From the time they left behind them the lifeless and snow-smothered cabin Philip lost account of time and direction. He believed that Bram was nearing the end of his trail. The wolves were dead tired. The wolf-man himself was lagging, and since midnight had ridden more frequently on the sledge. Still he drove on, and Philip searched with increasing eagerness the trail ahead of them.

It was eight o'clock—two hours after they had passed the cabin—when they came to the edge of a clearing in the center of which was a second cabin. Here at a glance Philip saw there was life. A thin spiral of smoke was rising from the chimney. He could see only the roof of the log structure, for it was entirely shut in by a circular stockade of saplings six feet high.

Twenty paces from where Bram stopped his team was the gate of the stockade. Bram went to it, thrust his arm through a hole even with his shoulders, and a moment later the gate swung inward. For perhaps a space of twenty seconds he looked steadily at Philip, and for the first time Philip observed the remarkable change that had come into his face. It was no longer a face of almost brutish impassiveness. There was a strange glow in his eyes. His thick lips were parted as if on the point of speech, and he was breathing with a quickness which did not come of physical exertion. Philip did not move or speak. Behind him he heard the restless whine of the wolves. He kept his eyes on Bram, and as he saw the look of joy and anticipation deepening in the wolf-man's face the appalling thought of what it meant sickened him. He clenched his hands. Bram did not see the act. He was looking again toward the cabin and at the spiral of smoke rising out of the chimney.

Then he faced Philip, and said,

"M'sieu, you go to ze cabin."

He held the gate open, and Philip entered. He paused to make certain of Bram's intention. The wolf-man swept an arm about the enclosure.

"In ze pit I loose ze wolve, m'sieu."

Philip understood. The stockade enclosure was Bram's wolf-pit, and Bram meant that he should reach the cabin before he gave the pack the freedom of the corral. He tried to conceal the excitement in his face as he turned toward the cabin. From the gate to the door ran a path worn by many footprints, and his heart beat faster as he noted the smallness of the moccasin tracks. Even then his mind fought against the possibility of the thing. Probably it was an Indian woman who lived with Bram, or an Eskimo girl he had brought down from the north.

He made no sound as he approached the door. He did not knock, but opened it and entered, as Bram had invited him to do.

From the gate Bram watched the cabin door as it closed behind him, and then he threw back his head and such a laugh of triumph came from his lips that even the tired beasts behind him pricked up their ears and listened.

And Philip, in that same moment, had solved the mystery of the golden snare.



CHAPTER IX

Philip had entered Bram Johnson's cabin from the west. Out of the east the pale fire of the winter sun seemed to concentrate itself on the one window of Bram's habitation, and flooded the opposite partition. In this partition there was a doorway, and in the doorway stood a girl.

She was standing full in the light that came through the window when Philip saw her. His first impression was that she was clouded in the same wonderful hair that had gone into the making of the golden snare. It billowed over her arms and breast to her hips, aflame with the living fires of the reflected sun. His second impression was that his entrance had interrupted her while she was dressing and that she was benumbed with astonishment as she stared at him. He caught the white gleam of her bare shoulders under her hair. And then, with a shock, he saw what was in her face.

It turned his blood cold. It was the look of a soul that had been tortured. Agony and doubt burned in the eyes that were looking at him. He had never seen such eyes. They were like violet amethysts. Her face was dead white. It was beautiful. And she was young. She was not over twenty, it flashed upon him—but she had gone through a hell.

"Don't let me alarm you," he said, speaking gently. "I am Philip Raine of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police."

It did not surprise him that she made no answer. As plainly as if she had spoken it he had in those few swift moments read the story in her face. His heart choked him as he waited for her lips to move. It was a mystery to him afterward why he accepted the situation so utterly as he stood there. He had no question to ask, and there was no doubt in his mind. He knew that he would kill Bram Johnson when the moment arrived.

The girl had not seemed to breathe, but now she drew in her breath in a great gasp. He could see the sudden throb of her breast under her hair, but the frightened light did not leave her eyes even when he repeated the words he had spoken. Suddenly she ran to the window, and Philip saw the grip of her hands at the sill as she looked out. Through the gate Bram was driving his wolves. When she faced him again, her eyes had in them the look of a creature threatened by a whip. It amazed and startled him. As he advanced a step she cringed back from him. It struck him then that her face was like the face of an angel—filled with a mad horror. She reached out her bare arms to hold him back, and a strange pleading cry came from her lips.

The cry stopped him like a shot. He knew that she had spoken to him. And yet he had not understood! He tore open his coat and the sunlight fell on his bronze insignia of the Service. Its effect on her amazed him even more than had her sudden fear of him. It occurred to him suddenly that with a two weeks' ragged growth of beard on his face he must look something like a beast himself. She had feared him, as she feared Bram, until she saw the badge.

"I am Philip Raine, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police," he repeated again. "I have come up here especially to help you, if you need help. I could have got Bram farther back, but there was a reason why I didn't want him until I found his cabin. That reason was you. Why are you here with a madman and a murderer?"

She was watching him intently. Her eyes were on his lips, and into her face—white a few moments before—had risen swiftly a flush of color. He saw the dread die out of her eyes in a new and dazzling excitement. Outside they could hear Bram. The girl turned again and looked through the window. Then she began talking, swiftly and eagerly, in a language that was as strange to Philip as the mystery of her presence in Bram Johnson's cabin. She knew that he could not understand, and suddenly she came up close to him and put a finger to his lips, and then to her own, and shook her head. He could fairly feel the throb of her excitement. The astounding truth held him dumb. She was trying to make him comprehend something—in a language which he had never heard before in all his life. He stared at her—like an idiot he told himself afterward.

And then the shuffle of Bram's heavy feet sounded just outside the door. Instantly the old light leapt into the girl's eyes. Before the door could open she had darted into the room from which she had first appeared, her hair floating about her in a golden cloud as she ran.

The door opened, and Bram entered. At his heels, beyond the threshold, Philip caught a glimpse of the pack glaring hungrily into the cabin. Bram was burdened under the load he had brought from the sledge. He dropped it to the floor, and without looking at Philip his eyes fastened themselves on the door to the inner room.

They stood there for a full minute, Bram as if hypnotized by the door, and Philip with his eyes on Bram. Neither moved, and neither made a sound. A curtain had dropped over the entrance to the inner room, and beyond that they could hear the girl moving about. A dozen emotions were fighting in Philip. If he had possessed a weapon he would have ended the matter with Bram then, for the light that was burning like a strange flame in the wolf-man's eyes convinced him that he had guessed the truth. Bare-handed he was no match for the giant madman. For the first time he let his glance travel cautiously about the room. Near the stove was a pile of firewood. A stick of this would do—when the opportunity came.

And then, in a way that made him almost cry out, every nerve in his body was startled. The girl appeared in the doorway, a smile on her lips and her eyes shining radiantly—straight at Bram! She partly held out her arms, and began talking. She seemed utterly oblivious of Philip's presence. Not a word that she uttered could he understand. It was not Cree or Chippewyan or Eskimo. It was not French or German or any tongue that he had ever heard. Her voice was pure and soft. It trembled a little, and she was breathing quickly. But the look in her face that had at first horrified him was no longer there. She had braided her hair and had coiled the shining strands on the crown of her head, and the coloring in her face was like that of a rare painting. In these astounding moments he knew that such color and such hair did not go with any race that had ever bred in the northland. From her face, even as her lips spoke, he looked at Bram. The wolf-man was transfigured. His strange eyes were shining, his heavy face was filled with a dog-like joy, and his thick lips moved as if he was repeating to himself what the girl was saying.

Was it possible that he understood her? Was the strange language in which she was speaking common between them! At first Philip thought that it must be so—and all the horrors of the situation that he had built up for himself fell about him in confusing disorder. The girl, as she stood there now, seemed glad that Bram had returned; and with a heart choking him with its suspense he waited for Bram to speak, and act.

When the girl ceased speaking the wolf-man's response came in a guttural cry that was like a paean of triumph. He dropped on his knees beside the dunnage bag and mumbling thickly as he worked he began emptying its contents upon the floor.

Philip looked at the girl. She was looking at him now. Her hands were clutched at her breast, and in her face and attitude there was a wordless entreaty for him to understand. The truth came to him like a flash. For some reason she had forced herself to appear that way to the wolf-man. She had forced herself to smile, forced the look of gladness into her face, and the words from her lips. And now she was trying to tell him what it meant, and pointing to Bram as he knelt with his huge head and shoulders bent over the dunnage bag on the floor she exclaimed in a low, tense voice:

"Tossi—tossi—han er tossi!"

It was useless. He could not understand, and it was impossible for him to hide the bewilderment in his face. All at once an inspiration came to him. Bram's back was toward him, and he pointed to the sticks of firewood. His pantomime was clear. Should he knock the wolf-man's brains out as he knelt there?

He could see that his question sent a thrill of alarm through her. She shook her head. Her lips formed strange words, and looking again at Bram she repeated, "Tossi—tossi—han er tossi!" She clasped her hands suddenly to her head then. Her slim fingers buried themselves in the thick braids of her hair. Her eyes dilated—and suddenly understanding flashed upon him. She was telling him what he already knew—that Bram Johnson was mad, and he repeated after her the "Tossi-tossi," tapping his forehead suggestively, and nodding at Bram. Yes, that was it. He could see it in the quick intake of her breath and the sudden expression of relief that swept over her face. She had been afraid he would attack the wolf-man. And now she was glad that he understood he was not to harm him.

If the situation had seemed fairly clear to him a few minutes before it had become more deeply mysterious than ever now. Even as the wolf-man rose from his knees, still mumbling to himself in incoherent exultation, the great and unanswerable question pounded in Philip's brain: "Who was this girl, and what was she to Bram Johnson—the crazed outlaw whom she feared and yet whom she did not wish him to harm?"

And then he saw her staring at the things which Bram had sorted out on the floor. In her eyes was hunger. It was a living, palpitant part of her now as she stared at the things which Bram had taken from the dunnage bag—as surely as Bram's madness was a part of him. As Philip watched her he knew that slowly the curtain was rising on the tragedy of the golden snare. In a way the look that he saw in her face shocked him more than anything that he had seen in Bram's. It was as if, in fact, a curtain had lifted before his eyes revealing to him an unbelievable truth, and something of the hell through which she had gone. She was hungry—FOR SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT FLESH! Swiftly the thought flashed upon him why the wolf-man had traveled so far to the south, and why he had attacked him for possession of his food supply. It was that he might bring these things to the girl. He knew that it was sex-pride that restrained the impulse that was pounding in every vein of her body. She wanted to fling herself down on her knees beside that pile of stuff—but she remembered HIM! Her eyes met his, and the shame of her confession swept in a crimson flood into her face. The feminine instinct told her that she had betrayed herself—like an animal, and that he must have seen in her for a moment something that was almost like Bram's own madness.



CHAPTER X

Until he felt the warm thrill of the girl's arm under his hand Philip did not realize the hazard he had taken. He turned suddenly to confront Bram. He would not have known then that the wolf-man was mad, and impulsively he reached out a hand.

"Bram, she's starving," he cried. "I know now why you wanted that stuff! But why didn't you tell me! Why don't you talk, and let me know who she is, and why she is here, and what you want me to do?"

He waited, and Bram stared at him without a sound.

"I tell you I'm a friend," he went on. "I—"

He got no farther than that, for suddenly the cabin was filled with the madness of Bram's laugh. It was more terrible than out on the open Barren, or in the forest, and he felt the shudder of the girl at his side. Her face was close to his shoulder, and looking down he saw that it was white as death, but that even then she was trying to smile at Bram. And Bram continued to laugh—and as he laughed, his eyes blazing a greenish fire, he turned to the stove and began putting fuel into the fire. It was horrible. Bram's laugh—the girl's dead white face, AND HER SMILE! He no longer asked himself who she was, and why she was there. He was overwhelmed by the one appalling fact that she WAS here, and that the stricken soul crying out to him from the depths of those eyes that were like wonderful blue amethysts told him that Bram had made her pay the price. His muscles hardened as he looked at the huge form bending over the stove. It was a splendid opportunity. A single leap and he would be at the outlaw's throat. With that advantage, in open combat, the struggle would at least be equal.

The girl must have guessed what was in his mind, for suddenly her fingers were clutching at his arm and she was pulling him away from the wolf-man, speaking to him in the language which he could not understand. And then Bram turned from the stove, picked up a pail, and without looking at them left the cabin. They could hear his laugh as he joined the wolves.

Again Philip's conclusions toppled down about him like a thing made of blocks. During the next few moments he knew that the girl was telling him that Bram had not harmed her. She seemed almost hysterically anxious to make him understand this, and at last, seizing him by the hand, she drew him into the room beyond the curtained door. Her meaning was quite as plain as words. She was showing him what Bram had done for her. He had made her this separate room by running a partition across the cabin, and in addition to this he had built a small lean-to outside the main wall entered through a narrow door made of saplings that were still green. He noticed that the partition was also made of fresh timber. Except for the bunk built against the wall, a crude chair, a sapling table and half a dozen bear skins that carpeted the floor the room was empty. A few garments hung on the wall—a hood made of fur, a thick mackinaw coat belted at the waist with a red scarf, and something done up in a small bundle.

"I guess—I begin to get your meaning," he said, looking straight into her shining blue eyes. "You want to impress on me that I'm not to wring Bram Johnson's neck when his back is turned, or at any other time, and you want me to believe that he hasn't done you any harm. And yet you're afraid to the bottom of your soul. I know it. A little while ago your face was as white as chalk, and now—now—it's the prettiest face I've ever seen. Now, see here, little girl—"

It gave him a pleasant thrill to see the glow in her eyes and the eager poise of her slim, beautiful body as she listened to him.

"I'm licked," he went on, smiling frankly at her. "At least for the present. Maybe I've gone loony, like Bram, and don't realize it yet. I set out for a couple of Indians, and find a madman; and at the madman's cabin I find YOU, looking at first as though you were facing straight up against the door of-of-well, seeing that you can't understand I might as well say it—OF HELL! Now, if you weren't afraid of Bram, and if he hasn't hurt you, why did you look like that? I'm stumped. I repeat it—dead stumped. I'd give a million dollars if I could make Bram talk. I saw what was in his eyes. YOU saw it—and that pretty pink went out of your face so quick it seemed as though your heart must have stopped beating. And yet you're trying to tell me he hasn't harmed you. My God—I wish I could believe it!"

In her face he saw the reflection of the change that must have come suddenly into his own.

"You're a good fifteen hundred miles from any other human being with hair and eyes and color like yours," he continued, as though in speaking his thoughts aloud to her some ray of light might throw itself on the situation. "If you had something black about you. But you haven't. You're all gold—pink and white and gold. If Bram has another fit of talking he may tell me you came from the moon—that a chasse-galere crew brought you down out of space to keep house for him. Great Scott, can't you give me some sort of an idea of who you are and where you same from?"

He paused for an answer—and she smiled at him. There was something pathetically sweet in that smile. It brought a queer lump into his throat, and for a space he forgot Bram.

"You don't understand a cussed word of it, do you?" he said, taking her hand in both his own and holding it closely for a moment. "Not a word. But we're getting the drift of things—slowly. I know you've been here quite a while, and that morning, noon and night since the chasse-galere brought you down from the moon you've had nothing to put your little teeth into but meat. Probably without salt, too. I saw how you wanted to throw yourself down on that pile of stuff on the floor. Let's have breakfast!"

He led her into the outer room, and eagerly she set to work helping him gather the things from the floor. He felt that an overwhelming load had been lifted from his heart, and he continued to tell her about it while he hurried the preparation of the breakfast for which he knew she was hungering. He did not look at her too closely. All at once it had dawned upon him that her situation must be tremendously more embarrassing than his own. He felt, too, the tingle of a new excitement in his veins. It was a pleasurable sensation, something which he did not pause to analyze just at present. Only he knew that it was because she had told him as plainly as she could that Bram had not harmed her.

"And if he HAD I guess you'd have let me smash his brains out when he was bending over the stove, wouldn't you?" he said, stirring the mess of desiccated potato he was warming in one of his kit-pans. He looked up to see her eyes shining at him, and her lips parted. She was delightfully pretty. He knew that every nerve in her body was straining to understand him. Her braid had slipped over her shoulder. It was as thick as his wrist, and partly undone. He had never dreamed that a woman's hair could hold such soft warm fires of velvety gold. Suddenly he straightened himself and tapped his chest, an inspiring thought leaping into his head.

"I am Philip Raine," he said. "Philip Raine—Philip Raine—Philip Raine—"

He repeated the name over and over again, pointing each time to himself. Instantly light flashed into her face. It was as if all at once they had broken through the barrier that had separated them. She repeated his name, slowly, clearly, smiling at him, and then with both hands at her breast, she said:

"Celie Armin."

He wanted to jump over the stove and shake hands with her, but the potatoes were sizzling. Celie Armin! He repeated the name as he stirred the potatoes, and each time he spoke it she nodded. It was decidedly a French name—but half a minute's experiment with a few simple sentences of Pierre Breault's language convinced him that the girl understood no word of it.

Then he said again:

"Celie!"

Almost in the same breath she answered:

"Philip!"

Sounds outside the cabin announced the return of Bram. Following the snarl and whine of the pack came heavy footsteps, and the wolf-man entered. Philip did not turn his head toward the door. He did not look at first to see what effect Bram's return had on Celie Armin. He went on casually with his work. He even began to whistle; and then, after a final stir or two at the potatoes, he pointed to the pail in which the coffee was bubbling, and said:

"Turn the coffee, Celie. We're ready!"

He caught a glimpse of her face then. The excitement and color had partly died out of it. She took the pail of coffee and went with it to the table.

Then Philip faced Bram.

The wolf-man was standing with his back to the door. He had not moved since entering, and he was staring at the scene before him in a dull, stupid sort of way. In one hand he carried a pail filled with water; in the other a frozen fish.

"Too late with the fish, Bram," said Philip. "We couldn't make the little lady wait. Besides, I think you've fed her on fish and meat until she is just about ready to die. Come to breakfast!"

He loaded a tin plate with hot potatoes, bannock-bread and rice that he had cooked before setting out on the Barren, and placed it before the girl. A second plate he prepared for Bram, and a third for himself. Bram had not moved. He still held the pail and the fish in his hands. Suddenly he lowered both to the floor with a growl that seemed to come from the bottom of his great chest, and came to the table. With one huge hand he seized Philip's arm. It was not a man's grip. There was apparently no effort in it, and yet it was a vise-like clutch that threatened to snap the bone. And all the time Bram's eyes were on the girl. He drew Philip back, released the terrible grip on his arm, and shoved the two extra plates of food to the girl. Then he faced Philip.

"We eat ze meat, m'sieu!"

Quietly and sanely he uttered the words. In his eyes and face there was no trace of madness. And then, even as Philip stared, the change came. The giant flung back his head and his wild, mad laugh rocked the cabin. Out in the corral the snarl and cry of the wolves gave a savage response to it.

It took a tremendous effort for Philip to keep a grip on himself. In that momentary flash of sanity Bram had shown a chivalry which must have struck deep home in the heart of the girl. There was a sort of triumph in her eyes when he looked at her. She knew now that he must understand fully what she had been trying to tell him. Bram, in his madness, had been good to her. Philip did not hesitate in the impulse of the moment. He caught Bram's hand and shook it. And Bram, his laugh dying away in a mumbling sound, seemed not to notice it. As Philip began preparing the fish the wolf-man took up a position against the farther wall, squatted Indian-fashion on his heels. He did not take his eyes from the girl until she had finished, and Philip brought him a half of the fried fish. He might as well have offered the fish to a wooden sphinx. Bram rose to his feet, mumbling softly, and taking what was left of one of the two caribou quarters he again left the cabin.

His mad laugh and the snarling outcry of the wolves came to them a moment later.



CHAPTER XI

Scarcely had the door closed when Celie Armin ran to Philip and pulled him to the table. In the tense half hour of Bram's watchfulness she had eaten her own breakfast as if nothing unusual had happened; now she insisted on adding potatoes and bannock to Philip's fish, and turned him a cup of coffee.

"Bless your heart, you don't want to see me beat out of a breakfast, do you?" he smiled up at her, feeling all at once an immense desire to pull her head down to him and kiss her. "But you don't understand the situation, little girl. Now I've been eating this confounded bannock"—he picked up a chunk of it to demonstrate his point—"morning, noon and night until the sight of it makes me almost cry for one of mother's green cucumber pickles. I'm tired of it. Bram's fish is a treat. And this coffee, seeing that you have turned it in that way—"

She sat opposite him while he ate, and he had the chance of observing her closely while his meal progressed. It struck him that she was growing prettier each time that he looked at her, and he was more positive than ever that she was a stranger in the northland. Again he told himself that she was not more than twenty. Mentally he even went so far as to weigh her and would have gambled that she would not have tipped a scale five pounds one way or the other from a hundred and twenty. Some time he might have seen the kind of violet-blue that was in her eyes, but he could not remember it. She was lost—utterly lost at this far-end of the earth. She was no more a part of it than a crepe de chine ball dress or a bit of rose china. And there she was, sitting opposite him, a bewitching mystery for him to solve. And she WANTED to be solved! He could see it in her eyes, and in the little beating throb at her throat. She was fighting, with him, to find a way; a way to tell him who she was, and why she was here, and what he must do for her.

Suddenly he thought of the golden snare. That, after all, he believed to be the real key to the mystery. He rose quickly from the table and drew the girl to the window. At the far end of the corral they could see Bram tossing chunks of meat to the horde of beasts that surrounded him. In a moment or two he had the satisfaction of seeing that his companion understood that he was directing her attention to the wolf-man and not the pack. Then he began unbraiding her hair. His fingers thrilled at the silken touch of it. He felt his face flushing hot under his beard, and he knew that her eyes were on him wonderingly. A small strand he divided into three parts and began weaving into a silken thread only a little larger than the wolf-man's snare. From, the woven tress he pointed to Bram and in an instant her face lighted up with understanding.

She answered him in pantomime. Either she or Bram had cut the tress from her head that had gone into the making of the golden snare. And not only one tress, but several. There had been a number of golden snares. She bowed her head and showed him where strands as large as her little finger had been clipped in several places.

Philip almost groaned. She was telling him nothing new, except that there had been many snares instead of one.

He was on the point of speech when the look in her face held him silent. Her eyes glowed with a sudden excitement—a wild inspiration. She held out her hands until they nearly touched his breast.

"Philip Raine—Amerika!" she cried.

Then, pressing her hands to her own breast, she added eagerly:

"Celie Armin—Danmark!"

"Denmark!" exclaimed Philip. "Is that it, little girl? You're from Denmark? Denmark!"

She nodded.

"Kobenhavn—Danmark!"

"Copenhagen, Denmark," he translated for himself. "Great Scott, Celie—we're TALKING! Celie Armin, from Copenhagen, Denmark! But how in Heaven's name did you get HERE?" He pointed to the floor under their feet and embraced the four walls of the cabin in a wide gesture of his arms. "How did you get HERE?"

Her next words thrilled him.

"Kobenhavn—Muskvas—St. Petersburg—Rusland—Sibirien—Amerika."

"Copenhagen—Muskvas, whatever that is—St. Petersburg—Russia—Siberia—America," he repeated, staring at her incredulously. "Celie, if you love me, be reasonable! Do you expect me to believe that you came all the way from Denmark to this God-forsaken madman's cabin in the heart of the Canada Barrens by way of Russia and Siberia? YOU! I can't believe it. There's a mistake somewhere. Here—"

He thought of his pocket atlas, supplied by the department as a part of his service kit, and remembered that in the back of it was a small map of the world. In half a minute he had secured it and was holding the map under her eyes. Her little forefinger touched Copenhagen. Leaning over her shoulder, he felt her hair crumpling against his breast. He felt an insane desire to bury his face in it and hug her up close in his arms—for a single moment the question of whether she came from Copenhagen or the moon was irrelevant and of little consequence. He, at least, had found her. He was digging her out of chaos, and he was filled with the joyous exultation of a triumphant discoverer—almost the thrill of ownership. He held his breath as he watched the little forefinger telling him its story on the map.

From Copenhagen it went to Moscow—which must have been Muskvas, and from there it trailed slowly to St. Petersburg and thence straight across Russia and Siberia to Bering Sea.

"Skunnert," she said softly, and her finger came across to the green patch on the map which was Alaska.

It hesitated there. Evidently it was a question in her own mind where she had gone after that. At least she could not tell him on the map. And now, seeing that he was understanding her, she was becoming visibly excited. She pulled him to the window and pointed to the wolves. Alaska—and after that dogs and sledge. He nodded. He was jubilant. She was Celie Armin, of Copenhagen, Denmark, and had come to Alaska by way of Russia and Siberia—and after that had traveled by dog-train. But WHY had she come, and what had happened to make her the companion or prisoner of Bram Johnson? He knew she was trying to tell him. With her back to the window she talked to him again, gesturing with her hands, and almost sobbing under the stress of the emotion that possessed her. His elation turned swiftly to the old dread as he watched the change in her face. Apprehension—a grim certainty—gripped hold of him. Something terrible had happened to her—a thing that had racked her soul and that filled her eyes with the blaze of a strange terror as she struggled to make him understand. And then she broke down, and with a sobbing cry covered her face with her hands.

Out in the corral Philip heard Bram Johnson's laugh. It was a mockery—a challenge. In an instant every drop of blood in his body answered it in a surge of blind rage. He sprang to the stove, snatched up a length of firewood, and in another moment was at the door. As he opened it and ran out he heard Celie's wild appeal for him to stop. It was almost a scream. Before he had taken a dozen steps from the cabin he realized what the warning meant. The pack had seen him and from the end of the corral came rushing at him in a thick mass.

This time Bram Johnson's voice did not stop them. He saw Philip, and from the doorway Celie looked upon the scene while the blood froze in her veins. She screamed—and in the same breath came the wolf-man's laugh. Philip heard both as he swung the stick of firewood over his head and sent it hurling toward the pack. The chance accuracy of the throw gave him an instant's time in which to turn and make a dash for the cabin. It was Celie who slammed the door shut as he sprang through. Swift as a flash she shot the bolt, and there came the lunge of heavy bodies outside. They could hear the snapping of jaws and the snarling whine of the beasts. Philip had never seen a face whiter than the girl's had gone. She covered it with her hands, and he could see her trembling. A bit of a sob broke hysterically from her lips.

He knew of what she was thinking—the horrible thing she was hiding from her eyes. It was plain enough to him now. Twenty seconds more and they would have had him. And then—

He drew in a deep breath and gently uncovered her face. Her hands shivered in his. And then a great throb of joy repaid him for his venture into the jaws of death as he saw the way in which her beautiful eyes were looking at him.

"Celie—my little mystery girl—I've discovered something," he cried huskily, holding her hands so tightly that it must have hurt her. "I'm almost glad you can't understand me, for I wouldn't blame you for being afraid of a man who told you he loved you an hour or two after he first saw you. I love you. I've never wanted anything in all my life as I want you. And I must be careful and not let you know it, mustn't I? If I did you'd think I was some kind of an animal-brute—like Bram. Wouldn't you?"

Bram's voice came in a sharp rattle of Eskimo outside. Philip could hear the snarling rebellion of the wolves as they slunk away from the cabin, and he drew Celie back from the door. Suddenly she freed her hands, ran to the door and slipped back the wooden bolt as the wolf-man's hand fumbled at the latch. In a moment she was back at his side. When Bram entered every muscle in Philip's body was prepared for action. He was amazed at the wolf-man's unconcern. He was mumbling and chuckling to himself, as if amused at what he had seen. Celie's little fingers dug into Philip's arm and he saw in her eyes a tense, staring look that had not been there before. It was as if in Bram's face and his queer mumbling she had recognized something which was not apparent to him. Suddenly she left him and hurried into her room. During the few moments she was gone Bram did not look once at Philip. His mumbling was incessant. Perhaps a minute passed before the girl reappeared.

She went straight to Bram and before the wolf-man's eyes held a long, shining tress of hair!

Instantly the mumbling in Bram's throat ceased and he thrust out slowly a huge misshapen hand toward the golden strand. Philip felt his nerves stretching to the breaking point. With Bram the girl's hair was a fetich. A look of strange exultation crept over the giant's heavy features as his fingers clutched the golden offering. It almost drew a cry of warning from Philip. He saw the girl smiling in the face of a deadly peril—a danger of which she was apparently unconscious. Her hair still fell loose about her in a thick and shimmering glory. And BRAM'S EYES WERE ON IT AS HE TOOK THE TRESS FROM HER FINGERS! Was it conceivable that this mad-man did not comprehend his power! Had the thought not yet burned its way into his thick brain that a treasure many times greater than, that which she had doled out to him lay within the reach of his brute hands at any time he cared to reach out for it? And was it possible that the girl did not guess her danger as she stood there?

What she could see of his face must have been as pale as her own when she looked at him. She smiled, and nodded at Bram. The giant was turning slowly toward the window, and after a moment or two in which they could hear him mumbling softly he sat down cross-legged against the wall, divided the tress into three silken threads and began weaving them into a snare. The color was returning to Celie's face when Philip looked at her again. She told him with a gesture of her head and hands that she was going into her room for a time. He didn't blame her. The excitement had been rather unusual.

After she had gone he dug his shaving outfit out of his kit-bag. It included a mirror and the reflection he saw in this mirror fairly shocked him. No wonder the girl had been frightened at his first appearance. It took him half an hour to shave his face clean, and all that time Bram paid no attention to him but went on steadily at his task of weaving the golden snare. Celie did not reappear until the wolf-man had finished and was leaving the cabin. The first thing she noticed was the change in Philip's face. He saw the pleasure in her eyes and felt himself blushing.

From the window they watched Bram. He had called his wolves and was going with them to the gate. He carried his snowshoes and his long whip. He went through the gate first and one by one let his beasts out until ten of the twenty had followed him. The gate was closed then.

Celie turned to the table and Philip saw that she had brought from her room a pencil and a bit of paper. In a moment she held the paper out to him, a light of triumph in her face. At last they had found a way to talk. On the paper was a crude sketch of a caribou head. It meant that Bram had gone hunting.

And in going Bram had left a half of his blood-thirsty pack in the corral. There was no longer a doubt in Philip's mind. They were not the chance guests of this madman. They were prisoners.



CHAPTER XII

For a few minutes after the wolf-man and his hunters had gone from the corral Philip did not move from the window. He almost forgot that the girl was standing behind him. At no time since Pierre Breault had revealed the golden snare had the situation been more of an enigma to him than now. Was Bram Johnson actually mad—or was he playing a colossal sham? The question had unleashed itself in his brain with a suddenness that had startled him. Out of the past a voice came to him distinctly, and it said, "A madman never forgets!" It was the voice of a great alienist, a good friend of his, with whom he had discussed the sanity of a man whose crime had shocked the country. He knew that the words were true. Once possessed by an idea the madman will not forget it. It becomes an obsession with him—a part of his existence. In his warped brain a suspicion never dies. A fear will smolder everlastingly. A hatred lives steadily on.

If Bram Johnson was mad would he play the game as he was playing it now! He had almost killed Philip for possession of the food, that the girl might have the last crumb of it. Now, without a sign of the madman's caution, he had left it all within his reach again. A dozen times the flaming suspicion in his eyes had been replaced by a calm and stupid indifference. Was the suspicion real and the stupidity a clever dissimulation? And if dissimulation—why?

He was positive now that Bram had not harmed the girl in the way he had dreaded. Physical desire had played no part in the wolf-man's possession of her. Celie had made him understand that;—and yet in Bram's eyes he had caught a look now and then that was like the dumb worship of a beast. Only once had that look been anything different—and that was when Celie had given him a tress of her hair. Even the suspicion roused in him then was gone now, for if passion and desire were smoldering in the wolf-man's breast he would not have brought a possible rival to the cabin, nor would he have left them alone together.

His mind worked swiftly as he stared unseeing out into the corral. He would no longer play the part of a pawn. Thus far Bram had held the whip hand. Now he would take it from him no matter what mysterious protestation the girl might make! The wolf-man had given him a dozen opportunities to deliver the blow that would make him a prisoner. He would not miss the next.

He faced Celie with the gleam of this determination in his eyes. She had been watching him intently and he believed that she had guessed a part of his thoughts. His first business was to take advantage of Brain's absence to search the cabin. He tried to make Celie understand what his intentions were as he began.

"You may have done this yourself," he told her. "No doubt you have. There probably isn't a corner you haven't looked into. But I have a hunch I may find something you missed—something interesting."

She followed him closely. He began at each wall and went over it carefully, looking for possible hiding places. Then he examined the floor for a loose sapling. At the end of half an hour his discoveries amounted to nothing. He gave an exclamation of satisfaction when under an old blanket in a dusty corner he found a Colt army revolver. But it was empty, and he found no cartridges. At last there was nothing left to search but the wolf-man's bunk. At the bottom of this he found what gave him his first real thrill—three of the silken snares made from Celie Armin's hair.

"We won't touch them," he said after a moment, replacing the bear skin that had covered them. "It's good etiquette up here not to disturb another man's cache and that's Bram's. I can't imagine any one but a madman doing that. And yet—"

He looked suddenly at Celie.

"Do you suppose he was afraid of YOU?" he asked her. "Is that why he doesn't leave even the butcher-knife in this shack? Was he afraid you might shoot him in his sleep if he left the temptation in your way?"

A commotion among the wolves drew him to the window. Two of the beasts were fighting. While his back was turned Celie entered her room and returned a moment or two later with a handful of loose bits of paper. The pack held Philip's attention. He wondered what chance he would have in an encounter with the beasts which Bram had left behind as a guard. Even if he killed Bram or made him a prisoner he would still have that horde of murderous brutes to deal with. If he could in some way induce the wolf-man to bring his rifle into the cabin the matter would be easy. With Bram out of the way he could shoot the wolves one by one from the window. Without a weapon their situation would be hopeless. The pack—with the exception of one huge, gaunt beast directly under the window—had swung around the end of the cabin out of his vision. The remaining wolf in spite of the excitement of battle was gnawing hungrily at a bone. Philip could hear the savage grind of its powerful jaws, and all at once the thought of how they might work out their salvation flashed upon him. They could starve the wolves! It would take a week, perhaps ten days, but with Bram out of the way and the pack helplessly imprisoned within the corral it could be done. His first impulse now was to impress on Celie the necessity of taking physical action against Bram.

The sound of his own name turned him from the window with a sudden thrill.

If the last few minutes had inspired an eagerness for action in his own mind he saw at a glance that something equally exciting had possessed Celie Armin. Spread out on the table were the bits of paper she had brought from her room, and, pointing to them, she again called him by name. That she was laboring under a new and unusual emotion impressed him immediately. He could see that she was fighting to restrain an impulse to pour out in words what would have been meaningless to him, and that she was telling him the bits of paper were to take the place of voice. For one swift moment as he advanced to the table the papers meant less to him than the fact that she had twice spoken his name. Her soft lips seemed to whisper it again as she pointed, and the look in her eyes and the poise of her body recalled to him vividly the picture of her as he had first seen her in the cabin. He looked at the bits of paper. There were fifteen or twenty pieces, and on each was sketched a picture.

He heard a low catch in Celie's breath as he bent over them, and his own pulse quickened. A glance was sufficient to show him that with the pictures Celie was trying to tell him what he wanted to know. They told her own story—who she was, why she was at Bram Johnson's cabin, and how she had come. This, at least, was the first thought that impressed him. He observed then that the bits of paper were soiled and worn as though they had been handled a great deal. He made no effort to restrain the exclamation that followed this discovery.

"You drew these pictures for Bram," he scanning them more carefully. "That settles one thing. Bram doesn't know much more about you than, I do. Ships, and dogs, and men—and fighting—a lot of fighting—and—"

His eyes stopped at one of the pictures and his heart gave a sudden excited thump. He picked up the bit of paper which had evidently been part of a small sack. Slowly he turned to the girl and met her eyes. She was trembling in her eagerness for him to understand.

"That is YOU," he said, tapping the central figure in the sketch, and nodding at her. "You—with your hair down, and fighting a bunch of men who look as though they were about to beat your brains out with clubs! Now—what in God's name does it mean? And here's a ship up in the corner. That evidently came first. You landed from that ship, didn't you? From the ship—the ship—the ship—"

"Skunnert!" she cried softly, touching the ship with her finger. "Skunnert—Sibirien!"

"Schooner-Siberia," translated Philip. "It sounds mightily like that, Celie. Look here—" He opened his pocket atlas again at the map of the world. "Where did you start from, and where did you come ashore? If we can get at the beginning of the thing—"

She had bent her head over the crook of his arm, so that in her eager scrutiny of the map his lips for a moment or two touched the velvety softness of her hair. Again he felt the exquisite thrill of her touch, the throb of her body against him, the desire to take her in his arms and hold her there. And then she drew back a little, and her finger was once more tracing out its story on the map. The ship had started from the mouth of the Lena River, in Siberia, and had followed the coast to the blue space that marked the ocean above Alaska. And there the little finger paused, and with a hopeless gesture Celie intimated that was all she knew. From somewhere out of that blue patch the ship had touched the American shore. One after another she took up from the table the pieces of paper that carried on the picture-story from that point. It was, of course, a broken and disjointed story. But as it progressed every drop of blood in Philip's body was stirred by the thrill and mystery of it. Celie Armin had traveled from Denmark through Russia to the Lena River in Siberia, and from there a ship had brought her to the coast of North America. There had been a lot of fighting, the significance of which he could only guess at; and now, at the end, the girl drew for Philip another sketch in which a giant and a horde of beasts appeared. It was a picture of Bram and his wolves, and at last Philip understood why she did not want him to harm the wolf-man. Bram had saved her from the fate which the pictures only partly portrayed for him. He had brought her far south to his hidden stronghold, and for some reason which the pictures failed to disclose was keeping her a prisoner there.

Beyond these things Celie Armin was still a mystery.

Why had she gone to Siberia? What had brought her to the barren Arctic coast of America? Who were the mysterious enemies from whom Bram the madman had saved her? And who—who—

He looked again at one of the pictures which he had partly crumpled in his hand. On it were sketched two people. One was a figure with her hair streaming down—Celie herself. The other was a man. The girl had pictured herself close in the embrace of this man's arms. Her own arms encircled the man's neck. From the picture Philip had looked at Celie, and the look he had seen in her eyes and face filled his heart with a leaden chill. It was more than hope that had flared up in his breast since he had entered Bram Johnson's cabin. And now that hope went suddenly out, and with its extinguishment he was oppressed by a deep and gloomy foreboding.

He went slowly to the window and looked out.

The next moment Celie was startled by the sudden sharp cry that burst from his lips. Swiftly she ran to his side. He had dropped the paper. His hands were gripping the edge of the sill, and he was staring like one who could not believe his own eyes.

"Good God—look! Look at that!"

They had heard no sound outside the cabin during the last few minutes. Yet under their eyes, stretched out in the soiled and trampled snow, lay the wolf that a short time before had been gnawing a bone. The animal was stark dead. Not a muscle of its body moved. Its lips were drawn back, its jaws agape, and under the head was a growing smear of blood. It was not these things—not the fact but the INSTRUMENT of death that held Philip's eyes. The huge wolf had been completely transfixed by a spear.

Instantly Philip recognized it—the long, slender, javelin-like narwhal harpoon used by only one people in the world, the murderous little black-visaged Kogmollocks of Coronation Gulf and Wollaston Land.

He sprang suddenly back from the window, dragging Celie with him.



CHAPTER XIII

"Kogmollocks—the blackest-hearted little devils alive when it comes to trading wives and fighting," said Philip, a little ashamed of the suddenness with which he had jumped back from the window. "Excuse my abruptness, dear. But I'd recognize that death-thing on the other side of the earth. I've seen them throw it like an arrow for a hundred yards—and I have a notion they're watching that window!"

At sight of the dead wolf and the protruding javelin Celie's face had gone as white as ash. Snatching up one of the pictures from the table, she thrust it into Philip's hand. It was one of the fighting pictures.

"So it's YOU?" he said, smiling at her and trying to keep the tremble of excitement out of his voice. "It's you they want, eh? And they must want you bad. I've never heard of those little devils coming within a hundred miles of this far south. They MUST want you bad. Now—I wonder WHY?" His voice was calm again. It thrilled him to see how utterly she was judging the situation by the movement of his lips and the sound of his voice. With him unafraid she would be unafraid. He judged that quickly. Her eyes bared her faith in him, and suddenly he reached out and took her face between his two hands, and laughed softly, while each instant he feared the smash of a javelin through the window. "I like to see that look in your eyes," he went on. "And I'm almost glad you can't understand me, for I couldn't lie to you worth a cent. I understand those pictures now—and I think we're in a hell of a fix. The Eskimos have followed you and Bram down from the north, and I'm laying a wager with myself that Bram won't return from the caribou hunt. If they were Nunatalmutes or any other tribe I wouldn't be so sure. But they're Kogmollocks. They're worse than the little brown head-hunters of the Philippines when it comes to ambush, and if Bram hasn't got a spear through him this minute I'll never guess again!" He withdrew his hands from her face, still smiling at her as he talked. The color was returning into her face. Suddenly she made a movement as if to approach the window. He detained her, and in the same moment there came a fierce and snarling outcry from the wolves in the corral. Making Celie understand that she was to remain where he almost forcibly placed her near the table, Philip went again to the window. The pack had gathered close to the gate and two or three of the wolves were leaping excitedly against the sapling bars of their prison. Between the cabin and the gate a second body lay in the snow. Philip's mind leapt to a swift conclusion. The Eskimos had ambushed Bram, and they believed that only the girl was in the cabin. Intuitively he guessed how the superstitious little brown men of the north feared the madman's wolves. One by one they were picking them off with their javelins from outside the corral.

As he looked a head and pair of shoulders rose suddenly above the top of the sapling barrier, an arm shot out and he caught the swift gleam of a javelin as it buried itself in the thick of the pack. In a flash the head and shoulders of the javelin-thrower had disappeared, and in that same moment Philip heard a low cry behind him. Celie had returned to the window. She had seen what he had seen, and her breath came suddenly in a swift and sobbing excitement. In amazement he saw that she was no longer pale. A vivid flush had gathered in each of her cheeks and her eyes blazed with a dark fire. One of her hands caught his arm and her fingers pinched his flesh. He stared dumbly for a moment at the strange transformation in her. He almost believed that she wanted to fight—that she was ready to rush out shoulder to shoulder with him against their enemies. Scarcely had the cry fallen from her lips when she turned and ran swiftly into her room. It seemed to Philip that she was not gone ten seconds. When she returned she thrust into his hand a revolver.

It was a toy affair. The weight and size of the weapon told him that before he broke it and looked at the caliber. It was a "stocking" gun as they called those things in the service, fully loaded with .22 caliber shots and good for a possible partridge at fifteen or twenty paces. Under other conditions it would have furnished him with considerable amusement. But the present was not yesterday or the day before. It was a moment of grim necessity—and the tiny weapon gave him the satisfaction of knowing that he was not entirely helpless against the javelins. It would shoot as far as the stockade, and it might topple a man over if he hit him just right. Anyway, it would make a noise.

A noise! The grin that had come into his face died out suddenly as he looked at Celie. He wondered if to her had come the thought that now flashed upon him—if it was that thought that had made her place the revolver in his hand. The blaze of excitement in her wonderful eyes almost told him that it was. With Bram gone, the Eskimos believed she was alone and at their mercy as soon as the wolves were out of the way. Two or three shots from the revolver—and Philip's appearance in the corral—would shake their confidence. It would at least warn them that Celie was not alone, and that her protector was armed. For that reason Philip thanked the Lord that a "stocking" gun had a bark like the explosion of a toy cannon even if its bite was like that of an insect.

Cautiously he took another look at Bram's wolves. The last javelin had transfixed another of their number and the animal was dragging itself toward the center of the corral. The remaining seven were a dozen yards on the other side of the gate now, leaping and snarling at the stockade, and he knew that the next attack would come from there. He sprang to the door. Celie was only a step behind him as he ran out, and was close at his side when he peered around the end of the cabin.

"They must not see you," he made her understand. "It won't do any good and when they see another man they may possibly get the idea in their heads that you're not here. There can't be many of them or they'd make quicker work of the wolves. I should say not more than—"

"Se! Se!"

The warning came in a low cry from Celie's lips. A dark head was appearing slowly above the top of the stockade, and Philip darted suddenly out into the open. The Eskimo did not see him, and Philip waited until he was on the point of hurling his javelin before he made a sound. Then he gave a roar that almost split his throat. In the same instant he began firing. The crack of his pistol and the ferocious outcry he made sent the Eskimo off the stockade like a ball hit by a club. The pack, maddened by their inability to reach their enemies, turned like a flash. Warned by one experience, Philip hustled Celie into the cabin. They were scarcely over the threshold when the wolves were at the door.

"We're sure up against a nice bunch," he laughed, standing for a moment with his arm still about Celie's waist. "A regular hell of a bunch, little girl! Now if those wolves only had sense enough to know that we're a little brother and sister to Bram, we'd be able to put up a fight that would be some circus. Did you see that fellow topple off the fence? Don't believe I hit him. At least I hope I didn't. If they ever find out the size of this pea-shooter's sting they'll sit up there like a row of crows and laugh at us. But—what a bully NOISE it made!"

He was blissfully unmindful of danger as he held her in the crook of his arm, looking straight into her lovely face as he talked. It was a moment of splendid hypocrisy. He knew that in her excitement and the tremendous effort she was making to understand something of what he was saying that she was unconscious of his embrace. That, and the joyous thrill of the situation, sent the hot blood into his face.

"I'm dangerously near to going the limit," he told her, speaking with a seriousness that would impress her. "I'd fight twenty of those little devils single-handed to know just how you'd take it, and I'd fight another dozen to know who that fellow is in the picture. I'm tempted right now to hug you up close, and kiss you, and let you know how I feel. I'd like to do that—before—anything happens. But would you understand? That's it—would you understand that I love every inch of you from the ground up or would you think I was just beast? That's what I'm afraid of. But I'd like to let you know before I have to put up the big fight for you. And it's coming—if they've got Bram. They'll break down the gate to-night, or burn it, and with the wolves out of the way they'll rush the cabin. And then—"

Slowly he drew his arm from her, and something of the reaction of his thoughts must have betrayed itself in the look that came into his face.

"I guess I've already pulled off a rotten deal on the other fellow," he said, turning to the window. "That is, if you belong to him. And if you didn't why would you stand there with your arms about his neck and he hugging you up like that!"

A few minutes before he had crumpled the picture in his hand and dropped it on the floor. He picked it up now and mechanically smoothed it out as he made his observation, through the window. The pack had returned to the stockade. By the aimless manner in which they had scattered he concluded that for the time at least their mysterious enemies had drawn away from the corral.

Celie had not moved. She was watching him earnestly. It seemed to him, as he went to her with the picture, that a new and anxious questioning had come into her eyes. It was as if she had discovered something in him which she had not observed before, something which she was trying to analyze even as he approached her. He felt for the first time a sense of embarrassment. Was it possible that she had comprehended some word or thought of what he had expressed to her? He could not believe it And yet, a woman's intuition—

He held out the picture. Celie took it and for a space looked at it steadily without raising her eyes to meet his. When she did look at him the blue in her eyes was so wonderful and deep and the soul that looked out of them was so clear to his own vision that the shame of that moment's hypocrisy when he had stood with his arm about her submerged him completely. If she had not understood him she at least HAD GUESSED.

"Min fader," she said quietly, with the tip of her little forefinger on the man in the picture. "Min fader."

For a moment he thought she had spoken in English.

"Your—your father?" he cried.

She nodded.

"Oo-ee-min fader!"

"Thank the Lord," gasped Philip. And then he suddenly added, "Celie, have you any more cartridges for this pop-gun? I feel like licking the world!"



CHAPTER XIV

He tried to hide his jubilation as he talked of more cartridges. He forgot Bram, and the Eskimos waiting outside the corral, and the apparent hopelessness of their situation. HER FATHER! He wanted to shout, or dance around the cabin with Celie in his arms. But the change that he had seen come over her made him understand that he must keep hold of himself. He dreaded to see another light come into those glorious blue eyes that had looked at him with such a strange and questioning earnestness a few moments before—the fire of suspicion, perhaps even of fear if he went too far. He realized that he had betrayed his joy when she had said that the man in the picture was her father. She could not have missed that. And he was not sorry. For him. there was an unspeakable thrill in the thought that to a woman, no matter under what sun she is born, there is at least one emotion whose understanding needs no words of speech. And as he had talked to her, sublimely confident that she could not understand him, she had read the betrayal in his face. He was sure of it. And so he talked about cartridges. He talked, he told himself afterwards, like an excited imbecile.

There were no more cartridges. Celie made him understand that. All they possessed were the four that remained in the revolver. As a matter of fact this discovery did not disturb him greatly. At close quarters he would prefer a good club to the pop-gun. Such a club, in the event of a rush attack by the Eskimos, was an important necessity, and he began looking about the cabin to see what he could lay his hands on. He thought of the sapling cross-pieces in Bram's bunk against the wall and tore one out. It was four feet in length and as big around as his fist at one end while at the other it tapered down so that he could grip it easily with his hands.

"Now we're ready for them," he said, testing the poise and swing of the club as he stood in the center of the room. "Unless they burn us out they'll never get through that door. I'm promising you that—s'elp me God I am, Celie!"

As she looked at him a flush burned in her cheeks. He was eager to fight—it seemed to her that he was almost hoping for the attack at the door. It made her splendidly unafraid, and suddenly she laughed softly—a nervous, unexpected little laugh which she could not hold back, and he turned quickly to catch the warm glow in her eyes. Something went up into his throat as she stood there looking at him like that. He had never seen any one quite so beautiful. He dropped his club, and held out his hand.

"Let's shake, Celie," he said. "I'm mighty glad you understand—we're pals."

Unhesitatingly she gave him her hand, and in spite of the fact that death lurked outside they smiled into each other's eyes. After that she went into her room. For half an hour Philip did not see her again.

During that half hour he measured up the situation more calmly. He realized that the exigency was tremendously serious, and that until now he had not viewed it with the dispassionate coolness that characterized the service of the uniform he wore. Celie was accountable for that. He confessed the fact to himself, not without a certain pleasurable satisfaction. He had allowed her presence, and his thoughts of her, to fill the adventure completely for him, and as a result they were now facing an appalling danger. If he had followed his own judgment, and had made Bram Johnson a prisoner, as he should have done in his line of duty, matters would have stood differently.

For several minutes after Celie had disappeared into her room he studied the actions of the wolves in the corral. A short time before he had considered a method of ridding himself of Bram's watchful beasts. Now he regarded them as the one greatest protection they possessed. There were seven left. He was confident they would give warning the moment the Eskimos approached the stockade again. But would their enemies return? The fact that only one man had attacked the wolves at a time was almost convincing evidence that they were very few in number—perhaps only a scouting party of three or four. Otherwise, if they had come in force, they would have made short work of the pack. The thought became a positive conviction as he looked through the window. Bram had fallen a victim to a single javelin, and the scouting party of Kogmollocks had attempted to complete their triumph by carrying Celie back with them to the main body. Foiled in this attempt, and with the knowledge that a new and armed enemy opposed them, they were possibly already on their way for re-enforcements.

If this were so there could be but one hope—and that was an immediate escape from the cabin. And between the cabin door and the freedom of the forest were Bram's seven wolves!

A feeling of disgust, almost of anger, swept over him as he drew Celie's little revolver from his pocket and held it in the palm of his hand. There were four cartridges left. But what would they avail against that horde of beasts! They would stop them no more than so many pin-pricks. And what even would the club avail? Against two or three he might put up a fight. But against seven—

He cursed Bram under his breath. It was curious that in that same instant the thought flashed upon him that the wolf-man might not have fallen a victim to the Eskimos. Was it not possible that the spying Kogmollocks had seen him go away on the hunt, and had taken advantage of the opportunity to attack the cabin? They had evidently thought their task would be an easy one. What Philip saw through the window set his pulse beating quickly with the belief that this last conjecture was the true one. The world outside was turning dark. The sky was growing thick and low. In half an hour a storm would break. The Eskimos had foreseen that storm. They knew that the trail taken in their flight, after they had possessed themselves of the girl, would very soon be hidden from the eyes of Bram and the keen scent of his wolves. So they had taken the chance—the chance to make Celie their prisoner before Bram returned.

And why, Philip asked himself, did these savage little barbarians of the north want HER? The fighting she had pictured for him had not startled him. For a long time the Kogmollocks had been making trouble. In the last year they had killed a dozen white men along the upper coast, including two American explorers and a missionary. Three patrols had been sent to Coronation Gulf and Bathurst Inlet since August. With the first of those patrols, headed by Olaf Anderson, the Swede, he had come within an ace of going himself. A rumor had come down to Churchill just before he left for the Barrens that Olaf's party of five men had been wiped out. It was not difficult to understand why the Eskimos had attacked Celie Armin's father and those who had come ashore with him from the ship. It was merely a question of lust for white men's blood and white men's plunder, and strangers in their country would naturally be regarded as easy victims. The mysterious and inexplicable part of the affair was their pursuit of the girl. In this pursuit the Kogmollocks had come far beyond the southernmost boundary of their hunting grounds. Philip was sufficiently acquainted with the Eskimos to know that in their veins ran very little of the red-blooded passion of the white man. Matehood was more of a necessity imposed by nature than a joy in their existence, and it was impossible for him to believe that even Celie Armin's beauty had roused the desire for possession among them.

His attention turned to the gathering of the storm. The amazing swiftness with which the gray day was turning into the dark gloom of night fascinated him and he almost called to Celie that she might look upon the phenomenon with him. It was piling in from the vast Barrens to the north and east and for a time it was accompanied by a stillness that was oppressive. He could no longer distinguish a movement in the tops of the cedars and banskian pine beyond the corral. In the corral itself he caught now and then the shadowy, flitting movement of the wolves. He did not hear Celie when she came out of her room. So intently was he straining his eyes to penetrate the thickening pall of gloom that he was unconscious of her presence until she stood close at his side. There was something in the awesome darkening of the world that brought them closer in that moment, and without speaking Philip found her hand and held it in his own. They heard then a low whispering sound—a sound that came creeping up out of the end of the world like a living thing; a whisper so vast that, after a little, it seemed to fill the universe, growing louder and louder until it was no longer a whisper but a moaning, shrieking wail. It was appalling as the first blast of it swept over the cabin. No other place in the world is there storm like the storm that sweeps over the Great Barren; no other place in the world where storm is filled with such a moaning, shrieking tumult of VOICE. It was not new to Philip. He had heard it when it seemed to him that ten thousand little children were crying under the rolling and twisting onrush of the clouds; he had heard it when it seemed to him the darkness was filled with an army of laughing, shrieking madmen—storm out of which rose piercing human shrieks and the sobbing grief of women's voices. It had driven people mad. Through the long dark night of winter, when for five months they caught no glimpse of the sun, even the little brown Eskimos went keskwao and destroyed themselves because of the madness that was in that storm.

And now it swept over the cabin, and in Celie's throat there rose a little sob. So swiftly had darkness gathered that Philip could no longer see her, except where her face made a pale shadow in the gloom, but he could feel the tremble of her body against him. Was it only this morning that he had first seen her, he asked himself? Was it not a long, long time ago, and had she not in that time become, flesh and soul, a part of him? He put out his arms. Warm and trembling and unresisting in that thick gloom she lay within them. His soul rose in a wild ecstasy and rode on the wings of the storm. Closer he held her against his breast, and he said:

"Nothing can hurt you, dear. Nothing—nothing—"

It was a simple and meaningless thing to say—that, and only that. And yet he repeated it over and over again, holding her closer and closer until her heart was throbbing against his own. "Nothing can hurt you. Nothing—nothing—"

He bent his head. Her face was turned up to him, and suddenly he was thrilled by the warm sweet touch of her lips. He kissed her. She did not strain away from him. He felt—in that darkness—the wild fire in her face.

"Nothing can hurt you, nothing—nothing—" he cried almost sobbingly in his happiness.

Suddenly there came a blast of the storm that rocked the cabin like the butt of a battering-ram, and in that same moment there came from just outside the window a shrieking cry such as Philip had never heard in all his life before. And following the cry there rose above the tumult of the storm the howling of Bram Johnson's wolves.



CHAPTER XV

For a space Philip thought that the cry must have come from Bram Johnson himself—that the wolf-man had returned in the pit of the storm. Against his breast Celie had apparently ceased to breathe. Both listened for a repetition of the sound, or for a signal at the barred door. It was strange that in that moment the wind should die down until they could hear the throbbing of their own hearts. Celie's was pounding like a little hammer, and all at once he pressed his face down against hers and laughed with sudden and joyous understanding.

"It was only the wind, dear," he said. "I never heard anything like it before—never! It even fooled the wolves. Bless your dear little heart how it frightened you! And it was enough, too. Shall we light some of Bram's candles?"

He held her hand as he groped his way to where he had seen Bram's supply of bear-dips. She held two of the candles while he lighted them and their yellow flare illumined her face while his own was still in shadow. What he saw in its soft glow and the shine of her eyes made him almost take her in his arms again, candles and all. And then she turned with them and went to the table. He continued to light candles until the sputtering glow of half a dozen of them filled the room. It was a wretched wastefulness, but it was also a moment in which he felt himself fighting to get hold of himself properly. And he felt also the desire to be prodigal about something. When he had lighted his sixth candle, and then faced Celie, she was standing near the table looking at him so quietly and so calmly and with such a wonderful faith in her eyes that he thanked God devoutly he had kissed her only once—just that once! It was a thrilling thought to know that SHE knew he loved her. There was no doubt of it now. And the thought of what he might have done in that darkness and in the moment of her helplessness sickened him. He could look her straight in the eyes now—unashamed and glad. And she was unashamed, even if a little flushed at what had happened. The same thought was in their minds—and he knew that she was not sorry. Her eyes and the quivering tremble of a smile on her lips told him that. She had braided her hair in that interval when she had gone to her room, and the braid had fallen over her breast and lay there shimmering softly in the candle-glow. He wanted to take her in his arms again. He wanted to kiss her on the mouth and eyes. But instead of that he took the silken braid gently in his two hands and crushed it against his lips.

"I love you," he cried softly. "I love you."

He stood for a moment or two with his head bowed, the thrill of her hair against his face. It was as if he was receiving some kind of a wonderful benediction. And then in a voice that trembled a little she spoke to him. Before he could see fully what was in her eyes she turned suddenly to the wall, took down his coat, and hung it over the window. When he saw her face again it was gloriously flushed. She pointed to the candles.

"No danger of that," he said, comprehending her. "They won't throw any javelins in this storm. Listen!"

It was the wolves again. In a moment their cry was drowned in a crash of the storm that smote the cabin like a huge hand. Again it was wailing over them in a wild orgy of almost human tumult. He could see its swift effect on Celie in spite of her splendid courage. It was not like the surge of mere wind or the roll of thunder. Again he was inspired by thought of his pocket atlas, and opened it at the large insert map of Canada.

"I'll show you why the wind does that," he explained to her, drawing her to the table and spreading out the map. "See, here is the cabin." He made a little black dot with her pencil, and turning to the four walls of Bram's stronghold made her understand what it meant. "And there's the big Barren," he went on, tracing it out with the pencil-point. "Up here, you see, is the Arctic Ocean, and away over there the Roes Welcome and Hudson's Bay. That's where the storm starts, and when it gets out on the Barren, without a tree or a rock to break its way for five hundred miles—"

He told of the twisting air-currents there and how the storm-clouds sometimes swept so low that they almost smothered one. For a few moments he did not look at Celie or he would have seen something in her face which could not have been because of what he was telling her, and which she could at best only partly understand. She had fixed her eyes on the little black dot. THAT was the cabin. For the first time the map told her where she was, and possibly how she had arrived there. Straight down to that dot from the blue space of the ocean far to the north the map-makers had trailed the course of the Coppermine River. Celie gave an excited little cry and caught Philip's arm, stopping him short in his explanation of the human wailings in the storm. Then she placed a forefinger on the river.

"There—there it is!" she told him, as plainly as though her voice was speaking to him in his own language. "We came down that river. The Skunnert landed us THERE," and she pointed to the mouth of the Coppermine where it emptied into Coronation Gulf. "And then we came down, down, down—"

He repeated the name of the river.

"THE COPPERMINE."

She nodded, her breath breaking a little in an increasing excitement. She seized the pencil and two-thirds of the distance down the Coppermine made a cross. It was wonderful, he thought, how easily she made him understand. In a low, eager voice she was telling him that where she had put the cross the treacherous Kogmollocks had first attacked them. She described with the pencil their flight away from the river, and after that their return—and a second fight. It was then Bram Johnson had come into the scene. And back there, at the point from which the wolf-man had fled with her, was her FATHER. That was the chief thing she was striving to drive home in his comprehension of the situation. Her FATHER! And she believed he was alive, for it was an excitement instead of hopelessness or grief that possessed her as she talked to him. It gave him a sort of shock. He wanted to tell her, with his arms about her, that it was impossible, and that it was his duty to make her realize the truth. Her father was dead now, even if she had last seen him alive. The little brown men had got him, and had undoubtedly hacked him into small pieces, as was their custom when inspired by war-madness. It was inconceivable to think of him as still being alive even if there had been armed friends with him. There was Olaf Anderson and his five men, for instance. Fighters every one of them. And now they were dead. What chance could this other man have?

Her joy when she saw that he understood her added to the uncertainty which was beginning to grip him in spite of all that the day had meant for him. Her faith in him, since that thrilling moment in the darkness, was more than ever like that of a child. She was unafraid of Bram now. She was unafraid of the wolves and the storm and the mysterious pursuers from out of the north. Into his keeping she had placed herself utterly, and while this knowledge filled him with a great happiness he was now disturbed by the fact that, if they escaped from the cabin and the Eskimos, she believed he would return with her down the Coppermine in an effort to find her father. He had already made the plans for their escape and they were sufficiently hazardous. Their one chance was to strike south across the thin arm of the Barren for Pierre Breault's cabin. To go in the opposite direction—farther north without dogs or sledge—would be deliberate suicide.

Several times during the afternoon he tried to bring himself to the point of urging on her the naked truth—that her father was dead. There was no doubt of that—not the slightest. But each time he fell a little short. Her confidence in the belief that her father was alive, and that he was where she had marked the cross on the map, puzzled him. Was it conceivable, he asked himself, that the Eskimos had some reason for NOT killing Paul Armin, and that Celie was aware of the fact? If so he failed to discover it. Again and again he made Celie understand that he wanted to know why the Eskimos wanted HER, and each time she answered him with a hopeless little gesture, signifying that she did not know. He did learn that there were two other white men with Paul Armin.

Only by looking at his watch did he know when the night closed in. It was seven o'clock when he led Celie to her room and urged her to go to bed. An hour later, listening at her door, he believed that she was asleep. He had waited for that, and quietly he prepared for the hazardous undertaking he had set for himself. He put on his cap and coat and seized the club he had taken from Bram's bed. Then very cautiously he opened the outer door. A moment later he stood outside, the door closed behind him, with the storm pounding in his face.

Fifty yards away he could not have heard the shout of a man. And yet he listened, gripping his club hard, every nerve in his body strained to a snapping tension. Somewhere within that small circle of the corral were Bram Johnson's wolves, and as he hesitated with his back to the door he prayed that there would come no lull in the storm during the next few minutes. It was possible that he might evade them with the crash and thunder of the gale about him. They could not see him, or hear him, or even smell him in that tumult of wind unless on his way to the gate he ran into them. In that moment he would have given a year of life to have known where they were. Still listening, still fighting to hear some sound of them in the shriek of the storm, he took his first step out into the pit of darkness. He did not run, but went as cautiously as though the night was a dead calm, the club half poised in his hands. He had measured the distance and the direction of the gate and when at last he touched the saplings of the stockade he knew that he could not be far off in his reckoning. Ten paces to the right he found the gate and his heart gave a sudden jump of relief. Half a minute more and it was open. He propped it securely against the beat of the storm with the club he had taken from Bram Johnson's bed.

Then he turned back to the cabin, with the little revolver clutched in his hand, and his face was strained and haggard when he found the door and returned again into the glow of the candle-light. In the center of the room, her face as white as his own, stood Celie. A great fear must have gripped her, for she stood there in her sleeping gown with her hands clutched at her breast, her eyes staring at him in speechless questioning. He explained by opening the door a bit and pantomiming to the gate outside the cabin.

"The wolves will be gone in the morning," he said, a ring of triumph in his voice. "I have opened the gate. There is nothing in our way now."

She understood. Her eyes were a glory to look into then. Her fingers unclenched at her breast, she gave a short, quick breath and a little cry—and her arms almost reached out to him. He was afraid of himself as he went to her and led her again to the door of her room. And there for a moment they paused, and she looked up into his face. Her hand crept from his and went softly to his shoulder. She said something to him, almost in a whisper, and he could no longer fight against the pride and the joy and the faith he saw in her eyes. He bent down, slowly so that she might draw away from him if she desired, and kissed her upturned lips. And then, with a strange little cry that was like the soft note of a bird, she turned from him and disappeared into the darkness of her room.

A great deal of that night's storm passed over his head unheard after that. It was late when he went to bed. He crowded Bram's long box-stove with wood before he extinguished the last candle.

And for an hour after that he lay awake, thinking of Celie and of the great happiness that had come into his life all in one day. During that hour he made the plans of a lifetime. Then he, too, fell into sleep—a restless, uneasy slumber filled with many visions. For a time there had come a lull in the gale, but now it broke over the cabin in increased fury. A hand seemed slapping at the window, threatening to break it, and a volley of wind and snow shot suddenly down the chimney, forcing open the stove door, so that a shaft of ruddy light cut like a red knife through the dense gloom of the cabin. In varying ways the sounds played a part in Philip's dreams. In all those dreams, and segments of dreams, the girl was present. It was strange that in all of them she should be his wife. And it was strange that the big woods and the deep snows played no part in them. He was back home. And Celie was with him. Once they went for wildflowers and were caught in a thunderstorm, and ran to an old and disused barn in the center of a field for shelter. He could feel Celie trembling against him, and he was stroking her hair as the thunder crashed over them and the lightning filled her eyes with fear. After that there came to him a vision of early autumn nights when they went corn-roasting, with other young people. He had always been afflicted with a slight nasal trouble, and smoke irritated him. It set him sneezing, and kept him dodging about the fire, and Celie was laughing as the smoke persisted in following him about, like a young scamp of a boy bent on tormenting him. The smoke was unusually persistent on this particular night, until at last the laughter went out of the girl's face, and she ran into his arms and covered his eyes with her soft hands. Restlessly he tossed in his bunk, and buried his face in the blanket that answered for a pillow. The smoke reached him; even there, and he sneezed chokingly. In that instant Celie's face disappeared. He sneezed again—and awoke.

In that moment his dazed senses adjusted themselves. The cabin was full of smoke. It partly blinded him, but through it he could see tongues of fire shooting toward the ceiling. He heard then the crackling of burning pitch—a dull and consuming roar, and with a stifled cry he leaped from his bunk and stood on his feet. Dazed by the smoke and flame, he saw that there was not the hundredth part of a second to lose. Shouting Celie's name he ran to her door, where the fire was already beginning to shut him out. His first cry had awakened her and she was facing the lurid glow of the flame as he rushed in. Almost before she could comprehend what was happening he had wrapped one of the heavy bear skins about her and had swept her into his arms. With her face crushed against his breast he lowered his head and dashed back into the fiery holocaust of the outer room. The cabin, with its pitch-filled logs, was like a box made of tinder, and a score of men could not have beat out the fire that was raging now. The wind beating from the west had kept it from reaching the door opening into the corral, but the pitch was hissing and smoking at the threshold as Philip plunged through the blinding pall and fumbled for the latch.

Not ten seconds too soon did he stagger with his burden out into the night. As the wind drove in through the open door the flames seemed to burst in a sudden explosion and the cabin was a seething snarl of flame. It burst through the window and out of the chimney and Philip's path to the open gate was illumined by a fiery glow. Not until he had passed beyond the stockade to the edge of the forest did he stop and look back. Over their heads the wind wailed and moaned in the spruce tops, but even above that sound came the roar of the fire. Against his breast Philip heard a sobbing cry, and suddenly he held the girl closer, and crushed his face down against hers, fighting to keep back the horror that was gripping at his heart. Even as he felt her arms creeping up out of the bearskin and clinging about his neck he felt upon him like a weight of lead the hopelessness of a despair as black as the night itself. The cabin was now a pillar of flame, and in it was everything that had made life possible for them. Food, shelter, clothing—all were gone. In this moment he did not think of himself, but of the girl he held in his arms, and he strained her closer and kissed her lips and her eyes and her tumbled hair there in the storm-swept darkness, telling her what he knew was now a lie—that she was safe, that nothing could harm her. Against him he felt the tremble and throb of her soft body, and it was this that filled him with the horror of the thing—the terror of the thought that her one garment was a bearskin. He had felt, a moment before, the chill touch of a naked little foot.

And yet he kept saying, with his face against hers:

"It's all right, little sweetheart. We'll come out all right—we sure will!"



CHAPTER XVI

His first impulse, after those few appalling seconds following their escape from the fire, was to save something from the cabin. Still talking to Celie he dropped on his knees and tucked her up warmly in the bearskin, with her back to a tree. He thanked God that it was a big skin and that it enveloped her completely. Leaving her there he ran back through the gate. He no longer feared the wolves. If they had not already escaped into the forest he knew they would not attack him in that hot glare of the one thing above all others they feared—fire. For a space thought of the Eskimos, and the probability of the fire bringing them from wherever they had sought shelter from the storm, was secondary to the alarming necessity which faced him. Because of his restlessness and his desire to be ready for any emergency he had not undressed when he threw himself on his bunk that night, but he was without a coat or cap. And Celie! He cried out aloud in his anguish when he stopped just outside the deadline of the furnace of flame that was once the cabin, and standing there with clenched hands he cursed himself for the carelessness that had brought her face to face with a peril deadlier than the menace of the Eskimos or Bram Johnson's wolves. He alone was responsible. His indiscretion in overfilling the stove had caused the fire, and in that other moment—when he might have snatched up more than the bearskin—his mind had failed to act.

In the short space he stood there helplessly in the red heat of the fire the desperateness of the situation seared itself like the hot flame itself in his brain. As prisoners in Bram's cabin, guarded by the wolves and attacked by the Eskimos, they still had shelter, food, clothing—a chance to live, at least the chance to fight. And now—

He put a hand to his bare head and faced the direction of the storm. With the dying away of the wind snow had begun to fall, and with this snow he knew there would come a rising temperature. It was probably twenty degrees below zero, and unless the wind went down completely his ears would freeze in an hour or two. Then he thought of the thick German socks he wore. One of them would do for a cap. His mind worked swiftly after that. There was, after all, a tremendous thrill in the thought of fighting the odds against him, and in the thought of the girl waiting for him in the bearskin, her life depending upon him utterly now. Without him she could not move from the tree where he had left her unless her naked feet buried themselves in the snow. If something happened to him—she would die. Her helplessness filled him suddenly with a wild exultation, the joy of absolute possession that leapt for an instant or two above his fears. She was something more—now—than the woman he loved. She was a little child, to be carried in his arms, to be sheltered from the wind and the cold until the last drop of blood had ceased to flow in his veins. His was the mighty privilege now to mother her until the end came for them both—or some miracle saved them. The last barrier was gone from between them. That he had met her only yesterday was an unimportant incident now. The world had changed, life had changed, a long time had passed. She belonged to him as utterly as the stars belonged to the skies. In his arms she would find life—or death.