All day she laboured at her many tasks. And the boy, faithful to his doctrine of helpfulness, found a world of recreation in his idea. Thus, with the passing of the sun, they stood together at the gateway of the fort with eyes searching, as many times they had searched before, for a sign of the return of the trail men.

"Us wants Uncle Steve."

There was a plaintive appeal in the boy's tone which found an echo in the woman's heart. She sighed, but her voice was steady as she replied:

"Bimeby him come," she said.

"'Ess. Bimeby him come."

But the boy's agreement lacked conviction. A moment later, with his big eyes turned to the southeast, the way he had seen the expedition set out, he went on:

"Boy's Pop didn't come. An-ina said him's do. Boy's Mummy go 'way 'cos Uncle Steve said her does. Uncle Steve hims all goes, too. Boy want Uncle Steve."

"Him come bimeby."

The woman had no words with which to comfort. It was not lack of desire. Though her conviction was unwavering, she, too, in her heart, echoed the plaint.

For some moments they continued their evening vigil. The eyes of both searched the growing shadows. And, as was always the case, it was the child who finally broke the silence.

"Us cries," he said half tearfully.

It was then the Indian in the woman asserted itself.

"Squaw-men him weeps. 'Brave' him fight. No cry. Oh, no. Only fight. Boy great white 'brave.' Him not cry. No."

Marcel nodded, but his eyes were turned to the hills.

"'Ess. Boy great white 'brave,'" he agreed, in a choking voice. "Boy not cry—never. What's hims little things all dancing in the fog, An-ina?" he enquired, his mind suddenly distracted, pointing at a gap between two low hills, where a thin vapour of fog was slowly rising. "Is them's debble-mens?"

The keen eyes of the squaw followed the pointing finger. In a moment there leapt into them a light which required no words to interpret. But even in her excited joy the Indian calm remained uppermost. She drew nearer the child, and one of her soft brown hands rested caressingly on his shoulder.

"Him not devil-men," she said, in a deep tone of exaltation. "Him Uncle Steve an' all fool 'Sleeper' men. They all come so as An-ina say."

Then the smile in her eyes suddenly transformed her, and her joy could no longer be denied. She stooped over the small figure and pressed her lips upon the soft white forehead.

"Us go by river. An-ina hide. Boy hide. Then Uncle Steve come. Boy jump out. Him say 'Boo!' Uncle Steve all scairt. Much frightened all dead. So?"

The appeal was irresistible. The boy's excitement leapt. In a moment he was transformed from a tearful "brave" to a happy, laughing child. He set off at a run for the river, with An-ina close upon his heels, utterly regardless of the fact that they were within full view of the on-coming trail men. This was a detail. The child's enthusiasm permitted no second thought, and his breathless orders to his nurse were flung back as he ran. The cover of the bush-lined river was reached, and the hiding-place was selected just short of the flood water.

The child crouched down trembling with excitement. And the sound of Uncle Steve's voice giving orders as he came up on the far side of the water made the suspense almost unendurable. He talked to An-ina, who crouched at his side. He chattered incessantly. The splash of a canoe, dropped into the water, was exquisite torture. The dip of paddles set him well-nigh beside himself. Then, a few moments later, when the light craft slithered on the mud of the shallows, just beyond the hiding-place, he felt the psychological moment had come. Out he sprang at his victim, who was still ankle deep in the water.

"Boo-o-o!" he shrieked, with all the power of his little lungs, and, a moment later, he was gathered into the caressing arms of a terrified "uncle."

* * * * *

The work was accomplished. The police officer had fulfilled his mission, a mission detailed to him coldly, officially, without a shadow of regard for the tremendous trials entailed, and with only an eye for the capacity of the officer selected.

So far he had beaten his own schedule. He had calculated his work would occupy two years from the moment of his going to his return to Deadwater, but he meant to cut this down by something like six months. The resolve to do so had been taken during the drear of winter. He had been haunted by the appealing eyes of the woman he loved, and by the memory of the soft clutch of baby hands. And his desire had become irresistible.

Under his new resolve it had become necessary to speed the waking of the Indians. He had had no scruple. Again he had bearded the chief and forced his will upon him. For all the old man's fears of the white man's threats it had been no easy task. But at last he had convinced him of the hopeless recklessness of denying him. So twenty of the young men were found who reluctantly enough gave up the last month of their winter's sleep. And now he had returned with his work accomplished.

Steve had no illusions upon the desperate nature of the rush for home. He knew the chances he was taking. A week's preparation. He could spare no more time. A journey on foot of some hundreds of miles. An Indian carry-all hauled by reindeer for the boy and the camp outfit, the dogs to be herded without burden till their usefulness could serve. For each man, and An-ina, the burden of a heavy pack. Such preparations were wholly inadequate. He knew that. He was staking the courage and endurance of those he was responsible for against a ruthless, inhospitable world.

Oh, yes, his eyes were wide to the dangers that lay ahead. He knew them all. He had visions of a dripping, melting land. He knew the spring rains with their awesome powers of washout and flood. The blinding, steaming fogs of the high altitudes. So with the glacial avalanches, and the terror of thawing tundra, shaking, treacherous, bottomless.

The week passed rapidly and the moment for the "pull-out" came. The Indians were awake, and their winter quarters in the woods had been abandoned for the domed igloos of the open season. The fort was alive with their comings and goings. They were alert for the promised spoils.

Peaceable, kindly, the sturdy undersized people of the outlands were driven to a supreme selfishness by reason of the conditions under which they lived. They cared little for anything but that which the white folk could provide. Without interest or ambitions, beyond such comfort as they could snatch from life, they desired only to be left in peace. But with real amiability they wished the stranger well in his going.

The post presented a curious enough scene on the morning of departure. And to Steve, at least, thought of it was to recur many times in the great struggle that lay before him. The poles of the carry-all, their ends trailing upon the ground, loaded with camp outfit and ready for the boy, stood just within the stockade. The dogs were ready and waiting under Oolak's charge. Inside the store, Steve supported by Julyman and An-ina, and the child Marcel, occupied the well-worn bench beside the stove.

He was receiving the farewell words of the old chief, Wanak-aha, who was thankful enough to see the last of the disturber of his winter sleep. The old man was surrounded by his equally aged counsellors, and the whole deputation squatted ceremonially upon their haunches about him. The store had been stripped of all supplies. The shelves were bare and only a litter of packings remained to mark the end of the chemist's great enterprise.

Steve addressed the chief through An-ina without relaxing his authority. He told the old man that everything that was good in the store had been handed over a present to his people for their valuable services to the Great White Chief. The store was now empty of everything that was good. He told him that this was the way the Great White Chief always acted towards those who served him. The things that remained in the store were only evil things that were full of evil magic. The Great White Chief had hidden these things deeply, and he had set a spell upon them. This had been done so that no harm should come to the Indian. In this he was referring to the contents of the dead man's laboratory. He told him that the Great White Chief had ordered him to place the store and fort in the chief's safe keeping. No Indian man was to enter it to destroy it. If he did the evil spirits would break loose, and death and disaster for the whole tribe would undoubtedly follow. Therefore he had summoned the council that Wanak-aha might give his pledge for the safety of the property of the Great White Chief.

He told them he was going now because he wanted the Indians to live in peace, with their slumbers undisturbed. He might never come again. He could not say. But if the Great White Chief sent anybody, it would only be for the purpose of giving great benefit to the Indians, whom he undoubtedly regarded as a very wise and good people.

It was a masterly exhibition of Steve's understanding of the savage it was his work to deal with, and the happy effect was promptly evidenced. Ten minutes of monosyllabic discussion between the chief and his counsellors produced the pledge Steve desired, and he knew from the manner of it that the pledge would be kept to the letter. But it brought forth something more. An-ina was called upon to interpret an expression of the friendly spirit in which the Indians parted from the disturber of their slumbers.

The old man in a long peroration explained all he and his people felt. They were in no way behind the Great White Chief in their regard, he assured Steve. They loved the white man, whose ways were not always Indian ways. He re-affirmed his solemn promise that the fort should be safe in Indian hands. Furthermore he told him they had no desire to anger the evil spirits it contained. In conclusion he produced a beaded seal-skin bag which he asked the white man to accept. It contained, he explained, the bones of the right hand of one of his ancestors who had been a great hunter and warrior, and withal a lucky and mighty chief who was only murdered by his people after a long and fierce reign. This bag, with its contents, was a sure talisman and guard against the evil spirits of Unaga, and they were very, very many, and very cruel.

With due solemnity Steve accepted this priceless gift, and, to add to his display of gratification, he drew little Marcel to him and secured it about his neck. Then, turning to the chief, he explained. He pointed at the child, and assured him that the white man regarded his children before all things—even before his own life. Therefore, to display his gratitude to the great chief, he bestowed the gift upon the child whose safety he desired above all things in the world. Approval was unanimous. To every one of these simple creatures the white man's act was one of the greatest self-sacrifice. And even in the more enlightened minds of An-ina and Julyman there was a deep appreciation of the act.

When the council broke up, and the fur-clad Indians moved out, Steve might well have been forgiven had he felt that his work had been well and truly done.

With the going of the last Indian he promptly shouldered his pack, and Julyman and An-ina did the same. A moment later he took the child in his arms.

"Come," he said, and led the way out of the building.

Ten minutes later the outfit was on the move, and the great adventure, with the new-born mosquitoes and flies swarming, began in a blaze of spring sunshine.

* * * * *

Out on a snow-clad ridge, a saddle between two forest-clad hills, a meagre camp was set. The shelter of woods against the keen north wind made the resting-place possible. Two weeks of struggle, two weeks of tremendous effort left the choice of daylight camping ground a matter of small moment, but just now the bleak ridge had been selected for a definite reason.

Steve and An-ina were standing out in the gap, with little Marcel between them. Oolak was somewhere within the woods, tending his savage dogs. Julyman was hugging the fire, with complete disregard for all but its precious warmth.

Those in the gap were staring out at the north-east with eyes held fascinated by the wonder of it all. It was the Spire, the amazing Spire of Unaga rearing its mighty crest out of the far-off distance. Even the child was awed to silence by the spell of the inspiring vision.

They were gazing upon a world of fire and smoke. And the fire was belching out of the bowels of the earth and lighting up the whole skyline far and wide. It was a scene no words could adequately describe. It was a scene to awe the stoutest heart. The whole country in the distant north seemed to lie prostrate at the mercy of a world of devouring flame.



CHAPTER X

THE RUSH OUTFIT

"Curse 'em!"

Ian Ross raised a hand and swept it across the back of his muscular neck. Then he wiped his palm on his cord breeches leaving there the stain of his own blood, and the crushed remains of hundreds of mosquitoes.

"Get a look at that," he cried, in genial disgust.

The man riding at his side turned and laughed without mirth. His eyes remained serious.

"Sure," he said indifferently. "We've got to get 'em, this time of year, Doc. We need a head breeze."

"Got to get? What we're getting is hell—plumb hell," exploded the Scotsman.

The other nodded.

"Sure. But there's worse hell on the trail, and it isn't us who's got it."

The rebuke was without offence. But it was sufficient. In a moment Ross was flung headlong back to the haunting thoughts of the great effort he and his companion were engaged upon.

"Another day—and no sign," he said.

"No."

There was no great display, yet the doctor's words, and the monosyllabic reply, were deeply significant.

Jack Belton—Inspector Jack Belton—and the doctor were on a "rush outfit" of rescue. They were riding back to camp after a long day of search along the banks of the Theton River. Their search was systematic. Each day they rode out and followed the intricate course of the smiling river with its endless chain of lakes. Each day their camp broke up and followed a similar course, but taking the direct and shortest route down the river. Then, at nightfall, the two men rejoined their outfit, only to follow a similar procedure next day. Thus they had left the headwaters far behind, and were steadily working their way down the river. Somewhere along that river was Steve Allenwood, alive or dead. They could not guess which. They could not estimate where. It was their purpose to leave no creek, or lake, or yard of the great river unexplored, until the secret was yielded up.

"And when we find him, what then?" the doctor exclaimed in a desperate fashion. "Maybe he's sick. Maybe—whatever it is we've got to heal him, and break him at the same time. God!"

"Yes." Jack Belton turned his dark eyes on his companion. They were hot with feeling. "Say, Doc, I'm crazy to find that boy, and find him cursing the skitters with a wholesome vocabulary, same as you and me. But I'd hand over my Commission in the force with pleasure to my biggest enemy rather than pass him the dope you and me need to."

The Scotsman nodded, and the kindly face reflected the bitterness of his feelings.

"And I handed him my promise, and Millie's," he aid. "He was crazy about them both—God help him."

"Poor devil!"

The great valley was lit from end to end by the last flaming rays of the setting summer sun. The green carpet was dotted by a thousand wooded bluffs, and a wonderful tracery of watercourses caught and reflected the dying light. Not a breath of air stirred. And the warm, cloudless evening was alive with the hum of insects, and the incessant chorus of the frogs at the water's edge. Now and again the far-off cry of coyote or wolf came dolefully across the trackless grass. For the rest a wonderful peace reigned—that peace which belongs to the wilderness where human habitation has not yet been set up.

It had been a tremendous time for both these men, and for those under the Inspector's command. The whole thing had been an exhibition of human energy, rarely to be witnessed. It had all been the result of an episode on a similar, calm summer afternoon, which would remain for all time a landmark in the doctor's life.

He had been reading in his shanty surgery on the Allowa Reserve. The stream of his medicine-loving patients had ceased to flow. The little room was heavy with the reek of his pipe. So he had risen from his chair and passed to the door for a breath of air. It was then that he was confronted by a gaudy coloured apparition. An Indian, whose race was foreign to him, was patiently sitting on the back of a mean-looking skewbald pony, clad in a parti-coloured blanket of flaming hues. The moment Ross appeared in the doorway the Indian produced a crumpled, folded paper from the folds of his blanket and offered it to him without a word.

He accepted it with a keen curiosity. He unfolded it and glanced at the handwriting. It was unrecognizable. But that which stirred him to the depths of his soul, and flooded his heart with something like panic, was the signature at the bottom of it. It was Steve's—Steve Allenwood.

The perusal of that letter was the work of a few moments. And throughout the reading Ross was aware—painfully aware—of the aggravating calm of the man who had written it. But under its unemotional words urgency, deep, terrible urgency, was revealed. Accident and sickness had hit the writer hard. His position was desperate. And the final paragraph epitomized his extremity in no uncertain fashion.

I mean to do all a man can to make the headwaters of the Theton River. Maybe I'll succeed. I can't say. If I don't you'll understand. Maybe you'll break it to Nita as easy as you can. If you can help her, and the kiddie, I'll be mighty thankful. Thank God the little one won't understand. I'm sending this by a Yellow-Knife. He reckons he knows Deadwater, and can get through quick. Please pay him well. I can't get farther than the headwater—if that. After that—well, it depends on the help that can reach us.

Optimism and energy were amongst Ian Ross's strongest characteristics. His decision was taken on the instant. With the aid of an interpreter he questioned the Yellow-Knife, who knew no language but his own and that of the Caribou-Eaters.

The man's story was broken but lurid.

The white man, he said, had arrived at Fort Duggan on foot, pursued by the evil spirits of Unaga. He assured the doctor that these devils had torn the clothes from him, and left him well-nigh naked. So with all the party. There was blood on his feet and hands, where the spirits had sought to devour him. Yes, they had even devoured his shoes. The white man had a small white pappoose tied on to his back. The child was sleeping, or sick, or dead. There was a squaw and an Indian with him, whose bones looked out of their skins, and whose eyes were fierce and wild like those who have looked the evil spirits in the face. These two living-dead were hauling a sort of sled. And on the sled was another Indian who was broken, and maybe dead. No, there were no dogs, no outfit. It was just as he said. The Shaunekuks were good Indians, and they gave the strangers food, and milk, and clothes to replace those the evil spirits had devoured. They also had the canoes which the white man had left with them a year ago. He, the messenger, was on a visit to the Shaunekuks at the time, for a caribou hunt. But he abandoned the hunt at the white man's request, who said he, the doctor, would pay him well.

The man was paid under promise of guiding an outfit back to the Theton River country, and then began a hustle of a cyclonic nature.

Corporal Munday set out for Reindeer forthwith, and made headquarters in record time. Within half an hour of his arrival Superintendent McDowell had issued his orders for a "rush outfit." And three hours later saw it on the trail. There was no hesitation. There was no question. There was a comrade in peril, and with him others. There was a woman—although only a squaw—and a white child. No greater incentive was needed, and young Jack Belton was selected to lead the "rush" for his known speed and capacity on the trail.

Something of the feelings stirring found expression in McDowell's final instructions to his subordinate at the moment of departure.

"I don't care a curse if you kill every darn horse between here and the Landing," he said. "Commandeer all you need—and plenty. I don't care what you do. You've got to bring Allenwood back alive, or—or break your darn neck."

And Belton had needed no urging. He had cut down the month's journey to the Theton River to something like twenty days. He had foundered six teams of horses and worn his two men and his scouts well-nigh threadbare with night and day travel. But the doctor had proved invincible, as had the Yellow-Knife scout on his skewbald pony, which, for all its meanness of shape and size, had stood up to it all.

They had already been pursuing the river course for four days, and, so far, it had withheld its secret. Somewhere out there on those wide shining waters a man was struggling in a great final effort to defeat once more the ruthless forces of Nature against which he had battled so long and so successfully.

And what would victory mean for him? Ross knew. Jack Belton knew. And their knowledge of that which was awaiting him, should a final triumph be his, added a deep depression to the silence which had fallen between them.

The great sun went to its death in a blaze of splendour, and the long Northern twilight softened the scene with misty, velvet shadows which crept down from distant hills to the north and south. The woodland bluffs, too, promptly lost their sharpness of outline, and the green of the trackless grass mellowed to a delicate softness which seemed to round off the peace of the airless evening.

Now they picked up the spiral of smoke from the camp-fire, and direction was promptly changed towards it.

"I sort of feel he'll make it," the Scotsman said abruptly, as though in simple continuation of his unspoken thought.

"You can't kill—him," replied the other emphatically. "I haven't a doubt. He guessed he could make the headwaters. He'll make them. I'm only scared to miss him in the night."

The doctor shook his head.

"I don't fancy that's going to happen. Our camp's always on the main water, in the open. There's our watch. No. I'm a deal more scared of him making a day camp, resting. Even then we haven't missed anything large enough to hide up a skitter."

"No."

Now the spot light of the camp-fire shone out of the soft twilight, and the sound of voices came back from the water's edge.

"I'm wondering about what he needs to be told," Ross said presently. "It's for me I guess."

"How's that?"

The younger man turned quickly. The thought of this thing had weighed heavily with him. He was a police officer who was ready to face any hardship, any of the hundred and one risks and dangers his calling demanded. But from the moment he was detailed for his present duty he had been oppressed by the thought of the story which would have to be told Steve, and which duty, as leader of the rescue party, he calculated must certainly fall to his lot. He had known Steve from the moment of his joining the force. He had worked with him on the trail. He had been present at his senior's wedding, and he remembered his comrade's happiness at the consummation of a real love match. And now? The doctor's words had lifted a great load from his mind.

"There's two sides to be told," Ross said, with a sigh. "There's the police side, which deals mostly with the Treaty Money, I guess, and there's that other which should be mine. You see, he left them in my care. And so there's a big account to be squared between him and me. Best let me handle the whole rotten thing." Then with a sound that was a laugh without the least mirth: "It's a doctor's job to hand out unpleasant dope to a patient. It's a policeman's job to act unpleasant. Guess the act isn't needed, but the dope is. Yes, it's mine, Belton. Will you leave it that?"

"I'll be so glad to," the other replied with a sigh of relief, "I don't know how to tell you about it. It had me scared to death. That's so. Even McDowell shirked it. He told me Steve had to get the whole yarn before he got into Reindeer. That's the sort of folk we are. And it's not a thing to brag about."

The other shook his head.

"It needs good men to hate hurting another," he said. "Guess it's a scare you don't need to be ashamed of. I'll tell him because I've got to. I hate it worse than hell. But I owe the hurt to myself for the way I've—failed his trust."

"I don't see you need to blame yourself, Doc," the youngster returned, becoming judicial under his relief. "Steve won't, if I know him. This sort of thing happens right along under a husband's nose. Just as long as woman's what she is, and there's low down skunks of men around, why—But, say, there's something doing at the camp!"

He lifted his reins and urged his weary horse into a rapid canter, and the doctor's horse clung close to its flank. The eager eyes of both were searching for the meaning of the stir which the youthful Inspector had detected. And instinctively they gazed out down the broad waters of the placid river as far as the rapidly deepening twilight would permit.

Simultaneously their eyes rested on two objects, a little indistinct, floating upon the water. They looked so small in the immensity of the spread of the river. But even so their outline was familiar enough.

"Canoes!" cried Belton.

"It's him!" came in the deep tones of the doctor.

Five minutes later they were out of the saddle and standing with others on the grassy river bank watching the steady approach of two canoes, paddling their way up against the easy, sluggish stream.

Near by were the two four-horsed wagons, and the camp-fire with the forgotten supper still wafting its pleasant odours upon the breathless air. Flies, too, and mosquitoes were in abundance. But these, like the rest, were forgotten. The men of the police outfit had eyes and thoughts for the canoes only. Each and all were wondering at that which they were to reveal.

Suddenly a shout broke the profound stillness. It came from the young officer who could restrain himself no longer.

"Ho, you, Steve!"

The shout carried away over the water. Those on the bank could almost hear it travel. Then followed what seemed an interminable interval. But it was seconds only before a faint call came back.

"Hoo-y!"

The policeman was given no opportunity for reply. The doctor's great husky voice anticipated him.

"Ho, Steve! It's Doc Ross!"

He had recognized the answering voice and flung his excited greeting in a tumult of feeling.

* * * * *

The canoes drove head on for the river bank.

As Belton and Ross sought to discover the nature of their freight the coursing blood of excited hope stagnated. There was only the quickening of apprehension.

A grim, strange figure was confronting them. It was kneeling up in the prow of the nearest vessel. A wild, straining, desperate light shone feverishly in eyes looking out of a face lost in a tangle of beard and whisker. The brows were fiercely depressed, suggesting a bitter defensive spirit. The eyes were lost in cavernous sockets, and the cheeks were sunken and scored with lines of ravening hunger. The whole was clad in the discoloured buckskin of a Northern Indian, with a mat of untended hair reaching to its shoulders.

The waiting men understood. This was their comrade, the man to whose succour they had rushed. A tragic story of suffering was in that single figure, which, paddle in hand, was battling with a burden too great for any one man to bear. Only he, and the squat figures of Shaunekuk paddlers were to be seen. For the rest nothing was visible to the onlookers.

As the canoe grounded on the reed-grown mud the doctor's deep-voiced "Thank God!" met with no response. The wild-looking figure scrambled off the boat, and plunged nearly knee-deep into the mud. Those on the bank seemed to concern him not at all, for he turned, as was perhaps his long habit, to haul the vessel inshore himself.

But the rescue party forestalled him. The men from the bank, policemen and Indian scouts, seized the boat, while Ross's friendly hand was laid on the man's shoulder.

"The boys'll fix things," he said, in a voice deep with intense feeling. "Best come right up to camp, Steve."

The sound of the husky voice, whose words were not quite steady, brought a swift turn from Steve. For a moment he stared at the speaker. He seemed to be striving to restore the broken threads of memory. Finally he shook his head.

"No," he said. And turned again to the boat.

Ian Ross made no further attempt. He understood. He turned and flung all his energies into the work of unloading the tragic freight. The wild figure of Steve had prepared him. And, in a few moments, his professional mind was absorbed to the exclusion of everything else.

Starvation had nearly defeated the otherwise invincible spirit of Steve. It was there in the bottom of the light vessels, in the drawn faces and attenuated bodies of the paddler crew of Shaunekuks. It was in the display of Steve's side-arms strapped to a strut of the canoe ready to his hand, with holsters agape, and his loaded guns protruding threateningly. It was in a similar display in the second boat, which the well-nigh demented Julyman had commanded. Oh, yes. No words were needed to tell the story. It was there for all to read.

The rescuers understood the uselessness of questions. Help was needed, and it was freely given. The urgency of it all held them utterly silent, except for sharp, brief orders.

Ross and the two teamsters dealt with Steve's boat. Jack Belton and the camp scouts devoted themselves to the second.

In Steve's boat were the fever-ridden body of An-ina, and the scarcely living shadow of the child, Marcel. Ross lifted the half-dead woman and carried her up the bank to the tent which had been set up. Then he returned in haste for the child. On his way he paused for a moment to glance at the broken body of Oolak, who was being removed from the second boat by Jack Belton.

"Guess it's not starvation here," he said significantly.

"No," Belton admitted. "It's a bad smash, I guess. Say——"

The Scotsman glanced back at the river, following the horrified gaze of his companion. His big heart thrilled with instant pity, and he set off on the run.

Steve, wild, unkempt, was labouring up from the water's edge, hobbling painfully on feet that were bound up in great pads of blanket. He was bearing in his arms the emaciated, unconscious body of the child, and his whole attitude was one of infinite tenderness, and care, and disregard for his own sufferings.

The doctor reached the struggling man and held out his arms.

"Give me the little chap," he demanded in his brusque fashion.

Steve turned his head. He stared at him in the fashion of a blind man.

"No!" he said sharply. Then he added with almost insane passion, "Not on your life!"



CHAPTER XI

STEVE LISTENS

"We've got 'em beat."

The man of healing recovered the sick man's feet with the blanket, and rolled the old dressings he had just removed into a bundle ready for the camp-fire outside.

"You mean——"

Steve was lying in his blankets propped into a half-sitting position. A candle, stuck in the neck of a bottle, lit the tent sufficiently for Ian Ross to complete his work.

"Why, the evil spirits of Unaga, I guess," he replied, with a forced lightness. Then he shook his head. "They did their best—sure. Another week or so and you'd have moved about on stumps the rest of your life. And I'm reckoning that would have been the best you could have hoped. It's been a darned near thing."

Steve nodded. His manner was curiously indifferent.

"How's the boy?" he demanded abruptly.

Ross put his instruments away and set the water bowl aside. Then he set the stoppered bottles back into his case.

"He'll be 'whooping' it up with the boys in a couple of days," he said.

"An-ina?"

"Beating the 'reaper' out of sight."

Steve drew a deep breath.

"Oolak was all to pieces," he said doubtfully.

"He was about as broken as he could be and still hang together. He's been a tough case." It was the doctor's turn to take a deep breath. "He'll be a man again. But I wouldn't gamble on his shape. Say, Steve, it's the biggest bluff I've seen put up against death. Those darn niggers who toted your boats, they're tickled to death with the food the boys hand out to them. And as for Julyman he's as near cast iron as—as—you."

"Yes, it was pretty tough."

"Tough? Gee!"

The doctor's final exclamation was one of genuine amazement.

"It's near three weeks since we hauled the remains of you from that skitter-ridden river," he went on, "and a deal's happened in that time. Jack Belton's gone in for stores, and to report. We've shifted camp where the flies, and bugs, and things'll let you folks forget the darn river, and the nightmare I guess you dreamt on it. You're all beating the game, some of you by yards, and others by inches. But you're beating it. And I'm still guessing at those things you all know like you were born to 'em. When are you going to hand me the yarn, Steve? When are you going to feel like thinking about the things that two weeks ago looked like leaving you plumb crazed?"

Steve knitted his brows. To the man watching him it seemed as if the sudden recalling of the past was still a thing to be avoided. But his diagnosis was in error. Steve became impatient.

"Oh hell!" he exclaimed. "Do you need me to hand it you? Do you need me to tell you the fool stunt I played to beat schedule, and get back to Nita and the kiddie? Do you need to know about a darn territory that every Indian north of 60 deg. is scared to death of? A territory only fit for devils and such folk, like the neches reckon it's peopled with? Do you want to hear about an outfit that found everything Nature ever set for the world's biggest fools? Do you want to know about storms that leave the worst Northern trails a summer picnic, and muskegs and tundra that leave you searching for something bigger than miles to measure with, and barren, fly-ridden territory without a leaf or blade of grass and scored every way at once with rifts and water canyons so you can't tell the north from the Desert of Sahara? If you do, read the old report I've been writing. I'll hand you a story that won't shout credit for the feller who designed it. But it'll tell you of the guts of the folk who stood behind him every darn step of the way, and made him crazy to get them through alive. If you'd asked me that two weeks ago I'd have cried like a babe. Now it's different. You've got a sick woman under your hands now, Doc, and two copper coloured neches. And when I say they're the world's best, why—I just mean it."

A deep flush of emotion underlaid the toughened skin of Steve's face. He was deeply stirred by the thoughts and feelings which the other's demand had conjured.

The doctor glanced down at the sheets of paper on which Steve had written his report. But he made no attempt to accept the invitation to read it. The moment had come to tell this man of that disaster which yet awaited him. So he had sought to test him in the only fashion that lay to his hand. The break which had so sorely threatened in the reaction following upon Steve's rescue had been completely averted, and the Scotsman felt that now, at last, he was strong enough to bear the truth which he had denied him on his first enquiry after his wife and child.

The flush died out of Steve's cheeks. The steady eyes were never more steady as they looked into the strong face before them. He ran his fingers through his long dark hair, and resettled his shoulders against the pile of blankets supporting them.

"It kind of startles you to find guts in folks when you're up against it. You can't help it. Maybe it's conceit makes you feel that way," he went on quietly. "Those two boys of mine, and An-ina. You couldn't beat 'em. Nothing could. When Oolak dropped over the side of a canyon, with most of the outfit the reindeer went with him. You see, we'd rid ourselves of the dogs. We couldn't feed 'em. Well, I guessed the end had come. But it hadn't. Julyman and An-ina took up the work of hauling, while I carried Marcel. Only they hauled Oolak instead of the outfit. They hauled him for nigh on a month, and we lived on dog meat till it got putrid, and even then didn't feel like giving it up. I didn't have to worry a thing except for their sanity. You see, they were Indian for all their grit, and—I just didn't know. It was tough, Doc! Oh, gee! it was tough! And when you've read the stuff I've doped out for headquarters you won't need me to talk if you've two cents of imagination about you. If you'd asked me awhile back, when I asked you about Nita, and my little girl, and you told me they were good and happy, and crazy to have me back, as I said, I'd have cried like a kid. Yes, and I guess you'd have needed a gun to hold me here while you hacked those slabs off my feet. But it's right now. My head was never clearer, and there's just one thought in it. It's to get back to Deadwater."

The doctor listened with a surge of feeling driving through his heart. His own words, the words he had told to the man whom he knew at the time to be floundering on the edge of a complete mental breakdown, were ringing through his brain. He had lied. He had had to lie. And now——

He took refuge in his pipe. He knew he would need it. He filled it from the pouch which had become common between them and urged Steve to do the same. In a few moments both men were smoking in an atmosphere of perfect calm.

"You were pretty bad that time," Ross said steadily. "Yes, I don't guess you know how bad you were."

"I think I do—now."

The doctor seemed to be absorbed in pressing down the tobacco in his pipe. He struck another match.

"The strain had been so big the break must have come if you'd had to go on," he said, blowing smoke till it partly obscured his patient's unflinching eyes. "You were weak—physically. There was nothing to support your nerve and brain. It was in your eyes. You scarcely recognized us. You hardly knew what our presence meant to you. And, later, the reaction made things even worse for you. A shock, and the balance would have gone hopelessly. So—I lied to you!"

"You—lied to me?"

The pipe had been suddenly jerked from Steve's lips. He was sitting up. A sudden fierce light had leapt to his eyes.

The Scotsman, too, had removed his pipe. His eyes were squarely confronting the other. All his mental force and bodily energy were summoned to his aid.

"Yes. I had to lie," he said firmly. "It was that or carry you back to Deadwater a crazy man. I was the doctor then. Guess I'm a man now. Maybe you won't reckon there's a difference. But there surely is. You see, I'm not going to lie. I don't need to. Nita isn't at my shanty. She isn't at Deadwater. Neither is Garstaing. And they've taken your little girl with them."

"They?"

The man on the blankets had moved again. His knees were drawn up as though he were about to spring from the sick bed he was still condemned to.

Ross nodded.

"Yes." Then he pointed at the attitude of the other. "Say, straighten out, Steve. Push those feet down under the blankets. You're a big man up against disaster most times. Well, don't forget it. You're up against disaster now. Sit back, boy, and get a grip on yourself. It's the only way. I've got to tell you the whole rotten story, and when I've done I'll ask you to forget the way I had to lie to you. If you can't, why—it's up to you. My duty was to heal you first, and I don't guess there's any rules in the game."

Ross was talking for time. He had to be sure. He was ready at a sign to launch into his story, but he was looking for that sign.

And Steve gave it. It was the only sign the other would accept. Ross was a powerful man, and Steve was still sick and weak. These things are as well when a man knows that his purpose means the breaking of a strong heart. Steve slid his injured feet down under the blankets. His legs straightened out, and he leant his back against the pillow. But his pipe was laid aside, and a quickening of his breathing warned the other of the immense effort for restraint he was putting forth.

"Tell me," he said. Then he added with a sudden note of sharpness, "Quick!"

The Scotsman nodded.

"It's best that way. Garstaing and Nita bolted. They took your little girl with them. It's six months ago. When the Indian Treaty Money came up. Hervey Garstaing waited for that. The Indians never saw it. He pouched it, and beat the trail, as I said, with Nita and the kiddie. Say, I needn't tell you more than that. I don't know any more except the police have been chasing his trail since."

He fumbled in a pocket, and drew out a sealed envelope addressed in a woman's handwriting, and another that was opened. The sealed envelope he passed across to Steve. The other he retained.

"She left these two letters in her room," he went on. "That's for you, and this one was for Millie. Maybe you'll read yours later. This one you'd best read now. It's just a line as you'll see."

He held the letter out and Steve accepted it. And Ross watched him all the time as he drew the note from its cover and perused it. The moment of shock had passed, and the fierce light in Steve's eyes had died out, leaving in its place a stony frigidity which gave the other a feeling of unutterable regret. He would have been thankful for some passionate outburst, some violent display. He felt it would have been more natural, and he would have known better how to deal with it. But there was none. Steve returned the letter to its envelope and remained silently regarding the superscription.

"It's a bad letter," Ross went on. "If I thought Nita had written it herself I'd say you're well rid of something that would have cursed the rest of your life. But the stuff that's written there is the stuff that comes out of Garstaing's rotten head. I'd bet my soul on it. She says her marriage with you was a mistake. She didn't know. She had no experience when she married you. She needs the things the world can show her. The North is driving her crazy. All that muck. It's the sort of stuff that hasn't a gasp of truth in it. If there was you need to thank God you're quit of her. No. That hound of hell told her what to say. Poor little fool. He's got her where he wants her, and she's as much chance as an angel in hell. She went in the night, and they took a storming night for it. There was two feet of snow on the ground, and more falling. How she went we can't guess. There wasn't a track or a sign in the morning, and it went on storming for days, so even the police couldn't follow them up. The whole thing was well planned, and Garstaing took no sort of chances. He got away with nearly fifty thousand dollars of Indian money, and, so far, hasn't left a trace. We don't know to this day if he made north, south, east, or west. All we know are these two letters, that they got away in a 'jumper' and team, and that Nita and the kiddie were with him."

"Say, Steve," Ross went on after a moment's pause, his voice deepening with an emotion he could no longer deny. "I handed you a big talk of seeing your Nita and the little kid safe till you got back. We did all we knew. Millie and the gals did all they knew. Nita wanted for nothing. The things that were good enough for my two we didn't reckon good enough for her, and we saw she had one better all the time. Happy? Gee, she seemed happy all the time, right up to the night she went. And as for Coqueline she was the greatest ever. But he'd got her, that skunk had her, and the thing must have been going on all the time. Still, we never saw a sign. Not a sign. Millie never liked Garstaing, and he wasn't ever encouraged to get around our shanty. And we had him there less after Nita came. There's times I'm guessing it didn't begin after you went. There's times I think there was a beginning earlier. Millie feels that way, too. I know it don't make things better talking this way. But it's what I feel, and think, and it's best to say it right out. I can't tell you how I feel about it. And anyway it wouldn't make things easier for you. I promised you, and all I said is not just hot air. I'm sick to death—just sick to death."

Ross's voice died away, and the silence it left was heavy with disaster. Steve had no reply. No questions. He seemed utterly and completely beyond words. His strong eyes were expressionless. He lay there still, quite still, with his unopened letter lying on the blankets before him.

Ross was no longer observing. His distress was pitiful. It was there in his kindly eyes, in the purposeless fashion in which he fingered his pipe. He was torn between two desires. One was to continue talking at all costs. The other was precipitate, ignominious flight from the sight of the other's voiceless despair. He knew Steve, and well enough he realized what the strong wall the man had set up in defence concealed. But he was held there silent by a force he had no power to deny, so he sat and lit, and re-lit a pipe in which the tobacco was entirely consumed.

How long it was before the silence was finally broken he never knew. It seemed ages. Ages of intolerable suspense and waiting before Steve displayed any sign beyond the deep rise and fall of his broad chest. Then, quite suddenly, he reached out for the collected sheets of his official report. These he laid on the blankets beside the unopened letter his erring wife had addressed to him. Then he looked into the face of the man whose blow had crushed the very soul of him. Their eyes met, and, to the doctor, it seemed that mind had triumphed over the havoc wrought. Steve's voice came harshly.

"When'll I be fit to move?" he demanded.

"A week—if Belton gets back."

Ross was startled and wondering.

"Belton don't cut any ice."

"But we need the wagon."

The protest, however, was promptly swept aside.

"I tell you it don't cut any ice. I move in a week That's fixed!"

For some moments Steve became deeply absorbed again. Then the watching man saw the decision in his eyes waver, and his lean hand move up to his head, and its fingers pass wearily through his long hair.

Then, quite suddenly, a harsh exclamation broke from him.

"Tchah!" he cried. "What's the use?"

With a great effort he seemed to pull himself together. He raised his eyes, and the pitiful half smile in them wrung the Scotsman's heart.

"Say, Doc, I'm—kind of glad it was you handed me—this. It's hurt you, too. Hurt you pretty bad. Yes," he went on wearily, hopelessly, "pretty bad. But I got to thank you. Oh, yes. I want to thank you. I mean that. For all you've done to help me. But I can't talk about it. I just can't. That's all. I don't guess you need to read the stuff I've written now. You see I'll need to make another report."

"Why?"

Ross's interrogation broke from him almost before he was aware of it.

"Why?" Steve's eyes widened. Then they dropped before the questioner's searching gaze. "Yes," he went on dully. "I'll need to make a fresh one. There's things—Say," he cried, with sudden, almost volcanic passion. "For God's sake, why did you get around? Why didn't you leave me to the dog's death that was yearning for me?" He laughed harshly, mirthlessly. "Death? There was better than that. I'd have been crazy in days. Plumb, stark crazy. And I wouldn't have known or cared a thing."



CHAPTER XII

REINDEER

It was the hospital hut at the police headquarters at Reindeer. A cheerless, primitive place of healing, severe but adequate, as were most things which concerned the lives of the riders of the plains and the trail.

Steve was in occupation of the officer's ward, with its single bed, and its boarded floor bare of all covering and scrubbed to a chilly whiteness. For days he had contemplated its hygienic lack of comfort. For days his weary, ceaseless thought had battered itself against kalsomined walls, while his body, made feverishly restless, had sought distraction between the hard Windsor chair at the only table, and the iron bed-cot which seemed to add to his mental sufferings.

He had met his superior. He had supported the official half hour of congratulations upon work successfully accomplished and a fortunate escape from disaster without a sign. He had yielded to the post doctor's ministrations, and satisfied his curiosity with explanations which could never have been more matter-of-fact. He had been visited by two comrades of his own rank, who contrived, with the best will in the world, by deliberate avoidance of anything of an intimate nature, to display to him their perfect knowledge of his domestic disaster.

All these things he had faced with a heart crying out for mercy, but with an outward calm that left those whom he encountered guessing. And something of the general opinion found expression in Superintendent McDowell's remarks to his subordinate, who filled the office of acting-adjutant.

"It seems to me, Syme, we needn't have worried a thing," he said. "Allenwood isn't the feller to get up and shout any time. He's the sort of boy to take a punch and come up for more. There's no woman got grip enough on him to break him to small meat. I don't guess there's anything could fix him that way—and after the way he made this last trip. He's quite a feller when it comes to grit."

"Yes, sir." Syme smiled into his superior's keen face. "Maybe he doesn't care. I've heard some fellers are that way after being married a few years."

The cynicism of the younger man drew a responsive smile in reply. But it also drew a very definite and decided shake of the head.

Whatever the general opinion, one man knew, one man had witnessed the momentary baring of a man's soul torn with agony, in the candle-lit tent on the banks of the Theton River. And now, had he been in Reindeer to witness, he would have understood the reality of suffering under the stern, almost forbidding front with which Steve confronted his little world.

Not a sign did Steve give. His habitual, shadowy smile was ready when he felt it to be due. He discussed everything that needed discussion with the apparent interest of a mind wholly unabsorbed. He forced a cheerfulness which carried conviction, and even drew forth such cynical comments as those of Inspector Syme. But under it all the agony of mind was something bordering on the insupportable.

The desolation of his outlook was appalling. And during his weary hours of solitude the hopelessness of it stirred him to a bitterness that at moments became almost insanely profane. Shadows, too, crept into his mind. Ugly shadows that gained power with the passing of days. Had not such shadows come he must have been more than human. But he was very simply human, capable of the deepest passion subject to the human heart. Hate seized upon him with a force even greater perhaps than the passions that had hitherto swayed him, and hard on the heels of hate came a deep, burning desire for revenge.

His desire was not against the woman who had wronged and deceived him. A sort of pitying contempt had replaced the wealth of passionate devotion he had lavished. His whole desire was against the man. And, curiously enough, this fevered desire became a sort of palliative drug which left him with the necessary strength to withstand the pain of his heart.

Slowly at first it took possession of him, but, with each passing day, it grew, until, at last, it occupied him to the exclusion of everything. Even the thought of his child, that tender atom of humanity who had been a living part of him, and whose soft lips and baby hands could never again become anything more than a memory, was powerless to rob him of one particle of the cold delight, as, in a hundred ways, he discovered the broken, dead body of the man who had wronged him within the grasp of his merciless hands.

But none of this was outwardly visible. It was concealed with the rest. And so the cynicism of Syme, and the general comfort of those who came to cheer the sick room of a valued comrade.

So it came that one day, towards the end of Steve's convalescence, the Superintendent found himself occupying the solitary chair, with Steve lounging smoking on the be-patterned coverlet of the bed, talking of the Unaga Indians and their habits of hibernation which sounded so incredible to the man who had never seen for himself.

Steve had a bunch of mail lying on the bed beside him. He had been reading when his superior had made his appearance. But his reading had been discarded while he gave full attention to the man under whom he had served so long and for whom he possessed no small measure of regard.

Steve had been talking in his deliberate, assured manner, and McDowell, alert, keen-eyed, half smiling had been listening to the story of a mysterious weed of marvellous narcotic powers. Curiously enough Steve had imparted only the briefest outline. He had told nothing of all that which he had read and discovered in Marcel Brand's laboratory. He had forgotten even to point the fact that he was a chemist first and only a trader through circumstances. There were many other things, too, that Steve omitted. Nor was the reason for the omission clear. It may have been forgetfulness. It may have been lack of interest. Yet neither of these suggested the reality.

"Well, it all sounds crazy enough, Allenwood, and I admit if Belton or Syme had told me the yarn I'd have sent 'em on leave to get a rest. But—anyway you've handed me a good report and it's gone on down to the Department without a word altered, and only my own comment added, which," he went on with smiling goodwill, "I don't guess I need to tell you about. Meanwhile I'd not be surprised if you hear things. Your seniority runs high. And this should hand you a jump—"

Steve shook his head.

"I'm not yearning, sir," he said. "But I need to thank you for your comments without seeing them. I can guess how they run—knowing you."

The Superintendent's eyes had suddenly become seriously searching.

"Not yearning? How—d'you mean?" he demanded.

A slight smile lit Steve's eyes at the abrupt change in the other's tone.

"You said just now if Belton or Syme had told you my yarn you'd have handed them leave—for a rest. I'd be glad for you to include my name with theirs."

"You want leave?"

Steve nodded.

"I'd be glad to have six months' leave pending resignation."

"But—resignation? You want to quit? You?"

McDowell was startled completely out of all official attitude. Such a thing as Allenwood's resignation from the force had never for a moment entered his thoughts. It would have been simply unthinkable.

"Yes." Steve was very deliberate. He picked up one of the letters at his side and tapped it with a forefinger.

"It's this, sir," he said. "You can read this, and—the others. I'd be glad for you to take them away with you and read them, and then attach them to my papers asking for my discharge. These letters were waiting me here, and there's quite a number. They're from my father's attorneys. You see, sir, he's dead, and I'm his heir. It's only a matter of some fifty thousand dollars and his farm in Ontario. But I'll have to get around and fix things."

"Oh, I'm sor—I see," McDowell had recovered from surprise, and promptly saw his advantage. "But resignation, Steve," he cried, dropping into an unusual familiarity. "Where's the need? You can get twelve months' leave, if necessary, to straighten these things out. After that you'll get back to us a Superintendent, and with money to burn. If you quit you'll be pitching away years of big work. You'll be sacrificing more. With means like your father's left you you can get into politics, and then, through your official associations you don't need to get off the political ladder till you're tired. Man, it would be crazy. Think."

Steve folded his letters with precise care while McDowell pointed to the position as he saw it. Then he laid them together in a small pile. And all the while his eyes remained hidden from the other as though wilfully avoiding him. Nor, as his superior ceased speaking, did he look up.

"I have thought, sir," he said in level tones. "I've had days—weeks to think in. Yes, and nights, too." He shook his head. "A year ago the things you're handing me now would have sounded bully. A year ago I'd all sorts of notions, just like you're talking now. And I was crazy to get busy. That was a year ago. I'm still crazy to get busy, but—in a different way. I've got to get that leave, sir. I've got to make my resignation."

McDowell had suddenly become aware of an unusual restraint in Steve's tone. He had also realized the avoidance of his eyes. A wave of suspicion startled him out of his comfortable equanimity.

"You're entitled to your leave, you're entitled to resign your commission if you want to," he said with a quick return to his more official attitude. Then, with a sudden unbending under the pressure of curiosity and even sympathy: "I'm sorry. I'm darn sorry. You're the one man in my command I'd just hate to lose. Still—What do you figure to do?"

"Do?"

The sharp interrogation came with startling force. It came full of a world of suppressed feeling. Irony, bitterness, harsh, inflexible purpose. These things and others, which were beyond McDowell's estimation, rang in that sharp exclamation. Steve laughed, and even to the Superintendent there was something utterly hateful in the sound that broke on his ears.

"Just forget you're my superior officer, McDowell," Steve cried, raising a pair of eyes which blazed with a frigid passion of hate. "Just figure we're two plain men, no better and no worse than most. You've a wife and two kiddies, both growing as you'd have them. A schoolgirl and a boy, and round whom you've built up all your notions of life. I had a wife and one kiddie, and round them I'd built up all my notions of life. Well, those notions of life are wrecked. They'd been building years. Years before I had a wife. To-day they're gone completely. I haven't a wife, and, God help me, I haven't a kiddie. And this because of one man. I've got to find that man."

The two men were gazing eye to eye, McDowell's darkly keen and questioning, Steve's full of irrevocable decision and cold hate.

"And when you—find him?"

Steve made a movement of the hands. It was indescribable but significant. His lips parted to speak, and, in parting, his even teeth were unusually bared.

"He's going to die!"

The words were spoken without emotion, without colour. They were quiet, and carried a conviction that left the other without a shadow of doubt.

"I'm telling you this, McDowell, so you shall know clearly what's on my mind." Steve went on after a pause. "Maybe you'll feel, as an officer of police, it's up to you to do everything to prevent what I intend. But I tell you you can't prevent it. I demand the right of a man from a man, a husband, and a father. I'm quitting. If you try to hold me it'll make no difference. You can delay. It'll make no difference. I shall quit—eventually. And then I shall carry out my purpose. Get that. Then we'll understand each other."

"We do, Steve." A flush lit the Superintendent's cheek. A deep fire was alight in his dark eyes. "We understand each other better than you think. You'll get your discharge just as quickly as I can put it through. You hadn't said much, and I thought—but I'm glad you've told me as a man, and not as—an officer."

He stood up from his chair with an abruptness which betrayed something of his feelings. Steve held out the packet of letters.

"Will you take these, sir?" he said with a return to their official relations.

McDowell nodded.

"Yes. Say, about that boy and the squaw you brought down. You left them at Deadwater? It looks like some proposition. We'll need to hand them over to the Reserve missionary. It's hell these white men, when they get away north, bringing these bastard half-breeds into the world. What's the mother? One of those Sleeper Indians?"

For a moment Steve remained gazing out of the window at the view of the parade ground which the sunlight rendered almost picturesque. He was thinking of the two reports which he had prepared. The first one that had been the simple truth, and the second one which had been only partly the true story, the rest changed in view of his own position. A tender light for a moment melted the cold hatred of his eyes. He was thinking of the white boy which he had reported as the bastard of An-ina, with a view to obviate the official claim on him as a white child.

"Yes," he said. "And I guess we'd need to hand them over to the missionary for a while. But Doc Ross and his wife were crazy to look after them. You see, they've a pretty swell place, and they're the best folks I know. I left them with them, and I'd say we can't do better, anyway for a while."

"Yes," McDowell agreed. "It'll make things easy. I'll put that into a letter to the Commissioner and it'll save worrying with the folk of the Indian Department. Well, so long, Steve. Yes, I'll take these letters, and put the thing through for you. But when you quit, for God's sake don't go and mess things. Don't queer one of the best lives it's ever been my good fortune to have under my command."

Steve's eyes were serious as he watched McDowell move towards the door.

"Don't worry, sir. The queering's done already. Whatever I do will be—well, just what I've fixed to do. No more and no less."



CHAPTER XIII

"ADRESOL"

The horrible aroma of a gently smouldering smudge fire, battling with invading mosquitoes; the pleasant smell of tobacco, adding to the enjoyment of the crisp Northern air; the resplendent sunset, slashing a broken sky with a sea of multitudinous colours, and lighting a prospect of verdant woods at the foot of a line of distant hills; a wide, sheltered stoop with deep-seated rocking-chairs; these things were the key to the deeper recesses of the hearts of men who have learned to play the great game of life upon the lonely wastes of a Northern world.

Ian Ross raised a warning finger as the sounds of laughter came from some distant part of the house behind him. There was a child's laughter, fresh, happy, and the light laugh of a woman, who has learned, through her own, the perfect happiness which childhood can inspire in those whose instincts remain unimpaired.

"Do you need to ask me?" he said, in reply to the other's question. "That kiddie is just crazy with happiness—so's Millie. Guess she'll be down along after awhile, when she's quit fooling with him in his bath."

Steve breathed deeply, and his far gazing eyes rested unblinkingly upon the sunset of a myriad hues. The reek of tobacco hung upon the still air, and the light veil of smoke from the "smudge" sailed gently across the view beyond the veranda.

He was full healed now—outwardly. There was little change in him as he sat back in his deep rocker on the veranda of Ian Ross's house at Deadwater. His steady eyes looked out with their uncompromising directness. But there were lines about his eyes and mouth, and between his level brows, which had been less noticeable twelve months ago. This was the front which he set up before the eyes of the little world he knew. In moments of solitude, when no eyes were there to observe, it may have been different. But he desired neither sympathy nor support. He desired only to be left to himself, to those purposes which he would permit nothing to change or interfere with.

He had rid himself of all signs of his connection with the police force as though he had determined to cut himself off from a period of his life which had only yielded bitter memories. Nor had he anything about him reminiscent of the trail, which had been so much a part of his life. He was clad in the tweeds of civilization, which robbed him of some of that distinction which the rougher wear had always pronounced.

"I'm glad," he said, and went on smoking in the silent fashion which only real companionship understands.

After a few moments of voiceless contemplation of the wide view over the Reservation the Scotsman stirred in his chair. The thoughtful knitting of his heavy brows relaxed, and he glanced at the preoccupied face of his companion.

"There's a heap of things I'd like to ask you, Steve," he said bluntly. "And a whole heap I wouldn't. It's the sort of position I don't generally reckon to find myself in," he added, with a twinkle in his deep-set eyes. "You see, I mostly know the things I want to say. Maybe you've got things you want to tell me, as well as things you don't. It's up to you."

Steve nodded.

"It's best that way," he said. "Yes, there's things I want to say. And it's mostly about the boy, and—An-ina. There's other things, too." He paused. Then he went on: "You see, Doc, I haven't made a heap of friends. There's about no one, except you. I'd like to talk straight out. McDowell's a decent enough citizen, but he's not the sort you can hand out some things to. Jack Belton and those others, well, they're good enough boys, but—Anyway, it don't cut any ice. You're just different and I want to hand you what'll maybe make you wish I hadn't. The first is just this. I want you to forget the things that's happened—to me. I want you just to tell yourself 'He don't care a curse.' It won't be the truth, but I want you to act as if it were. Those things are mine. Just mine. I've set them in a sort of grave, and it's only going to be my hands that open it, and my eyes that look into it. You don't need to avoid talk of Nita and little Coqueline if you feel that way. You can't open that grave. It's mine. And it's deep. You can't add hurt to that already done."

Steve's eyes were gazing unflinchingly into his companion's, and Ross's feelings were stirred to their depths by the stern courage underlying his words. He knew. He understood.

"Yes," he said. "I get that. It's best that way for—the man who can stand it."

"I'm going East," Steve went on, "and I'll be away maybe a year. Maybe less, maybe more. I can't say. You see, there's a big lot to be done, and it depends on how quick I get through. There's my father's affairs to fix up and—other things."

"Other things?"

"Yes."

Steve's eyes were on the rapidly softening colours of the sunset. Their far-off look of pre-occupation had returned to them.

"I don't know how I'll come back," he went on after a moment. "Maybe in a hurry." His brows suddenly depressed. "I can't say. But it'll be for the boy and An-ina, and, anyway, it'll likely be the last time you'll see me on this earth. I don't need to tell you more on this thing. Maybe a time'll come when you'll feel glad you didn't know any more."

"I think—I understand."

Ross breathed heavily through his pipe. He was thinking of the man, Garstaing. He was thinking of himself in Steve's place. And he felt it was more than likely that in that case he, too, might desire to return to his home in a hurry, and, perhaps, leave it again for the—last time.

"Sure. I guessed you'd understand," Steve said. "That's why I'm talking."

Again followed a brief, thoughtful pause.

"That boy," he went on. "It's him I want to tell you about. He's shown me how to get a grip on myself. He's a sort of anchor that's held me safe till the storm's blown itself out. He's been a sort of act of Providence and the life that's left to me is for him. You get that?"

"I've had it all the time. Maybe you don't remember I tried to take him from you when you crawled out of that darn canoe."

A shadowy smile hovered in Steve's eyes.

"I remember it—good," he said. "Well, if things should happen so I don't get back I'll fix it so the boy gets all the stuff my father's handed me, and I'll ask you to raise him as if he was your own. You haven't a son, Doc. He won't be a worry. An-ina's his nurse, and he couldn't have a better. If I come back I'm hoping your Millie won't be too grieved at parting from him. Can you fix that, too? You see," he added, "I'm asking you a whole heap."

"You can't ask too much, boy."

Steve's nod thanked the bluff heartiness of the big man.

"Good. Now for the things you don't know, Doc," he went on, his manner relaxing as he felt that his difficulties were lessening. "You didn't read the report I'd written. It told the whole story of the boy right. I tore it up after you'd—told me. I had to. If I hadn't, why, I'd have lost that anchor God Almighty flung out to me in my trouble. Next to my own little kiddie I love that boy. He's got into my heart good—what's left of it. You see, he's white, and he's no folks. That means the State handing him over to the folks set to deal with the 'strays' of God's world. It means his being out of my life when I most need him. I couldn't stand for that. If Nita and my little girl had been here it wouldn't have been that way. I'd have persuaded them to leave him with me. With no home to take him to I'd have no case. So I got busy on a report that made him out the bastard of An-ina and the dead trader. They can't claim him from his mother, even though she's a squaw. And anyway I've fixed it with McDowell they both remain with you."

Ross nodded prompt agreement.

"He's a bright kid and I'm glad. Glad for him and glad for you," he said heartily.

"I hoped that way," Steve went on quickly. "You see, Doc, I didn't tell you a thing till it was done. I was scared to take a chance." He sighed a deep relief. "The other things come easy with that fixed. I cut that report to the bone, and hid up all that concerned the boy. The work they asked of me was investigation into the death of two white men who were thought to be traders up in Unaga, where they didn't reckon there were any white folk. So I told them a yarn that's simple truth, but which hid up all the things I didn't see putting them wise to. They guessed these men had been murdered by the Eskimo. Well, they weren't. They fought to the death for the mother of this boy, and she was a white woman, and the wife of his father. It was the old game. A game I hope to play. Only the other man was a partner in the enterprise, and not the Indian Agent of the Allowa Reserve. I told them of the Indians, too. A race that sleeps half the year."

"The boy's been talking of them."

Ross sat up. A pair of keen eyes were shrewdly questioning.

Steve nodded.

"I guessed he'd be talking of them."

"The old yarn of hibernating folks," the Scotsman said, his eyes alight with tolerant amusement.

"Just that. Only, it's no—yarn."

Steve had no responsive smile. His eyes were serious with a conviction that promptly changed the other's attitude. He searched an inner pocket and drew forth a neatly tied packet. This he unfastened while the other watched him curiously.

The wrappings removed, a bunch of something that looked rather like dried seaweed lay revealed. And a curious sweet odour made itself apparent on the still air.

Steve passed it across to his companion without comment. And Ross took it, and, for some thoughtful moments, sat gazing upon the strange product of the hidden Unaga. Then he gingerly picked up some of the shrivelled weed for a closer examination, and, a moment later, pressed it against his nose and inhaled deeply. As he did so, Steve, watching him, beheld a sudden excited lighting of his eyes.

"You know it, Doc," he said. "I don't need to ask."

Steve spoke quite quietly, and the other continued to contemplate the stuff in the intent, absorbed fashion of a suddenly startled scientific mind. At last he withdrew his fascinated gaze.

"'Adresol!'" he exclaimed. And his tone was thrilling with the joy of the enthusiast.

"Yes."

"You knew it?"

The Scotsman's sharp question was accompanied by the searching of astonished eyes.

"Sure."

Ross made no attempt to return the weed. It seemed as though he found it impossible to deny its fascination.

"Tell me about it," he said, fingering the stuff with the tenderness of an artist contemplating some precious work of delicate craftsmanship.

"It's the key to the hibernating yarn," Steve said. "Yes, I need to hand it you all. That way you'll understand the things I've got in my mind."

It was a long enough story. Steve was anxious that nothing should be omitted that could convince the only man who could assist him in carrying out his plans. Sunset had nearly faded out of the sky by the time it was finished. He told everything as he knew it both from An-ina and the mother of Marcel. Also that which he had learned first hand, and from the diaries of Marcel Brand. The story of the dead chemist who had abandoned everything, even life itself, in the pursuit of the elusive weed lost nothing from his wide sympathy. And the crude use of the drug by the Indians formed a picture full of colour and romance.

Ross absorbed it all, and wonder and interest grew in his mind as he listened to the story of it.

At the conclusion he re-lit his forgotten pipe.

"And it grows there—in plenty?" he said, in profound amazement. "Steve, boy, do you know what it means to find a big source of that stuff? Oh," he cried with a rush of enthusiasm, "it means—it means the greatest thing for suffering humanity that's been discovered in a thousand years. Here, I'll tell you. Oh, it's known to us folk, who've studied dope as a special study. It's been found in places, but not in much bigger quantities than would dope a fair-sized litter of piebald kittens. It's sort of like radium, and half a pint of the distilled drug would be worth over twenty-five thousand dollars. Maybe that'll tell you how much there is of it on the market. But it's not that. Oh, no, it's a heap bigger than that, boy. The plant itself is deadly in the green state. It exhales a poison you couldn't stand for ten seconds. Dried, its poison is killed stone dead. But it leaves behind it its priceless narcotic properties. And these are perfectly innocuous, and even health-giving. I don't need to worry you with the scientific side of it, but it'll tell you something of what it means when I say it suspends life, and you don't need to worry about the condition of the person who's doped with it. You said those darn Indians live to a great age. I believe it. You see, they live only six months of the year. They're dead the rest. Or anyway their life is suspended. I seem to know the name of that man Brand. I seem to recall it in association with 'Adresol.' Anyway, the work he's done mustn't be wasted. We'll have to get an outfit. A big outfit that can't fail to grab the secret of those neches upon Unaga. There's no small crowd of folk has any right to deny the rest of the world the benefits of this wonderful drug. We——"

"That's how I reckon," Steve broke in quickly. "But the thing's to be done the way I've figured."

"How's that?"

Steve was sitting up in his rocking-chair.

"I didn't hand you that stuff and my story of these things for pastime, Doc. I guess I'd learnt all you've told me from the books and papers of the boy's father. Knowing you for the man you are, and the way you most generally try to make a ten-pound heart look like a sparrow's egg by shouting at folks, I reckoned you'd see with me in this thing. That poor feller Brand. As you say, his work isn't to be wasted. He's left behind him a kiddie which hasn't a thing in the world, and if I'm any judge of things that kiddie was the whole sun, moon, and stars of his life. I'm thinking of that kiddie now. And I'm thinking of him alone. You're thinking of a suffering world. If there's twenty-five thousand dollars for a half pint of that dope the money belongs to the helpless kid of the man who's given his life to locate it. We don't need an outfit to get the neches' secret. We don't need a thing. There's just one man knows how to locate the place where Marcel Brand lived, and that's me. There's not a living soul, not even Julyman, or Oolak, or An-ina, could ever make it without me. And I tell you right here there's no one ever learns it from me. That secret is for Marcel, and I figure to hand it to him, and all that's coming out of it. That's why I've told you these things. Now you'll understand what's in my mind when I say that I'm coming along back when I've settled with Garstaing, or failed to locate him. If I've settled with him I'll be in a hurry. And I'm going up north—north where no one can ever hope to follow me, with An-ina, and Marcel, and maybe Julyman and Oolak again, and I'm going to work this thing for the rest of my life for—Marcel. It's his, all of it. And what's left over is for the suffering humanity you're thinking about. See, here, Doc, you and me, we aren't any sort of twin brothers of friends. We haven't been raised together. I hadn't a notion of you till I took charge of this station. But I know a man—a real man. And if you've the guts I reckon you have, then you'll help me to do the thing that's going to shut the gates of the hell that's opened to swallow me up."

"You mean the care of the boy and An-ina?"

"Till I get back. Then you'll hand 'em over without—a kick."

Ross ran his great fingers through his hair, while he sought the last glow of sunset for inspiration.

"It's a hell of a country—up there," he protested, after a moment. He was thinking of the child. He was thinking of Millie's possible protests at sacrificing the child to the terrors of Unaga.

"He was bred there." Steve's eyes were urgent. "It's handing to him the things his father would have wanted him to have. Think, Doc. By every moral right the 'Adresol' secret is his. It cost him a father. It cost him a mother. It would have cost him his life—a white man's life—if it hadn't been for the hand of Providence sending me along to him. Besides, it's all here, Doc," he went on tapping his breast. "He's been my anchor, my small, little anchor, but a mighty powerful one. He's saved me from all sorts of hell, and I want to hand him the life he's saved in return. I want to raise him to a great manhood, and hand him a future that'll stagger half the world. And if I fail I'll have done all a mortal man can."

The rustle of a woman's dress in the hallway behind them heralded Millie's approach. Ross stood up hastily. He was just a shade relieved at the interruption. In a moment the atmosphere was changed from Steve's passionate urgency to the domestic lightness of a happy wife's presence.

"Why, Mac," she cried, as she stood framed in the doorway, "you two boys still doping yourselves with smudge and tobacco smoke? That kiddie's only just gone off to sleep. He's a terrible tyrant, Steve, and just the sweetest ever."

She glanced quickly from one to the other, and in a moment the smile died out of her eyes in response to the seriousness she beheld in the faces confronting her.

"You've got around in the nick o' time," the husband said. "Steve's going away—East. He'll be back in awhile. Maybe a year. Maybe more. And when he comes back he—wants the boy. He wants to take him right away, and to raise him as his own. He reckons he's kind of adrift now, and the kiddie looks like handing him an anchor. He's yearning to make good for him, in a way that, maybe we, with our own two, couldn't hope to. We're guessing it's up to you. A year or so, and then you—hand him to his 'Uncle Steve.'"

Millie turned to the man who had battled for the boy's life. Her kindly eyes were promptly lit with all a good woman's sympathy. She remembered the man's passionate devotion to his own. She remembered the terrible disaster that had overtaken him. Her thought went no further. At the moment it was incapable of going further.

She turned to the husband awaiting her reply, and there was a suspicious moisture in her clear smiling eyes.

"Say, Mac," she cried in her half tender, half humourous way, "by the way you talk folk might guess you were scared to death of the wife who didn't know better than to take you for better or worse. Steve doesn't need to worry a thing. You know that. I don't know the rights of his claim by the laws of the folks who're set to worry us. But there's God's claim that don't need lawyers to make plain. Little Marcel, bless him, is his. If he comes, night or day, one year's time or ten, God willing, he'll be here waiting for him, and I'll hand him over with two of everything for the comfort of his sweet little body."



CHAPTER XIV

MALLARD'S

The ladder of crime has its bottom rung in Mallard's. Those who essay the perilous descent inevitably gravitate, sooner or later, at Mallard's. It was Saney who was responsible for the statement; and Saney was a shrewd "investigator," and certainly one of the most experienced amongst those whose lives were spent in an endeavour to beat the criminal mind of Eastern Canada.

Mallard's was somewhere on the water front of Quebec. It stood in a backwater where the busy tide of seafaring traffic passed it by. But it was sufficiently adjacent to permit its clientele swift and convenient access to the docks, at once a safety valve and the source of its popularity.

It was nominally a sailors' boarding-house. Heredity also conferred upon it the dignity of "hotel." Furthermore, its licence carried with it the privileges of a saloon. But its claims were by no means exhausted by these things.

According to Saney's view there was no criminal in the country, and very few of those who were worth while in the criminal world of the United States, who, at some time in their careers, had not passed through one of its many concealed exits. It might, in consequence, be supposed that Mallard's was a more than usually happy hunting-ground for the investigator of crime. But here again Saney must be quoted. Mallard's, he said, was a life study, and, even so, three score and ten years was no more than sufficient for a very elementary apprenticeship. Further, he considered that Mallard's was the cemetery of all reputations in criminal investigation.

Outwardly Mallard's was no different from the other houses which surrounded it. It was part of a block of buildings which had grown up and developed in the course of a century or more. Its floors were several, and its windows were set one over the other without any pretence other than sheer utility. Its main doorway always stood open, and gave on to a passage, narrow and dark, and usually deserted. The passage ran directly into the heart of the building where rose a short staircase exactly filling the breadth of the passage. At the top of the eight treads of this staircase was a landing of similar width, out of which turned two corridors at right angles. Beyond these the landing terminated in a downward stairway, exactly similar to the one by which it was approached. Beyond this, all description of this celebrated haunt of crime would be impossible, for the rest was a labyrinth of apparently useless passages and stairways, ascending and descending, the following of which was only to invite complete and utter confusion of mind. The legend ran that the cellars, many floors deep, undermined half a dozen adjacent streets, and, in the block in which the place stood, no one had ever been found who could say where the house began and where it ended.

As a refuge for its benighted guests there was always a bed, of sorts, a meal and drink—at a price. If the visitor were legitimate in his claims on its hospitality he would fare no worse than a lightened purse at the time of his departure. If he were other than he pretended then it would have been better for him to have shunned the darkened passage as he would a plague spot.

The owner of the place was never seen by the guests. It was administered, as far as could be judged, by a number of men who only intruded upon their clients when definite necessity arose. Then the intrusion was something cyclonic. On these occasions the police were never called in, and the nature of the disturbance, and the result of it, was never permitted to reach the outside. Mallard's was capable of hiding up anything. Its own crimes as well as the crimes of others.

On one of the many floors was a large sort of office and lounging-room. It had been extended, as necessity demanded, by the simple process of taking down partition walls. It was low-ceiled and dingy. Its walls were mostly panelled with dull, shabby graining over many coats of paint. The floor was bare and unscrubbed, and littered with frowsy-looking wooden cuspidors filled with cinders. There were many small tables scattered about, and the rest of the space seemed to be filled up with Windsor chairs, which jostled one another to an extent that made passage a matter of patient effort. At one end of the room was a long counter with an iron grid protecting those behind it. And, in this region there were several telephone boxes with unusually heavy and sound-proof doors.