Corporal Ripley's face showed red through the tan, and he started to his feet with an exclamation of anger. "Hold on, Corporal." The voice of MacNair was the quiet voice with which one sooths a petulant child. He remained seated and pushed the Stetson toward the back of his head. "She really believes it. Don't hold it against her. It is not her fault. When the smoke has cleared away and she gets her bearings, we're all going to like her. In fact, I'm thinking that the time is coming when the only one who will hate her will be herself. I like her now; though she is not what you'd call my friend. I mean—not yet."

Corporal Ripley gazed in astonishment at MacNair and then very frigidly he turned to Chloe. "Then the charge of murder stands?"

"Yes, it does," answered the girl. "If he were allowed to go free now there would be three murders instead of two by the time of the spring assizes or whatever you call them, for he is even now upon the trail of a man he has threatened to kill. I can give you his exact words. He said: 'I have taken the man-trail . . . and at the end of that trail will lie a dead man—myself or Pierre Lapierre!'"

"Lapierre!" exclaimed the officer. "What has he got to do with it?" He turned to MacNair as if expecting an answer. But MacNair remained silent. "Why don't you charge Lapierre with the crimes you told me he was guilty of?" taunted the girl. Again she saw that baffling twinkle in the grey eyes of the man. Then the eyes hardened.

"The last thing I desire is the arrest of Lapierre," he answered. "Lapierre must answer to me." The words, pronounced slowly and distinctly, rasped hard. In spite of herself, Chloe shuddered.

Corporal Ripley shifted uneasily. "We'd better be going, MacNair," he said. "There's something queer about this whole business—something I don't quite understand. It's up to me to take you up the river; but, believe me, I'm coming back! I'll get at the bottom of this thing if it takes me five years. Are you ready?"

MacNair nodded.

"I can let you have some Indians," suggested the girl.

"What for?"

"Why, for a guard, of course; to help you with your prisoner."

Ripley drew himself up and answered abruptly: "The Mounted is quite capable of managing its own affairs, Miss Elliston. I don't need your Indians, thank you."

Chloe glanced wrathfully into the boyish face of the officer. "Suit yourself," she answered sweetly. "But if I were you, I'd want a whole regiment of Indians. Because if MacNair wants to, he'll eat you up."

"He won't want to," snapped Ripley. "I don't taste good."

As they passed out of the door, MacNair turned. "Good-by, Miss Elliston," he said gravely. "Beware of Pierre Lapierre." Chloe made no reply and as MacNair turned to go, he chanced to glance into the wide, expressionless face of Big Lena, who had stood throughout the interview leaning heavily against the jamb of the kitchen door. Something inscrutable in the stare of the fishlike, china-blue eyes clung in his memory, and try as he would in the days that followed, MacNair could not fathom the meaning of that stare, if indeed it had any meaning. MacNair did not know why, but in some inexplainable manner the memory of that look eased many a weary mile.



CHAPTER XVII

A FRAME-UP

News, of a kind, travels on the wings of the wind across wastes of the farther land. Principalities may fall, nations crash, and kingdoms sink into oblivion, and the North will neither know nor care. For the North has its own problems—vital problems, human problems—and therefore big. Elemental, portentous problems, having to do with life and the eating of meat.

In the crash and shift of man-made governments; in the redistribution of man-constituted authority, and man-gathered surplus of increment, the North has no part. On the cold side of sixty there is no surplus, and men think in terms of meat, and their possessions are meat-getting possessions. Guns, nets, and traps, even of the best, insure but a bare existence. And in the lean years, which are the seventh years—the years of the rabbit plague—starvation stalks in the teepees, and gaunt, sunken-eyed forms, dry-lipped, and with the skin drawn tightly over protruding ribs, stiffen between shoddy blankets. For even the philosophers of the land of God and the H.B.C. must eat to live—if not this week, at least once next week.

The H.B.C., taking wise cognizance of the seventh year, extends it credit—"debt" it is called in the outlands—but it puts no more wool in its blankets, and for lack of food the body-fires burn low. But the cold remains inexorable. And with the thermometer at seventy degrees below zero, even in the years of plenty, when the philosophers eat almost daily, there is little of comfort. With the thermometer at seventy in the lean years, the suffering is diminished by the passing of many philosophers.

The arrest of Bob MacNair was a matter of sovereign import to the dwellers of the frozen places, and word of it swept like wildfire through the land of the lakes and rivers. Yet in all the North those upon whom it made the least impression were those most vitally concerned—MacNair's own Indians. So quietly had the incident passed that not one of them realized its importance.

With them MacNair was God. He was the law. He had taught them to work, so that even in the lean years they and their wives and their babies ate twice each day. He had said that they should continue to eat twice each day, and therefore his departure was a matter of no moment. They knew only that he had gone southward with the man of the soldier-police. This was doubtless as he had commanded. They could conceive of MacNair only as commanding. Therefore the soldier-policeman had obeyed and accompanied him to the southward.

With no such complacency, however, was the arrest of MacNair regarded by the henchmen of Lapierre. To them MacNair was not God, nor was he the law. For these men knew well the long arm of the Mounted and what lay at the end of the trail. Lean forms sped through the woods, and the word passed from lip to lip in far places. It was whispered upon the Slave, the Mackenzie, and the Athabasca, and it was told in the provinces before MacNair and Ripley reached Fort Chippewayan. Along the river, men talked excitedly, and impatiently awaited word from Lapierre, while their eyes snapped with greed and their thoughts flew to the gold in the sands of the barren grounds.

In the Bastile du Mort, a hundred miles to the eastward, Lapierre heard the news from the lips of a breathless runner, but a scant ten hours after Corporal Ripley and MacNair stepped from the door of the cottage. And within the hour the quarter-breed was upon the trail, travelling light, in company with LeFroy, who, fearing swift vengeance, had also sought safety in the stronghold of the outlaws.

Chloe Elliston stood in the doorway and watched the broad form of Bob MacNair swing across the clearing in company with Corporal Ripley. As the men disappeared in the timber, a fierce joy of victory surged through her veins. She had bared the mailed fist! Had wrested a people from the hand of their oppressor! The Snare Lake Indians were henceforth to be her Indians! She had ridded the North of MacNair! Every fibre of her sang with the exultation of it as she turned into the room and encountered the fishlike stare of Big Lena.

The woman leaned, ponderous and silent, against the jamb of the door giving into the kitchen. Her huge arms were folded tightly across her breast, and, for some inexplicable reason, Chloe found the stare disconcerting. The enthusiasm of her victory damped perceptibly. For if the fish-eyed stare held nothing of reproach, it certainly held nothing of approbation. Almost the girl read a condescending pity in the stare of the china-blue eyes. The thought stung, and she faced the other wrathfully.

"Well, for Heaven's sake say something! Don't stand there and stare like a—a billikin! Can't you talk?"

"Yah, Ay tank Ay kin; but Ay von't—not yat."

"What do you mean?" cried the exasperated girl, as she flung herself into a chair. But without deigning to answer, Big Lena turned heavily into the kitchen, and closed the door with a bang that impoverished invective—for volumes may be spoken—in the banging of a door. The moment was inauspicious for the entrance of Harriet Penny. At best, Chloe merely endured the little spinster, with her whining, hysterical outbursts, and abject, unreasoning fear of God, man, the devil, and everything else. "Oh, my dear, I am so glad!" piped the little woman, rushing to the girl's side: "we need never fear him again, need we?"

"Nobody ever did fear him but you," retorted Chloe.

"But, Mr. Lapierre said——"

The girl arose with a gesture of impatience, and Miss Penny returned to MacNair. "He is so big, and coarse, and horrible! I am sure even his looks are enough to frighten a person to death."

Chloe sniffed. "I think he is handsome, and he is big and strong. I like big people."

"But, my dear!" cried the horrified Miss Penny. "He—he kills Indians!"

"So do I!" snapped the girl, and stamped angrily into her own room, where she threw herself upon the bed and gave way to bitter reflections. She hated everyone. She hated MacNair, and Big Lena, and Harriet Penny, and the officer of the Mounted. She hated Lapierre and the Indians, too. And then, realizing the folly of her blind hatred, she hated herself for hating. With an effort she regained her poise.

"MacNair is out of the way; and that's the main thing," she murmured. She remembered his last words: "Beware of Pierre Lapierre," and her eyes sought the man's hastily scribbled note that lay upon the table where he had left it. She reread the note, and crumpling it in her hand threw it to the floor. "He always manages to be some place else when anything happens!" she exclaimed. "Oh, why couldn't it have been the other way around? Why couldn't MacNair have been the one to have the interest of the Indians at heart? And why couldn't Lapierre have been the one to browbeat and bully them?"

She paced angrily up and down the room, and kicked viciously at the little ball of paper that was Lapierre's note. "He couldn't browbeat anything!" she exclaimed. "He's—he's—sometimes, I think, he's almost sneaking, with his bland, courtly manners, and his suave tongue. Oh, how I could hate that man! And how I—" she stopped suddenly, and with clenched fists fixed her gaze upon the portrait of Tiger Elliston, and as she looked the thin features that returned her stare seemed to resolve into the rugged outlines of the face of Bob MacNair.

"He's big and strong, and he's not afraid," she murmured, and started nervously at the knock with which Big Lena announced supper.

When Chloe appeared at the table five minutes later she was quite her usual self. She even laughed at Harriet Penny's horrified narrative of the fact that she had discovered several Indians in the act of affixing runners to the collapsible bathtubs in anticipation of the coming snow.

Chloe spent an almost sleepless night, and it was with a feeling of distinct relief that she arose to find Lapierre upon the veranda. She noted a certain intense eagerness in the quarter-breed's voice as he greeted her.

"Ah, Miss Elliston!" he cried, seizing both her hands. "It seems that during my brief absence you have accomplished wonders! May I ask how you managed to bring about the downfall of the brute of the North, and at the same time win his Indians to your school?"

Under the enthusiasm of his words the girl's heart once more quickened with the sense of victory. She withdrew her hands from his clasp and gave a brief account of all that had happened since their parting on Snare Lake.

"Wonderful," breathed Lapierre at the conclusion of the recital. "And you are sure he was duly charged with the murder of the two Indians?"

Chloe nodded. "Yes, indeed I am sure!" she exclaimed. "The officer, Corporal Ripley, tried to get me to put off this charge until his other trial came up at the spring assizes. He said MacNair could give bail and secure his liberty on the liquor charges, and thus return to the North—and to his Indians."

Lapierre nodded eagerly. "Ah, did I not tell you, Miss Elliston, that the men of the Mounted are with him heart and soul? He owns them! You have done well not to withdraw the charge of murder."

"I offered to furnish him with an escort of Indians, but he refused them. I don't see how in the world he can expect to take MacNair to jail. He's a mere boy."

Lapierre laughed. "He'll take him to jail all right, you may rest assured as to that. He will not dare to allow him to escape, nor will MacNair try to escape. We have nothing to fear now until the trial. It is extremely doubtful if we can make the murder charge stick, but it will serve to hold him during the winter, and I have no doubt when his case comes up in the spring we will be able to produce evidence that will insure conviction on the whiskey charges, which will mean at least a year or two in jail and the exaction of a heavy fine.

"In the meantime you will have succeeded in educating the Indians to a realization of the fact that they owe allegiance to no man. MacNair's power is broken. He will be discredited by the authorities, and hated by his own Indians—a veritable pariah of the wilderness. And now, Miss Elliston, I must hasten at once to the rivers. My interests there have long been neglected. I shall return as soon as possible, but my absence will necessarily be prolonged, for beside my own trading affairs and the getting out of the timber for new scows, I hope to procure such additional evidence as will insure the conviction of MacNair. LeFroy will remain with you here."

"Did you catch the whiskey runners?" Chloe asked.

Lapierre shook his head. "No," he answered, "they succeeded in eluding us among the islands at the eastern end of the lake. We were about to push our search to a conclusion when news reached us of MacNair's arrest, and we returned with all speed to the Yellow Knife."

Somehow, the man's words sounded unconvincing—the glib reply was too ready—too like the studied answer to an anticipated question. She regarded him searchingly, but the simple directness of his gaze caused her own eyes to falter, and she turned into the house with a deep breath that was very like a sigh.

The sense of elation and self-confidence inspired by Lapierre's first words ebbed as it had ebbed before the unspoken rebuke of Big Lena, leaving her strangely depressed. With the joy of accomplishment dead within her, she drove herself to her work without enthusiasm. In all the world, nothing seemed worth while. She was unsure—unsure of Lapierre; unsure of herself; unsure of Big Lena—and, worst of all, unbelievable and preposterous as it seemed in the light of what she had witnessed with her own eyes, unsure of MacNair—of his villainy!

Before noon the first snow of the season started in a fall of light, feathery flakes, which gradually resolved themselves into fine, hard particles that were hurled and buffeted about by the blasts of a fitful wind.

For three days the blizzard raged—days in which Lapierre contrived to spend much time in Chloe's company, and during which the girl set about deliberately to study the quarter-breed, in the hope of placing definitely the defect in his make-up, the tangible reason for the growing sense of distrust with which she was coming to regard him. But, try as she would, she could find no cause, no justification, for the uncomfortable and indefinable something that was gradually developing into an actual doubt of his sincerity. She knew that the man had himself well in hand, for never by word or look did he express any open avowal of love, although a dozen times a day he managed subtly to show that his love had in no wise abated.

On the morning of the fourth day, with forest and lake and river buried beneath three feet of snow, Lapierre took the trail for the southward. Before leaving, he sought out LeFroy in the storehouse.

"We have things our own way, but we must lie low for a while, at least. MacNair is not licked yet—by a damn' sight! He knows we furnished the booze to his Indians, and he will yell his head off to the Mounted, and we will have them dropping in on us all the winter. In the meantime leave the liquor where it is. Don't bring a gallon of it into this clearing. It will keep, and we can't take chances with the Mounted. There will be enough in it for us, with what we can knock down here, and what the boys can take out of MacNair's diggings. They know the gold is there; most of them were in on the stampede when MacNair drove them back a few years ago. And when they find out that MacNair is in jail, there will be another stampede. And we will clean up big all around."

LeFroy, a man of few words, nodded sombrely, and Lapierre, who was impatient to be off to the rivers, failed to note that the nod was far more sombre than usual—failed, also, to note the pair of china-blue, fishlike eyes that stared impassively at him from behind the goods piled high upon the huge counter.

Once upon the trail, Lapierre lost no time. As passed the word upon the Mackenzie, where the men who had heard of the arrest of MacNair waited in a frenzy of impatience for the signal that would send them flying over the snow to Snare Lake. Day and night the man travelled; from the Mackenzie southward the length of Slave and up the Athabasca. And in his wake men, whose eyes fairly bulged with the greed of gold, jammed their outfits into packs and headed into the North.

At Athabasca Landing he sent a crew into the timber, and hastened on to Edmonton where he purchased a railway ticket for a point that had nothing whatever to do with his destination. That same night he boarded an east-bound train, and in an early hour of the morning, when the engine paused for water beside a tank that was the most conspicuous building of a little flat town in the heart of a peaceful farming community, he stepped unnoticed from the day coach and proceeded at once to the low, wooden hotel, where he was cautiously admitted through a rear door by the landlord himself, who was, incidentally, Lapierre's shrewdest and most effective whiskey runner.

It was this Tostoff: Russian by birth, and crook by nature, whose business it was to disguise the contraband whiskey into innocent-looking freight pieces. And, it was Tostoff who selected the men and stood responsible for the contraband's safe conduct over the first stage of its journey to the North.

Tostoff objected strenuously to the running of a consignment in winter, but Lapierre persisted, covering the ground step by step while the other listened with a scowl.

"It's this way, Tostoff: For years MacNair has been our chief stumbling-block. God knows we have trouble enough running the stuff past the Dominion police and the Mounted. But the danger from the authorities is small in comparison with the danger from MacNair." Tostoff growled an assent. "And now," continued Lapierre, "for the first time we have him where we want him."

The Russian looked sceptical. "We got MacNair where we want him if he's dead," he grunted. "Who killed him?"

Lapierre made a gesture of impatience. "He is not dead. He's locked up in the Fort Saskatchewan jail."

For the first time Tostoff showed real interest. "What's against him?" he asked eagerly.

"Murder, for one thing," answered Lapierre. "That will hold him without bail until the spring assizes. He will probably get out of that, though. But they are holding him also on four or five liquor charges."

"Liquor charges!" cried Tostoff, with an angry snort. "O-ho! so that's his game? That's why he's been bucking us—because he's got a line of his own!"

Lapierre laughed. "Not so fast, Tostoff, not so fast. It is a frame-up. That is, the charges are not, but the evidence is. I attended to that myself. I think we have enough on him to keep him out of the cold for a couple of winters to come. But you can't tell. And while we have him we will put the screws to him for all there is in it. It is the chance of a lifetime. What we want now is evidence—and more evidence.

"Here is the scheme: You fix up a consignment, five or ten gallons, the usual way, and instead of shooting it in by the Athabasca, cut into the old trail on the Beaver and take it across the Methye portage to a cache on the Clearwater. Brown's old cabin will about fill the bill. We ought to be able to cache the stuff by Christmas.

"In the meantime, I will slip up the river and tip it off to the Mounted at Fort McMurray that I got it straight from down below that MacNair is going to run in a batch over the Methye trail, and that it is to be cached on the bank of the Clearwater on New Year's Day. That will give your packers a week to make their getaway. And on New Year's Day the Mounted will find the stuff in the cache. There will be nobody to arrest, but they will have the evidence that will clinch the case against MacNair. And with MacNair behind the bars we will have things our own way north of sixty."

Tostoff shook his head dubiously.

"Bad business, Lapierre," he warned. "Winter trailing is bad business. The snow tells tales. We haven't been caught yet. Why? Not because we've been lucky, but because we've been careful. Water leaves no trail. We've always run our stuff in in the summer. You say you've got the goods on MacNair. I say, let well enough alone. The Mounted ain't fools—they can read the sign in the snow."

Lapierre arose with a curse. "You white-livered clod!" he cried. "Who is running this scheme? You or I? Who delivers the whiskey to the Indians? And who pays you your money? I do the thinking for this outfit. I didn't come down here to ask you to run this consignment. I came here to tell you to do it. This thing of playing safe is all right. I never told you to run a batch in the winter before, but this time you have got to take the chance."

Lapierre leaned closer and fixed the heavy-faced Russian with his gleaming black eyes. He spoke slowly so that the words fell distinctly from his lips. "You cache that liquor on the Clearwater on Christmas Day. If you fail—well, you will join the others that have been dismissed from my service—see?"

Tostoff's only reply was a ponderous but expressive shrug, and without a word Lapierre turned and stepped out into the night.



CHAPTER XVIII

WHAT HAPPENED AT BROWN'S

It was the middle of December. Storm after storm had left the North cold and silent beneath its white covering of snow. A dog-team swung across the surface of the ice-locked Athabasca, and took the steep slope at Fort McMurray on a long slant.

Leaving the dogs in care of the musher, Pierre Lapierre loosened the thongs of his rackets, and, pushing open the door, stamped noisily into the detachment quarters of the Mounted and advanced to the stove where two men were mending dog-harness. The men looked up.

"Speaking of the devil," grinned Constable Craig, with a glance toward Corporal Ripley, who greeted the newcomer with a curt nod. "Well, Lapierre, where'd you come from?"

Lapierre jerked his thumb toward the southward. "Up river," he answered. "Getting out timber for my scows." Removing his cap and mittens, the quarter-breed loosened his heavy moose-hide parka, beat the clinging snow from the coarse hair, and drew a chair to the stove.

"Come through from the Landing on the river?" asked Ripley, as he filled a short black pipe with the tobacco he shaved from a plug. "How's the trail?"

"Good and hard, except for the slush at the Boiler and another stretch just below the Cascade." Lapierre rolled a cigarette. "Hear you caught MacNair with the goods at last," he ventured.

Ripley nodded.

"Looks like it," he admitted. "But what do you mean, 'at last'?"

The quarter-breed laughed lightly and blew a cloud of cigarette-smoke ceilingward. "I mean he has had things pretty much his own way the last six or eight years."

"Meanin' he's been runnin' whiskey all that time?" asked Craig.

Lapierre nodded. "He has run booze enough into the North to float a canoe from here to Port Chippewayan."

It was Ripley's turn to laugh. "If you are so all-fired wise, why haven't you made a complaint?" he asked. "Seems like I never heard you and MacNair were such good friends,"

Lapierre shrugged. "I know a whole lot of men who have got their full growth because they minded their own business," he answered. "I am not in the Mounted. That's what you are paid for."

Ripley flushed. "We'll earn our pay on this job all right. We've got the goods on him this time. And, by the way, Lapierre, if you've got anything in the way of evidence, we'll be wanting it at the trial. Better show up in May, and save somebody goin' after you. If you run onto any Indians that know anything, bring them along."

"I will be there," smiled the other. "And since we are on the subject, I can put you wise to a little deal that will net you some first-hand evidence." The officers looked interested, and Lapierre continued: "You know where Brown's old cabin is, just this side of the Methye portage?" Ripley nodded. "Well, if you should happen to be at Brown's on New Year's Day, just pull up the puncheons under the bunk and see what you find."

"What will we find?" asked Craig.

Lapierre shrugged. "If I were you fellows I wouldn't overlook any bets," he answered meaningly.

"Why New Year's Day any more than Christmas, or any other day?"

"Because," answered Lapierre, "on Christmas Day, or any other day before New Year's Day, you won't find a damned thing but an empty hole—that is why. Well, I must be going." He fastened the throat of his parka and drew on his cap and mittens. "So long! See you in the spring. Shouldn't wonder if I will run onto some Indians, this winter, who will tell what they know, now that MacNair is out of the way. I know plenty of them that can talk, if they will."

"So long!" answered Ripley as Lapierre left the room. "Much obliged for the tip. Hope your hunch is good."

"Play it and see," smiled Lapierre, and banged the door behind him.

Moving slowly northward upon a course that paralleled but studiously avoided the old Methye trail, two men and a dog-team plodded heavily through the snow at the close of a shortening day. Ostensibly, these men were trappers; and, save for a single freight piece bound securely upon the sled, their outfit varied in no particular from the outfits of others who each winter fare into the North to engage in the taking of fur. A close observer might have noted that the eyes of these men were hard, and the frequent glances they cast over the back-trail were tense with concern.

The larger and stronger of the two, one Xavier, a sullen riverman of evil countenance, paused at the top of a ridge and pointed across a snow-swept beaver meadow. "T'night we camp on dees side. T'mor' we cross to de mout' of de leetle creek, and two pipe beyon' we com' on de cabin of Baptiste Chambre."

The smaller man frowned. He, too, was a riverman, tough and wiry and small. A man whose pinched, wizened body was a fitting cloister for the warped soul that flashed malignantly from the beady, snakelike eyes.

"Non, non!" he cried, and the venomous glance of the beady eyes was not unmingled with fear. "We ke'p straight on pas' de beeg swamp. Me—I'm no lak' dees wintaire trail." He pointed meaningly toward the marks of the sled in the snow.

The other laughed derisively. "Sacre! you leetle man, you Du Mont, you 'fraid!"

The other shrugged. "I'm 'fraid, Oui, I'm lak' I ke'p out de jail. Tostoff, she say, you com' on de cabin of Brown de Chrees'mas Day. Bien! Tostoff, she sma't mans. Lapierre, too. Tostoff, she 'fraid for de wintaire trail, but she 'fraid for Lapierre mor'."

Xavier interrupted him. "Tra la, Chrees'mas Day! Ain't we got de easy trail? Two days befor' Chrees'mas we com' on de cabin of Brown. Baptiste Chambre, she got de beeg jug rum. We mak' de grand dronk—one day—one night. Den we hit de trail an com' on de Clearwater Chrees'mas Day sam' lak' now. Tostoff, de Russ, she nevair know, Lapierre, she nevair know. Voila!"

Still the other objected. "Mebe so com' de storm. What den? We was'e de time wit' Baptiste Chambre. We no mak' de Clearwater de Chrees'mas Day—eh?"

Xavier growled. "De Chrees'mas Day, damn! We no mak' de Chrees'mas Day, we mak' som' odder day. Lapierre's damn' Injuns com' for de wheeskey on Chrees'mas Day, she haf to wait. Me—I'm goin' to Baptiste Chambre. I'm goin' for mak' de beeg dronk. If de snow com' and de dog can't pull, I'm tak' dees leetle piece on ma back to the Clearwater."

He reached down contemptuously and swung the piece containing ten gallons of whiskey to his shoulder with one hand, then lowered it again to the sled.

"You know w'at I'm hear on de revair?" he asked, stepping closer to Du Mont's side and lowering his voice. "I'm hearin' MacNair ees een de jail. I'm hearin' Lapierre she pass de word to hit for Snare Lake, for deeg de gol'."

"Did Lapierre tell you to deeg de gol', or me? Non. He say, you go to Tostoff." The snakelike eyes of the smaller man glittered at the mention of gold. He clutched at the other's arm and cried out sharply:

"MacNair arres'! Sacre! Com', we tak' de wheeskey to de Clearwater an' go on to Snare Lake."

This time it was Xavier's eyes that flashed a hint of fear. "Non!" he answered quickly. "Lapierre, she——"

The other silenced him, speaking rapidly. "Lapierre, she t'ink she mak' us w'at you call, de double cross!" Xavier noted that the malignant eyes flashed dangerously—"Lapierre, she sma't but me—I'm sma't too. Dere's plent' men 'long de revair lak' to see de las' of Pierre Lapierre. And plent' Injun in de Nort' dey lak' dat too. But dey 'fraid to keel him. We do de work—Lapierre she tak' de money. Sacre! Me—I'm 'fraid, too." He paused and shrugged significantly. "But som' day I'm git de chance an' den leetle Du Mont she dismees Lapierre from de serveece. Den me—I'm de bos'. Bien!"

The other glanced at him in admiration.

"Me, I'm goin' 'long to Snare Lake," he said, "but firs' we stop on Baptiste Chambre an' mak' de beeg dronk, eh!" The smaller man nodded, and the two sought their blankets and were soon sleeping silently beside the blazing fire.

A week later the two rivermen paused at the edge of a thicket that commanded the approach to Brown's abandoned cabin on the Clearwater. The threatened storm had broken while they were still at Baptiste Chambre's cabin, and the two days' debauch had lengthened into five.

Chambre's jug had been emptied and several times refilled from the contents of Tostoff's concealed cask, which had been skilfully tapped and as skilfully replenished as to weight by the addition of snow water.

The effect of their protracted orgy was plainly visible in the bloodshot eyes and heavy movements of both men. And it was more from force of long habit than from any sense of alertness or premonition of danger that they crouched in the thicket and watched the smoke curl from the little iron stovepipe that protruded above the roof of the cabin.

"Dem Injun she wait," growled Xavier. "Com' on, me—I'm lak' for ketch som' sleep." The two swung boldly into the open and, pausing only long enough to remove their rackets, pushed open the door of the cabin.

An instant later Du Mont, who was in the lead, leaped swiftly backward and, crashing into the heavier and clumsier Xavier bowled him over into the snow, where both wallowed helplessly, held down by Xavier's heavy pack.

It was but the work of a moment for the wiry Du Mont to free himself, and when he leaped to his feet, cursing like a fiend, it was to look squarely into the muzzle of Corporal Ripley's service revolver, while Constable Craig loosened the pack straps and allowed Xavier to arise.

"Caught with the goods, eh?" grinned Ripley, when the two prisoners were seated side by side upon the pole bunk.

The sullen-faced Xavier glowered in surly silence, but the malignant, beady eyes of Du Mont regarded the officer keenly. "You patrol de Clearwater now, eh?"

Ripley laughed. "When there's anything doin' we do."

"How you fin' dat out? Dem Injun she squeal? I'm lak' to know 'bout dat."

"Well, it wasn't exactly an Indian this time," answered Ripley; "that is, it wasn't a regular Indian. Pierre Lapierre put us on to this little deal."

"Pierre—LAPIERRE!"

The little wizened man fairly shrieked the name and, leaping to his feet, bounded about the room like an animated rubber ball, while from his lips poured a steady stream of vile epithets, mingled with every curse and gem of profanity known to two languages.

"That's goin' some," enthused Constable Craig, when the other finally paused for breath. "An' come to think about it, I believe you're right. I like to hear a man speak his mind, an' from your remarks it seems like you're oncommon peeved with this here little deal. It ain't nothin' to get so worked up over. You'll serve your time an' in a couple of years or so they'll turn you loose again."

At the mention of the prison term the burly Xavier moved uneasily upon the bunk. He seemed about to speak, but was forestalled by the quicker witted Du Mont.

"Two years, eh!" asked the outraged Metis, addressing Ripley. "Mebe so you mak' w'at you call de deal. Mebe so I'm tell you who's de boss. Mebe so I'm name de man dat run de wheeskey into de Nort'. De man dat plans de cattle raids on de bordair. De man dat keels mor' Injun dan mos' men keels deer, eh! Wat den? Mebe so den you turn us loose, eh?"

Ripley laughed. "You think I'm goin' to pay you to tell me the name of the man we've already got locked up?"

"You got MacNair lock up," Du Mont leered knowingly. "Bien! You t'ink MacNair run de wheeskey. But MacNair, she ain't run no wheeskey. You mak' de deal wit' me. Ba Gos'! I'm not jus' tell you de name, I'm tell you so you fin' w'at you call de proof! I no fin' de proof—you no turn me loose. Voila!"

Corporal Ripley was a keen judge of men, and he knew that the vindictive and outraged Metis was in just the right mood to tell all he knew. Also Ripley believed that the man knew much. Therefore, he made the deal. And it is a tribute to the Mounted that the crafty and suspicious Metis accepted, without question, the word of the corporal when he promised to do all in his power to secure their liberty in return for the evidence that would convict "the man higher up."

Corporal Ripley was a man of quick decision; with him to decide was to act. Within an hour from the time Du Mont concluded his story the two officers with their prisoners were headed for Fort Saskatchewan. Both Du Mont and Xavier realized that their only hope for clemency lay in their ability to aid the authorities in building up a clear case against Lapierre, and during the ten days of snow-trail that ended at Athabasca Landing each tried to outdo the other in explaining what he knew of the workings of Lapierre's intricate system.

At the Landing, Ripley reported to the superintendent commanding N Division, who immediately sent for the prisoners and submitted them to a cross-examination that lasted far into the night, and the following morning the corporal escorted them to Fort Saskatchewan, where they were to remain in jail to await the verification of their story.

Division commanders are a law unto themselves, and much to his surprise, two days later, Bob MacNair was released upon his own recognizance. Whereupon, without a moment's delay, he bought the best dog-team obtainable and headed into the North accompanied by Corporal Ripley, who was armed with a warrant for the arrest of Pierre Lapierre.



CHAPTER XIX

THE LOUCHOUX GIRL

Winter laid a heavy hand upon the country of the Great Slave. Blizzard after howling blizzard came out of the North until the buildings of Chloe Elliston's school lay drifted to the eaves in the centre of the snow-swept clearing.

With the drifting snows and the bitter, intense cold that isolated the little colony from the great world to the southward, came a sense of peace and quietude that contrasted sharply with the turbulent, surcharged atmosphere with which the girl had been surrounded from the moment she had unwittingly become a factor in the machinations of the warring masters of wolf-land.

With MacNair safely behind the bars of a jail far to the southward, and Lapierre somewhere upon the distant rivers, the Indians for the first time relaxed from the strain of tense expectancy. Of her own original Indians, those who had remained at the school by command of the crafty Lapierre, there remained only LeFroy and a few of the older men who were unfit to go on the trap-lines, together with the women and children.

MacNair's Indians, who had long since laid down their traps to pick up the white man's tools, stayed at the school. And much to the girl's surprise, under the direction of the refractory Sotenah, and Old Elk, and Wee Johnnie Tamarack, not only performed with a will the necessary work of the camp—the chopping and storing of firewood, the shovelling of paths through the huge drifts, and the drawing of water from the river—but took upon themselves numerous other labours of their own initiative.

An ice-house was built and filled upon the bank of the river. Trees were felled, and the logs ranked upon miniature rollways, where all through the short days the Indians busied themselves in the rude whip-sawing of lumber.

Their women and children daily attended the school and worked faithfully under the untiring tutelage of Chloe and Harriet Penny, who entered into the work with new enthusiasm engendered by the interest and the aptness of the Snare Lake Indians—absent qualities among the wives and children of Lapierre's trappers.

LeFroy was kept busy in the storehouse, and with the passing of the days Chloe noticed that he managed to spend more and more time in company with Big Lena. At first she gave the matter no thought. But when night after night she heard the voices of the two as they sat about the kitchen-stove long after she had retired, she began to consider the matter seriously.

At first she dismissed it with a laugh. Of all people in the world, she thought, these two, the heavy, unimaginative Swedish woman, and the leathern-skinned, taciturn wood-rover, would be the last to listen to the call of romance.

Chloe was really fond of the huge, silent woman who had followed her without question into the unknown wilderness of the Northland, even as she had accompanied her without protest through the maze of the far South Seas. With all her averseness to speech and her vacuous, fishy stare, the girl had long since learned that Big Lena was both loyal and efficient and shrewd. But, Big Lena as a wife! Chloe smiled broadly at the thought.

"Poor LeFroy," she pitied. "But it would be the best thing in the world for him. 'The perpetuity of the red race will be attained only through its amalgamation with the white,'" she quoted; the trite banality of one of the numerous theorists she had studied before starting into the North.

Of LeFroy she knew little. He seemed a half-breed of more than average intelligence, and as for the rest—she would leave that to Lena. On the whole, she rather approved of the arrangement, not alone upon the amalgamation theory, but because she entertained not the slightest doubt as to who would rule the prospective family. She could depend upon Big Lena's loyalty, and her marriage to one of their number would therefore become a very important factor in the attitude of the Indians towards the school.

Gradually, the women of the Slave Lake Indians taking the cue from their northern sisters, began to show an appreciation of the girl's efforts in their behalf. An appreciation that manifested itself in little tokens of friendship, exquisitely beaded moccasins, shyly presented, and a pair of quill-embroidered leggings laid upon her desk by a squaw who slipped hurriedly away. Thus the way was paved for a closer intimacy which quickly grew into an eager willingness among the Indians to help her in the mastering of their own language.

As this intimacy grew, the barrier which is the chief stumbling-block of missionaries and teachers who seek to carry enlightenment into the lean lone land, gradually dissolved. The women with whom Chloe came in contact ceased to be Indians en masse; they became people—personalities—each with her own capability and propensity for the working of good or harm. With this realization vanished the last vestige of aloofness and reserve. And, thereafter, many of the women broke bread by invitation at Chloe's own table.

The one thing that remained incomprehensible to the girl was the idolatrous regard in which MacNair was held by his own Indians. To them he was a superman—the one great man among all white men. His word was accepted without question. Upon leaving for the southward MacNair had told the men to work, therefore they worked unceasingly. Also he had told the women and the children to obey without question the words of the white kloochman, and therefore they absorbed her teaching with painstaking care.

Time and again the girl tried to obtain the admission that MacNair was in the habit of supplying his Indians with whiskey, and always she received the same answer. "MacNair sells no whiskey. He hates whiskey. And many times has he killed men for selling whiskey to his people."

At first these replies exasperated the girl beyond measure. She set them down as stereotyped answers in which they had been carefully coached. But as time went on and the women, whose word she had come to hold in regard, remained unshaken in their statements, an uncomfortable doubt assailed her—a doubt that, despite herself, she fostered. A doubt that caused her to ponder long of nights as she lay in her little room listening to the droning voices of LeFroy and Big Lena as they talked by the stove in the kitchen.

Strange fancies and pictures the girl built up as she lay, half waking, half dreaming between her blankets. Pictures in which MacNair, misjudged, hated, fighting against fearful odds, came clean through the ruck and muck with which his enemies had endeavoured to smother him, and proved himself the man he might have been; fancies and pictures that dulled into a pain that was very like a heartache, as the vivid picture—the real picture—which she herself had seen with her own eyes that night on Snare Lake, arose always to her mind.

The tang of the northern air bit into the girl's blood. She spent much time in the open and became proficient and tireless in the use of snowshoes and skis. Daily her excursions into the surrounding timber grew longer, and she was never so happy as when swinging with strong, wide strides on her fat thong-strung rackets, or sliding with the speed of the wind down some steep slope of the river-bank, on her smoothly polished skis.

It was upon one of these solitary excursions, when her steps had carried her many miles along the winding course of a small tributary of the Yellow Knife, that the girl became so fascinated in her exploration she failed utterly to note the passage of time until a sharp bend of the little river brought her face to face with the low-hung winter sun, which was just on the point of disappearing behind the shrub pines of a long, low ridge.

With a start she brought up short and glanced fearfully about her. Darkness was very near, and she had travelled straight into the wilderness almost since early dawn. Without a moment's delay she turned and retraced her steps. But even as her hurrying feet carried her over the back-trail she realized that night would overtake her before she could hope to reach the larger river.

The thought of a night spent alone in the timber at first terrified her. She sought to increase her pace, but her muscles were tired, her footsteps dragged, and the rackets clung to her feet like inexorable weights which sought to drag her down, down into the soft whiteness of the snow.

Darkness gathered, and the back-trail dimmed. Twice she fell and regained her feet with an effort. Suddenly rounding a sharp bend, she crashed heavily among the dead branches of a fallen tree. When at length she regained her feet, the last vestige of daylight had vanished. Her own snowshoe tracks were indiscernible upon the white snow. She was off the trail!

Something warm and wet trickled along her cheek. She jerked off her mittens and with fingers tingling in the cold, keen air, picked bits of bark from the edges of the ragged wound where the end of a broken branch had snagged the soft flesh of her face. The wound stung, and she held a handful of snow against it until the pain dulled under the numbing chill.

Stories of the night-prowling wolf-pack, and the sinister, man-eating loup cervier, crowded her brain. She must build a fire. She felt through her pocket for the glass bottle of matches, only to find that her fingers were too numb to remove the cork. She replaced the vial and, drawing on her mittens, beat her hands together until the blood tingled to her finger-tips. How she wished now that she had heeded the advice of LeFroy, who had cautioned against venturing into the woods without a light camp ax slung to her belt.

Laboriously she set about gathering bark and light twigs which she piled in the shelter of a cut-bank, and when at last a feeble flame flickered weakly among the thin twigs she added larger branches which she broke and twisted from the limbs of the dead trees. Her camp-fire assumed a healthy proportion, and the flare of it upon the snow was encouraging.

At the end of an hour, Chloe removed her rackets and dropped wearily onto the snow beside the fire-wood which she had piled conveniently close to the blaze. Never in her life had she been so utterly weary, but she realized that for her that night there could be no sleep. And no sooner had the realization forced itself upon her than she fell sound asleep with her head upon the pile of fire-wood.

She awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright, staring in bewilderment at her fire—and beyond the fire where, only a few feet distant, a hooded shape stood dimly outlined against the snow. Chloe's garments, dampened by the exertion of the earlier hours, had chilled her through while she slept, and as she stared wide-eyed at the apparition beyond the fire, the figure drew closer and the chill of the dampened garments seemed to clutch with icy fingers at her heart. She nerved herself for a supreme effort and arose stiffly to her knees, and then suddenly the figure resolved itself into the form of a girl—an Indian girl—but a girl as different from the Indians of her school as day is different from night.

As the girl advanced she smiled, and Chloe noted that her teeth were strong and even and white, and that dark eyes glowed softly from a face as light almost as her own.

"Do not 'fraid," said the girl in a low, rich voice. "I'm not hurt you. I'm see you fire, I'm com' 'cross to fin'. Den, ver' queek you com' 'wake, an' I'm see you de one I'm want."

"The one you want!" cried Chloe, edging closer to the fire. "What do you mean? Who are you? And why should you want me?"

"Me—I'm Mary. I'm com' ver' far. I'm com' from de people of my modder. De Louchoux on de lower Mackenzie. I'm com' to fin' de school. I'm hear about dat school."

"The lower Mackenzie!" cried Chloe in astonishment. "I should think you have come very far."

The girl nodded. "Ver' far," she repeated. "T'irty-two sleep I'm on de trail."

"Alone!"

"Alone," she assented. "I'm com' for learn de ways of de white women."

Chloe motioned the girl closer, and then, seized by a sudden chill, shivered violently. The girl noticed the paroxysm, and, dropping to her knees by Chloe's side, spoke hurriedly.

"You col'," she said. "You got no blanket. You los'."

Without waiting for a reply, she hurried to a light pack-sled which stood nearby upon the snow. A moment later she returned with a heavy pair of blankets which she spread at Chloe's side, and then, throwing more wood upon the fire, began rapidly to remove the girl's clothing. Within a very short space of time, Chloe found herself lying warm and comfortable between the blankets, while her damp garments were drying upon sticks thrust close to the blaze. She watched the Indian girl as she moved swiftly and capably about her task, and when the last garment was hung upon its stick she motioned the girl to her side.

"Why did you come so far to my school?" she asked. "Surely you have been to school. You speak English. You are not a full-blood Indian."

The girl's eyes sought the shadows beyond the firelight, and, as her lips framed a reply, Chloe marvelled at the weird beauty of her.

"I go to school on de Mission, two years at Fort MacPherson. I learn to spik de Englis'. My fadder, heem Englis', but I'm never see heem. Many years ago he com' in de beeg boat dat com' for ketch de whale an' got lock in de ice in de Bufort Sea. In de spring de boat go 'way, an' my fadder go 'long, too. He tell my modder he com' back nex' winter. Dat many years ago—nineteen years. Many boats com' every year, but my fadder no com' back. My modder she t'ink he com' back som' day, an' every fall my modder she tak' me 'way from Fort MacPherson and we go up on de coast an' build de igloo. An' every day she set an' watch while de ships com' in, but my fadder no com' back. My modder t'ink he sure com' back, he fin' her waitin' when he com'. She say, mebe so he ketch 'm many whale. Mebe so he get reech so we got plen' money to buy de grub."

The girl paused and her brows contracted thoughtfully. She threw a fresh stick upon the fire and shook her head slowly. "I don' know," she said softly, "mebe so he com' back—but heem been gone long tam'."

"Where is your mother now?" asked Chloe, when the girl had finished.

"She up on de coast in de little igloo. Many ships com' into Bufort Sea las' fall. She say, sure dis winter my fadder com' back. She got to wait for heem."

Chloe cleared her throat sharply. "And you?" she asked, "why did you come clear to the Yellow Knife? Why did you not go back to school at the Mission?"

A troubled expression crept into the eyes of the Louchoux girl, and she seemed at a loss to explain. "Eet ees," she answered at length, "dat my man, too, he not com' back lak' my fadder."

"Your man!" cried Chloe in astonishment. "Do you mean you are married? Why, you are nothing but a child!"

The girl regarded her gravely. "Yes," she answered, "I'm marry. Two years ago I git marry, up on de Anderson Reever. My man, heem free-trader, an' all summer we got plent' to eat. In de fall he tak' me back to de igloo. He say, he mus' got to go to de land of de white man to buy supplies. I lak' to go, too, to de land of de white man, but he say no, you Injun, you stay in de Nort', an' by-m-by I com' back again. Den he go up de reever, an' all winter I stay in de igloo wit' my modder an' look out over de ice-pack at de boats in de Bufort Sea. In de spreeng my man he don' com' back, my fadder he don' com' back neider. We not have got mooch grub to eat dat winter, and den we go to Fort MacPherson. I go back to de school, and I'm tell de pries' my man he no com' back. De pries' he ver' angry. He say, I'm not got marry, but de pries' he ees a man—he don' un'stan'.

"All summer I'm stay on de Mackenzie, an' I'm watch de canoes an' I'm wait for my man to com' back, but he don' com' back. An' in de fall my modder she go Nort' again to watch de ships in de Bufort Sea. She say, com' 'long, but I don' go, so she go 'lone and I'm stay on de Mackenzie. I'm stay 'til de reever freeze, an' no more canoe can com'. Den I'm wait for de snow. Mebe so my man com' wit' de dog-team. Den I'm hear 'bout de school de white woman build on de Yellow Knife. Always I'm hear 'bout de white women, but I'm never seen none—only de white men. My man, he mos' white.

"Den I'm say, mebe so my man lak' de white women more dan de Injun. He not com' back dis winter, an' I'm go on de school and learn de ways of de white women, an' in de spreeng when my man com' back he lak' me good, an' nex' winter mebe he tak' me 'long to de land of de white women. But, eet's a long trail to de Yellow Knife, an' I'm got no money to buy de grub an' de outfit. I'm go once mor' to de pries' an' I'm tell heem 'bout dat school. An' I'm say, mebe so I'm learn de ways of de white women, my man tak' me 'long nex' tam'.

"De pries' he t'ink 'bout dat a long tam'. Den he go over to de Hudson Bay Pos' an' talk to McTavish, de factor, an' by-m-by he com' back and tak' me over to de pos' store an' give me de outfit so I'm com' to de school on de Yellow Knife. Plent' grub an' warm blankets dey give me. An' t'irty-two sleep I'm travel de snow-trail. Las' night I'm mak' my camp in de scrub cross de reever. I'm go 'sleep, an' by-m-by I'm wake up an' see you fire an' I'm com' 'long to fin' out who camp here."

As she listened, Chloe's hand stole from beneath the blankets and closed softly about the fingers of the Louchoux girl. "And so you have come to live with me?" she whispered softly.

The girl's face lighted up. "You let me com'?" she asked eagerly, "an' you teach me de ways of de white women, so I ain't jus' be Injun girl? So when my man com' back, he lak' me an' I got plent' to eat in de winter?"

"Yes, dear," answered Chloe, "you shall come to live with me always."

Followed then a long silence which was broken at last by the Indian girl.

"You don' say lak' de pries'," she asked, "you not marry, you bad?"

"No! No! No! You poor child!" cried Chloe, "of course you are not bad! You are going to live with me. You will learn many things."

"An' som' tam', we fin' my man?" she asked eagerly.

Chloe's voice sounded suddenly harsh. "Yes, indeed, we will find him!" she cried. "We will find him and bring him back—" she stopped suddenly. "We will speak of that later. And now that my clothes are dry you can help me put them on, and if you have any grub left in your pack let's eat. I'm starving."

While Chloe finished dressing, the Louchoux girl boiled a pot of tea and fried some bacon, and an hour later the two girls were fast asleep in each other's arms, beneath the warm folds of the big Hudson Bay blankets.

The following morning they had proceeded but a short distance upon the back-trail when they were met by a searching party from the school. The return was made without incident, and Chloe, who had taken a great fancy to the Louchoux girl, immediately established her as a member of her own household.

During the days which followed, the girl plunged with an intense eagerness into the task of learning the ways of the white women. Nothing was too trivial or unimportant to escape her attention. She learned to copy with almost pathetic exactness each of Chloe's little acts and mannerisms, even to the arranging of her hair. With the other two inmates of the cottage the girl became hardly less a favourite than with Chloe herself.

Her progress in learning to speak English, her skill with the needle and the rapidity with which she learned to make her own clothing delighted Harriet Penny. While Big Lena never tired of instructing her in the mysteries of the culinary department. In return the girl looked upon the three women with an adoration that bordered upon idolatry. She would sit by the hour listening to Chloe's accounts of the wondrous cities of the white men and of the doings of the white men's women.

Chloe never mentioned the girl's secret to either Harriet Penny or Big Lena, and carefully avoided any allusion to the subject to the girl herself. Nothing could be done, she reasoned, until the ice went out of the rivers, and in the meantime she would do all in her power to instil into the girl's mind an understanding of the white women's ethics, so that when the time came she would be able to choose intelligently for herself whether she would return to her free-trader lover or prosecute him for his treachery.

Chloe knew that the girl had done no wrong, and in her heart she hoped that she could be brought to a realization of the true character of the man and repudiate him. If not—if she really loved him, and was determined to remain his wife—Chloe made up her mind to insist upon a ceremony which should meet the sanction of Church and State.

Christmas and New Year's passed, and Lapierre did not return to the school. Chloe was not surprised at this, for he had told her that his absence would be prolonged; and in her heart of hearts she was really glad, for the veiled suspicion of the man's sincerity had grown into an actual distrust of him—a distrust that would have been increased a thousand-fold could she have known that the quarter-breed was even then upon Snare Lake at the head of a gang of outlaws who were thawing out MacNair's gravel and shovelling it into dumps for an early clean-up; instead of looking after his "neglected interests" upon the rivers.

But she did not know that, nor did she know of his midnight visit to Tostoff, nor of what happened at Brown's cabin, nor of the release of MacNair.



CHAPTER XX

ON THE TRAIL OF PIERRE LAPIERRE

Bob MacNair drove a terrific trail. He was known throughout the Northland as a hard man to follow at any time. His huge muscles were tireless at the paddle, and upon the rackets his long swinging stride ate up the miles of the snow-trails. And when Bob MacNair was an a hurry the man who undertook to keep up with him had his work cut out.

When he headed northward after his release from the Fort Saskatchewan Jail, MacNair was in very much of a hurry. From daylight until far into the dark he urged his malamutes to their utmost. And Corporal Ripley, who was by no means a chechako, found himself taxed to the limit of his endurance, although never by word or sign did he indicate that the pace was other than of his own choosing.

Fort McMurray, a ten- to fourteen-day trip under good conditions, was reached in seven days. Fort Chippewayan in three days more, and Fort Resolution a week later—seventeen days from Athabasca Landing to Fort Resolution—a record trip for a dog-train!

MacNair was known as a man of few words, but Ripley wondered at the ominous silence with which his every attempt at conversation was met. During the whole seventeen days of the snow-trail, MacNair scarcely addressed a word to him—seemed almost oblivious to his presence.

Upon the last day, with the log buildings of Fort Resolution in sight, MacNair suddenly halted the dogs and faced Corporal Ripley.

"Well, what's your program?" he asked shortly.

"My program," returned the other, "is to arrest Pierre Lapierre,"

"How are you going to do it?"

"I've got to locate him first, the details will work out later. I've been counting a lot on your help and judgment in the matter."

"Don't do it!" snapped MacNair.

The other gazed at him in astonishment.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I'm not going to help you arrest Lapierre. He's mine! I have sworn to get him, and, by God, I will get him! From now on we are working against each other."

Ripley flushed, and his eyes narrowed. "You mean," he exclaimed, "that you defy the Mounted! That you refuse to help when you're called on?"

MacNair laughed. "You might put it that way, I suppose, but it don't sound well. You know me, Ripley. You know when my word has passed—when I've once started a thing—I'll see it through to the limit. I've sworn to get Lapierre. And I tell you, he's mine! Unless you get him first. You're a good man, Ripley, and you may do it—but if you do, when you get back with him, you'll know you've been somewhere."

The lines of Ripley's face softened; as a sporting proposition the situation appealed to him. He thrust out his hand. "It's a go, MacNair," he said, "and let the best man win!"

MacNair wrung the officer's hand in a mighty grip, and then just as he was on the point of starting his dogs, paused and gazed thoughtfully after the other who was making his way toward the little buildings of Fort Resolution.

"Oh, Ripley," he called. The officer turned and retraced his steps. "You've heard of Lapierre's fort to the eastward. Have you ever been there?"

Ripley shook his head. "No, but I've heard he has one somewhere around the east end of the lake."

MacNair laughed. "Yes, and if you hunted the east end of the lake for it you could hunt a year without finding it. If you really want to know where it is, come along, I'll show you. I happen to be going there."

"What's the idea?" asked the officer, regarding MacNair quizzically.

"The idea is just this. Lapierre's no fool. He's got as good a chance of getting me as I have of getting him. And if anything happens to me you fellows will lose a lot of valuable time before you can locate that fort. I don't know myself exactly why I'm taking you there, except that—well, if anything should happen to me, Lapierre would—you see, he might—that is—— Damn it!" he broke out wrathfully. "Can't you see he'll have things his own way with her?"

Ripley grinned broadly. "Oh! So that's it, eh? Well, a fellow ought to look out for his friends. She seemed right anxious to have you put where nothing would hurt you."

"Shut up!" growled MacNair shortly. "And before we start there's one little condition you must agree to. If we find Lapierre at the fort, in return for my showing you the place, you've got to promise to make no attempt to arrest him without first returning to Fort Resolution. If I can't get him in the meantime I ought to lose."

"You're on," grinned Ripley, "I promise. But man, if he's there he won't be alone! What chance will you have single-handed against a whole gang of outlaws?"

MacNair smiled grimly. "That's my lookout. Remember, your word has passed, and when we locate Lapierre, you head back for Fort Resolution."

The other nodded regretfully, and when MacNair turned away from the fort and headed eastward along the south shore of the lake, the officer fell silently in behind the dogs.

They camped late in a thicket on the shore of South Bay, and at daylight headed straight across the vast snow-level, that stretched for sixty miles in an unbroken surface of white. That night they camped on the ice, and toward noon of the following day drew into the scrub timber directly north of the extremity of Peththenneh Island.

Long after dark they made a fireless camp directly opposite the stronghold of the outlaws on the shore of Lac du Mort. Circling the lake next morning, they reconnoitred the black spruce swamp, and working their way, inch by inch, passed cautiously between the dense evergreens in the direction of the high promontory upon which Lapierre had built his "Bastile du Mort."

Silence enveloped the swamp. An intense, all-pervading stillness, accentuated by the low-hung snow-weighted branches through which the men moved like dark phantoms in the grey half-light of the dawn. They moved not with the stealthy, gliding movement of the Indian, but with the slow caution of trained woodsmen, pausing every few moments to scrutinize their surroundings, and to strain their ears for a sound that would tell them that other lurking forms glided among the silent aisles and vistas of the snow-shrouded swamp. But no sounds came to them through the motionless air, and after an hour of stealthy advance, they drew into the shelter of a huge spruce and peered through the interstices of its snow-laden branches toward the log stockade that Lapierre had thrown across the neck of his lofty peninsula.

Silent and grey and deserted loomed the barrier so cunningly devised as to be almost indistinguishable at a distance of fifty yards. Snow lay upon its top, and vertical ridges of snow clung to the crevices of the upstanding palings.

A half-hour passed, while the two men remained motionless, and then, satisfied that the fort was unoccupied, they stepped cautiously from the shelter of their tree. The next instant, loud and clear, shattering the intense silence with one sharp explosion of sound, rang a shot. And Corporal Ripley, who was following close at the heels of MacNair, staggered, clawed wildly for the butt of his service revolver which protruded from its holster, and, with an imprecation on his lips that ended in an unintelligible snarl, crashed headlong into the snow.

MacNair whirled as if upon a pivot, and with hardly a glance at the prostrate form, dashed over the back-trail with the curious lumbering strides of the man who would hurry on rackets. He had jerked off his heavy mitten at the sound of the shot, and his bared hand clutched firmly the butt of a blue-black automatic. A spruce-branch, suddenly relieved of its snow, sprang upward with a swish, thirty yards away. MacNair fired three times in rapid succession.

There was no answering shot, and he leaped forward, charging directly toward the tree that concealed the hidden foe before the man could reload; for by the roar of its discharge, MacNair knew that the weapon was an old Hudson Bay muzzle-loading smoothbore—a primitive weapon of the old North, but in the hands of an Indian, a weapon of terrible execution at short range, where a roughly moulded bullet or a slug rudely hammered from the solder melted from old tin cans tears its way through the flesh, driven by three fingers of black powder.

Near the tree MacNair found the gun where its owner had hurled it into the snow—found also the tracks of a pair of snowshoes, which headed into the heart of the black spruce swamp. The tracks showed at a glance that the lurking assassin was an Indian, that he was travelling light, and that the chance of running him down was extremely remote. Whereupon MacNair returned his automatic to its holster and bethought himself of Ripley, who was lying back by the stockade with his face buried in the snow.

Swiftly he retraced his steps, and, kneeling beside the wounded man, raised him from the snow. Blood oozed from the corners of the officer's lips, and, mingling with the snow, formed a red slush which clung to the boyish cheek. With his knife MacNair cut through the clothing and disclosed an ugly hole below the right shoulder-blade. He bound up the wound, plugging the hole with suet chewed from a lump which he carried in his pocket. Leaving Ripley upon his face to prevent strangulation from the blood in his throat, he hastened to the camp on the shore of the lake, harnessed the dogs, and returned to the prostrate man; it was the work of a few moments to bind him securely upon the sled. Skilfully MacNair guided his dogs through the maze of the black spruce swamp, and, throwing caution to the winds, crossed the lake, struck into the timber, and headed straight for Chloe Elliston's school.

In the living-room of the little cottage on the Yellow Knife, Harriet Penny and Mary, the Louchoux girl, sat sewing, while Chloe Elliston, with chair pulled close to the table, read by the light of an oil-lamp from a year-old magazine. If the Louchoux girl failed to follow the intricacies of the plot, an observer would scarcely have known it. Nor would he have guessed that less than two short months before this girl had been a skin-clad native of the North who had mushed for thirty days unattended through the heart of the barren grounds. So marvellously had the girl improved and so desirously had she applied her needle, that save for the beaded moccasins upon her feet, her clothing differed in no essential detail from that of Chloe Elliston or of Harriet Penny.

Chloe paused in her reading, and the three occupants of the little room stared inquiringly into each other's faces as a rough-voiced "Whoa!" sounded from beyond the door. A moment of silence followed the command, and then came the sounds of a heavy footfall upon the veranda. The Louchoux girl sprang to the door, and as she wrenched it open the yellow lamplight threw into bold relief the huge figure of a man, who, bearing a blanket-wrapped form in his arms, staggered into the room, and, without a word deposited his burden upon the floor. The man looked up, and Chloe Elliston started back with an exclamation of angry amazement. The man was Bob MacNair! And Chloe noticed that the Louchoux girl, after one terrified glance into his face, fled incontinently to the kitchen.

"You! You!" cried Chloe, groping for words.

The man interrupted her gruffly. "This is no time to talk. Corporal Ripley has been shot. For three days I have burned up the snow getting him here. He's hard hit, but the bleeding has stopped, and a good bed and good nursing will pull him through."

As he snapped out the words, MacNair busied himself in removing the wounded man's blankets and outer garments. Chloe gave some hurried orders to Big Lena, and followed MacNair into her own room, where he laid the wounded man upon her bed—the same he, himself, had once occupied while recovering from the effect of Lapierre's bullet. Then he straightened and faced Chloe, who stood regarding him with flashing eyes.

"So you did get away from him after all?" she said, "and when he followed you, you shot him! Just a boy—and you shot him in the back!" The voice trembled with the scorn of her words. MacNair pushed roughly past her.

"Don't be a damn fool!" he growled, and called over his shoulder: "Better rest him up for three or four days, and send him down to Fort Resolution. He'll stand the trip all right by that time, and the doctor may want to poke around for that bullet." Suddenly he whirled and faced her. "Where is Lapierre?" The words were a snarl.

"So you want to kill him, too? Do you think I would tell you if I knew? You—you murderer! Oh, if I—" But the sentence was cut short by the loud banging of the door. MacNair had returned into the night.

An hour later, when she and Big Lena quitted the bedroom, Corporal Ripley was breathing easily. Her thoughts turned at once to the Louchoux girl. She recalled the look of terror that had crept into the girl's eyes as she gazed into the upturned face of MacNair. With the force of a blow a thought flashed through her brain, and she clutched at the edge of the table for support. What was it the girl had told her about the man who had deceived her into believing she was his wife? He was a free-trader! MacNair was a free-trader! Could it be——

"No, no!" she gasped—"and yet——"

With an effort she crossed to the door of the girl's room and, pushing it open, entered to find her cowering, wide-eyed between her blankets. The sight of the beautiful, terrorized face did not need the corroboration of the low, half-moaned words, "Oh, please, please, don't let him get me!" to tell Chloe that her worst fears were realized.

"Do not be afraid, my dear," she faltered. "He cannot harm you now," and hurriedly closing the door, staggered across the living-room, threw herself into a chair beside the table, and buried her face in her arms.

Harriet Penny opened her door and glanced timidly at the still figure of the girl, and, deciding it were the better part of prudence not to intrude, noiselessly closed her door. Hours later, Big Lena, entering from the kitchen, regarded her mistress with a long vacant-faced stare, and returned again to the kitchen. All through the night Chloe dozed fitfully beside the table, but for the most part she was widely—painfully—awake. Bitterly she reproached herself. Only she knew the pain the discovery of MacNair's treachery had caused her. And only she knew why the discovery had caused her pain.

Always she had believed she had hated this man. By all standards, she should hate him. This great, elemental brute of the North who had first attempted to ignore, and later to ridicule and to bully her. This man who ruled his Indians with a rod of iron, who allowed them full license in their debauchery, and then shot them down in cold blood, who shot a boy in the back while in the act of doing his duty, and who had called her a "damn fool" in her own house, and was even then off on the trail of another man he had sworn to kill on sight. By all the laws of justice, equity, and decency, she should hate this man! She was conscious of no other feeling toward him than a burning, unquenchable hate. And yet, deep down in her heart she knew—by the pain of her discovery of his treachery—she knew she loved him, and utterly she despised herself that this could be so.

Daylight softly dimmed the yellow lamplight of the room. The girl arose, and, after a hurried glance at the sleeping Ripley, bathed her eyes in cold water and passed into the kitchen, where Big Lena was busy in the preparation of breakfast.

"Send LeFroy to me at once!" she ordered, and five minutes later, when the man stood before her, she ordered him to summon all of MacNair's Indians.

The man shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other as he faced her upon the tiny veranda. "MacNair Injuns," he answered, "dem gon' las' night. Dem gon' 'long wit' MacNair. Heem gon' for hunt Pierre Lapierre!"

CHAPTER XXI

LAPIERRE PAYS A VISIT

Up on Snare Lake the men to whom Lapierre had passed the word had taken possession of MacNair's burned and abandoned fort, and there the leader had joined them after stopping at Fort McMurray to tip off to Ripley and Craig the bit of evidence that he hoped would clinch the case against MacNair. More men joined the Snare Lake stampede—flat-faced breeds from the lower Mackenzie, evil-visaged rivermen from the country of the Athabasca and the Slave, and the renegade white men who were Lapierre's underlings.

By dog-train and on foot they came, dragging their outfits behind them, and in the eyes of each was the gleam of the greed of gold. The few cabins which had escaped the conflagration had been pre-empted by the first-comers, while the later arrivals pitched their tents and shelter tarps close against the logs of the unburned portion of MacNair's stockade.

At the time of Lapierre's arrival the colony had assumed the aspect of a typical gold camp. The drifted snow had been removed from MacNair's diggings, and the night-fires that thawed out the gravel glared red and illuminated the clearing with a ruddy glow in which the dumps loomed black and ugly, like unclean wens upon the white surface of the trampled snow.

Lapierre, a master of organization, saw almost at the moment of his arrival that the gold-camp system of two-man partnerships could be vastly improved upon. Therefore, he formed the men into shifts: eight hours in the gravel and tending the fires, eight hours chopping cord-wood and digging in the ruins of MacNair's storehouse for the remains of unburned grub, and eight hours' rest. Always night and day, the seemingly tireless leader moved about the camp encouraging, cursing, bullying, urging; forcing the utmost atom of man-power into the channels of greatest efficiency. For well the quarter-breed knew that his tenure of the Snare Lake diggings was a tenure wholly by sufferance of circumstances—over which he, Lapierre, had no control.

With MacNair safely lodged in the Fort Saskatchewan jail, he felt safe from interference, at least until late in the spring. This would allow plenty of time for the melting snows to furnish the water necessary for the cleaning up of the dumps. After that the fate of his colony hung upon the decision of a judge somewhere down in the provinces. Thus Lapierre crowded his men to the utmost, and the increasing size of the black dump-heaps bespoke a record-breaking clean-up when the waters of the melting snow should be turned into sluices in the spring.

With his mind easy in his fancied security, and in order that every moment of time and every ounce of man-power should be devoted to the digging of gold, Lapierre had neglected to bring his rifles and ammunition from the Lac du Mort rendezvous and from the storehouse of Chloe Elliston's school. An omission for which he cursed himself roundly upon an evening, early in February when an Indian, gaunt and wide-eyed from the strain of a forced snow-trail, staggered from the black shadow of the bush into the glare of the blazing night-fires, and in a frenzied gibberish of jargon proclaimed that Bob MacNair had returned to the Northland. And not only that he had returned, but had visited Lac du Mort in company with a man of the Mounted.

At first Lapierre flatly refused to credit the Indian's yarn, but when upon pain of death the man refused to alter his statement, and added the information that he himself had fired at MacNair from the shelter of a snow-ridden spruce, and that just as he pulled the trigger the man of the soldier-police had intervened and stopped the speeding bullet, Lapierre knew that the Indian spoke the truth.

In the twinkling of an eye the quarter-breed realized the extreme danger of his position. His wrath knew no bounds. Up and down he raged in his fury, cursing like a madman, while all about him—blaming, reviling, advising—cursed the men of his ill-favoured crew. For not a man among them but knew that somewhere someone had blundered. And for some inexplicable reason their situation had suddenly shifted from comparative security to extreme hazard. They needed not to be told that with MacNair at large in the Northland their lives hung by a slender thread. For at that very moment Brute MacNair was, in all probability, upon the Yellow Knife leading his armed Indians toward Snare Lake.

In addition to this was the certain knowledge that the vengeance of the Mounted would fall in full measure upon the heads of all who were in any way associated with Pierre Lapierre. An officer had been shot, and the men of Lapierre were outlawed from Ungava to the Western sea. The intricate system had crumbled in the batting of an eye. Else why should a man of the Mounted have been found before the barricade of the Bastile du Mort in company with Brute MacNair?

The quick-witted Lapierre was the first to recover from the shock of the stunning blow. Leaping onto the charred logs of MacNair's storehouse, he called loudly to his men, who in a panic were wildly throwing their outfits onto sleds. Despite their mad haste they crowded close and listened to the words of the man upon whose judgment they had learned to rely, and from whose dreaded "dismissal from service" they had cowered in fear. They swarmed about Lapierre a hundred strong, and his voice rang harsh.

"You dogs! You canaille!" he cried, and they shrank from the baleful glare of his black eyes. "What would you do? Where would you go? Do you think that, single-handed, you can escape from MacNair's Indians, who will follow your trails like hounds and kill you as they would kill a snared rabbit? I tell you your trails will be short. A dead man will lie at the end of each. But even if you succeed in escaping the Indians, what, then, of the Mounted? One by one, upon the rivers and lakes of the Northland, upon wide snow-steeps of the barren grounds, even to the shores of the frozen sea, you will be hunted and gathered in. Or you will be shot like dogs, and your bones left to crunch in the jaws of the wolf-pack. We are outlaws, all! Not a man of us will dare show his face in any post or settlement or city in all Canada."

The men shrank before the words, for they knew them to be true. Again the leader was speaking, and hope gleamed in fear-strained eyes.

"We have yet one chance; I, Pierre Lapierre, have not played my last card. We will stand or fall together! In the Bastile du Mort are many rifles, and ammunition and provisions for half a year. Once behind the barricade, we shall be safe from any attack. We can defy MacNair's Indians and stand off the Mounted until such time as we are in a position to dictate our own terms. If we stand man to man together, we have everything to gain and nothing to lose. We are outlawed, every one. There is no turning back!"

Lapierre's bold assurance averted the threatened panic, and with a yell the men fell to work packing their outfits for the journey to Lac du Mort. The quarter-breed despatched scouts to the southward to ascertain the whereabouts of MacNair, and, if possible, to find out whether or not the officer of the Mounted had been killed by the shot of the Indian.

At early dawn the outfit crossed Snare Lake and headed for Lac du Mort by way of Grizzly Bear, Lake Mackay, and Du Rocher. Upon the evening of the fourth day, when they threaded the black-spruce swamp and pulled wearily into the fort on Lac du Mort, Lapierre found a scout awaiting him with the news that MacNair had headed northward with his Indians, and that LeFroy was soon to start for Fort Resolution with the wounded man of the Mounted. Whereupon he selected the fastest and freshest dog-team available and, accompanied by a half-dozen of his most trusted lieutenants, took the trail for Chloe Elliston's school on-the Yellow Knife, after issuing orders as to the conduct of defence in case of an attack by MacNair's Indians.

Affairs at the school were at a standstill. From a busy hive of activity, with the women and children showing marked improvement at their tasks, and the men happy in the felling of logs and the whip-sawing of lumber, the settlement had suddenly slumped into a disorganized hodge-podge of unrest and anxiety. MacNair's Indians had followed him into the North; their women and children brooded sullenly, and a feeling of unrest and expectancy pervaded the entire colony.

Among the inmates of the cottage the condition was even worse. With Harriet Penny hysterical and excited, Big Lena more glum and taciturn than usual, the Louchoux girl cowering in mortal dread of impending disaster, and Chloe herself disgusted, discouraged, nursing in her heart a consuming rage against Brute MacNair, the man who had wrought the harm, and who had been her evil genius since she had first set foot into the North.

Upon the afternoon of the day she despatched LeFroy to Fort Resolution with the wounded officer of the Mounted, Chloe stood at her little window gazing out over the wide sweep of the river and wondering how it all would end. Would MacNair find Lapierre, and would he kill him? Or would the Mounted heed the urgent appeal she despatched in care of LeFroy and arrive in time to recapture MacNair before he came upon his victim?

"If I only knew where to find him," she muttered, "I could warn him of his danger."

The next moment her eyes widened with amazement, and she pressed her face close against the glass; across the clearing from the direction of the river dashed a dog-team, with three men running before and three behind, while upon the sled, jaunty and smiling, and debonair as ever, sat Pierre Lapierre himself. With a flourish he swung the dogs up to the tiny veranda and stepped from the sled, and the next moment Chloe found herself standing in the little living-room with Lapierre bowing low over her hand. Harriet Penny was in the schoolhouse; the Louchoux girl was helping Big Lena in the kitchen, and for the first time in many moons Chloe Elliston felt glad that she was alone with Lapierre.

When at length she removed her hand from his grasp she stood for some moments regarding the clean-cut lines of his features, and then she smiled as she noted the trivial fact that he had removed his hat, and that he stood humbly before her with bared head. A great surge of feeling rushed over her as she realized how clean and good—how perfect this man seemed in comparison with the hulking brutality of MacNair. She motioned him to a seat beside the table, and drawing her chair close to his side, poured into his attentive and sympathetic ears all that she knew of MacNair's escape, of the shooting of Corporal Ripley, and his departure in the night with his Indians.

Lapierre listened, smiling inwardly at her version of the affair, and at the conclusion of her words leaned forward and took one of the slim brown hands in his. For a long, long time the girl listened in silence to the pleading of his lips; and the little room was filled with the passion of his low-voiced eloquence.

Neither was aware of the noiseless opening of a door, nor of the wide-eyed, girlish face that stared at them through the aperture, nor was either aware that the man's words were borne distinctly to the ears of the Louchoux girl. Nor could they note the change from an expression of startled surprise to slitlike, venomous points of fire that took place in the eyes of the listening girl—nor the clenching fists. Nor did they hear the soft, catlike tread with which the girl quit the door and crossed to the kitchen table. Nor could they see the cruel snarl of her lips as her fingers closed tightly about the haft of the huge butcher-knife, whose point was sharp and whose blade was keen. Nor did they hear the noiseless tread with which the girl again approached the door, swung wider now to admit the passage of her tense, lithe body. Nor did they see her crouch for a spring with the tight-clutched knife upraised and the gleaming slitlike eyes focused upon a point mid-way between Lapierre's shoulder-blades as his arm unconsciously came to rest upon the back of Chloe Elliston's chair.