woman's hair, mean nothing? What was that? He sprang back toward Kazan, his weakened nerves shattered by a sound and a movement from the farthest and darkest part of the igloo. Kazan tugged at his traces, panting and whining, held back by the sledge wedged in the door. The sound came again, a human, wailing, sobbing cry.

With his lantern in his hand Pelliter darted across to it. There was another roll of blankets on the floor, and as he looked he saw the bundle move. It took him but an instant to drop beside it, as he had dropped beside the other, and as he drew back the damp and partly frozen covering his heart leaped up and choked him. The lantern light fell full upon the thin, pale face and golden head of a little child. A pair of big frightened eyes were staring up at him; and as he knelt there, powerless to move or speak in the face of this miracle, the eyes closed again, and there came again the wailing, hungry note which Kazan had first heard as they approached the igloo. Pelliter flung back the blanket and caught the child in his arms.

"It's a girl— a little girl!" he almost shouted to Kazan. "Quick, boy— go back— get out!"

He laid the child upon the other blankets, and then thrust back Kazan. He seemed suddenly possessed of the strength of two men as he tore at his own blankets and dumped the contents of the pack out upon the snow. "She sent us, boy," he cried, his breath coming in sobbing gasps. "Where's the milk 'n' the stove—"

In ten seconds more he was back in the igloo with a can of condensed cream, a pan, and the alcohol lamp. His fingers trembled so that he had difficulty in lighting the wick, and as he cut open the can with his knife he saw the child's eyes flutter wide for an instant and then close again.

"Just a minute, a half minute," he pleaded, pouring the cream into the pan. "Hungry, eh, little one? Hungry? Starving ?" He held the pan close down over the blue liame and gazed terrified at the white little face near him. Its thinness and quiet frightened him. He thrust his finger into the cream and found it warm.

"A cup, Kazan! Why didn't I bring a cup?" He darted out again and returned with a tin basin. In another moment the child was in his arms, and he forced the first few drops of cream between her lips. Her eyes shot open. Life seemed to spring into her little body; and she drank with a loud noise, one of her tiny hands gripping him by the wrist. The touch, the sound, the feel of life against him thrilled Pelliter. He gave her half of what the basin contained, and then wrapped her up warmly in his thick service blanket, so that all of her was hidden but her face and her tangled golden hair. He held her for a moment close to the lantern. She was looking at him now, wide-eyed and wondering, but not frightened.

"God bless your little soul!" he exclaimed, his amazement growing. "Who are you, 'n' where'd you come from? You ain't more'n three years old, if you're an hour. Where's your mama 'n' your papa?" He placed her back on the blankets. "Now, a fire, Kazan!" he said.

He held the lantern above his head and found the narrow vent through the snow-and-ice wall which Blake had made for the escape of smoke. Then he went outside for the fuel, freeing Kazan on the way. In a few minutes more a small bright blaze of almost smokeless larchwood was lighting up and warming the interior of the igloo. To his surprise, Pelliter found the child asleep when he went to her again. He moved her gently and carried the dead body of the little Eskimo woman through the opening and half a hundred paces from the igloo. Not until then did he stop to marvel at the strength which had returned to him. He stretched his arms above his head and breathed deeply of the cold air. It seemed as though something had loosened inside of him, that a crushing weight had lifted itself from his eyes. Kazan had followed him, and he stared down at the dog.

"It's gone, Kazan," he cried, in a low, half-credulous voice. "I don't feel— sick— any more. It's her—"

He turned back to the igloo. The lantern and the fire made a cheerful glow inside, and it was growing warm. He threw off his heavy coat, drew the bearskin in front of the fire, and sat down with the child in his arms. She still slept. Like a starving man Pelliter stared down upon the little thin face. Gently his rough fingers stroked back the golden curls. He smiled. A light came into his eyes. His head bent lower and lower, slowly and a little fearfully. At last his lips touched the child's cheek. And then his own rough grizzled face, toughened by wind and storm and intense cold, nestled against the little face of this new and mysterious life he had found at the top of the world.

Kazan listened for a time, squatted on his haunches. Then he curled himself near the fire and slept. For a long time Pelliter sat rocking gently back and forth, thrilled by a happiness that was growing deeper and stronger in him each instant. He could feel the tiny beat of the little one's heart against his breast; he could feel her breath against his cheek; one of her little hands had gripped him by his thumb.

A hundred questions ran through his mind now. Who was this little abandoned mite? Who were her father and her mother, and where were they? How had she come to be with the Eskimo woman and Blake? Blake was not her father; the Eskimo woman was not her mother. What tragedy had placed her here? Somehow he was conscious of a sensation of joy as he reasoned that he would never be able to answer these questions. She belonged to him. He had found her. No one would ever come to dispossess him. Without awakening her, he thrust a hand into his breast pocket and drew out the photograph of the sweet-faced girl who was going to be his wife. It did not occur to him now that he might die. The old fear and the old sickness were gone. He knew that he was going to live.

"You," he breathed, softly, "you did it, and I know you'll be glad when I bring her down to you." And then to the little sleeping girl: "And if you ain't got a name I guess I'll have to call you Mystery— how is that?— my Little Mystery."

When he looked from the picture again Little Mystery's eyes were open and gazing up at him. He dropped the picture and made a lunge for the pan of cream warming before the fire. The child drank as hungrily as before, with Pelliter babbling incoherent nonsense into her baby ears. When she had done he picked up the photograph, with a sudden and foolish inspiration that she might understand.

"Looky," he cried. "Pretty—"

To his astonishment and joy, Little Mystery put out a hand and placed the tip of her tiny forefinger on the girl's face. Then she looked up into Pelliter's eyes.

"Mama," she lisped.

Pelliter tried to speak, but something rose like a knot in his throat and choked him. A fire leaped all at once through his body; the joy of that one word blinded him with hot tears. When he spoke at last his voice was broken, like a sobbing woman's.

"That's it." he said. "You're right, little one. She's your mama!"

IX

THE SECRET OF THE DEAD

On the eighth day after Pelliter found the Eskimo igloo Billy MacVeigh came up through a gray dawn with his footsore dogs, his letters, and his medicines. He had traveled all of the preceding night, and his feet dragged heavily. It was with a feeling of fear that he at last saw the black cliffs of Fullerton rising above the ice. He dreaded the first opening of the cabin door. What would he find? During the past forty-eight hours he had figured on Pelliter's chances, and they were two to one that he would find his partner dead in his bunk.

And if not, if Pelliter still lived, what a tale there would be to tell the sick man! For he knew that he must tell some one, and Pelliter would keep his secret. And he would understand. Day after day, as he had hurried straight into the north, Billy's loneliness and heartbreak weighed more and more heavily upon him. He tried to force Isobel out of his thoughts, but it was impossible. A thousand visions of her rose before him, and each mile that he drew himself farther away from her seemed only to add to the nearness of her spirit at his side and to the strange pain in his heart that rose now and then to his lips in sobbing breaths that he fought with himself to stifle. And yet, with his own grief and hopelessness, he experienced more and more each day a compensating joy. It was the joy of knowing that he had given back life and hope to Isobel and her husband. Each day he figured their progress along with his own. From the Eskimo village he had sent a messenger back to Churchill with a long report for the officer in command there, and in that report he had lied. He reported Scottie Deane as having died of the injury he had received in the snow-slide. Not for a moment had he regretted the falsehood. He also promised to report at Churchill to testify against Bucky Smith as soon as he reached Pelliter and put him on his feet.

On this last day, as he saw the towering cliffs of Fullerton ahead of him, he wondered how much he would tell to Pelliter if he found him alive. Mentally he rehearsed the amazing story of what came to him that night on the Barren, of the dogs coming across the snow, the great, dark, frightened eyes of the woman, and the long, narrow box on the sledge. He would tell pelliter all that. He would tell how he had made a camp for her that night, and how, later, he had told her that he loved her and had begged one kiss. And then the disclosures of the morning, the deserted tent, the empty box, the little note from Isobel, and the revelation that the box had contained the living body of the man for whom he and Pelliter had patrolled this desolate country for two thousand miles. But would he tell the truth of what had happened after that ?

He quickened his tired pace as the dogs climbed up from the ice of the Bay to the sloping ridge, and stared hard ahead of him. The dogs tugged harder as the smell of home entered their nostrils. At last the roof of the cabin came in view. MacVeigh's bloodshot eyes were like an animal's in their eagerness.

"Pelly, old boy," he gasped to himself. "Pelly—"

He stared harder. And then he spoke a low word to the dogs and stopped. He wiped his face. A deep breath of relief fell from his lips.

Straight up from the chimney of the cabin there rose a thick column of smoke!

He came up to the door of the cabin quietly, wondering why Pelliter did not see him or hear the three or four sharp yelps the dogs had given. He twisted off his snow-shoes, chuckling as he thought of the surprise he would give his mate. His hand was on the door latch when he stopped. The smile left his lips. Startled wonderment filled his face as he bent close to the door and listened, and for a moment his heart throbbed with a terrible fear. He had returned too late— perhaps a day— two days. Pelliter had gone mad! He could hear him raving inside, filling the cabin with a laughter that sent a chill of horror through his veins. Mad! A sob broke from his lips, and he turned his face up to the gray sky. And then the laughter turned to song. It was the sweet love song which Pelliter had told him that the girl down south used to sing to him when they were alone out under the stars. Suddenly it broke off short, and in its place he heard another sound. With a cry he opened the door and burst in.

"My God!" he cried. "Pelly— Pelly—"

Pelliter was on his knees in the middle of the floor. But it was not the look of wonderment and joy in his face that Billy saw first. He stared at the little golden-haired creature on the floor in front of him. He had traveled hard, almost day and night, and for an instant it flashed upon him that what he saw was not real. Before he could move or speak again Pelliter was on his feet, wringing his hands and almost crying in his gladness. There was no sign of fever or madness in his face now. Like one in a dream Billy heard what he said.

"God bless you, Billy! I'm glad you've come!" he cried. "We've been waiting 'n' watching, and not more'n a minute ago we were at the window looking along the edge of the Bay through the binoculars. You must have been under the ridge. My God! A little while ago I thought I was dying— I thought I was alone in the world— alone— alone. But look— look, Billy, I've got a fam'ly!"

Little Mystery had climbed to her feet. She was looking at Billy wonderingly, her golden curls tousled about her pretty face, and gripping two or three of Pelliter's old letters in her tiny hand. And then she smiled at Billy and held out the letters to him. In an instant he had dropped Pelliter's hands and caught her up in his arms.

"I've got letters for you in my pocket, Pelly," he gasped. "But— first— you've got to tell me who she is and where you got her—"

Briefly Pelliter told of Blake's visit, the fight, and of the finding of Little Mystery.

"I'd have died if it hadn't been for her, Billy," he finished. "She brought me back to life. But I don't know who she is or where she came from. There wasn't anything in his pockets or in the igloo to tell. I buried him out there— shallow— so you could take a look when you came back."

He snatched like a starving man for food at the letters MacVeigh pulled from his pocket. While he read Billy sat down with Little Mystery on his knees. She laughed and put her warm little hands up to his rough face. Her eyes were blue, like Isobel's; and suddenly he crushed his face close down against her soft curls and held her so close to him that for a moment she was frightened. A little later Pelliter looked up. His eyes shone, his thin face was radiant with joy.

"God bless the sweetest little girl in the world, Billy!" he whispered, huskily. "She says she's lonely for me. She tells me to hurry— hurry down there to her. She says that if I don't come soon she'll come up to me! Read 'em, Billy!"

He looked in astonishment at the change which he saw in MacVeigh's face. Billy accepted the letters mechanically and placed them on the edge of the bunk near which he was sitting.

"I'll read them— after a while," he said, slowly.

Little Mystery clambered from his knee and ran to Pelliter. Billy was staring straight into the other's face.

"You're sure you've told me everything, Pelly? There wasn't anything in his pockets? You searched well?"

"Yes. There was nothing."

"But— you were sick—"

"That's why I buried him shallow," interrupted Pelliter. "He's close to the last cross, just under the ice and snow. I wanted you to look— for yourself."

Billy rose to his feet. He took Little Mystery in his arms again and looked closely in her face. There was a strange look in his eyes. She laughed at him, but he did not seem to notice it. And then he held her out to Pelliter.

"Pelly, did you ever— ever notice eyes— very closely?" he asked. "Blue eyes?"

Pelliter stared at him amazed.

"My Jeanne has blue eyes—"

"And have they little brown dots in them like a wood violet?"

"No-o-o—"

"They're blue, just blue, ain't they?"

"Yes."

"And I suppose most all blue eyes are just blue, without the little brown spots. Wouldn't you think so?"

"What in Heaven's name are you driving at?" demanded Pelliter.

"I just wanted you to notice that her eyes have little brown spots in them," replied Billy. "I've only seen one other pair of eyes— just like hers." He turned toward the door. "I'm going out to care for the dogs and dig up Blake," he added. "I can't rest until I've seen him."

Pelliter placed Little Mystery on her feet.

"I'll see to the dogs," he said. "But I don't want to look at Blake again."

The two men went out, and while Pelliter led the dogs to a lean-to behind the cabin Billy began to work with an ax and spade at the spot his comrade had pointed out to him. Ten minutes later he came to Blake. An excitement which he had tried to hide from Pelliter overcame his sense of horror as he dragged out the stiff and frozen corpse of the man. It was a terrible picture that the dead man made, with his coarse bearded face turned up to the sky and his teeth still snarling as they had snarled on the day he died. Billy knew most men who had come into the north above Churchill, but he had never looked upon Blake before. It was probable that the dead man had told a part of the truth, and that he was a sailor left on the upper coast by some whaler. He shivered as he began going through his pockets. Each moment added to his disappointment. He found a few things— a knife, two keys, several coins, a fire-flint, and other articles— but there was no letter or writing of any kind, and that was what he had hoped to find. There was nothing that might solve the mystery of the miracle that had descended upon them. He rolled the dead man into the grave, covered him over, and went into the cabin.

Pelliter was in his usual place— on his hands and knees, with Little Mystery astride his back. He paused in a mad race across the cabin floor and looked up with inquiring eyes. The little girl held up her arms, and MacVeigh tossed her half-way to the ceiling and then hugged her golden head close up to his chilled face. Pelliter jumped to his feet; his face grew serious as Billy looked at him over the child's tousled curls.

"I found nothing— absolutely nothing of any account," he said.

He placed Little Mystery on one of the bunks and faced the other with a puzzled loko in his eyes.

"I wish you hadn't been in a fever on that day of the fight, Pelly," he said. "He must have said something— something that would give us a clue."

"Mebbe he did, Billy," replied Pelliter, looking with a shiver at the few things MacVeigh had placed on the cabin table. "But there's no use worrying any more about it. It ain't in reason that she's got any people up here, six hundred miles from the shack of a white man that 'd own a little beauty like her. She's mine. I found her. She's mine to keep."

He sat down at the table, and MacVeigh sat down opposite him, smiling sympathetically into Pelliter's eyes.

"I know you want her— want her bad, Pelly," he said. "And I know the girl would love her. But she's got people— somewhere, and it's our duty to find 'em. She didn't drop out of a balloon, Pelly. Do you suppose— the dead man— might be her father?"

It was the first time he had asked this question, and he noted the other's sudden shudder of revulsion.

"I've thought of that. But it can't be. He was a beast, and she— she's a little angel. Billy, her mother must have been beautiful. had that's what made me guess— fear—"

Pelliter wiped his face uneasily, and the two young men stared into each other's eyes. MacVeigh leaned forward, waiting.

"I figured it all out last night, lying awake there in my bunk," continued Pelliter, "and as the second best friend I have on earth I want to ask you not to go any farther, Billy. She's mine. My Jeanne, down there, will love her like a real mother, and we'll bring her up right. But if you go on, Billy, you'll find something unpleasant— I— I— swear you will!"

"You know—"

"I've guessed," interrupted the other. "Billy, sometimes a beast— a man beast— holds an attraction for a woman, and Blake was that sort of a beast. You remember— two years ago— a sailor ran away with the wife of a whaler's captain away up at Narwhale Inlet. Well—"

Again the two men stared silently at each other. MacVeigh turned slowly toward the child. She had fallen asleep, and he could see the dull shimmer of her golden curls as they lay scattered over Pelliter's pillow.

"Poor little devil!" he exclaimed, softly.

"I believe that woman was Little Mystery's mother," Pelliter went on. "She couldn't bear to leave the little kid when she went with Blake, so she took her along. Some women do that. And after a time she died. Then Blake took up with an Eskimo woman. You know what happened after that. We don't want Little Mystery to know all this when she grows up. It's better not. She's too little to remember, ain't she? She won't ever know."

"I remember the ship," said Billy, not taking his eyes off Little Mystery. "She was the Silver Seal. Her captain's name was Thompson."

He did not look at Pelliter, but he could feel the quick, tense stiffening of the other's body. There was a moment's silence. Then Pelliter spoke in a low, unnatural voice.

"Billy, you ain't going to hunt him up, are you? That wouldn't be fair to me or to the kid. My Jeanne 'll love her, an' mebbe— mebbe some day your kid 'll come along an' marry her—"

MacVeigh rose to his feet. Pelliter did not see the sudden look of grief that shot into his face.

"What do you say, Billy?"

"Think it over, Pelly," came back Billy's voice, huskily. "Think it over. I don't want to hurt you, and I know you think a lot of her, but— think it over. You wouldn't rob her father, would you? An' she's all he's got left of the woman. Think it over, Pelly, good 'n' hard. I'm going to bed an' sleep a week!"

X

IN DEFIANCE OF THE LAW

Billy slept all that day and the night that followed, and Pelliter did not awaken him. He aroused himself from his long sleep of exhaustion an hour or two before dawn of the following morning, and for the first time he had the opportunity of going over with himself all the things that had happened since his return to Fullerton Point. His first thought was Pelliter and Little Mystery. He could hear his comrade's deep breathing in the bunk opposite him, and again he wondered if Pelliter had told him everything. Was it possible that Blake had said nothing to reveal Little Mystery's identity, and that the igloo and the dead Eskimo woman had not given up the secret ? It seemed inconceivable that there would not be something in the igloo that would help to clear up the mystery. And yet, after all, he had faith in Pelliter. He knew that he would keep nothing from him even though it meant possession of the child. And then his mind leaped to Isobel Deane. Her eyes were blue, and they had in them those same little spots of brown he had found in Little Mystery's. They were unusual eyes, and he had noticed the brown in them because it had added to their loveliness and had made him think of the violets he had told Pelliter about. Was it possible, he asked himself, that there could be some association between Isobel and Little Mystery ? He confessed that it was scarcely conceivable, and yet it was impossible for him to get the thought out of his mind.

Before Pelliter awoke he had determined upon his own course of action. He would say nothing of what had happened to himself on the Barren, at least not for a time. He would not tell of his meeting with Isobel and her husband or of what had followed. Until he was absolutely certain that Pelliter was keeping nothing from him he would not confide the secret of his own treachery to him. For he had been a traitor— to the Law. He realized that. He could tell the story, with its fictitious ending, before they set out for Churchill, where he would give evidence against Bucky Smith. Meanwhile he would watch Pelliter, and wait for him to reveal whatever he might have hidden from him. He knew that if Pelliter was concealing something he was inspired by his almost insane worship of the little girl he had found who had saved him from madness and death. He smiled in the darkness as he thought that if Pelliter were working to achieve his own end— possession of Little Mystery— he was inspired by emotions no more selfish than his own in giving back life to Isobel Deane and her husband. On that score they were even.

He was up and had breakfast started before Pelliter awoke. Little Mystery was still sleeping, and the two men moved about softly in their moccasined feet. On this morning the sun shone brilliantly over the southern ice-fields, and Pelliter aroused Little Mystery so that she might see it before it disappeared. But to-day it did not drop below the gray murkiness of the snow-horizon for nearly an hour. After breakfast Pelliter read his letters again, and then Billy read them. In one of the letters the girl had put a tress of sunny hair, and Pelliter kissed it shamelessly before his comrade.

"She says she's making the dress she's going to wear when we're married, and that if I don't come home before it's out of style she'll never marry me at all," he cried, joyously. "Look there, on that page she's told me all about it. You're— you're goin' to be there, ain't you, Billy?"

"If I can make it, Pelly."

"If you can make it! I thought you was going out of the Service when I did."

"I've sort of changed my mind."

"And you're going to stick ?"

"Mebbe for another three years."

Life in the cabin was different after this. Pelliter and Little Mystery were happy, and Billy fought with himself every hour to keep down his own gloom and despair. The sun helped him. It rose earlier each day and remained longer in the sky, and soon the warmth of it began to soften the snow underfoot. The vast fields of ice began to give evidence of the approach of spring, and the air was more and more filled with the thunderous echoes of the "break up." Great floes broke from the shore-runs, and the sea began to open. Down from the north the powerful arctic currents began to move their grinding, roaring avalanches. But it was a full month before Billy was sure that Pelliter was strong enough to begin the long trip south. Even then he waited for another week.

Late one afternoon he went out alone and stood on the cliff watching the thunderous movement of arctic ice out in the Roes Welcome. Standing motionless fifty paces from the little storm-beaten cabin that represented Law at this loneliest outpost on the American continent, he looked like a carven thing of dun-gray rock, with a dun-gray world over his head and on all sides of him, broken only in its terrific monotony of deathlike sameness by the darker gloom of the sky and the whiter and ghostlier gloom that hung over the ice-fields. The wind was still bitter, and his vision was shut in by a near horizon which Billy had often thought of as the rim of hell. On this afternoon his heart was as leaden as the day. Under his feet the frozen earth shivered with the rumbling reverberations of the crashing and breaking mountains of ice. His ears were filled with a dull and steady roar, like the echoes of distant thunder, broken now and then— when an ice-mountain split asunder— with a report like that of a thirteen-inch gun. There were curious wailings, strange screeching sounds, and heartbreaking moanings in the air. Two days before MacVeigh had heard the roar of the ice ten miles inland, where he had gone for caribou.

But he scarcely heard that roar now. He was looking toward the warring fields of ice, but he did not see them. It was not the dead gloom and the gray monotony that weighted his heart, but the sounds that he heard now and then in the cabin— the laughing of Little Mystery and of Pelliter. A few days more and he would lose them. And after that what would be left for him? A cry broke from his lips, and he gripped his hands in despair. He would be alone. There was no one waiting for him down in that world to which Pelliter was going, no girl to meet him, no father, no mother— nothing. He laughed in his pain as he faced the cold wind from the north. The sting of that wind was like the mocking ghost of his own past life. For all his life he had known only the stings of pain and of loneliness. And then, suddenly, there came Pelliter's words to him again— "Mebbe some day you'll have a kid." A flood of warmth swept through his veins, and in the moment of forgetfulness and hope which came with it he turned his eyes into the south and west and saw the sweet face and upturned lips of Isobel Deane.

He pulled himself together with a low laugh and faced the breaking seas of ice and the north. The gloom of night had drawn the horizon nearer. The rumble and thunder of crumbling floes came from out of a purple chaos that was growing blue-black in the distance. For several minutes he stood listening and looking into nothingness. The breaking of the ice, the moaning discontent in the air, and the growling monotone of the giant currents had driven other men mad; but they held a fascination for him. He knew what was happening, and he could almost measure the strength of the unseen hands of nature. No sound was new or strange to him. But now, as he stood there, there rose above all the other tumult a sound that he had not heard before. His body became suddenly tense and alert as he faced squarely to the north. For a full minute he listened, and then turned and ran to the cabin.

Pelliter had lighted a lamp, and in its glow Billy's face shone white with excitement.

"Good God, Pelly, come here!" he cried from the door.

As Pelliter ran out he gripped him by the shoulders.

"Listen!" he commanded. "Listen to that!"

"Wolves!" said Pelliter.

The wind was rising, and sent a whistling blast through the open door of the cabin. It awakened Little Mystery, who sat up with frightened cries.

"No, it's not wolves," cried MacVeigh, and it did not sound like MacVeigh's voice that spoke. "I never heard wolves like that. Listen!"

He clutched Pelliter's arm as on a fresh burst of the wind there came the strange and terrible sound from out of the night. It was rapidly drawing nearer— a wailing burst of savage voice, as if a great wolf pack had struck the fresh and blood-stained trail of game. But with this there was the other and more fearful sound, a shrieking and yelping as if half-human creatures were being torn by the fangs of beasts. As Pelliter and MacVeigh stood waiting for something to appear out of the gray-and-black mystery of the night they heard a sound that was like the slow tolling of a thing that was half bell and half drum.

"It's not wolves," shouted Billy. "Whatever it is, there's men with it! Hurry, Pelly, into the cabin with our dogs and sledge! Those are dogs we hear— dogs who are howling because they smell us— and there are hundreds of 'em! Where there's dogs there's men— but who in Heaven's name can they be?"

He dragged the sledge into the cabin while Pelliter unleashed the huskies from the lean-to. When he came in with the dogs Pelliter locked and bolted the door.

Billy slipped a clipful of cartridges into his big-game Remington. His carbine was already on the table, and as Pelliter stood staring at him in indecision he pulled out two Savage automatics from under his bunk and gave one of them to his companion. His face was white and set.

"Better get ready, Pelly," he said, quietly. "I've been in this country a long time, and I tell you they're dogs and men. Did you hear the drum? It's made of seal belly, and there's a bell on each side of it. They're Eskimos, and there isn't an Eskimo village within two hundred miles of us this winter. They're Eskimos, and they're not on a hunt, unless it's for us!"

In an instant Pelliter was buckling on his revolver and cartridge-belt. He grinned as he looked at the wicked little blue-steeled Savage.

"I hope you ain't mistaken, Billy," he said, "for it 'll be the first excitement we've had in a year."

None of his enthusiasm revealed itself in MacVeigh's face.

"The Eskimo never fights until he's gone mad, Pelly," he said, "and you know what madmen are. I can't guess what they've got to fight over, unless they want our grub. But if they do—" He moved toward the door, his swift-firing Remington in his hand. "Be ready to cover me, Pelly. I'm going out. Don't fire until you hear me shoot."

He opened the door and stepped out. The howling had ceased now, but there came in its place strange barking voices and a cracking which Billy knew was made by the long Eskimo whips. He advanced to meet many dim forms which he saw breaking out of the wall of gloom, raising his voice in a loud holloa. From the Doorway Pelliter saw him suddenly lost in a mass of dogs and men, and half flung his carbine to his shoulder. But there was no shooting from MacVeigh. A score of sledges had drawn up about him, and the whips of dozens of little black men cracked viciously as their dogs sank upon their bellies in the snow. Both men and dogs were tired, and Billy saw that they had been running long and hard. Still as quick as animals the little men gathered about him, their white-and-black eyes staring at him out of round, thick, dumb-looking faces. He noted that they were half a hundred strong, and that all were armed, many with their little javelin-like narwhal harpoons, some with spears, and others with rifles. From the circle of strangely dressed and hideously visaged beings that had gathered about him one advanced and began talking to him in a language that was like the rapid clack of knuckle bones.

"Kogmollocks!" Billy groaned, and he lifted both hands to show that he did not understand. Then he raised his voice. "Nuna-talmute," he cried. "Nuna-talmute— Nuna-talmute! Ain't there one of that lingo among you?"

He spoke directly to the chief man, who stared at him in silence for a moment and then pointed both short arms toward the lighted cabin.

"Come on!" said Billy. He caught the little Eskimo by one of his thick arms and led him boldly through the breach that was made for them in the circle. The chief man's voice broke out in a few words of command, like a dozen quick, sharp yelps of a dog, and six other Eskimos dropped in behind them.

"Kogmollocks— the blackest-hearted little devils alive when it comes to trading wives and fighting," said MacVeigh to Pelliter, as he came up at the head of the seven little black men. " Watch the door, Pelly. They're coming in."

He stepped into the cabin, and the Eskimos followed. From Pelliter's bunk Little Mystery looked at the strange visitors with eyes which suddenly widened with surprise and joy, and in another moment she had given the strange story that Pelliter or Billy had ever heard her utter. Scarcely had that cry fallen from her lips when one of the Eskimos sprang toward her. His black hands were already upon her, dragging the child from the bunk, when with a warning yell of rage Pelliter leaped from the door and sent him crashing back among his companions. In another instant both men were facing the seven Eskimos with leveled automatics.

"If you fire don't shoot to kill!" commanded MacVeigh.

The chief man was pointing to Little Mystery, his weird voice rising until it was almost a scream. Suddenly he doubled himself back and raised his javelin. Simultaneously two streams of fire leaped from the automatics. The javelin dropped to the floor, and with a shrill cry which was half pain and half command the leader staggered back to the door, a stream of blood running from his wounded hand. The others sprang out ahead of him, and Pelliter closed and bolted the door. When he turned MacVeigh was closing and slipping the bolts to the heavy barricades of the two windows. From Pelliter's bunk Little Mystery looked at them and laughed.

"So it's you?" said Billy, coming to her, and breathing hard. "It's you they want, eh? Now, I wonder why ?"

Pelliter's face was flushed with excitement. He was reloading his automatic. There was almost a triumph in his eyes as he met MacVeigh's questioning gaze.

They stood and listened, heard only the rumbling monotone of the drifting ice— not the breath of a sound from the scores of men and dogs.

"We've given them a lesson," said Pelliter, at last, smiling with the confidence of a man who was half a tenderfoot among the little brown men.

Billy pointed to the door.

"That door is about the only place vulnerable to their bullets," he said, as though he had not heard Pelliter. "Keep out of its range. I don't believe what guns they've got are heavy enough to penetrate the logs. Your bunk is out of line and safe."

He went to Little Mystery, and his stern face relaxed into a smile as she put up her arms to greet him.

"So it's you, is it ?" he asked again, taking her warm little face and soft curls between his two hands. "They want you, an' they want you bad. Well, they can have grub, an' they can have me, but"— he looked up to meet Pelliter's eyes— "I'm damned if they can have you," he finished.

Suddenly the night was broken by another sound, the sharp, explosive crack of rifles. They could hear the beat of bullets against the log wall of the cabin. One crashed through the door, tearing away a splinter as wide as a man's arm, and as MacVeigh nodded to the path of the bullet he laughed. Pelliter had heard that laugh before. He knew what it meant. He knew what the death-whiteness of MacVeigh's face meant. It was not fear, but something more terrible than fear. His own face was flushed. That is the difference in men.

MacVeigh suddenly darted across the danger zone to the opposite half of the cabin.

"If that's your game, here goes," he cried. "Now, damn y', you're so anxious to fight— get at it 'n' fight!"

He spoke the last words to Pelliter. Billy always swore when he went into action.

XI

THE NIGHT OF PERIL

On his own side of the cabin Pelliter began tugging at a small, thin block laid between two of the logs. The shooting outside had ceased when the two men opened up the loopholes that commanded a range seaward. Almost immediately it began again, the dull red flashes showing the location of the Eskimos, who had drawn back to the ridge that sloped down to the Bay. As the last of five shots left his Remington Billy pulled in his gun and faced across to Pelliter, who was already reloading.

"Pelly, I don't want to croak," he said, "but this is the last of Law at Fullerton Point— for you and me. Look at that!"

He raised the muzzle of his rifle to one of the logs over his head. Pelliter could see the fresh splinters sticking out.

"They've got some heavy calibers," continued Billy, "and they've hidden behind the slope, where they're safe from us for a thousand years. As soon as it grows light enough to see they'll fill this shack as full of holes as an old cheese."

As if to verify his words a single shot rang out and a bullet plowed through a log so close to Pelliter that the splinters flew into his face.

"I know these little devils, Pelly," went on MacVeigh. "If they were Nuna-talmutes you could scare 'em with a sky-rocket. But they're Kogmollocks. They've murdered the crews of half a dozen whalers, and I shouldn't wonder if they'd got the kid in some such way. They wouldn't let us off now, even if we gave her up. It wouldn't do. They know better than to let the Law get any evidence against them. If we're killed and the cabin burned, who's going to say what happened to us ? There's just two things for us to do—"

Another fusillade of shots came from the snow ridge, and a third bullet crashed into the cabin.

"Just two things," Billy went on, as he completely shaded the dimly burning lamp. "We can stay here 'n' die— or run."

"Run!"

This was an unknown word in the Service, and in Pelliter's voice there were both amazement and contempt.

"Yes, run," said Billy, quietly. "Run— for the kid's sake."

It was almost dark in the cabin, and Pelliter came close to his companion.

"You mean—"

"That it's the only way to save the kid. We might give her up, then fight it out, but that means she'd go back to the Eskimos, 'n' mebbe never be found again. The men and dogs out there are bushed. We are fresh. If we can get away from the cabin we can beat 'em out."

"We'll run, then," said Pelliter. He went to Little Mystery, who sat stunned into silence by the strange things that were happening, and hugged her up in his arms, his back turned to the possible bullet that might come through the wall. "We're going to run, little sweetheart," he mumbled, half laughingly, in her curls.

Billy began to pack, and Pelliter put Little Mystery down on the bunk and started to harness the six dogs, ranging them close along the wall, with old one-eyed Kazan, the hero who had saved him from Blake, in the lead. Outside the firing had ceased. It was evident that the Eskimos had made up their minds to save their ammunition until dawn.

Fifteen minutes sufficed to load the sledge; and while Pelliter was fastening the sledge traces MacVeigh bundled Little Mystery into her thick fur coat. The sleeves caught, and he turned it back, exposing the white edge of the lining. On that lining was something which drew him down close, and when the strange cry that fell from his lips drew Pelliter's eyes toward him he was staring down into Little Mystery's upturned face with the look of one who saw a vision.

"Mother of Heaven!" he gasped, "she's—" He caught himself, and smothered Little Mystery up close to him for a moment before he brought her to the sledge. "She's the bravest little kid in the world," he finished; and Pelliter wondered at the strangeness of his voice. He tucked her into a nest made of blankets and then tied her in securely with babiche rope. Pelliter stood up first and saw the hungry, staring look in MacVeigh's face as he kept his eyes steadily upon Little Mystery.

"What's the matter, Mac?" he asked. "Are you very much afraid— for her ?"

"No," said MacVeigh, without lifting his head. "If you're ready, Pelly, open the door." He rose to his feet and picked up his rifle. He did not seem like the old MacVeigh; but the dogs were nipping and whining, and there was no time for Pelliter's questions.

"I'm going out first, Billy," he said. "You can make up your mind they're watching the cabin pretty close, and as soon as the dogs nose the open air they'll begin yapping 'n' let 'em on to us. We can't risk her under fire. So I'm going to back along the edge of the ridge and give it to 'em as fast as I can work the gun. They'll all turn to me, and that's the time for you to open the door and make your getaway. I'll be with you inside of five minutes."

He turned out the lights as he spoke. Then he opened the door and slipped out into the darkness without a protesting word from MacVeigh. Hardly had he gone when the latter fell upon his knees beside Little Mystery and in the deep gloom crushed his rough face down against her soft, warm little body.

"So it's you, is it?" he cried, softly; and then he mumbled things which the little girl could not possibly have understood.

Suddenly he sprang to his feet and ran to the door with a word to faithful old Kazan, the leader.

From far down the snow-ridge there came the rapid firing of Pelliter's rifle.

For a moment Billy waited, his hand on the door, to give the watching Eskimos time to turn their attention toward Pelliter. He could perhaps have counted fifty before he gave Kazan the leash and the six dogs dragged the sledge out into the night. With his humanlike intelligence old Kazan swung quickly after his master, and the team darted like a streak into the south and west, giving tongue to that first sharp, yapping voice which it is impossible to beat or train out of a band of huskies. As he ran Billy looked back over his shoulder. In the hundred-yard stretch of gray bloom between the cabin and the snow-ridge he saw three figures speeding like wolves. In a flash the meaning of this unexpected move of the Eskimos dawned upon him. They were cutting Pelliter off from the cabin and his course of flight.

"Go it, Kazan!" he cried, fiercely, bending low over the leader. "Moo-hoosh— moo-hoosh— moo-hoosh, old man!" And Kazan leaped into a swift run, nipping and whining at the empty air.

Billy stopped and whirled about. Two other figures had joined the first three, and he opened fire. One of the running Eskimos pitched forward with a cry that rose shrill and scarcely human above the moaning and roar of the ice-fields, and the other four fell flat upon the snow to escape the hail of lead that sang close over their heads. From the snow-ridge there came a fusillade of shots, and a single figure darted like a streak in MacVeigh's direction. He knew that it was Pelliter; and, running slowly after Kazan and the sledge, he rammed a fresh clipful of cartridges into the chamber of his rifle. The figures in the open had risen again, and Pelliter's automatic Savage trailed out a stream of fire as he ran. He was breathing heavily when he reached Billy.

"Kazan has got the kid well in the lead," shouted the latter. "God bless that old scoundrel! I believe he's human."

They set off swiftly, and the thick night soon engulfed all signs of the Eskimos. Ahead of them the sledge loomed up slowly, and when they reached it both men thrust their rifles under the blanket straps. Thus relieved of their weight, they forged ahead of Kazan.

"Moo-hoosh— moo-hoosh!" encouraged Billy.

He glanced at Pelliter on the opposite side. His comrade was running with one arm raised at the proper angle to reserve breath and endurance; the other hung straight and limp at his side. A sudden fear shot through him, and he darted ahead of the lead dog to Pelliter's side. He did not speak, but touched the other's arm.

"One of the little devil's winged me," gasped Pelliter. "It's not bad."

He was breathing as though the short run was already winding him, and without a word Billy ran up to Kazan's head and stopped the team within twenty paces. The open blade of his knife was ripping up Pelliter's sleeve before his comrade could find words to object. Pelliter was bleeding, and bleeding hard. His face was shot with pain. The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his forearm, but had fortunately missed the main artery. With the quick deftness of the wilderness-trained surgeon Billy drew the wound close and bound it tightly with his own and Pelliter's handkerchiefs. Then he thrust Pelliter toward the sledge.

"You've got to ride, Pelly," he said. "If you don't you'll go under, and that means all of us."

Far behind them there rose the yapping and howling of dogs.

"They're after us with the dogs!" groaned Pelliter. "I can't ride. I've got to run— and fight!"

"You get on the sledge, or I'll stave your head in!" commanded MacVeigh. "Face the enemy, Pelly, and give 'em hell. You've got three rifles there. You can do the shooting while I hustle on the dogs. And keep yourself in front of her," he added, pointing to the almost completely buried Little Mystery.

XII

LITTLE MYSTERY FINDS HER OWN

After convincing Pelliter that he must ride on the sledge Billy ran on ahead, and the dogs started with their heavier load.

"Now for the timber-line," he called down to Kazan. "It's fifty miles, old boy, and you've got to make it by dawn. If we don't—"

He left the words unfinished, but Kazan tugged harder, as if he had heard and understood. The sledge had reached the unbroken sweep of the Barren now, and MacVeigh felt the wind in his face. It was blowing from the north and west, and with it came sudden gusts filled with fine particles of snow. After a few moments he fell back to see that Little Mystery's face was completely covered. Pelliter was crouching low on the sledge, his feet braced in the blanket straps. His wound and the uncomfortable sensation of riding backward on a swaying sledge were making him dizzy, and he wondered if what he saw creeping up out of the night was a result of this dizziness or a reality. There was no sound from behind. But a darker spot had grown within his vision, at times becoming larger, then almost disappearing. Twice he raised his rifle. Twice he lowered it again, convinced that the thing behind was only a shadowy fabric of his imagination. It was possible that their pursuers would lose trace of them in the darkness, and so he held his fire.

He was staring at the shadow when from out of it there leaped a little spurt of flame, and a bullet sang past the sledge, a yard to the right. It was a splendid shot. There was a marksman with the shadow, and Pelliter replied so quickly that the first shot had not died away before there followed the second. Five times his automatic sent its leaden messengers back into the night, and at the fifth shot there came a wild outburst of pain from one of the Eskimo dogs.

"Hurrah!" shouted Billy. "That's one team out of business, Pelly. We can beat 'em in a running fight!"

He heard the quick metallic snap of fresh cartridges as Pelliter slipped them into the chamber of his rifle, but beyond that sound, the wind, and the straining of the huskies there was no other. A grim silence fell behind. The roar of the distant ice grew less. The earth no longer seemed to shudder under their feet at the terrific explosions of the crumbling bergs. But in place of these the wind was rising and the fine snow was thickening. Billy no longer turned to look behind. He stared ahead and as far as he could see on each side of them. At the end of half an hour the panting dogs dropped into a walk, and he walked close beside his comrade.

"They've given it up," groaned Pelliter, weakly. "I'm glad of it, Mac, for I'm— I'm— dizzy." He was lying on the sledge now, with his head bolstered up on a pile of blankets.

"You know how the wolves hunt, Pelly," said MacVeigh— "in a moon-shape half circle, you know, that closes in on the running game from in front? Well, that's how the Eskimos hunt, and I'm wondering if they're trying to get ahead of us— off there, and off there." He motioned to the north and the south.

"They can't," replied Pelliter, raising himself to his elbow with an effort. "Their dogs are bushed. Let me walk, Mac. I can—" He fell back with a sudden low cry. "Gawd, but I'm dizzy—"

MacVeigh halted the dogs, and while they dropped upon their bellies, panting and licking up the snow, he kneeled beside Pelliter. Darkness concealed the fear in his eyes and face. His voice was strong and cheerful.

"You've got to lie still, Pelly," he warned, arranging the blankets so that the wounded man could rest comfortably. "You've got a pretty bad nip, and it's best for all of us that you don't make a move. You're right about the Eskimos and their dogs. They're bushed, and they've given the chase up as a bad job, so what's the use of making a fool of yourself? Ride it out, Pelly. Go to sleep with Little Mystery if you can. She thinks she's in a cradle."

He got up and started the dogs. For a long time he was alone. Little Mystery was sleeping and Pelliter was quiet. Now and then he dropped his mittened hand on Kazan's head, and the faithful old leader whined softly at his touch. With the others it was different. They snapped viciously, and he kept his distance. He went on for hours, halting the team now and then for a few minutes' rest. He struck a match each time and looked at Pelliter. His comrade breathed heavily, with his eyes closed. Once, long after midnight, he opened them and stared at the flare of the match and into MacVeigh's white face.

"I'm all right, Billy," he said. "Let me walk—"

MacVeigh forced him back gently, and went on. He was alone until the first cold, gray break of dawn. Then he stopped, gave each of the dogs a frozen fish, and with the fuel on the sledge built a small fire. He scraped up snow for tea, and hung the pail over the fire. He was frying bacon and toasting hard bannock biscuits when Pelliter aroused himself and sat up. Billy did not see him until he faced about.

"Good morning, Pelly," he grinned. "Have a good nap?"

Pelliter groped about on the sledge.

"Wish I could find a club," he growled. "I'd— I'd brain you! You let me sleep!"

He thrust out his uninjured arm, and the two shook hands. Once or twice before they had done this after hours of great peril. It was not an ordinary handshake.

Billy rose to his feet. Half a mile away the edge of the big forest for which they had been fighting rose out of the dawn gloom.

"If I'd known that," he said, pointing, "we'd have camped in shelter. Fifty miles, Pelly. Not so bad, was it?"

Behind them the gray Barren was lifting itself into the light of day. The two men ate and drank tea. During those few minutes neither gave attention to the forest or the Barren. Billy was ravenously hungry. Pelliter could not get enough of the tea. And then their attention went to Little Mystery, who awoke with a wailing protest at the smothering cover of blankets over her face. Billy dug her out and held her up to view the strange change since yesterday. It was then that Kazan stopped licking his ashy chops to send up a wailing howl.

Both men turned their eyes toward the forest. Halfway between a figure was toiling slowly toward them. It was a man, and Billy gave a low cry of astonishment.

But Kazan was facing the gray Barren, and he howled again, long and menacingly. The other dogs took up the cry, and when Pelliter and MacVeigh followed the direction of their warning they stood for a full quarter of a minute as if turned into stone.

A mile away the Barren was dotted with a dozen swiftly moving sledges and a score of running men!

After all, their last stand was to be made at the edge of the timber-line!

In such situations men like MacVeigh and Pelliter do not waste precious moments in prearranging actions in words. Their mental processes are instantaneous and correlative— and they act. Without a word Billy replaced Little Mystery in her nest without even giving her a sip of the warm tea, and by the time the dogs were straightened in their traces Pelliter was handing him his Remington.

"I've ranged it for three hundred and fifty yards," he said. "We won't want to waste our fire until they come that near."

They set out at a trot, Pelliter running with his wounded arm down at his side. Suddenly the lone figure between them and the forest disappeared. It had fallen flat in the snow, where it lay only a black speck. In a moment it rose again and advanced. Both Pelliter and Billy were looking when it fell for a second time.

An unpleasant laugh came from MacVeigh's lips.

The figure was climbing to its feet for the fifth time, and was only on its hands and knees when the sledge drew up. It was a white man. His head was bare, his face deathlike. His neck was open to the cold wind, and, to the others' astonishment, he wore no heavier garment over his dark flannel shirt. His eyes burned wildly from out of a shaggy growth of beard and hair, and he was panting like one who had traveled miles instead of a few hundred yards.

All this Billy saw at a glance, and then he gave a sudden unbelieving cry. The man's red eyes rested on his, and every fiber in his body seemed for a moment to have lost the power of action. He gasped and stared, and Pelliter started as if stung at the words which came first from his lips.

"Deane— Scottie Deane!"

An amazed cry broke from Pelliter. He looked at MacVeigh, his chief. He made an involuntary movement forward, but Billy was ahead of him. He had flung down his rifle, and in an instant was on his knees at Deane's side, supporting his emaciated figure in his arms.

"Good God! what does this mean, old man?" he cried, forgetting Pelliter. "What has happened? Why are you away up here? And where— where— is she?"

He had gripped Deane's hand. He was holding him tight; and Deane, looking up into his eyes, saw that he was no longer looking into the face of the Law, but that of a brother. He smiled feebly.

"Cabin— back there— in edge— woods," he gasped. "Saw you— coming. Thought mebbe you'd pass— so— came out. I'm done for— dying."

He drew a deep breath and tried to assist himself as Billy raised him to his feet. A little wailing cry came from the sledge. Startled, Deane turned his eyes toward that cry.

"My God!" he screamed.

He tore himself away from Billy and flung himself upon his knees beside Little Mystery, sobbing and talking like a madman as he clasped the frightened child in his arms. With her he leaped to his feet with new strength.

"She's mine— mine!" he cried, fiercely. "She's what brought me back! I was going for her! Where did you get her? How—"

There came to them now in sudden chorus the wild voice of the Eskimo dogs out on the plain. Deane heard the cry and faced with the others in their direction. They were not more than half a mile away, bearing down upon them swiftly. Billy knew that there was not a moment to lose. In a flash it had leaped upon him that in some way Deane and Isobel and Little Mystery were associated with that avenging horde, and as quickly as he could he told Deane what had happened. Sanity had come back into Deane's eyes, and no sooner had he heard than he ran out in the face of the army of little brown men with Little Mystery in his arms. MacVeigh and Pelliter could hear him calling to them from a distance. They were in the edge of the forest when Deane met the Eskimos. There was a long wait, and then Deane and Little Mystery came back— on a sledge drawn by Eskimo dogs. Beside the sledge walked the chief who had been wounded in the cabin at Fullerton Point. Deane was swaying, his head was bowed half upon his breast, and the chief and another Eskimo were supporting him. He nodded to the right, and a hundred yards away they found a cabin. The powerful little northerners carried him in, still clutching Little Mystery in his arms, and he made a motion for Billy to follow him— alone. Inside the cabin they placed him on a low bunk, and with a weak cough he beckoned Billy to his side. MacVeigh knew what that cough meant. The sick man had suffered terrible exposure, and the tissue of his lungs was sloughing away. It was death, the most terrible death of the north.

For a few moments Deane lay panting, clasping one of Billy's hands. Little Mystery slipped to the floor and began to investigate the cabin. Deane smiled into Billy's eyes.

"You've come again— just in time," he said, quite steadily. "Seems queer, don't it, Billy?"

For the first time he spoke the other's name as if he had known him a lifetime. Billy covered him over gently with one of the blankets, and in spite of himself his eyes sought about him questioningly. Deane saw the look.

"She didn't come," he whispered. "I left her—"

He broke off with a racking cough that brought a crimson stain to his lips. Billy felt a choking grief.

"You must be quiet," he said. "Don't try to talk now. You have no fire, and I will build one. Then I'll make you something hot."

He went to move away, but one of Deane's hands detained him.

"Not until I've said something to you, Billy," he insisted. "You know— you understand. I'm dying. It's liable to come any minute now, and I've got to tell you— things. You must understand— before I go. I won't be long. I killed a man, but I'm— not sorry. He tried to insult her— my wife— an' you— you'd have killed him, too. You people began to hunt me, and for safety we went far north— among the Eskimos— an' lived there— long time. The Eskimos— they loved the little girl an' wife, specially little Isobel. Thought them angels— some sort. Then we heard you were goin' to hunt for me— up there— among the Eskimos. So we set out with the box. Box was for her— to keep her from fearful cold. We didn't dare take the baby— so we left her up there. We were going back— soon— after you'd made your hunt. When we saw your fire on the edge of the Barren she made me get in the box— an' so— so you found us. You know— after that. You thought it was— coffin— an' she told you I was dead. You were good— good to her— an' you must go down there where she is, and take little Isobel. We were goin' to do as you said— an' go to South America. But we had to have the baby, an' I came back. Should have told you. We knew that— afterward. But we were afraid— to tell the secret— even to you—"

He stopped, panting and coughing. Billy was crushing both his thin, cold hands in his own. He found no word to say. He waited, fighting to stifle the sobbing grief in his breath.

"You were good— good— good— to her," repeated Deane, weakly, "You loved her— an' it was right— because you thought I was dead an' she was alone an' needed help. I'm glad— you love her. You've been good— 'n' honest— an I want some one like you to love her an' care for her. She ain't got nobody but me— an' little Isobel. I'm glad— glad— I've found a man— like you!"

He suddenly wrenched his hands free and took Billy's tense face between them, staring straight into his eyes.

"An'— an'— I give her to you," he said. "She's an angel, and she's alone— needs some one— an' you— you'll be good to her. You must go down to her— Pierre Couche's cabin— on the Little Beaver. An' you'll be good to her— good to her—"

"I will go to her," said Billy, softly. "And I swear here on my knees before the great and good God that I will do what an honorable man should do!"

Deane's rigid body relaxed, and he sank back on his blankets with a sigh of relief.

"I worried— for her," he said. "I've always believed in a God— though I killed a man— an' He sent you here in time!" A sudden questioning light came into his eyes. "The man who stole little Isobel," he breathed— "who was he?"

"Pelliter— the man out there— killed him when he came to the cabin," said Billy. "He said his name was Blake— Jim Blake."

"Blake! Blake! Blake!" Again Deane's voice rose from the edge of death to a shriek. "Blake, you say? A great coarse sailorman, with red hair— red beard— yellow teeth like a walrus! Blake— Blake—" He sank back again, with a thrilling, half-mad laugh. "Then— then it's all been a mistake— a funny mistake," he said; and his eyes closed, and his voice spoke the words as though he were uttering them from out of a dream.

Billy saw that the end was near. He bent down to catch the dying man's last words. Deane's hands were as cold as ice. His lips were white. And then Deane whispered:

"We fought— I thought I killed him— an' threw him into the sea. His right name was Samuelson. You knew him— by that name— but he went often— by Blake— Jim Blake. So— so— I'm not a murderer— after all. An' he— he came back for revenge— and— stole— little— Isobel. I'm— I'm— not— a— murderer. You— you— will— tell— her. You'll tell her— I didn't kill him— after all. You'll tell her— an'— be— good— good—"

He smiled. Billy bent lower.

"Again I swear before the good God that I will do what an honorable man should do," he replied.

Deane made no answer. He did not hear. The smile did not fade entirely from his lips. But Billy knew that in this moment death had come in through the cabin door. With a groan of anguish he dropped Deane's stiffening hand. Little Isobel pattered across the floor to his side. She laughed; and suddenly Billy turned and caught her in his arms, and, crumpled down there on the floor beside the one brother he had known in life, he sobbed like a woman.

XIII

THE TWO GODS

It was little Isobel who pulled MacVeigh together, and after a little he rose with her in his arms and turned her from the wall while he covered Deane's face with the end of a blanket. Then he went to the door. The Eskimos were building fires. Pelliter was seated on the sledge a short distance from the cabin, and at Billy's call he came toward him.

"If you don't mind, you can take her over to one of the fires for a little while," said Billy. "Scottie is dead. Try and make the chief understand,"

He did not wait for Pelliter to question him, but closed the door quietly and went back to Deane. He drew off the blanket and gazed for a moment into the still, bearded face.

"My Gawd, an' she's waitin' for you, 'n' looking for you, an' thinks you're coming back soon," he whispered. "You 'n' the kid!"

Reverently he began the task ahead of him. One after another he went into Deane's pockets and drew forth what he found. In one pocket there was a small knife, some cartridges, and a match box. He knew that Isobel would prize these and keep them because her husband had carried them, and he placed them in a handkerchief along with other things he found. Last of all he found in Deane's breast pocket a worn and faded envelope. He peered into the open end before he placed it on the little pile, and his heart gave a sudden throb when he saw the blue flower petals Isobel had given him. When he was done he crossed Deane's hands upon his breast. He was tying the ends of the handkerchief when the door opened softly behind him.

The little dark chief entered. He was followed by four other Eskimos. They had left their weapons outside. They seemed scarcely to breathe as they ranged themselves in a line and looked down upon Scottie Deane. Not a sign of emotion came into their expressionless faces, not the flicker of an eyelash did the immobility of their faces change. In a low, clacking monotone they began to speak, and there was no expression of grief in their voices. Yet Billy understood now that in the hearts of these little brown men Scottie Deane stood enshrined like a god. Before he was cold in death they had come to chant his deeds and his virtues to the unseen spirits who would wait and watch at his side until the beginning of the new day. For ten minutes the monotone continued. Then the five men turned and without a word, without looking at him, went out of the cabin. Billy followed them, wondering if Deane had convinced them that he and Pelliter were his friends. If he had not done that he feared that there would still be trouble over little Isobel. He was delighted when he found Pelliter talking with one of the men.

"I've found a flunkey here whose lingo I can get along with," cried Pelliter. "I've been telling 'em what bully friends we are, and have made 'em understand all about Blake. I've shaken hands with them all three or four times, and we feel pretty good. Better mix a little. They don't like the idea of giving us the kid, now that Scottie's dead. They're asking for the woman."

Half an hour later MacVeigh and Pelliter returned to the cabin. At the end of that time he was confident that the Eskimos would give them no further trouble and that they expected to leave Isobel in their possession. The chief, however, had given Billy to understand that they reserved the right to bury Deane.

Billy felt that he was now in a position where he would have to tell Pelliter some of the things that had happened to him on his return to Churchill. He had reported Deane's death as having occurred weeks before as the result of a fall, and when he returned to Fort Churchill he knew that he would have to stick to that story. Unless Pelliter knew of Isobel, his love for her, and his own defiance of the Law in giving them their freedom, his comrade might let out the truth and ruin him.

In the cabin they sat down at the table. Pelliter's arm was in a sling. His face was drawn and haggard and blackened by powder. He drew his revolver, emptied it of cartridges, and gave it to little Isobel to play with. He kept up his spirits among the Eskimos, but he made no effort to conceal his dejection now.

"I've lost her," he said, looking at Billy. "You're going to take her to her mother?"

"Yes."

"It hurts. You don't know how it's goin' to hurt to lose her," he said.

MacVeigh leaned across the table and spoke earnestly.

"Yes, I know what it means, Pelly," he replied. "I know what it means to love some one— and lose. I know. Listen."

Quickly he told Pelliter the story of the Barren, of the coming of Isobel, the mother, of the kiss she had given him, and of the flight, the pursuit, the recapture, and of that final moment when he had taken the steel cuffs from Deane's wrists. Once he had begun the story he left nothing untold, even to the division of the blue-flower petals and the tress of Isobel's hair. He drew both from his pocket and showed them to Pelliter, and at the tremble in his voice there came a mistiness in his comrade's eyes. When he had finished Pelliter reached across with his one good arm and gripped the other's hand.

"An' what she said about the blue flower is comin' true, Billy," he whispered. "It's bringing happiness to you, just as she said, for you're going down to her—"

MacVeigh interrupted him.

"No, it's not," he said, softly. "She loved him— as much as the girl down there will ever love you, Pelly, and when I tell her what has happened— her heart will break. That can't bring happiness— for me !"

The hours of that day bore leaden weights for Billy. The two men made their plans. A number of the Eskimos agreed to accompany Pelliter as far as Eskimo Point, whence he would make his way alone to Churchill. Billy would strike south to the Little Beaver in search of Couche's cabin and Isobel. He was glad when night came. It was late when he went to the door, opened it, and looked out.

In the edge of the timber-line it was black, black not only with the gloom of night, but with the concentrated darkness of spruce and balsam and a sky so low and thick that one could almost hear the wailing swish of it overhead like the steady sobbing of surf on a seashore. It was black, save for the small circles of light made by the Eskimo fires, about which half a hundred of the little brown men sat or crouched. The masters of the camp were all awake, but twice as many dogs, exhausted and footsore, lay curled in heaps, as inanimate as if dead. There was present a strange silence and a strange and unnatural gloom that was not of the night alone, a silence broken only by the low moaning of the wind out on the Barren, the restlessness in the air above the tree-tops, and the crackling of the fires. The Eskimos were as motionless as so many dead men. Their round, expressionless eyes were wide open. They sat or crouched with their backs to the Barren, their faces turned into the still deeper blackness of the forest. Some distance away, like a star, there gleamed the small and steady light in the cabin window. For two hours the eyes of those about the fires had been fixed on that light. And at intervals there had risen from among the stony-faced watchers the little chief, whose clacking voice joined for a few moments each time the wailing of the wind, the swish of the low-hanging sky, and the crackling of the fires. But there was sound of no other voice or movement. He alone moved and spoke, for to the others the clacking sounds he made was speech, words spoken each time for the man who lay dead in the cabin.

A dozen times Pelliter and MacVeigh had looked out to the fires, and looked each time at the hour. This time Billy said:

"They're moving, Pelly! They're jumping to their feet and coming this way!" He looked at his watch again. "They're mighty good guessers. It's a quarter after twelve. When a chief or a big man dies they bury him in the first hour of the new day. They're coming after Deane."

He opened the door and stepped out into the night. Pelliter joined him. The Eskimos advanced without a sound and stopped in a shadowy group twenty paces from the cabin. Five of these little fur-clad men detached themselves from the others and filed into the cabin, with the chief man at their head. As they bent over Deane they began to chant a low monotone which awakened little Isobel, who sat up and stared sleepily at the strange scene. Billy went to her and gathered her close in his arms. She was sleeping again when he put her down among the blankets. The Eskimos were gone with their burden. He could hear the low chanting of the tribe.

"I found her, and I thought she was mine," said Pelliter's low voice at his side. "But she ain't, Billy. She's yours."

MacVeigh broke in on him as though he had not heard.

"You better get to bed, Pelly," he warned. "That arm needs rest. I'm going out to see where they bury him."

He put on his cap and heavy coat and went as far as the door, then turned back. From his kit he took a belt-ax and nails.

The wind was blowing more strongly over the Barren, and MacVeigh could no longer hear the low lament of the Eskimos. He moved toward their fires, and found them deserted of men, only the dogs rema g in their deathlike sleep. And then, far down the edge of the timber, he saw a flare of light. Five minutes later he stood hidden in a deep shadow, a few paces from the Eskimos. They had dug the grave early in the evening, out on the great snow-plain, free of the trees; and as the fire they had built lighted up their dark, round faces MacVeigh saw the five little black men who had borne forth Scottie Deane leaning over the shallow hole in the frozen earth. Scottie was already gone. The earth and ice and frozen moss were falling in upon him, and not a sound fell now from the thick lips of his savage mourners. In a few minutes the crude work was done, and like a thin black shadow the natives filed back to their camp. Only one remained, sitting cross-legged at the head of the grave, his long narwhal spear at his back. It was O-gluck-gluck, the Eskimo chief, guarding the dead man from the devils who come to steal body and soul during the first few hours of burial.