Over in the eastern end of town, behind dark windows upon which the sheeted rain beat furiously, other armed men lay patiently waiting—waiting some word from the bulky shadow which stood with folded arms close against a square of gray, while over their heads a wretched old man paced back and forth, wringing his hands, pausing at every turn to peer out into the night and to mumble the name of his sister's child.



CHAPTER XIX

DYNAMITE

Early in the evening Cherry Malotte opened her door to find the Bronco Kid on her step. He entered and threw off his rubber coat. Knowing him well, she waited for his disclosure of his errand. His sallow skin was without trace of color, his eyes were strangely tired, deep lines had gathered about his lips, while his hands kept up constant little nervous explorations as though for days and nights he had not slept and now hovered on the verge of some hysteria. He gave her the impression of a smouldering mine with the fire eating close up to the powder. She judged that his body had been racked by every passion till now it hung jaded and weary, yielding only to the spur of his restless, revengeful spirit.

After a few objectless remarks, he began, abruptly:

"Do you love Roy Glenister?" His voice, like his manner, was jealously eager, and he watched her carefully as she replied, without quibble or deceit:

"Yes, Kid; and I always shall. He is the only true man I have ever known, and I'm not ashamed of my feelings."

For a long time he studied her, and then broke into rapid speech, allowing her no time for interruption.

"I've held back and held back because I'm no talker. I can't be, in my business; but this is my last chance, and I want to put myself right with you. I've loved you ever since the Dawson days, not in the way you'd expect from a man of my sort, perhaps, but with the kind of love that a woman wants. I never showed my hand, for what was the use? That man outheld me. I'd have quit faro years back only I wouldn't leave this country as long as you were a part of it, and up here I'm only a gambler, fit for nothing else. I'd made up my mind to let you have him till something happened a couple of months ago, but now it can't go through. I'll have to down him. It isn't concerning you—I'm not a welcher. No, it's a thing I can't talk about, a thing that's made me into a wolf, made me skulk and walk the alleys like a dago. It's put murder into my heart. I've tried to assassinate him. I tried it here last night—but—I was a gentleman once—till the cards came. He knows the answer now, though, and he's ready for me—so one of us will go out like a candle when we meet. I felt that I had to tell you before I cut him down or before he got me."

"You're talking like a madman, Kid," she replied, "and you mustn't turn against him now. He has troubles enough. I never knew you cared for me. What a tangle it is, to be sure. You love me, I love him, he loves that girl, and she loves a crook. Isn't that tragedy enough without your adding to it? You come at a bad time, too, for I'm half insane. There's something dreadful in the air to-night—"

"I'll have to kill him," the man muttered, doggedly, and, plead or reason as she would, she could get nothing from him except those words, till at last she turned upon him fiercely.

"You say you love me. Very well—let's see if you do. I know the kind of a man you are and I know what this feud will mean to him, coming just at this time. Put it aside and I'll marry you."

The gambler rose slowly to his feet. "You do love him, don't you?" She bowed her face, and he winced, but continued: "I wouldn't make you my wife that way. I didn't mean it that way."

At this she laughed bitterly, "Oh, I see. Of course not. How foolish of me to expect it of a man like you. I understand what you mean now, and the bargain will stand just the same, if that is what you came for. I wanted to leave this life and be good, to go away and start over and play the game square, but I see it's no use. I'll pay. I know how relentless you are, and the price is low enough. You can have me—and that—marriage talk—I'll not speak of again. I'll stay what I am for his sake."

"Stop!" cried the Kid. "You're wrong. I'm not that kind of a sport." His voice broke suddenly, its vehemence shaking his slim body. "Oh, Cherry, I love you the way a man ought to love a woman. It's one of the two good things left in me, and I want to take you away from here where we can both hide from the past, where we can start new, as you say."

"You would marry me?" she asked.

"In an hour, and give my heart's blood for the privilege; but I can't stop this thing, not even if your own dear life hung upon it. I MUST kill that man."

She approached him and laid her arms about his neck, every line of her body pleading, but he refused steadfastly, while the sweat stood out upon his brow.

She begged: "They're all against him, Kid. He's fighting a hopeless fight. He laid all he had at that girl's feet, and I'll do the same for you."

The man growled savagely. "He got his reward. He took all she had- -"

"Don't be a fool. I guess I know. You're a faro-dealer, but you haven't any right to talk like that about a good woman, even to a bad one like me."

Into his dark eyes slowly crept a hungry look, and she felt him begin to tremble the least bit. He undertook to speak, paused, wet his lips, then carefully chose these words:

"Do you mean—that he did not—that she is—a good girl?"

"Absolutely."

He sat down weakly and passed a shaking hand over his face, which had begun to twitch and jerk again as it had on that night when his vengeance was thwarted.

"I may as well tell you that I know she's more than that. She's honest and high-principled. I don't know why I'm saying this, but it was on my mind and I was half distracted when you came. She's in danger to-night, though—at this minute. I don't dare to think of what may have happened, for she's risked everything to make reparation to Roy and his friends."

"What?"

"She's gone to the Sign of the Sled alone with Struve."

"Struve!" shouted the gambler, leaping to his feet. "Alone with Struve on a night like this?" He shook her fiercely, crying: "What for? Tell me quick!"

She recounted the reasons for Helen's adventure, while the man's face became terrible.

"Oh, Kid, I am to blame for letting her go. Why did I do it? I'm afraid—afraid."

"The Sign of the Sled belongs to Struve, and the fellow who runs it is a rogue." The Bronco looked at the clock, his eyes bloodshot and dull like those of a goaded, fly-maddened bull. "It's eight o'clock now—ten miles—two hours. Too late!"

"What ails you?" she questioned, baffled by his strange demeanor. "You called ME the one woman just now, and yet—"

He swung towards her heavily. "She's my sister."

"Your—sister? Oh, I—I'm glad. I'm glad—but don't stand there like a wooden man, for you've work to do. Wake up. Can't you hear? She's in peril!" Her words whipped him out of his stupor so that he drew himself somewhat under control. "Get into your coat. Hurry! Hurry! My pony will take you there." She snatched his garment from the chair and held it for him while the life ran back into his veins. Together they dashed out into the storm as she and Roy had done, and as he flung the saddle on the buckskin, she said:

"I understand it all now. You heard the talk about her and Glenister; but it's wrong. I lied and schemed and intrigued against her, but it's over now. I guess there's a little streak of good in me somewhere, after all."

He spoke to her from the saddle. "It's more than a streak, Cherry, and you're my kind of people." She smiled wanly back at him under the lantern-light.

"That's left-handed, Kid. I don't want to be your kind. I want to be his kind—or your sister's kind."

Upon leaving the rendezvous, Glenister and his two friends slunk through the night, avoiding the life and lights of the town, while the wind surged out of the voids to seaward, driving its wet burden through their flapping slickers, pelting their faces as though enraged at its failure to wash away the purposes written there. Their course brought them to a cabin at the western outskirts of the city, where they paused long enough to adjust something beneath the brims of their hats.

Past them ran the iron rails of the narrow-gauged road which led out across the quaking tundra to the mountains and the mines. Upon this slender trail of steel there rolled one small, ungainly teapot of an engine which daily creaked and clanked back and forth at a snail's pace, screaming and wailing its complaint of the two high-loaded flat-cars behind. The ties beneath it were spiked to planks laid lengthwise over the semi-liquid road-bed, in places sagging beneath the surface till the humpbacked, short-waisted locomotive yawed and reeled and squealed like a drunken fish-wife. At night it panted wearily into the board station and there sighed and coughed and hissed away its fatigue as the coals died and the breath relaxed in its lungs.

Early to bed and early to rise was perforce the motto of its grimy crew, who lived near by. To-night they were just retiring when stayed by a summons at their door. The engineer opened it to admit what appeared to his astonished eyes to be a Krupp cannon propelled by a man in yellow-oiled clothes and white cotton mask. This weapon assumed the proportions of a great, one-eyed monster, which stared with baleful fixity at his vitals, giving him a cold and empty feeling. Away back beyond this Cyclops of the Sightless Orb were two other strangers likewise equipped.

The fireman arose from his chair, dropping an empty shoe with a thump, but, being of the West, without cavil or waste of wind, he stretched his hands above his head, balancing on one foot to keep his unshod member from the damp floor. He had unbuckled his belt, and now, loosened by the movement, his overalls seemed bent on sinking floorward in an ecstasy of abashment at the intrusion, whereupon with convulsive grip he hugged them to their duty, one hand and foot still elevated as though in the grand hailing-sign of some secret order. The other man was new to the ways of the North, so backed to the limit of his quarters, laid both hands protectingly upon his middle, and doubled up, remarking, fervidly:

"Don't point that damn thing at my stomach."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the fireman, with unnatural loudness. "Have your joke boys."

"This ain't no joke," said the foremost figure, its breath bellying out the mask at its mouth.

"Sure it is," insisted the shoeless one. "Must be—we ain't got anything worth stealing."

"Get into your clothes and come along. We won't hurt you." The two obeyed and were taken to the sleeping engine and there instructed to produce a full head of steam in thirty minutes or suffer a premature taking off and a prompt elision from the realms of applied mechanics. As stimulus to their efforts two of the men stood over them till the engine began to sob and sigh reluctantly. Through the gloom that curtained the cab they saw other dim forms materializing and climbing silently on to the cars behind; then, as the steam-gauge touched the mark, the word was given and the train rumbled out from its shelter, its shrill plaint at curb and crossing whipped away and drowned in the storm.

Slapjack remained in the cab, gun in lap, while Dextry climbed back to Glenister. He found the young man in good spirits, despite the discomfort of his exposed position, and striving to light his pipe behind the shelter of his coat.

"Is the dynamite aboard?" the old man questioned.

"Sure. Enough to ballast a battle-ship."

As the train crept out of the camp and across the river bridge, its only light or glimmer the sparks that were snatched and harried by the blast, the partners seated themselves on the powder cases and conversed guardedly, while about them sounded the low murmur of the men who risked their all upon this cry to duty, who staked their lives and futures upon this hazard of the hills, because they thought it right.

"We've made a good fight, whether we win or lose to-night," said Dextry.

Roy replied, "MY fight is made and won."

"What does that mean?"

"My hardest battle had nothing to do with the Midas or the mines of Anvil. I fought and conquered myself."

"Awful wet night for philosophy," the first remarked. "It's apt to sour on you like milk in a thunder-storm. S'pose you put overalls an' gum boots on some of them Boston ideas an' lead 'em out where I can look 'em over an' find out what they're up to."

"I mean that I was a savage till I met Helen Chester and she made a man of me. It took sixty days, but I think she did a good job. I love the wild things just as much as ever, but I've learned that there are duties a fellow owes to himself, and to other people, if he'll only stop and think them out. I've found out, too, that the right thing is usually the hardest to do. Oh, I've improved a lot."

"Gee! but you're popular with yourself. I don't see as it helps your looks any. You're as homely as ever—an' what good does it do you after all? She'll marry that big guy."

"I know. That's what rankles, for he's no more worthy of her than I am. She'll do what's right, however, you may depend upon that, and perhaps she'll change him the way she did me. Why, she worked a miracle in my attitude towards life—my manner—"

"Oh, your manners are good enough as they lay," interrupted the other. "You never did eat with your knife."

"I don't believe in hara-kiri," Glenister laughed.

"No, when it comes to intimacies with decorum, you're right on the job along with any of them Easterners. I watched you close at them 'Frisco hotels last winter, and, say—you know as much as a horse. Why, you was wise to them tablewares and pickle-forks equal to a head-waiter, and it give me confidence just to be with you. I remember putting milk and sugar in my consomme the first time. It was pale and in a cup and looked like tea—but not you. No, sir! You savvied plenty and squeezed a lemon into yours—to clean your fingers, I reckon."

Roy slapped his partner's wet back, for he was buoyant and elated. The sense of nearing danger pulsed through him like wine. "That wasn't just what I meant, but it goes. Say, if we win back our mine, we'll hit for New York next—eh?"

"No, I don't aim to mingle with no higher civilization than I got in 'Frisco. I use that word 'higher' like it was applied to meat. Not that I wouldn't seem apropos, I'm stylish enough for Fifth Avenue or anywheres, but I like the West. Speakin' of modes an' styles, when I get all lit up in that gray woosted suit of mine, I guess I make the jaded sight-seers set up an' take notice—eh? Somethin' doin' every minute in the cranin' of necks—what? Nothin' gaudy, but the acme of neatness an' form, as the feller said who sold it to me."

Their common peril brought the friends together again, into that close bond which had been theirs without interruption until this recent change in the younger had led him to choose paths at variance with the old man's ideas; and now they spoke, heart to heart, in the half-serious, half-jesting ways of old, while beneath each whimsical irony was that mutual love and understanding which had consecrated their partnership.

Arriving at the end of the road, the Vigilantes debouched and went into the darkness of the canon behind their leader, to whom the trails were familiar. He bade them pause finally, and gave his last instructions.

"They are on the alert, so you want to be careful. Divide into two parties and close in from both sides, creeping as near to the pickets as possible without discovery. Remember to wait for the last blast. When it comes, cut loose and charge like Sioux. Don't shoot to kill at first, for they're only soldiers and under orders, but if they stand—well, every man must do his work."

Dextry appealed to the dim figures forming the circle.

"I leave it to you, gents, if it ain't better for me to go inside than for the boy. I've had more experience with giant powder, an' I'm so blamed used up an' near gone it wouldn't hurt if they did get me, while he's right in his prime—"

Glenister stopped him. "I won't yield the privilege. Come now—to your places, men."

They melted away to each side while the old prospector paused to wring his partner's hand.

"I'd ruther it was me, lad, but if they get you—God help 'em!" He stumbled after the departing shadows, leaving Roy alone. With his naked fingers, Glenister ripped open the powder cases and secreted the contents upon his person. Each cartridge held dynamite enough to devastate a village, and he loaded them inside his pockets, inside his shirt, and everywhere that he had room, till he was burdened and cased in an armor one-hundredth part of which could have blown him from the face of the earth so utterly as to leave no trace except, perhaps, a pit ripped out of the mountain-side. He looked to his fuses and saw that they were wrapped in oiled paper, then placed them in his hat. Having finished, he set out, walking with difficulty under the weight he carried.

That his choice of location had been well made was evidenced by the fact that the ground beneath his feet sloped away to a basin out of which bubbled a spring. It furnished the drinking supply of the Midas, and he knew every inch of the crevice it had worn down the mountain, so felt his way cautiously along. At the bottom of the hill where it ran out upon the level it had worn a considerable ditch through the soil, and into this he crawled on hands and knees. His bulging clothes handicapped him so that his gait was slow and awkward, while the rain had swelled the streamlet till it trickled over his calves and up to his wrists, chilling him so that his muscles cramped and his very bones cried out with it. The sharp schist cut into his palms till they were shredded and bleeding, while his knees found every jagged bit of bed-rock over which he dragged himself. He could not see an arm's- length ahead without rising, and, having removed his slicker for greater freedom of movement, the rain beat upon his back till he was soaked and sodden and felt streamlets cleaving downward between his ribs. Now and again he squatted upon his haunches, straining his eyes to either side. The banks were barely high enough to shield him. At last he came to a bridge of planks spanning the ditch and was about to rear himself for another look when he suddenly flattened into the stream bed, half damming the waters with his body. It was for this he had so carefully wrapped his fuses. A man passed over him so close above that he might have touched him. The sentry paused a few paces beyond and accosted another, then retraced his steps over the bridge. Evidently this was the picket-line, so Roy wormed his way forward till he saw the blacker blackness of the mine buildings, then drew himself dripping out from the bank. He had run the gauntlet safely.

Since evicting the owners, the receiver had erected substantial houses in place of the tents he had found on the mine. They were of frame and corrugated-iron, sheathed within and suited to withstand a moderate exposure. The partners had witnessed the operation from a distance, but knew nothing about the buildings from close examination.

A thrill of affection for this place wanned the young man. He loved this old mine. It had realized the dream of his boyhood, and had answered the hope he had clung to during his long fight against the Northland. It had come to him when he was disheartened, bringing cheer and happiness, and had yielded itself like a bride. Now it seemed a crime to ravage it.

He crept towards the nearest wall and listened. Within was the sound of voices, though the windows were dark, showing that the inhabitants were on the alert. Beneath the foundations he made mysterious preparations, then sought out the office building and cook-house, doing likewise. He found that back of the seeming repose of the Midas there was a strained expectancy.

Although suspense had lengthened the time out of all calculation, he judged he had been gone from his companions at least an hour and that they must be in place by now. If they were not—if anything failed at this eleventh hour—well, those were the fortunes of war. In every enterprise, however carefully planned, there comes a time when chance must take its turn.

He made his way inside the blacksmith-shop and fumbled for a match. Just as he was about to strike it he heard the swish of oiled clothes passing, and waited for some time. Then, igniting his punk and hiding it under his coat, he opened the door to listen. The wind had died down now and the rain sang musically upon the metal roofs.

He ran swiftly from house to house, and, when he had done, at the apices of the triangle he had traced three glowing coals were sputtering.

The final bolt was launched at last. He stepped down into the ditch and drew his .45, while to his tautened senses it seemed that the very hills leaned forth in breathless pause, that the rain had ceased, and the whole night hushed its thousand voices. He found his lower jaw set so stiffly that the muscles ached. Levelling his weapon at the eaves of the bunk-house, he pulled trigger rapidly—the bang, bang, bang, six times repeated, sounding dull and dead beneath the blanket of mist that overhung. A shout sounded behind him, and then the shriek of a Winchester ball close over his head. He turned in time to see another shot stream out of the darkness, where a sentry was firing at the flash of his gun, then bent himself double and plunged down the ditch.

With the first impact overhead the men poured forth from their quarters armed and bristling, to be greeted by a volley of gunshots, the thud of bullets, and the dwindling whine of spent lead. They leaped from shelter to find themselves girt with a fitful hoop of fire, for the "Stranglers" had spread in the arc of a circle and now emptied their rifles towards the centre. The defenders, however, maintained surprising order considering the suddenness of their attack, and ran to join the sentries, whose positions could be determined by the nearer flashes. The voice of a man in authority shouted loud commands. No demonstration came from the outer voids, nothing but the wicked streaks that stabbed the darkness. Then suddenly, behind McNamara's men, the night glared luridly as though a great furnace-door had opened and then clanged shut, while with it came a hoarse thudding roar that silenced the rifle play. They saw the cook-house disrupt itself and disintegrate into a thousand flying timbers and twisted sheets of tin which soared upward and outward over their heads and into the night. As the rocking hills ceased echoing, the sound of the Vigilantes' rifles recurred like the cracking of dry sticks, then everywhere about the defenders the earth was lashed by falling debris while the iron roofs rang at the fusillade.

The blast had come at their very elbows, and they were too dazed and shaken by it to grasp its significance. Then, before they could realize what it boded, the depths lit up again till the raindrops were outlined distinct and glistening like a gossamer veil of silver, while the office building to their left was ripped and rended and the adjoining walls leaped out into sudden relief, their shattered windows looking like ghostly, sightless eyes. The curtain of darkness closed heavier than velvet, and the men cowered in their tracks, shielding themselves behind the nearest objects or behind one another's bodies, waiting for the sky to vomit over them its rain of missiles. Their backs were to the Vigilantes now, their faces to the centre. Many had dropped their rifles. The thunder of hoofs and the scream of terrified horses came from the stables. The cry of a maddened beast is weird and calculated to curdle the blood at best, but with it arose a human voice, shrieking from pain and fear of death. A wrenched and doubled mass of zinc had hurtled out of the heavens and struck some one down. The choking hoarseness of the man's appeal told the story, and those about him broke into flight to escape what might follow, to escape this danger they could not see but which swooped out of the blackness above and against which there was no defence. They fled only to witness another and greater light behind them by which they saw themselves running, falling, grovelling. This time they were hurled from their balance by a concussion which dwarfed the two preceding ones. Some few stood still, staring at the rolling smoke-bank as it was revealed by the explosion, their eyes gleaming white, while others buried their faces in their hollowed arms as if to shut out the hellish glare, or to shield themselves from a blow.

Out in the heart of the chaos rang a voice loud and clear:

"Beware the next blast!"

At the same instant the girdle of sharp-shooters rose up smiting the air with their cries and charged in like madmen through the rain of detritus. They fired as they came, but it was unnecessary, for there was no longer a fight. It was a rout. The defenders, feeling they had escaped destruction only by a happy chance in leaving the bunk-house the instant they did, were not minded to tarry here where the heavens fell upon their heads. To augment their consternation, the horses had broken from their stalls and were plunging through the confusion. Fear swept over the men— blind, unreasoning, contagious—and they rushed out into the night, colliding with their enemies, overrunning them in the panic to quit this spot. Some dashed off the bluff and fell among the pits and sluices. Others ran up the mountain-side, and cowered in the brush like quail.

As the "Stranglers" assembled their prisoners near the ruins, they heard wounded men moaning in the darkness, so lit torches and searched out the stricken ones. Glenister came running through the smoke pall, revolver in hand, crying: "Has any one seen McNamara?" No one had, and when they were later assembled to take stock of their injuries he was greeted by Dextry's gleeful announcement:

"That's the deuce of a fight. We 'ain't got so much as a cold sore among us."

"We have captured fourteen," another announced, "and there may be more out yonder in the brush."

Glenister noted with growing surprise that not one of the prisoners lined up beneath the glaring torches wore the army blue. They were miners all, or thugs and ruffians gathered from the camp. Where, he wondered, were the soldiers.

"Didn't you have troops from the barracks to help you?" he asked.

"Not a troop. We haven't seen a soldier since we went to work."

At this the young leader became alarmed. Had this whole attack miscarried? Had this been no clash with the United States forces, after all? If so, the news would never reach Washington, and instead of accomplishing his end, he and his friends had thrust themselves into the realms of outlawry, where the soldiers could be employed against them with impunity, where prices would rest upon their heads. Innocent blood had been shed, court property destroyed. McNamara had them where he wanted them at last. They were at bay.

The unwounded prisoners were taken to the boundaries of the Midas and released with such warnings as the imagination of Dextry could conjure up; then Glenister assembled his men, speaking to them plainly.

"Boys, this is no victory. In fact, we're worse off than we were before, and our biggest fight is coming. There's a chance to get away now before daylight and before we're recognized, but if we're seen here at sun-up we'll have to stay and fight. Soldiers will be sent against us, but if we hold out, and the struggle is fierce enough, it may reach to Washington. This will be a different kind of fighting now, though. It will be warfare pure and simple. How many of you will stick?"

"All of us," said they, in unison, and, accordingly, preparations for a siege were begun. Barricades were built, ruins removed, buildings transformed into blockhouses, and all through the turbulent night the tired men labored till ready to drop, led always by the young giant, who seemed without fatigue.

It was perhaps four hours after midnight when a man sought him out.

"Somebody's callin' you on the Assay Office telephone—says it's life or death."

Glenister hurried to the building, which had escaped the shock of the explosions, and, taking down the receiver, was answered by Cherry Malotte.

"Thank God, you're safe," she began. "The men have just come in and the whole town is awake over the riot. They say you've killed ten people in the fight—is it true?"

He explained to her briefly that all was well, but she broke in:

"Wait, wait! McNamara has called for troops and you'll all be shot. Oh, what a terrible night it has been! I haven't been to bed. I'm going mad. Now, listen, carefully—yesterday Helen went with Struve to the Sign of the Sled and she hasn't come back."

The man at the end of the wire cried out at this, then choked back his words to hear what followed. His free hand began making strange, futile motions as though he traced patterns in the air.

"I can't raise the road-house on the wire and—something dreadful has happened, I know."

"What made her go?" he shouted.

"To save you," came Cherry's faint reply. "If you love her, ride fast to the Sign of the Sled or you'll be too late. The Bronco Kid has gone there—"

At that name Roy crashed the instrument to its hook and burst out of the shanty, calling loudly to his men.

"What's up?"

"Where are you going?"

"To the Sign of the Sled," he panted.

"We've stood by you, Glenister, and you can't quit us like this," said one, angrily. "The trail to town is good, and we'll take it if you do." Roy saw they feared he was deserting, feared that he had heard some alarming rumor of which they did not know.

"We'll let the mine go, boys, for I can't ask you to do what I refuse to do myself, and yet it's not fear that's sending me. There's a woman in danger and I MUST go. She courted ruin to save us all, risked her honor to try and right a wrong—and—I'm afraid of what has happened while we were fighting here. I don't ask you to stay till I come back—it wouldn't be square, and you'd better go while you have a chance. As for me—I gave up the old claim once—I can do it again." He swung himself to the horse's back, settled into the saddle, and rode out through the lane of belted men.



CHAPTER XX

IN WHICH THREE GO TO THE SIGN OF THE SLED AND BUT TWO RETURN

As Helen and her companion ascended the mountain, scarred and swept by the tempest of the previous night, they heard, far below, the swollen torrent brawling in its bowlder-ridden bed, while behind them the angry ocean spread southward to a blood-red horizon. Ahead, the bleak mountains brooded over forbidding valleys; to the west a suffused sun glared sullenly, painting the high-piled clouds with the gorgeous hues of a stormy sunset. To Helen the wild scene seemed dyed with the colors of flame and blood and steel.

"That rain raised the deuce with the trails," said Struve, as they picked their way past an unsightly "slip" whence a part of the overhanging mountain, loosened by the deluge, had slid into the gulch. "Another storm like that would wash out these roads completely."

Even in the daylight it was no easy task to avoid these danger spots, for the horses floundered on the muddy soil. Vaguely the girl wondered how she would find her way back in the darkness, as she had planned. She said little as they approached the road- house, for the thoughts within her brain had begun to clamor too wildly; but Struve, more arrogant than ever before, more terrifyingly sure of himself, was loudly garrulous. As they drew nearer and nearer, the dread that possessed the girl became of paralyzing intensity. If she should fail—but she vowed she would not, could not, fail.

They rounded a bend and saw the Sign of the Sled cradled below them where the trail dipped to a stream which tumbled from the comb above into the river twisting like a silver thread through the distant valley. A peeled flag-pole topped by a spruce bough stood in front of the tavern, while over the door hung a sled suspended from a beam. The house itself was a quaint structure, rambling and amorphous, from whose sod roof sprang blooming flowers, and whose high-banked walls were pierced here and there with sleepy windows. It had been built by a homesick foreigner of unknown nationality whom the army of "mushers" who paid for his clean and orderly hospitality had dubbed duly and as a matter of course a "Swede." When travel had changed to the river trail, leaving the house lonesome and high as though left by a receding wave, Struve had taken it over on a debt, and now ran it for the convenience of a slender traffic, mainly stampeders, who chose the higher route towards the interior. His hireling spent the idle hours in prospecting a hungry quartz lead and in doing assessment work on near-by claims.

Shortz took the horses and answered his employer's questions curtly, flashing a curious look at Helen. Under other conditions the girl would have been delighted with the place, for this was the quaintest spot she had found in the north country. The main room held bar and gold-scales, a rude table, and a huge iron heater, while its walls and ceiling were sheeted with white cloth so cunningly stitched and tacked that it seemed a cavern hollowed from chalk. It was filled with trophies of the hills, stuffed birds and animals, skins and antlers, from which depended, in careless confusion, dog harness, snow-shoes, guns, and articles of clothing. A door to the left led into the bunk-room where travellers had been wont to sleep in tiers three deep. To the rear was a kitchen and cache, to the right a compartment which Struve called the art gallery. Here, free reign had been allowed the original owner's artistic fancies, and he had covered the place with pictures clipped from gazettes of questionable repute till it was a bewildering arrangement of pink ladies in tights, pugilists in scanty trunks, prize bulldogs, and other less moral characters of the sporting world.

"This is probably the worst company you were ever in," Struve observed to Helen, with a forced attempt at lightness.

"Are there no guests here?" she asked him, her anxiety very near the surface.

"Travel is light at this time of the year. They'll come in later, perhaps."

A fire was burning in this pink room where the landlord had begun spreading the table for two, and its warmth was grateful to the girl. Her companion, thoroughly at his ease, stretched himself on a fur-covered couch and smoked.

"Let me see the papers, now, Mr. Struve," she began, but he put her off.

"No, not now. Business must wait on our dinner. Don't spoil our little party, for there's time enough and to spare."

She arose and went to the window, unable to sit still. Looking down the narrow gulch she saw that the mountains beyond were indistinct for it was growing dark rapidly. Dense clouds had rolled up from the east. A rain-drop struck the glass before her eyes, then another and another, and the hills grew misty behind the coming shower. A traveller with a pack on his back hurried around the corner of the building and past her to the door. At his knock, Struve, who had been watching Helen through half-shut eyes, arose and went into the other room.

"Thank Heaven, some one has come," she thought. The voices were deadened to a hum by the sod walls, till that of the stranger raised itself in such indignant protest that she distinguished his words.

"Oh, I've got money to pay my way. I'm no dead-head."

Shortz mumbled something back.

"I don't care if you are closed. I'm tired and there's a storm coming."

This time she heard the landlord's refusal and the miner's angry profanity. A moment later she saw the traveller plodding up the trail towards town.

"What does that mean?" she inquired, as the lawyer re-entered.

"Oh, that fellow is a tough, and Shortz wouldn't let him in. He's careful whom he entertains—there are so many bad men roaming the hills."

The German came in shortly to light the lamp, and, although she asked no further questions, Helen's uneasiness increased. She half listened to the stories with which Struve tried to entertain her and ate little of the excellent meal that was shortly served to them. Struve, meanwhile, ate and drank almost greedily, and the shadowy, sinister evening crept along. A strange cowardice had suddenly overtaken the girl; and if, at this late hour, she could have withdrawn, she would have done so gladly and gone forth to meet the violence of the tempest. But she had gone too far for retreat; and realizing that, for the present, apparent compliance was her wisest resource, she sat quiet, answering the man with cool words while his eyes grew brighter, his skin more flushed, his speech more rapid. He talked incessantly and with feverish gayety, smoking numberless cigarettes and apparently unconscious of the flight of time. At last he broke off suddenly and consulted his watch, while Helen remembered that she had not heard Shortz in the kitchen for a long time. Suddenly Struve smiled on her peculiarly, with confident cunning. As he leered at her over the disorder between them he took from his pocket a flat bundle which he tossed to her.

"Now for the bargain, eh?"

"Ask the man to remove these dishes," she said, as she undid the parcel with clumsy fingers.

"I sent him away two hours ago," said Struve, arising as if to come to her. She shrank back, but he only leaned across, gathered up the four corners of the tablecloth, and, twisting them together, carried the whole thing out, the dishes crashing and jangling as he threw his burden recklessly into the kitchen. Then he returned and stood with his back to the stove, staring at her while she perused the contents of the papers, which were more voluminous than she had supposed.

For a long time the girl pored over the documents. The purport of the papers was only too obvious; and, as she read, the proof of her uncle's guilt stood out clear and damning. There was no possibility of mistake; the whole wretched plot stood out plain, its darkest infamies revealed.

In spite of the cruelty of her disillusionment, Helen was nevertheless exalted with the fierce ecstasy of power, with the knowledge that justice would at last be rendered. It would be her triumph and her expiation that she, who had been the unwitting tool of this miserable clique, would be the one through whom restitution was made. She arose with her eyes gleaming and her lips set.

"It is here."

"Of course it is. Enough to convict us all. It means the penitentiary for your precious uncle and your lover." He stretched his chin upward at the mention as though to free his throat from an invisible clutch. "Yes, your lover particularly, for he's the real one. That's why I brought you here. He'll marry you, but I'll be the best man." The timbre of his voice was unpleasant.

"Come, let us go," she said.

"Go," he chuckled, mirthlessly. "That's a fine example of unconscious humor."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, first, no human being could find his way down to the coast in this tempest; second—but, by-the-way, let me explain something in those papers while I think of it." He spoke casually and stepped forward, reaching for the package, which she was about to give up, when something prompted her to snatch it behind her back; and it was well she did, for his hand was but a few inches away. He was no match for her quickness, however, and she glided around the table, thrusting the papers into the front of her dress. The sudden contact with Cherry's revolver gave her a certain comfort. She spoke now with determination.

"I intend to leave here at once. Will you bring my horse? Very well, I shall do it myself."

She turned, but his indolence vanished like a flash, and springing in front of the door he barred her way.

"Hold on, my lady. You ought to understand without my saying any more. Why did I bring you here? Why did I plan this little party? Why did I send that man away? Just to give you the proof of my complicity in a crime, I suppose. Well, hardly. You won't leave here to-night. And when you do, you won't carry those papers—my own safety depends on that and I am selfish, so don't get me started. Listen!" They caught the wail of the night crying as though hungry for sacrifice. "No, you'll stay here and—"

He broke off abruptly, for Helen had stepped to the telephone and taken down the receiver. He leaped, snatched it from her, and then, tearing the instrument loose from the wall, raised it above his head, dashed it upon the floor, and sprang towards her, but she wrenched herself free and fled across the room. The man's white hair was wildly tumbled, his face was purple, and his neck and throat showed swollen, throbbing veins. He stood still, however, and his lips cracked into his ever-present, cautious smile.

"Now, don't let's fight about this. It's no use, for I've played to win. You have your proof—now I'll have my price—or else I'll take it. Think over which it will be, while I lock up."

Far down the mountain-side a man was urging a broken pony recklessly along the trail. The beast was blown and spent, its knees weak and bending, yet the rider forced it as though behind him yelled a thousand devils, spurring headlong through gully and ford, up steep slopes and down invisible ravines. Sometimes the animal stumbled and fell with its master, sometimes they arose together, but the man was heedless of all except his haste, insensible to the rain which smote him blindingly, and to the wind which seized him savagely upon the ridges, or gasped at him in the gullies with exhausted malice. At last he gained the plateau and saw the road-house light beneath, so drove his heels into the flanks of the wind-broken creature, which lunged forward gamely. He felt the pony rear and drop away beneath him, pawing and scrambling, and instinctively kicked his feet free from the stirrups, striving to throw himself out of the saddle and clear of the thrashing hoofs. It seemed that he turned over in the air before something smote him and he lay still, his gaunt, dark face upturned to the rain, while about him the storm screamed exultantly.

The moment Struve disappeared into the outer room Helen darted to the window. It was merely a single sash, nailed fast and immovable, but seizing one of the little stools beside the stove she thrust it through the glass, letting in a smother of wind and water. Before she could escape, Struve bounded into the room, his face livid with anger, his voice hoarse and furious.

But as he began to denounce her he paused in amazement, for the girl had drawn Cherry's weapon and levelled it at him. She was very pale and her breast heaved as from a swift run, while her wondrous gray eyes were lit with a light no man had ever seen there before, glowing like two jewels whose hearts contained the pent-up passion of centuries. She had altered as though under the deft hand of a master-sculptor, her nostrils growing thin and arched, her lips tight pressed and pitiless, her head poised proudly. The rain drove in through the shattered window, over and past her, while the cheap red curtain lashed and whipped her as though in gleeful applause. Her bitter abhorrence of the man made her voice sound strangely unnatural as she commanded:

"Don't dare to stop me." She moved towards the door, motioning him to retreat before her, and he obeyed, recognizing the danger of her coolness. She did not note the calculating treachery of his glance, however, nor fathom the purposes he had in mind.

Out on the rain-swept mountain the prostrate rider had regained his senses and now was crawling painfully towards the road-house. Seen through the dark he would have resembled some misshapen, creeping monster, for he dragged himself, reptile-like, close to the ground. But as he came closer the man heard a cry which the wind seemed guarding from his ear, and, hearing it, he rose and rushed blindly forward, staggering like a wounded beast.

Helen watched her captive closely as he backed through the door before her, for she dared not lose sight of him until free. The middle room was lighted by a glass lamp on the bar and its rays showed that the front-door was secured by a large iron bolt. She thanked Heaven there was no lock and key.

Struve had retreated until his back was to the counter, offering no word, making no move, but the darting brightness of his eyes showed that he was alert and planning. But when the door behind Helen, urged by the wind through the broken casement, banged to, the man made his first lightning-like sign. He dashed the lamp to the floor, where it burst like an eggshell, and darkness leaped into the room as an animal pounces. Had she been calmer or had time for an instant's thought Helen would have hastened back to the light, but she was midway to her liberty and actuated by the sole desire to break out into the open air, so plunged forward. Without warning, she was hurled from her feet by a body which came out of the darkness upon her. She fired the little gun, but Struve's arms closed about her, the weapon was wrenched from her hand, and she found herself fighting against him, breast to breast, with the fury of desperation. His wine-burdened breath beat into her face and she felt herself bound to him as though by hoops, while the touch of his cheek against hers turned her into a terrified, insensate animal, which fought with every ounce of its strength and every nerve of its body. She screamed once, but it was not like the cry of a woman. Then the struggle went on in silence and utter blackness, Strove holding her like a gorilla till she grew faint and her head began to whirl, while darting lights drove past her eyes and there was the roar of a cataract in her ears. She was a strong girl, and her ripe young body, untried until this moment, answered in every fibre, so that she wrestled with almost a man's strength and he had hard shift to hold her. But so violent an encounter could not last. Helen felt herself drifting free from the earth and losing grip of all things tangible, when at last they tripped and fell against the inner door. This gave way, and at the same moment the man's strength departed as though it were a thing of darkness and dared not face the light that streamed over them. She tore herself from his clutch and staggered into the supper-room, her loosened hair falling in a gleaming torrent about her shoulders, while he arose from his knees and came towards her again, gasping:

"I'll show you who's master here—"

Then he ceased abruptly, cringingly, and threw up an arm before his face as if to ward off a blow. Framed in the window was the pallid visage of a man. The air rocked, the lamp flared, and Struve whirled completely around, falling back against the wall. His eyes filled with horror and shifted down where his hand had clutched at his breast, plucking at one spot as if tearing a barb from his bosom. He jerked his head towards the door at his elbow in quest of a retreat a shudder ran over him, his knees buckled and he plunged forward upon his face, his arm still doubled under him.

It had happened like a flash of light, and although Helen felt, rather than heard, the shot and saw her assailant fall, she did not realize the meaning of it till a drift of powder smoke assailed her nostrils. Even so, she experienced no shock nor horror of the sight. On the contrary, a savage joy at the spectacle seized her and she stood still, leaning slightly forward, staring at it almost gloatingly, stood so till she heard her name called, "Helen, little sister!" and, turning, saw her brother in the window.

That which he witnessed in her face he had seen before in the faces of men locked close with a hateful death and from whom all but the most elemental passions had departed—but he had never seen a woman bear the marks till now. No artifice nor falsity was there, nothing but the crudest, intensest feeling, which many people live and die without knowing. There are few who come to know the great primitive, passionate longings. But in this black night, fighting in defence of her most sacred self, this girl's nature had been stripped to its purely savage elements. As Glenister had predicted, Helen at last had felt and yielded to irresistibly powerful impulse.

Glancing backward at the creature sprawled by the door, Helen went to her brother, put her arms about his neck, and kissed him.

"He's dead?" the Kid asked her.

She nodded and tried to speak, but began to shiver and sob instead.

"Unlock the door," he begged her. "I'm hurt, and I must get in."

When the Kid had hobbled into the room, she pressed him to her and stroked his matted head, regardless of his muddy, soaking garments.

"I must look at him. He may not be badly hurt," said the Kid.

"Don't touch him!" She followed, nevertheless, and stood near by while her brother examined his victim. Struve was breathing, and, discovering this, the others lifted him with difficulty to the couch.

"Something cracked in here—ribs, I guess," the Kid remarked, gasping and feeling his own side. He was weak and pale, and the girl led him into the bunk-room, where he could lie down. Only his wonderful determination had sustained him thus far, and now the knowledge of his helplessness served to prevent Helen's collapse.

The Kid would not hear of her going for help till the storm abated or daylight came, insisting that the trails were too treacherous and that no time could be saved by doing so. Thus they waited for the dawn. At last they heard the wounded man faintly calling. He spoke to Helen hoarsely. There was no malice, only fear, in his tones:

"I said this was my madness—and I got what I deserved, but I'm going to die. O God—I'm going to die and I'm afraid." He moaned till the Bronco Kid hobbled in, glaring with unquenched hatred.

"Yes, you're going to die and I did it. Be game, can't you? I sha'n't let her go for help until daylight."

Helen forced her brother back to his couch, and returned to help the wounded man, who grew incoherent and began to babble.

A little later, when the Kid seemed stronger and his head clearer, Helen ventured to tell him of their uncle's villany and of the proof she held, with her hope of restoring justice. She told him of the attack planned that very night and of the danger which threatened the miners. He questioned her closely and, realizing the bearing of her story, crept to the door, casting the wind like a hound.

"We'll have to risk it," said he. "The wind is almost gone and it's not long till daylight."

She pleaded to go alone, but he was firm. "I'll never leave you again, and, moreover, I know the lower trail quite well. We'll go down the gulch to the valley and reach town that way. It's farther but it's not so dangerous."

"You can't ride," she insisted.

"I can if you'll tie me into the saddle. Come, get the horses."

It was still pitchy dark and the rain was pouring, but the wind only sighed weakly as though tired by its violence when she helped the Bronco into his saddle. The effort wrenched a groan from him, but he insisted upon her tying his feet beneath the horse's belly, saying that the trail was rough and he could take no chance of falling again; so, having performed the last services she might for Struve, she mounted her own animal and allowed it to pick its way down the steep descent behind her brother, who swayed and lurched drunkenly in his seat, gripping the horn before him with both hands.

They had been gone perhaps a half-hour when another horse plunged furiously out of the darkness and halted before the road-house door. Its rider, mud-stained and dishevelled, flung himself in mad haste to the ground and bolted in through the door. He saw the signs of confusion in the outer room, chairs upset and broken, the table wedged against the stove, and before the counter a shattered lamp in a pool of oil. He called loudly, but, receiving no answer, snatched a light which, he found burning and ran to the door at his left. Nothing greeted him but the empty tiers of bunks. Turning, he crossed to the other side and burst through. Another lamp was lighted beside the couch where Struve lay, breathing heavily, his lids half closed over his staring eyes. Roy noted the pool of blood at his feet and the broken window; then, setting down his lamp, he leaned over the man and spoke to him.

When he received no answer he spoke again loudly. Then, in a frenzy, Glenister shook the wounded man cruelly, so that he cried out in terror:

"I'm dying—oh, I'm dying." Roy raised the sick man up and thrust his own face before his eyes.

"This is Glenister. I've come for Helen—where is she?" A spark of recognition flickered into the dull stare.

"You're too late—I'm dying—and I'm afraid."

His questioner shook Struve again. "Where is she?" he repeated, time after time, till by very force of his own insistence he compelled realization in the sufferer.

"The Kid took her away. The Kid shot me," and then his voice rose till it flooded the room with terror. "The Kid shot me and I'm dying." He coughed blood to his lips, at which Roy laid him back and stood up. So there was no mistake, after all, and he had arrived too late. This was the Kid's revenge. This was how he struck. Lacking courage to face a man's level eyes, he possessed the foulness to prey upon a woman. Roy felt a weakening physical sickness sweep over him till his eye fell upon a sodden garment which Helen had removed from her brother's shoulders and replaced with a dry one. He snatched it from the floor and in a sudden fury felt it come apart in his hands like wet tissue-paper.

He found himself out in the rain, scanning the trampled soil by light of his lamp, and discerned tracks which the drizzle had not yet erased. He reasoned mechanically that the two riders could have no great start of him, so strode out beyond the house to see if they had gone farther into the hills. There were no tracks here, therefore they must have doubled back towards town. It did not occur to him that they might have left the beaten path and followed down the little creek to the river; but, replacing the light where he had found it, he remounted and lashed his horse into a stiff canter up towards the divide that lay between him and the city. The story was growing plainer to him, though as yet he could not piece it all together. Its possibilities stabbed him with such horror that he cried out aloud and beat his steed into faster time with both hands and feet. To think of those two ruffians fighting over this girl as though she were the spoils of pillage! He must overtake the Kid—he WOULD! The possibility that he might not threw him into such ungovernable mental chaos that he was forced to calm himself. Men went mad that way. He could not think of it. That gasping creature in the road-house spoke all too well of the Bronco's determination. And yet, who of those who had known the Kid in the past would dream that his vileness was so utter as this?

Away to the right, hidden among the shadowed hills, his friends rested themselves for the coming battle, waiting impatiently his return, and timing it to the rising sun. Down in the valley to his left were the two he followed, while he, obsessed and unreasoning, now cursing like a madman, now grim and silent, spurred southward towards town and into the ranks of his enemies.



CHAPTER XXI

THE HAMMER-LOCK

Day was breaking as Glenister came down the mountain. With the first light he halted to scan the trail, and having no means of knowing that the fresh tracks he found were not those of the two riders he followed, he urged his lathered horse ahead till he became suddenly conscious that he was very tired and had not slept for two days and nights. The recollection did not reassure the young man, for his body was a weapon which must not fail in the slightest measure now that there was work to do. Even the unwelcome speculation upon his physical handicap offered relief, however, from the agony which fed upon him whenever he thought of Helen in the gambler's hands. Meanwhile, the horse, groaning at his master's violence, plunged onward towards the roofs of Nome, now growing gray in the first dawn.

It seemed years since Roy had seen the sunlight, for this night, burdened with suspense, had been endlessly long. His body was faint beneath the strain, and yet he rode on and on, tired, dogged, stony, his eyes set towards the sea, his mind a storm of formless, whirling thoughts, beneath which was an undeviating, implacable determination.

He knew now that he had sacrificed all hope of the Midas, and likewise the hope of Helen was gone; in fact, he began to realize dimly that from the beginning he had never had the possibility of winning her, that she had never been destined for him, and that his love for her had been sent as a light by which he was to find himself. He had failed everywhere, he had become an outlaw, he had fought and gone down, certain only of his rectitude and the mastery of his unruly spirit. Now the hour had come when he would perform his last mission, deriving therefrom that satisfaction which the gods could not deny. He would have his vengeance.

The scheme took form without conscious effort on his part and embraced two things—the death of the gambler and a meeting with McNamara. Of the former, he had no more doubt than that the sun rising there would sink in the west. So well confirmed was this belief that the details did not engage his thought; but on the result of the other encounter he speculated with some interest. From the first McNamara had been a riddle to him, and mystery breeds curiosity. His blind, instinctive hatred of the man had assumed the proportions of a mania; but as to what the outcome would be when they met face to face, fate alone could tell. Anyway, McNamara should never have Helen—Roy believed his mission covered that point as well as her deliverance from the Bronco Kid. When he had finished—he would pay the price. If he had the luck to escape, he would go back to his hills and his solitude; if he did not, his future would be in the hands of his enemies.

He entered the silent streets unobserved, for the mists were heavy and low. Smoke columns arose vertically in the still air. The rain had ceased, having beaten down the waves which rumbled against the beach, filling the streets with their subdued thunder. A ship, anchored in the offing, had run in from the lee of Sledge Island with the first lull, while midway to the shore a tender was rising and falling, its oars flashing like the silvered feelers of a sea insect crawling upon the surface of the ocean.

He rode down Front Street heedless of danger, heedless of the comment his appearance might create, and, unseen, entered his enemy's stronghold. He passed a gambling-hall, through the windows of which came a sickly yellow gleam. A man came out unsteadily and stared at the horseman, then passed on.

Glenister's plan was to go straight to the Northern and from there to track down its owner relentlessly, but in order to reach the place his course led him past the office of Dunham & Struve. This brought back to his mind the man dying out there ten miles at his back. The scantiest humanity demanded that assistance be sent at once. Yet he dared not give word openly, thus betraying his presence, for it was necessary that he maintain his liberty during the next hour at all hazards. He suddenly thought of an expedient and reined in his horse, which stopped with wide-spread legs and dejected head while he dismounted and climbed the stairs to leave a note upon the door. Some one would see the message shortly and recognize its urgency.

In dressing for the battle at the Midas on the previous night he had replaced his leather boots with "mukluks," which are waterproof, light, and pliable footgear made from the skin of seal and walrus. He was thus able to move as noiselessly as though in moccasins. Finding neither pencil nor paper in his pocket, he tried the outer door of the office, to find it unlocked. He stepped inside and listened, then moved towards a table on which were writing materials, but in doing so heard a rustle in Struve's private office. Evidently his soft soles had not disturbed the man inside. Roy was about to tiptoe out as he had come when the hidden man cleared his throat. It is in these involuntary sounds that the voice retains its natural quality more distinctly even than in speaking, A strange eagerness grew in Glenister's face and he approached the partition stealthily. It was of wood and glass, the panes clouded and opaque to a height of some six feet; but stepping upon a chair he peered into the room beyond. A man knelt in a litter of papers before the open safe, its drawers and compartments removed and their contents scattered. The watcher lowered himself, drew his gun, and laid soft hand upon the door- knob, turning the latch with firm fingers. His vengeance had come to meet him.

After lying in wait during the long night, certain that the Vigilantes would spring his trap, McNamara was astounded at news of the battle at the Midas and of Glenister's success. He stormed and cursed his men as cowards. The Judge became greatly exercised over this new development, which, coupled with his night of long anxiety, reduced him to a pitiful hysteria.

"They'll blow us up next. Great Heavens! Dynamite! Oh, that is barbarous. For Heaven's sake, get the soldiers out, Alec."

"Ay, we can use them now." Thereupon McNamara roused the commanding officer at the post and requested him to accoutre a troop and have them ready to march at daylight, then bestirred the Judge to start the wheels of his court and invoke this military aid in regular fashion.

"Make it all a matter of record," he said. "We want to keep our skirts clear from now on."

"But the towns-people are against us," quavered Stillman. "They'll tear us to pieces."

"Let 'em try. Once I get my hand on the ringleader, the rest may riot and be damned."

Although he had made less display than had the Judge, the receiver was no less deeply worried about Helen, of whom no news came. His jealousy, fanned to red heat by the discovery of her earlier defection, was enhanced fourfold by the thought of this last adventure. Something told him there was treachery afoot, and when she did not return at dawn he began to fear that she had cast in her lot with the rioters. This aroused a perfect delirium of doubt and anger till he reasoned further that Struve, having gone with her, must also be a traitor. He recognized the menace in this fact, knowing the man's venality, so began to reckon carefully its significance. What could Struve do? What proof had he? McNamara started, and, seizing his hat, hurried straight to the lawyer's office and let himself in with the key he carried. It was light enough for him to decipher the characters on the safe lock as he turned the combination, so he set to work scanning the endless bundles within, hoping that after all the man had taken with him no incriminating evidence. Once the searcher paused at some fancied sound, but when nothing came of it drew his revolver and laid it before him just inside the safe door and close beneath his hand, continuing to run through the documents while his uneasiness increased. He had been engaged so for some time when he heard the faintest creak at his back, too slight to alarm and just sufficient to break his tension and cause him to jerk his head about. Framed in the open door stood Roy Glenister watching him.

McNamara's astonishment was so genuine that he leaped to his feet, faced about, and prompted by a secretive instinct swung to the safe door as though to guard its contents. He had acted upon the impulse before realizing that his weapon was inside and that now, although the door was not locked, it would require that one dangerous, yes, fatal, second to open it.

The two men stared at each other for a time, silent and malignant, their glances meeting like blades; in the older man's face a look of defiance, in the younger's a dogged and grim-purposed enmity. McNamara's first perturbation left him calm, alert, dangerous; whereas the continued contemplation of his enemy worked in Glenister to destroy his composure, and his purpose blazed forth unhidden.

He stood there unkempt and soiled, the clean sweep of jaw and throat overgrown with a three days' black stubble, his hair wet and matted, his whole left side foul with clay where he had fallen in the darkness. A muddy red streak spread downward from a cut above his temple, beneath his eyes were sagging folds, while the flicker at his mouth corners betrayed the high nervous pitch to which he was keyed.

"I have come for the last act, McNamara; now we'll have it out, man to man."

The politician shrugged his shoulders. "You have the drop on me. I am unarmed." At which the miner's face lighted fiercely and he chuckled.

"Ah, that's almost too good to be true. I have dreamed about such a thing and I have been hungry to feel your throat since the first time I saw you. It's grown on me till shooting wouldn't satisfy me. Ever had the feeling? Well, I'm going to choke the life out of you with my bare hands."

McNamara squared himself.

"I wouldn't advise you to try it. I have lived longer than you and I was never beaten, but I know the feeling you speak about. I have it now."

His eyes roved rapidly up and down the other's form, noting the lean thighs and close-drawn belt which lent the appearance of spareness, belied only by the neck and shoulders. He had beaten better men, and he reasoned that if it came to a physical test in these cramped quarters his own great weight would more than offset any superior agility the miner might possess. The longer he looked the more he yielded to his hatred of the man before him, and the more cruelly he longed to satisfy it.

"Take off your coat," said Glenister. "Now turn around. All right! I just wanted to see if you were lying about your gun."

"I'll kill you," cried McNamara.

Glenister laid his six-shooter upon the safe and slipped off his own wet garment. The difference was more marked now and the advantage more strongly with the receiver. Though they had avoided allusion to it, each knew that this fight had nothing to do with the Midas and each realized whence sprang their fierce enmity. And it was meet that they should come together thus. It had been the one certain and logical event which they had felt inevitably approaching from long back. And it was fitting, moreover, that they should fight alone and unwitnessed, armed only with the weapons of the wilderness, for they were both of the far, free lands, were both of the fighter's type, and had both warred for the first, great prize.

They met ferociously. McNamara aimed a fearful blow, but Glenister met him squarely, beating him off cleverly, stepping in and out, his arms swinging loosely from his shoulders like whalebone withes tipped with lead. He moved lightly, his footing made doubly secure by reason of his soft-soled mukluks. Recognizing his opponent's greater weight, he undertook merely to stop the headlong rushes and remain out of reach as long as possible. He struck the politician fairly in the mouth so that the man's head snapped back and his fists went wild, then, before the arms could grasp him, the miner had broken ground and whipped another blow across; but McNamara was a boxer himself, so covered and blocked it. The politician spat through his mashed lips and rushed again, sweeping his opponent from his feet. Again Glenister's fist shot forward like a lump of granite, but the other came on head down and the blow finished too high, landing on the big man's brow. A sudden darting agony paralyzed Roy's hand, and he realized that he had broken the metacarpal bones and that henceforth it would be useless. Before he could recover, McNamara had passed under his extended arm and seized him by the middle, then, thrusting his left leg back of Roy's, he whirled him from his balance, flinging him clear and with resistless force. It seemed that a fatal fall must follow, but the youth squirmed catlike in the air, landing with set muscles which rebounded like rubber. Even so, the receiver was upon him before he could rise, reaching for the young man's throat with his heavy hands. Roy recognized the fatal "strangle hold," and, seizing his enemy's wrists, endeavored to tear them apart, but his left hand was useless, so with a mighty wrench he freed himself, and, locked in each other's arms, the men strained and swayed about the office till their neck veins were bursting, their muscles paralyzed.

Men may fight duels calmly, may shoot or parry or thrust with cold deliberation; but when there comes the jar of body to body, the sweaty contact of skin to skin, the play of iron muscles, the painful gasp of exhaustion—then the mind goes skittering back into its dark recesses while every venomous passion leaps forth from its hiding-place and joins in the horrid war.

They tripped across the floor, crashing into the partition, which split, showering them with glass. They fell and rolled in it; then, by consent, wrenched themselves apart and rose, eye to eye, their jaws hanging, their lungs wheezing, their faces trickling blood and sweat. Roy's left hand pained him excruciatingly, while McNamara's macerated lips had turned outward in a hideous pout. They crouched so for an instant, cruel, bestial—then clinched again. The office-fittings were wrecked utterly and the room became a litter of ruins. The men's garments fell away till their breasts were bare and their arms swelled white and knotted through the rags. They knew no pain, their bodies were insensate mechanisms.

Gradually the older man's face was beaten into a shapeless mass by the other's cunning blows, while Glenister's every bone was wrenched and twisted under his enemy's terrible onslaughts. The miner's chief effort, it is true, was to keep his feet and to break the man's embraces. Never had he encountered one whom he could not beat by sheer strength till he met this great, snarling creature who worried him hither and yon as though he were a child. Time and again Roy beat upon the man's face with the blows of a sledge. No rules governed this solitary combat; the men were deaf to all but the roaring in their ears, blinded to all but hate, insensible to everything but the blood mania. Their trampling feet caused the building to rumble and shake as though some monster were running amuck.

Meanwhile a bareheaded man rushed out of the store beneath, bumping into a pedestrian who had paused on the sidewalk, and together they scurried up the stairs. The dory which Roy had seen at sea had shot the breakers, and now its three passengers were tracking through the wet sand towards Front Street, Bill Wheaton in the lead. He was followed by two rawboned men who travelled without baggage. The city was awakening with the sun which reared a copper rim out of the sea—Judge Stillman and Voorhees came down from the hotel and paused to gaze through the mists at a caravan of mule teams which trotted into the other end of the street with jingle and clank. The wagons were blue with soldiers, the early golden rays slanting from their Krags, and they were bound for the Midas.

Out of the fogs which clung so thickly to the tundra there came two other horses, distorted and unreal, on one a girl, on the other a figure of pain and tragedy, a grotesque creature that swayed stiffly to the motion of its steed, its face writhed into lines of suffering, its hands clutching cantle and horn.

It was as though Fate, with invisible touch, were setting her stage for the last act of this play, assembling the principals close to the Golden Sands where first they had made entrance.

The man and the girl came face to face with the Judge and marshal, who cried out upon seeing them, but as they reined in, out from the stairs beside them a man shot amid clatter and uproar.

"Give me a hand—quick!" he shouted to them.

"What's up?" inquired the marshal.

"It's murder! McNamara and Glenister!" He dashed back up the steps behind Voorhees, the Judge following, while muffled cries came from above.

The gambler turned towards the three men who were hurrying from the beach, and, recognizing Wheaton, called to him: "Untie my feet! Cut the ropes! Quick!"

"What's the trouble?" the lawyer asked, but on hearing Glenister's name bounded after the Judge, leaving one of his companions to free the rider. They could hear the fight now, and all crowded towards the door, Helen with her brother, in spite of his warning to stay behind.

She never remembered how she climbed those stairs, for she was borne along by that hypnotic power which drags one to behold a catastrophe in spite of his will. Reaching the room, she stood appalled; for the group she had joined watched two raging things that rushed at each other with inhuman cries, ragged, bleeding, fighting on a carpet of debris. Every loose and breakable thing had been ground to splinters as though by iron slugs in a whirling cylinder.

To this day, from Dawson to the Straits, from Unga to the Arctics, men tell of the combat wherever they foregather at flaring camp- fires or in dingy bunkhouses; and although some scout the tale, there are others who saw it and can swear to its truth. These say that the encounter was like the battle of bull moose in the rutting season, though more terrible, averring that two men like these had never been known in the land since the days of Vitus Bering and his crew; for their rancor had swollen till at feel of each other's flesh they ran mad and felt superhuman strength. It is true, at any rate, that neither was conscious of the filling room, nor the cries of the crowd, even when the marshal forced himself through the wedged door and fell upon the nearest, which was Glenister. He came at an instant when the two had paused at arm's-length, glaring with rage-drunken eyes, gasping the labored breath back into their lungs.

With a fling of his long arms the young man hurled the intruder aside so violently that his head struck the iron safe and he collapsed insensible. Then, without apparent notice of the interruption, the fight went on. It was seen during this respite that McNamara's mouth was running water as though he were deathly sick, while every retch brought forth a groan. Helen heard herself crying: "Stop them! Stop them!" But no one seemed capable of interference. She heard her brother muttering and his breath coming heavily like that of the fighters, his body swaying in. time to theirs. The Judge was ashy, imbecile, helpless.

McNamara's distress was patent to his antagonist, who advanced upon him with the hunger of promised victory; but the young man's muscles obeyed his commands sluggishly, his ribs seemed broken, his back was weak, and on the inner side of his legs the flesh was quivering. As they came together the boss reached up his right hand and caught the miner by the face, burying thumb and fingers crab like into his cheeks, forcing his slack jaws apart, thrusting his head backward, while he centred every ounce of his strength in the effort to maim. Roy felt the flesh giving way and flung himself backward to break the hold, whereupon the other summoned his wasting energy and plunged towards the safe, where lay the revolver. Instinct warned Glenister of treachery, told him that the man had sought this last resource to save himself, and as he saw him turn his back and reach for the weapon, the youth leaped like a panther, seizing him about the waist, grasping McNamara's wrist with his right hand. For the first time during the combat they were not face to face, and on the instant Roy realized the advantage given him through the other's perfidy, realized the wrestler's hold that was his, and knew that the moment of victory was come.

The telling takes much time, but so quickly had these things happened that the footsteps of the soldiers had not yet reached the door when the men were locked beside the safe.

Of what happened next many garbled accounts have gone forth, for of all those present, none but the Bronco Kid knew its significance and ever recounted the truth concerning it. Some claim that the younger man was seized with a fear of death which multiplied his enormous strength, others that the power died in his adversary as reward for his treason; but it was not so.

No sooner had Roy encompassed McNamara's waist from the rear than he slid his damaged hand up past the other's chest and around the back of his neck, thus bringing his own left arm close under his enemy's left armpit, wedging the receiver's head forward, while with his other hand he grasped the politician's right wrist close to the revolver, thus holding him in a grasp which could not be broken. Now came the test. The two bodies set themselves rocklike and rigid. There was no lunging about. Calling up the final atom of his strength, Glenister bore backward with his right arm and it became a contest for the weapon which, clutched in the two hands, swayed back and forth or darted up and down, the fury of resistance causing it to trace formless patterns in the air with its muzzle. McNamara shook himself, but he was close against the safe and could not escape, his head bowed forward by the lock of the miner's left arm, and so he strained till the breath clogged in his throat. Despite the grievous toil his right hand moved back slightly. His feet shifted a bit, while the blood seemed bursting from his eyes, but he found that the long fingers encircling his wrist were like gyves weighted with the strength of the hills and the irresistible vigor of youth which knew no defeat. Slowly, inch by inch, the great man's arm was dragged back, down past his side, while the strangling labor of his breath showed at what awful cost. The muzzle of the gun described a semicircle and the knotted hands began to travel towards the left, more rapidly now, across his broad back. Still he struggled and wrenched, but uselessly. He strove to fire the weapon, but his fingers were woven about it so that the hammer would not work. Then the miner began forcing upward.

The white skin beneath the men's strips of clothing was stretched over great knots and ridges which sunk and swelled and quivered. Helen, watching in silent terror, felt her brother sinking his fingers into her shoulder and heard him panting, his face ablaze with excitement, while she became conscious that he had. repeated time and again:

"It's the hammer-lock—the hammer-lock."

By now McNamara's arm was bent and cramped upon his back, and then they saw Glenister's shoulder dip, his elbow come closer to his side, and his body heave in one final terrific effort as though pushing a heavy weight. In the silence something snapped like a stick. There came a deafening report and the scream of a strong man overcome with agony. McNamara went to his knees and sagged forward on to his face as though every bone in his huge bulk had turned to water, while his master reeled back against the opposite wall, his heels dragging in the litter, bringing up with outflung arms as though fearful of falling, swaying, blind, exhausted, his face blackened by the explosion of the revolver, yet grim with the light of victory.

Judge Stillman shouted, hysterically:

"Arrest that man, quick! Don't let him go!"

It was the miner's first realization that others were there. Raising his head he stared at the faces close against the partition, then groaned the words:

"I beat the traitor and—and—I broke him with—my hands!"



CHAPTER XXII

THE PROMISE OF DREAMS

Soldiers seized the young man, who made no offer at resistance, and the room became a noisy riot. Crowds surged up from below, clamoring, questioning, till some one at the head of the stairs shouted down:

"They've got Roy Glenister. He's killed McNamara," at which a murmur arose that threatened to become a cheer.

Then one of the receiver's faction called: "Let's hang him. He killed ten of our men last night." Helen winced, but Stillman, roused to a sort of malevolent courage, quieted the angry voices.

"Officer, hold these people back. I'll attend to this man. The law's in my hands and I'll make him answer."

McNamara reared himself groaning from the floor, his right arm swinging from the shoulder strangely loose and distorted, with palm twisted outward, while his battered face was hideous with pain and defeat. He growled broken maledictions at his enemy.

Roy, meanwhile, said nothing, for as the savage lust died in him he realized that the whirling faces before him were the faces of his enemies, that the Bronco Kid was still at large, and that his vengeance was but half completed. His knees were bending, his limbs were like leaden bars, his chest a furnace of coals. As he reeled down the lane of human forms, supported by his guards, he came abreast of the girl and her companion and paused, clearing his vision slowly.

"Ah, there you are!" he said, thickly, to the gambler, and began to wrestle with his captors, baring his teeth in a grimace of painful effort; but they held him as easily as though he were a child and drew him forward, his body sagging limply, his face turned back over his shoulder.

They had him near the door when Wheaton barred their way, crying: "Hold up a minute—it's all right, Roy—"

"Ay, Bill—it's all right. We did our—best, but we were done by a damned blackguard. Now he'll send me up—but I don't care. I broke him—with my naked hands. Didn't I, McNamara?" He mocked unsteadily at the boss, who cursed aloud in return, glowering like an evil mask, while Stillman ran up dishevelled and shrilly irascible.

"Take him away, I tell you! Take him to jail."

But Wheaton held his place while the room centred its eyes upon him, scenting some unexpected denouement. He saw it, and in concession to a natural vanity and dramatic instinct, he threw back his head and stuffed his hands into his coat-pockets while the crowd waited. He grinned insolently at the Judge and the receiver.

"This will be a day of defeats and disappointments to you, my friends. That boy won't go to jail because you will wear the shackles yourselves. Oh, you played a shrewd game, you two, with your senators, your politics, and your pulls; but it's our turn now, and we'll make you dance for the mines you gutted and the robberies you've done and the men you've ruined. Thank Heaven there's ONE honest court and I happened to find it." He turned to the strangers who had accompanied him from the ship, crying, "Serve those warrants," and they stepped forward.

The uproar of the past few minutes had brought men running from every direction till, finding no room on the stairs, they had massed in the street below while the word flew from lip to lip concerning this closing scene of their drama, the battle at the Midas, the great fight up-stairs, and the arrest by the 'Frisco deputies. Like Sindbad's genie, a wondrous tale took shape from the rumors. Men shouldered one another eagerly for a glimpse of the actors, and when the press streamed out, greeted it with volleys of questions. They saw the unconscious marshal borne forth, followed by the old Judge, now a palsied wretch, slinking beside his captor, a very shell of a man at whom they jeered. When McNamara lurched into view, an image of defeat and chagrin, their voices rose menacingly. The pack was turning and he knew it, but, though racked and crippled, he bent upon them a visage so full of defiance and contemptuous malignity that they hushed themselves, and their final picture of him was that of a big man downed, but unbeaten to the last. They began to cry for Glenister, so that when he loomed in the doorway, a ragged, heroic figure, his heavy shock low over his eyes, his unshaven face aggressive even in its weariness, his corded arms and chest bare beneath the fluttering streamers, the street broke into wild cheering. Here was a man of their own, a son of the Northland who labored and loved and fought in a way they understood, and he had come into his due.

But Roy, dumb and listless, staggered up the street, refusing the help of every man except Wheaton. He heard his companion talking, but grasped only that the attorney gloated and gloried.

"We have whipped them, boy. We have whipped them at their own game. Arrested in their very door-yards—cited for contempt of court—that's what they are. They disobeyed those other writs, and so I got them."

"I broke his arm," muttered the miner.

"Yes, I saw you do it! Ugh! it was an awful thing. I couldn't prove conspiracy, but they'll go to jail for a little while just the same, and we have broken the ring."

"It snapped at the shoulder," the other continued, dully, "just like a shovel handle. I felt it—but he tried to kill me and I had to do it."

The attorney took Roy to his cabin and dressed his wounds, talking incessantly the while, but the boy was like a sleep-walker, displaying no elation, no excitement, no joy of victory. At last Wheaton broke out:

"Cheer up! Why, man, you act like a loser. Don't you realize that we've won? Don't you understand that the Midas is yours? And the whole world with it?"

"Won?" echoed the miner. "What do you know about it, Bill? The Midas—the world—what good are they? You're wrong. I've lost— yes—I've lost everything she taught me, and by some damned trick of Fate she was there to see me do it. Now, go away; I want to sleep."

He sank upon the bed with its tangle of blankets and was unconscious before the lawyer had covered him over.

There he lay like a dead man till late in the afternoon, when Dextry and Slapjack came in from the hills, answering Wheaton's call, and fell upon him hungrily. They shook Roy into consciousness with joyous riot, pommelling him with affectionate roughness till he rose and joined with them stiffly. He bathed and rubbed the soreness from his muscles, emerging physically fit. They made him recount his adventures to the tiniest detail, following his description of the fight with absorbed interest till Dextry broke into mournful complaint:

"I'd have give my half of the Midas to see you bust him. Lord, I'd have screeched with soopreme delight at that."

"Why didn't you gouge his eyes out when you had him crippled?" questioned Slapjack, vindictively. "I'd 'a' done it."

Dextry continued: "They tell me that when he was arrested he swore in eighteen different languages, each one more refreshin'ly repulsive an' vig'rous than the precedin'. Oh, I have sure missed a-plenty to-day, partic'lar because my own diction is gettin' run down an' skim-milky of late, showin' sad lack of new idees. Which I might have assim'lated somethin' robustly original an' expressive if I'd been here. No, sir; a nose-bag full of nuggets wouldn't have kept me away."

"How did it sound when she busted?" insisted the morbid Simms, but Glenister refused to discuss his combat,

"Come on, Slap," said the old prospector, "let's go down-town. I'm so het up I can't set still, an' besides, mebbe we can get the story the way it really happened, from somebody who ain't bound an' gagged an' chloroformed by such unbecomin' modesties. Roy, don't never go into vawdyville with them personal episodes, because they read about as thrillin' as a cook-book. Why, say, I've had the story of that fight from four different fellers already, none of which was within four blocks of the scrimmage, an.' they're all diff'rent an' all better 'n your account."

Now that Glenister's mind had recovered some of its poise he realized what he had done.

"I was a beast, an animal," he groaned, "and that after all my striving. I wanted to leave that part behind, I wanted to be worthy of her love and trust even though I never won it, but at the first test I am found lacking. I have lost her confidence, yes—and what is worse, infinitely worse, I have lost my own. She's always seen me at my worst," he went on, "but I'm not that kind at bottom, not that kind. I want to do what's right, and if I have another chance I will, I know I will. I've been tried too hard, that's all."

Some one knocked, and he opened the door to admit the Bronco Kid and Helen.

"Wait a minute, old man," said the Kid. "I'm here as a friend." The gambler handled himself with difficulty, offering in explanation:

"I'm all sewed up in bandages of one kind or another."

"He ought to be in bed now, but he wouldn't let me come alone, and I could not wait," the girl supplemented, while her eyes avoided Glenister's in strange hesitation.

"He wouldn't let you. I don't understand."

"I'm her brother," announced the Bronco Kid. "I've known it for a long time, but I—I—well, you understand I couldn't let her know. All I can say is, I've gambled square till the night I played you, and I was as mad as a dervish then, blaming you for the talk I'd heard. Last night I learned by chance about Struve and Helen and got to the road-house in time to save her. I'm sorry I didn't kill him." His long white fingers writhed about the arm of his chair at the memory.

"Isn't he dead?" Glenister inquired.

"No. The doctors have brought him in and he'll get well. He's like half the men in Alaska—here because the sheriffs back home couldn't shoot straight. There's something else. I'm not a good talker, but give me time and I'll manage it so you'll understand. I tried to keep Helen from coming on this errand, but she said it was the square thing and she knows better than I. It's about those papers she brought in last spring. She was afraid you might consider her a party to the deal, but you don't, do you?" He glared belligerently, and Roy replied, with fervor:

"Certainly not. Go on."

"Well, she learned the other day that those documents told the whole story and contained enough proof to break up this conspiracy and convict the Judge and McNamara and all the rest, but Struve kept the bundle in his safe and wouldn't give it up without a price. That's why she went away with him—She thought it was right, and—that's all. But it seems Wheaton had succeeded in another way. Now, I'm coming to the point. The Judge and McNamara are arrested for contempt of court and they're as good as convicted; you have recovered your mine, and these men are disgraced. They will go to jail—"

"Yes, for six months, perhaps," broke in the other, hotly, "but what does that amount to? There never was a bolder crime consummated nor one more cruelly unjust. They robbed a realm and pillaged its people, they defiled a court and made Justice a wanton, they jailed good men and sent others to ruin; and for this they are to suffer—how? By a paltry fine or a short imprisonment, perhaps, by an ephemeral disgrace and the loss of their stolen goods. Contempt of court is the accusation, but you might as well convict a murderer for breach of the peace. We've thrown them off, it's true, and they won't trouble us again, but they'll never have to answer for their real infamy. That will go unpunished while their lawyers quibble over technicalities and rules of court. I guess it's true that there isn't any law of God or man north of Fifty-three; but if there is justice south of that mark, those people will answer for conspiracy and go to the penitentiary."

"You make it hard for me to say what I want to. I am almost sorry we came, for I am not cunning with words, and I don't know that you'll understand," said the Bronco Kid, gravely, "We looked at it this way: you have had your victory, you have beaten your enemies against odds, you have recovered your mine, and they are disgraced. To men like them that last will outlive and outweigh all the rest; but the Judge is our uncle and our blood runs in his veins. He took Helen when she was a baby and was a father to her in his selfish way, loving her as best he knew how. And she loves him."

"I don't quite understand you," said Roy.

And then Helen spoke for the first time eagerly, taking a packet from her bosom as she began:

"This will tell the whole wretched story, Mr. Glenister, and show the plot in all its vileness. It's hard for me to betray my uncle, but this proof is yours by right to use as you see fit, and I can't keep it."

"Do you mean that this evidence will show all that? And you're going to give it to me because you think it is your duty?"

"It belongs to you. I have no choice. But what I came for was to plead and to ask a little mercy for my uncle, who is an old, old man, and very weak. This will kill him."

He saw that her eyes were swimming while the little chin quivered ever so slightly and her pale cheeks were flushed. There rose in him the old wild desire to take her in his arms, a yearning to pillow her head on his shoulder and kiss away the tears, to smooth with tender caress the wavy hair, and bury his face deep in it till he grew drunk with the madness of her. But he knew at last for whom she really pleaded.

So he was to forswear this vengeance, which was no vengeance after all, but in verity a just punishment. They asked him—a man—a man's man—a Northman—to do this, and for what? For no reward, but on the contrary to insure himself lasting bitterness. He strove to look at the proposition calmly, clearly, but it was difficult. If only by freeing this other villain as well as her uncle he would do a good to her, then he would not hesitate. Love was not the only thing. He marvelled at his own attitude; this could not be his old self debating thus. He had asked for another chance to show that he was not the old Roy Glenister; well, it had come, and he was ready.

Roy dared not look at Helen any more, for this was the hardest moment he had ever lived.

"You ask this for your uncle, but what of—of the other fellow? You must know that if one goes free so will they both; they can't be separated."

"It's almost too much to ask," the Kid took up, uncertainly. "But don't you think the work is done? I can't help but admire McNamara, and neither can you—he's been too good an enemy to you for that—and—and—he loves Helen."

"I know—I know," said Glenister, hastily, at the same time stopping an unintelligible protest from the girl. "You've said enough." He straightened his slightly stooping shoulders and looked at the unopened package wearily, then slipped the rubber band from it, and, separating the contents, tore them up—one by one—tore them into fine bits without hurry or ostentation, and tossed the fragments away, while the woman began to sob softly, the sound of her relief alone disturbing the silence. And so he gave her his enemy, making his offer gamely, according to his code.

"You're right—the work is done. And now, I'm very tired."

They left him standing there, the glory of the dying day illumining his lean, brown features, the vision of a great loneliness in his weary eyes.

He did not rouse himself till the sky before him was only a curtain of steel, pencilled with streaks of soot that lay close down above the darker sea. Then he sighed and said, aloud:

"So this is the end, and I gave him to her with these hands"—he held them out before him curiously, becoming conscious for the first time that the left one was swollen and discolored and fearfully painful. He noted it with impersonal interest, realizing its need of medical attention—so left the cabin and walked down into the city. He encountered Dextry and Simms on the way, and they went with him, both flowing with the gossip of the camp.

"Lord, but you're the talk of the town," they began. "The curio hunters have commenced to pull Struve's office apart for souvenirs, and the Swedes want to run you for Congress as soon as ever we get admitted as a State. They say that at collar-an'-elbow holts you could lick any of them Eastern senators and thereby rastle out a lot of good legislation for us cripples up here."

"Speakin' of laws goes to show me that this here country is gettin' too blamed civilized for a white man," said Simms, pessimistically, "and now that this fight is ended up it don't look like there would be anything doin' fit to claim the interest of a growed-up person for a long while. I'm goin' west."

"West! Why, you can throw a stone into Bering Strait from here," said Roy, smiling.

"Oh, well, the world's round. There's a schooner outfittin' for Sibeery—two years' cruise. Me an' Dex is figgerin' on gettin' out towards the frontier fer a spell."

"Sure!" said Dextry. "I'm beginnin' to feel all cramped up hereabouts owin' to these fillymonarch orchestras an' French restarawnts and such discrepancies of scenery. They're puttin' a pavement on Front Street and there's a shoe-shinin' parlor opened up. Why, I'd like to get where I could stretch an' holler without disturbin' the pensiveness of some dude in a dress suit. Better come along, Roy; we can sell out the Midas."

"I'll think it over," said the young man.

The night was bright with a full moon when they left the doctor's office. Roy, in no mood for the exuberance of his companions, parted from them, but had not gone far before he met Cherry Malotte. His head was low and he did not see her till she spoke.

"Well, boy, so it's over at last!"

Her words chimed so perfectly with his thoughts that he replied: "Yes, it's all over, little girl."

"You don't need my congratulations—you know me too well for that. How does it feel to be a winner?"