 14 He tried to hide his jubilation as he talked of more cartridges. He forgot Bram and the Eskimos waiting outside the corral and the apparent hopelessness of their situation. Her father! He wanted a shout, or dance around the cabin with Salie in his arms. But the change that he had seen come over her made him understand that he must keep hold of himself. He dreaded to see another light come into those glorious blue eyes that had looked at him with such a strange and questioning earnestness a few moments before, the fire of suspicion, perhaps even of fear if he went too far. He realized that he had betrayed his joy when she had said that the man in the picture was her father. She could not have missed that, and he was not sorry. For him there was an unspeakable thrill in the thought that to a woman, no matter under what son she is born, there is at least one emotion whose understanding needs no words of speech. And as he had talked to her, sublimely confident that she could not understand him, she had read the betrayal in his face. He was sure of it. And so he talked about cartridges. He talked, he told himself afterwards, like an excited imbecile. There were no more cartridges. Salie made him understand that. All they possessed were the four that remained in the revolver. As a matter of fact this discovery did not disturb him greatly. At close quarters he would prefer a good club to the pop-gun. Such a club, in the event of a rush attack by the Eskimos, was an important necessity, and he began looking about the cabin to see what he could lay his hands on. He thought of the sapling cross-pieces in Bram's bunk against the wall and tore one out. It was four feet in length, and as big a round as his fist at one end, while at the other it tapered down so that he could grip it easily with his hands. "'Now we're ready for them,' he said, testing the poise and swing of the club as he stood in the center of the room. "'Unless they burn us out, they'll never get through that door. I'm promising you that, so help me God I am, Salie!' As she looked at him, a flush burned in her cheeks. He was eager to fight. It seemed to her that he was almost hoping for the attack at the door. It made her splendidly unafraid, and suddenly she laughed softly. A nervous, unexpected little laugh which she could not hold back. And he turned quickly to catch the warm glow in her eyes. Something went up into his throat as she stood there looking at him like that. He had never seen anyone quite so beautiful. He dropped his club and held out his hand. "'Let's shake, Salie,' he said. "'I'm mighty glad you understand. We're pals!' Unhesitatingly she gave him her hand, and in spite of the fact that death lurked outside, they smiled into each other's eyes. After that she went into her room. For half an hour Philip did not see her again. During that half hour he measured up the situation more calmly. He realized that the exigency was tremendously serious and that until now he had not viewed it with the dispassionate coolness that characterized the service of the uniform he wore. Salie was accountable for that. He confessed the fact to himself, not without a certain pleasurable satisfaction. He had allowed her presence and his thoughts of her to fill the adventure completely for him, and as a result they were now facing an appalling danger. If he had followed his own judgment and had made Bram Johnson a prisoner, as he should have done in his line of duty, matters would have stood differently. For several minutes after Salie had disappeared into her room he studied the actions of the wolves and the corral. A short time before he had considered a method of ridding himself of Bram's watchful beasts. Now he regarded them as the one greatest protection they possessed. There were seven left. He was confident they would give warning the moment the Eskimos approached the stockade again. But would their enemies return? The fact that only one man had attacked the wolves at a time was almost convincing evidence that they were very few in number, perhaps only a scouting party of three or four. Otherwise if they had come in force they would have made short work of the pack. The thought became a positive conviction as he looked through the window. Bram had fallen a victim to a single javelin, and the scouting party of Kogmaloks had attempted to complete their triumph by carrying Salie back with them to the main body. Foiled in this attempt, and with the knowledge that a new and armed enemy opposed them, they were possibly already on their way for reinforcements. If this were so there could be but one hope, and that was an immediate escape from the cabin. And between the cabin door and the freedom of the forest were Bram's seven wolves. A feeling of disgust, almost of anger swept over him as he drew Salie's little revolver from his pocket and held it in the palm of his hand. There were four cartridges left. But what would they avail against that horde of beasts? They would stop them no more than so many pinpricks. And what even would the club avail? Against two or three he might put up a fight, but against seven he cursed Bram under his breath. It was curious that in that same instant the thought flashed upon him that the wolf-man might not have fallen a victim to the Eskimos. Was it not possible that the spy in Kogmaloks had seen him go away on the hunt, and had taken advantage of the opportunity to attack the cabin? They had evidently thought their task would be an easy one. What Philip saw through the window set his pulse beating quickly with the belief that this last conjecture was the true one. The world outside was turning dark. The sky was growing thick and low. In half an hour a storm would break. The Eskimos had foreseen that storm. They knew that the trail taken in their flight, after they had possessed themselves of the girl, would very soon be hidden from the eyes of Bram and the keen scent of his wolves. So they had taken the chance. The chance to make Seili their prisoner before Bram returned. And why, Philip asked himself, did these savage little barbarians of the North want her? The fighting she had pictured for him had not startled him. For a long time the Kogmaloks had been making trouble. In the last year they had killed a dozen white men along the upper coast, including two American explorers and a missionary. Three patrols had been sent to Coronation Gulf and Bathurst Inlet since August. With the first of those patrols, headed by Olaf Andersen, the lead, he had come within an ace of going himself. A rumor had come down to Churchill just before he left for the barons that Olaf's party of five men had been wiped out. It was not difficult to understand why the Eskimos had attacked Seili Armin's father and those who had come ashore with him from the ship. It was merely a question of lust for white men's blood and white men's plunder and strangers in their country would naturally be regarded as easy victims. The mysterious and inexplicable part of the affair was their pursuit of the girl. In this pursuit the Kogmaloks had come far beyond the southernmost boundary of their hunting grounds. Philip was sufficiently acquainted with the Eskimos to know that in their veins ran very little of the red-blooded passion of the white man. Matehood was more of a necessity imposed by nature than a joy in their existence, and it was impossible for him to believe that even Seili Armin's beauty had roused the desire for possession among them. His attention turned to the gathering of the storm. The amazing swiftness with which the gray day was turning into the dark gloom of night fascinated him, and he almost called to Seili that she might look upon the phenomenon with him. It was piling in from the vast barrens to the north and east, and for a time it was accompanied by a stillness that was oppressive. He could no longer distinguish a movement in the tops of the cedars and bansion pine beyond the corral. In the corral itself he caught now and then the shadowy, flitting movement of the wolves. He did not hear Seili when she came out of her room. So intently was he straining his eyes to penetrate the thickening pall of gloom that he was unconscious of her presence until she stood close at his side. There was something in the awesome darkening of the world that brought them closer in that moment, and without speaking Philip found her hand and held it in his own. They heard then a low whispering sound, a sound that came creeping up out of the end of the world like a living thing. A whisper so vast that after a little it seemed to fill the universe, growing louder and louder until it was no longer a whisper but a moaning, shrieking wail. It was appalling as the first blast of it swept over the cabin. No other place in the world is there storm like the storm that sweeps over the great barren. No other place in the world where storm is filled with such a moaning, shrieking tumult of voice. It was not new to Philip. He had heard it when it seemed to him that ten thousand little children were crying under the rolling and twisting onrush of the clouds. He had heard it when it seemed to him the darkness was filled with an army of laughing, shrieking madmen, storm out of which rose piercing human shrieks and the sobbing grief of women's voices. It had driven people mad. Through the long dark night of winter, when for five months they caught no glimpse of the sun, even the little brown Eskimos went casquio and destroyed themselves because of the madness that was in that storm. And now it swept over the cabin and in Salih's throat there rose a little sob. So swiftly had darkness gathered that Philip could no longer see her except where her face made a pale shadow in the gloom. But he could feel the tremble of her body against him. Was it only this morning that he had first seen her, he asked himself? Was it not a long, long time ago, and had she not in that time become flesh and soul a part of him? He put out his arms, warm and trembling and unresisting in that thick gloom she lay within them. His soul rose in the wild ecstasy and rode in the wings of the storm. Closer he held her against his breast and he said, Nothing can hurt you, dear, nothing, nothing. It was a simple and meaningless thing to say, that and only that. And yet he repeated it over and over again, holding her closer and closer until her heart was throbbing against his own. Nothing can hurt you, nothing, nothing. He bent his head. Her face was turned up to him and suddenly he was thrilled by the warm sweet touch of her lips. He kissed her. She did not strain away from him. He felt in that darkness the wild fire in her face. Nothing can hurt you, nothing, nothing. He cried almost sobbingly in his happiness. Suddenly there came a blast of the storm that rocked the cabin like the butt of a battering ram. And in that same moment there came from just outside the window a shrieking cry such as Philip had never heard in all his life before. And following the cry there rose above the tumult of the storm the howling of Bram Johnson's wolves. End of Chapter 14. The Golden Snare by James Oliver Kerwood Chapter 15. For a space Philip thought that the cry must have come from Bram Johnson himself, that the wolf men had returned in the pit of the storm. Against his breast Célie had apparently seized to breathe. Both listened for a repetition of the sound or for a signal at the barred door. It was strange that in that moment the wind should die down until they could hear the throbbing of their own hearts. Célie's was pounding like a little hammer, and all at once he pressed his face down against hers and laughed with sudden and joyous understanding. It was only the wind, dear, he said. I never heard anything like it before. Never! It even fooled the wolves. Bless your dear little heart how it frightened you. And it was enough, too. Shall we light some of Bram's candles? He held her hand as he groped his way to where he had seen Bram's supply of bear dips. She held two of the candles while he lighted them, and their yellow flare illumined her face while his own was still in shadow. What he saw in its soft glow and the shine of her eyes made him almost take her in his arms again, candles and all. And then she turned with them and went to the table. He continued to light candles until the sputtering glow of half a dozen of them filled the room. It was a wretched wastefulness, but it was also a moment in which he felt himself fighting to get a hold of himself properly. And he felt also the desire to be prodigal about something. When he had lighted his sixth candle and then faced Célie, she was standing near the table, looking at him so quietly and so calmly, and with such a wonderful faith in her eyes that he thanked God devoutly he had kissed her only once, just that once. It was a thrilling thought to know that she knew he loved her. There was no doubt of it now. And the thought of what he might have done in that darkness and in the moment of her helplessness sickened him. He could look her straight in the eyes now, unashamed and glad. And she was unashamed, even if a little flushed at what had happened. The same thought was in their minds, and he knew that she was not sorry. Her eyes and the quivering tremble of a smile on her lips told him that. She had braided her hair in that interval when she had gone to her room, and the braid had fallen over her breast and laid there shimmering softly in the candle glow. He wanted to take her in his arms again. He wanted to kiss her on the mouth and eyes, but instead of that he took the silken braid gently in his two hands and crushed it against his lips. I love you, he cried softly. I love you. He stood for a moment or two with his head bowed, the thrill of her hair against his face. It was as if he was receiving some kind of a wonderful benediction, and then in a voice that trembled a little she spoke to him. Before he could see fully what was in her eyes she turned suddenly to the wall, took down his coat, and hung it over the window. When he saw her face again it was gloriously flushed. She pointed to the candles. No danger of that, he said, comprehending her. They won't throw any javelins in this storm. Listen. It was the wolves again. In a moment their cry was drowned in a crash of the storm that smote the cabin like a huge hand. Again it was wailing over them in a wild orgy of almost human tumult. He could see its swift effect on Céline in spite of her splendid courage. It was not like the surge of mere wind or the roll of thunder. Again he was inspired by thought of his pocket-atlas and opened it at the large insert-map of Canada. I'll show you why the wind does that, he explained to her, drawing her to the table and spreading out the map. See, here is the cabin. He made a little black dot with her pencil, and turning to the four walls of Bram Stronghold made her understand what it meant. And there's the big baron, he went on, tracing it out with a pencil-point. Up here you see is the Arctic Ocean, and away over there the Rose Welcome and Hudson's Bay. That's where the storm starts, and when it gets out on the baron without a tree or a rock to break its way for five hundred miles, he told of the twisting air currents there and how the storm clouds sometimes swept so low that they almost smothered one. For a few moments he did not look at, say, Lee, or he would have seen something in her face which could not have been because of what he was telling her, and which she could at best only partly understand. She had fixed her eyes on that little black dot. That was the cabin. For the first time the map told her where she was and possibly how she had arrived there. Straight down to that dot from the blue space of the ocean far to the north, the map-makers had trailed the course of the Coppermine River. Say Lee gave an excited little cry and caught Philip's arm, stopping him short on his explanation of the human wailings in the storm. Then she placed a forefinger on the river. There! There it is! She told him, as plainly as though her voice was speaking to him in his own language. We came down that river. The schoonert landed us there, and she pointed to the mouth of the Coppermine, where it emptied into Coronation Gulf. And then we came down, down, down! He repeated the name of the river. The Coppermine! She nodded, her breath breaking a little in an increasing excitement. She seized the pencil and two-thirds of the distance down the Coppermine made a cross. It was wonderful, he thought, how easily she made him understand. In a low, eager voice she was telling him that where she had put the cross the treacherous Cogmologs had first attacked them. She described with the pencil their flight away from the river, and after that their return, and a second fight. It was then Bram Johnson had come into the scene. And back there, at the point from which the Wolfman had fled with her, was her father. That was the chief thing she was striving to drive home in his comprehension of the situation. Her father! And she believed he was alive, for it was an excitement, instead of hopelessness or grief that possessed her as she talked to him. It gave him a sort of shock. He wanted to tell her, with his arms about her, that it was impossible, and that it was his duty to make her realize the truth. Her father was dead now, even if she had last seen him alive. The little brown men had got him, and had undoubtedly hacked him into small pieces, as was their custom when inspired by war madness. It was inconceivable to think of him as still being alive, even if there had been armed friends with him. There was Olaf Anderson and his five men, for instance. Fighters, every one of them, and now they were dead. What chance could this other man have? Her joy, when she saw that he understood her, added to the uncertainty which was beginning to grip him, in spite of all that the day had meant for him. Her faith in him, since that thrilling moment in the darkness, was more than ever like that of a child. She was unafraid of Bram now, she was unafraid of the wolves, and the storm, and the mysterious pursuers from out of the North. Into his keeping she had placed herself utterly, and while this knowledge filled him with a great happiness, he was now disturbed by the fact that, if they escaped from the cabin and the Eskimos, she believed he would return with her down the copper mine in an effort to find her father. He had already made the plans for their escape, and they were sufficiently hazardous. Their one chance was to strike south, across the thin arm of the barren, for Pierre Brio's cabin. To go in the opposite direction, farther north, without dogs or sledge, would be deliberate suicide. Several times during the afternoon he tried to bring himself to the point of urging on her the naked truth that her father was dead. There was no doubt of that, not the slightest. But each time he fell a little short. Her confidence in the belief that her father was alive, and that he was where she had marked the cross on the map, puzzled him. Was it conceivable, he asked himself, that the Eskimos had some reason for not killing Paul Armin, and that Seilly was aware of the fact? If so, he failed to discover it. Again and again he made Seilly understand that he wanted to know why the Eskimos wanted her, and each time she answered him with a hopeless little gesture, signifying that she did not know. He did learn that there were two other white men with Paul Armin. Only by looking at his watch did he know when the night closed in. It was seven o'clock when he led Seilly to her room and urged her to go to bed. An hour later, listening at her door, he believed that she was asleep. He had waited for that, and quietly he prepared for the hazardous undertaking he had set for himself. He put on his cap and coat and seized the club he had taken from Bram's bed. Then, very cautiously, he opened the outer door. A moment later he stood outside, the door closed behind him, with the storm pounding in his face. Fifty yards away he could not have heard the shout of a man, and yet he listened, gripping his club hard, every nerve in his body strained to a snapping tension. Somewhere within that small circle of the corral were Bram Johnson's wolves, and as he hesitated with his back to the door he prayed that there would come no lull in the storm during the next few minutes. It was possible that he might evade them with the crash and thunder of the gale about him. They could not see him, or hear him, or even smell him in that tumult of wind, unless on his way to the gate he ran into them. In that moment he would have given a year of life to have known where they were. Still listening, still fighting to hear some sound of them in the shriek of the storm, he took his first step out into the pit of darkness. He did not run, but went as cautiously as though the night was a dead calm, the club half-poised in his hands. He had measured the distance and the direction of the gate, and when at last he touched the saplings of the stockade he knew that he could not be far off in his reckoning. Ten paces to the right he found the gate and his heart gave a sudden jump of relief. Half a minute more and it was open. He propped it securely against the beat of the storm with the club he had taken from Bram Johnson's bed. Then he turned back to the cabin, with the little revolver clutched in his hand, and his face was strained and haggard when he found the door and returned again into the glow of the candlelight. In the center of the room her face as white as his own stood salie. A great fear must have gripped her, for she stood there in her sleeping-gown with her hands clutched at her breast, her eyes staring at him in speechless questioning. He explained by opening the door a bit and pantomiming to the gate outside the cabin. The wolves will be gone in the morning, he said, a ring of triumph in his voice. I have opened the gate. There is nothing in our way now. She understood. Her eyes were a glory to look into, then. Her fingers unclenched at her breast. She gave a short quick breath and a little cry, and her arms almost reached out to him. He was afraid of himself as he went to her and led her again to the door of her room. And there for a moment they paused, and she looked up into his face. Her hand crept from his and went softly to his shoulder. She said something to him, almost in a whisper, and he could no longer fight against the pride and the joy and the faith he saw in her eyes. He bent down slowly so that she might draw away from him if she desired, and kissed her upturned lips. And then, with a strange little cry that was like the soft note of a bird, she turned from him and disappeared into the darkness of her room. A great deal of that night's storm passed over his head unheard after that. It was late when he went to bed. He crowded Bram's long box stove with wood before he extinguished the last candle. And for an hour after that he lay awake, thinking of, say, Lee, and of the great happiness that had come into his life all in one day. During that hour he made the plans of a lifetime. Then he too fell into sleep, a restless, uneasy slumber filled with many visions. For a time there had come a lull in the gale, but now it broke over the cabin in increased fury. A hand seemed slapping at the window, threatening to break it, and a volley of wind and snow shot suddenly down the chimney, forcing open the stove door so that a shaft of ruddy light cut like a red knife through the dense gloom of the cabin. In varying ways the sounds played a part in Philip's dreams. In all those dreams and segments of dreams the girl was present. It was strange that in all of them she should be his wife, and it was strange that the big woods and the deep snows played no part in them. He was back home, and say Lee was with him. Once they went for wild flowers and were caught in a thunderstorm, and ran to an old and disused barn in the center of a field for shelter. He could feel say Lee trembling against him, and he was stroking her hair as the thunder crashed over them, and the lightning filled her eyes with fear. After that there came to him a vision of early autumn nights when they went corn roasting with other young people. He had always been afflicted with a slight nasal trouble, and smoke irritated him. It set him sneezing, and kept him dodging about the fire, and say Lee was laughing as the smoke persisted in following him about, like a young scamp of a boy bent on tormenting him. The smoke was unusually persistent on this particular night, until at last the laughter went out of the girl's face, and she ran into his arms and covered his eyes with her soft hands. Restlessly he tossed in his bunk and buried his face in the blanket that answered for a pillow. The smoke reached him, even there, and he sneezed chokingly. In that instant, say Lee's face disappeared. He sneezed again and awoke. In that moment his dazed senses adjusted themselves. The cabin was full of smoke. It partly blinded him, but through it he could see tongues of fire shooting toward the ceiling. He heard then the crackling of burning pitch, a dull and consuming roar, and, with a stifled cry, he leaped from his bunk and stood in his feet. Dazed by the smoke and flame, he saw that there was not the hundredth part of a second to lose. Shouting say Lee's name, he ran to her door, where the fire was already beginning to shut him out. His first cry had awakened her, and she was facing the lurid glow of the flame as he rushed in. Almost before she could comprehend what was happening, he had wrapped one of the heavy bearskins about her and had swept her into his arms. With her face crushed against his breast, he lowered his head and dashed back into the fiery holocaust of the outer room. The cabin, with its pitch-filled logs, was like a box made of tinder, and a score of men could not have beat out the fire that was raging now. The wind beating from the west had kept it from reaching the door opening into the corral, but the pitch was hissing and smoking at the threshold as Philip plunged through the blinding pall and fumbled for the latch. Not ten seconds too soon did he stagger with his burden out into the night. As the wind drove in through the open door, the flames seemed to burst in a sudden explosion, and the cabin was a seething snarl of flame. It burst through the window and out of the chimney, and Philip's path to the open gate was illumined by a fiery glow. Not until he had passed beyond the stockade to the edge of the forest did he stop and look back. Over their heads the wind wailed and moaned in the spruce tops, but even above that sound came the roar of the fire. Against his breast Philip heard a sobbing cry, and suddenly he held the girl closer and crushed his face down against hers, fighting to keep back the horror that was gripping at his heart. Even as he felt her arms creeping up out of the bare skin and clinging about his neck, he felt upon him like a weight of lead, the hopelessness of a despair as black as the night itself. The cabin was now a pillar of flame, and in it was everything that had made life possible for them. Food, shelter, clothing, all were gone. In this moment he did not think of himself but of the girl he held in his arms, and he strained her closer and kissed her lips and her eyes and her tumbled hair there in the storm-swept darkness, telling her what he knew was now a lie, that she was safe, that nothing could harm her. Against him he felt the tremble and throb of her soft body, and it was this that filled him with the horror of the thing, the terror of the thought that her one garment was a bare skin. He had felt a moment before the chilled touch of a naked little foot. And yet he kept saying with his face against hers, It's all right, little sweetheart. We'll come out all right. We sure will. End of Chapter 15. Recording by Roger Millean. Chapter 16 of The Golden Snare. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Millean. The Golden Snare by James Oliver Kerwood. Chapter 16. His first impulse, after those few appalling seconds following their escape from the fire, was to save something from the cabin. Still talking to Cély, he dropped on his knees and tucked her up warmly in the bare skin, with her back to a tree. He thanked God that it was a big skin and that it enveloped her completely. Leaving her there he ran back through the gate. He no longer feared the wolves. If they had not already escaped into the forest, he knew they would not attack him in that hot glare of the one thing above all others they feared—fire. For a space thought of the Eskimos and the probability of the fire bringing them from wherever they had sought shelter from the storm was secondary to the alarming necessity which faced him. Because of his restlessness and his desire to be ready for any emergency, he had not undressed when he threw himself on his bonk that night, but he was without a coat or cap. And Cély! He cried out aloud in his anguish, when he stopped just outside the deadline of the furnace of flame that was once the cabin, and standing there with clenched hands, he cursed himself for the carelessness that had brought her face to face with a peril deadlier than the menace of the Eskimos or Bram Johnson's Wolves. He alone was responsible. His indiscretion in overfilling the stove had caused the fire, and in that other moment, when he might have snatched up more than the bare skin, his mind had failed to act. In the short space he stood there helplessly in the red heat of the fire, the desperateness of the situation seared itself like the hot flame itself in his brain. As prisoners in Bram's cabin, guarded by the wolves and attacked by the Eskimos, they still had shelter, food, clothing, a chance to live, at least the chance to fight, and now he put a hand to his bare head and faced the direction of the storm. With the dying away of the wind, snow had begun to fall and with the snow he knew there would come a rising temperature. It was probably twenty degrees below zero, and unless the wind went down completely, his ears would freeze in an hour or two. Then he thought of the thick German socks he wore. One of them would do for a cap. His mind worked swiftly after that. There was, after all, a tremendous thrill in the thought of fighting the odds against him and in the thought of the girl waiting for him in the bare skin, her life depending upon him utterly now. Without him she could not move from the tree where he had left her unless her naked feet buried themselves in the snow. If something happened to him she would die. Her helplessness filled him suddenly with a wild exultation, the joy of absolute possession that leapt for an instant or two above his fears. She was something more, now, than the woman he loved. She was a little child, to be carried in his arms, to be sheltered from the wind and the cold, until the last drop of blood had ceased to flow in his veins. He was the mighty privilege now to mother her until the end came for them both, or some miracle saved them. The last barrier was gone from between them. That he had met her only yesterday was an unimportant incident now. The world had changed. Life had changed. A long time had passed. She belonged to him as utterly as the stars belong to the skies. In his arms she would find life or death. He was braced for the fight. His mind, riding over its first fears, began to shape itself for action, even as he turned back toward the edge of the forest. Until then he had not thought of the other cabin, the cabin which Bram and he had passed on their way in from the barren. His heart rose up suddenly in his throat and he wanted to shout. That cabin was their salvation. It was not more than eight or ten miles away and he was positive that he could find it. He ran swiftly through the increasing circle of light made by the burning logs. If the Eskimos had not gone far some one of them would surely see the red glow of the fire and discovery now meant death. In the edge of the trees where the shadows were deep he paused and looked back. His hands fumbled where the left pocket of his coat would have been and as he listened to the crackling of the flames and stared into the heart of the red glow there smote him with sudden and sickening force a realization of their deadliest peril. In that twisting inferno of burning pitch was his coat and in the left hand pocket of that coat were his matches. Fire! Out there in the open a seething, twisting mass of it, taunting him with its power, mocking him as pitiless as the mirage marks a thirst-crazed creature of the desert. In an hour or two it would be gone. He might keep up its embers for a time until the Eskimos or starvation or still greater storm put an end to it. The effort in any event would be futile in the end. There one chance lay in finding the other cabin and reaching it quickly. When it came to the point of absolute necessity he could at least try to make fire, as he had seen an Indian make it once, though at the time he had regarded the achievement as a miracle born of outnumbered generations of practice. He heard the glad note of welcome in Selie's throat when he returned to her. She spoke his name. It seemed to him that there was no note of fear in her voice, but just gladness that he had come back to her in that pit of darkness. He bent down and tucked her snugly in the big bear skin before he took her up in his arms again. He held her so that her face was snuggled close against his neck and he kissed her soft mouth again and whispered to her as he began picking his way through the forest. His voice whispering made her understand that they must make no sound. She was tightly imprisoned in the skin, but all at once he felt one of her hands work its way out of the warmth of it and lay against his cheek. It did not move away from his face. Out of her soul and body there passed through that contact of her hand the confession that made him equal to fighting the world. For many minutes after that neither of them spoke. The moan of the wind was growing less and less in the treetops and once Philip saw a pale break where the clouds had split asunder in the sky. The storm was at an end and it was almost dawn. In a quarter of an hour the shot like snow of the blizzard had changed to big soft flakes that dropped straight out of the clouds in a white deluge. By the time day came their trail would be completely hidden from the eyes of the Eskimos. Because of that Philip travelled as swiftly as the darkness and the roughness of the forest would allow him. As nearly as he could judge he kept due east. For a considerable time he did not feel the weight of the precious burden in his arms. He believed that they were at least half a mile from the burned cabin before he paused to rest. Even then he spoke to Cély in a low voice. He had stopped where the trunk of a fallen tree lay as high as his waist and on this he seated the girl holding her there in the crook of his arm. With his other hand he fumbled to see if the bearskin protected her fully and in the investigation his hand came in contact again with one of her bare feet. Cély gave a little jump. Then she laughed and he made sure that the foot was snug and warm before he went on. Twice in the next half-mile he stopped. The third time a full mile from the cabin was in a dense growth of spruce through the tops of which snow and wind did not penetrate. Here he made a nest of spruce boughs for Cély and they waited for the day. In the black interval that precedes Arctic Dawn they listened for sounds that might come to them. Just once came the wailing howl of one of Bram's wolves and twice Philip fancied that he heard the distant cry of a human voice. The second time Cély's fingers tightened about his own to tell him that she too had heard. A little later, leaving Cély alone, Philip went back to the edge of the spruce thicket and examined closely their trail where it had crossed a bit of open. It was not half an hour old yet the deluge of snow had almost obliterated the signs of their passing. His one hope was that the snowfall would continue for another hour. By that time there would not be a visible track of man or beast except in the heart of the thickets. But he knew that he was not dealing with white men or Indians now. The Eskimos were night trackers and night hunters. For five months out of every twelve their existence depended upon their ability to stalk and kill in darkness. If they had returned to the burning cabin it was possible, even probable, that they were close on their heels now. For a second time he found himself a stout club. He waited, listening, and straining his eyes to penetrate the thick gloom. And then, as his own heartbeats came to him audibly, he felt creeping over him a slow and irresistible foreboding, a premonition of something impending, of a great danger close at hand. His muscles grew tense, and he clutched the club, ready for action. End of Chapter 16, Recording by Roger Maline, Chapter 17 of The Golden Snare. The Golden Snare by James Oliver Curwood, Chapter 17. It seemed to Philip, as he stood with the club ready in his hand, that the world had ceased to breathe in its anticipation of the thing for which he was waiting and listening. The wind had dropped dead. There was not a rustle in the treetops, not a sound to break the stillness. The silence, so close after storm, was an arctic phenomenon which did not astonish him, and yet the effect of it was almost painfully gripping. Minor sounds began to impress themselves on his senses, the soft murmur of the falling snow, his own breath, the pounding of his heart. He tried to throw off the strange feeling that oppressed him, but it was impossible. Out there in the darkness he would have sworn that there were eyes and ears strained as his own were strained. And the darkness was lifting. Shadows began to disentangle themselves from the gray chaos. Trees and bushes took form, and over his head the last heavy windrows of clouds shouldered their way out of the sky. Still, as the twilight of dawn took the place of night, he did not move, except to draw himself a little closer into the shelter of the scrub sprues behind which he had hidden himself. He wondered if Célie would be frightened at his absence. But he could not compel himself to go on or back. Something was coming. He was as positive of it as he was of the fact that night was giving place to day. Yet he could see nothing, hear nothing. It was light enough now for him to see movement fifty yards away, and he kept his eyes fastened on the little open across which their trail had come. If Olaf Andersen, the Swede, had been there, he might have told him of another night like this and another vigil. For Olaf had learned that the Eskimos, like the wolves, trail two by two and four by four, and that, again like the wolves, they pursue not on the trail, but with the trail between them. But it was the trail that Philip watched, and as he kept his vigil, that inexplicable mental undercurrent telling him that his enemies were coming, his mind went back sharply to the girl a hundred yards behind him. The acuteness of the situation sent question after question rushing through his mind, even as he gripped his club. For her he was about to fight. For her he was ready to kill and not afraid to die. He loved her, and yet she was a mystery. He had held her in his arms, had felt her heart beating against his breast, had kissed her lips and her eyes and her hair, and her response had been to place herself utterly within the shelter of his arms. She had given herself to him, and he was possessed of the strength of one about to fight for his own. And with that strength the questions pounded again in his head. Who was she? And for what reason were mysterious enemies coming after her through the gray dawn? In that moment he heard a sound. His heart stood suddenly still. He held his breath. It was a sound almost indistinguishable from the whisper of the air and the trees, and yet it smote upon his senses like the detonation of a thunder-clap. It was more of a presence than a sound. The trail was clear. He could see to the far side of the open now, and there was no movement. He turned his head, slowly and without movement of his body, and in that instant a gasp rose to his lips and died there. Scarcely a dozen paces from him stood a poised and hooded figure, a squat, fire-eyed apparition that looked more like monster than man in that first glance. Something acted within him that was swifter than reason, a subconscious instinct that works for self-preservation like the flash of powder in a pan. It was this subconscious self that received the first photographic impression, the strange poise of the hooded creature, the uplifted arm, the cold, streaky gleam of something in the dawn-light, and in response to that impression Philip's physical self crumpled down in the snow as a javelin hissed through the space where his head and shoulders had been. So infinitesimal was the space of time between the throwing of the javelin and Philip's movement that the Eskimo believed he had transfixed his victim. A scream of triumph rose in his throat. It was the kagamalak sakutwau, the blood cry, a single shriek that split the air for a mile. It died in another sort of cry. From where he had dropped Philip was up like a shot. His club swung through the air and before the amazed hooded creature could dart either to one side or the other it had fallen with crushing force. That one blow must have smashed his shoulder to a pulp. As the body lurched downward another blow caught the hooded head squarely and the beginning of a second cry ended in a sickening grunt. The force of the blow carried Philip half off his feet and before he could recover himself two other figures had rushed upon him from out of the gloom. Their cries as they came at him were like cries of beasts. Philip had no time to use his club. From his unbalanced position he flung himself upward and at the nearest of his enemies, saving himself from the upraised javelin by clenching. His fist shot out and cut the eskimo squarely in the mouth. He struck again and the javelin dropped from the cockamalock's hand. In that moment every vein in his body pounding with the rage and excitement of battle Philip led out a yell. The end of it was stifled by a pair of furry arms. His head snapped back and he was down. A thrill of horror shot through him. It was the one unconquerable fighting trick of the eskimos, that neck hold. Cut from behind there was no escape from it. It was the age-old Sasaki Wichikun or sacrifice hold, an inheritance that came down from father to son, the arctic jujitsu by which one cockamalock holds the victim helpless while a second cuts out his heart. Flat on his back with his head and shoulders bent under him, Philip lay still for a single instant. He heard the shrill command of the eskimo over him, an exhortation for the other to hurry up with the knife. And then, even as he heard a grunting reply, his hand came in contact with the pocket which held Sele's little revolver. He drew it quickly, cocked it under his back, and twisting his arm until the elbow joint cracked he fired. It was a chance shot. The powder flash burned the murderous thick-lipped face in the Seelstin Hood. There was no cry, no sound that Philip heard, but the arms relaxed about his neck. He rolled over and sprang to his feet. Three or four paces from him was the eskimo he had struck, crawling toward him on his hands and knees, still dazed by the blows he had received. In the snow Philip saw his club. He picked it up and replaced the revolver in his pocket. A single blow as the groggy eskimo staggered to his feet and the fight was over. It had taken perhaps three or four minutes, no longer than that. His enemies lay in three dark and motionless heaps in the snow. Fate had played a strong hand with him. Almost by a miracle he had escaped, and at least two of the eskimos were dead. He was still watchful, still guarding against a further attack, and suddenly he whirled to face a figure that brought from him a cry of astonishment and alarm. It was Sele. She was standing ten paces from him, and in the wild terror that had brought her to him she had left the bearskin behind. Her naked feet were buried in the snow. Her arms, partly bared, were reaching out to him in the gray arctic dawn. And then wildly and morningly there came to him, Philip, Philip! He sprang to her a choking cry on his own lips. This, after all, was the last proof when she had thought that their enemies were killing him, she had come to him. He was sobbing her name like a boy as he ran back with her in his arms. Almost fiercely he wrapped the bearskin about her again, and then crushed her so closely in his arms that he could hear her gasping faintly for breath. In that wild and glorious moment he listened. A cold and leaden day was breaking over the world, and as they listened their hearts throbbing against each other the same sound came to them both. It was the Secoutois, the savage shrieking blood cry of the Kugmalaks, a scream that demanded an answer of the three hooded creatures who, a few minutes before, had attacked Philip in the edge of the open. The cry came from perhaps a mile away, and then faintly it was answered far to the west. For a moment Philip pressed his face down to Célyse. In his heart was a prayer, for he knew that the fight had only begun. End of Chapter 17. CHAPTER XVIII That the Eskimos, both to the east and the west, were more than likely to come their way, converging toward the central cry that was now silent Philip was sure. In the brief interval in which he had to act he determined to make use of his fallen enemies. This he impressed on Célyse's alert mind before he ran back to the scene of the fight. He made no more than a swift observation of the field in these first moments, did not even look for weapons. His thought was entirely of Célyse. The smallest of the three forms on the snow was the kogmalak he had struck down with his club. He dropped on his knees and took off first the seal-skin bachlik, or hood. Then he began stripping the dead man of his other garments. From the fur coat to the caribou-skin moccasins they were comparatively new. With them in his arms he hurried back to the girl. It was not a time for fine distinctions. The clothes were a godsend, though they had come from a dead man's back, and an Eskimos at that. Célyse's eyes shone with joy. It amazed him more than ever to see how unafraid she was in this hour of great danger. She was busy with the clothes almost before his back was turned. He returned to the Eskimos. The three were dead. It made him shudder, one with a tiny bullet hole squarely between the eyes, and the others crushed by the blows of the club. His hand fondled Célyse's little revolver, the pea-shooter he had laughed at. After all, it had saved his life. And the club! He did not examine too closely there. From the man he had struck with his naked fist he outfitted himself with a hood and temiak, or coat. In the temiak there were no pockets, but at the waist of each of the dead men a narwhal skin pouch which answered for all pockets. He tossed the three pouches in a little heap on the snow before he searched for weapons. He found two knives and half a dozen of the murderous little javelins. One of the knives was still clutched in the hand of the Eskimo who was creeping up to disembowel him when Célyse revolver saved him. He took this knife because it was longer and sharper than the other. On his knees he began to examine the contents of the three pouches. In each was the inevitable role of babish, or caribou skin cord, and a second and smaller waterproof narwhal bag in which the Kogmalak fire materials. There was no food. This fact was evident proof that the Eskimos were in camp somewhere in the vicinity. He had finished his investigation of the pouches when looking up from his kneeling posture he saw Célyse approaching. In spite of the grimness of the situation he could not repress a smile as he rose to greet her. At fifty paces even with her face toward him one would easily make the error of mistaking her for an Eskimo as the seal-skin bush leak was so large that it almost entirely concealed her face except when one was very close to her. Philip's first assistance was to roll back the front of the hood. Then he pulled her thick braid out from under the coat and loosed the shining glory of her hair until it enveloped her in a wonderful shimmering mantle. Their enemies could not mistake her for a man now even at a hundred yards. If they ran into an ambuscade she would at least be saved from the javelins. Célyse scarcely realized what he was doing. She was staring at the dead men, silent proof of the deadly menace that had threatened them and of the terrific fight Philip must have made. A strange note rose in her throat and turning toward him suddenly she flung herself into his arms. Her own arms encircled his neck and for a space she lay shudderingly against his breast as if sobbing. How many times he kissed her in those moments Philip could not have told. It must have been a great many. He knew only that her arms were clinging tighter and tighter about his neck and that she was whispering his name and that his hands were buried in her soft hair. He forgot time, forgot the possible cost of precious seconds lost. It was a small thing that recalled him to his senses. From out of a spruce top a handful of snow fell on his shoulder. It startled him like the touch of a strange hand and in another moment he was explaining swiftly to Célyse that there were other enemies near and that they must lose no time in flight. He fastened one of the pouches at his waist, picked up his club, and on second thought one of the Cogmolec javelins. He had no very definite idea of how he might use the latter weapon as it was too slender to be of much avail as a spear at closed quarters. At a dozen paces he might possibly throw it with some degree of accuracy. In a Cogmolec's hand it was a deadly weapon at a hundred paces. With the determination to be at his side when the next fight came Célyse possessed herself of a second javelin. With her hand in his Philip set out then, due north, through the forest. It was in that direction he knew the cabin must lay. After striking the edge of the timber, after crossing the barren, Bram Johnson had turned almost directly south, and as he remembered the last lap of the journey Philip was confident that not more than eight or ten miles had separated the two cabins. He regretted now his carelessness in not watching Bram's trail more closely in that last hour or two. His chief hope of finding the cabin was in the discovery of some landmark at the edge of the barren. He recalled distinctly where they had turned into the forest, and in less than half an hour after that they had come upon the first cabin. Their immediate necessity was not so much the finding of the cabin as escape from the Eskimos. Within half an hour, perhaps even less, he believed that other eyes would know of the fight at the edge of the open. It was inevitable. If the Cogmolecs on either side of them struck the trail before it reached the open, they would very soon run upon the dead, and if they came upon footprints in the snow, this side of the open, they would back trail swiftly to learn the source and meaning of the cry of triumph that had not repeated itself. Cély's little feet, clad in moccasins twice too big for her, dragged in the snow in a way that would leave no doubt in the Eskimo mind. As Philip saw the situation, there was one chance for them, and only one. They could not escape by means of strategy. They could not hide from their pursuers. Hope depended entirely upon the number of the enemies. If there were only three or four of them left, they would not attack in the open. In that event he must watch for ambuscade and dread the night. He looked down at Cély, buried in her furry coat and hood and plotting along courageously at his side with her hand in his. This was not a time in which to question him, and she was obeying his guidance with the faith of a child. It was tremendous, he thought, the most wonderful moment that had ever entered into his life. It is this dependence, this sublime faith and confidence in him of the woman he loves that gives to a man the strength of a giant in the face of a great crisis, and makes him put up a tiger's fight for her. For such a woman a man must win. And then Philip noticed how tightly Cély's other hand was gripping the javelin with which she had armed herself. She was ready to fight, too. The thrill of it all made him laugh, and her eyes shot up to him suddenly, filled with a moment's wonder that he should be laughing now. She must have understood, for the big hood hid her face again almost instantly, and her fingers tightened the smallest bit about his. For a matter of a quarter of an hour they traveled as swiftly as Cély could walk. Philip was confident that the Eskimo whose cries they had heard would strike directly for the point once the first cry had come, and it was his purpose to cover as much distance as possible in the first few minutes that their enemies might be behind them. It was easier to watch the back trail than to guard against ambiscades ahead. Twice in that time he stopped where they would be unseen and looked back, and in advancing he picked out the thinnest timber and evaded whatever might have afforded a hiding place to a javelin thrower. They had progressed another half-mile when suddenly they came upon a snowshoe trail in the snow. It had crossed at right angles to their own course, and as Philip bent over it a sudden lump rose into his throat. The other Eskimos had not worn snowshoes. That in itself had not surprised him, for the snow was hard and easily traveled in moccasins. The fact that amazed him now was that the trail under his eyes had not been made by Eskimo Usamox. The tracks were long and narrow. The web imprint in the snow was not that of the broad narwhal strip, but the finer mesh of Babish. It was possible that an Eskimo was wearing them, but they were a white man's shoes. And then he made another discovery. For a dozen paces he followed in the trail, allowing six inches with each step he took as the snowshoe handicap, even at that he could not easily cover the tracks. The man who had made them had taken a longer snowshoe stride than his own by at least nine inches. He could no longer keep the excitement of his discovery from Céline. The Eskimo never lived who could make that track, he exclaimed. They can travel fast enough, but they're a bunch of runts when it comes to legswing. It's a white man, or bram. The announcement of the wolf-man's name and Philip's gesture toward the trail drew a quick little cry of understanding from Céline. In a flash she had darted to the snowshoe tracks and was examining them with eager intensity. Then she looked up and shook her head. It wasn't bram. She pointed to the tail of the shoe and catching up a twig broke it under Philip's eyes. He remembered now. The end of bram's shoes was snubbed short off. There was no evidence to that defect in the snow. It was not bram who had passed that way. For a space he stood undecided. He knew that Céline was watching him, that she was trying to learn something of the tremendous significance of that moment from his face. The same unseen force that had compelled him to wait and watch for his foes a short time before seemed urging him now to follow the strange snowshoe trail. Enemy or friend, the maker of those tracks would at least be armed. The thought of what a rifle and a few cartridges would mean to him and Céline now brought a low cry of decision from him. He turned quickly to Céline. He's going east, and we ought to go north to find the cabin, he told her, pointing to the trail. But we'll follow him. I want his rifle. I wanted more than anything else in this world, now that I've got you. We'll follow. If there had been a shadow of hesitation in his mind, it was ended in that moment. From behind them there came a strange hooting cry. It was not a yell such as they had heard before. It was a booming, far-reaching note that had in it the intonation of a drum, a sound that made one shiver because of its very strangeness. And then, from farther west, it came. Whom! Whom! Whom! In the next half-minute it seemed to fill up that the cry was answered from half a dozen different quarters. Then again it came from directly behind them. Céline uttered a little gasp as she clung to his hand again. She understood as well as he. One of the Eskimos had discovered the dead, and their foes were gathering in behind them. End of Chapter 18 Recording by Roger Maline Chapter 19 Of The Golden Snare Before the last of the cries had died away, Philip flung far to one side of the trail, the javelin he carried, and followed it up with Céline's, impressing on her that every ounce of additional weight meant a handicap for them now. After the javelins went his club. It's going to be the biggest race I've ever run, he smiled at her, and we've got to win, if we don't. Céline's eyes were glow as she looked at him. He was splendidly calm. There was no longer a trace of excitement in his face, and he was smiling at her, even as he picked her up suddenly in his arms. The movement was so unexpected that she gave a little gasp. Then she found herself born swiftly over the trail. For a distance of a hundred yards, Philip ran with her before he placed her on her feet again. In no better way could he have impressed on her that they were partners in a race against death, and that every energy must be expended in that race. Scarcely had her feet touched the snow than she was running at his side, her hand clasped in his. Barely a second was lost. With the swift directness of the trained man-hunter, Philip had measured his chances of winning. The Eskimos, first of all, would gather about their dead. After one or two formalities they would join in a chattering council, all of which meant precious time for them. The pursuit would be more or less cautious because of the bullet hole in the cock-mullock's forehead. If it had been possible for Saley to ask him just what he expected to gain by following the strange snowshoot trail, he would have had difficulty in answering. It was, like his single shot with Saley's little revolver, a chance gamble against big odds. A number of possibilities had suggested themselves to him. It even occurred to him that the man who was hurrying toward the east might be a member of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. Of one thing, however, he was confident. The maker of the tracks would not be armed with javelins. He would have a rifle. Friend or foe, he was after that rifle. The trick was to catch sight of him at the earliest possible moment. How much of a lead the stranger had was a matter at which he could guess with considerable accuracy. The freshness of the trail was only slightly dimmed by snow, which was ample proof that it had been made at the very tail end of the storm. He believed that it was not more than an hour old. For a good two hundred yards, Philip set a dog-trot pace for Saley, who ran courageously at his side. At the end of that distance he stopped. Saley was panting for breath. Her hood had slipped back and her face was flushed like a wildflower by her exertion. Her eyes, shown like stars, and her lips were parted a little. She was temptingly lovely, but again Philip lost not a second of unnecessary time. He picked her up in his arms again and continued the race. By using every ounce of his own strength and endurance in this way, he figured that their progress would be at least a third faster than the Eskimos would follow. The important question was how long he could keep up the pace. Against his breast, Saley was beginning to understand his scheme as plainly as if he had explained it to her in words. At the end of the four hundred yards she let him know that she was ready to run another lap. He carried her on fifty yards more before he placed her on her feet. In this way they had gone three quarters of a mile when the trail turned abruptly from its easterly course to a point of the compass due north. So sharp was the turn that Philip paused to investigate the sudden change in direction. The stranger had evidently stood for several minutes at this point, which was close to the blasted stub of a dead spruce. In the snow Philip observed for the first time a number of dark brown spots. Here is where he took a new bearing and a chew of tobacco, said Philip, more to himself than to Saley. And there's no snow in his tracks. By George I don't believe he's got more than half an hour start of us this minute. It was his turn to carry Saley again, and in spite of her protest that she was still good for another run he resumed their pursuit of the stranger with her in his arms. By her quick breathing and the bit of tensioness that had gathered about her mouth he knew that the exertion she had already been put to was having its effect on her. For her little feet and slender body, the big moccasins and cumbersome fur garments she wore were a burden in themselves, even at a walk. He found that by holding her higher in his arms, with her own arms encircling his shoulders, it was easier to run with her at the pace he had set for himself. And when he held her in this way her hair covered his breast and shoulders so that now and then his face was smothered in the velvety sweetness of it. The caress of it and the thrill of her arms about him spurred him on. Once he made three hundred yards, but he was gulping for breath when he stopped. That time Saley compelled him to let her run a little farther, and when they paused she was swaying on her feet and panting. He carried her only a hundred and fifty yards in the interval after that. Both realized what it meant. The pace was telling on them. The strain of it was in Saley's eyes. The flower-like flush of her first exertion was gone from her face. It was pale and a little haggard, and in Philip's face she saw the beginning of the things which she did not realize was betraying itself so plainly in her own. She put her hands up to his cheeks and smiled. It was tremendous that moment. Her courage, her splendid pride in him, her manner of telling him that she was not afraid as her little hands lay against his face. For the first time he gave way to his desire to hold her close to him and kiss the sweet mouth she held up to his as her head nestled on his breast. After a moment or two he looked at his watch. Since striking the strange trail they had traveled forty minutes. In that time they had covered at least three miles and were a good four miles from the scene of the fight. It was a big start. The Eskimos were undoubtedly a half that distance behind them and the stranger whom they were following could not be far ahead. They went on at a walk. For the third time they came to a point in the trail where the stranger had stopped to make observations. It was apparent to Philip that the man he was after was not quite sure of himself. Yet he did not hesitate in the course due north. For half an hour they continued in that direction. Not for an instant now did Philip allow his caution to lag. Eyes and ears were alert for sound or movement either behind or ahead of them and more and more frequently he turned to scan the back trail. They were at least five miles from the edge of the open where the fight had occurred when they came to the foot of a ridge and Philip's heart gave a sudden thump of hope. He remembered that ridge. It was a curiously formed hogback like a great windrow of snow piled up and frozen. Probably it was miles in length. Somewhere he and Bram had crossed it soon after passing the first cabin. He had not tried to tell Cély of this cabin. Time had been too precious. But now in the short interval of rest he allowed themselves he drew a picture of it in the snow and made her understand that it was somewhere close to the ridge and that it looked as though the stranger was making for it. He half carried Cély up the ridge after that. She could not hide from him that her feet were dragging even at a walk. Exhaustion showed in her face and once when she tried to speak to him her voice broke in a little gasping sob. On the far side of the ridge he took her in his arms and carried her again. It can't be much farther, he encouraged her. We've got to overtake him pretty soon, dear. Mighty soon. Her hand pressed gently against his cheek and he swallowed a thickness that in spite of his effort gathered in his throat. During that last half hour a different look had come into her eyes. It was there now as she lay limply with her head on his breast, a look of unutterable tenderness and of something else. It was that which brought the thickness into his throat. It was not fear. It was the soft glow of a great love and of understanding. She knew that even he was almost at the end of his fight. His endurance was giving out. One of two things must happen very soon. She continued to stroke his cheek gently until he placed her on her feet again and then she held one of his hands close to her breast as they looked behind them and listened. He could feel the soft throbbing of her heart. If he needed greater courage then it was given to him. They went on. And then so suddenly that had brought a stifled cry from the girl's lips they came upon the cabin. It was not a hundred yards from them when they first saw it. It was no longer abandoned. A thin spiral of smoke was rising from the chimney. There was no sign of life other than that. For half a minute Philip stared at it. Here at last was the final hope. Life or death, all that the world might hold for him and the girl at his side was in that cabin. Gently he drew her so that she would be unseen. And then, still looking at the cabin, he drew off his coat and dropped it in the snow. It was the preparation of a man about to fight. The look of it was in his face and the stiffening of his muscles, and when he turned to his little companion she was as white as the snow under her feet. Where in time, he breathed, you, you stay here. She understood. Her hands clutched at him as he left her. A gulp rose in her throat. She wanted to call out. She wanted to hold him back or go with him. Yet she obeyed. She stood with a heart that choked her and watched him go. For she knew, after all, that it was the thing to do. Sobbingly she breathed his name. It was a prayer. For she knew what would happen in the cabin. CHAPTER XX Philip came up behind the windowless end of the cabin. He noticed in passing, with Bram, that on the opposite side was a trap window of saplings, and toward this he moved swiftly but with caution. It was still closed when he came where he could see. But with his ear close to the chinks he heard a sound, the movement of someone inside. For an instant he looked over his shoulder. Selie was standing where he had left her. He could almost feel the terrible suspense that was in her eyes as she watched him. He moved around toward the door. There was in him an intense desire to have it over with quickly. His pulse quickened as the thought grew in him that the maker of the strange snowshoe trail might be a friend after all. But how was he to discover that fact? He had decided to take no chances in the matter. Ten seconds of misplaced faith in the stranger might prove fatal. Once he held a gun in his hands he would be in a position to wait for introductions and explanations. But until then, with their Eskimo enemies close at their heels, his mind did not finish that final argument, the end of it smashed upon him in another way. The door came within his vision. As it swung inward he could not at first see whether it was open or closed. Leaning against the logs close to the door was a pair of long snowshoes and a bundle of javelins. A sickening disappointment swept over him as he stared at the javelins. A giant Eskimo and not a white man had made the trail they had followed. Their race against time had brought them straight to the rendezvous of their foes and there would be no guns. In that moment when all the hopes he had built up seemed slipping away from under him he could see no other possible significance in the presence of the javelins. Then for an instant he held his breath and sniffed the air like a dog getting the wind. The cabin door was open. And out through that door came the mingling aroma of coffee and tobacco. An Eskimo might have tobacco or even tea, but coffee never. Every drop of blood in his body pounded like tiny beating fists as he crossed silently and swiftly the short space between the corner of the cabin and the open door. For perhaps half a dozen seconds he closed his eyes to give his snow-strained vision an even chance with the man in the cabin. Then he looked in. It was a small cabin. It was possibly not more than ten feet square inside and at the far end of it was a fireplace from which rose the chimney through the roof. At first Philip saw nothing except the dim outlines of things. It was a moment or two before he made out the figure of a man stooping over the fire. He stepped over the threshold, making no sound. The occupant of the cabin straightened himself slowly, lifting with extreme care a pot of coffee from the embers. A glance at his broad back and his giant stature told Philip that he was not an Eskimo. He turned. Even then for an infinitesimal space he did not see Philip as he stood fronting the door with the light in his face. It was a white man's face, a face almost hidden in a thick growth of beard and a tangle of hair that fell to the shoulders. Another instant and he had seen the intruder and stood like one turned suddenly into stone. Philip had leveled Silly's little revolver. I am Philip Rain of his Majesty's service, the royal mounted, he said. Throw up your hands! The moment's tableau was one of rigid amazement on one side, of waiting tenseness on the other. Philip believed that the shadow of his body concealed the size of the tiny revolver in his hand. Anyway, it would be effective at that distance, and he expected to see the mysterious stranger's hand go over his head, the moment he recovered from the shock that had apparently gone with the command. What did happen, he expected least of all. The arm holding the pot of steaming coffee shot out and the boiling deluge hissed straight at Philip's face. He ducked to escape it and fired. Before he could throw back the hammer of the little single action weapon for a second shot, the stranger was at him. The force of the attack sent them both crashing back against the wall of the cabin, and in the few moments that followed Philip blessed the providential forethought that had made him throw off his fur coat and strip for action. His antagonist was not an ordinary man. A growl like that of a beast rose in his throat as they went to the floor and in that death grip Philip thought of Bram. More than once in watching the wolf-man he had planned how he would pit himself against the giant if it came to a fight, and how he would evade the close armed arm grapple that would mean defeat for him. And this man was Bram's equal in size and strength. He realized with the swift judgment of the trained boxer that open fighting and the evasion of the other's crushing brute strength was his one hope. On his knees he flung himself backward and struck out. The blow caught his antagonist squarely on the face before he had succeeded in getting a firm clench, and as he bent backward under the force of the blow Philip exerted every ounce of his strength, broke the other's hold, and sprang to his feet. He felt like uttering a shout of triumph. Never had the thrill of mastery and of confidence surged through him more hutly than it did now. On his feet in open fighting he had the agility of a cat. The stranger was scarcely on his feet before he was at him with a straight shoulder blow that landed on the giant jaw with crushing force. It would have put an ordinary man down in a limp heap. The other's weight saved him. A second blow sent him reeling against the log wall like a sack of grain. And then in the half-gloom of the cabin Philip missed. He put all his effort in that third blow, and as his clenched fist shot over the other's shoulder he was carried off his balance and found himself again in the clutch of his enemy's arms. This time a huge hand found his throat. The other he blocked with his left arm while with his right he drove in short arm jabs against neck and jaw. Their ineffectiveness amazed him. His guard arm was broken upward and to escape the certain result of two hands gripping at his throat he took a sudden foot lock on his adversary, flung all his weight forward, and again they went to the floor of the cabin. Neither caught a glimpse of the girl standing wide-eyed and terrified in the door. They rolled almost to her feet. Full in the light she saw the battered bleeding face of the strange giant and Philip's fist striking it again and again. Then she saw the giant's two hands and why he was suffering that punishment. They were at Philip's throat, huge hairy hands stained with his own blood. A cry rose to her lips and the blue in her eyes darkened with the fighting fire of her ancestors. She darted across the room to the fire. In an instant she was back with a stick of wood in her hands. Philip saw her then, her streaming hair and white face above them and the club fell. The hands at his throat relaxed. He swayed to his feet and with dazed eyes and a weird sort of laugh opened his arms. Saley ran into them. He felt her sobbing and panting against him. Then, looking down, he saw that for the present the man who had made the strange snowshoe trail was as good as dead. The air he was taking into his half strangled lungs cleared his head and he drew away from Saley to begin the search of the room. His eyes were more accustomed to the gloom and suddenly he gave a cry of exultation. Against the end of the mud and stone fireplace stood a rifle and over the muzzle of this hung a belt and holster. In the holster was a revolver. In his excitement and joy his breath was almost a sob as he snatched it from the holster and broke it in the light of the door. It was a big colt-45 and loaded to the brim. He showed it to Saley and thrust her to the door. Watch! he cried, sweeping his arms to the open. Just two minutes more. That's all I want. Two minutes. And then... He was counting the cartridges in the belt as he fastened it about his waist. There were at least forty, two-thirds of them soft-nosed rifle. The caliber was .303 and the gun was a savage. It was modern up to the minute and as he threw down the lever enough to let him glimpse inside the breach he caught the glisten of cartridges ready for action. He wanted nothing more. The cabin might have held his weight in gold and he would not have turned toward it. With the rifle in his hands he ran past Saley out into the day. For the moment the excitement pounding in his body had got beyond his power of control. His brain was running riot with the joyous knowledge of the might that lay in his hands now, and he felt an overmastering desire to shout his triumph in the face of their enemies. Come on, you devils! Come on! Come on! he cried. And then, powerless to restrain what was in him, he led out a yell. From the door Saley was staring at him. A few moments before her face had been dead white. Now a blaze of color was surging back into her cheeks and lips and her eyes shown with the glory of one who was looking on more than triumph. From her own heart welled up a cry, a revelation of that wonderful thing throbbing in her breast which must have reached Philip's ears had there not been in that same instant come another sound to startle them both into listening silence. It was not far distant, and it was unmistakably an answer to Philip's challenge. The cry came again. This time Philip caught in it a note that he had not detected before. It was not a challenge, but the long-drawn matui of an Eskimo who answers the inquiring hail of a comrade. He thinks it is the man in the cabin, exclaimed Philip, turning to survey the fringe of forest through which their trail had come. If the others don't warn him, there's going to be one less Eskimo on earth in less than three minutes. Another sound had drawn Célie back to the door. When she looked in the man she had stunned with the club was moving. Her call brought Philip and placing her in the open door to keep watch he set swiftly to work to make sure of their prisoner. With the babish thong he had taken from his enemies he bound him hand and foot. A shaft of light fell full on the giant's face and naked chest where it had been laid bare in the struggle, and Philip was about to rise when a purplish patch of tattooing caught his eyes. He made out first the crude picture of a shark with huge gaping jaws struggling under the weight of a ship's anchor, and then directly under this pigment colored tattoo the almost invisible letters of a name. He made them out one by one. B-L-A-K-E. Before the surname was the letter G. Blake, he repeated, rising to his feet. George Blake, a sailor and a white man. Blake returning to consciousness mumbled incoherently. In the same instant Célie cried out excitedly at the door. Oui, Philippe, Philippe, c'est-de, c'est, c'est. She drew back with a sudden movement and pointed out the door. Concealing himself as much as possible from outside observation, Philip peered forth. Not more than a hundred and fifty yards away a dog-team was approaching. There were eight dogs, and instantly he recognized them as the small, fox-faced Eskimo breed from the coast. They were dragging a heavily laden sledge, and behind them came the driver, a furred and hooded figure, squat of stature, and with a voice that came now in the sharp clacking commands that Philip had heard in the company of Bram Johnson. From the floor came a groan, and for an instant Philip turned to find Blake's bloodshot eyes wide open and staring at him. The giant's bleeding lips were gathered in a snarl, and he was straining at the babish thongs that bound him. In that same moment Philip caught a glimpse of Célie. She too was staring and at Blake. Her lips were parted, her eyes were big with amazement, and as she looked she clutched her hands convulsively at her breast and uttered a low, strange cry. For the first time she saw Blake's face with the light full upon it. At the sound of her cry Blake's eyes went to her, and for the space of a second the imprisoned beast on the floor and the girl looking down on him made up a tableau that held Philip's spellbound. Between them was recognition, an amazed and stone-like horror on the girl's part, a sudden and growing glare of bestial exultation in the eyes of the man. Suddenly there came the Eskimo's voice and the yapping of dogs. It was the first Blake had heard. He swung his head toward the door with a great gasp and the babish cut like whip cord under the strain of his muscles. Swift as a flash Philip thrust the muzzle of the big colt against his prisoner's head. Make a sound and you're a dead man, Blake, he warned. We need that team, and if you so much as whisper during the next ten seconds I'll scatter your brains over the floor. They could hear the cold creak of the sledge-runners now, and a moment later the patter of many feet outside the door. In a single leap Philip was at the door. Another, and he was outside, and an amazed Eskimo was looking into the round black eye of his revolver. It required no common language to make him understand what was required of him. He backed into the cabin with the revolver within two feet of his breast. Céline had caught up the rifle and was standing guard over Blake as though fearful that he might snap his bonds. Philip laughed joyously when he saw how quickly she understood that she was to level the rifle at the cogmolec's breast and hold it there until he had made him a prisoner. She was wonderful. She was panting in her excitement. From the floor Blake had noticed that her little white finger was pressing gently against the trigger of the rifle. It had made him shudder. It made the Eskimo cringe a bit now as Philip tied his hands behind him, and Philip saw it and his heart thumped. Céline was gloriously careless. It was over inside of two minutes, and with an audible sigh of relief she lowered her rifle. Then she leaned it against the wall and ran to Blake. She was tremendously excited as she pointed down into the bloodstained face and tried to explain to Philip the reason for that strange and thrilling recognition he had seen between them. From her he looked at Blake. The look in the prisoner's face sent a cold shiver through him. There was no fear in it. It was filled with a deep and undisguised exultation. Then Blake looked at Philip and laughed outright. Can't understand her, eh? he chuckled. Well, neither can I, but I know what she's trying to tell you. Damn funny, ain't it? It was impossible for him to keep his eyes from shifting to the door. There was expectancy in that glance. Then his glance shot almost fiercely at Philip. So you're Philip Rain of the RNMP, eh? Well, you've got me guessed out. My name is Blake, but the G don't stand for George. If you'll cut the cord off in my leg so I can stand up or sit down, I'll tell you something. I can't do very much damage with my hands hitched the way they are, and I can't talk laying down because of my Adam's apple choking me. Philip seized the rifle and placed it again in Célie's hands, stationing her once more at the door. Watch and listen, he said. He cut the thongs that bound his prisoner's ankles and Blake struggled to his feet. When he fronted Philip, the big colt was covering his heart. Now, talk, commanded Philip. I'm going to give you half a minute to begin telling me what I want to know, Blake. You've brought the Eskimos down. There is no doubt of that. What do you want of this girl, and what have you done with her people? He had never looked into the eyes of a cooler man than Blake, whose blood-stained lips curled in a sneering smile even as he finished. I ain't built to be frightened, he said, taking his time about it. I know your little games, and I've thrown a good many bluffs of my own in my time. You're lying when you say you'll shoot, and you know you are. I may talk, and I may not. Before I make up my mind, I'm going to give you a bit of brotherly advice. Take that team out there, and hit across the baron. Alone. Understand? Alone. Leave the girl here. It's your one chance of missing what happened to—he grinned and shrugged his huge shoulders. You mean Anderson, Olaf Anderson, and the others up at Bathurst Inlet? questioned Philip chokingly. Blake nodded. Philip wondered if the other could hear the pounding of his heart. He had discovered in this moment what the department had been trying to learn for two years. It was this man, Blake, who was the mysterious white leader of the Kugmalaks, and responsible for the growing criminal record of the natives along Coronation Gulf. And he had just confessed himself the murderer of Olaf Anderson. His finger trembled for an instant against the trigger of his revolver. Then, staring into Blake's face, he slowly lowered the weapon until it hung at his side. Blake's eyes gleaned as he saw what he thought was his triumph. It's your one chance, he urged, and there ain't no time to lose. Philip had judged his man, and now he prayed for the precious minutes in which to play out his game. The Kugmalaks who had taken up their trail could not be far from the cabin now. Maybe you're right, Blake, he said hesitatingly. I think after her experience with Bram Johnson that she is about willing to return to her father. Where is he? Blake made no effort to disguise his eagerness. In the droop of Philip's shoulder, the laxness of the hand that held the revolver and the change in his voice, Blake saw in his captor an apparent desire to get out of the mess he was in. A glimpse of Saley's frightened face turned for an instant from the door gave weight to his conviction. He's down the copper mine, about a hundred miles. So Bram Johnson, his eyes were a sudden blaze of fire, took care of her until your little rats waylaid him on the trail and murdered him, interrupted Philip. See here, Blake, you be square with me and I'll be square with you. I haven't been able to understand a word of her lingo and I'm curious to know a thing or two before I go. Tell me who she is and why you haven't killed her father and what you're going to do with her and I won't waste another minute. Blake leaned forward until Philip felt the heat of his breath. What do I want of her? he demanded slowly. Why, if you'd been five years without sight of a white woman and then you woke up one morning to meet an angel like her on the trail, two thousand miles up in nowhere, what would you want of her? I was stunned, plum stunned, or I'd had her then. And after that, if it hadn't been for that devil with his wolves, Bram ran away with her just as you were about to get her into your hands, supplied Philip, fighting to save time. She didn't even know that you wanted her, Blake, so far as I can find out. It's all a mystery to her. I don't believe she's guessed the truth even now. How the devil did you do it? Playing the friend stunt, huh? And keeping yourself in the background while your Cogmolocks did the work? Was that it? Blake nodded. His face was darkening as he looked at Philip and the light in his eyes was changing to a deep and steady glare. In that moment Philip had failed to keep the exultation out of his voice. It shone in his face and Blake saw it. A throaty sound rose out of his thick chest and his lips parted in a snarl as there surged through him a realization that he had been tricked. In that interval Philip spoke. If I never sent up a real prayer to God before, I'm sending it now, Blake, he said. I'm thanking him that you didn't have time to harm Sele Armin, and I'm thanking him that Bram Johnson had a soul in his body in spite of his warped brain and his misshapen carcass. And now I'm going to keep my word. I'm not going to lose another minute. Come! You, you mean? No, you haven't guessed it. We're not going over the baron. We're going back to that cabin on the copper mine, and you're going with us. And listen to this, Blake, listen hard. There may be fighting. If there is, I want you to sort of harden yourself to the fact that the first shot fired is going straight through your gizzard. Do I make myself clear? I'll shoot you deader than a salt mackerel the instant one of your little murderer shows up on the trail. So tell this owl-faced heathen here to spread the glad tidings when his brothers come in and spread it good. Quick about it. I'm not bluffing now.