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支援する to God's Country and Other Stories

by

James Oliver Curwood

• BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY
• THE YELLOW-BACK
• THE FIDDLING MAN
• L'ANGE
• THE CASE OF BEAUVAIS
• THE OTHER MAN'S WIFE
• THE STRENGTH OF MEN
• THE MATCH
• THE HONOR OF HER PEOPLE
• BUCKY SEVERN
• HIS FIRST PENITENT
• PETER GOD
• THE MOUSE

BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY

When Shan Tung, the long-cued Chinaman from Vancouver, started up the Frazer River in the old days when the Telegraph 追跡する and the headwaters of the Peace were the メッカs of half the gold-追跡（する）ing 全住民 of British Columbia, he did not 予知する 悲劇 ahead of him. He was a clever man, was Shan Tung, a cha-sukeed, a very devil in the collecting of gold, and far-seeing. But he could not look forty years into the 未来, and when Shan Tung 始める，決める off into the north, that winter, he was in reality touching 解雇する／砲火／射撃 to the end of a fuse that was to 燃やす through four １０年間s before the 爆発 （機の）カム.

With Shan Tung went Tao, a 広大な／多数の／重要な Dane. The Chinaman had 選ぶd him up somewhere on the coast and had trained him as one trains a horse. Tao was the biggest dog ever seen about the 高さ of Land, the most powerful, and at times the most terrible. Of two things Shan Tung was enormously proud in his silent and mysterious oriental way—of Tao, the dog, and of his long, 向こうずねing cue which fell to the crook of his 膝s when he let it 負かす／撃墜する. It had been the longest cue in Vancouver, and therefore it was the longest cue in British Columbia. The cue and the dog formed the combination which 始める，決める the forty-year fuse of romance and 悲劇 燃やすing. Shan Tung started for the El Dorados 早期に in the winter, and Tao alone pulled his sledge and outfit. It was no more than an ordinary 仕事 for the monstrous 広大な／多数の／重要な Dane, and Shan Tung subserviently but with hidden 勝利 passed outfit after outfit exhausted by the way. He had reached 巡査 Creek （軍の）野営地，陣営, which was boiling and frothing with the excitement of gold-maddened men, and was congratulating himself that he would soon be at the （軍の）野営地，陣営s west of the Peace, when the thing happened. A drunken Irishman, filled with a grim and unfortunate sense of humor, spotted Shan Tung's wonderful cue and coveted it. Wherefore there followed a bit of excitement in which Shan Tung passed into his empyrean home with a 弾丸 through his heart, and the drunken Irishman was strung up for his misdeed fifteen minutes later. Tao, the 広大な／多数の／重要な Dane, was taken by the leader of the men who pulled on the rope. Tao's new master was a "drifter," and as he drifted, his 直面する was always 始める，決める to the north, until at last a new humor struck him and he turned eastward to the Mackenzie. As the seasons passed, Tao 設立する mates along the way and left a string of his progeny behind him, and he had new masters, one after another, until he was grown old and his muzzle was turning gray. And never did one of these masters turn south with him. Always it was north, north with the white man first, north with the Cree, and then wit h the Chippewayan, until in the end the dog born in a Vancouver kennel died in an Eskimo igloo on the 広大な／多数の／重要な 耐える. But the 産む／飼育する of the 広大な／多数の／重要な Dane lived on. Here and there, as the years passed, one would find の中で the Eskimo trace-dogs, a grizzled-haired, powerful-jawed 巨大（な） that was 外国人 to the 北極の 在庫／株, and in these 時折の 外国人s ran the 血 of Tao, the Dane.

Forty years, more or いっそう少なく, after Shan Tung lost his life and his cue at 巡査 Creek （軍の）野営地，陣営, there was born on a firth of 載冠（式）／即位（式） 湾 a dog who was 指名するd Wapi, which means "the Walrus." Wapi, at 十分な growth, was a throwback of more than forty dog 世代s. He was nearly as large as his forefather, Tao. His fangs were an インチ in length, his 広大な／多数の／重要な jaws could 割れ目 the thigh-bone of a caribou, and from the beginning the 手渡すs of men and the fangs of beasts were against him. Almost from the day of his birth until this winter of his fourth year, life for Wapi had been an unceasing fight for 存在. He was maya-tisew—bad with the badness of a devil. His 評判 had gone from master to master and from igloo to igloo; women and children were afraid of him, and men always spoke to him with the club or the 攻撃する in their 手渡すs. He was hated and 恐れるd, and yet because he could run 負かす／撃墜する a barren-land caribou and kill it within a mile, and would 持つ／拘留する a big white 耐える at bay until the hunters （機の）カム, he was not sacrificed to this hate and 恐れる. A hundred whips and clubs and a hundred pairs of 手渡すs were against him between Cape Perry and the 栄冠を与える of Franklin Bay—and the fangs of twice as many dogs.

The dogs were responsible. Quick-tempered, clannish with the savage brotherhood of the wolves, 背信の, jealous of leadership, and with the older instincts of the dog dead within them, their merciless 反目，不和 with what they regarded as an interloper of another 産む／飼育する put the devil heart in Wapi. In all the gray and desolate sweep of his world he had no friend. The 遺産 of Tao, his forefather, had fallen upon him, and he was an 外国人 in a land of strangers. As the dogs and the men and women and children hated him, so he hated them. He hated the sight and smell of the 一連の会議、交渉／完成する-直面するd, blear-注目する，もくろむd creatures who were his master, yet he obeyed them, sullenly, watchfully, with his lips wrinkled warningly over fangs which had twice torn out the life of white 耐えるs. Twenty times he had killed other dogs. He had fought them singly, and in pairs, and in packs. His 巨大（な） 団体／死体 bore the scars of a hundred 負傷させるs. He had been clubbed until a part of his 団体／死体 was deformed and he traveled with a limp. He kept to himself even in the mating season. And all this because Wapi, the Walrus, forty years 除去するd from the 広大な／多数の／重要な Dane of Vancouver, was a white man's dog.

Stirring restlessly within him, いつかs coming to him in dreams and いつかs in a 広大な／多数の／重要な and unfulfilled yearning, Wapi felt ばく然と the strange call of his forefathers. It was impossible for him to understand. It was impossible for him to know what it meant. And yet he did know that somewhere there was something for which he was 捜し出すing and which he never 設立する. The 願望（する） and the 追求（する），探索（する）ing （機の）カム to him most compellingly in the long winter filled with its eternal starlight, when the maddening yap, yap, yap of the little white foxes, the barking of the dogs, and the Eskimo chatter 抑圧するd him like the 発言する／表明するs of haunting ghosts. In these long months, filled with the horror of the 北極の night, the spirit of Tao whispered within him that somewhere there was light and sun, that somewhere there was warmth and flowers, and running streams, and 発言する／表明するs he could understand, and things he could love. And then Wapi would whine, and perhaps the whine would bring him the blow of a club, or the 攻撃する of a whip, or an Eskimo 脅し, or the menace of an Eskimo dog's snarl. Of the latter Wapi was unafraid. With a snap of his jaws, he could break the 支援する of any other dog on Franklin Bay.

Such was Wapi, the Walrus, when for two 解雇（する）s of flour, some タバコ, and a bale of cloth he became the 所有物／資産／財産 of Blake, the uta-wawe-yinew, the 仲買人 in 調印（する）s, whalebone—and women. On this day Wapi's soul took its flight 支援する through the space of forty years. For Blake was white, which is to say that at one time or another he had been white. His 肌 and his 外見 did not betray how 黒人／ボイコット he had turned inside and Wapi's brute soul cried out to him, telling him how he had waited and watched for this master he knew would come, how he would fight for him, how he 手配中の，お尋ね者 to 嘘（をつく） 負かす／撃墜する and put his 広大な／多数の／重要な 長，率いる on the white man's feet in 記念品 of his fealty. But Wapi's bloodshot 注目する，もくろむs and 戦う／戦い-scarred 直面する failed to 明らかにする／漏らす what was in him, and Blake—に引き続いて the 指示／教授／教育s of those who should know—支配するd him from the beginning with a club that was more 残虐な than the club of the Eskimo.

For three months Wapi had been the 所有物／資産／財産 of Blake, and it was now the dead of a long and sunless 北極の night. Blake's cabin, built of ship 木材／素質 and veneered with 封鎖するs of ice, was built in the 直面する of a 深い 炭坑，オーケストラ席 that 避難所d it from 勝利，勝つd and 嵐／襲撃する. To this cabin （機の）カム the Nanatalmutes from the east, and the Kogmollocks from the west, 物々交換するing their furs and whalebone and 調印（する）-oil for the things Blake gave in 交流, and 追加するing women to their wares whenever Blake 発表するd a 需要・要求する. The 需要・要求する had been excellent this winter. Over in Darnley Bay, thirty miles across the headland, was the whaler Harpoon frozen up for the winter with a 乗組員 of thirty men, and straight out from the 直面する of his igloo cabin, いっそう少なく than a mile away, was the 飛行機で行くing Moon with a 乗組員 of twenty more. It was Blake's 商売／仕事 to wait and watch like a 強硬派 for such 適切な時期s as there, and tonight—his watch pointed to the hour of twelve, midnight—he was sitting in the light of a sputtering 調印（する）-oil lamp 追加するing up 人物／姿／数字s which told him that his winter, only half gone, had already been an enormously profitable one.

"If the 機動力のある Police over at Herschel only knew," he chuckled. "Uppy, if they did, they'd have an outfit after us in twenty-four hours."

Oopi, his Eskimo 権利-手渡す man, had learned to understand English, and he nodded, his moon-直面する 分裂（する） by a wide and enigmatic grin. In his way, "Uppy" was as clever as Shan Tung had been in his.

And Blake 追加するd, "We've sold every fur and every 続けざまに猛撃する of bone and oil, and we've forty Upisk wives to our credit at fifty dollars apiece."

Uppy's grin became larger, and his throat was filled with an exultant 動揺させる. In the 事柄 of the Upisk wives he knew that he stood エース-high.

"Never," said Blake, "has our wife-by-the-month 商売／仕事 been so good. If it wasn't for Captain Rydal and his love-事件／事情／状勢, we'd take a vacation and go 追跡（する）ing."

He turned, 直面するing the Eskimo, and the yellow 炎上 of the lamp lit up his 直面する. It was the 直面する of a remarkable man. A 黒人／ボイコット 耐えるd 隠すd much of its cruelty and its cunning, a 耐えるd as carefully 先頭-dycked as though Blake sat in a professional 議長，司会を務める two thousand miles south, but the 耐えるd could not hide the almost 残忍な hardness of the 注目する，もくろむs. There was a glittering light in them as he looked at the Eskimo. "Did you see her today, Uppy? Of course you did. My Gawd, if a woman could ever tempt me, she could! And Rydal is going to have her. Unless I 行方不明になる my guess, there's going to be money in it for us—a lot of it. The funny part of it is, Rydal's got to get rid of her husband. And how's he going to do it, Uppy? Eh? Answer me that. How's he going to do it?"

In a 穴を開ける he had dug for himself in the drifted snow under a 抱擁する scarp of ice a hundred yards from the igloo cabin lay Wapi. His bed was red with the stain of 血, and a 追跡する of 血 led from the cabin to the place where he had hidden himself. Not many hours ago, when by God's sun it should have been day, he had turned at last on a teasing, snarling, 支援する-biting little kiskanuk of a dog and had killed it. And Blake and Uppy had beaten him until he was almost dead.

It was not of the （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing that Wapi was thinking as he lay in his wallow. He was thinking of the fur-覆う？ 人物／姿／数字 that had come between Blake's club and his 団体／死体, of the moment when for the first time in his life he had seen the 直面する of a white woman. She had stopped Blake's club. He had heard her 発言する／表明する. She had bent over him, and she would have put her 手渡す on him if his master had not dragged her 支援する with a cry of 警告. She had gone into the cabin then, and he had dragged himself away.

Since then a new and thrilling 炎上 had 燃やすd in him. For a time his senses had been dazed by his 罰, but now every instinct in him was like a living wire. Slowly he pulled himself from his 退却／保養地 and sat 負かす／撃墜する on his haunches. His gray muzzle was pointed to the sky. The same 星／主役にするs were there, 燃やすing in 冷淡な, white points of 炎上 as they had 燃やすd week after week in the maddening monotony of the long nights 近づく the 政治家. They were like a million pitiless 注目する，もくろむs, never blinking, always watching, things of life and 解雇する／砲火／射撃, and yet dead. And at those 注目する，もくろむs, the little white foxes yapped so incessantly that the sound of it drove men mad. They were yapping now. They were never still. And with their yapping （機の）カム the droning, hissing monotone of the aurora, like the song of a 広大な piece of 機械装置 in the still さらに先に north. Toward this Wapi turned his bruised and beaten 長，率いる. Out there, just beyond the ghostly pale of 見通し, was the ship. Fifty times he had slunk out and around it, 慎重に as the foxes themselves. He had caught its smells and its sounds; he had come 近づく enough to hear the 発言する／表明するs of men, and those 発言する／表明するs were like the 発言する／表明する of Blake, his master. Therefore, he had never gone nearer.

There was a change in him now. His big pads fell noiselessly as he slunk 支援する to the cabin and 匂いをかぐd for a scent in the snow. He 設立する it. It was the 追跡する of the white woman. His 血 tingled again, as it had tingled when her 直面する bent over him and her 手渡す reached out, and in his soul there rose up the ghost of Tao to whip him on. He followed the woman's 足跡s slowly, stopping now and then to listen, and each moment the spirit in him grew more insistent, and he whined up at the 星／主役にするs. At last he saw the ship, a wraithlike thing in its piled-up bed of ice, and he stopped. This was his dead-line. He had never gone nearer. But tonight—if any one period could be called night—he went on.

It was the hour of sleep, and there was no sound 船内に. The foxes, never tiring of their infuriating sport, were yapping at the ship. They barked faster and louder when they caught the scent of Wapi, and as he approached, they drifted さらに先に away. The scent of the woman's 追跡する led up the wide 橋（渡しをする） of ice, and Wapi followed this as he would have followed a road, until he 設立する himself all at once on the deck of the 飛行機で行くing Moon. For a space he was startled. His long fangs 明らかにするd themselves at the 影をつくる／尾行するs cast by the 星／主役にするs. Then he saw ahead of him a 狭くする 略章 of yellow light. Toward this Wapi 匂いをかぐd out, step by step, the 足跡s of the woman. When he stopped again, his muzzle was at the 狭くする 割れ目 through which （機の）カム the 微光 of light.

It was the door of a deck-house veneered like an igloo with snow and ice to 保護する it from 冷淡な and 勝利，勝つd. It was, perhaps, half an インチ ajar, and through that aperture Wapi drank the warm, 甘い perfume of the woman. With it he caught also the smell of a man. But in him the woman scent 潜水するd all else. 圧倒するd by it, he stood trembling, not daring to move, every インチ of him thrilled by a 広大な and mysterious yearning. He was no longer Wapi, the Walrus; Wapi, the 殺し屋. Tao was there. And it may be that the spirit of Shan Tung was there. For after forty years the change had come, and Wapi, as he stood at the woman's door, was just dog,—a white man's dog—again the dog of the Vancouver kennel—the dog of a white man's world.

He thrust open the door with his nose. He slunk in, so silently that he was not heard. The cabin was lighted. In a bed lay a white-直面するd, hollow-cheeked man—awake. On a low stool at his 味方する sat a woman. The light of the lamp hanging from above warmed with gold 解雇する／砲火／射撃s the 厚い and radiant 集まり of her hair. She was leaning over the sick man. One わずかな／ほっそりした, white 手渡す was 一打／打撃ing his 直面する gently, and she was speaking to him in a 発言する／表明する so 甘い and soft that it stirred like wonderful music in Wapi's warped and beaten soul. And then, with a 広大な／多数の／重要な sigh, he flopped 負かす／撃墜する, an abject slave, on the 辛勝する／優位 of her dress.

With a startled cry the woman turned. For a moment she 星／主役にするd at the 広大な／多数の／重要な beast wide-注目する，もくろむd, then there （機の）カム slowly into her 直面する 承認 and understanding. "Why, it's the dog Blake whipped so terribly," she gasped. "Peter, it's—it's Wapi!" For the first time Wapi felt the caress of a woman's 手渡す, soft, gentle, pitying, and out of him there （機の）カム a wimpering sound that was almost a sob.

"It's the dog—he whipped," she repeated, and, then, if Wapi could have understood, he would have 公式文書，認めるd the 緊張した pallor of her lovely 直面する and the look of a 広大な／多数の／重要な 恐れる that was away 支援する in the 星／主役にするing blue depths of her 注目する，もくろむs.

From his pillow Peter Keith had seen the look of 恐れる and the paleness of her cheeks, but he was a long way from guessing the truth. Yet he thought he knew. For days—yes, for weeks—there had been that growing 恐れる in her 注目する，もくろむs. He had seen her mighty fight to hide it from him. And he thought he understood.

"I know it has been a terrible winter for you, dear," he had said to her many times. "But you mustn't worry so much about me. I'll be on my feet again—soon." He had always 強調するd that. "I'll be on my feet again soon!"

Once, in the breaking terror of her heart, she had almost told him the truth. Afterward she had thanked God for giving her the strength to keep it 支援する. It was day—for they spoke ーに関して／ーの点でs of day and night—when Rydal, half drunk, had dragged her into his cabin, and she had fought him until her hair was 負かす／撃墜する about her in 絡まるd 混乱—and she had told Peter that it was the 勝利，勝つd. After that, instead of 避けるing him, she had played Rydal with her wits, while praying to God for help. It was impossible to tell Peter. He had 老年の 刻々と and terribly in the last two weeks. His 注目する，もくろむs were sunken into 深い 炭坑，オーケストラ席s. His blond hair was turning gray over the 寺s. His cheeks were hollowed, and there was a different sort of luster in his 注目する，もくろむs. He looked fifty instead of thirty-five. Her heart bled in its agony. She loved Peter with a wonderful love.

The truth! If she told him that! She could see Peter rising up out of his bed like a ghost. It would kill him. If he could have seen Rydal—only an hour before—stopping her out on the deck, taking her in his 武器, and kissing her until his drunken breath and his 耐えるd sickened her! And if he could have heard what Rydal had said! She shuddered. And suddenly she dropped 負かす／撃墜する on her 膝s beside Wapi and took his 広大な／多数の／重要な 長，率いる in her 武器, unafraid of him—and glad that he had come.

Then she turned to Peter. "I'm going 岸に to see Blake again—now," she said. "Wapi will go with me, and I won't be afraid. I 主張する that I am 権利, so please don't 反対する any more, Peter dear."

She bent over and kissed him, and then in spite of his 抗議する, put on her fur coat and hood, and stood for a moment smiling 負かす／撃墜する at him. The 恐れる was gone out of her 注目する，もくろむs now. It was impossible for him not to smile at her loveliness. He had always been proud of that. He reached up a thin 手渡す and plucked tenderly at the 向こうずねing little tendrils of gold that crept out from under her hood.

"I wish you wouldn't, dear," he pleaded.

How pathetically white, and thin, and weak he was! She kissed him again and turned quickly to hide the もや in her 注目する，もくろむs. At the door she blew him a kiss from the tip of her big fur mitten, and as she went out she heard him say in the thin, strange 発言する／表明する that was so unlike the old Peter:

"Don't be long, Dolores."

She stood silently for a few moments to make sure that no one would see her. Then she moved 速く to the ice 橋（渡しをする） and out into the 星／主役にする-lighted ghostliness of the night. Wapi followed の近くに behind her, and dropping a 手渡す to her 味方する she called softly to him. In an instant Wapi's muzzle was against her mitten, and his 広大な／多数の／重要な 団体／死体 quivered with joy at her direct speech to him. She saw the 返答 in his red 注目する，もくろむs and stopped to 一打／打撃 him with both mittened 手渡すs, and over and over again she spoke his 指名する. "Wapi—Wapi—Wapi." He whined. She could feel him under her touch as if alive with an 電気の 軍隊. Her 注目する，もくろむs shone. In the white starlight there was a new emotion in her 直面する. She had 設立する a friend, the one friend she and Peter had, and it made her braver.

At no time had she 現実に been afraid—for herself. It was for Peter. And she was not afraid now. Her cheeks 紅潮／摘発するd with exertion and her breath （機の）カム quickly as she 近づくd Blake's cabin. Twice she had made excuses to go 岸に—just because she was curious, she had said—and she believed that she had 手段d up Blake pretty 井戸／弁護士席. It was a 事例／患者 in which her woman's intuition had failed her miserably. She was amazed that such a man had marooned himself 任意に on the 北極の coast. She did not, of course, understand his 商売／仕事—完全に. She thought him 簡単に a 仲買人. And he was unlike any man 船内に ship. By his carefully clipped 耐えるd, his 静める, 冷淡な manner of speech, and the unusual correctness with which he used his words she was 納得させるd that at some time or another he had been part of what she mentally thought of as "an 完全に different 環境."

She was 権利. There was a time when London and New York would have given much to lay their 手渡すs on the man who now called himself Blake.

Dolores, excited by the 有罪の判決 that Blake would help her when he heard her story, still did not lose her 警告を与える. Rydal had given her another twenty-four hours, and that was all. In those twenty-four hours she must fight out their 救済, her own and Peter's. If Blake should fail—

Fifty paces from his cabin she stopped, slipped the big fur mitten from her 権利 手渡す and unbuttoned her coat so that she could quickly and easily reach an inside pocket in which was Peter's revolver. She smiled just a bit grimly, as her fingers touched the 冷淡な steel. It was to be her last 訴える手段／行楽地. And she was thinking in that flash of the days "支援する home" when she was counted the best revolver 発射 at the 麻薬を吸うing 激しく揺する. She could （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 Peter, and Peter was good. Her fingers twined a bit 情愛深く about the pearl-扱うd thing in her pocket. The last 訴える手段／行楽地—and from the first it had given her courage to keep the truth from Peter!

She knocked at the 激しい door of the igloo cabin. Blake was still up, and when he opened it, he 星／主役にするd at her in wide-注目する，もくろむd amazement. Wapi hung outside when Dolores entered, and the door の近くにd. "I know you think it strange for me to come at this hour," she わびるd, "but in this terrible gloom I've lost all count of hours. They have no significance for me any more. And I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to see you—alone."

She 強調するd the word. And as she spoke, she 緩和するd her coat and threw 支援する her hood, so that the glow of the lamp lit up the ruffled 集まり of gold the hood had covered. She sat 負かす／撃墜する without waiting for an 招待, and Blake sat 負かす／撃墜する opposite her with a 狭くする （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する between them. Her 直面する was 紅潮／摘発するd with 冷淡な and 勝利，勝つd as she looked at him. Her 注目する，もくろむs were blue with the blue of a 安定した 炎上, and they met his own squarely. She was not nervous. Nor was she afraid.

"Perhaps you can guess—why I have come?" she asked.

He was appraising her almost startling beauty with the lamp glow flooding 負かす／撃墜する on her. For a moment he hesitated; then he nodded, looking at her 刻々と. "Yes, I think I know," he said 静かに. "It's Captain Rydal. In fact, I'm やめる 肯定的な. It's an unusual 状況／情勢, you know. Have I guessed 正確に?"

She nodded, 製図／抽選 in her breath quickly and leaning a little toward him, wondering how much he knew and how he had come by it.

"A very unusual 状況／情勢," he repeated. "There's nothing in the world that makes beasts out of men—most men—more quickly than an 北極の night, Mrs. Keith. And they're all beasts out there—now—all except your husband, and he is contented because he 所有するs the one white woman 船内に ship. It's putting it 残酷に plain, but it's the truth, isn't it? For the time 存在 they're beasts, every man of the twenty, and you—容赦 me!—are very beautiful. Rydal wants you, and the fact that your husband is dying—"

"He is not dying," she interrupted him ひどく. "He shall not die! If he did—"

"Do you love him?" There was no 侮辱 in Blake's 静かな 発言する／表明する. He asked the question as if much depended on the answer, as if he must 保証する himself of that fact.

"Love him—my Peter? Yes!"

She leaned 今後 熱望して, gripping her 手渡すs in 前線 of him on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. She spoke 速く, as if she must 納得させる him before he asked her another question. Blake's 注目する，もくろむs did not change. They had not changed for an instant. They were hard, and 冷淡な, and searching, unwarmed by her beauty, by the luster of her 向こうずねing hair, by the touch of her breath as it （機の）カム to him over the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する.

"I have gone everywhere with him—everywhere," she began. "Peter 令状s 調書をとる／予約するs, you know, and we have gone into all sorts of places. We love it—both of us—this adventuring. We have been all through the country 負かす／撃墜する there," she swept a 手渡す to the south, "on dog sledges, in canoes, with snowshoes, and pack-trains. Then we 攻撃する，衝突する on the idea of coming north on a whaler. You know, of course, Captain Rydal planned to return this autumn. The 乗組員 was rough, but we 推定する／予想するd that. We 推定する／予想するd to put up with a lot. But even before the ice shut us in, before this terrible night （機の）カム, Rydal 侮辱d me. I didn't dare tell Peter. I thought I could 扱う Rydal, that I could keep him in his place, and I knew that if I told Peter, he would kill the beast. And then the ice—and this night—" She choked.

Blake's 注目する，もくろむs, gimleting to her soul, were 発射 with a sudden 解雇する／砲火／射撃 as he, too, leaned a little over the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. But his 発言する／表明する was unemotional as 激しく揺する. It 単に 明言する／公表するd a fact. "That's why Captain Rydal 許すd himself to be frozen in," he said. "He had plenty of time to get into the open channels, Mrs. Keith. But he 手配中の，お尋ね者 you. And to get you he knew he would have to lay over. And if he laid over, he knew that he would get you, for many things may happen in an 北極の night. It shows the depth of the man's feelings, doesn't it? He is sacrificing a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 to 所有する you, losing a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 of time, and money, and all that. And when your husband dies—"

Her clenched little 握りこぶし struck the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. "He won't die, I tell you! Why do you say that?"

"Because—Rydal says he is going to die."

"Rydal—lies. Peter had a 落ちる, and it 傷つける his spine so that his 脚s are 麻ひさせるd. But I know what it is. If he could get away from that ship and could have a doctor, he would be 井戸／弁護士席 again in two or three months."

"But Rydal says he is going to die."

There was no mistaking the significance of Blake's words this time. Her 注目する，もくろむs filled with sudden horror. Then they flashed with the blue 解雇する／砲火／射撃 again. "So—he has told you? 井戸／弁護士席, he told me the same thing today. He didn't ーするつもりである to, of course. But he was half mad, and he had been drinking. He has given me twenty-four hours."

"In which to—降伏する?"

There was no need to reply.

For the first time Blake smiled. There was something in that smile that made her flesh creep. "Twenty-four hours is a short time," he said, "and in this 事柄, Mrs. Keith, I think that you will find Captain Rydal a man of his word. No need to ask you why you don't 控訴，上告 to the 乗組員! Useless! But you have hope that I can help you? Is that it?"

Her heart throbbed. "That is why I have come to you, Mr. Blake. You told me today that Fort 信用／信任 is only a hundred and fifty miles away and that a Northwest 機動力のある Police 守備隊 is there this winter—with a doctor. Will you help me?"

"A hundred and fifty miles, in this country, at this time of the year, is a long distance, Mrs. Keith," 反映するd Blake, looking into her 注目する，もくろむs with a steadiness that at any other time would have been embarrassing. "It means the McFarlane, the Lacs Delesse, and the 北極の Barren. For a hundred miles there isn't a stick of 木材／素質. If a 嵐／襲撃する （機の）カム—no man or dog could live. It is different from the coast. Here there is 避難所 everywhere." He spoke slowly, and he was thinking 速く. "It would take five days at thirty miles a day. And the chances are that your husband would not stand it. One hundred and twenty hours at fifty degrees below 無, and no 解雇する／砲火／射撃 until the fourth day. He would die."

"It would be better—for if we stay—" she stopped, unclenching her 手渡すs slowly.

"What?" he asked.

"I shall kill Captain Rydal," she 宣言するd. "It is the only thing I can do. Will you 軍隊 me to do that, or will you help me? You have sledges and many dogs, and we will 支払う／賃金. And I have 裁判官d you to be—a man."

He rose from the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, and for a moment his 直面する was turned from her. "You probably do not understand my position, Mrs. Keith," he said, pacing slowly 支援する and 前へ／外へ and chuckling inwardly at the shock he was about to give her. "You see, my 暮らし depends on such men as Captain Rydal. I have already done a big 商売／仕事 with him in bone, oil, pelts—and Eskimo women."

Without looking at her he heard the horrified intake of her breath. It gave him a pleasing sort of thrill, and he turned, smiling, to look into her dead-white 直面する. Her 注目する，もくろむs had changed. There was no longer hope or entreaty in them. They were 簡単に pools of blue 炎上. And she, too, rose to her feet.

"Then—I can 推定する／予想する—no help—from you."

"I didn't say that, Mrs. Keith. It shocks you to know that I am responsible. But up here, you must understand the code of 倫理学 is a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 different from yours. We 人物／姿／数字 that what I have done for Rydal and his 乗組員 keeps sane men from going mad during the long months of 不明瞭. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to help you—and Peter. I think I shall. But you must give me a little time in which to consider the 事柄—say an hour or so. I understand that whatever is to be done must be done quickly. If I （不足などを）補う my mind to take you to Fort 信用／信任, we shall start within two or three hours. I shall bring you word 船内に ship. So you might return and 準備する yourself and Peter for a probable 緊急."

She went out dumbly into the night, Blake seeing her to the door and の近くにing it after her. He was courteous in his icy way but did not 申し込む／申し出 to 護衛する her 支援する to the ship. She was glad. Her heart was choking her with hope and 恐れる. She had 手段d him 異なって this time. And she was afraid. She had caught a glimpse that had taken her beyond the man, to the monster. It made her shudder. And yet what did it 事柄, if Blake helped them?

She had forgotten Wapi. Now she 設立する him again の近くに at her 味方する, and she dropped a 手渡す to his big 長，率いる as she hurried 支援する through the pallid gloom. She spoke to him, crying out with sobbing breath what she had not dared to 明らかにする／漏らす to Blake. For Wapi the long night had 中止するd to be a hell of 恐ろしい emptiness, and to her 発言する／表明する and the touch of her 手渡す he 答える／応じるd with a whine that was the whine of a white man's dog. They had traveled two-thirds of the distance to the ship when he stopped in his 跡をつけるs and 匂いをかぐd the 勝利，勝つd that was coming from shore. A second time he did this, and a third, and the third time Dolores turned with him and 直面するd the direction from which they had come. A low growl rose in Wapi's throat, a snarl of menace with a 公式文書，認める of 警告 in it.

"What is it, Wapi?" whispered Dolores. She heard his long fangs click, and under her 手渡す she felt his 団体／死体 grow 緊張した. "What is it?" she repeated.

A thrill, a 疑惑, 発射 into her heart as they went on. A fourth time Wapi 直面するd the shore and growled before they reached the ship. Like 影をつくる／尾行するs they went up over the ice 橋（渡しをする）. Dolores did not enter the cabin but drew Wapi behind it so they could not be seen. Ten minutes, fifteen, and suddenly she caught her breath and fell 負かす／撃墜する on her 膝s beside Wapi, putting her 武器 about his gaunt shoulders. "Be 静かな," she whispered. "Be 静かな."

Up out of the night （機の）カム a dark and grotesque 影をつくる／尾行する. It paused below the 橋（渡しをする）, then it （機の）カム on silently and passed almost without sound toward the captain's ４半期/4分の1s. It was Blake. Dolores' heart was choking her. Her 武器 clutched Wapi, whispering for him to be 静かな, to be 静かな. Blake disappeared, and she rose to her feet. She had come of fighting 在庫／株. Peter was proud of that. "You わずかな／ほっそりした wonderful little thing!" he had said to her more than once. "You've a heart in that pretty 団体／死体 of yours like the general's!" The general was her father, and a 闘士，戦闘機. She thought of Peter's words now, and the fighting 血 leaped through her veins. It was for Peter more than herself that she was going to fight now.

She made Wapi understand that he must remain where he was. Then she followed after Blake, followed until her ears were の近くに to the door behind which she could already hear Blake and Rydal talking.

Ten minutes later she returned to Wapi. Under her hood her 直面する was as white as the whitest 星／主役にする in the sky. She stood for many minutes の近くに to the dog, 集会 her courage, 保安官ing her strength, 準備するing herself to 直面する Peter. He must not 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う until the last moment. She thanked God that Wapi had caught the taint of Blake in the 空気／公表する, and she was conscious of 申し込む／申し出ing a 祈り that God might help her and Peter.

Peter gave a cry of 楽しみ when the door opened and Dolores entered. He saw Wapi （人が）群がるing in, and laughed. "Pals already! I guess I needn't have been afraid for you. What a 巨大（な） of a dog!"

The instant she appeared, Dolores 軍隊d upon herself an 外見 of joyous excitement. She flung off her coat and ran to Peter, hugging his 長，率いる against her as she told him 速く what they were going to do. Fort 信用／信任 was only one hundred and fifty miles away, and a 守備隊 of police and a doctor were there. Five days on a sledge! That was all. And she had 説得するd Blake, the 仲買人, to help them. They would start now, as soon as she got him ready and Blake （機の）カム. She must hurry. And she was wildly and gloriously happy, she told him. In a little while they would be at least on the outer 辛勝する／優位 of this horrible night, and he would be in a doctor's 手渡すs.

She was 持つ／拘留するing Peter's 長，率いる so that he could not see her 直面する, and by the time she jumped up and he did see it, there was nothing in it to betray the truth or the fact that she was 事実上の／代理 a 嘘（をつく）. First she began to dress Peter for the 追跡する. Every instant gave her more courage. This helpless, sunken-cheeked man with the hair graying over his 寺s was Peter, her Peter, the Peter who had watched over her, and 避難所d her, and fought for her ever since she had known him, and now had come her chance to fight for him. The thought filled her with a wonderful exultation. It 紅潮／摘発するd her cheeks, and put a glory into her 注目する，もくろむs, and made her 発言する／表明する tremble. How wonderful it was to love a man as she loved Peter! It was impossible for her to see the contrast they made—Peter with his scrubby 耐えるd, his sunken cheeks, his emaciation, and she with her radiant, golden beauty. She was 燃えて with the 願望（する） to fight. And how proud of her Peter would be when it was all over!

She finished dressing him and began putting things in their big dunnage 解雇（する）. Her lips 強化するd as she made this 準備. Finally she （機の）カム to a box of revolver cartridges and emptied them into one of the pockets of her under-jacket. Wapi flattened out 近づく the door, watched every movement she made.

When the dunnage 解雇（する） was filled, she returned to Peter. "Won't it be a joke on Captain Rydal!" she exulted. "You see, we aren't gong to let him know anything about it." She appeared not to 観察する Peter's surprise. "You know how I hate him, Peter dear," she went on. "He is a beast. But Mr. Blake has done a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 of 貿易（する）ing with him, and he doesn't want Captain Rydal to know the part he is taking in getting us away. Not that Rydal would 行方不明になる us, you know! I don't think he cares very much whether you live or die, Peter, and that's why I hate him. But we must humor Mr. Blake. He doesn't want him to know."

"半端物," mused Peter. "It's sort of—こそこそ動くing away."

His 注目する，もくろむs had in them a searching question which Dolores tried not to see and which she was glad he did not put into words. If she could only fool him another hour—just one more hour.

It was いっそう少なく than that—half an hour after she had finished the dunnage 解雇（する）—when they heard footsteps crunching outside and then a knock at the door. Wapi answered with a snarl, and when Dolores opened the door and Blake entered, his 注目する，もくろむs fell first of all on the dog.

"大（公）使館員d himself, eh?" he 迎える／歓迎するd, turning his 静かな, unemotional smile on Peter. "First white woman he has ever seen, and I guess the 事例／患者 is hopeless. Mrs. Keith may have him."

He turned to her. "Are you ready?"

She nodded and pointed to the dunnage 解雇（する）. Then she put on her fur coat and hood and helped Peter sit up on the 辛勝する／優位 of the bed while Blake opened the door again and made a low signal. 即時に Uppy and another Eskimo （機の）カム in. Blake led with the 解雇（する）, and the two Eskimos carried Peter. Dolores followed last, with the fingers of one little 手渡す gripped about the revolver in her pocket. Wapi hugged so の近くに to her that she could feel his 団体／死体.

On the ice was a sledge without dogs. Peter was bundled on this, and the Eskimos pulled him. Blake was still in the lead. Twenty minutes after leaving the ship they pulled up beside his cabin.

There were two teams ready for the 追跡する, one of six dogs, and another of five, each watched over by an Eskimo. The visor of Dolores' hood kept Blake from seeing how はっきりと she took in the 状況／情勢. Under it her 注目する，もくろむs were 燃えて. Her 明らかにする 手渡す gripped her revolver, and if Peter could have heard the （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing of her heart, he would have gasped. But she was 冷静な／正味の, for all that. 速く and 正確に she appraised Blake's 準備s. She 観察するd that in the six-dog team, in spite of its 数値／数字による 優越, the animals were more powerful than those in the five-dog team. The Eskimos placed Peter on the six-dog sledge, and Dolores helped to 包む him up 温かく in the bearskins. Their dunnage 解雇（する） was tied on at Peter's feet. Not until then did she seem to notice the five-dog sledge. She smiled at Blake. "We must be sure that in our excitement we 港／避難所't forgotten something," she said, going over what was on the sledge. "This is a テント, and here are plenty of warm bearskins—and—and—" She looked up at Blake, who was watching her silently. "If there is no 木材／素質 for so long, Mr. Blake, shouldn't we have a big bundle of kindling? And surely we should have meat for the dogs!"

Blake 星／主役にするd at her and then turned はっきりと on Uppy with a 動揺させる of Eskimo. Uppy and one of the companions made their 出口 即時に and in 広大な／多数の／重要な haste.

"The fools!" he わびるd. "One has to watch them like children, Mrs. Keith. 容赦 me while I help them."

She waited until he followed Uppy into the cabin. Then, with the remaining Eskimo 星／主役にするing at her in wonderment, she carried an extra bearskin, the small テント, and a narwhal grub-解雇（する） to Peter's sledge. It was another five minutes before Blake and the two Eskimos 再現するd with a 捕らえる、獲得する of fish and a big bundle of ship-木材／素質 kindlings. Dolores stood with a mittened 手渡す on Peter's shoulder, and bending 負かす／撃墜する, she whispered:

"Peter, if you love me, don't mind what I'm going to say now. Don't move, for everything is going to be all 権利, and if you should try to get up or roll off the sledge, it would be so much harder for me. I 港／避難所't even told you why we're going to Port 信用／信任. Now you'll know!"

She straightened up to 直面する Blake. She had chosen her position, and Blake was standing （疑いを）晴らす and unshadowed in the starlight half a dozen paces from her. She had thrust her hood 支援する a little, 奮起させるd by her feminine instinct to let him see her contempt for him.

"You beast!"

The words hissed hot and furious from her lips, and in that same instant Blake 設立する himself 星／主役にするing straight into the unquivering muzzle of her revolver.

"You beast!" she repeated. "I せねばならない kill you. I せねばならない shoot you 負かす／撃墜する where you stand, for you are a cur and a coward. I know what you have planned. I followed you when you went to Rydal's cabin a little while ago, and I heard everything that passed between you. Listen, Peter, and I'll tell you what these brutes were going to do with us. You were to go with the six-dog team and I with the five, and out on the barrens we were to become separated, you to go on and be killed when you we're a proper distance away, and I to be brought 支援する—to Rydal. Do you understand, Peter dear? Isn't it splendid that we should have 軍隊d on us like this such wonderful 構成要素 for a story!"

She was gloriously unafraid now. A paean of 勝利 rang in her 発言する／表明する, 勝利, contempt, and utter fearlessness. Her mittened 手渡す 圧力（をかける）d on Peter's shoulder, and before the 武器 in her other 手渡す Blake stood as if turned into 石／投石する.

"You don't know," she said, speaking to him 直接／まっすぐに, "how 近づく I am to 殺人，大当り you. I think I shall shoot unless you have the meat and kindlings put on Peter's sledge すぐに and give Uppy 指示／教授／教育s—in English—to 運動 us to Fort 信用／信任. Peter and I will both go with the six-dog sledge. Give the 指示／教授／教育s quickly, Mr. Blake!"

Blake, 回復するing from the shock she had given him, flashed 支援する at her his 冷静な／正味の and 冷笑的な smile. In spite of 存在 caught in an unpleasant 嘘（をつく）, he admired this golden-haired, blue-注目する，もくろむd slip of a woman for the colossal bluff she was playing. "本人自身で, I'm sorry," he said, "but I couldn't help it. Rydal—"

"I am sure, unless you give the 指示／教授／教育s quickly, that I shall shoot," she interrupted him. Her 発言する／表明する was so 静かな that Peter was amazed. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Keith. But—"

A flash of 解雇する／砲火／射撃 blinded him, and with the flash Blake staggered 支援する with a cry of 苦痛 and stood swaying unsteadily in the starlight, clutching with one 手渡す at an arm which hung limp and useless at his 味方する.

"That time, I broke your arm," said Dolores, with scarcely more excitement than if she had made a bull's-注目する，もくろむ on the 麻薬を吸うing 激しく揺する 範囲. "If I 解雇する／砲火／射撃 again, I am やめる 肯定的な that I shall kill you!"

The Eskimos had not moved. They were like three lifeless, 星／主役にするing gargoyles. For another second or two Blake stood clutching at his arm. Then he said,

"Uppy, put the dog meat and the kindlings on the big sledge—and 運動 like hell for Fort 信用／信任!" And then, before she could stop him, he followed up his words 速く and furiously in Eskimo.

"Stop!"

She almost shrieked the one word of 警告, and with it a second 発射 燃やすd its way through the flesh of Blake's shoulder and he went 負かす／撃墜する. The revolver turned on Uppy, and 即時に he was electrified into life. Thirty seconds later, at the 長，率いる of the team, he was 主要な the way out into the 大混乱／混沌とした gloom of the night. Hovering over Peter, riding with her 手渡す on the gee-妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 of the sledge, Dolores looked 支援する to see Blake staggering to his feet. He shouted after them, and what he said was in Uppy's tongue. And this time she could not stop him.

She had forgotten Wapi. But as the night swallowed them up, she still looked 支援する, and through the gloom she saw a 影をつくる／尾行する coming 速く. In a few moments Wapi was running at the tail of the sledge. Then she leaned over Peter and encircled his shoulders with her furry 武器.

"We're off!" she cried, a breaking 公式文書，認める of gladness in her 発言する／表明する. "We're off! And, Peter dear, wasn't it perfectly thrilling!"

A few minutes later she called upon Uppy to stop the team. Then she 直面するd him, の近くに to Peter, with the revolver in her 手渡す.

"Uppy," she 需要・要求するd, speaking slowly and distinctly, "what was it Blake said to you?"

For a moment Uppy made as if to feign stupidity. The revolver covered a 位置／汚点／見つけ出す half-way between his 狭くする-slit 注目する，もくろむs.

"I shall shoot—"

Uppy gave a choking gasp. "He said—no take 追跡する For' 反対／詐欺'dence—go wrong—he come soon get you."

"Yes, he said just that." She 選ぶd her words even more slowly. "Uppy, listen to me. If you let them come up with us—unless you get us to Fort 信用／信任—I will kill you. Do you understand?"

She poked her revolver a foot nearer, and Uppy nodded emphatically. She smiled. It was almost funny to see Uppy's understanding liven up at the point of the gun, and she felt a thrill that tingled to her finger-tips. The little devils of adventure were wide-awake in her, and, smiling at Uppy, she told him to 停止する the end of his 運動ing whip. He obeyed. The revolver flashed, and a muffled yell （機の）カム from him as he felt the shock of the 弾丸 as it struck 公正に／かなり against the butt of his whip. In the same instant there （機の）カム a snarling 深い-throated growl from Wapi. From the sledge Peter gave a cry of 警告. Uppy shrank 支援する, and Dolores cried out はっきりと and put herself 速く between Wapi and the Eskimo. The 抱擁する dog, ready to spring, slunk 支援する to the end of the sledge at the 命令（する） of her 発言する／表明する. She patted his big 長，率いる before she got on the sledge behind Peter.

There was no 不決断 in the manner of Uppy'S going now. He struck out swift and straight for the pale 星座 of 星／主役にするs that hung over Fort 信用／信任. It was splendid traveling. The surface of the 北極の plain was frozen solid. What little 勝利，勝つd there was （機の）カム from behind them, and the dogs were big and fresh. Uppy ran briskly, snapping the 攻撃する of his whip and la-looing to the dogs in the manner of the Eskimo driver. Dolores did not wait for Peter's 需要・要求する for a その上の explanation of their running away and her remarkable words to Blake. She told him. She omitted, for the sake of Peter's peace of mind, the physical 侮辱s she had 苦しむd at Captain Rydal's 手渡すs. She did not tell him that Rydal had 軍隊d her into his 武器 a few hours before and kissed her. What she did 明らかにする／漏らす made Peter's 武器 and shoulders grow 緊張した and he groaned in his helplessness.

"If you'd only told me!" he 抗議するd. Dolores laughed triumphantly, with her arm about his shoulder. "I knew my dear old Peter too 井戸／弁護士席 for that," she exulted. "If I had told you, what a pretty mess we'd be in now, Peter! You would have 主張するd on calling Captain Rydal into our cabin and 狙撃 him from the bed—and then where would we have been? Don't you think I'm 扱うing it pretty 井戸／弁護士席, Peter dear?"

Peter's reply was smothered against her hooded cheek.

He began to question her more 直接／まっすぐに now, and with his ability to しっかり掴む at the significance of things he pointed out quickly the tremendous hazard of their position. There were many more dogs and other sledges at Blake's place, and it was utterly 信じられない that Blake and Captain Rydal would 許す them to reach Fort 信用／信任 without making every 成果／努力 in their 力／強力にする to stop them. Once they 後継するd in placing 確かな facts in the 手渡すs of the 機動力のある Police, both Rydal and Blake would be done for. He impressed this uncomfortable truth on Dolores and 示唆するd that if she could have 密輸するd a ライフル銃／探して盗む along in the dunnage 解雇（する） it would have helped 事柄s かなり. For Rydal and Blake would not hesitate at 狙撃. For them it must be either 逮捕（する） or kill—death for him, anyway, for he was the one factor not 手配中の，お尋ね者 in the equation. He summed up their chances and their danger calmly and pointedly, as he always looked at troubling things. And Dolores felt her heart 沈むing within her. After all, she had not 扱うd the 状況／情勢 any too 井戸／弁護士席. She almost wished she had killed Rydal herself and called it self-弁護. At least she had been 有罪に negligent in not 密輸するing along a ライフル銃／探して盗む.

"But we'll （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 them out," she argued hopefully. "We've got a splendid team, Peter, and I'll take off my coat and run behind the sledge as much as I can. Uppy won't dare play a trick on us now, for he knows that if I should 行方不明になる him, Wapi would 涙／ほころび the life out of him at a word from me. We'll 勝利，勝つ out, Peter dear. See if we don't!"

Peter hugged his thoughts to himself. He did not tell her that Blake and Rydal would 追求する with a ten- or twelve-dog team, and that there was almost no chance at all of a straight get-away. Instead, he pulled her 長，率いる 負かす／撃墜する and kissed her.

To Wapi there had come at last a 返答 to the 広大な／多数の／重要な yearning that was in him. Instinct, summer and winter, had drawn him south, had turned him always in that direction, filled with the uneasiness of the mysterious something that was calling to him through the years of forty 世代s of his 肉親，親類d. And now he was going south. He sensed the fact that this 旅行 would not end at the 辛勝する／優位 of the 北極の plain and that he was not to 追跡（する） caribou or 耐える. His mental 決まり文句／製法 necessitated no 過程 of 推論する／理由ing. They were simple and to the point His world had suddenly divided itself into two parts; one 含む／封じ込めるd the woman, and the other his old masters and slavery. And the woman stood against these masters. They were her enemies 同様に as his own. Experience had taught him the 力／強力にする and the significance of 小火器, just as it had made him understand the uses for which spears, and harpoons, and whips were made. He had seen the woman shoot Blake, and he had seen her ready to shoot at Uppy. Therefore he understood that they were enemies and that all associated with them were enemies. At a word from her he was ready to spring ahead and 涙／ほころび the life out of the Eskimo driver and even out of the dogs that were pulling the sledge. It did not take him long to comprehend that the man on the sledge was a part of the woman.

He hung 井戸／弁護士席 支援する, twenty or thirty paces behind the sledge, and unless Peter or the woman called to him, or the sledge stopped for some 推論する／理由, he seldom （機の）カム nearer.

It took only a word from Dolores to bring him to her 味方する.

Hour after hour the 旅行 continued. The plain was level as a 床に打ち倒す, and at intervals Dolores would run in the 追跡する that the 負担 might be lightened and the dogs might make better time. It was then that Peter watched Uppy with the revolver, and it was also in these intervals—running の近くに beside the woman—that the 血 in Wapi's veins was 解雇する／砲火／射撃d with a riotous joy.

For three hours there was almost no slackening in Uppy's 速度(を上げる）. The fourth and fifth were slower. In the sixth and seventh the pace began to tell. And the plain was no longer hard and level, swept like a 床に打ち倒す by the polar 勝利，勝つd. Rolling undulations grew into 山の尾根s of snow and ice; in places the dogs dragged the sledge over thin crusts that broke under the 走者s; fields of drift snow, 罰金 as 発射, lay in their way; and in the eighth hour Uppy stopped the lagging dogs and held up his two 手渡すs in the mute signal of the Eskimo that they could go no さらに先に without a 残り／休憩（する）.

Wapi dropped on his belly and watched. His 注目する，もくろむs followed Uppy suspiciously as he strung up the テント on its whalebone supports to keep the bite of the 勝利，勝つd from the sledge on which Dolores sat at Peter's feet. Then Uppy built a 解雇する／砲火／射撃 of kindlings, and 捨てるd up a マリファナ of ice for tea-water. After that, while the water was heating, he gave each of the trace dogs a frozen fish. Dolores herself 選ぶd out one of the largest and 投げ上げる／ボディチェックするd it to Wapi. Then she sat 負かす／撃墜する again and began to talk to Peter, bundled up in his furs. After a time they ate, and drank hot tea, and after he had devoured a chunk of raw meat the size of his two 握りこぶしs, Uppy rolled himself in his sleeping 捕らえる、獲得する 近づく the dogs. A little at a time Wapi dragged himself nearer until his 長，率いる lay on Dolores' coat. After that there was a long silence broken only by the low 発言する／表明するs of the woman and the man, and the 激しい breathing of the tired dogs. Wapi himself dozed off, but never for long. Then Dolores nodded, and her 長，率いる drooped until it 設立する a pillow on Peter's shoulder. Gently Peter drew a bearskin about her, and for a long time sat wide-awake, guarding Uppy and 明らかにするing his ears at intervals to listen. A dozen times he saw Wapi's bloodshot 注目する，もくろむs looking at him, and twice he put out a 手渡す to the dog's 長，率いる and spoke to him in a whisper.

Even Peter's 注目する，もくろむs were filmed by a growing drowsiness when Wapi drew silently away and slunk suspiciously into the night. There was no yapping foxes here, forty miles from the coast. An almost appalling silence hung under the white 星／主役にするs, a silence broken only by the low and distant moaning the 勝利，勝つd always makes on the barrens. Wapi listened to it, and he 匂いをかぐd with his gray muzzle turned to the north. And then he whined. Had Dolores or Peter seen him or heard the 公式文書，認める in his throat, they, too, would have 星／主役にするd 支援する over the 追跡する they had traveled. For something was coming to Wapi. Faint, elusive, and indefinable breath in the 空気／公表する, he smelled it in one moment, and the next it was gone. For many minutes he stood 決めかねて, and then he returned to the sledge, his spine bristling and a growl in his throat.

Wide-注目する，もくろむd and 星／主役にするing, Peter was looking 支援する. "What is it, Wapi?"

His 発言する／表明する 誘発するd Dolores. She sat up with a start. The growl had grown into a snarl in Wapi's throat.

"I think they are coming," said Peter calmly. "You'd better rouse Uppy. He hasn't moved in the last two hours."

Something that was like a sob （機の）カム from Dolores' lips as she stood up. "They're not coming," she whispered. "They've stopped—and they're building a 解雇する／砲火／射撃!"

Not more than a third of a mile away a point of yellow 炎上 ゆらめくd up in the night.

"Give me the revolver, Peter."

Peter gave it to her without a word. She went to Uppy, and at the touch of her foot he was out of his sleeping-捕らえる、獲得する, his moon-直面する 星／主役にするing at her. She pointed 支援する to the 解雇する／砲火／射撃. Her 直面する was dead white. The revolver was pointed straight at Uppy's heart.

"If they come up with us, Uppy—you die!"

The Eskimo's 狭くする 注目する，もくろむs 広げるd. There was 殺人 in this white woman's 直面する, in the steadiness of her 手渡す, and in her 発言する／表明する. If they （機の）カム up with them—he would die! 速く he gathered up his sleeping-捕らえる、獲得する and placed it on the sledge. Then he roused the dogs, 絡まるd in their traces. They rose to their feet, sleepy and ill-humored. One of them snapped at his 手渡す. Another snarled viciously as he untwisted a trace. Then one of the yawning brutes caught the new smell in the 空気／公表する, the smell that Wapi had gathered when it was a mile さらに先に off. He 匂いをかぐd. He sat 支援する on his haunches and sent 前へ／外へ a yelping howl to his comrades in the other team. In ten seconds the other five were howling with him, and scarcely had the tumult burst from their throats when there （機の）カム a 返答 from the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 half a mile away.

"My God!" gasped Peter, under his breath.

Dolores sprang to the gee-妨げる／法廷，弁護士業, and Uppy 攻撃するd his long whip until it 割れ目d like a repeating ライフル銃／探して盗む over the pack. The dogs 答える／応じるd and sped through the night. Behind them the pandemonium of dog 発言する／表明するs in the other （軍の）野営地，陣営 had 中止するd. Men had leaped into life. Fifteen dogs were straightening in the tandem trace of a 選び出す／独身 sledge.

Dolores laughed, a sobbing, broken laugh, that in itself was a cry of despair. "Peter, if they come up with us, what shall we do?"

"If they 追いつく us," said Peter, "give me the revolver. It is fully 負担d?"

"I have cartridges—"

For the first time she remembered that she had not filled the three empty 議会s. Crooking her arm under the gee-妨げる／法廷，弁護士業, she fumbled in her pocket. The dogs, refreshed by their sleep and 勧めるd by Uppy's whip, were 涙／ほころびing off the first mile at a 広大な／多数の／重要な 速度(を上げる）. The 追跡する ahead of them was level and hard again. Uppy knew they were on the 辛勝する／優位 of the big barren of the Lacs Delesse, and he 割れ目d his whip just as the off 走者 of the sledge struck a hidden snow-blister. There was a sudden lurch, and in a vicious up-shoot of the gee-妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 the revolver was knocked from Dolores' 手渡す—and was gone. A shriek rose to her lips, but she stifled it before it was given 発言する／表明する. Until this minute she had not felt the terror of utter hopelessness upon her. Now it made her faint. The revolver had not only given her hope, but also a 確固たる 約束 in herself. From the beginning she had made up her mind how she would use it in the end, even though a few moments before she had asked Peter what they would do.

Crumpled 負かす／撃墜する on the sledge, she clung to Peter, and suddenly the inspiration （機の）カム to her not to let him know what had happened. Her 武器 強化するd about his shoulders, and she looked ahead over the 支援するs of the wolfish pack, shivering as she thought of what Uppy would do could he guess her loss. But he was running now for his life, driven on by his 恐れる of her unerring marksmanship—and Wapi. She looked over her shoulder. Wapi was there, a 抱擁する gray 影をつくる／尾行する twenty paces behind. And she thought she heard a shout!

Peter was speaking to her. "Blake's dogs are tired," he was 説. "They were just about to （軍の）野営地，陣営, and ours have had a 残り／休憩（する）. Perhaps—"

"We shall （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 them!" she interrupted him. "See how 急速な／放蕩な we are going, Peter! It is splendid!"

A ライフル銃／探して盗む-発射 sounded behind them. It was not far away, and involuntarily she clutched him tighter. Peter reached up a 手渡す.

"Give me the revolver, Dolores."

"No," she 抗議するd. "They are not going to 追いつく us."

"You must give me the revolver," he 主張するd.

"Peter, I can't. You understand, I can't. I must keep the revolver."

She looked 支援する again. There was no 疑問 now. Their pursuers were 製図／抽選 nearer. She heard a 発言する／表明する, the la-looing of running Eskimos, a faint shout which she knew was a white man's shout—and another ライフル銃／探して盗む 発射. Wapi was running nearer. He was almost at the tail of the sledge, and his red 注目する，もくろむs were 直す／買収する，八百長をするd on her as he ran.

"Wapi!" she cried. "Wapi!"

His jaws dropped agape. She could hear his panting 返答 to her 発言する／表明する.

A third 発射—over their 長，率いるs sped a strange droning sound.

"Wapi," she almost 叫び声をあげるd, "go 支援する! Sick 'em, Wapi—sick 'em—sick 'em—sick 'em!" She flung out her 武器, 運動ing him 支援する, repeating the words over and over again. She leaned over the 辛勝する／優位 of the sledge, 粘着するing to the gee-妨げる／法廷，弁護士業. "Go 支援する, Wapi! Sick 'em—sick 'em—sick 'em!"

As if in 返答 to her wild exhortation, there （機の）カム a sudden yelping 激しい抗議 from the team behind. It was の近くに upon them now. Another ten minutes.

And then she saw that Wapi was dropping behind. Quickly he was swallowed up in the starlit 大混乱 of the night.

"Peter," she cried, sobbingly. "Peter!"

Listening to the 退却／保養地ing sound of the sledge, Wapi stood a silent 影をつくる／尾行する in the 追跡する. Then he turned and 直面するd the north. He heard the other sound now, and ahead of it the 勝利，勝つd brought him a smell, the smell of things he hated. For many years something had been fighting itself toward understanding within him, and the yelping of dogs and the taint in the 空気／公表する of creatures who had been his slave-masters 狭くするd his instinct to the one 決定的な point. Again it was not a 過程 of 推論する／理由 but the cumulative 影響 of things that had happened, and were happening. He had scented menace when first he had given 警告 of the nearness of pursuers, and this menace was no longer an elusive and unseizable thing that had 単に stirred the 解雇する／砲火／射撃s of his 憎悪. It was now a 近づく and physical fact. He had tried to run away from it—with the woman—but it had followed and was 追いつくing him, and the yelping dogs were challenging him to fight as they had challenged him from the day he was old enough to take his own part. And now he had something to fight for. His 知能 gripped the fact that one sledge was running away from the other, and that the sledge which was running away was his sledge—and that for his sledge he must fight.

He waited, almost squarely in the 追跡する. There was no longer the slinking, club-driven 態度 of a creature at bay in the manner in which he stood in the path of his enemies. He had risen out of his serfdom. The stinging 削除する of the whip and his dread of it were gone. Standing there in the starlight with his magnificent 長，率いる thrown up and the muscles of his 抱擁する 団体／死体 like corded steel, the passing spirit of Shan Tung would have taken him for Tao, the 広大な／多数の／重要な Dane. He was not excited—and yet he was filled with a mighty 願望（する）—more than that, a tremendous 目的. The yelping excitement of the oncoming Eskimo dogs no longer 勧めるd him to turn aside to 避ける their insolent bluster, as he would have turned aside yesterday or the day before. The 発言する／表明するs of his old masters no longer sent him slinking out of their way, a growl in his throat and his 団体／死体 sagging with humiliation and the 激怒（する） of his slavery. He stood like a 激しく揺する, his 幅の広い chest 直面するing them squarely, and when he saw the 影をつくる／尾行するs of them racing up out of the 星／主役にする-もや an eighth of a mile away, it was not a growl but a whine that rose in his throat, a whine of low and repressed 切望, of a 広大な／多数の／重要な yearning about to be 実行するd. Two hundred yards—a hundred—eighty—not until the dogs were いっそう少なく than fifty from him did he move. And then, like a 激しく揺する 投げつけるd by a mighty 軍隊, he was at them.

He met the onrushing 負わせる of the pack breast to breast. There was no 警告. Neither men nor dogs had seen the waiting 影をつくる／尾行する. The 衝突，墜落 sent the lead-dog 支援する with Wapi's 広大な／多数の／重要な fangs in his throat, and in an instant the fourteen dogs behind had piled over them, 絡まるd in their traces, yelping and snarling and biting, while over them 一連の会議、交渉／完成する-直面するd, hooded men shouted shrilly and struck with their whips, and from the sledge a white man sprang with a ライフル銃／探して盗む in his 手渡すs. It was Rydal. Under the 集まり of dogs Wapi, the Walrus, heard nothing of the shouts of men. He was fighting. He was fighting as he had never fought before in all the days of his life. The 猛烈な／残忍な little Eskimo dogs had smelled him, and they knew their enemy. The lead-dog was dead. A second Wapi had disemboweled with a 選び出す／独身 削除する of his インチ-long fangs. He was buried now. But his jaws met flesh and bone, and out of the squirming 集まり there rose fearful cries of agony that mingled hideously with the bawling of men and the snarling and yelping of beasts that had not yet felt Wapi's fangs. Three and four at a time they were at him. He felt the wolfish 削除する of their teeth in his flesh. In him the sense of 苦痛 was gone. His jaws の近くにd on a foreleg, and it snapped like a stick. His teeth sank like ivory knives into the groin of a brute that had torn a 穴を開ける in his 味方する, and a smothered death-howl rose out of the heap. A fang pierced his 注目する，もくろむ. Even then no cry （機の）カム from Wapi, the Walrus. He heaved 上向き with his 巨大（な） 団体／死体. He 設立する another throat, and it was then that he rose above the pack, shaking the life from his 犠牲者 as a terrier would have shaken a ネズミ. For the first time the Eskimos saw him, and out of their superstitious souls strange cries 設立する utterance as they sprang 支援する and shrieked out to Rydal that it was a devil and not a beast that had waited for them in the 追跡する. Rydal threw up his ライフル銃／探して盗む. The 発射 （機の）カム. It 燃やすd a crease in Wapi's shoulder and tore a 穴を開ける as big as a man's 握りこぶし in the breast of a dog about to spring upon him f rom behind. Again he was 負かす／撃墜する, and Rydal dropped his ライフル銃／探して盗む, and snatched a whip from the 手渡す of an Eskimo. Shouting and 悪口を言う／悪態ing, he 攻撃するd the pack, and in a moment he saw a 抱擁する, open-jawed 影をつくる／尾行する rise up on the far 味方する and start off into the open starlight. He sprang 支援する to his ライフル銃／探して盗む. Twice he 解雇する／砲火／射撃d at the 退却／保養地ing 影をつくる／尾行する before it disappeared. And the Eskimo dogs made no movement to follow. Five of the fifteen were dead. The remaining ten, torn and bleeding—three of them with 脚s that dragged in the 血まみれの snow—gathered in a whipped and whimpering group. And the Eskimos, shivering in their 恐れる of this devil that had entered into the 団体／死体 of Wapi, the Walrus, failed to 答える／応じる to Rydal's 命令（する） when he pointed to the red 追跡する that ran out under the 星／主役にするs.

At Fort 信用／信任, one hundred and fifty miles to the south, there was day—day that was like 冷淡な, gray 夜明け, the day one finds just beyond the 辛勝する／優位 of the 北極の night, in which the sun hangs like a pale lantern over the far southern horizon. In a スピードを出す／記録につける-built room that 直面するd this bit of glorious red glow lay Peter, 支えるd up in his bed so that he could see it until it faded from the sky. There was a new light in his 直面する, and there was something of the old Peter 支援する in his 注目する，もくろむs. Watching the final glow with him was Dolores. It was their second day.

Into this world, in the twilight that was 落ちるing 速く as they watched the setting of the sun, （機の）カム Wapi, the Walrus. Blinded in the 注目する，もくろむ, gaunt with hunger and exhaustion, covered with 負傷させるs, and with his 広大な／多数の／重要な heart almost ready to die, he （機の）カム at last to the river across which lay the 兵舎. His 見通し was nearly gone, but under his nose he could still smell faintly the 追跡する he was に引き続いて until the last. It led him across the river. And in 不明瞭 it brought him to a door.

After a little the door opened, and with its 開始 （機の）カム at last the fulfilment of the 約束 of his dreams—hope, happiness, things to live for in a new, a white-man's world. For Wapi, the Walrus, forty years 除去するd from Tao of Vancouver, had at last come home.

THE YELLOW-BACK

Above God's Lake, where the Bent Arrow runs red as pale 血 under its crust of ice, Reese Beaudin heard of the dog auction that was to take place at 地位，任命する Lac Bain three days later. It was in the cabin of Joe Delesse, a trapper, who lived at Lac Bain during the summer, and 罠にかける the fox and the lynx sixty miles さらに先に north in this month of February.

"Diantre, but I tell you it is to be the greatest sale of dogs that has ever happened at Lac Bain!" said Delesse. "To this Wakao they are coming from all the four directions. There will be a hundred dogs, huskies, and malamutes, and Mackenzie hounds, and mongrels from the south, and I should not wonder if some of the little Eskimo devils were brought from the north to be sold as 子孫を作る人s. Surely you will not 行方不明になる it, my friend?"

"I am going by way of 地位，任命する Lac Bain," replied Reese Beaudin equivocally.

But his mind was not on the sale of dogs. From his 麻薬を吸う he puffed out 厚い clouds of smoke, and his 注目する，もくろむs 狭くするd until they seemed like coals peering out of 割れ目s; and he said, in his 静かな, soft 発言する／表明する:

"Do you know of a man 指名するd Jacques Dupont, m'sieu?"

Joe Delesse tried to peer through the cloud of smoke at Reese Beaudin's 直面する.

"Yes, I know him. Does he happen to be a friend of yours?"

Reese laughed softly.

"I have heard of him. They say that he is a devil. To the west I was told that he can whip any man between Hudson's Bay and the 広大な／多数の／重要な 耐える, that he is a beast in man-形態／調整, and that he will surely be at the big sale at Lac Bain."

On his 膝s the 抱擁する 手渡すs of Joe Delesse clenched slowly, gripping in their imaginary clutch a hated thing.

"Oui, I know him," he said. "I know also—Elise—his wife. See!"

He thrust suddenly his two 抱擁する knotted 手渡すs through the smoke that drifted between him and the stranger who had sought the 避難所 of his cabin that night.

"See—I am a man 十分な-grown, m'sieu—a man—and yet I am afraid of him! That is how much of a devil and a beast in man-形態／調整 he is."

Again Reese Beaudin laughed in his low, soft 発言する／表明する.

"And his wife, mon ami? Is she afraid of him?"

He had stopped smoking. Joe Delesse saw his 直面する. The stranger's 注目する，もくろむs made him look twice and think twice.

"You have known her—いつか?"

"Yes, a long time ago. "We were children together. And I have heard all has not gone 井戸／弁護士席 with her. Is it so?"

"Does it go 井戸／弁護士席 when a dove is mated to a vulture, m'sieu?"

"I have also heard that she grew up to be very beautiful," said Reese Beaudin, "and that Jacques Dupont killed a man for her. If that is so—"

"It is not so," interrupted Delesse. "He drove another man away—no, not a man, but a yellow-肝臓d coward who had no more fight in him than a porcupine without quills! And yet she says he was not a coward. She has always said, even to Dupont, that it was the way le Bon Dieu made him, and that because he was made that way he was greater than all other men in the North Country. How do I know? Because, m'sieu, I am Elise Dupont's cousin."

Delesse wondered why Reese Beaudin's 注目する，もくろむs were glowing like living coals.

"And yet—again, it is only 噂する I have heard—they say this man, whoever he was, did 現実に run away, like a dog that had been whipped and was afraid to return to its kennel."

"Pst!" Joe Delesse flung his 広大な／多数の／重要な 武器 wide. "Like that—he was gone. And no one ever saw him again, or heard of him again. But I know that she knew—my cousin, Elise. What word it was he left for her at the last she has always kept in her own heart, mon Dieu, and what a wonderful thing he had to fight for! You knew the child. But the woman—非，不，無? She was like an angel. Her 注目する，もくろむs, when you looked into them—hat can I say, m'sieu? They made you forget. And I have seen her hair, unbound, 黒人／ボイコット and glossy as the velvet 味方する of a sable, covering her to the hips. And two years ago I saw Jacques Dupont's 手渡すs in that hair, and he was dragging her by it—"

Something snapped. It was a muscle in Reese Beaudin's arm. He had 強化するd like アイロンをかける.

"And you let him do that!"

Joe Delesse shrugged his shoulders. It was a shrug of hopelessness, of disgust.

"For the third time I 干渉するd, and for the third time Jacques Dupont （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 me until I was nearer dead than alive. And since then I have made it 非，不，無 of my 商売／仕事. It was, after all, the fault of the man who ran away. You see, m'sieu, it was like this: Dupont was mad for her, and this man who ran away—the Yellow-支援する—手配中の，お尋ね者 her, and Elise loved the Yellow-支援する. This Yellow-支援する was twenty-three or four, and he read 調書をとる／予約するs, and played a fiddle and drew strange pictures—and was weak in the heart when it （機の）カム to a fight. But Elise loved him. She loved him for those very things that made him a fool and a weakling, m'sieu, the 調書をとる／予約するs and the fiddle and the pictures; and she stood up with the courage for them both. And she would have married him, too, and would have fought for him with a club if it had come to that, when the thing happened that made him run away. It was at the midsummer carnival, when all the trappers and their wives and children were at Lac Bain. And Dupont followed the Yellow-支援する about like a dog. He taunted him, he 侮辱d him, he got 負かす／撃墜する on his 膝s and 申し込む／申し出d to fight him without getting on his feet; and there, before the very 注目する，もくろむs of Elise, he washed the Yellow-支援する's 直面する in the grease of one of the roasted caribou! And the Yellow-支援する was a man! Yes, a grown man! And it was then that Jacques Dupont shouted out his challenge to all that （人が）群がる. He would fight the Yellow-支援する. He would fight him with his 権利 arm tied behind his 支援する! And before Elise and the Yellow-支援する, and all that （人が）群がる, friends tied his arm so that it was like a piece of 支持を得ようと努めるd behind him, and it was his 権利 arm, his fighting arm, the better half of him that was gone. And even then the Yellow-支援する was as white as the paper he drew pictures on. Ventre saint gris, but then was his chance to have killed Jacques Dupont! Half a man could have done it. Did he, m'sieu? No, he did not. With his one arm and his one 手渡す Jacques Dupont whipped that Yellow-支援する, and he would have killed him if Elise had not 急ぐd in to sav e the Yellow-支援する's purple 直面する from going dead 黒人／ボイコット. And that night the Yellow-支援する slunk away. Shame? Yes. From that night he was ashamed to show his 直面する ever again at Lac Bain. And no one knows where he went. No one—except Elise. And her secret is in her own breast."

"And after that?" questioned Reese Beaudin, in a 発言する／表明する that was scarcely above a whisper.

"I cannot understand," said Joe Delesse. "It was strange, m'sieu, very strange. I know that Elise, even after that coward ran away, still loved him. And yet—井戸／弁護士席, something happened. I overheard a terrible quarrel one day between Jan Thiebout, father of Elise, and Jacques Dupont. After that Thiebout was very much afraid of Dupont. I have my own 疑惑. Now that Thiebout is dead it is not wrong for me to say what it is. I think Thiebout killed the halfbreed Bedore who was 設立する dead on his 罠（にかける）-line five years ago. There was a 反目，不和 between them. And Dupont, discovering Thiebout's secret—井戸／弁護士席, you can understand how 平易な it would be after that, m'sieu. Thiebout's winter trapping was in that Burntwood country, fifty miles from neighbor to neighbor, and very soon after Bedore's death Jacques Dupont became Thiebout's partner. I know that Elise was 軍隊d to marry him. That was four years ago. The next year old Thiebout died, and in all that time not once has Elise been to 地位，任命する Lac Bain!"

"Like the Yellow-支援する—she never returned," breathed Reese Beaudin.

"Never. And now—it is strange—"

"What is strange, Joe Delesse?"

"That for the first time in all these years she is going to Lac Bain—to the dog sale."

Reese Beaudin's 直面する was again hidden in the smoke of his 麻薬を吸う. Through it his 発言する／表明する （機の）カム.

"It is a 冷淡な night, M'sieu Delesse. Hear the 勝利，勝つd howl!"

"Yes, it is 冷淡な—so 冷淡な the foxes will not run. My 罠（にかける）s and 毒（薬）-baits will need no tending tomorrow."

"Unless you dig them out of the drifts."

"I will stay in the cabin."

"What! You are not going to Lac Bain!"

"I 疑問 it."

"Even though Elise, your cousin, is to be there?"

"I have no stomach for it, m'sieu. Nor would you were you in my boots, and did you know why he is going. Par les mille cornes d'u diable, I cannot whip him but I can kill him—and if I went—and the thing happens which I guess is going to happen—"

"Qui? Surely you will tell me—"

"Yes, I will tell you. Jacques Dupont knows that Elise has never stopped loving the Yellow-支援する. I do not believe she has ever tried to hide it from him. Why should she? And there is a 噂する, m'sieu, that the Yellow-支援する will be at the Lac Bain dog sale."

Reese Beaudin rose slowly to his feet, and yawned in that smoke-filled cabin.

"And if the Yellow-支援する should turn the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs, Joe Delesse, think of what a 罰金 thing you will 行方不明になる," he said.

Joe Delesse also rose, with a contemptuous laugh.

"That fiddler, that picture-drawer, that 調書をとる／予約する-reader—Pouff! You are tired, m'sieu, that is your bunk."

Reese Beaudin held out a 手渡す. The 本体，大部分／ばら積みの of the two stood out in the lamp-glow, and Joe Delesse was so much the bigger man that his 手渡す was half again the size of Reese Beaudin's. They gripped. And then a strange look went over the 直面する of Joe Delesse. A cry （機の）カム from out of his 耐えるd. His mouth grew 新たな展開d. His 膝s 二塁打d slowly under him, and in the space of ten seconds his 抱擁する 本体，大部分／ばら積みの was ひさまづくing on the 床に打ち倒す, while Reese Beaudin looked at him, smiling.

"Has Jacques Dupont a greater 支配する than that, Joe Delesse?" he asked in a 発言する／表明する that was so soft it was almost a woman's.

"Mon Dieu!" gasped Delesse. He staggered to his feet, clutching his 鎮圧するd 手渡す. "M'sieu—"

Reese Beaudin put his 手渡すs to the other's shoulders, smiling, friendly.

"I will わびる, I will explain, mon ami," he said. "But first, you must tell me the 指名する of that Yellow-支援する who ran away years ago. Do you remember it?"

"Oui, but what has that to do with my 鎮圧するd 手渡す? The Yellow-支援する's 指名する was Reese Beaudin—"

"And I am Reese Beaudin," laughed the other gently.

On that day—the day of Wakoa, the dog sale—seven fat caribou were roasting on 広大な／多数の／重要な spits at 地位，任命する Lac Bain, and under them were seven 解雇する／砲火／射撃s 燃やすing red and hot of seasoned birch, and around the seven 解雇する／砲火／射撃s were seven groups of men who slowly turned the roasting carcasses.

It was the Big Day of the 中央の-winter festival, and 地位，任命する Lac Bain, with a 全住民 of twenty in times of 静かな, was a seething wilderness metropolis of two hundred excited souls and twice as many dogs. From all directions they had come, from north and south and east and west; from 近づく and from far, from the Barrens, from the 押し寄せる／沼地s, from the さらに先に forests, from river and lake and hidden 追跡する—a few white men, mostly French; half-産む／飼育するs and '産む／飼育するs, Chippewans, and Crees, and here and there a strange, dark-visaged little interloper from the north with his 緊張する of Eskimo 血. Foregathered were all the 産む／飼育するs and creeds and fashions of the wilderness.

Over all this, pervading the 空気／公表する like an incense, stirring the 願望（する） of man and beast, floated the aroma of the roasting caribou. The feast-hour was at 手渡す. With cries that rose above the last words of a wild song the seven groups of men 急ぐd to seven pairs of 支え（る）s and tore them away. The 広大な／多数の／重要な carcasses swayed in 中央の-空気／公表する, bent slowly over their spits, and then 衝突，墜落d into the snow fifteen feet from the 解雇する／砲火／射撃. About each carcass five men with かみそり-sharp knives ripped off hunks of the roasted flesh and passed them into eager 手渡すs of the hungry multitude. First （機の）カム the women and children, and last the men.

On this there peered 前へ／外へ from a window in the factor's house the darkly bearded, smiling 直面する of Reese Beaudin.

"I have seen him three times, wandering about in the （人が）群がる, 捜し出すing someone," he said. "Bien, he shall find that someone very soon!"

In the 直面する of McDougall, the factor, was a strange look. For he had listened to a strange story, and there was still something of shock and amazement and 不信 in his 注目する，もくろむs.

"Reese Beaudin, it is hard for me to believe."

"And yet you shall find that it is true," smiled Reese.

"He will kill you. He is a monster—a 巨大（な）!"

"I shall die hard," replied Reese.

He turned from the window again, and took from the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する a violin wrapped in buckskin, and softly he played one of their old love songs. It was not much more than a whisper, and yet it was filled with a joyous exultation. He laid the violin 負かす／撃墜する when he was finished, and laughed, and filled his 麻薬を吸う, and lighted it.

"It is good for a man's soul to know that a woman loves him, and has been true," he said. "Mon pere, will you tell me again what she said? It is strength for me—and I must soon be going."

McDougall repeated, as if under a 緊張する from which he could not 解放する／自由な himself:

"She （機の）カム to me late last night, unknown to Dupont. She had received your message, and knew you were coming. And I tell you again that I saw something in her 注目する，もくろむs which makes me afraid! She told me, then, that her father killed Bedore in a quarrel, and that she married Dupont to save him from the 法律—and ひさまづくing there, with her 手渡す on the cross at her breast, she swore that each day of her life she has let Dupont know that she hates him, and that she loves you, and that some day Reese Beaudin would return to avenge her. Yes, she told him that—I know it by what I saw in her 注目する，もくろむs. With that cross clutched in her fingers she swore that she had 苦しむd 拷問 and shame, and that never a word of it had she whispered to a living soul, that she might turn the passion of Jacques Dupont's 黒人／ボイコット heart into a 広大な／多数の／重要な 憎悪. And today—Jacques Dupont will kill you!"

"I shall die hard," Reese repeated again.

He tucked the violin in its buckskin covering under his arm. From the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する he took his cap and placed it on his 長，率いる.

In a last 成果／努力 McDougall sprang from his 議長，司会を務める and caught the other's arm.

"Reese Beaudin—you are going to your death! As factor of Lac Bain—スパイ／執行官 of 司法（官） under 力／強力にする of the Police—I forbid it!"

"So-o-o-o," spoke Reese Beaudin gently. "Mon pere—"

He unbuttoned his coat, which had remained buttoned. Under the coat was a 激しい shirt; and the shirt he opened, smiling into the factor's 注目する，もくろむs, and McDougall's 直面する froze, and the breath was 削減（する） short on his lips.

"That!" he gasped.

Reese Beaudin nodded.

Then he opened the door and went out.

Joe Delesse had been watching the factor's house, and he worked his way slowly along the 辛勝する／優位 of the feasters so that he might casually come into the path of Reese Beaudin. And there was one other man who also had watched, and who （機の）カム in the same direction. He was a stranger, tall, closely hooded, his mustached 直面する an Indian bronze. No one had ever seen him at Lac Bain before, yet in the excitement of the carnival the fact passed without conjecture or significance. And from the cabin of Henri Paquette another pair of 注目する，もくろむs saw Reese Beaudin, and Mother Paquette heard a sob that in itself was a 祈り.

In and out の中で the devourers of caribou-flesh, scanning the groups and the ones and the twos and the threes, passed Jacques Dupont, and with him walked his friend, one-注目する，もくろむd Layonne. Layonne was a big man, but Dupont was taller by half a 長，率いる. The brutishness of his 直面する was hidden under a coarse red 耐えるd; but the devil in him glowered from his 深い-始める，決める, 残忍な 注目する，もくろむs; it walked in his gait, in the hulk of his 広大な／多数の／重要な shoulders, in the gorilla-like slouch of his hips. His 抱擁する 手渡すs hung partly clenched at his 味方するs. His breath was 激しい with whisky that Layonne himself had 密輸するd in, and in his heart was 黒人／ボイコット 殺人.

"He has not come!" he cried for the twentieth time. "He has not come!"

He moved on, and Reese Beaudin—ten feet away—turned and smiled at Joe Delesse with 勝利 in his 注目する，もくろむs. He moved nearer.

"Did I not tell you he would not find in me that 狭くする-shouldered, smooth-直面するd stripling of five years ago?" he asked. "N'est-ce pas, friend Delesse?"

The 直面する of Joe Delesse was 激しい with a somber 恐れる.

"His 握りこぶし is like a 支持を得ようと努めるd-sledge, m'sieu."

"So it was years ago."

"His forearm is as big as the calf of your 脚."

"Oui, friend Delesse, it is the forearm of a 巨大（な）."

"He is half again your 負わせる."

"Or more, friend Delesse."

"He will kill you! As the 広大な／多数の／重要な God lives, he will kill you!"

"I shall die hard," repeated Reese Beaudin for the third time that day.

Joe Delesse turned slowly, doggedly. His 発言する／表明する rumbled.

"The sale is about to begin, m'sieu. See!"

A man had 機動力のある the スピードを出す／記録につける 壇・綱領・公約 raised to the 高さ of a man's shoulders at the far end of the （疑いを）晴らすing. It was Henri Paquette, master of the day's 儀式s, and 任命するd auctioneer of the 広大な／多数の／重要な wakao. A man of many tongues was Paquette. To his lips he raised a 広大な／多数の／重要な megaphone of birchbark, and sonorously his call rang out—in French, in Cree, in Chippewan, and the packed throng about the caribou-解雇する／砲火／射撃s heaved like a living 大波, and to a man and a woman and a child it moved toward the 任命するd place.

"The time has come," said Reese Beaudin. "And all Lac Bain shall see!"

Behind them—watching, always watching—followed the bronze-直面するd stranger in his の近くに-drawn hood.

For an hour the men of Lac Bain gathered の近くに-wedged about the スピードを出す／記録につける 壇・綱領・公約 on which stood Henri Paquette and his Indian helper. Behind the men were the women and children, and through the 非常線，警戒線 there ran a babiche-roped pathway along which the dogs were brought.

The 壇・綱領・公約 was twenty feet square, with the 床に打ち倒す 味方する of the スピードを出す／記録につけるs hewn flat, and there was no 欠如（する） of space for the gesticulation and wild pantomime of Paquette. In one 手渡す he held a notebook, and in the other a pencil. In the notebook the sales of twenty dogs were already 一覧表にするd, and the prices paid.

Anxiously, Reese Beaudin was waiting. Each time that a new dog （機の）カム up he looked at Joe Delesse, but, as yet Joe had failed to give the signal.

On the 壇・綱領・公約 the Indian was 持つ／拘留するing two malamutes in leash now and Paquette was crying, in a 井戸／弁護士席 ふりをするd fit of 広大な／多数の／重要な fury:

"What, you cheap kimootisks, will you let this pair of malamutes go for seven mink and a cross fox. Are you men? Are you poverty-stricken? Are you blind? A 産む／飼育する dog and a male 巨大（な） for seven mink and a cross fox? 非，不，無, I will buy them myself first, and kill them, and use their flesh for dog-料金d, and their hides for fools' caps! I will—"

"Twelve mink and a Number Two Cross," （機の）カム a 発言する／表明する out of the （人が）群がる.

"Twelve mink and a Number One," shouted another.

"A little better—a little better!" wailed Paquette. "You are waking up, but slowly—mon Dieu, so slowly! Twelve mink and—"

A 発言する／表明する rose in Cree:

"Nesi-tu-now-unisk!"

Paquette gave a 勝利を得た yell.

"The Indian （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域s you! The Indian from Little Neck Lake—an Indian （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域s the white man! He 申し込む／申し出s twenty beaver—prime 肌s! And beaver are 手配中の，お尋ね者 in Paris now. They're 手配中の，お尋ね者 in London. Beaver and gold—they are the same! But they are the price of one dog alone. Shall they both go at that? Shall the Indian have them for twenty beaver—twenty beaver that may be taken from a 選び出す／独身 house in a day—while it has taken these malamutes two and a half years to grow? I say, you cheap kimootisks—"

And then an amazing thing happened. It was like a 爆弾 落ちるing in that （人が）群がるd throng of wondering and amazed forest people.

It was the closely hooded stranger who spoke.

"I will give a hundred dollars cash," he said.

A look of annoyance crossed Reese Beaudin's 直面する.

He was の近くに to the bronze-直面するd stranger, and 辛勝する／優位d nearer.

"Let the Indian have them," he said in a low 発言する／表明する. "It is Meewe. I knew him years ago. He has carried me on his 支援する. He taught me first to draw pictures."

"But they are powerful dogs," 反対するd the stranger. "My team needs them."

The Cree had risen higher out of the （人が）群がる. One arm rose above his 長，率いる. He was an Indian who had seen fifty years of the forests, and his 直面する was the 直面する of an Egyptian.

"Nesi-tu-now Nesoo-次第に損なう umisk!" he 布告するd.

Henri Paquette hopped excitedly, and 直面するd the stranger.

"Twenty-two beaver," he challenged. "Twenty-two—"

"Let Meewe have them," replied the hooded stranger.

Three minutes later a 選び出す／独身 dog was pulled up on the スピードを出す／記録につける 壇・綱領・公約. He was a magnificent beast, and a rumble of 是認 ran through the （人が）群がる.

The 直面する of Joe Delesse was gray. He wet his lips. Reese Beaudin, watching him, knew that the time had come. And Joe Delesse, seeing no way of escape, whispered:

"It is her dog, m'sieu. It is Parka—and Dupont sells him today to show her that he is master."

Already Paquette was advertising the virtues of Parka when Reese Beaudin, in a 選び出す／独身 leap, 機動力のある the スピードを出す／記録につける 壇・綱領・公約, and stood beside him.

"Wait!" he cried.

There fell a silence, and Reese said, loud enough for all to hear:

"M'sieu Paquette, I ask the 特権 of 診察するing this dog that I want to buy."

At last he straightened, and all who 直面するd him saw the smiling sneer on his lips.

"Who is it that 申し込む／申し出s this worthless cur for sale?" Lac Bain heard him say. "P-s-s-st—it is a woman's dog! It is not 価値（がある） bidding for!"

"You 嘘（をつく）!" Dupont's 発言する／表明する rose in a savage roar. His 抱擁する shoulders 本体，大部分／ばら積みのd over those about him. He （人が）群がるd to the 辛勝する／優位 of the 壇・綱領・公約. "You 嘘（をつく）!"

"He is a woman's dog," repeated Reese Beaudin without excitement, yet so 明確に that every ear heard. "He is a woman's pet, and M'sieu Dupont most surely does 嘘（をつく） if he 否定するs it!"

So far as memory went 支援する no man at Lac Bain that day had ever heard another man give Jacques Dupont the 嘘（をつく）. A thrill swept those who heard and understood. There was a 広大な／多数の／重要な silence, in that silence men 近づく him heard the choking 激怒（する） in Dupont's 広大な／多数の／重要な chest. He was 星／主役にするing up—straight up into the smiling 直面する of Reese Beaudin; and in that moment he saw beyond the glossy 黒人／ボイコット 耐えるd, and amazement and unbelief held him still. In the next, Reese Beaudin had the violin in his 手渡すs. He flung off the buckskin, and in a flash the 器具 was at his shoulder.

"See! I will play, and the woman's pet shall sing!"

And once more, after five years, Lac Bain listened to the 魔法 of Reese Beaudin's violin. And it was Elise's old love song that he played. He played it, smiling 負かす／撃墜する into the 注目する，もくろむs of a monster whose 直面する was turning from red to 黒人／ボイコット; yet he did not play it to the end, nor a ４半期/4分の1 of it, for suddenly a 発言する／表明する shouted:

"It is Reese Beaudin—come 支援する!"

Joe Delesse, 麻ひさせるd, speechless, could have sworn it was the hooded stranger who shouted; and then he remembered, and flung up his 広大な／多数の／重要な 武器, and bellowed:

"Oui—by the Saints, it is Reese Beaudin—Reese Beaudin come 支援する!"

Suddenly as it had begun the playing 中止するd, and Henri Paquette 設立する himself with the violin in his 手渡すs. Reese Beaudin turned, 直面するing them all, the wintry sun glowing in his 耐えるd, his 注目する，もくろむs smiling, his 長，率いる high—unfraid now, more fearless than any other man that had ever 始める，決める foot in Lac Bain. And McDougall, with his arm touching Elise's hair, felt the wild and throbbing pulse of her 団体／死体. This day—this hour—this minute in which she stood still, inbreathing—had 確認するd her belief in Reese Beaudin. As she had dreamed, so had he risen. First of all the men in the world he stood there now, just as he had been first in the days when she had loved his dreams, his music, and his pictures. To her he was the old god, more splendid,—for he had risen above 恐れる, and he was 直面するing Dupont now with that strange 静かな smile on his lips. And then, all at once, her soul broke its fetters, and over the women's 長，率いるs she reached out her 武器, and all there heard her 発言する／表明する in its 勝利, its joy, its 恐れる.

"Reese! Reese—my sakeakun!"

Over the 長，率いるs of all the forest people she called him beloved! Like the fang of an adder the word stung Dupont's brain. And like 解雇する／砲火／射撃 touched to 砕く, 速く as 雷 illumines the sky, the glory of it 炎d in Reese Beaudin's 直面する. And all that were there heard him 明確に:

"I am Reese Beaudin. I am the Yellow-支援する. I have returned to 会合，会う a man you all know—Jacques Dupont. He is a monkey-man—a whipper of boys, a stealer of women, a cheat, a coward, a thing so foul the crows will not touch him when he dies—"

There was a roar. It was not the roar of a man, but of a beast—and Jacques Dupont was on the 壇・綱領・公約!

Quick as Dupont's movement had been it was no swifter than that of the closely-hooded stranger. He was as tall as Dupont, and about him there was an 空気／公表する of 当局 and 命令（する）.

"Wait," he said, and placed a 手渡す on Dupont's heaving chest. His smile was 冷淡な as ice. Never had Dupont seen 注目する，もくろむs so like the pale blue of steel.

"M'sieu Dupont, you are about to avenge a 広大な／多数の／重要な 侮辱. It must be done 公正に／かなり. If you have 武器s, throw them away. I will search this—this Reese Beaudin, as he calls himself! And if there is to be a fight, let it be a good one. （土地などの）細長い一片 yourself to that 広大な／多数の／重要な 衣料品 you have on, friend Dupont. See, our friend—this Reese Beaudin—is already stripping!"

He was unbuttoning the 巨大（な）'s 激しい Hudson's Bay coat. He pulled it off, and drew Dupont's knife from its sheath. Paquette, like a stunned cat that had 回復するd its ninth life, was 緊急発進するing from the 壇・綱領・公約. The Indian was already gone. And Reese Beaudin had 投げ上げる／ボディチェックするd his coat to Joe Delesse, and with it his cap. His 激しい shirt was closely buttoned; and not only was it buttoned, Delesse 観察するd, but also was it carefully pinned. And even now, 直面するing that monster who would soon be at him, Reese Beaudin was smiling.

For a moment the closely hooded stranger stood between them, and Jacques Dupont crouched himself for his vengeance. Never to the people of Lac Bain had he looked more terrible. He was the gorilla-闘士，戦闘機, the beast 闘士，戦闘機, the 闘士，戦闘機 who fights as the wolf, the 耐える and the cat—鎮圧するing out life, breaking bones, 新たな展開ing, snapping, inundating and destroying with his 広大な／多数の／重要な 負わせる and his monstrous strength. He was a hundred 続けざまに猛撃するs heavier than Reese Beaudin. On his stooping shoulders he could carry a tree. With his 巨大（な） 手渡すs he could snap a two-インチ sapling. With one 手渡す alone he had 始める，決める a 耐える-罠（にかける）. And with that mighty strength he fought as the 洞穴-man fought. It was his 誇る there was no trick of the Chippewan, the Cree, the Eskimo or the forest man that he did not know. And yet Reese Beaudin stood calmly, waiting for him, and smiling!

In another moment the hooded stranger was gone, and there was 非，不，無 between them.

"A long time I have waited for this, m'sieu," said Reese, for Dupont's ears alone. "Five years is a long time. And my Elise still loves me."

Still more like a gorilla Jacques Dupont crept upon him. His 直面する was 新たな展開d by a 激怒（する） to which he could no longer give 発言する／表明する. 憎悪 and jealousy robbed his 注目する，もくろむs of the last 誘発する of the thing that was human. His 広大な／多数の／重要な 手渡すs were 麻薬中毒の, like an eagle's talons. His lips were drawn 支援する, like a beast's. Through his red 耐えるd yellow fangs were 明らかにするd.

And Reese Beaudin no longer smiled. He laughed!

"Until I went away and met real men, I never knew what a pig of a man you were, M'sieu Dupont," he taunted amiably, as though speaking in jest to a friend. "You remind me of an 老年の and over-fat porcupine with his big paunch and crooked 武器. What horror must it have been for my Elise to have lived in sight of such a beast as you!"

With a bellow Dupont was at him. And swifter than 注目する，もくろむs had ever seen man move at Lac Bain before, Reese Beaudin was out of his way, and behind him; and then, as the 巨大（な） caught himself at the 辛勝する／優位 of the 壇・綱領・公約, and turned, he received a blow that sounded like the broadside of a paddle striking water. Reese Beaudin had struck him with the flat of his unclenched 手渡す!

A murmur of incredulity rose out of the （人が）群がる. To the forest man such a blow was the deadliest of 侮辱s. It was calling him an Iskwao—a woman—a weakling—a thing too contemptible to harden one's 握りこぶし against. But the murmur died in an instant. For Reese Beaudin, making as if to step 支援する, 発射 suddenly 今後—straight through the 巨大（な）'s crooked 武器—and it was his 握りこぶし this time that landed squarely between the 注目する，もくろむs of Dupont. The monster's 長，率いる went 支援する, his 広大な／多数の／重要な 団体／死体 wavered, and then suddenly he 急落（する），激減（する）d backward off the 壇・綱領・公約 and fell with a 衝突，墜落 to the ground.

A yell went up from the hooded stranger. Joe Delesse 分裂（する） his throat. The （人が）群がる 溺死するd Reese Beaudin's 発言する／表明する. But above it all rose a woman's 発言する／表明する shrieking 前へ／外へ a 指名する.

And then Jacques Dupont was on the 壇・綱領・公約 again. In the moments that followed one could almost hear his neighbor's heart （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域. Nearer and still nearer to each other drew the two men. And now Dupont crouched still more, and Joe Delesse held his breath. He noticed that Reese Beaudin was standing almost on the tips of his toes—that each instant he seemed 用意が出来ている, like a 走者, for sudden flight. Five feet—four—and Dupont leapt in, his 抱擁する 武器 swinging like the 四肢 of a tree, and his 負わせる に引き続いて with 鎮圧するing 軍隊 behind his blow. For an instant it seemed as though Reese Beaudin had stood to 会合，会う that 致命的な 急ぐ, but in that same instant—so 速く that only the hooded stranger knew what had happened—he was out of the way, and his left arm seemed to shoot downward, and then up, and then his 権利 straight out, and then again his left arm downward, and up—and it was the third blow, all swift as 雷, that brought a yell from the hooded stranger. For though 非，不，無 but the stranger had seen it, Jacques Dupont's 長，率いる snapped 支援する—and all saw the fourth blow that sent him reeling like a man struck by a club.

There was no sound now. A mental and a 声の paralysis 掴むd upon the inhabitants of Lac Bain. Never had they seen fighting like this fighting of Reese Beaudin. Until now had they lived to see the science of the sawdust （犯罪の）一味 pitted against the brute 軍隊 of Brobdingnagian, of Antaeus and Goliath. For Reese Beaudin's fighting was a fighting without tricks that they could see. He used his 握りこぶしs, and his 握りこぶしs alone. He was like a dancing man. And suddenly, in the 中央 of the 奇蹟, they saw Jacques Dupont go 負かす／撃墜する. And the second 奇蹟 was that Reese Beaudin did not leap on him when he had fallen. He stood 支援する a little, balancing himself in that queer fashion on the balls and toes of his feet. But no sooner was Dupont up than Reese Beaudin was in again, with the swiftness of a cat, and they could hear the blows, like solid 発射s, and Dupont's 武器 waved like tree-最高の，を越すs, and a second time he was off the 壇・綱領・公約.

He was staggering when he rose. The 血 ran in streams from his mouth and nose. His 耐えるd dripped with it. His yellow teeth were 洞穴d in.

This time he did not leap upon the 壇・綱領・公約—he clambered 支援する to it, and the hooded stranger gave him a 解除する which a few minutes before Dupont would have resented as an 侮辱.

"Ah, it has come," said the stranger to Delesse.

"He is the best の近くに-in 闘士，戦闘機 in all—"

He did not finish.

"I could kill you now—kill you with a 選び出す／独身 blow," said Reese Beaudin in a moment when the 巨大（な） stood swaying. "But there is a greater 罰 in 蓄える／店 for you, and so I shall let you live!"

And now Reese Beaudin was 直面するing that part of the （人が）群がる where the woman he loved was standing. He was breathing 深く，強烈に. But he was not winded. His 注目する，もくろむs were 黒人／ボイコット as night, his hair 勝利，勝つd-blown. He looked straight over the 長，率いるs between him and she whom Dupont had stolen from him.

Reese Beaudin raised his 武器, and where there had been a murmur of 発言する／表明するs there was now silence.

For the first time the stranger threw 支援する his hood. He was unbuttoning his 激しい coat.

And Joe Delesse, looking up, saw that Reese Beaudin was making a mighty 成果／努力 to 静かな a strange excitement within his breast. And then there was a rending of cloth and of buttons and of pins as in one swift movement he tore the shirt from his own breast—exposing to the 注目する，もくろむs of Lac Bain 血-red in the glow of the winter sun, the crimson badge of the 王室の Northwest 機動力のある Police!

And above the gasp that swept the multitude, above the strange cry of the woman, his 発言する／表明する rose:

"I am Reese Beaudin, the Yellow-支援する. I am Reese Beaudin, who ran away. I am Reese Beaudin,—Sergeant in His Majesty's 王室の Northwest 機動力のある Police, and in the 指名する of the 法律 I 逮捕（する） Jacques Dupont for the 殺人 of Francois Bedore, who was killed on his 罠（にかける）-line five years ago! Fitzgerald—"

The hooded stranger leaped upon the 壇・綱領・公約. His 激しい coat fell off. Tall and grim he stood in the scarlet jacket of the Police. Steel clinked in his 手渡すs. And Jacques Dupont, terror in his heart, was trying to see as he groped to his 膝s. The steel snapped over his wrists.

And then he heard a 発言する／表明する の近くに over him. It was the 発言する／表明する of Reese Beaudin.

"And this is your final 罰, Jacques Dupont—to be hanged by the neck until you are dead. For Bedore was not dead when Elise's father left him after their fight on the 罠（にかける）-line. It was you who saw the fight, and finished the 殺人，大当り, and laid the 罪，犯罪 on Elise's father. Mukoki, the Indian, saw you. It is my day, Dupont, and I have waited long—"

The 残り／休憩（する） Dupont did not hear. For up from the （人が）群がる there went a mighty roar. And through it a woman was making her way with outreaching 武器—and behind her followed the factor of Lac Bain.

THE FIDDLING MAN

Breault's cough was not pleasant to hear. A cough 所有するs manifold and almost unclassifiable 多様制s. But there is only one cough when a man has a 弾丸 through his 肺s and is 手段ing his life by minutes, perhaps seconds. Yet Breault, even as he coughed the red stain from his lips, was not afraid. Many times he had 設立する himself in the presence of death, and long ago it had 中止するd to 脅す him. Some day he had 推定する／予想するd to come under the 黒人／ボイコット 影をつくる／尾行する of it himself—not in a 静かな and 平和的な way, but all at once, with a shock. And the time had come. He knew that he was dying; and he was 静める. More than that—in dying he was 達成するing a 勝利. The red-hot death-sting in his 肺 had given birth to a frightful thought in his sickening brain. The day of his 広大な／多数の／重要な 適切な時期 was at 手渡す. The hour—the minute.

A last 紅潮／摘発する of the pale afternoon sun lighted up his 黒人／ボイコット-bearded 直面する as his 注目する，もくろむs turned, with their new inspiration, to his sledge. It was a 直面する that one would remember—not pleasantly, perhaps, but as a fixture in a 転換ing memory of things; a 直面する strong with a brute strength, implacable in its hard lines, emotionless almost, and beyond that, a mystery.

It was the best known 直面する in all that part of the northland which reaches up from Fort McMurray to Lake Athabasca and 西方の to Fond du Lac and the Wholdais country. For ten years Breault had made that trip twice a year with the northern mails. In all its reaches there was not a cabin he did not know, a 直面する he had not seen, or a 指名する he could not speak; yet there was not a man, woman, or child who welcomed him except for what he brought. But the 政府 had 設立する its 約束 in him 正当化するd. The police at their lonely outposts had come to regard his comings and goings as dependable as day and night. They blessed him for his punctuality, and not one of them 行方不明になるd him when he was gone. A strange man was Breault.

With his 支援する against a tree, where he had propped himself after the first shock of the 弾丸 in his 肺, he took a last look at life with a passionless imperturbability. If there was any emotion at all in his 直面する it was one of vindictiveness—an emotion roused by an 激しい and terrible 憎悪 that in this hour saw the fulfilment of its vengeance. Few men nursed a 憎悪 as Breault had nursed his. And it gave him strength now, when another man would have died.

He 手段d the distance between himself and the sledge. It was, perhaps, a dozen paces. The dogs were still standing, 絡まるd a little in their traces,—eight of them,—wide-chested, thin at the groins, a wolfish horde, built for endurance and 速度(を上げる）. On the sledge was a ４半期/4分の1 of a トン of his Majesty's mail. Toward this Breault began to creep slowly and with 広大な／多数の／重要な 苦痛. A 手渡す inside of him seemed 鎮圧するing the 繊維 of his 肺, so that the 血 oozed out of his mouth. When he reached the sledge there were many red patches in the snow behind him. He opened with かなりの difficulty a small dunnage 解雇（する）, and after fumbling a bit took there-from a pencil 大（公）使館員d to a long red string, and a 国／地域d envelope.

For the first time a change （機の）カム upon his countenance—a 恐ろしい smile. And above his hissing breath, that 噴出するd between his lips with the sound of 空気／公表する pumped through the 罰金 mesh of a colander, there rose a still more 恐ろしい croak of exultation and of 勝利. Laboriously he wrote. A few words, and the pencil dropped from his 強化するing fingers into the snow. Around his neck he wore a long red scarf held together by a big 厚かましさ／高級将校連 pin, and to this pin he fastened securely the envelope.

This much done,—the mystery of his death solved for those who might some day find him,—the ordinary man would have contented himself by 産する／生じるing up life's struggle with as little more physical difficulty as possible. Breault was not ordinary. He was, in his one way, efficiency incarnate. He made space for himself on the sledge, and laid himself out in that space with 広大な／多数の／重要な care, first taking 苦痛s to fasten about his thighs two babiche thongs that were 雇うd at times to 安定した his freight. Then he ran his left arm through one of the 宙返り飛行s of the stout mail-chest. By taking these 警戒s he was 公正に／かなり 安全な・保証する in the belief that after he was dead and frozen stiff no 量 of rough 追跡するing by the dogs could roll him from the sledge.

In this conjecture he was 権利. When the 餓死するd and exhausted malamutes dragged their silent 重荷（を負わせる） into the Northwest 機動力のある Police outpost 兵舎 at Crooked 屈服する twenty-four hours later, an ax and a sapling 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 were 要求するd to 調査する Francois Breault from his bier. Previous to this 過程, however, Sergeant Fitzgerald, in 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 at the outpost, took 所有／入手 of the 国／地域d envelope pinned to Breault's red scarf. The （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） it bore was simple, and yet exceedingly 限定された. Few men in dying as Breault had died could have made the 事柄 easier for the police.

On the envelope he had written:

Jan Thoreau 発射 me and left me for dead. Have just strength to 令状 this—no more.

Francois Breault.

It was epic—a colossal monument to this man, thought Sergeant Fitzgerald, as they 調査するd the frozen 団体／死体 loose.

To Corporal Blake fell the unpleasant 仕事 of going after Jan Thoreau. Unpleasant, because Breault's 餓死するd huskies and frozen 団体／死体 brought with them the worst 嵐／襲撃する of the winter. In the 直面する of this 嵐／襲撃する Blake 始める，決める out, with the Sergeant's last admonition in his ears:

"Don't come 支援する, Blake, until you've got him, dead or alive."

That is a simple and efficacious 決まり文句／製法 in the 階級 and とじ込み／提出する of the 王室の Northwest 機動力のある Police. It has made 容積／容量s of stirring history, because it means a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 and has been lived up to. Twice before, the words had been uttered to Blake—in extreme 事例／患者s. The first time they had taken him for six months into the Barren Lands between Hudson's Bay and the 広大な／多数の／重要な Slave—and he （機の）カム 支援する with his man; the second time he was gone for nearly a year along the 縁 of the 北極の—and from there also he （機の）カム 支援する with his man. Blake was of that sort. A bull-dog, a Nemesis when he was once on the 追跡する, and—like most men of that 肉親，親類d—without a 良心. In the Blue 調書をとる／予約するs of the service he was credited with arduous patrols and unusual 偉業／利用するs. "Put Blake on the 追跡する" meant something, and "He is one of our best men" was a 堅固に 設立するd 有罪の判決 at departmental （警察，軍隊などの）本部.

Only one man knew Blake as Blake 現実に lived under his 肌—and that was Blake himself. He 追跡（する）d men and ran them 負かす／撃墜する without mercy—not because he loved the 法律, but for the 推論する／理由 that he had in him the 相続するd instincts of the hound. This comparison, if やめる true, is 非，不，無 the いっそう少なく 不公平な to the hound. A hound is a good dog at heart.

In the January 嵐／襲撃する it may be that the vengeful spirit of Francois Breault 始める，決める out in company with Corporal Blake to 証言，証人／目撃する the consummation of his vengeance. That first night, as he sat の近くに to his 解雇する／砲火／射撃 in the 避難所 of a 厚い spruce 木材／素質, Blake felt the unusual and 乱すing sensation of a presence somewhere 近づく him. The 嵐／襲撃する was at its 高さ. He had passed through many 嵐／襲撃するs, but to-night there seemed to be an uncannily concentrated fury in its （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing and wailing over the roofs of the forests.

He was 肉体的に comfortable. The spruce trees were so dense that the 嵐／襲撃する did not reach him, and fortune 好意d him with a good 解雇する／砲火／射撃 and plenty of 燃料. But the sensation 抑圧するd him. He could not keep away from him his mental 見通し of Breault as he had helped to 調査する him from the sledge—his frozen features, the 強化するd fingers, the curious 新たな展開 of the icy lips that had been almost a grin.

Blake was not superstitious. He was too much a man of アイロンをかける for that. His soul had lost the plasticity of imagination. But he could not forget Breault's lips as they had seemed to grin up at him. There was a 推論する／理由 for it. On his last trip 負かす／撃墜する, Breault had said to him, with that same half-grin on his 直面する:

"M'sieu, some day you may go after my 殺害者, and when you do, Francois Breault will go with you."

That was three months ago. Blake 手段d the time 支援する as he sucked at his 麻薬を吸う, and at the same time he looked at the shadowy and half-lost forms of his dogs, curled up for the night in the outer 縁 of firelight.

Over the tree-最高の，を越すs a sudden 爆破 of 勝利，勝つd howled. It was like a monster 発言する／表明する. Blake rose to his feet and rolled upon the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 the big night スピードを出す／記録につける he had dragged in, and to this he 追加するd, with the woodman's （手先の）技術 of long experience, lengths of green 木材／素質, so arranged that they would 持つ／拘留する 解雇する／砲火／射撃 until morning. Then he went into his silk service テント and buried himself in his sleeping-捕らえる、獲得する.

For a long time he did not sleep. He listened to the crackle of the 解雇する／砲火／射撃. Again and again he heard that monster 発言する／表明する moaning and shrieking over the forest. Never had the 激怒（する） of 嵐／襲撃する filled him with the uneasiness of to-night. At last the mystery of it was solved for him. The 勝利，勝つd （機の）カム and went each time in a 広大な／多数の／重要な moaning, half shrieking sound: B-r-r-r-r—e-e-e-e—aw-w-w-w!

It was like a shock to him; and yet, he was not a superstitious man. No, he was not that. He would have 火刑／賭けるd his life on it. But it was not pleasant to hear a dead man's 指名する shrieked over one's 長，率いる by the 勝利，勝つd. Under the cover of his sleeping-捕らえる、獲得する flap Corporal Blake laughed. Funny things were always happening, he tried to tell himself. And this was a mighty good joke. Breault wasn't so slow, after all. He had given his 約束, and he was keeping it; for, if it wasn't really Breault's 発言する／表明する up there in the 勝利，勝つd, multiplied a thousand times, it was a good imitation of it. Again Corporal Blake laughed—a laugh as unpleasant as the cough that had come from Breault's 弾丸-穴をあけるd 肺. He fell asleep after a time; but even sleep could not 運動 from him the 粘着するing obsession of the thought that strange things were to happen in this taking of Jan Thoreau.

With the gray 夜明け there was nothing to 示す the passing of the 嵐／襲撃する except freshly fallen snow, and Blake was on the 追跡する before it was light enough to see a hundred yards ahead. There was a 反抗 and a contempt of last night in the 割れ目 of his long caribou-gut whip and the halloo of his 発言する／表明する as he 勧めるd on his dogs. Breault's 発言する／表明する in the 勝利，勝つd? Bah! Only a fool would have thought that. Therefore he was a fool. And Jan Thoreau—it would be like taking a child. There would be no happenings to 報告（する）／憶測—単に an 逮捕（する）, a quick return 旅行, an 事件／事情／状勢 altogether too ordinary to be 利益／興味ing. Perhaps it was all on account of the hearty supper of caribou 肝臓 he had eaten. He was fond of 肝臓, and once or twice before it had played him tricks.

He began to wonder if he would find Jan Thoreau at home. He remembered Jan やめる vividly. The Indians called him Kitoochikun because he played a fiddle. Blake, the アイロンをかける Man, disliked him because of that fiddle. Jan was never without it, on the 追跡する or off. The Fiddling Man, he called him contemptuously—a baby, a woman; not fit for the big north. Tall and わずかな／ほっそりした, with blond hair in spite of his French 血 and 指名する, a 静かな and unexcitable 直面する, and an 空気／公表する that Blake called "damned 優越." He wondered how the Fiddling Man had ever screwed up 神経 enough to kill Breault. Undoubtedly there had been no fight. A quick and 背信の 発射, no 疑問. That was like a man who played a fiddle. POOF! He had no more 尊敬（する）・点 for him than if he dressed in woman's 着せる／賦与するing.

And he DID have a wife, this Jan Thoreau. They lived a good twenty miles off the north-and-south 追跡する, on an island in the middle of 黒人／ボイコット 耐える Lake. He had never seen the wife. A poor sort of woman, he made up his mind, that would marry a fiddler. Probably a half-産む／飼育する; maybe an Indian. Anyway, he had no sympathy for her. Without a 疑問, it was the woman who did the trapping and 削減（する） the 支持を得ようと努めるd. Any man who would こども a fiddle around on his 支援する—

Corporal Blake traveled 急速な／放蕩な, and it was afternoon of the second day when he （機の）カム to the dense spruce forest that shut in 黒人／ボイコット 耐える Lake. Here something happened to change his 計画（する）s somewhat. He met an Indian he knew—an Indian who, for two or three good 推論する／理由s that stuck in the 支援する of his 長，率いる, dared not 嘘（をつく） to him; and this 部族の一員, coming straight from the Thoreau cabin, told him that Jan was not at home, but had gone on a three-day trip to see the French missioner who lived on one of the lower Wholdaia 水路s.

Blake was keen on strategem. With him, man-追跡（する）ing was like a game of chess; and after he had questioned the Indian for a ４半期/4分の1 of an hour he saw his 適切な時期. Pastamoo, the Cree, was made a part of his Majesty's service on the 位置／汚点／見つけ出す, with the 約束 of 拷問 and 迅速な 死刑執行 if he 証明するd himself a 反逆者.

Blake turned over to him his dogs and sledge, his 準備／条項s, and his テント, and 命令（する）d him to （軍の）野営地，陣営 in the heart of a cedar 押し寄せる／沼地 a few miles 支援する, with the （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） that he would return for his outfit at some time in the 不明確な／無期限の 未来. He might be gone a day or a week. When he had seen Pastamoo off, he continued his 旅行 toward the cabin, in the hope that Jan Thoreau's wife was either an Indian or a fool. He was too old a 手渡す at his game to be taken in by the story that had been told to the Cree.

Jan had not gone to the French missioner's. A 殺害者's 追跡する would not be given away like that. Of course the wife knew. And Corporal Blake 願望（する）d no better string to a 犯罪の than the 約束 of a wife. Wives were 平易な if 扱うd 権利, and they had put the finishing touch to more than one of his 広大な／多数の／重要な successes.

At the 辛勝する／優位 of the lake he fell 支援する on his old trick—hunger, exhaustion, a sprained 脚. It was not more than a ４半期/4分の1 of a mile across the snow-covered ice of the lake to the thin spiral of smoke that he saw rising above the 厚い balsams on the island. Five times in that distance he fell upon his 直面する; he はうd like a man about to die. He 成し遂げるd an arduous 仕事, a devilish 仕事, and when at last he reached the balsams he 悪口を言う／悪態d his luck until he was red in the 直面する. No one had seen him. That ４半期/4分の1-mile of labor was lost, its finesse a 失敗. But he kept up the play, and staggered weakly through the 避難所ing balsams to the cabin. His artifice had no shame, even when played on women; and he fell ひどく against the door, （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 upon it with his 握りこぶし; and slipped 負かす／撃墜する into the snow, where he lay with his 長，率いる 屈服するd, as if his last strength was gone.

He heard movement inside, quick steps—and then the door opened. He did not look up for a moment. That would have been 天然のまま. When he did raise his 長，率いる, it was very slowly, with a look of anguish in his 直面する. And then—he 星／主役にするd. His 団体／死体 all at once grew 緊張した, and the 偽造の 苦痛 in his 注目する，もくろむs died out like a flash in this most astounding moment of his life. Man of アイロンをかける though he was, steeled to the 核心 against the 証拠不十分s of sudden emotions, it was impossible for him to 抑制する the gasp of amazement that rose to his lips.

In that stifled cry Jan Thoreau's wife heard the supplication of a dying man. She did not catch, 支援する of it, the 公式文書，認める of a startled beast. She was herself startled, 脅すd for a moment by the unexpectedness of it all.

And Blake 星／主役にするd. This—the fiddler's wife! She was clutching in her 手渡す a 小衝突 with which she had been arranging her hair. The hair, jet 黒人／ボイコット, was wonderful. Her 注目する，もくろむs were still more wonderful to Blake. She was not an Indian—not a half-産む／飼育する—and beautiful. The loveliest 直面する he had ever 見通しd, sleeping or awake, was looking 負かす／撃墜する at him.

With a second gasp, he remembered himself, and his 団体／死体 sagged, and the amazed 星／主役にする went out of his 注目する，もくろむs as he 許すd his 長，率いる to 落ちる a little. In this movement his cap fell off. In another moment she was at his 味方する, ひさまづくing in the snow and bending over him.

"You are 傷つける, m'sieu!"

Her hair fell upon him, smothering his neck and shoulders. The perfume of it was like the delicate scent of a rare flower in his nostrils. A strange thrill swept through him. He did not try to 分析する it in those few astonishing moments. It was beyond his comprehension, even had he tried. He was ignorant of the finer 根底となるs of life, and of the 広大な／多数の／重要な truth that the 事例／患者-常習的な nature of a man, like the 団体／死体 of an 競技者, 崩壊するs fastest under sudden and 予期しない change and 緊張する.

He 回復するd his feet slowly and stupidly, 補助装置d by Marie. They climbed the one step to the door. As he sank 支援する ひどく on the cot, in the room they entered, a 厚い tress of her hair fell softly upon his 直面する. He の近くにd his 注目する，もくろむs for a space. When he opened them, Marie was bending over the stove.

And SHE was Thoreau's wife! The instant he had looked up into her 直面する, he had forgotten the fiddler; but he remembered him now as he watched the woman, who stood with her 支援する toward him. She was as わずかな／ほっそりした as a reed. Her hair fell to her hips. He drew a 深い breath. Unconsciously he clenched his 手渡すs. SHE—the fiddler's wife! The thought repeated itself again and again. Jan Thoreau, MURDERER, and this woman—HIS WIFE.

She returned in a moment with hot tea, and he drank with subtle hypocrisy from the cup she held to his lips.

"Sprained my 脚," he said then, remembering his old part, and replying to the 尋問 苦悩 in her 注目する，もくろむs. "Dogs ran away and left me, and I got here just by chance. A little more and—"

He smiled grimly, and as he sank 支援する he gave a sharp cry. He had practised that cry in more than one cabin, and along with it a convulsion of his features to 強調する the impression he labored to make.

"I'm afraid—I'll be a trouble to you," he わびるd. "It's not broken; but it's bad, and I won't be able to move—soon. Is Jan at home?"

"No, m'sieu; he is away."

"Away," repeated Blake disappointedly. "Perhaps いつか he has told you about me," he 追加するd with sudden hopefulness. "I am John Duval."

"M'sieu—DUVAL!"

Marie's 注目する，もくろむs, looking 負かす／撃墜する at him, became all at once 広大な／多数の／重要な pools of glowing light. Her lips parted. She leaned toward him, her わずかな／ほっそりした 手渡すs clasped suddenly to her breast.

"M'sieu Duval—who nursed him through the smallpox?" she cried, her 発言する／表明する trembling. "M'sieu Duval—who saved my Jan's life!"

Blake had looked up his facts at （警察，軍隊などの）本部. He knew what Duval, the Barren Land trapper, had once upon a time done for Jan.

"Yes; I am John Duval," said. "And so—you see—I am sorry that Jan is away."

"But he is coming 支援する soon—in a few days," exclaimed Marie. "You shall stay, m'sieu! You will wait for him? Yes?"

"This 脚—" began Blake. He 削減（する） himself short with a grimace. "Yes, I'll stay. I guess I'll have to."

Marie had changed at the について言及する of Duval's 指名する. With the glow in her 注目する，もくろむs had come a 紅潮／摘発する into her cheeks, and Blake could see the strange little quiver at her throat as she looked at him. But she did not see Blake so much as what lay beyond him—Duval's lonely cabin away up on the 辛勝する／優位 of the 広大な／多数の／重要な Barren, the hours of 不明瞭 and agony through which Jan had passed, and the magnificent comradeship of this man who had now dragged himself to their own cabin, half dead.

Many times Jan had told her the story of that terrible winter when Duval had nursed him like a woman, and had almost given up his life as a sacrifice. And this—THIS—was Duval? She bent over him again as he lay on the cot, her 注目する，もくろむs 向こうずねing like 星／主役にするs in the growing dusk. In that dusk she was unconscious of the fact that his fingers had 設立する a long tress of her hair and were clutching it passionately. Remembering Duval as Jan had enshrined him in her heart, she said:

"I have prayed many times that the 広大な／多数の／重要な God might thank you, m'sieu."

He raised a 手渡す. For an instant it touched her soft, warm cheek and caressed her hair. Marie did not 縮む—yes, that would have been an 侮辱. Even Jan would have said that. For was not this Duval, to whom she 借りがあるd all the happiness in her life—Duval, more than brother to Jan Thoreau, her husband?

"And you—are Marie?" said Blake.

"Yes, m'sieu, I am Marie."

A joyous 公式文書，認める trembled in her 発言する／表明する as she drew 支援する from the cot. He could hear her 速く braiding her hair before she struck a match to light the oil lamp hanging from the 天井. After that, through partly の近くにd 注目する，もくろむs, he watched her as she 用意が出来ている their supper. Occasionally, when she turned toward him as if to speak, he feigned a 願望（する） to sleep. It was a catlike watchfulness, filled with his old cunning. In his 直面する there was no 調印する to betray its hideous significance. Outwardly he had 回復するd his アイロンをかける-like impassiveness; but in his 団体／死体 and his brain every 神経 and 繊維 was 消費するd by a monstrous 願望（する）—a 願望（する） for this woman, the 殺害者's wife. It was as strange and as sudden as the death that had come to Francois Breault.

The moment he had looked up into her 直面する in the doorway, it had 圧倒するd him. And now even the sound of her footsteps on the 床に打ち倒す filled him with an exquisite exultation. It was more than exultation. It was a feeling of POSSESSION.

In the hollow of his 手渡す he—Blake, the man-hunter—held the 運命／宿命 of this woman. She was the Fiddler's wife—and the Fiddler was a 殺害者.

Marie heard the sudden 深い breath that 軍隊d itself from his lips, a gasp that would have been a cry of 勝利 if he had given it 発言する／表明する.

"You are in 苦痛, m'sieu," she exclaimed, turning toward him quickly.

"A little," he said, smiling at her. "Will you help me to sit up, Marie?"

He saw ahead of him another and more thrilling game than the man-追跡（する） now. And Marie, unsuspicious, put her 武器 about the shoulders of the Pharisee and helped him to rise. They ate their supper with a 狭くする （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する between them. If there had been a 疑問 in Blake's mind before that, the half hour in which she sat 直面するing him dispelled it utterly. At first the amazing beauty of Thoreau's wife had impinged itself upon his senses with something of a shock. But he was 冷静な／正味の now. He was again master of his old cunning. Pitilessly and without 良心, he was 保安官ing the crafty 軍隊s of his brute nature for this new and more thrilling fight—the fight for a woman.

That in 代表するing the 法律 he was 誓約（する）d to virtue 同様に as order had never entered into his code of life. To him the 法律 was 軍隊—力／強力にする. It had exalted him. It had (1)偽造する／(2)徐々に進むd an アイロンをかける mask over the 直面する of his savagery. And it was the savage that was 支配的な in him now. He saw in Marie's dark 注目する，もくろむs a 広大な／多数の／重要な love—love for a 殺害者.

It was not his thought that he might 疎遠にする that. For that look, turned upon himself, he would have sacrificed his whole world as it had 以前 存在するd. He was 計画／陰謀ing beyond that impossibility, 手段ing her even as he called himself Duval, counting—not his chances of success, but the length of time it would take him to 後継する.

He had never failed. A man had never beaten him. A woman had never tricked him. And he 認めるd no 可能性 of 失敗 now. But—HOW? That was the question that writhed and 新たな展開d itself in his brain even as he smiled at her over the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する and told her of the 黒人／ボイコット days of Jan's sickness up on the 辛勝する／優位 of the Barren.

And then it （機の）カム to him—all at once. Marie did not see. She did not FEEL. She had no 疑惑 of this loyal friend of her husband's.

Blake's heart 続けざまに猛撃するd 勝利を得た. He hobbled 支援する to the cot, leaning on Marie わずかな／ほっそりした shoulder; and as he hobbled he told her how he had helped Jan into his cabin in just this same way, and how at the end Jan had 崩壊（する）d—just as he 崩壊（する）d when he （機の）カム to the cot. He pulled Marie 負かす／撃墜する with him—accidentally. His lips touched her 長，率いる. He laughed.

For a few moments he was like a drunken man in his new joy. Willingly he would have 賭事d his life on his chance of winning. But 信用／信任 追い出すd 非，不，無 of his cunning. He rubbed his 手渡すs and said:

"Gawd, but won't it be a surprise for Jan? I told him that some day I'd come. I told him!"

It would be a tremendous joke—this surprise he had in 蓄える／店 for Jan. He chuckled over it again and again as Marie went about her work; and Marie's 直面する 紅潮／摘発するd and her 注目する，もくろむs were 有望な and she laughed softly at this 広大な／多数の／重要な love which Duval betrayed for her husband. No; even the loss of his dogs and his outfit couldn't spoil his 楽しみ! Why should it? He could get other dogs and another outfit—but it had been three years since he had seen Jan Thoreau! When Marie had finished her work he put his 手渡す suddenly to his 注目する，もくろむs and said:

"Peste! but last night's 嵐／襲撃する must have 傷つける my 注目する，もくろむs. The light blinds them, ma cheri. Will you put it out, and sit 負かす／撃墜する 近づく me, so that I can see you as you talk, and tell me all that has happened to Jan Thoreau since that winter three years ago?"

She put out the light, and threw open the door of the box-stove. In the 薄暗い firelight she sat on a stool beside Blake's cot. Her 約束 in him was like that of a child. She was twenty-two. Blake was fifteen years older. She felt the 巨大な 優越 of his age.

This man, you must understand, had been more than a brother to Jan. He had been a father. He had 危険d his life. He had saved him from death. And Marie, as she sat at his 味方する, did not think of him as a young man—thirty-seven. She talked to him as she might have talked to an 年上の brother of Jan's, and with something like the same reverence in her 発言する／表明する.

It was unfortunate—for her—that Jan had loved Duval, and that he had never tired of telling her about him. And now, when Blake's 警告を与える 警告するd him to 嘘（をつく） no more about the days of 疫病／悩ます in Duval's cabin, she told him—as he had asked her—about herself and Jan; how they had lived during the last three years, the important things that had happened to them, and what they were looking 今後 to. He caught the low 公式文書，認める of happiness that ran through her 発言する／表明する; and with a laugh, a laugh that sounded real and wholesome, he put out his 手渡す in the 不明瞭—for the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 had 燃やすd itself low—and 一打／打撃d her hair. She did not 縮む from the caress. He was happy because THEY were happy. That was her thought! And Blake did not go too far.

She went on, telling Jan's life away, betraying him In her happiness, crucifying him in her 約束. Blake knew that she was telling the truth. She did not know that Jan had killed Francois Breault, and she believed that he would surely return—in three days. And the way he had left her that morning! Yes, she confided even that to this big brother of Jan, her cheeks 紅潮／摘発するing hotly in the 不明瞭—how he had hated to go, and held her a long time in his 武器 before he tore himself away.

Had he taken his fiddle along with him? Yes—always that. Next to herself he loved his violin. Oo-oo—no, no—she was not jealous of the violin! Blake laughed—such a big, healthy, happy laugh, with an 半端物 tremble in it. He 一打／打撃d her hair again, and his fingers lay for an instant against her warm cheek.

And then, やめる casually, he played his second big card.

"A man was 設立する dead on the 追跡する yesterday," he said. "Some one killed him. He had a 弾丸 through his 肺. He was the mail-走者, Francois Breault."

It was then, when he said that Breault had been 殺人d, that Blake's 手渡す touched Marie's cheek and fell to her shoulder. It was too dark in the cabin to see. But under his 手渡す he felt her grow suddenly rigid, and for a moment or two she seemed to stop breathing. In the gloom Blake's lips were smiling. He had struck, and he needed no light to see the 影響.

"Francois—Breault!" he heard her breathe at last, as if she was fighting to keep something from choking her. "Francois Breault—dead—killed by someone—"

She rose slowly. His 注目する，もくろむs followed her, a 影をつくる／尾行する in the gloom as she moved toward the stove. He heard her strike a match, and when she turned toward him again in the light of the oil-lamp, her 直面する was pale and her 注目する，もくろむs were big and 星／主役にするing. He swung himself to the 辛勝する／優位 of the cot, his pulse （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing with the savage thrill of the inquisitor. Yet he knew that it was not やめる time for him to 公表する／暴露する himself—not やめる. He did not dread the moment when he would rise and tell her that he was not 負傷させるd, and that he was not M'sieu Duval, but Corporal Blake of the 王室の 機動力のある Police. He was eager for that moment. But he waited—慎重に. When the 罠（にかける） was sprung there would be no escape.

"You are sure—it was Francois Breault?" she said at last.

He nodded.

"Yes, the mail-走者. You knew him?"

She had moved to the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, and her 手渡す was gripping the 辛勝する／優位 of it. For a space she did not answer him, but seemed to be looking somewhere through the cabin 塀で囲むs—a long way off. Ferret-like, he was watching her, and saw his 適切な時期. How splendidly 運命／宿命 was playing his way!

He rose to his feet and hobbled painfully to her, a splendid hypocrite, a magnificent dissembler. He 掴むd her 手渡す and held it in both his own. It was small and soft, but strangely 冷淡な.

"Ma cheri—my dear child—what makes you look like that? What has the death of Francois Breault to do with you—you and Jan?"

It was the 発言する／表明する of a friend, a brother, low, 同情的な, filled just enough with 苦悩. Only last winter, in just that way, it had won the 信用／信任 and roused the hope of Pierrot's wife, over on the Athabasca. In the summer that followed they hanged Pierrot. Gently Blake spoke the words again. Marie's lips trembled. Her 広大な／多数の／重要な 注目する，もくろむs were looking at him—straight into his soul, it seemed.

"You may tell me, ma cheri," he encouraged, barely above a whisper. "I am Duval. And Jan—I love Jan."

He drew her 支援する toward the cot, dragging his 四肢 painfully, and seated her again upon the stool. He sat beside her, still 持つ／拘留するing her 手渡す, patting it, encouraging her. The color was coming 支援する into Marie's cheeks. Her lips were growing 十分な and red again, and suddenly she gave a trembling little laugh as she looked up into Blake's 直面する. His presence began to 追い散らす the terror that had 所有するd her all at once.

"Tell me, Marie."

He saw the shudder that passed through her わずかな／ほっそりした shoulders.

"They had a fight—here—in this cabin—three days ago," she 自白するd. "It must have been—the day—he was killed."

Blake knew the wild thought that was in her heart as she watched him. The muscles of his jaws 強化するd. His shoulders grew 緊張した. He looked over her 長，率いる as if he, too, saw something beyond the cabin 塀で囲むs. It was Marie's 手渡す that gripped his now, and her 発言する／表明する, panting almost, was filled with an agonized 抗議する.

"No, no, no—it was not Jan," she moaned. "It was not Jan who killed him!"

"Hush!" said Blake.

He looked about him as if there was a chance that someone might hear the 致命的な words she had spoken. It was a splendid bit of 事実上の／代理, almost unconscious, and tremendously 効果的な. The 表現 in his 直面する stabbed to her heart like a 冷淡な knife. Convulsively her fingers clutched more tightly at his 手渡すs. He might 同様に have spoken the words: "It was Jan, then, who killed Francois Breault!"

Instead of that he said:

"You must tell me everything, Marie. How did it happen? Why did they fight? And why has Jan gone away so soon after the 殺人，大当り? For Jan's sake, you must tell me—everything."

He waited. It seemed to him that he could hear the fighting struggle in Marie's breast. Then she began, brokenly, a little at a time, now and then barely whispering the story. It was a woman's story, and she told it like a woman, from the beginning. Perhaps at one time the 競争 between Jan Thoreau and Francois Breault, and their struggle for her love, had made her heart （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 faster and her cheeks 紅潮／摘発する warm with a woman's pride of conquest, even though she had loved one and had hated the other. 非，不，無 of that pride was in her 発言する／表明する now, except when she spoke of Jan.

"Yes—like that—children together—we grew up," she confided. "It was 負かす／撃墜する there at Wollaston 地位，任命する, in the heart of the big forests, and when I was a baby it was Jan who carried me about on his shoulders. Oui, even then he played the violin. I loved it. I loved Jan—always. Later, when I was seventeen, Francois Breault （機の）カム."

She was trembling.

"Jan has told me a little about those days," lied Blake. "Tell me the 残り／休憩（する）, Marie."

"I—I knew I was going to be Jan's wife," she went on, the 手渡すs she had 孤立した from his 新たな展開ing nervously in her （競技場の）トラック一周. "We both knew. And yet—he had not spoken—he had not been 限定された. Oo-oo, do you understand, M'sieu Duval? It was my fault at the beginning! Francois Breault loved me. And so—I played with him—only a little, m'sieu!—to 脅す Jan into the thought that he might lose me. I did not know what I was doing. No—no; I didn't understand.

"Jan and I were married, and on the day Jan saw the missioner—a week before we were made man and wife—Francois Beault （機の）カム in from the 追跡する to see me, and I 自白するd to him, and asked his forgiveness. We were alone. And he—Francois Breault—was like a madman."

She was panting. Her 手渡すs were clenched. "If Jan hadn't heard my cries, and come just in time—" she breathed.

Her 炎ing 注目する，もくろむs looked up into Blake's 直面する. He understood, and nodded.

"And it was like that—again—three days ago," she continued. "I hadn't seen Breault in two years—two years ago 負かす／撃墜する at Wollaston 地位，任命する. And he was mad. Yes, he must have been mad when he （機の）カム three days ago. I don't know that he （機の）カム so much for me as it was to kill Jan, He said it was Jan. Ugh, and it was here—in the cabin—that they fought!"

"And Jan—punished him," said Blake in a low 発言する／表明する.

Again the convulsive shudder swept through Marie's shoulders.

"It was strange—what happened, m'sieu. I was going to shoot. Yes, I would have 発射 him when the chance （機の）カム. But all at once Francois Breault sprang 支援する to the door, and he cried: 'Jan Thoreau, I am mad—mad! 広大な／多数の／重要な God, what have I done?' Yes, he said that, m'sieu, those very words—and then he was gone."

"And that same day—a little later—Jan went away from the cabin, and was gone a long time," whispered Blake. "Was it not so, Marie?"

"Yes; he went to his 罠（にかける）-line, m'sieu."

For the first time Blake made a movement. He took her 直面する boldly between his two 手渡すs, and turned it so that her 星／主役にするing 注目する，もくろむs were looking straight into his own. Every 繊維 in his 団体／死体 was trembling with the thrill of his monstrous 勝利. "My dear little girl, I must tell you the truth," he said. "Your husband, Jan, did not go to his 罠（にかける）-line three days ago. He followed Francois Breault, and killed him. And I am not John Duval. I am Corporal Blake of the 機動力のある Police, and I have come to get Jan, that he may be hanged by the neck until he is dead for his 罪，犯罪. I （機の）カム for that. But I have changed my mind. I have seen you, and for you I would give even a 殺害者 his life. Do you understand? For YOU—YOU—YOU—"

And then （機の）カム the grand finale, just as he had planned it. His words had stupefied her. She made no movement, no sound—only her 広大な／多数の／重要な 注目する，もくろむs seemed alive. And suddenly he swept her into his 武器 with the wild passion of a beast. How long she lay against his breast, his 武器 鎮圧するing her, his hot lips on her 直面する, she did not know.

The world had grown suddenly dark. But in that 不明瞭 she heard his 発言する／表明する; and what it was 説 roused her at last from the deadliness of her stupor. She 緊張するd against him, and with a wild cry broke from his 武器, and staggered across the cabin 床に打ち倒す to the door of her bedroom. Blake did not 追求する her. He let the 不明瞭 of that room shut her in. He had told her—and she understood.

He shrugged his shoulders as he rose to his feet. やめる calmly, in spite of the wild 急ぐ of 血 through his 団体／死体, he went to the cabin door, opened it, and looked out into the night. It was 十分な of 星／主役にするs, and 静かな.

It was 静かな in that inner room, too—so 静かな that one might fancy he could hear the （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing of a heart. Marie had flung herself in the farthest corner, beyond the bed. And there her 手渡す had touched something. It was 冷淡な—the 冷気／寒がらせる of steel. She could almost have 叫び声をあげるd, in the mighty reaction that swept through her like an electric shock. But her lips were dumb and her 手渡す clutched tighter at the 冷淡な thing.

She drew it toward her インチ by インチ, and leveled it across the bed. It was Jan's goose-gun, 負担d with buck-発射. There was a 選び出す／独身 metallic click as she drew the 大打撃を与える 支援する. In the doorway, looking at the 星／主役にするs, Blake did not hear.

Marie waited. She was not 推論する／理由ing things now, except that in the outer room there was a serpent that she must kill. She would kill him as he （機の）カム between her and the light; then she would follow over Jan's 追跡する, 追いつく him somewhere, and they would 逃げる together. Of that much she thought ahead. But 主として her mind, her 注目する，もくろむs, her brain, her whole 存在, were concentrated on the twelve-インチ 開始 between the bedroom door and the outer room. The serpent would soon appear there. And then—

She heard the cabin door の近くに, and Blake's footsteps approaching. Her 団体／死体 did not tremble now. Her forefinger was 安定した on the 誘発する／引き起こす. She held her breath—and waited. Blake （機の）カム to the 最終期限 and stopped. She could see one arm and a part of his shoulder. But that was not enough. Another half step—six インチs—four even, and she would 解雇する／砲火／射撃. Her heart 続けざまに猛撃するd like a tiny 大打撃を与える in her breast.

And then the very life in her 団体／死体 seemed to stand still. The cabin door had opened suddenly, and someone had entered. In that moment she would have 解雇する／砲火／射撃d, for she knew that it must be Jan who had returned. But Blake had moved. And now, with her finger on the 誘発する／引き起こす, she heard his cry of amazement:

"Sergeant Fitzgerald!"

"Yes. Put up your gun, Corporal. Have you got Jan Thoreau?"

"He—is gone."

"That is lucky for us." It was the stranger's 発言する／表明する, filled with a 広大な／多数の／重要な 救済. "I have traveled 急速な／放蕩な to 追いつく you. Matao, the half-産む／飼育する, was stabbed in a quarrel soon after you left; and before he died he 自白するd to 殺人，大当り Breault. The 証拠 is conclusive. Ugh, but this 解雇する／砲火／射撃 is good! Anybody at home?"

"Yes," said Blake slowly. "Mrs. Thoreau—is—at home."

L'ANGE

She stood in the doorway of a スピードを出す／記録につける cabin that was overgrown with woodvine and mellow with the dull red glow of the climbing bakneesh, with the warmth of the late summer sun 落ちるing upon her 明らかにする 長，率いる. Cummins' shout had brought her to the door when we were still half a ライフル銃／探して盗む 発射 負かす／撃墜する the river; a second shout, の近くに to shore, brought her running 負かす／撃墜する toward me. In that first 見解（をとる） that I had of her, I called her beautiful. It was 主として, I believe, because of her splendid hair. John Cummins' shout of homecoming had caught her with it undone, and she 迎える／歓迎するd us with the dark and lustrous 集まりs of it 広範囲にわたる about her shoulders and 負かす／撃墜する to her hips. That is, she 迎える／歓迎するd Cummins, for he had been gone for nearly a month. I busied myself with the canoe for that first half minute or so.

Then it was that I received my introduction and for the first time touched the 手渡す of Melisse Cummins, the Florence Nightingale of several thousand square miles of northern wilderness. I saw, then, that what I had at first taken for our own hothouse variety of beauty was a different thing 完全に, a type that would have disappointed many because of its strength and firmness. Her hair was a glory, brown and soft. No woman could have 非難するd its loveliness. But the 紅潮／摘発する that I had seen in her 直面する, flower-like at a short distance, was a tan that was almost a man's tan. Her 注目する，もくろむs were of a 深い blue and as （疑いを）晴らす as the sky; but in them, too, there was a strength that was not altogether feminine. There was strength in her 直面する, strength in the 宙に浮く of her 会社／堅い neck, strength in every movement of her 四肢s and 団体／死体. When she spoke, it was in a 発言する／表明する which, like her hair, was adorable. I had never heard a sweeter 発言する／表明する, and her 会社／堅い mouth was all at once not only gentle and womanly, but almost girlishly pretty.

I could understand, now, why Melisse Cummins was the ヘロイン of a hundred true tales of the wilderness, and I could understand 同様に why there was scarcely a cabin or an Indian hut in that ten thousand square miles of wilderness in which she had not, at one time or another, been spoken of as "L'ange Meleese." And yet, unlike that other "angel" of flesh and 血, Florence Nightingale, the story of Melisse Cummins and her work will live and die with her in that little cabin two hundred miles straight north of civilization. No, that is wrong. For the wilderness will remember. It will remember, as it has remembered Father Duchene and the Missioner of Lac Bain and the heroic days of the 早期に voyageurs. A hundred "Meleeses" will 耐える her memory in 指名する—for all who speak her 指名する call her "Meleese," and not Melisse.

The wilderness itself may never forget, as it has never forgotten beautiful Jeanne D'Arcambal, who lived and died on the shore of the 広大な／多数の／重要な bay more than one hundred and sixty years ago. It will never forget the 広大な／多数の／重要な heart this woman has given to her "people" from the days of girlhood; it will not forget the thousand 危険，危なくするs she 直面するd to 捜し出す out the sick, the 疫病／悩ます-stricken and the 餓死するing; in old age there will still be those who will remember the first 祈りs to the real God that she taught them in childhood; and children still to come, in cabin, tepee and hut, will live to bless the memory of L'ange Meleese, who made possible for them a new birthright and who in the wild places lived to the 十分な 手段 and glory of the Golden 支配する.

To find Meleese Cummins and her home in the wilderness, one must start at Le Pas as the last outpost of civilization and strike northward through the long Pelican Lake 水路s to Reindeer Lake. Nearly forty miles up the east shore of the lake, the adventurer will come to the mouth of the Gray Loon—狭くする and silent stream that 勝利，勝つd under overhanging forests—and after that a two-hours' 旅行 in a canoe will bring one to the Cummins' cabin.

It is 始める，決める in a （疑いを）晴らすing, with the 厚い spruce and balsam and cedar hemming it in, and a tall 山の尾根 capped with golden birch rising behind it. In that （疑いを）晴らすing John Cummins raises a little fruit and a few vegetables during the summer months; but it is 主として given up to three or four 抱擁する 陰謀（を企てる）s of scarlet moose-flowers, a garden of Labrador tea, and wild flowering 工場／植物s and vines of half a dozen varieties. And where the radiant moose-flowers grow thickest, 審査するd from the 見解（をとる） of the cabin by a few cedars and balsams, are the rough 木造の 厚板s that 示す seven 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大なs. Six of them are the 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大なs of children—little ones who died 深い in the wilderness and whose tiny 団体／死体s Meleese Cummins could not leave to the savage and pitiless loneliness of the forests, but whom she has brought together that they might have company in what she calls her, "Little Garden of God."

Those little 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大なs tell the story of Meleese—the woman who, all heart and soul, has buried her own one little babe in that garden of flowers. One of the 厚板s 示すs the 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な of an Indian baby, whose little dead 団体／死体 Meleese Cummins carried to her cabin in her own strong 武器 from twenty miles 支援する in the forest, when the 気温 was fifty degrees below 無. Another of them, a baby boy, a French half-産む／飼育する and his wife brought 負かす／撃墜する from fifty miles up the Reindeer and begged "L'ange Meleese" to let it 残り／休憩（する） with the others, where "it might not be lonely and would not be 脅すd by the howl of the wolves." It was a wild and half Indian mother who said that!

It was almost twenty years ago that the romance began in the lives of John and Meleese Cummins. Meleese was then ten years old; and she still remembers as vividly as though they were but memories of yesterday the 恐れるs and wild tales of that one terrible winter when the "Red Terror"—the smallpox—swept in a pitiless 疫病／悩ます of death throughout the northern wilderness. It was then that there （機の）カム 負かす／撃墜する from the north, one bitter 冷淡な day, a ragged and half-餓死するd boy, whose mother and father had died of the 疫病／悩ます in a little cabin fifty miles away, and who from the day he staggered into the home of Henry Janesse, became Meleese's playmate and chum. This boy was John Cummins.

When Janesse moved to Fort Churchill, where Meleese might learn more in the way of reading and 令状ing and 調書をとる／予約するs than her parents could teach her, John Cummins went with her. He went with them to Nelson House, and from there to 分裂（する） Lake, where Janesse died. From that time, at the age of eighteen, he became the 長，率いる and support of the home. When he was twenty and Meleese eighteen, the two were married by a missioner from Nelson House. The に引き続いて autumn the young wife's mother died, and that winter Meleese began her remarkable work の中で her "people."

In their little cabin on the Gray Loon, one will hear John Cummins say but little about himself; but there is a glow in his 注目する，もくろむs and a 紅潮／摘発する in his cheeks as he tells of that first day he （機の）カム home from a three-days 旅行 over a long 罠（にかける） line to find his home 冷淡な and fireless, and a 公式文書，認める written by Meleese telling him that she had gone with a twelve-year-old boy who had brought her word through twenty miles of forest that his mother was dying. That first "事例／患者" was more terrible for John Cummins than for his wife, for it turned out to be smallpox, and for six weeks Meleese would 許す him to come no nearer than the 辛勝する／優位 of the （疑いを）晴らすing' in which the pest-ridden cabin stood. First the mother, and then the boy, she nursed 支援する to life, locking the door against the two husbands, who built themselves a shack in the 辛勝する／優位 of the forest. Half a dozen times Meleese Cummins has gone through ordeals like that 無傷の. Once it was to nurse a young Indian mother through the dread 病気, and again she went into a French trapper's cabin where husband, wife and daughter were all sick with the malady. At these times, when the "call" （機の）カム to Meleese from a far cabin or tepee, John Cummins would give up the 義務s of his 罠（にかける） line to …を伴って her, and would pitch his テント or make him a shack の近くに by, where he could watch over her, 追跡（する） food for the afflicted people and keep up the stack of needed firewood and water.

But there were times when the "calls" （機の）カム during the husband's absence, and, if they were 緊急の, Meleese went alone, 信用ing to her own splendid strength and courage. A half-産む／飼育する woman （機の）カム to her one day, in the dead of winter, from twenty miles across the lake. Her husband had frozen one of his feet, and the "霜 malady" would kill him, she said, unless he had help. Scarcely knowing what she could do in such a 事例／患者, Meleese left a 公式文書，認める for her husband, and on snowshoes the two heroic women 始める，決める off across the 勝利，勝つd-swept and unsheltered lake, with the 温度計 fifty degrees below 無. It was a terrible 投機・賭ける, but the two won out. When Meleese saw the frozen man, she knew that there was but one thing to do, and with all the courage of her splendid heart she amputated his foot. The 拷問 of that terrible hour no one will ever know. But when John Cummins returned to his home and, wild with 恐れる, followed across the lake, he scarcely 認めるd the Meleese who flung herself sobbing into his 武器 when he 設立する her. For two weeks after that Meleese herself was sick. Thus, through the course of years, it （機の）カム about that it was, indeed, a stranger in the land who had not heard her 指名する. During the summer months Meleese's work, in place of 義務, was a 楽しみ. With her husband she made canoe 旅行s for fifty miles about her home, 審理，公聴会 with her the teachings of cleanliness, of health and of God. She was the first to 持つ／拘留する to her own loving breast many little children who （機の）カム into their wild and desolate 相続物件 of life. She was the first to teach a hundred childish lips to say "Now I lay me 負かす／撃墜する to sleep," and more than one woman she made to see the （疑いを）晴らす and starry way to brighter life.

Far up on Reindeer Lake, の近くに to the shore, there is a 非常に高い "高く弓形に打ち返す-stick tree"—which is a tall spruce or cedar lopped of all its 支店s to the very crest, which is trimmed in the form of a plume. A tree thus shriven and trimmed is the Cree cenotaph to one held in almost spiritual reverence, and the tree far up on Reindeer Lake is one of the half dozen or more "高く弓形に打ち返す-sticks" 献身的な to Meleese. Six weeks Meleese and John Cummins spent in an Indian （軍の）野営地，陣営 at this point, and when at last the two bade their 原始の friends good-bye and left for home, the little Indian children and the women followed their canoe along the 辛勝する／優位 of a stream and flung handfuls of flowers after them.

Of what Meleese Cummins and her husband know of the 広大な／多数の／重要な outside world, or of what they do not know, it is wisest to leave unsaid. 詳細（に述べる）s have often marred a picture. They are children of the wilderness, born of that wilderness, bred of it, and life of it—a （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing and palpitating part of a world which few can understand. I 疑問 if one or the other has ever heard of a William Shakespeare or a Tennyson, for it has not been in my mind or 願望（する） to ask; but they do know the human heart as it （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域s and throbs in a land that is desolation and loneliness, where poetry runs not in lines and メーターs, but in the bloom of the wild flower, the 急ぐ of the 早い, the 雷鳴 of the waterfall and the murmuring of the 勝利，勝つd in the spruce 最高の，を越すs; where 演劇 存在するs not in the epic lines of literature, but in the 追跡（する） cry of the wolf, the death dirges of the 嵐／襲撃するs that wail 負かす／撃墜する from the Barrens, and in the strange cries that rise up out of the silent forests, where for a half of each year life is that endless 争い that leaves behind only those whom we 称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語 the 生き残り of the fittest.

THE CASE OF BEAUVAIS

Madness? Perhaps. And yet if it was madness. . . .

But strange things happen up there, gentlemen. I have 設立する it いつかs hard to define that word. There are so many 肉親，親類d of madness, so many ways in which the human brain may go wrong; and so often it happens that what we call madness is both reasonable and just. It is so. Yes. A little 推論する／理由 is good for us, a little more makes wise men of some of us—but when our 推論する／理由 over-grows us and we reach too far, something breaks and we go insane.

But I will tell you the story. That is what you want to hear, and you 推定する／予想する that it will be prejudiced—that I will either deliberately 試みる／企てる to 保護する and 長引かせる a human life, or 縮める and destroy it. I shall do neither, gentlemen of the 王室の 機動力のある Police. I have a 約束 in you that is in its way an unbounded as my 約束 in God. I have looked up to you in all my life in the wilderness as the heart of chivalry and the soul of 栄誉（を受ける） and fairness to all men. Pathfinders, men of アイロンをかける, 後見人s of people and spaces of which civilization knows but little, I have taught my children of the forests to 栄誉（を受ける）, obey and to 信用 you. And so I shall tell you the story without prejudice, with the 感謝 of a missioner who has lived his life for forty years in the wilderness, gentlemen.

I am a カトリック教徒. It is four hundred miles straight north by dog-sledge or snowshoe to my cabin, and this is the first time in nineteen years that I have been 負かす／撃墜する to the 辛勝する／優位 of the big world which I remember now as little more than a dream. But up there I knew that my 義務 lay, just at the 辛勝する／優位 of the Big Barren. See! My 手渡すs are knotted like the snarl of a tree. The glare of your lights 傷つけるs my 注目する，もくろむs. I traveled to-day in the middle of your street because my moccasined feet つまずくd on the smoothness of your walks. People 星／主役にするd, and some of them laughed.

Forty years I have lived in another world. You—and 特に you gentlemen who have 追跡するd in the Patrols of the north—know what that world is. As it 形態／調整s different 手渡すs, as it trains different feet, as it gives to us different 注目する，もくろむs, so also it has bred into my forest children hearts and souls that may be a little different, and a code of 権利 and wrong that too frequently has had no 法廷，裁判所 of 法律 to guide it. So 裁判官 公正に／かなり, gentlemen of the 王室の 機動力のある Police! Understand, if you can.

It was a terrible winter—that winter of Le Mort 紅. So far 負かす／撃墜する as men and children now living will remember, it will be called by my people the winter of 飢饉 and Red Death. 餓死, gentlemen—and the smallpox. People died like—what shall I say? It is not 平易な to 述べる a thing like that. They died in tepees. They died in shacks. They died on the 追跡する. From late December until March I said my 祈りs over the dead. You are wondering what all this has to do with my story; why it 事柄s that the caribou had migrated in 広大な herds to the 西方の, and there was no food; why it 事柄s that there were 飢饉 and 疫病／悩ます in the 広大な／多数の／重要な unknown land, and that people were dying and our world going through a cataclysm. My backwoods 注目する，もくろむs can see your thought. What has all this to do with Joseph Brecht? What has it to do with Andre Beauvais? Why does this little forest priest （問題を）取り上げる so much time in telling so little? you ask. And because it has its place—because it has its meaning—I ask you for 許可 to tell my story in my own way. For these sufferings, this hunger and pestilence and death, had a strange and terrible 影響 on many human creatures that were left alive when spring （機の）カム. It was like a 広大な／多数の／重要な 嵐／襲撃する that had swept through a forest of tall trees. A 嵐／襲撃する of 苦しむing that left 長，率いるs 屈服するd, shoulders bent, and minds gone. Yes, GONE!

Since that winter of Le Mort 紅 I know of 注目する，もくろむs into which the life of laughter will never come again; I know of strong men who became as little children; I have seen 直面するs that were fair with 青年 shrivel into age—and my people call it noot' akutawin keskwawin—the 冷淡な and hungry madness. May God help Andre Beauvais!

I will tell the story now.

It was in June. The last of the mush-snows had gone 早期に, nearly a fortnight before, and the waters were 解放する／自由な from ice, when word was brought to me that Father Boget was dying at Old Fort 依存. Father Boget was twenty years older than I, and I called him mon pere. He was a father to me in our earlier years. I made haste to reach him that I might 持つ／拘留する his 手渡す before he died, if that was possible. And you, Sergeant McVeigh, who have spent years in that country of the 広大な／多数の／重要な Slave, know what a race with death from Christie Bay to Old Fort Eeliance would be. To follow the broken and 新たな展開d waters of the 広大な／多数の／重要な Slave would mean two hundred miles, while to 削減（する） straight across the land by smaller streams and lakelets meant いっそう少なく than seventy. But on your 地図／計画するs that space of seventy miles is a blank. You have in it no streams and no larger waters. You know little of it. But I can tell you, for I have been though it. It is a Lost Hell. It is a 広大な country in which berry bushes grow abundantly, but on which there are no berries, where there are forests and 押し寄せる／沼地s, but not a living creature to 住む them; a country of water in which there are no fish, of 空気／公表する in which there are no birds, of 工場／植物s without flowers—a reeking, stinking country of brimstone, a hell. In your Blue 調書をとる／予約するs you have called it the Sulphur Country. And this country, as you draw a line from Christie Bay to Old Fort 依存, is straight between. Mon pere was dying, and my time was short. I decided to 投機・賭ける it—削減（する） across that Sulphur Country, and I sought for a man to …を伴って me. I could find 非，不，無. To the Indian it was the land of Wetikoo—the Devil Country; to the 産む／飼育するs it was filled with horror. Forty miles distant there was a man I knew would go, a white man. But to reach him would lose me three days, and I was about to 始める，決める out alone when the stranger （機の）カム. He was, indeed, a strange man. When he （機の）カム to what I called my chateau, from nowhere, going nowhere, I hardly knew whether to call him young or old. But I made my guess. That terrib le winter had branded him. When I asked him his 指名する, he said:

"I am a wanderer, and in wandering I have lost my 指名する. Call me M'sieu."

I 設立する this was a long speech for him, that his tongue was tied by a horrible silence. When I told him where I was going, and 述べるd the country I was going through, and that I 手配中の，お尋ね者 a man, he 単に nodded that he would …を伴って me.

We started in a canoe, and I placed him ahead of me so that I could make out, if I could, something of what he was. His hair was dark. His 耐えるd was dark. His 注目する，もくろむs were sunken but strangely （疑いを）晴らす. They puzzled me. They were always 追求（する），探索（する）ing. Always 捜し出すing. And always 推定する／予想するing, it seemed to me. A man of unfathomable mystery, of unutterable 悲劇, of a silence that was almost 残忍な. Was he mad? I ask you, gentlemen—was he mad? And I leave the answer to you. To me he was good. When I told him what mon pere had been to me, and that I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to reach him before he died, he spoke no word of hope or sympathy—but worked until his muscles 割れ目d. We ate together, we drank together, we slept 味方する by 味方する—and it was like eating and drinking and sleeping with a sphinx which some strange 奇蹟 had endowed with life.

The second day we entered the Sulphur Country. The stink of it was in our nostrils that second night we （軍の）野営地，陣営d. The moon rose, and we saw it as if through the ガス／煙s of a yellow smoke. Far behind us we heard a wolf howl, and it was the last sound of life. With the 夜明け we went on. We passed through 幅の広い, low morasses out of which rose the sulphurous 霧s. In many places the water we touched with our 手渡すs was hot; in other places the forests we paddled through were so dense they were almost 熱帯の. And lifeless. Still, with the stillness of death for thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of years. The food we ate seemed saturated with the vileness of sulphur; it seeped into our water-捕らえる、獲得するs; it turned us to the color of saffron; it was terrible, 脅すing, 信じられない. And still we went on by compass, and M'sieu showed no 恐れる—even いっそう少なく, gentlemen, than did I.

And then, on the third day—in the heart of this 病気d and horrible 地域—we made a 発見 that drew a strange cry even from those mysteriously silent lips of M'sieu.

It was the print of a naked human foot in a 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 of mud.

How it （機の）カム there, why it was there, and why if was a naked foot I suppose were the first thoughts that leaped into our startled minds. What man could live in these infernal 地域s? WAS it a man, or was it the 足跡 of some primeval ape, a monstrous 生き残り of the centuries?

The 追跡する led through a steaming slough in which the mud and water were tepid and which grew 階級 with yellow reeds and 厚い grasses—grasses that were almost flesh-like, it seemed to me, as if swollen and about to burst from some dreadful 病気, Perhaps your scientists can tell why sulphur has this 影響 on vegetation. It is so; there was sulphur in the very 支持を得ようと努めるd we 燃やすd. Through those reeds and grasses we soon 設立する where a 狭くする 追跡する was beaten, and then we （機の）カム to a rise of land 避難所d in 木材／素質, a sort of hill in that flat world, and on the crest of this hill we 設立する a cabin.

Yes, a cabin; a cabin built 概略で of スピードを出す／記録につけるs, and it was yellow with sulphur, as if painted. We went inside and we 設立する there the man whom you know as Joseph Brecht. I did not look at M'sieu when he first rose before us, but I heard a 広大な／多数の／重要な gasp from his throat behind me. And I think I stood as if life had suddenly gone out of me. Joseph Brecht was half naked. His feet were 明らかにする. He looked like a wild man, with his uncut hair—a wild man except that his 直面する was smooth. Curious that a man would shave there! And not so 半端物, perhaps, when one knows how a 耐えるd gathers sulphur. He had risen from a cot on which there was a bed of boughs, and in the light that （機の）カム in through the open door he looked terribly emaciated, with the 肌 drawn tightly over his cheek bones. It was he who spoke first.

"I am glad you have come," he said, his 注目する，もくろむs 星／主役にするing wildly. "I guess I am dying. Some water, please. There is a spring 支援する of the cabin."

やめる sanely he spoke, and yet the words were scarcely out of his mouth when he fell 支援する upon the cot, his 注目する，もくろむs rolling in the 最高の，を越す of his 長，率いる, his mouth agape, his breath coming in 広大な／多数の／重要な panting gasps. It was a strange sickness. I will not trouble you with all the 詳細（に述べる）s. You are anxious for the story—the 悲劇—which alone will count with you gentlemen of the 法律. It （機の）カム out in his fever, and in the fits of sanity into which he at times 後継するd in rousing himself. His 指名する, he said, was Joseph Brecht. For two years he had lived in that sulphur hell. He had, by 事故, 設立する the spring of fresh, 甘い water trickling out of the hill—another 奇蹟 for which I have not tried to account; he built his cabin; for two years he had gone with his canoe to the shore of the 広大な／多数の／重要な Slave, forty miles distant, for the food he ate. But WHY was he here? That was the story that （機の）カム bit by bit, half in his fever, half in his sanity. I will tell it in my own words. He was a 政府 man, mapping out the last 木材／素質 lines along the 辛勝する／優位 of the 広大な／多数の／重要な Barren, when he first met Andre Beauvais and his wife, Marie. An 事故 took him to their cabin, a sprained 脚. Andre was a fox-hunter, and it was when he was coming home from one of his trips that he 設立する Joseph Brecht helpless in the 深い snow, and carried him on his shoulders to his cabin.

Ah, gentlemen, it was the old story—the story old as time. In his sanity he told us about Marie, I hovering over him closely, M'sieu sitting 支援する in the 影をつくる／尾行するs. She was like some wonderful wildflower, French, a little Indian. He told us how her long 黒人／ボイコット hair would stream in a 向こうずねing cascade, soft as the breast of a swan, to her 膝s and below; how it would hang again in two 広大な／多数の／重要な, lustrous braids, and how her 注目する，もくろむs were limpid pools that 始める，決める his soul afire, and how her わずかな／ほっそりした, beautiful 団体／死体 filled him with a monstrous 願望（する）. She must have been beautiful. And her husband, Andre Beauvais, worshipped her, and the ground she trod on. And he had the 約束 in her that a mother has in her child. It was a sublime love, and Joseph Brecht told us about it as he lay there, dying, as he supposed. In that 約束 of his Andre went unsuspectingly to his 罠（にかける）-lines and his 毒（薬）-追跡するs, and Marie and Joseph were for many hours at a time alone, いつかs for a day, いつかs for two days, and occasionally for three, for even after his 四肢 had 回復するd its strength Joseph feigned that it was bad. It was a hard fight, he said—a hard fight for him to 勝利，勝つ her; but 勝利，勝つ her he did, utterly, 絶対, heart, 団体／死体 and soul. Remember, he was from the South, with all its 力／強力にする of language, all its tricks of love, all its furtiveness of argument, a strong man with a strong mind—and she had lived all her life in the wilderness. She was no match for him. She 降伏するd. He told us how, after that, he would unbind her wonderful hair and pillow his 直面する in it; how he lived in a heaven of 輸送（する）, how utterly she gave herself to him in those times when Andre, was away.

Did he love her?

Yes, in that mad passion of the brute. But not as you and I might love a woman, gentlemen. Not as Andre loved her. Whether she had a heart or a soul it did not 事柄. His 注目する，もくろむs were blind with an insensate joy when he shrouded himself in her wonderful hair. To see the wild color 絵 her 直面する like a flower filled his veins with 解雇する／砲火／射撃. The beauty of her, the touch of her, the mad （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 of her heart against him made him like a drunken man in his 勝利. Love? Yes, the love of the brute! He 長引かせるd his stay. He had no idea of taking her with him. When the time （機の）カム, he would go. Day after day, week after week he put it off, feigning that the bone of his 脚 was 影響する／感情d, and Andre Beauvais 扱う／治療するd him like a brother. He told us all this as he lay there in his cabin in that sulphur hell. I am a man of God, and I do not 嘘（をつく）.

Is there need to tell you that Andre discovered them? Yes, he 設立する them—and with that wonderful hair of hers so closely about them that he was still bound in the tresses when the 発見 （機の）カム.

Andre had come in exhausted, and 突然に. There was a terrible fight, and in spite of his exhaustion he would have killed Joseph Brecht if at the last moment the latter had not drawn his revolver. After all is said and done, gentlemen, can a woman love but once? Joseph Brecht 解雇する／砲火／射撃d. In that infinitesimal moment between the leveling of the gun and the 解雇する／砲火／射撃ing of the 発射 Marie Beauvais 設立する answer to that question. Who was it she loved? She sprang to her husband's breast, 避難所ing him with the 団体／死体 that had been disloyal to its soul, and she died there—with a 弾丸 through her heart.

Joseph Brecht told us how, in the horror of his work—and 所有するd now by a terrible 恐れる—he ran from the cabin and fled for his life. And Andre Beauvais must have remained with his dead. For it was many hours later before he took up the 追跡する of the man whom he made solemn 誓い to his God to kill. Like a 追跡（する）d hare, Joseph Brecht eluded him, and it was weeks before the fox-trapper （機の）カム upon him. Andre Beauvais 軽蔑（する）d to kill him from 待ち伏せ／迎撃する. He 手配中の，お尋ね者 to choke his life out slowly, with his two 手渡すs, and he attacked him 率直に and 公正に／かなり.

And in that cabin—gasping for breath, dying as he thought, Joseph Brecht said to us: "It was one or the other. He had the best of me. I drew my revolver again—and killed him, killed Andre Beauvais, as I had killed his wife, Marie!"

Here in the South Joseph Brecht might not have been a bad man, gentlemen. In every man's heart there is a devil, but we do not know the man as bad until the devil is roused. And passion, the mad passion for a woman, had roused him. Now that it had made twice a 殺害者 of him the devil slunk 支援する into his hiding, and the man who had once been the clean-living, red-血d Joseph Brecht was only a husk without a heart, slinking from place to place in the 回避 of 司法（官）. For you men of the 王室の 機動力のある Police were on his 追跡する. You would have caught him, but you did not think of 捜し出すing for him in the Sulphur Hell. For two years he had lived there, and when he finished his story he was sitting on the 辛勝する／優位 of the cot, やめる sane, gentlemen.

And for the first time M'sieu, my comrade, spoke.

"Let us bring up the dunnage from the canoe, mon pere."

He led the way out of the cabin, and I followed. We were fifty steps away when he stopped suddenly.

"Ah," he said, "I have forgotten something. I will 追いつく you."

He turned 支援する to the cabin, and I went on to the canoe.

He did not join me. When I returned with my 重荷（を負わせる）, M'sieu appeared at the door. He amazed me, startled me, I will say, gentlemen. I could not imagine such a change as I saw in him—that man of horrible silence, of grim, dark mystery. He was smiling; his white teeth shone; his 発言する／表明する was the 発言する／表明する of another man. He seemed to me ten years younger as he stood there, and as I dropped my 負担 and went in he was laughing, and his 手渡す was laid pleasantly on my shoulder.

Across the cot, with his 長，率いる stretched 負かす／撃墜する to the 床に打ち倒す, his 注目する，もくろむs bulging and his jaws agape, lay Joseph Brecht. I sprang to him. He was dead. And then I SAW Gentlemen, he had been choked to death!

"He made one leetle meestake, mon pere. Andre Beauvais did not die. I am Andre Beauvais."

That is all, gentlemen of the 王室の 機動力のある. May the 法律 have mercy!

THE OTHER MAN'S WIFE

Thornton wasn't the sort of man in whom you'd 推定する／予想する to find the devil lurking. He was big, blond, and 幅の広い-shouldered. When I first saw him I thought he was an Englishman. That was at the 地位，任命する at Lac la Biche, six hundred miles north of civilization. Scotty and I had been doing some 探検 work for the 政府, and for more than six months we hadn't seen a real white man who looked like home.

We （機の）カム in late at night, and the factor gave us a room in his house. When we looked out of our window in the morning, we saw a little shack about a hundred feet away, and in 前線 of that shack was Thornton, only half dressed, stretching himself in the sun, and LAUGHING. There wasn't anything to laugh at, but we could see his teeth 向こうずねing white, and he grinned every minute while he went through a sort of setting-up 演習.

When you begin to 分析する a man, there is always some one human trait that rises above all others, and that laugh was Thornton's. Even the wolfish sledge-dogs at the 地位，任命する would wag their tails when they heard it.

We soon 設立するd friendly relations, but I could not get very far beyond the laugh. Indeed, Thornton was a mystery. DeBar, the factor, said that he had dropped into the 地位，任命する six months before, with a pack on his 支援する and a ライフル銃／探して盗む over his shoulder. He had no 商売／仕事, 明らかに. He was not a propectory and it was only now and then that he used his ライフル銃／探して盗む, and then only to shoot at 示すs.

One thing puzzled DeBar more than all else. Thornton worked like three men about the 地位，任命する, cutting winter 解雇する／砲火／射撃-支持を得ようと努めるd, helping to catch and clean the トンs of whitefish which were 蓄える／店d away for the dogs in the company's ice-houses, and doing other things without end. For this he 辞退するd all 支払い（額） except his rations.

Scotty continued eastward to Churchill, and for seven weeks I bunked with Thornton in the shack. At the end of those seven weeks I knew little more about Thornton than at the beginning. I never had a closer or more congenial chum, and yet in his conversation he never got beyond the big 支持を得ようと努めるd, the mountains, and the 絡まるd 押し寄せる／沼地s. He was educated and a gentleman, and I knew that in spite of his brown 直面する and 武器, his hard muscles and splendid health, he was three-４半期/4分の1s tenderfoot. But he loved the wilderness.

"I never knew what life could 持つ／拘留する for a man until I （機の）カム up here," he said to me one day, his gray 注目する，もくろむs dancing in the light of a glorious sunset.

"I'm ten years younger than I was two years ago."

"You've been two years in the north?"

"A year and ten months," he replied.

Something brought to my lips the words that I had 軍隊d 支援する a 得点する／非難する／２０ of times.

"What brought you up here, Thornton?"

"Two things," he said 静かに, "a woman—and a scoundrel."

He said no more, and I did not 圧力（をかける） the 事柄. There was a strange tremble in his 発言する／表明する, something that I took to be a 公式文書，認める of sadness; but when he turned from the sunset to me his 注目する，もくろむs were filled with a yet stranger joy, and his big boyish laugh rang out with such wholesome infectiousness that I laughed with him, in spite of myself.

That night, in our shack, he produced a tightly bound bundle of letters about six インチs 厚い, scattered them out before him on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, and began reading them at 無作為の, while I sat 支えるd 支援する in my bunk, smoking and watching him. He was a curious 熟考する／考慮する. Every little while I'd hear him chuckling and rumbling, his teeth agleam, and between these times he'd grow serious. Once I saw 涙／ほころびs rolling 負かす／撃墜する his cheeks.

He puzzled me; and the more he puzzled me, the better I liked him. Every night for a week he spent an hour or two reading those letters over and over again. I had a dozen 適切な時期s to see that they were a woman's letters: but he never 申し込む／申し出d a word of explanation.

With the approach of September, I made 準備s to leave for the south, by way of Moose Factory and the Albany.

"Why not go the shorter way—by the Reindeer Lake water 大勝する to Prince Albert?" asked Thornton. "If you'll do that, I'll go with you."

His proposition delighted me, and we began planning for our trip. From that hour there （機の）カム a curious change in Thornton. It was as if he had come into 接触する with some mysterious dynamo that had 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金d him with a strange nervous energy. We were two days in getting our stuff ready, and the night between he did not go to bed at all, but sat up reading the letters, smoking, and then reading over again what he had read half a hundred times before.

I was pretty 井戸／弁護士席 常習的な, but during the first week of our canoe trip he nearly had me bushed a dozen times. He 主張するd on getting away before 夜明け, laughing, singing, and talking, and 勧めるd on the pace until sunset. I don't believe that he slept two hours a night. Often, when I woke up, I'd see him walking 支援する and 前へ／外へ in the moonlight, humming softly to himself. There was almost a touch of madness in it all; but I knew that Thornton was sane.

One night—our fourteenth 負かす／撃墜する—I awoke a little after midnight, and as usual looked about for Thornton. It was glorious night. There was a 十分な moon over us, and with the lake at our feet, and the spruce and balsam forest on each 味方する of us, the whole scene struck me as one of the most beautiful I had ever looked upon.

When I （機の）カム out of our テント, Thornton was not in sight. Away across the lake I heard a moose calling. 支援する of me an フクロウ hooted softly, and from miles away I could hear faintly the howling of a wolf. The night sounds were broken by my own startled cry as I felt a 手渡す 落ちる, without 警告, upon my shoulder. It was Thornton. I had never seen his 直面する as it looked just then.

"Isn't it beautiful—glorious?" he cried softly.

"It's wonderful!" I said. "You won't see this 負かす／撃墜する there, Thornton!"

"Nor hear those sounds," he replied, his 手渡す 強化するing on my arm. "We're pretty の近くに to God up here, aren't we? She'll like it—I'll bring her 支援する!"

"She!" He looked at me, his teeth 向こうずねing in that wonderful silent laugh. "I'm going to tell you about it," he said. "I can't keep it in any longer. Let's go 負かす／撃墜する by the lake."

We walked 負かす／撃墜する and seated ourselves on the 辛勝する／優位 of a big 激しく揺する.

"I told you that I （機の）カム up here because of a woman—and a man," continued Thornton. "井戸／弁護士席, I did. The man and woman were husband and wife, and I—"

He interrupted himself with one of his chuckling laughs. There was something in it that made me shudder.

"No use to tell you that I loved her," he went on. "I worshipped her. She was my life. And I believe she loved me as much. I might have 追加するd that there was a third thing that drove me up here—what remained of the rag end of a man's 栄誉（を受ける）."

"I begin to understand," I said, as he paused. "You （機の）カム up here to get away from the woman. But this woman—her husband—"

For the first time since I had known him I saw a flash of 怒り／怒る leap into Thornton's 直面する. He struck his 手渡す against the 激しく揺する.

"Her husband was a scoundrel, a brute, who （機の）カム home from his club drunk, a cheap money-spender, a man who wasn't fit to wipe the mud from her little feet, much いっそう少なく call her wife! He せねばならない have been 発射. I can see it, now; and—井戸／弁護士席, I might 同様に tell you. I'm going 支援する to her!"

"You are?" I cried. "Has she got a 離婚? Is her husband still living?"

"No, she hasn't got a 離婚, and her husband is still living; but for all that, we've arranged it. Those were her letters I've been reading, and she'll be at Prince Albert waiting for me on the 15th—three days from now. We shall be a little late, and that's why I'm hustling so. I've kept away from her for two years, but I can't do it any longer—and she says that if I do she'll kill herself. So there you have it. She's the sweetest, most beautiful girl in the whole world—注目する，もくろむs the color of those blue flowers you have up here, brown hair, and—but you've got to see her when we reach Prince Albert. You won't 非難する me for doing all this, then!"

I had nothing to say. At my silence he turned toward me suddenly, with that happy smile of his, and said again:

"I tell you that you won't 非難する me when you see her. You'll envy me, and you'll call me a confounded fool for staying away so long. It has been terribly hard for both of us. I'll wager that she's no sleepier than I am to-night, just from knowing that I'm hurrying to her."

"You're pretty 確信して," I could not help sneering. "I don't believe I'd wager much on such a woman. To be frank with you, Thornton, I don't care to 会合，会う her, so I'll 拒絶する／低下する your 招待. I've a little wife of my own, as true as steel, and I'd rather keep out of an 事件／事情／状勢 like this. You understand?"

"Perfectly," said Thornton, and there was not the slightest ill-humor in his 発言する／表明する. "You—you think I am a cur?"

"If you have stolen another man's wife—yes."

"And the woman?"

"If she is betraying her husband, she is no better than you."

Thornton rose and stretched his long 武器 above his 長，率いる.

"Isn't the moon glorious?" he cried exultantly. "She has never seen a moon like that. She has never seen a world like this. Do you know what we're going to do? We'll come up here and build a cabin, and—and she'll know what a real man is at last! She deserves it. And we'll have you up to visit us—you and your wife—two months out of each year. But then"—he turned and laughed squarely into my 直面する—"you probably won't want your wife to know her."

"Probably not," I said, not without 当惑.

"I don't 非難する you," he exclaimed, and before I could draw 支援する he had caught my 手渡す and was shaking it hard in his own. "Let's be friends a little longer, old man," he went on. "I know you'll change your mind about the little girl and me when we reach Prince Albert."

I didn't go to sleep again that night; and the half-dozen days that followed were unpleasant enough—for me, at least. In spite of my own coolness toward him, there was 絶対 no change in Thornton. Not once did he make any その上の allusion to what he had told me.

As we drew 近づく to our 旅行's end, his enthusiasm and good spirits 増加するd. He had the 屈服する end of the canoe, and I had abundant 適切な時期 of watching him. It was impossible not to like him, even after I knew his story.

We reached Prince Albert on a Sunday, after three days' travel in a buckboard. When we drove up in 前線 of the hotel, there was just one person on the long veranda looking out over the Saskatchewan. It was a woman, reading a 調書をとる／予約する.

As he saw her, I heard a 広大な／多数の／重要な breath heave up inside Thornton's chest. The woman looked up, 星／主役にするd for a moment, and then dropped her 調書をとる／予約する with a welcoming cry such as I had never heard before in my life. She sprang 負かす／撃墜する the steps, and Thornton leaped from the wagon. They met there a dozen paces from me, Thornton catching her in his 武器, and the woman clasping her 武器 about his neck.

I heard her sobbing, and I saw Thornton kissing her again and again, and then the woman pulled his blond 長，率いる 負かす／撃墜する の近くに to her 直面する. It was sickening, knowing what I did, and I began helping the driver to throw off our dunnage.

In about two minutes I heard Thornton calling me.

I didn't turn my 長，率いる. Then Thornton （機の）カム to me, and as he straightened me around by the shoulders I caught a glimpse of the woman. He was 権利—she was very beautiful.

"I told you that her husband was a scoundrel and a rake," he said gently. "井戸／弁護士席, he was—and I was that scoundrel! I （機の）カム up here for a chance of redeeming myself, and your big, glorious North has made a man of me. Will you come and 会合，会う my wife?"

THE STRENGTH OF MEN

There was the scent of 戦う／戦い in the 空気／公表する. The whole of Porcupine City knew that it was coming, and every man and woman in its two hundred 全住民 held their breath in 予期 of the struggle between two men for a fortune—and a girl. For in some mysterious manner 噂する of the girl had got abroad, passing from lip to lip, until even the children knew that there was some other thing than gold that would play a part in the fight between Clarry O'Grady and Jan Larose. On the surface it was not scheduled to be a fight with 握りこぶしs or guns. But in Porcupine City there were a few who knew the "inner story"—the story of the girl, 同様に as the gold, and those の中で them who 恐れるd the 法律 would have arbitrated in a different manner for the two men if it had been in their 力／強力にする. But 法律 is 法律, and the code was the code. There was no 代案／選択肢. It was an unusual 状況／情勢, and yet 明らかに simple of 解答. Eighty miles north, as the canoe was driven, young Jan Larose had one day 火刑／賭けるd out a rich "find" at the headwaters of Pelican Creek. The same day, but later, Clarry O'Grady had driven his 火刑／賭けるs beside Jan's. It had been a race to the 採掘 recorder's office, and they had come in neck and neck. Popular 感情 好意d Larose, the わずかな／ほっそりした, 静かな, dark-注目する，もくろむd half Frenchman. But there was the 法律, which had no 感情. The recorder had sent an スパイ／執行官 north to 調査／捜査する. If there were two 始める，決めるs of 火刑／賭けるs there could be but one 判決. Both （人命などを）奪う，主張するs would be thrown out, and then—

All knew what would happen, or thought that they knew. It would be a magnificent race to see who could 始める，決める out fresh 火刑／賭けるs and return to the recorder's office ahead of the other. It would be a fight of brawn and brain, unless—and those few who knew the "inner story" spoke softly の中で themselves.

An ox in strength, gigantic in build, with a 直面する that for days had worn a sneering smile of 勝利, O'Grady was already 選ぶd as a ten-to-one 勝利者. He was a magnificent canoeman, no man in Porcupine City could equal him for endurance, and for his 屈服する paddle he had the best Indian in the whole Reindeer Lake country. He stalked up and 負かす／撃墜する the one street of Porcupine City, 扱う／治療するing to drinks, 割れ目ing rough jokes, and 申し込む／申し出ing wagers, while Jan Larose and his long-武装した Cree sat 静かに in the shade of the recorder's office waiting for the final moment to come.

There were a few of those who knew the "inner story" who saw something besides 辞職 and despair in Jan's 静かな aloofness, and in the disconsolate droop of his 長，率いる. His 直面する turned a shade whiter when O'Grady passed 近づく, dropping 侮辱 and taunt, and looking sidewise at him in a way that only HE could understand. But he made no retort, though his dark 注目する，もくろむs glowed with a 解雇する／砲火／射撃 that never やめる died—unless it was when, alone and unobserved, he took from his pocket a bit of buckskin in which was a silken tress of curling brown hair. Then his 注目する，もくろむs shone with a light that was soft and luminous, and one seeing him then would have known that it was not a dream of gold that filled his heart, but of a brown-haired girl who had broken it.

On this day, the forenoon of the sixth since the スパイ／執行官 had 出発／死d into the north, the end of the 緊張した period of waiting was 推定する／予想するd. Porcupine City had almost 中止するd to carry on the daily monotony of 商売／仕事. A 得点する／非難する／２０ were lounging about the recorder's office. Women looked 前へ／外へ at たびたび（訪れる） intervals through the open doors of the "city's" cabins, or gathered in two and threes to discuss this biggest 冒険的な event ever known in the history of the town. Not a minute but 得点する／非難する／２０s of anxious 注目する，もくろむs were turned searchingly up the river, 負かす／撃墜する which the returning スパイ／執行官's canoe would first appear. With the 夜明け of this day O'Grady had 辞退するd to drink. He was stripped to the waist. His laugh was louder. 憎悪 同様に as 勝利 glittered in his 注目する，もくろむs, for to-day Jan Larose looked him coolly and squarely in the 直面する, and nodded whenever he passed. It was almost noon when Jan spoke a few low words to his watchful Indian and walked to the 最高の，を越す of the cedar-capped 山の尾根 that 避難所d Porcupine City from the north 勝利，勝つd.

From this 山の尾根 he could look straight into the north—the north where he was born. Only the Cree knew that for five nights he had slept, or sat awake, on the 最高の，を越す of this 山の尾根, with his 直面する turned toward the polar 星／主役にする, and his heart breaking with loneliness and grief. Up there, far beyond where the green-topped forests and the sky seemed to 会合，会う, he could see a little cabin nestling under the 星／主役にするs—and Marie. Always his mind traveled 支援する to the beginning of things, no 事柄 how hard he tried to forget—even to the old days of years and years ago when he had こどもd the little Marie around on his 支援する, and had crumpled her brown curls, and had 明らかにする／漏らすd to her one by one the marvelous mysteries of the wilderness, with never a thought of the wonderful love that was to come. A half frozen little outcast brought in from the 深い snows one day by Marie's father, he became first her playmate and brother—and after that lived in a few swift years of 楽園 and dreams. For Marie he had made of himself what he was. He had gone to Montreal. He had learned to read and 令状, he worked for the Company, he （機の）カム to know the outside world, and at last the 政府 雇うd him. This was a 勝利. He could still see the glow of pride and love in Marie's beautiful 注目する，もくろむs when he （機の）カム home after those two years in the 広大な／多数の／重要な city. The 政府 sent for him each autumn after that. 深い into the wilderness he led the men who made the red and 黒人／ボイコット lined 地図／計画するs. It was he who 炎d out the northern 限界 of Banksian pine, and his 指名する was in 政府 報告（する）／憶測s 負かす／撃墜する in 黒人／ボイコット and white—so that Marie and all the world could read.

One day he （機の）カム 支援する—and he 設立する Clarry O'Grady at the Cummins' cabin. He had been there for a month with a broken 脚. Perhaps it was the dangerous knowledge of the 力／強力にする of her beauty—the woman's instinct in her to tease with her prettiness, that led to Marie's flirtation with O'Grady. But Jan could not understand, and she played with 解雇する／砲火／射撃—the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 of two hearts instead of one. The world went to pieces under Jan after that. There （機の）カム the day when, in fair fight, he choked the taunting sneer from O'Grady's 直面する 支援する in the 支持を得ようと努めるd. He fought like a tiger, a mad demon. No one ever knew of that fight. And with the demon still 激怒（する）ing in his breast he 直面するd the girl. He could never やめる remember what he had said. But it was terrible—and （機の）カム straight from his soul. Then he went out, leaving Marie standing there white and silent. He did not go 支援する. He had sworn never to do that, and during the weeks that followed it spread about that Marie Cummins had turned 負かす／撃墜する Jan Larose, and that Clarry O'Grady was now the lucky man. It was one of the unexplained tricks of 運命／宿命 that had brought them together, and had 始める，決める their 発見 火刑／賭けるs 味方する by 味方する on Pelican Creek.

To-day, in spite of his smiling coolness, Jan's heart rankled with a bitterness that seemed to be concentrated of all the dregs that had ever entered into his life. It 毒（薬）d him, heart and soul. He was not a coward. He was not afraid of O'Grady.

And yet he knew that 運命／宿命 had already played the cards against him. He would lose. He was almost 確信して of that, even while he 神経d himself to fight. There was the 減少（する） of savage superstition in him, and he told himself that something would happen to （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 him out. O'Grady had gone into the home that was almost his own and had robbed him of Marie. In that fight in the forest he should have killed him. That would have been 司法（官）, as he knew it. But he had relented, half for Marie's sake, and half because he hated to take a human life, even though it were O'Grady's. But this time there would be no relenting. He had come alone to the 最高の，を越す of the 山の尾根 to settle the last 疑問s with himself. Whoever won out, there would be a fight. It would be a magnificent fight, like that which his grandfather had fought and won for the 栄誉（を受ける） of a woman years and years ago. He was even glad that O'Grady was trying to 略奪する him of what he had searched for and 設立する. There would be twice the 司法（官） in 殺人，大当り him now. And it would be done 公正に／かなり, as his grandfather had done it.

Suddenly there （機の）カム a piercing shout from the direction of the river, followed by a wild call for him through Jackpine's moose-horn. He answered the Cree's signal with a yell and tore 負かす／撃墜する through the bush. When he reached the foot of the 山の尾根 at the 辛勝する／優位 of the （疑いを）晴らすing he saw the men, women and children of Porcupine City running to the river. In 前線 of the recorder's office stood Jackpine, bellowing through his horn. O'Grady and his Indian were already 押すing their canoe out into the stream, and even as he looked there （機の）カム a break in the line of excited 観客s, and through it hurried the スパイ／執行官 toward the recorder's cabin.

味方する by 味方する, Jan and his Indian ran to their canoe. Jackpine was stripped to the waist, like O'Grady and his Chippewayan. Jan threw off only his caribou-肌 coat. His dark woolen shirt was sleeveless, and his long わずかな／ほっそりした 武器, as hard as ribbed steel, were 解放する／自由な. Half the （人が）群がる followed him. He smiled, and waved his 手渡す, the dark pupils of his 注目する，もくろむs 向こうずねing big and 黒人／ボイコット. Their canoe 発射 out until it was within a dozen yards of the other, and those 岸に saw him laugh into O'Grady's sullen, 始める，決める 直面する. He was 冷静な／正味の. Between smiling lips his white teeth gleamed, and the women 星／主役にするd with brighter 注目する，もくろむs and 紅潮／摘発するd cheeks, wondering how Marie Cummins could have given up this man for the 巨大（な） hulk and drink-reddened 直面する of his 競争相手. Those の中で the men who had wagered ひどく against him felt a 疑惑. There was something in Jan's smile that was more than coolness, and it was not bravado. Even as he smiled 岸に, and spoke in low Cree to Jackpine, he felt at the belt that he had hidden under the caribou-肌 coat. There were two sheaths there, and two knives, 正確に／まさに alike. It was thus that his grandfather had 始める，決める 前へ／外へ one summer day to avenge a wrong, nearly seventy years before.

The スパイ／執行官 had entered the cabin, and now he 再現するd, wiping his sweating 直面する with a big red handkerchief. The recorder followed. He paused at the 辛勝する／優位 of the stream and made a megaphone of his 手渡すs.

"Gentlemen," he cried raucously, "both （人命などを）奪う，主張するs have been thrown out!"

A wild yell （機の）カム from O'Grady. In a 選び出す／独身 flash four paddles struck the water, and the two canoes 発射 屈服する and 屈服する up the stream toward the lake above the bend. The （人が）群がる ran even with them until the low 押し寄せる／沼地 at the lake's 辛勝する／優位 stopped them. In that distance neither had 伸び（る）d a yard advantage. But there was a curious change of 感情 の中で those who returned to Porcupine City. That night betting was no longer two and three to one on O'Grady. It was even money.

For the last thing that the men of Porcupine City had seen was that 冷淡な, 静かな smile of Jan Larose, the gleam of his teeth, the something in his 注目する，もくろむs that is more to be 恐れるd の中で men than bluster and brute strength. They laid it to 信用／信任. 非，不，無 guessed that this race held for Jan no thought of the gold at the end. 非，不，無 guessed that he was に引き続いて out the working of a code as old as the 指名する of his race in the north.

As the canoes entered the lake the smile left Jan's 直面する. His lips 強化するd until they were almost a straight line. His 注目する，もくろむs grew darker, his breath （機の）カム more quickly. For a little while O'Grady's canoe drew 刻々と ahead of them, and when Jackpine's 一打／打撃s went deeper and more powerful Jan spoke to him in Cree, and guided the canoe so that it 削減（する） straight as an arrow in O'Grady's wake. There was an advantage in that. It was small, but Jan counted on the cumulative results of good generalship.

His 注目する，もくろむs never for an instant left O'Grady's 抱擁する, naked 支援する. Between his 膝s lay his .303 ライフル銃／探して盗む. He had 人物／姿／数字d on the fraction of time it would take him to 減少（する） his paddle, 選ぶ up the gun, and 解雇する／砲火／射撃. This was his second point in generalship—getting the 減少（する） on O'Grady.

Once or twice in the first half hour O'Grady ちらりと見ることd 支援する over his shoulder, and it was Jan who now laughed tauntingly at the other. There was something in that laugh that sent a 冷気／寒がらせる through O'Grady. It was as hard as steel, a sort of madman's laugh.

It was seven miles to the first portage, and there were nine in the eighty-mile stretch. O'Grady and his Chippewayan were a hundred yards ahead when the prow of their canoe touched shore. They were a hundred and fifty ahead when both canoes were once more in the water on the other 味方する of the portage, and O'Grady sent 支援する a hoarse shout of 勝利. Jan hunched himself a little lower. He spoke to Jackpine—and the race began. Swifter and swifter the canoes 削減（する） through the water. From five miles an hour to six, from six to six and a half—seven—seven and a ４半期/4分の1, and then the 緊張する told. A paddle snapped in O'Grady's 手渡すs with a sound like a ピストル 発射. A dozen seconds were lost while he snatched up a new paddle and caught the Chippewayan's 一打／打撃, and Jan swung の近くに into their wake again. At the end of the fifteenth mile, where the second portage began, O'Grady was two hundred yards in the lead. He 伸び（る）d another twenty on the portage and with a breath that was coming now in sobbing swiftness Jan put every ounce of strength behind the thrust of his paddle. Slowly they 伸び（る）d. Foot by foot, yard by yard, until for a third time they 削減（する） into O'Grady's wake. A dull 苦痛 crept into Jan's 支援する. He felt it slowly creeping into his shoulders and to his 武器. He looked at Jackpine and saw that he was swinging his 団体／死体 more and more with the 動議 of his 武器. And then he saw that the terrific pace 始める，決める by O'Grady was beginning to tell on the occupants of the canoe ahead. The 速度(を上げる） grew いっそう少なく and いっそう少なく, until it was no more than seventy yards. In spite of the 苦痛s that were eating at his strength like swimmer's cramp, Jan could not 抑制する a low cry of exultation. O'Grady had planned to （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 him out in that first twenty-mile spurt. And he had failed! His heart leaped with new hope even while his 一打／打撃s were growing 女性.

Ahead of them, at the far end of the lake, there ぼんやり現れるd up the 黒人／ボイコット spruce 木材／素質 which 示すd the beginning of the third portage, thirty miles from Porcupine City. Jan knew that he would 勝利，勝つ there—that he would 伸び（る） an eighth of a mile in the half-mile carry. He knew of a shorter 削減（する） than that of the 正規の／正選手 追跡する. He had （疑いを）晴らすd it himself, for he had spent a whole winter on that portage trapping lynx.

Marie lived only twelve miles beyond. More than once Marie had gone with him over the old 罠（にかける） line. She had helped him to 計画（する） the little スピードを出す／記録につける cabin he had built for himself on the 辛勝する／優位 of the big 押し寄せる／沼地, hidden away from all but themselves. It was she who had put the red paper curtains over the windows, and who, one day, had written on the corner of one of them: "My beloved Jan." He forgot O'Grady as he thought of Marie and those old days of happiness and hope. It was Jackpine who 解任するd him at last to what was happening. In amazement he saw that O'Grady and his Chippewayan had 中止するd paddling. They passed a dozen yards abreast of them. O'Grady's 広大な／多数の／重要な 武器 and shoulders were glistening with perspiration. His 直面する was purplish. In his 注目する，もくろむs and on his lips was the old taunting sneer. He was panting like a 勝利，勝つd-broken animal. As Jan passed he uttered no word.

An eighth of a mile ahead was the point where the 正規の／正選手 portage began, but Jan swung around this into a shallow inlet from which his own secret 追跡する was 削減（する）. Not until he was 岸に did he look 支援する. O'Grady and his Indian were paddling in a leisurely manner toward the 長，率いる of the point. For a moment it looked as though they had given up the race, and Jan's heart leaped exultantly. O'Grady saw him and waved his 手渡す. Then he jumped out to his 膝s in the water and the Chippewayan followed him. He shouted to Jan, and pointed 負かす／撃墜する at the canoe. The next instant, with a powerful 押す, he sent the empty birchbark スピード違反 far out into the open water.

Jan caught his breath. He heard Jackpine's cry of amazement behind him. Then he saw the two men start on a swift run over the portage 追跡する, and with a 猛烈な／残忍な, terrible cry he sprang toward his ライフル銃／探して盗む, which he had leaned against a tree.

In that moment he would have 解雇する／砲火／射撃d, but O'Grady and the Indian had disappeared into the 木材／素質. He understood—O'Grady had tricked him, as he had tricked him in other ways. He had a second canoe waiting for him at the end of the portage, and perhaps others さらに先に on. It was 不公平な. He could still hear O'Grady's taunting laughter as it had rung out in Porcupine City, and the mystery of it was solved. His 血 grew hot—so hot that his 注目する，もくろむs 燃やすd, and his breath seemed to parch his lips. In that short space in which he stood 麻ひさせるd and unable to 行為／法令／行動する his brain 炎d like a 火山. Who—was helping O'Grady by having a canoe ready for him at the other 味方する of the portage? He knew that no man had gone North from Porcupine City during those 緊張した days of waiting. The code which all understood had 禁じるd that. Who, then, could it be?—who but Marie herself! In some way O'Grady had got word to her, and it was the Cummins' canoe that was waiting for him!

With a strange cry Jan 解除するd the 屈服する of the canoe to his shoulder and led Jackpine in a run. His strength had returned. He did not feel the whiplike sting of boughs that struck him across the 直面する. He scarcely looked at the little cabin of スピードを出す／記録につけるs when they passed it. 深い 負かす／撃墜する in his heart he called upon the Virgin to 悪口を言う／悪態 those two—Marie Cummins and Clarry O'Grady, the man and the girl who had cheated him out of love, out of home, out of everything he had 所有するd, and who were （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing him now through perfidy and trickery.

His 直面する and his 手渡すs were scratched and bleeding when they （機の）カム to the 狭くする 水路, half lake and half river, which let into the Blind Loon. Another minute and they were racing again through the water. From the mouth of the channel he saw O'Grady and the Chippewayan a ４半期/4分の1 of a mile ahead. Five miles beyond them was the fourth portage. It was hidden now by a 厚い 棺／かげり of smoke rising slowly into the （疑いを）晴らす sky. Neither Jan nor the Indian had caught the pungent odors of 燃やすing forests in the 空気／公表する, and they knew that it was a fresh 解雇する／砲火／射撃. Never in the years that Jan could remember had that portage been afire, and he wondered if this was another trick of O'Grady's. The 解雇する／砲火／射撃 spread 速く as they 前進するd. It burst 前へ／外へ in a dozen places along the shore of the lake, sending up 抱擁する 容積／容量s of 黒人／ボイコット smoke riven by lurid tongues of 炎上. O'Grady and his canoe became いっそう少なく and いっそう少なく 際立った. Finally they disappeared 完全に in the lowering clouds of the conflagration. Jan's 注目する，もくろむs searched the water as they approached shore, and at last he saw what he had 推定する／予想するd to find—O'Grady's empty canoe drifting slowly away from the beach. O'Grady and the Chippewayan were gone.

Over that half-mile portage Jan staggered with his 注目する，もくろむs half の近くにd and his breath coming in gasps. The smoke blinded him, and at times the heat of the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 scorched his 直面する. In several places it had crossed the 追跡する, and the hot embers 燃やすd through their moccasins. Once Jackpine uttered a cry of 苦痛. But Jan's lips were 始める，決める. Then, above the roar of the 炎上s 広範囲にわたる 負かす／撃墜する upon the 権利 of them, he caught the low 雷鳴 of Dead Man's Whirlpool and the cataract that had made the portage necessary. From the heated earth their feet （機の）カム to a 狭くする ledge of 激しく揺する, worn smooth by the furred and moccasined tread of centuries, with the chasm on one 味方する of them and a 塀で囲む of 激しく揺する on the other. Along the crest of that 塀で囲む, a hundred feet above them, the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 swept in a トルネード，竜巻 of 炎上 and smoke. A tree 衝突，墜落d behind them, a dozen seconds too late. Then the 追跡する 広げるd and sloped 負かす／撃墜する into the 下落する that ended the portage. For an instant Jan paused to get his 耐えるing, and behind him Jackpine shouted a 警告.

Up out of the smoldering oven where O'Grady should have 設立する his canoe two men were 急ぐing toward them. They were O'Grady and the Chippewayan. He caught the gleam of a knife in the Indian's 手渡す. In O'Grady's there was something larger and darker—a club, and Jan dropped his end of the canoe with a glad cry, and drew one of the knives from his belt. Jackpine （機の）カム to his 味方する, with his 追跡（する）ing knife in his 手渡す, 手段ing with glittering 注目する，もくろむs the oncoming 敵 of his race—the Chippewayan.

And Jan laughed softly to himself, and his teeth gleamed again, for at last 運命／宿命 was playing his game. The 解雇する／砲火／射撃 had 燃やすd O'Grady's canoe, and it was to 略奪する him of his own canoe that O'Grady was coming to fight. A canoe! He laughed again, while the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 roared over his 長，率いる and the whirlpool 雷鳴d at his feet. O'Grady would fight for a canoe—for gold—while he—HE—would fight for something else, for the vengeance of a man whose soul and 栄誉（を受ける） had been sold. He cared nothing for the canoe. He cared nothing for the gold. He told himself, in this one 緊張した moment of waiting, that he cared no longer for Marie. It was the fulfillment of the code.

He was still smiling when O'Grady was so 近づく that he could see the red glare in his 注目する，もくろむs. There was no word, no shout, no sound of fury or 反抗 as the two men stood for an instant just out of striking distance. Jan heard the coming together of Jackpine and the Chippewayan. He heard them straggling, but not the flicker of an eyelash did his gaze leave O'Grady's 直面する. Both men understood. This time had to come. Both had 推定する／予想するd it, even from that day of the fight in the 支持を得ようと努めるd when fortune had 好意d Jan. The 燃やすd canoe had only 急いでd the hour a little. Suddenly Jan's 解放する／自由な 手渡す reached behind him to his belt. He drew 前へ／外へ the second knife and 投げ上げる／ボディチェックするd it at O'Grady's feet.

O'Grady made a movement to 選ぶ it up, and then, while Jan was partly off his guard, （機の）カム at him with a powerful swing of the club. It was his catlike quickness, the quickness almost of the 広大な／多数の／重要な northern loon that 避けるs a ライフル銃／探して盗む ball, that had won for Jan in the forest fight. It saved him now. The club 削減（する） through the 空気／公表する over his 長，率いる, and, carried by the 勢い of his own blow, O'Grady lurched against him with the 十分な 軍隊 of his two hundred 続けざまに猛撃するs of muscle and bone. Jan's knife swept in an 上向き flash and 急落（する），激減（する）d to the hilt through the flesh of his enemy's forearm. With a cry of 苦痛 O'Grady dropped his club, and the two 衝突，墜落d to the 石／投石する 床に打ち倒す of the 追跡する. This was the attack that Jan had 恐れるd and tried to 失敗させる／負かす, and with a 雷-like squirming movement he swung himself half 解放する／自由な, and on his 支援する, with O'Grady's 抱擁する 手渡すs linking at his throat, he drew 支援する his knife arm for the 致命的な 急落（する），激減（する）.

In this instant, so quick that he could scarcely have taken a breath in the time, his 注目する，もくろむs took in the other struggle between Jackpine and the Chippewayan. The two Indians had locked themselves in a deadly embrace. All thought of masters, of life or death, were forgotten in the roused-up 憎悪 that 解雇する／砲火／射撃d them now in their 願望（する） to kill. They had drawn の近くに to the 辛勝する／優位 of the chasm. Under them the 雷鳴ing roar of the whirlpool was unheard, their ears caught no sound of the moaning 殺到する of the 炎上s far over their 長，率いるs. Even as Jan 星／主役にするd horror-stricken in that one moment, they locked at the 辛勝する／優位 of the chasm. Above the tumult of the flood below and the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 above there rose a wild yell, and the two 急落（する），激減（する）d 負かす／撃墜する into the abyss, locked and fighting even as they fell in a 新たな展開ing, formless 形態／調整 to the death below.

It happened in an instant—like the flash of a quick picture on a 審査する—and even as Jan caught the last of Jackpine's terrible 直面する, his 手渡す drove eight インチs of steel toward O'Grady's 団体／死体. The blade struck something hard—something that was neither bone nor flesh, and he drew 支援する again to strike. He had struck the steel buckle on O'Grady's belt. This time—

A sudden hissing roar filled the 空気／公表する. Jan knew that he did not strike—but he scarcely knew more than that in the first shock of the fiery 雪崩／（抗議などの）殺到 that had dropped upon them from the 激しく揺する 塀で囲む of the mountain. He was conscious of fighting 猛烈に to drag himself from under a 負わせる that was not O'Grady's—a 負わせる that stifled the breath in his 肺s, that crackled in his ears, that scorched his 直面する and his 手渡すs, and was 燃やすing out his 注目する，もくろむs. A shriek rang in his ears unlike any other cry of man he had ever heard, and he knew that it was O'Grady's. He pulled himself out, foot by foot, until fresher 空気／公表する struck his nostrils, and dragged himself nearer and nearer to the 辛勝する／優位 of the chasm. He could not rise. His 四肢s were 麻ひさせるd. His knife arm dragged at his 味方する. He opened his 注目する，もくろむs and 設立する that he could see. Where they had fought was the smoldering 廃虚 of a 広大な／多数の／重要な tree, and standing out of the 廃虚 of that tree, half naked, his 手渡すs 涙／ほころびing wildly at his 直面する, was O'Grady. Jan's fingers clutched at a small 激しく揺する. He called out, but there was no meaning to the sound he made. Clarry O'Grady threw out his 広大な／多数の／重要な 武器.

"Jan—Jan Larose—" he cried. "My God, don't strike now! I'm blind—blind—"

He staggered 支援する, as if 推定する／予想するing a blow. "Don't strike!" he almost shrieked. "Mother of Heaven—my 注目する，もくろむs are 燃やすd out—I'm blind—blind—"

He 支援するd to the 塀で囲む, his 抱擁する form crouched, his 手渡すs reaching out as if to 区 off the deathblow. Jan tried to move, and the 成果／努力 brought a groan of agony to his lips. A second 衝突，墜落 filled his ears as a second 雪崩／（抗議などの）殺到 of fiery 破片 急落（する），激減（する）d 負かす／撃墜する upon the 追跡する さらに先に 支援する. He 星／主役にするd straight up through the stifling smoke. Lurid tongues of 炎上 were leaping over the 塀で囲む of the mountain where the 辛勝する／優位 of the forest was enveloped in a sea of 新たな展開ing and seething 解雇する／砲火／射撃. It was only a 事柄 of minutes—perhaps seconds. Death had them both in its 支配する.

He looked again at O'Grady, and there was no longer the 願望（する） for the other's life in his heart. He could see that the 巨大（な） was 無事の, except for his 注目する，もくろむs.

"Listen, O'Grady," he cried. "My 脚s are broken, I guess, and I can't move. It's sure death to stay here another minute. You can get away. Follow the 塀で囲む—to your 権利. The slope is still 解放する／自由な of 解雇する／砲火／射撃, and—and—"

O'Grady began to move, guiding himself slowly along the 塀で囲む. Then, suddenly, he stopped.

"Jan Larose—you say you can't move?" he shouted.

"Yes."

Slowly O'Grady turned and （機の）カム gropingly toward the sound of Jan's 発言する／表明する. Jan held tight to the 激しく揺する that he had gripped in his left 手渡す. Was it possible that O'Grady would kill him now, stricken as he was? He tried to drag himself to a new position, but his 成果／努力 was futile.

"Jan! Jan Larose!" called O'Grady, stopping to listen.

Jan held his breath. Then the truth seemed to 夜明け upon O'Grady. He laughed, 異なって than he had laughed before, and stretched out his 武器.

"My God, Jan," he cried, "you don't think I'm clean BEAST, do you? The fight's over, man, an' I guess God A'mighty brought this on us to show what fools we was. Where are y', Jan Larose? I'm goin' t' carry you out!"

"I'm here!" called Jan.

He could see truth and fearlessness in O'Grady's sightless 直面する, and he guided him without 恐れる. Their 手渡すs met. Then O'Grady lowered himself and hoisted Jan to his shoulders as easily as he would have 解除するd a boy. He straightened himself and drew a 深い breath, broken by a stabbing throb of 苦痛.

"I'm blind an' I won't see any more," he said, "an' mebbe you won't ever walk any more. But if we ever git to that gold I 肉親，親類 do the work and you 肉親，親類 show me how. Now—p'int out the way, Jan Larose!"

With his 武器 clasped about O'Grady's naked shoulders, Jan's smarting 注目する，もくろむs searched through the thickening smother of 解雇する／砲火／射撃 and smoke for a road that the other's feet might tread. He shouted "Left"—"権利"—"権利"—"権利"—"left" into this blind companion's ears until they touched the 塀で囲む. As the heat smote them more ひどく, O'Grady 屈服するd his 広大な／多数の／重要な 長，率いる upon his chest and obeyed mutely the signals that rang in his ears. The 底（に届く）s of his moccasins were 燃やすd from his feet, live embers ate at his flesh, his 幅の広い chest was a fiery blister, and yet he strode on straight into the 直面する of still greater heat and greater 拷問, uttering no sound that could be heard above the 安定した roar of the 炎上s. And Jan, limp and helpless on his 支援する, felt then the throb and pulse of a 巨大（な） life under him, the 緊張するing of 厚い neck, of 大規模な shoulders and the 支配する of powerful 武器 whose strength told him that at last he had 設立する the comrade and the man in Clarry O'Grady. "権利"—"left"—"left"—"権利" he shouted, and then he called for O'Grady to stop in a 発言する／表明する that was shrill with 警告.

"There's 解雇する／砲火／射撃 ahead," he yelled. "We can't follow the 塀で囲む any longer. There's an open space の近くに to the chasm. We can make that, but there's only about a yard to spare. Take short steps—one step each time I tell you. Now—left—left—left—left—"

Like a 兵士 on 演習, O'Grady kept time with his scorched feet until Jan turned him again to 直面する the 嵐／襲撃する of 解雇する／砲火／射撃, while one of his own broken 脚s dangled over the abyss into which Jackpine and the Chippewayan had 急落（する），激減（する）d to their death. Behind them, almost where they had fought, there 衝突，墜落d 負かす／撃墜する a third 雪崩／（抗議などの）殺到 from the 辛勝する／優位 of the mountain. Not a shiver ran through O'Grady's 広大な／多数の／重要な 団体／死体. 刻々と and unflinchingly—step—step—step—he went ahead, while the last threads of his moccasins smoked and 燃やすd. Jan could no longer see half a dozen yards in 前進する. A 塀で囲む of 黒人／ボイコット smoke rose in their 直面するs, and he pulled O'Grady's ear:

"We've got just one chance, Clarry. I can't see any more. Keep straight ahead—and run for it, and may the good God help us now!"

And Clarry O'Grady, 製図／抽選 one 広大な／多数の／重要な breath that was half 解雇する／砲火／射撃 into his 肺s, ran straight into the 直面する of what looked like death to Jan Larose. In that one moment Jan の近くにd his 注目する，もくろむs and waited for the 急落（する），激減（する） over the cliff. But in place of death a sweep of 空気／公表する that seemed almost 冷淡な struck his 直面する, and he opened his 注目する，もくろむs to find the （疑いを）晴らす and uncharred slope 主要な before them 負かす／撃墜する to the 辛勝する／優位 of the lake. He shouted the news into O'Grady's ear, and then there arose from O'Grady's chest a 広大な／多数の／重要な sobbing cry, partly of joy, partly of 苦痛, and more than all else of that terrible grief which （機の）カム of the knowledge that 支援する in the 炭坑，オーケストラ席 of death from which he had escaped he had left forever the 見通し of life itself. He dropped Jan in the 辛勝する／優位 of the water, and, 急落（する），激減（する）ing in to his waist, he threw handful after handful of water into his own swollen 直面する, and then 星／主役にするd 上向き, as though this last 実験 was also his last hope.

"My God, I'm blind—石／投石する blind!"

Jan was 星／主役にするing hard into O'Grady's 直面する. He called him nearer, took the swollen and blackened 直面する between his two 手渡すs, and his 発言する／表明する was trembling with joy when he spoke.

"You're not blind—not for good—O'Grady," he said. "I've seen men like you before—twice. You—you'll get 井戸／弁護士席. O'Grady—Clarry O'Grady—let's shake! I'm a brother to you from this day on. And I'm glad—glad—that Marie loves a man like you!"

O'Grady had gripped his 手渡す, but he dropped it now as though it had been one of the live brands that had hurtled 負かす／撃墜する upon them from the 最高の，を越す of the mountain.

"Marie—man—why—she HATES me!" he cried. "It's you—YOU—Jan Larose, that she loves! I went there with a broken 脚, an' I fell in love with her. But she wouldn't so much as let me touch her 手渡す, an' she talked of you—always—always—until I had learned to hate you before you （機の）カム. I dunno why she did it—that other thing—unless it was to make you jealous. I guess it was all f'r fun, Jan. She didn't know. The day you went away she sent me after you. But I hated you—hated you worse'n she hated me. It's you—you—"

He clutched his 手渡すs at his sightless 直面する again, and suddenly Jan gave a wild shout. Creeping around the 辛勝する／優位 of a smoking headland, he had caught sight of a man and a canoe.

"There's a man in a canoe!" he cried, "He sees us! O'Grady—"

He tried to 解除する himself, but fell 支援する with a groan. Then he laughed, and, in spite of his agony, there was a quivering happiness in his 発言する／表明する.

"He's coming, O'Grady. And it looks—it looks like a canoe we both know. We'll go 支援する to her cabin together, O'Grady. And when we're on our 脚s again—井戸／弁護士席, I never 手配中の，お尋ね者 the gold. That's yours—all of it."

A 決定するd look had settled in O'Grady's 直面する. He groped his way to Jan's 味方する, and their 手渡すs met in a clasp that told more than either could have 表明するd of the brotherhood and strength of men.

"You can't throw me off like that, Jan Larose," he said. "We're pardners!"

THE MATCH

Sergeant Brokaw was hatchet-直面するd, with 転換ing pale blue 注目する，もくろむs that had a glint of cruelty in them. He was tall, and thin, and lithe as a cat. He belonged to the 王室の Northwest 機動力のある Police, and was one of the best men on the 追跡する that had ever gone into the North. His 商売／仕事 was man 追跡（する）ing. Ten years of 捜し出すing after human prey had given to him many of the 特徴 of a fox. For six of those ten years he had 代表するd 法律 north of fifty-three. Now he had come to the end of his last 追跡（する）, の近くに up to the 北極の Circle. For one hundred and eighty-seven days he had been に引き続いて a man. The 追跡（する） had begun in midsummer, and it was now midwinter. Billy Loring, who was 手配中の，お尋ね者 for 殺人, had been a hard man to find. But he was caught at last, and Brokaw was 熱心に exultant. It was his greatest 業績／成就. It would mean a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 for him 負かす／撃墜する at （警察，軍隊などの）本部.

In the rough and dimly lighted cabin his man sat opposite him, on a （法廷の）裁判, his manacled 手渡すs crossed over his 膝s. He was a younger man than Brokaw—thirty, or a little better. His hair was long, 赤みを帯びた, and untrimmed. A stubble of 赤みを帯びた 耐えるd covered his 直面する. His 注目する，もくろむs, too, were blue—of the 深い, honest blue that one remembers, and most frequently 信用s. He did not look like a 犯罪の. There was something almost boyish in his 直面する, a little hollowed by long privation. He was the sort of man that other men liked. Even Brokaw, who had a heart like flint in the 直面する of 罪，犯罪, had melted a little.

"Ugh!" he shivered. "Listen to that beastly 勝利，勝つd! It means three days of 嵐／襲撃する." Outside a 強風 was blowing straight 負かす／撃墜する from the 北極の. They could hear the 安定した moaning of it in the spruce 最高の，を越すs over the cabin, and now and then there （機の）カム one of those 激怒（する）ing 爆破s that filled the night with strange shrieking sounds. ボレーs of 罰金, hard snow （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 against the one window with a 動揺させる like 発射. In the cabin it was comfortable. It was Billy's cabin. He had built it 深い in a 押し寄せる／沼地, where there were lynx and fisher cat to 罠（にかける）, and where he had thought that no one could find him. The sheet-アイロンをかける stove was glowing hot. An oil lamp hung from the 天井. Billy was sitting so that the glow of this fell in his 直面する. It scintillated on the （犯罪の）一味s of steel about his wrists. Brokaw was a 用心深い man, 同様に as a clever one, and he took no chances.

"I like 嵐／襲撃するs—when you're inside, an' の近くに to a stove," replied Billy. "Makes me feel sort of—安全な." He smiled a little grimly. Even at that it was not an unpleasant smile.

Brokaw's snow-reddened 注目する，もくろむs gazed at the other.

"There's something in that," he said. "This 嵐／襲撃する will give you at least three days more of life."

"Won't you 減少（する） that?" asked the 囚人, turning his 直面する a little, so that it was shaded from the light.

"You've got me now, an' I know what's coming 同様に as you do." His 発言する／表明する was low and 静かな, with the faintest trace of a broken 公式文書，認める in it, 深い 負かす／撃墜する in his throat. "We're alone, old man, and a long way from anyone. I ain't 非難するing you for catching me. I 港／避難所't got anything against you. So let's 減少（する） this other thing—what I'm going 負かす／撃墜する to—and talk something pleasant. I know I'm going to hang. That's the 法律. It'll be pleasant enough when it comes, don't you think? Let's talk about—about—home. Got any kids?"

Brokaw shook his 長，率いる, and took his 麻薬を吸う from his mouth.

"Never married," he said すぐに.

"Never married," mused Billy, regarding him with a curious 軟化するing of his blue 注目する，もくろむs. "You don't know what you've 行方不明になるd, Brokaw. Of course, it's 非，不，無 of my 商売／仕事, but you've got a home—somewhere—" Brokaw shook his 長，率いる again.

"Been in the service ten years," he said. "I've got a mother living with my brother somewhere 負かす／撃墜する in York 明言する／公表する. I've sort of lost 跡をつける of them. 港／避難所't seen 'em in five years."

Billy was looking at him 刻々と. Slowly he rose to his feet, 解除するd his manacled 手渡すs, and turned 負かす／撃墜する the light.

"傷つけるs my 注目する，もくろむs," he said, and he laughed 率直に as he caught the 怪しげな glint in Brokaw's 注目する，もくろむs. He seated himself again, and leaned over toward the other. "I 港／避難所't talked to a white man for three months," he 追加するd, a little hesitatingly. "I've been hiding—の近くに. I had a dog for a time, and he died, an' I didn't dare go 追跡（する）ing for another. I knew you fellows were pretty の近くに after me. But I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to get enough fur to take me to South America. Had it all planned, an' SHE was going to join me there—with the kid. Understand? If you'd kept away another month—"

There was a husky break in his 発言する／表明する, and he coughed to （疑いを）晴らす it.

"You don't mind if I talk, do you—about her, an' the kid? I've got to do it, or 破産した／（警察が）手入れする, or go mad. I've got to because—to-day—she was twenty-four—at ten o'clock in the morning—an' it's our wedding day—"

The half gloom hid from Brokaw what was in the other's 直面する. And then Billy laughed almost joyously. "Say, but she's been a true little pardner," he whispered proudly, as there （機の）カム a なぎ in the 嵐／襲撃する. "She was just born for me, an' everything seemed to happen on her birthday, an' that's why I can't be downhearted even NOW. It's her birthday? you see, an' this morning, before you （機の）カム, I was just that happy that I 始める，決める a plate for her at the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, an' put her picture and a curl of her hair beside it—始める，決める the picture up so it was looking at me—an' we had breakfast together. Look here—"

He moved to the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, with Brokaw watching him like a cat, and brought something 支援する with him, wrapped in a soft piece of buckskin. He 広げるd the buckskin tenderly, and drew 前へ／外へ a long curl that rippled a dull red and gold in the lamp-glow, and then he 手渡すd a photograph to Brokaw.

"That's her!" he whispered.

Brokaw turned so that the light fell on the picture. A 甘い, girlish 直面する smiled at him from out of a wealth of flowing, disheveled curls.

"She had it taken that way just for me," explained Billy, with the enthusiasm of a boy in his 発言する／表明する. "She's always wore her hair in curls—an' a braid—for me, when we're home. I love it that way. Guess I may be silly but I'll tell you why. THAT was 負かす／撃墜する in York 明言する／公表する, too. She lived in a cottage, all grown over with honeysuckle an' morning glory, with green hills and valleys all about it—and the old apple orchard just behind. That day we were in the orchard, all red an' white with bloom, and she dared me to a race. I let her （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 me, and when I （機の）カム up she stood under one of the trees, her cheeks like the pink blossoms, and her hair all 宙返り／暴落するd about her like an armful of gold, shaking the loose apple blossoms 負かす／撃墜する on her 長，率いる. I forgot everything then, and I didn't stop until I had her in my 武器, an'—an' she's been my little pardner ever since. After the baby （機の）カム we moved up into Canada, where I had a good chance in a new 採掘 town. An' then—" A furious 爆破 of the 嵐／襲撃する sent the overhanging spruce 最高の，を越すs 粉砕するing against the 最高の，を越す of the cabin. Straight 総計費 the 勝利，勝つd shrieked almost like human 発言する／表明するs, and the one window 動揺させるd as though it were shaken by human 手渡すs. The lamp had been 燃やすing lower and lower. It began to flicker now, the quick sputter of the wick lost in the noise of the 強風. Then it went out. Brokaw leaned over and opened the door of the big box stove, and the red glow of the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 took the place of the lamplight. He leaned 支援する and relighted his 麻薬を吸う, 注目する，もくろむing Billy. The sudden 爆破, the going out of the light, the 開始 of the stove door, had all happened in a minute, but the interval was long enough to bring a change in Billy's 発言する／表明する. It was 冷淡な and hard when he continued. He leaned over toward Brokaw, and the boyishness had gone from his 直面する.

"Of course, I can't 推定する／予想する you to have any sympathy for this other 商売／仕事, Brokaw," he went on. "Sympathy isn't in your line, an' you wouldn't be the big man you are in the service if you had it. But I'd like to know what YOU would have done. We were up there six months, and we'd both grown to love the big 支持を得ようと努めるd, and she was growing prettier and happier every day—when Thorne, the new superintendent, （機の）カム up. One day she told me that she didn't like Thorne, but I didn't 支払う／賃金 much attention to that, and laughed at her, and said he was a good fellow. After that I could see that something was worrying her, and pretty soon I couldn't help from seeing what it was, and everything （機の）カム out. It was Thorne. He was 迫害するing her. She hadn't told me, because she knew it would make trouble and I'd lose my 職業. One afternoon I （機の）カム home earlier than usual, and 設立する her crying. She put her 武器 一連の会議、交渉／完成する my neck, and just cried it all out, with her 直面する snuggled in my neck, and kissin' me—"

Brokaw could see the cords in Billy's neck. His manacled 手渡すs were clenched.

"What would you have done, Brokaw?" he asked huskily. "What if you had a wife, an' she told you that another man had 侮辱d her, and was 軍隊ing his attentions on her, and she asked you to give up your 職業 and take her away? Would you have done it, Brokaw? No, you wouldn't. You'd have 追跡（する）d up the man. That's what I did. He had been drinking—just enough to make him devilish, and he laughed at me—I didn't mean to strike so hard.—But it happened. I killed him. I got away. She and the baby are 負かす／撃墜する in the little cottage again—負かす／撃墜する in York 明言する／公表する—an' I know she's awake this minute—our wedding day—thinking of me, an' praying for me, and counting the days between now and spring. We were going to South America then."

Brokaw rose to his feet, and put fresh 支持を得ようと努めるd into the stove.

"I guess it must be pretty hard," he said, straightening himself. "But the 法律 up here doesn't take them things into account—not very much. It may let you off with manslaugher—ten or fifteen years. I hope it does. Let's turn in."

Billy stood up beside him. He went with Brokaw to a bunk built against the 塀で囲む, and the sergeant drew a 罰金 steel chain from his pocket. Billy lay 負かす／撃墜する, his 手渡すs crossed over his breast, and Brokaw deftly fastened the chain about his ankles.

"And I suppose you think THIS is hard, too," he 追加するd. "But I guess you'd do it if you were me. Ten years of this sort of work learns you not to take chances. If you want anything in the night just whistle." It had been a hard day with Brokaw, and he slept soundly. For an hour Billy lay awake, thinking of home, and listening to the wail of the 嵐／襲撃する. Then he, too, fell into sleep—a restless, uneasy slumber filled with troubled 見通しs. For a time there had come a なぎ in the 嵐／襲撃する, but now it broke over the cabin with 増加するd fury. A 手渡す seemed slapping at the window, 脅すing to break it. The spruce boughs moaned and 新たな展開d 総計費, and a ボレー of 勝利，勝つd and snow 発射 suddenly 負かす／撃墜する the chimney, 軍隊ing open the stove door, so that a 軸 of ruddy light 削減（する） like a red knife through the dense gloom of the cabin. In 変化させるing ways the sounds played a part in Billy's dreams. In all those dreams, and segments of dreams, the girl—his wife—was 現在の. Once they had gone for wild flowers and had been caught in a 雷雨, and had run to an old and disused barn in the middle of a field for 避難所. He was 支援する in that barn again, with HER—and he could feel her trembling against him, and he was 一打／打撃ing her hair, as the 雷鳴 衝突，墜落d over them and the 雷 filled her 注目する，もくろむs with 恐れる. After that there （機の）カム to him a 見通し of the 早期に autumn nights when they had gone corn roasting, with other young people. He had always been afflicted with a slight nasal trouble, and smoke irritated him. It 始める，決める him sneezing, and kept him dodging about the 解雇する／砲火／射撃, and she had always laughed when the smoke 固執するd in に引き続いて him about, like a young scamp of a boy bent on tormenting him. The smoke was 異常に 執拗な to-night. He 投げ上げる／ボディチェックするd in his bunk, and buried his 直面する in the 一面に覆う／毛布 that answered for a pillow. The smoke reached him even there, and he sneezed chokingly. In that instant the girl's 直面する disappeared. He sneezed again—and awoke.

A startled gasp broke from his lips, and the 手錠s about his wrists clanked as he raised his 手渡すs to his 直面する. In that moment his dazed senses adjusted themselves. The cabin was 十分な of smoke. It partly blinded him, but through it he could see tongues of 解雇する／砲火／射撃 狙撃 toward the 天井. He could hear the crackling of 燃やすing pitch, and he yelled wildly to Brokaw. In an instant the sergeant was on his feet. He 急ぐd to the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, where he had placed a pail of water the evening before, and Billy heard the hissing of the water as it struck the 炎上ing 塀で囲む.

"Never mind that," he shouted. "The shack's built of pitch cedar. We've got to get out!" Brokaw groped his way to him through the smoke and began fumbling at the chain about his ankles.

"I can't—find—the 重要な—" he gasped chokingly. "Here 得る，とらえる 持つ／拘留する of me!"

He caught Billy under the 武器 and dragged him to the door. As he opened it the 勝利，勝つd （機の）カム in with a 急ぐ and behind them the whole cabin burst into a furnace of 炎上. Twenty yards from the cabin he dropped Billy in the snow, and ran 支援する. In that seething room of smoke and 解雇する／砲火／射撃 was everything on which their lives depended, food, 一面に覆う／毛布s, even their coats and caps and snowshoes. But he could go no さらに先に than the door. He returned to Billy, 設立する the 重要な in his pocket, and 解放する／自由なd him from the chain about his ankles. Billy stood up. As he looked at Brokaw the glass in the window broke and a sea of 炎上 sprouted through. It lighted up their 直面するs. The sergeant's jaw was 始める，決める hard. His leathery 直面する was curiously white. He could not keep from shivering. There was a strange smile on Billy's 直面する, and a strange look in his 注目する，もくろむs. Neither of the two men had undressed for sleep, but their coats, and caps, and 激しい mittens were in the 炎上s.

Billy 動揺させるd his 手錠s. Brokaw looked him squarely in the 注目する，もくろむs.

"You せねばならない know this country," he said. "What'll we do?"

"The nearest 地位，任命する is sixty miles from here," said Billy.

"I know that," replied Brokaw. "And I know that Thoreau's cabin is only twenty miles from here. There must be some trapper or Indian shack nearer than that. Is there?" In the red glare of the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 Billy smiled. His teeth gleamed at Brokaw. It was a なぎ of the 勝利，勝つd, and he went の近くに to Brokaw, and spoke 静かに, his 注目する，もくろむs 向こうずねing more and more with that strange light that had come into them.

"This is going to be a big sight easier than hanging, or going to 刑務所，拘置所 for half my life, Brokaw—an' you don't think I'm going to be fool enough to 行方不明になる the chance, do you? It ain't hard to die of 冷淡な. I've almost been there once or twice. I told you last night why I couldn't give up hope—that something good for me always （機の）カム on her birthday, or 近づく to it. An' it's come. It's forty below, an' we won't live the day out. We ain't got a mouthful of grub. We ain't got 着せる／賦与するs enough on to keep us from 氷点の inside the shanty, unless we had a 解雇する／砲火／射撃. Last night I saw you fill your match 瓶／封じ込める and put it in your coat pocket. Why, man, WE AIN'T EVEN GOT A MATCH!"

In his 発言する／表明する there was a thrill of 勝利. Brokaw's 手渡すs were clenched, as if some one had 脅すd to strike him.

"You mean—" he gasped.

"Just this," interrupted Billy, and his 発言する／表明する was harder than Brokaw's now. "The God you used to pray to when you was a kid has given me a choice, Brokaw, an' I'm going to take it. If we stay by this 解雇する／砲火／射撃, an' keep it up, we won't die of 冷淡な, but of 餓死. We'll be dead before we get half way to Thoreau's. There's an Indian shack that we could make, but you'll never find it—not unless you 打ち明ける these アイロンをかけるs and give me that revolver at your belt. Then I'll take you over there as my 囚人. That'll give me another chance for South America—an' the kid an' home." Brokaw was buttoning the 厚い collar of his shirt の近くに up about his neck. On his 直面する, too, there （機の）カム for a moment a grim and 決定するd smile.

"Come on," he said, "we'll make Thoreau's or die."

"Sure," said Billy, stepping quickly to his 味方する. "I suppose I might 嘘（をつく） 負かす／撃墜する in the snow, an' 辞退する to budge. I'd 勝利，勝つ my game then, wouldn't I? But we'll play it—on the square. It's Thoreau's, or die. And it's up to you to find Thoreau's."

He looked 支援する over his shoulder at the 燃やすing cabin as they entered the 辛勝する／優位 of the forest, and in the gray 不明瞭 that was 先行する 夜明け he smiled to himself. Two miles to the south, in a 厚い 押し寄せる／沼地, was Indian Joe's cabin. They could have made it easily. On their way to Thoreau's they would pass within a mile of it. But Brokaw would never know. And they would never reach Thoreau's. Billy knew that. He looked at the man hunter as he broke 追跡する ahead of him—at the pugnacious hunch of his shoulders, his long stride, the 決定するd clench of his 手渡すs, and wondered what the soul and the heart of a man like this must be, who in such an hour would not 貿易（する） life for life. For almost three-４半期/4分の1s of an hour Brokaw did not utter a word. The 嵐／襲撃する had broke. Above the spruce 最高の，を越すs the sky began to （疑いを）晴らす. Day （機の）カム slowly. And it was growing 刻々と colder. The swing of Brokaw'a 武器 and shoulders kept the 血 in them 広まる, while Billy's manacled wrists held a part of his 団体／死体 almost rigid. He knew that his 手渡すs were already frozen. His 武器 were numb, and when at last Brokaw paused for a moment on the 辛勝する／優位 of a frozen stream Billy thrust out his 手渡すs, and clanked the steel （犯罪の）一味s.

"It must be getting colder," he said. "Look at that."

The 冷淡な steel had seared his wrists like hot アイロンをかける, and had pulled off patches of 肌 and flesh. Brokaw looked, and hunched his shoulders. His lips were blue. His cheeks, ears, and nose were 霜-bitten. There was a curious thickness in his 発言する／表明する when he spoke.

"Thoreau lives on this creek," he said. "How much さらに先に is it?"

"Fifteen or sixteen miles," replied Billy. "You'll last just about five, Brokaw. I won't last that long unless you take these things off and give me the use of my 武器."

"To knock out my brains when I ain't looking," growled Brokaw. "I guess—before long—you'll be willing to tell where the Indian's shack is." He kicked his way through a drift of snow to the smoother surface of the stream. There was a breath of 勝利，勝つd in their 直面するs, and Billy 屈服するd his 長，率いる to it. In the hours of his greatest loneliness and despair Billy had kept up his fighting spirit by thinking of pleasant things, and now, as he followed in Brokaw's 追跡する, he began to think of home. It was not hard for him to bring up 見通しs of the girl wife who would probably never know how he had died. He forgot Brokaw. He followed in the 追跡する mechanically, failing to notice that his captor's pace was growing 刻々と slower, and that his own feet were dragging more and more like leaden 負わせるs. He was 支援する の中で the old hills again, and the sun was 向こうずねing, and he heard laughter and song. He saw Jeanne standing at the gate in 前線 of the little white cottage, smiling at him, and waving Baby Jeanne's tiny 手渡す at him as he looked 支援する over his shoulder from 負かす／撃墜する the dusty road. His mind did not often travel as far as the 採掘 （軍の）野営地，陣営, and he had 完全に forgotten it now. He no longer felt the sting and 苦痛 of the 激しい 冷淡な. It was Brokaw who brought him 支援する into the reality of things. The sergeant つまずくd and fell in a drift, and Billy fell over him. For a moment the two men sat half buried in the snow, looking at each other without speaking. Brokaw moved first. He rose to his feet with an 成果／努力. Billy made an 試みる／企てる to follow him. After three 成果／努力s he gave it up, and blinked up into Brokaw's 直面する with a queer laugh. The laugh was almost soundless. There had come a change in Brokaw's 直面する. Its 決意 and 信用／信任 were gone. At last the アイロンをかける mask of the 法律 was broken, and there shone through it something of the emotions and the brotherhood of man. He was fumbling in one of his pockets, and drew out the 重要な to the 手錠s. It was a small 重要な, and he held it between his 強化するd fingers with diffic ulty. He knelt 負かす／撃墜する beside Billy. The keyhole was filled with snow. It took a long time—ten minutes—before the 重要な was fitted in and the lock clicked. He helped to 涙／ほころび off the cuffs. Billy felt no sensation as bits of 肌 and flesh （機の）カム "with them. Brokaw gave him a 手渡す, and 補助装置d him to rise. For the first time he spoke.

"Guess you've got me （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域, Billy," he said.

"Where's the Indian's?"

He drew his revolver from its holster and 投げ上げる／ボディチェックするd it in the snowdrift. The 影をつくる／尾行する of a smile passed grimly over his 直面する. Billy looked about him. They had stopped where the frozen path of a smaller stream joined the creek. He raised one of his 強化するd 武器 and pointed to it.

"Follow that creek—four miles—and you'll come to Indian Joe's shack," he said.

"And a mile is just about our 限界"

"Just about—your's," replied Billy. "I can't make another half. If we had a 解雇する／砲火／射撃—"

"IF—" wheezed Brokaw.

"If we had a 解雇する／砲火／射撃," continued Billy. "We could warm ourselves, an' make the Indian's shack 平易な, couldn't we?"

Brokaw did not answer. He had turned toward the creek when one of Billy's pulseless 手渡すs fell ひどく on his arm.

"Look here, Brokaw."

Brokaw turned. They looked into each other's 注目する，もくろむs.

"I guess mebby you're a man, Brokaw," said Billy 静かに. "You've done what you thought was your 義務. You've kept your word to th' 法律, an' I believe you'll keep your word with me. If I say the word that'll save us now will you go 支援する to （警察，軍隊などの）本部 an' 報告（する）／憶測 me dead?" For a 十分な half minute their 注目する，もくろむs did not waver.

Then Brokaw said:

"No."

Billy dropped his 手渡す. It was Brokaw's 手渡す that fell on his arm now.

"I can't do that," he said. "In ten years I ain't run out the white 旗 once. It's something that ain't known in the service. There ain't a coward in it, or a man who's afraid to die. But I'll play you square. I'll wait until we're both on our feet, again, and then I'll give you twenty-four hours the start of me."

Billy was smiling now. His 手渡す reached out. Brokaw's met it, and the two joined in a 支配する that their numb fingers scarcely felt.

"Do you know," said Billy softly, "there's been somethin' runnin' in my 長，率いる ever since we left the 燃やすing cabin. It's something my mother taught me: 'Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you.' I'm a d—- fool, ain't I? But I'm goin' to try the 実験, Brokaw, an' see what comes of it. I could 減少（する） in a snowdrift an' let you go on—to die. Then I could save myself. But I'm going to take your word—an' do the other thing. I'VE GOT A MATCH."

"A MATCH!"

"Just one. I remember dropping it in my pants pocket yesterday when I was out on the 追跡する. It's in THIS pocket. Your 手渡す is in better 形態／調整 than 地雷. Get it."

Life had leaped into Brokaw's 直面する. He thrust his 手渡す into Billy's pocket, 星／主役にするing at him as he fumbled, as if 恐れるing that he had lied. When he drew his 手渡す out the match was between his fingers.

"Ah!" he whispered excitedly.

"Don't get nervous," 警告するd Billy. "It's the only one."

Brokaw's 注目する，もくろむs were searching the low 木材／素質 along the shore. "There's a birch tree," he cried. "持つ／拘留する it—while I gather a pile of bark!"

He gave the match to Billy, and staggered through the snow to the bank. （土地などの）細長い一片 after （土地などの）細長い一片 of the loose bark he tore from the tree. Then he gathered it in a heap in the 避難所 of a low-hanging spruce, and 追加するd 乾燥した，日照りの sticks, and still more bark, to it. When it was ready he stood with his 手渡すs in his pockets, and looked at Billy.

"If we had a 石／投石する, an' a piece of paper—" he began.

Billy thrust a 手渡す that felt like lifeless lead inside his shirt, and fumbled in a pocket he had made there. Brokaw watched him with red, eager 注目する，もくろむs. The 手渡す 再現するd, and in it was the buckskin wrapped photograph he had seen the night before, Billy took off the buckskin. About the picture there was a bit of tissue paper. He gave this and the match to Brokaw.

"There's a little gun-とじ込み／提出する in the pocket the match （機の）カム from," he said. "I had it mending a trapchain. You can scratch the match on that."

He turned so that Brokaw could reach into the pocket, and the man hunter thrust in his 手渡す. When he brought it 前へ／外へ he held the とじ込み／提出する. There was a smile on Billy's frostbitten 直面する as he held the picture for a moment under Brokaw's 注目する，もくろむs. Billy's own 手渡すs had ruffled up the girl's 向こうずねing curls an instant before the picture was taken, and she was laughing at him when the camera clicked.

"It's all up to her, Brokaw," Billy said gently. "I told you that last night. It was she who woke me up before the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 got us. If you ever prayed—pray a little now. FOR SHE'S GOING TO STRIKE THAT MATCH!"

He still looked at the picture as Brokaw knelt beside the pile he had made. He heard the scratch of the match on the とじ込み／提出する, but his 注目する，もくろむs did not turn. The living, breathing 直面する of the most beautiful thing in the world was speaking to him from out of that picture. His mind was dazed. He swayed a little. He heard a 発言する／表明する, low and 甘い, and so distant that it （機の）カム to him like the faintest whisper. "I am coming—I am coming, Billy—coming—coming—coming—" A joyous cry 殺到するd up from his soul, but it died on his lips in a strange gasp. A louder cry brought him 支援する to himself for a moment. It was from Brokaw. The sergeant's 直面する was terrible to behold. He rose to his feet, swaying, his 手渡すs clutched at his breast. His 発言する／表明する was 厚い—hopeless.

"The match—went—out—" He staggered up to Billy, his 注目する，もくろむs like a madman's. Billy swayed dizzily. He laughed, even as he crumpled 負かす／撃墜する in the snow. As if in a dream he saw Brokaw stagger off on the frozen 追跡する. He saw him disappear in his hopeless 成果／努力 to reach the Indian's shack. And then a strange 不明瞭 の近くにd him in, and in that 不明瞭 he heard still the 甘い 発言する／表明する of his wife. It spoke his 指名する again and again, and it 勧めるd him to wake up—wake up—WAKE UP! It seemed a long time before he could 答える／応じる to it. But at last he opened his 注目する，もくろむs. He dragged himself to his 膝s, and looked first to find Brokaw. But the man hunter had gone—forever. The picture was still in his 手渡す. いっそう少なく distinctly than before he saw the girl smiling at him. And then—at his 支援する—he heard a strange and new sound. With an 成果／努力 he turned to discover what it was.

The match had hidden an unseen 誘発する from Brokaw's 注目する，もくろむs. From out of the pile of 燃料 was rising a 中心存在 of smoke and 炎上.

THE HONOR OF HER PEOPLE

"It ees not so much—What you call heem?—leegend, thees 栄誉（を受ける） of the Beeg Snows!" said Jan softly.

He had risen to his feet and gazed placidly over the crackling box-stove into the 注目する，もくろむs of the red-直面するd Englishman.

"Leegend is 嘘（をつく）! Thees is truth!"

There was no 欠如（する） of luster in the 黒人／ボイコット 注目する，もくろむs that roved inquiringly from the Englishman's bantering grin to the others in the room. Mukee, the half Cree, was sitting with his 肘s on his 膝s gazing with stoic countenance at this new curiosity who had wandered four hundred miles northward from civilization. Williams, the Hudson's Bay man who （人命などを）奪う，主張するd to be all white, was 星／主役にするing hard at the red 味方する of the stove, and the factor's son looked silently at Jan. He and the half-産む／飼育する 公式文書，認めるd the warm glow in the 注目する，もくろむs that 残り／休憩（する）d casually upon the Englishman.

"It ees truth—thees 栄誉（を受ける） of the Beeg Snows!" said Jan again, and his moccasined feet fell in 激しい, 強くたたくing tread to the door.

That was the first time he had spoken that evening, and not even the half Cree, or Williams, or the factor's son guessed how the 血 was racing through his veins. Outside he stood with the pale, 冷淡な glow of the Aurora Borealis 向こうずねing upon him, and the limitless wilderness, 激しい in its 重荷（を負わせる） of snow, reaching out into the ghost-gray fabric of the night. The Englishman's laugh followed him, boisterous and grossly 厚い, and Jan moved on,—wondering how much longer the half Cree and Williams and the factor's son would listen to the things that this man was 説 of the most beautiful thing that had ever come into their lives.

"It ees truth, I 断言する, by dam'—thees 栄誉（を受ける） of what he calls the 'Beeg Snows!'" 固執するd Jan to himself, and he 始める，決める his 支援する to the factor's office and trudged through the snow.

When he （機の）カム to the 黒人／ボイコット ledge of the spruce and balsam forest he stopped and looked 支援する. It was an hour past bedtime at the 地位，任命する. The Company's 蓄える／店 ぼんやり現れるd up silent and lightless. The few スピードを出す／記録につける cabins betrayed no 調印するs of life. Only in the factor's office, which was the Company's 港／避難所 for the men of the wilderness, was there a waste of kerosene, and that was because of the Englishman whom Jan was beginning to hate. He 星／主役にするd 支援する at the one glowing window with a queer thickening in his throat and a clenching of the 手渡すs in the pockets of his caribou-肌 coat. Then he looked long and wistfully at a little cabin which stood apart from the 残り／休憩（する）, and to himself he whispered again what he had said to the Englishman. Until to-night—or, perhaps, until two weeks ago—Jan had been 満足させるd with his world. It was a big, passionless world, mostly of snow and ice and endless privation, but he loved it, and there was only a 急速な／放蕩な-fading memory of another world in his brain. It was a world of big, honest hearts kept warm within caribou 肌s, of moccasined men whom endless 孤独 had taught to say little and do much—a world of "Big Snows," as the Englishman had said, in which Jan and all his people had come very の近くに to the things which God created. Without the steely gray flash of those mystery-lights over the 北極の 政治家 Jan would have been homesick; his soul would have withered and died in anything but this wondrous land which he knew, with its billion dazzling 星／主役にするs by night and its 注目する，もくろむ-blinding brilliancy by day. For Jan, in a way, was fortunate. He had in him an infinitesimal 手段 of the Cree, which made him understand what the 勝利，勝つd いつかs whispered in the pine-最高の，を越すs; and a part of him was French, which 追加するd jet to his 注目する，もくろむs and a 新たな展開 to his tongue and made him susceptible to the beautiful, and the 残り／休憩（する） was "just white"—the part of him that could be stirred into such thoughts and 見通しs as he was now thinking and dreaming of the Englishman.

The "栄誉（を受ける） of the Beeg Snows" was a part of Jan's soul; it was his 宗教, and the 宗教 of those few others who lived with him four hundred miles from a 解決／入植地, in a place where God's 指名する could not be （一定の）期間d or written. It meant what civilization could not understand, and the Englishman could not understand—氷点の and slow 餓死 rather than 窃盗, and the living of the tenth commandment above all other things. It （機の）カム 自然に and easily, this "栄誉（を受ける） of the Beeg Snows." It was an unwritten 法律 which no man cared or dared to break, and to Jan, with his Cree and his French and his "just white" 血, it was in 十分な 手段 just what the good God meant it to be.

He moved now toward the little 孤立するd cabin, half hidden in its drift of snow, keeping 井戸／弁護士席 in the 深い 影をつくる／尾行するs of the spruce and balsam, and when he stopped again he saw faintly a gleam of light 落ちるing in a 病弱な streak through a big 穴を開ける in a curtained window. Each night, always when the twenty-半端物 souls of the 地位，任命する were 深い in slumber, Jan's heart would come 近づく to bursting with joy at the sight of this grow from the snow-smothered cabin, for it told him that the most beautiful thing in the world was 安全な and 井戸／弁護士席. He heard, suddenly, the slamming of a door, and the young Englishman's whistle sounded shrill and untuneful as he went to his room in the factor's house. For a moment Jan straightened himself rigidly, and there was a strange tenseness in the thin, dark 直面する that he turned straight up to where the Northern Lights were shivering in their midnight play. When he looked again at the light in the little cabin the passion-血 was 急ぐing through his veins, and he fingered the hilt of the 追跡（する）ing knife in his belt.

The most beautiful thing in the world had come into Jan's life, and the other lives at the 地位，任命する, just two summers before. Cummins, red-長，率いるd, lithe as a cat, big-souled as the eternal mountain of the Crees and the best of the Company's hunters, had brought her up as his bride. Seventeen rough hearts had welcomed them. They had 組み立てる／集結するd about that little cabin in which the light was 向こうずねing, speechless in their adoration of this woman who had come の中で them, their caps in their 手渡すs, 直面するs 向こうずねing, 注目する，もくろむs 転換ing before the glorious ones that looked at them and smiled at them as the woman shook their 手渡すs, one by one. Perhaps she was not beautiful, as most people 裁判官. But she was beautiful here—four hundred miles beyond civilization. Mukee, the half-Cree, had never seen a white woman, for even the factor's wife was part Chippewayan, and no one of the others went 負かす／撃墜する to the 辛勝する／優位 of the southern wilderness more than once each twelve-month or so. Her hair was brown and soft, and it shone with a sunny glory that reached away 支援する into their conception of things dreamed of but never seen, her 注目する，もくろむs were as blue as the 早期に snowflowers that （機の）カム after the spring floods, and her 発言する／表明する was the sweetest sound that had ever fallen upon their ears. So these men thought when Cummins first brought home his wife, and the masterpiece which each had painted in his soul and brain was never changed. Each week and month 追加するd to the 深い-トンd value of that picture, as the passing of a century might 追加する to a Raphael or a 先頭 Dyke. The woman became more human, and いっそう少なく an angel, of course, but that only made her more real, and 許すd them to become 熟知させるd with her, to talk with her, and to love her more. There was no thought of wrong—until the Englishman （機の）カム; for the devotion of these men who lived alone, and mostly wifeless, was a 広大な／多数の／重要な passionless love unhinting of sin, and Cummins and his wife 受託するd it, and 追加するd to it when they could, and were the happiest pair in all that 広大な Northland.

The first year brought 広大な／多数の／重要な changes. The girl—she was 不十分な more than budding into womanhood—fell happily into the ways of her new life. She did nothing that was elementally unusual—nothing more than any pure woman 後部d in the love of a God and home would have done. In her spare hours she began to teach the half dozen wild little children about the 地位，任命する, and every Sunday told them wonderful stories out of the Bible. She 大臣d to the sick, for that was a part of her code of life. Everywhere she carried her glad smile, her cheery 迎える／歓迎するing, her wistful earnestness to brighten what seemed to her the sad and lonely lives of these silent, worshipful men of the North. And she 後継するd, not because she was unlike other millions of her 肉親，親類d, but because of the difference between the fortieth and the sixtieth degrees—the difference in the viewpoint of men who fought themselves into moral shreds in the big game of life and those who lived a thousand miles nearer to the ドーム of the earth. At the end of this first year （機の）カム the wonderful event in the history of the Company's 地位，任命する, which had the Barren Lands at its 支援する door. One day a new life was born into the little cabin of Cummins and his wife.

After this the silent, wordless worship of Jan and his people was filled with something very 近づく to pathos. Cummins' wife was a mother. She was one of them now, a part of their indissoluble 存在—a part of it as truly as the strange lights forever hovering over the 政治家, as surely as the countless 星／主役にするs that never left the night skies, as surely as the endless forests and the 深い snows! There was an 追加するd value to Cummins now. If there was a long and dangerous 使節団 to 成し遂げる it was somehow arranged so that he was left behind. Only Jan and one or two others knew why his 罠（にかける）s made the best catch of fur, for more than once he had slipped a mink of an ermine or a fox into one of Cummins' 罠（にかける）s, knowing that it would mean a 高級な or two for the woman and the baby. And when Cummins left the 地位，任命する, いつかs for a day and いつかs longer, the mother and her child fell as a 簡潔な／要約する 遺産 to those who remained. The keenest 注目する，もくろむs would not have discovered that this was so.

In the second year, with the beginning of trapping, fell the second and third 広大な／多数の／重要な events. Cummins disappeared. Then （機の）カム the Englishman. For a time the first of these two 影を投げかけるd everything else at the 地位，任命する. Cummins had gone to prospect a new 罠（にかける）-line, and was to sleep out the first night. The second night he was still gone. On the third day （機の）カム the "Beeg Snow." It began at 夜明け, thickened as the day went, and continued to thicken until it became that soft, silent deluge of white in which no man dared 投機・賭ける a thousand yards from his door. The Aurora was hidden. There were no 星／主役にするs in the sky at night. Day was 負わせるd with a strange, noiseless gloom. In all that wilderness there was not a creature that moved. Sixty hours later, when 明白な life was 再開するd again, the caribou, the wolf and the fox dug themselves up out of six feet of snow, and 設立する the world changed.

It was at the beginning of the "Beeg Snow" that Jan went to the woman's cabin. He tapped upon her door with the timidity of a child, and when she opened it, her 広大な／多数の／重要な 注目する，もくろむs glowing at him in wild 尋問, her 直面する white with a terrible 恐れる, there was a 冷気／寒がらせる at his heart which choked 支援する what he had come to say. He walked in dumbly and stood with the snow 落ちるing off him in piles, and when Cummins' wife saw neither hope nor foreboding in his dark, 始める，決める 直面する she buried her 直面する in her 武器 upon the little （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する and sobbed softly in her despair. Jan strove to speak, but the Cree in him drove 支援する what was French and "just white," and he stood in mute, trembling 拷問. "Ah, the 広大な／多数の／重要な God!" his soul was crying. "What can I do?"

Upon its little cot the woman's child was asleep. Beside the stove there were a few sticks of 支持を得ようと努めるd. He stretched himself until his neck creaked to see if there was water in the バーレル／樽 近づく the door. Then he looked again at the 屈服するd 長，率いる and the shivering form at the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. In that moment Jan's 決意／決議 急に上がるd very 近づく to the terrible.

"Mees Cummin, I go 追跡（する） for heem!" he cried. "I go 追跡（する） for heem—an' fin' heem!"

He waited another moment, and then 支援するd softly toward the door.

"I 追跡（する） for heem!" he repeated, 恐れるing that she had not heard.

She 解除するd her 直面する, and the （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing of Jan's heart sounded to him like the distant thrumming of partridge wings. Ah, the 広大な／多数の／重要な God—would he ever forget that look! She was coming to him, a new glory in her 注目する，もくろむs, her 武器 reaching out, her lips parted! Jan knew how the 広大な／多数の／重要な Spirit had once appeared to Mukee, the half-Cree, and how a white もや, like a snow 隠す, had come between the half-産む／飼育する's 注目する，もくろむs and the wondrous thing he beheld. And that same snow 隠す drifted between Jan and the woman. Like in a 見通し he saw her glorious 直面する so 近づく to him that his 血 was 脅すd into a strange, wonderful sensation that it had never known before. He felt the touch of her 甘い breath, he heard her 熱烈な 祈り, he knew that one of his rough 手渡すs was clasped in both her own—and he knew, too, that their soft, thrilling warmth would remain with him until he died, and still go into 楽園 with him.

When he trudged 支援する into the snow, 膝-深い now, he sought Mukee, the half-産む／飼育する. Mukee had 苦しむd a lynx bite that went 深い into the bone, and Cummins' wife had saved his 手渡す. After that the savage in him was enslaved to her like an invisible spirit, and when Jan slipped on his snowshoes to 始める，決める out into the deadly 大混乱 of the "Beeg 嵐／襲撃する" Mukee was ready to follow. A 追跡する through the spruce forest led them to the lake across which Jan knew that Cummins had ーするつもりであるd to go. Beyond that, a 事柄 of six miles or so, there was a 深い and lonely break between two 山地の 山の尾根s in which Cummins believed he might find lynx. Indian instinct guided the two across the lake. There they separated, Jan going as nearly as he could guess into the northwest, Mukee 追跡するing 速く and hopelessly into the south, both 奮起させるd in the 直面する of death by the thought of a woman with sunny hair, and with lips and 注目する，もくろむs that had sent many a 軸 of hope and gladness into their desolate hearts.

It was no 広大な／多数の／重要な sacrifice for Jan, this struggle with the "Beeg Snows" for the woman's sake. What it was to Mukee, the half-Cree, no man ever guessed or knew, for it was not until the late spring snows had gone that they 設立する what the foxes and the wolves had left of him, far to the south.

A 手渡す, soft and gentle, guided Jan. He felt the warmth of it and the thrill of it, and neither the warmth nor the thrill grew いっそう少なく as the hours passed and the snow fell deeper. His soul was 燃やすing with a joy that it had never known. Beautiful 見通しs danced in his brain, and always he heard the woman's 発言する／表明する praying to him in the little cabin, saw her 注目する，もくろむs upon him through that white snow 隠す! Ah, what would he not give if he could find the man, if he could take Cummins 支援する to his wife, and stand for one moment more with her 手渡すs clasping his, her joy flooding him with a sweetness that would last for all time! He 急落（する），激減（する）d fearlessly into the white world beyond the lake, his wide snowshoes 沈むing ankle-深い at every step. There was neither 激しく揺する nor tree to guide him, for everywhere was the 激しい ghost-raiment of the Indian God. The balsams were bending under it, the spruces were breaking into hunchback forms, the whole world was 新たな展開d in noiseless 拷問 under its 増加するing 負わせる, and out through the still terror of it all Jan's 発言する／表明する went in wild echoing shouts. Now and then he 解雇する／砲火／射撃d his ライフル銃／探して盗む, and always he listened long and intently. The echoes （機の）カム 支援する to him, laughing, taunting, and then each time fell the mirthless silence of the 嵐／襲撃する. Night （機の）カム, a little darker than the day, and Jan stopped to build a 解雇する／砲火／射撃 and eat sparingly of his food, and to sleep. It was still night when he 誘発するd himself and つまずくd on. Never did he take the 負わせる of his ライフル銃／探して盗む from his 権利 手渡す or shoulder, for he knew this 負わせる would 縮める the distance traveled at each step by his 権利 foot, and would make him go in a circle that would bring him 支援する to the lake. But it was a long circle. The day passed. A second night fell upon him, and his hope of finding Cummins was gone. A 冷気／寒がらせる crept in where his heart had been so warm, and somehow that soft 圧力 of a woman's 手渡す upon his seemed to become いっそう少なく and いっそう少なく real to him. The woman's 祈りs were に引き続いて him, her heart was throbbing with its hope in him—and he had failed! On the third day, when the 嵐／襲撃する was over, Jan staggered hopelessly into the 地位，任命する. He went straight to the woman, 不名誉d, heartbroken. When he （機の）カム out of the little cabin he seemed to have gone mad. A wondrously strange thing had happened. He had spoken not a word, but his 失敗 and his sufferings were written in his 直面する, and when Cummins' wife saw and understood she went as white as the underside of a poplar leaf in a clouded sun. But that was not all. She （機の）カム to him, and clasped one of his half-frozen 手渡すs to her bosom, and he heard her say, "God bless you forever, Jan! You have done the best you could!" The 広大な／多数の／重要な God—was that not reward for the 危険ing of a 哀れな, worthless life such as his? He went to his shack and slept long, and dreamed, いつかs of the woman, and of Cummins and Mukee, the half-Cree.

On the first crust of the new snow （機の）カム the Englishman up from Fort Churchill, on Hudson's Bay. He （機の）カム behind six dogs, and was driven by an Indian, and he bore letters to the factor which 布告するd him something of かなりの importance at the home office of the Company, in London. As such he was given the best bed in the factor's rude home. On the second day he saw Cummins' wife at the Company's 蓄える／店, and very soon learned the history of Cummins' 見えなくなる.

That was the beginning of the real 悲劇 at the 地位，任命する. The wilderness is a grim 抑圧者 of life. To those who 生き残る in it the going out of life is but an 出来事/事件, an irresistible and natural thing, unpleasant but without horror. So it was with the passing of Cummins. But the Englishman brought with him something new, as the woman had brought something new, only in this instance it was an element of life which Jan and his people could not understand, an element which had never 設立する a place, and never could, in the hearts and souls of the 地位，任命する. On the other 手渡す, it 約束d to be but an 出来事/事件 to the Englishman, a passing adventure in 楽しみ ありふれた to the high and glorious civilization from which he had come. Here again was that difference of viewpoint, the eternity of difference between the middle and the end of the earth. As the days passed, and the crust grew deeper upon the "Beeg Snows," the 悲劇 進歩d 速く toward finality. At first Jan did not understand. The others did not understand. When the worm of the Englishman's sin 明らかにする／漏らすd itself it struck them with a dumb, terrible 恐れる.

The Englishman （機の）カム from の中で women. For months he had been in a torment of desolation. Cummins' wife was to him like a flower suddenly come to relieve the tantalizing barrenness of a 砂漠, and with the wiles and soft speech of his 肉親，親類d he sought to breathe its fragrance. In the weeks that followed the flower seemed to come nearer to him, and this was because Jan and his people had not as yet fully 手段d the heart of the woman, and because the Englishman had not 手段d Jan and his people he talked a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 when enthused by the warmth of the box stove and his thoughts. So human passions were 始める，決める at play. Because the woman knew nothing of what was said about the box stove she continued in the even course of her pure life, neither resisting nor encouraging the newcomer, yet ever tempting him with that sweetness which she gave to all alike, and still praying in the still hours of night that Cummins would return to her. As yet there was no 疑惑 in her soul. She 受託するd the Englishman's friendship. His sympathy for her won him a place in her 承認 of things good and true. She did not hear the 誤った 公式文書，認める, she saw no step that 約束d evil. Only Jan and his people saw and understood the one-味方するd struggle, and shivered at the monstrous evil of it. At least they thought they saw and understood, which was enough. Like so many faithful beasts they were ready to spring, to rend flesh, to 涙／ほころび life out of him who 脅すd the desecration of all that was good and pure and beautiful to them, and yet, dumb in their devotion and 約束, they waited and watched for a 調印する from the woman. The blue 注目する，もくろむs of Cummins' wife, the words of her gentle lips, the touch of her 手渡すs had made 法律 at the 地位，任命する. She, herself, had become the omniscience of all that was 法律 to them, and if she smiled upon the Englishman, and talked with him, and was pleased with him, that was only one other 法律 that she had made for them to 尊敬（する）・点. So they were 静かな, 避けるd the Englishman as much as possible, and watched—always watch ed.

These were days when something worse than 病気 was eating at the few big honest hearts that made up the life at the 地位，任命する. The search for Cummins never 中止するd, and always the woman was receiving hope. Now it was Williams who went far into the South, and brought 支援する word that a strange white man had been seen の中で the Indians; then it was Thoreau, the Frenchman, who skirted the 辛勝する／優位 of the Barren Lands three days into the West, and said that he had 設立する the 調印するs of strange campfires. And always Jan was on the move, to the South, the North, the East and the West. The days began to lengthen. It was 夜明け now at eight o'clock instead of nine, the silvery white of the sun was turning day by day more into the glow of 解雇する／砲火／射撃, and for a few minutes at midday the snow 軟化するd and water dripped from the roofs.

Jan knew what it meant. Very soon the 厚い crust of the "Beeg Snow" would 減少（する） in, and they would find Cummins. They would bring what was left of him 支援する to the 地位，任命する. And then—what would happen then?

Every day or two Jan 設立する some pretext that took him to the little スピードを出す／記録につける cabin. Now it was to 伝える to the woman a haunch of a caribou he had 殺害された. Again it was to bring her child a strange plaything from the forest. More frequently it was to do the work that Cummins would have done. He seldom went within the low door, but stood outside, speaking a few words, while Cummins' wife talked to him. But one morning, when the sun was 向こうずねing 負かす／撃墜する with the first 約束ing warmth of spring, the woman stepped 切り開く／タクシー／不正アクセス from the door and asked him in.

"I want to tell you something, Jan," she said softly. "I have been thinking about it for a long time. I must find some work to do. I must do something—to earn—money."

Jan's 注目する，もくろむs leaped straight to hers in sudden horror.

"Work!"

The word fell from him as if in its utterance there was something of 罪，犯罪. Then he stood speechless, awed by the look in her 注目する，もくろむs, the hard gray pallor that （機の）カム into her 直面する.

"May God bless you for all you have done, Jan, and may God bless the others! I want you to take that word to them from me. But he will never come 支援する, Jan—never. Tell the men that I love them as brothers, and always shall love them, but now that I know he is dead I can no longer live as a drone の中で them. I will do anything. I will make your coats, do your washing and mend your moccasins. To-morrow I begin my first work—for money."

He heard what she said after that as if in a dream. When he went out into the day again, with her word to his people, he knew that in some way which he could not understand this big, 冷淡な world had changed for him. To-morrow Cummins' wife was to begin 令状ing letters for the Englishman! His 注目する，もくろむs glittered, his 手渡すs clenched themselves upon his breast, and all the 血 in him 潜水するd itself in one wild resistless impulse. An hour later Jan and his four dogs were スピード違反 速く into the South.

The next day the Englishman went to the woman's cabin. He did not return in the afternoon. And that same afternoon, when Cummins' wife （機の）カム into the Company's 蓄える／店, a quick 紅潮／摘発する 発射 into her cheeks and the glitter of blue diamonds into her 注目する，もくろむs when she saw the Englishman standing there. The man's red 直面する grew redder, and he 転換d his gaze. When Cummins' wife passed him she drew her skirt の近くに to her, and there was the 宙に浮く of a queen in her 長，率いる, the glory of mother and wife and womanhood, the living, breathing essence of all that was beautiful in Jan's "栄誉（を受ける） of the Beeg Snows." But Jan, twenty miles to the south, did not know.

He returned on the fourth night and went 静かに to his little shack in the 辛勝する／優位 of the balsam forest. In the glow of the oil lamp which he lighted he rolled up his treasure of winter-caught furs into a small pack. Then he opened his door and walked straight and fearlessly toward the cabin of Cummins' wife. It was a pale, glorious night, and Jan 解除するd his 直面する to its starry skies and filled his 肺s 近づく to bursting with its pure 空気／公表する, and when he was within a few steps of the woman's door he burst into a wild snatch of 勝利を得た forest song. For this was a new Jan who was returning to her, a man who had gone out into the 孤独s and fought a 広大な／多数の／重要な 戦う／戦い with the elementary things in him, and who, because of his 勝利 over these things, was filled with the strength and courage to live a 広大な／多数の／重要な 嘘（をつく）. The woman heard his 発言する／表明する, and 認めるd it. The door swung open, wide and brimful of light, and in it stood Cummins' wife, her child hugged の近くに in her 武器.

Jan crowed の近くに up out of the starry gloom.

"I fin' heem, Mees Cummins—I fin' heem nint' miles 支援する in Cree wigwam—with broke 脚. He come home soon—he sen' 広大な／多数の／重要な love—an' THESE!"

And he dropped his furs at the woman's feet....

"Ah, the 広大な／多数の／重要な God!" cried Jan's 拷問d soul when it was all over. "At least she shall not work for the dirty Englishman."

First he awoke the factor, and told him what he had done. Then he went to Williams, and after that, one by one, these three visited the four other white and part white men at the 地位，任命する. They lived very 近づく to the earth, these seven, and the spirit of the golden 支配する was as natural to their living as green 次第に損なう to the trees. So they stood shoulder to shoulder to Jan in a 計画／陰謀 that appalled them, and in the very first day of this 計画／陰謀 they saw the woman blossoming 前へ／外へ in her old beauty and joy, and at times (n)艦隊／(a)素早いing 見通しs of the old happiness at the 地位，任命する （機の）カム to these lonely men who were searing their souls for her. But to Jan one 見通し （機の）カム to destroy all others, and as the old light returned to the woman's 注目する，もくろむs, the glad smile to her lips, the sweetness of thankfulness and 約束 into her 発言する／表明する, this 見通し 傷つける him until he rolled and 投げ上げる／ボディチェックするd in agony at night, and by day his feet were never still. His search for Cummins now had something of madness in it. It was his one hope—where to the other six there was no hope. And one day this 誘発する went out of him. The crust was gone. The snow was settling. Beyond the lake he 設立する the chasm between the two mountains, and, miles of this chasm, robbed to the bones of flesh, he 設立する Cummins. The bones, and Cummins' gun, and all that was left of him, he buried in a crevasse.

He waited until night to return to the 地位，任命する. Only one light was 燃やすing when he （機の）カム out into the （疑いを）晴らすing, and that was the light in the woman's cabin. In the 辛勝する／優位 of the balsams he sat 負かす／撃墜する to watch it, as he had watched it a hundred nights before. Suddenly something （機の）カム between him and the light. Against the cabin he saw the 影をつくる／尾行する of a human form, and as silently as the steely flash of the Aurora over his 長，率いる, as 速く as a lean deer, he sped through the gloom of the forest's 辛勝する／優位 and （機の）カム up behind the home of the woman and her child. With the 警告を与える of a lynx, his 長，率いる の近くに to the snow, he peered around the end of the スピードを出す／記録につけるs. It was the Englishman who stood looking through the 涙／ほころび in the curtained window! Jan's moccasined feet made no sound. His 手渡す fell as gently as a child's upon the Englishman's arm.

"Thees is not the 栄誉（を受ける） of the Beeg Snows!" he whispered. "Come."

A sickly pallor filled the Englishman's 直面する. But Jan's 発言する／表明する was soft and dispassionate, his touch was velvety in its hint, and he went with the guiding 手渡す away from the curtained window, smiling in a companionable way. Jan's teeth gleamed 支援する. The Englishman chuckled. Then Jan's 手渡すs changed. They flew to the 厚い reddening throat of the man from civilization, and without a sound the two sank together upon the snow. It was many minutes before Jan rose to his feet. The next day Williams 始める，決める out for Fort Churchill with word for the Company's home office that the Englishman had died in the "Beeg Snow," which was true.

The end was not far away now. Jan was 推定する／予想するing it day by day, hour by hour. But it （機の）カム in a way that he did not 推定する／予想する. A month had gone, and Cummins had not come up from の中で the Crees. At times there was a strange light in the woman's 注目する，もくろむs as she questioned the men at the 地位，任命する. Then, one day, the factor's son told Jan that she 手配中の，お尋ね者 to see him in the little cabin at the other end of the （疑いを）晴らすing.

A shiver went through him as he （機の）カム to the door. It was more than a spirit of 不安 in Jan to-day, more than 疑惑, more than his old dread of that final moment of the 悲劇 he was playing, which would 非難する him to everlasting perdition in the woman's 注目する，もくろむs. It was 苦痛, poignant, terrible—something which he could not 指名する, something upon which he could place his 手渡す, and yet which filled him with a 願望（する） to throw himself upon his 直面する in the snow and sob out his grief as he had seen the little children do. It was not dread, but the torment of reality, that gripped him now, and when he 直面するd the woman he knew why. There had come a terrible change, but a 静かな change, in Cummins' wife. The luster had gone from her 注目する，もくろむs. There was a dead whiteness in her 直面する that went to the roots of her shimmering hair, and as she spoke to Jan she clutched one 手渡す upon her bosom, which rose and fell as Jan had seen the breast of a mother lynx rise and 落ちる in the last 拷問 of its death.

"Jan," she panted, "Jan—you have lied to me!"

Jan's 長，率いる dropped. The worn caribou 肌 of his coat crumpled upon his breast. His heart died. And yet he 設立する 発言する／表明する, soft, low, simple.

"Yes, me 嘘（をつく）!"

"You—you lied to me!"

"Yes—me—嘘（をつく）—"

His 長，率いる dropped lower. He heard the sobbing breath of the woman, and gently his arm crooked itself, and his fingers rose slowly, very slowly, toward the hilt of his 追跡（する）ing knife.

"Yes—Mees Cummins—me 嘘（をつく）—"

There （機の）カム a sudden swift, sobbing movement, and the woman was at Jan's feet, clasping his 手渡す to her bosom as she had clasped it once before when he had gone out to 直面する death for her. But this time the snow 隠す was very 厚い before Jan's 注目する，もくろむs, and he did not see her 直面する. Only he heard.

"Bless you, dear Jan, and may God bless you evermore! For you have been good to me, Jan—so good—to me—"

And he went out into the day again a few moments later, leaving her alone in her 広大な／多数の／重要な grief, for Jan was a man in the wild and mannerless ways of a savage world, and he knew not how to 慰安 in the fashion of that other world which had other conceptions and another understanding of what was to him the "栄誉（を受ける） of the Beeg Snows." A week later the woman 発表するd her 意向 of returning to her people, for the ドーム of the earth had grown sad and lonely and desolate to her now that Cummins was forever gone. いつかs the death of a beloved friend brings with it the sadness that spread like a 棺／かげり over Jan and those others who had lived very 近づく to contentment and happiness for nearly two years, only each knew that this grief of his would be as 耐えるing as life itself. For a 簡潔な／要約する space the sweetest of all God's things had come の中で them, a pure woman who brought with her the gentleness and beauty and hallowed thoughts of civilization in place of its iniquities, and the pictures in their hearts were imperishable.

The parting was as simple and as 静かな as when the woman had come. They went to the little cabin where the sledge dogs stood harnessed. Hatless, silent, （人が）群がるing 支援する their grief behind grim and lonely countenances, they waited for Cummins' wife to say good-bye. The woman did not speak. She held up her child for each man to kiss, and the baby babbled meaningless things into the bearded 直面するs that it had come to know and love, and when it （機の）カム to Williams' turn he whispered, "Be a good baby, be a good baby." And when it was all over the woman 鎮圧するd the child to her breast and dropped sobbing upon the sledge, and Jan 割れ目d his whip and shouted hoarsely to the dogs, for it was Jan who was to 運動 her to civilization. Long after they had disappeared beyond the （疑いを）晴らすing those who remained stood looking at the cabin; and then, with a 乾燥した，日照りの, strange sob in his throat, Williams led the way inside. When they （機の）カム out Williams brought a 大打撃を与える with him, and nailed the door tight.

"Mebby she'll come 支援する some day," he said.

That was all, but the others understood.

For nine days Jan raced his dogs into the South. On the tenth they （機の）カム to Le Pas. It was night when they stopped before the little スピードを出す／記録につける hotel, and the gloom hid the twitching in Jan's 直面する.

"You will stay here—to-night?" asked the woman.

"Me go 支援する—now," said Jan.

Cummins' wife （機の）カム very の近くに to him. She did not 勧める, for she, too, was 苦しむing the 拷問 of this last parting with the "栄誉（を受ける） of the Beeg Snows." It was not the baby's 直面する that （機の）カム to Jan's now, but the woman's. He felt the soft touch of her lips, and his soul burst 前へ／外へ in a low, agonized cry.

"The good God bless you, and keep you, and care for you evermore, Jan," she whispered. "Some day we will 会合，会う again."

And she kissed him again, and 解除するd the child to him, and Jan turned his tired dogs 支援する into the grim desolation of the North, where the Aurora was lighting his way feebly, and beckoning to him, and telling him that the old life of centuries and centuries ago was waiting for him there.

BUCKY SEVERN

Father Brochet had come south from Fond du Lac, and Weyman, the Hudson's Bay Company doctor, north through the Geikee River country. They had met at Severn's cabin, on the Waterfound. Both had come on the same 使節団—to see Severn; one to keep him from dying, if that was possible, one to 慰安 him in the last hour, if death （機の）カム. Severn 主張するd on living. 有望な-注目する，もくろむd, hollow-cheeked, with a racking cough that reddened the gauze handkerchief the doctor had given him, he sat 支えるd up in his cot and looked out through the open door with glad and 希望に満ちた gaze. Weyman had arrived only half an hour before. Outside was the Indian canoeman who had helped to bring him up.

It was a glorious day, such as comes in its 十分な beauty only in the far northern spring, where the 空気／公表する enters the 肺s like sharp, warm ワイン, laden with the 強い味 of spruce and balsam, and the sweetness of the bursting poplar-buds.

"It was mighty good of you to come up," Severn was 説 to the doctor. "The company has always been the best friend I've ever had—except one—and that's why I've hung to it all these years, 追跡するing the sledges first as a kid, you know, then trapping, running, and—oh, Lord!"

He stopped to cough, and the little 黒人／ボイコット-frocked missioner, looking across at Weyman, saw him bite his lips.

"That cough 傷つけるs, but it's better," Severn わびるd, smiling weakly. "Funny, ain't it, a man like me coming 負かす／撃墜する with a cough? Why, I've slept in ice a thousand times, with snow for a pillow and the 温度計 負かす／撃墜する to fifty. But this last winter it was 冷淡な, seventy or lower, an' I worked in it when I せねばならない have been inside, warming my toes. But, you see, I 手配中の，お尋ね者 to get the cabin built, an' things all （疑いを）晴らすd up about here, before SHE （機の）カム. It's the 冷淡な that got me, wasn't it, doc?"

"That's it," said Weyman, rolling and lighting a cigarette. Then he laughed, as the sick man finished another coughing （一定の）期間, and said:

"I never thought you'd have a love 事件／事情／状勢, Bucky!"

"Neither did I," chuckled Severn. "Ain't it a wonder, doc? Here I'm thirty-eight, with a hide on me like leather, an' no thought of a woman for twenty years, until I saw HER. I don't mean it's a wonder I fell in love, doc—you'd 'a' done that if you'd met her first. The wonder of it is that she fell in love with me." He laughed softly. "I'll bet Father Brochet'll go in a heap himself when he marries us! It's goin' to happen next month. Did you ever see her, father—Marie La Corne, over at the 地位，任命する on 分裂（する） Lake?"

Severn dropped his 長，率いる to cough, but Weyman say the sudden look of horror that leaped into the little priest's 直面する.

"Marie La Corne!"

"Yes, at 分裂（する） Lake."

Severn looked up again. He had 行方不明になるd what Weyman had seen.

"Yes, I've seen her."

Bucky Severn's 注目する，もくろむs lit up with 楽しみ.

"She's—she's beautiful, ain't she?" he cried in hoarse whisper. "Ain't it a wonder, father? I come up there with a canoe 十分な of 供給（する）s, last spring about this time, an'—an' at first I hardly dast to look at her; but it （機の）カム out all 権利. When I told her I was coming over here to build us a home, she 手配中の，お尋ね者 me to bring her along to help; but I wouldn't. I knew it was goin' to be hard this winter, and she's never goin' to work—never so long as I live. I ain't had much to do with women, but I've seen 'em and I've watched 'em an' she's never goin' to drudge like the 残り／休憩（する）. If she'll let me, I'm even goin' to do the cookin' an' the dish-washing and scrub the 床に打ち倒すs! I've done it for twenty-five years, an' I'm 堅い. She ain't goin' to do nothin' but sew for the kids when they come, an' sing, an' be happy. When it comes to the work that there ain't no fun in, I'll do it. I've planned it all out. We're goin' to have half an arpent square of flowers, an' she'll love to work の中で 'em. I've got the ground （疑いを）晴らすd—out there—you 肉親，親類 see it by 新たな展開ing your 長，率いる through the door. An' she's goin' to have an 組織／臓器. I've got the money saved, an' it's coming to Churchill on the next ship. That's goin' to be a surprise—'一区切り／（ボクシングなどの）試合 Christmas, when the snow is hard an' sledging good. You see—"

He stopped again to cough. A hectic 紅潮／摘発する filled his hollow cheeks, and there was a feverish glow in his 注目する，もくろむs. As he bent his 長，率いる, the priest looked at Weyman. The doctor's lips were 緊張した. His cigarette was unlighted.

"I know what it means for a woman to die a workin'," Severn went on. "My mother did that. I can remember it, though I was only a kid. She was bent an' stoop-shouldered, an' her 手渡すs were rough and 新たな展開d. I know now why she used to 抱擁する me up の近くに and croon funny things over me when father was away. When I first told my Marie what I was goin' to do, she laughed at me; but when I told her '一区切り／（ボクシングなどの）試合 my mother, an' how work an' freezin' an' starvin' killed her when I needed her most, Marie jest put her 手渡す up to my 直面する an' looked queer—an' then she burst out crying like a baby. She understands, Marie does! She knows what I'm goin' to do—"

"You mustn't talk any more, Bucky," 警告するd the doctor, feeling his pulse. "It'll 傷つける you."

"傷つける me!" Severn laughed hysterically, as If what the doctor had said was a joke. "傷つける me? It's what's going to put me on my feet, doc. I know it now, I been too much alone this last winter, with nothin' but my dogs to talk to when night come. I ain't never been much of a talker, but she got me out o' that. She used to tease me at first, an' I'd get red in the 直面する an' almost 破産した／（警察が）手入れする. An' then, one day, it come, like a bung out of a 穴を開ける, an' I've had a hankerin' to talk ever since. 傷つける me!"

He gave an incredulous chuckle, which ended in a cough.

"Do you know, I wish I could read better 'n I can!" he said suddenly, leaning almost 熱望して toward Father Brochet. "She knows I ain't 広大な／多数の／重要な shucks at that. She's goin' to have a school just as soon as she comes, an' I'm goin' to be the scholar. She's got a packful of 調書をとる／予約するs an' magazines an' I'm goin' to こども over a fresh 負担 every winter. I'd like to surprise her. Can't you help me to—"

Weyman 圧力（をかける）d him 支援する gently.

"See here, Bucky, you've got to 嘘（をつく） 負かす／撃墜する and keep 静かな," he said. "If you don't, it will take you a week longer to get 井戸／弁護士席. Try and sleep a little, while Father Brochet and I go outside and see what you've done."

When they went out, Weyman の近くにd the door after them. He spoke no word as he turned and looked upon what Bucky Severn had done for the coming of his bride. Father Brochet's 手渡す touched the doctor's and it was 冷淡な and trembling.

"How is he?" he asked.

"It is the bad malady," said Weyman softly. "The 霜 has touched his 肺s. One does not feel the 影響 of that until spring comes. Then—a cough—and the 肺s begin literally to slough away."

"You mean—"

"That there is no hope—絶対 非，不，無. He will die within two days."

As he spoke, the little priest straightened himself and 解除するd his 手渡すs as if about to pronounce a benediction.

"Thank God!" he breathed. Then, as quickly, he caught himself. "No, I don't mean that. God 許す me! But—it is best." Weyman 星／主役にするd incredulously into his 直面する.

"It is best," repeated the other, as gently as if speaking a 祈り. "How strangely the Creator いつかs 作品 out His ends! I （機の）カム straight here from 分裂（する） Lake. Marie La Corne died two weeks ago. It was I who said the last 祈り over her dead 団体／死体!"

HIS FIRST PENITENT

In a white wilderness of moaning 嵐／襲撃する, in a wilderness of miles and miles of 黒人／ボイコット pine-trees, the Transcontinental Flier lay buried in the snow. In the first 不明瞭 of the wild December night, engine and tender had 急ぐd on ahead to 分割 （警察，軍隊などの）本部, to let the line know that the flier had given up the fight, and needed 援助. They had been gone two hours, and whiter and whiter grew the brilliantly lighted coaches in the drifts and winnows of the whistling 嵐／襲撃する. From the 黒人／ボイコット 辛勝する／優位s of the forest, prowling 注目する，もくろむs might have looked upon 得点する／非難する／２０s of human 直面するs 星／主役にするing anxiously out into the blackness from the windows of the coaches.

In those coaches it was growing 刻々と colder. Men were putting on their overcoats, and women snuggled deeper in their furs. Over it all, the 最高の，を越すs of the 黒人／ボイコット pine-trees moaned and whistled in sounds that seemed filled both with menace and with savage laughter.

In the smoking-compartment of the Pullman sat five men, gathered in a group. Of these, one was Forsythe, the 木材／素質 スパイ／執行官; two were traveling men; the fourth a 乗客 homeward bound from a holiday visit; and the fifth was Father Charles. The priest's pale, serious 直面する lit up in surprise or laughter with the others, but his lips had not broken into a story of their own. He was a little man, dressed in somber 黒人／ボイコット, and there was that about him which told his companions that within his tight-drawn coat of shiny 黒人／ボイコット there were hidden tales which would have gone 井戸／弁護士席 with the savage （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 of the 嵐／襲撃する against the lighted windows and the moaning tumult of the pine-trees.

Suddenly Forsythe shivered at a fiercer 爆破 than the others, and said:

"Father, have you a text that would fit this night—and the 状況／情勢?"

Slowly Father Charles blew out a spiral of smoke from between his lips, and then he drew himself 築く and leaned a little 今後, with the cigar between his slender white fingers.

"I had a text for this night," he said, "but I have 非，不，無 now, gentlemen. I was to have married a couple a hundred miles 負かす／撃墜する the line. The guests have 組み立てる／集結するd. They are ready, but I am not there. The wedding will not be to-night, and so my text is gone. But there comes another to my mind which fits this 状況／情勢—and a thousand others—'He who sits in the heavens shall look 負かす／撃墜する and decide.' To-night I was to have married these young people. Three hours ago I never dreamed of 疑問ing that I should be on 手渡す at the 任命するd hour. But I shall not marry them. 運命／宿命 has enjoined a 手渡す. The 最高の Arbiter says 'No,' and what may not be the consequences'?"

"They will probably be married to-morrow," said one of the traveling men. "There will be a few hours' 延期する—nothing more."

"Perhaps," replied Father Charles, as 静かに as before. "And—perhaps not. Who can say what this little 出来事/事件 may not mean in the lives of that young man and that young woman—and, it may be, in my own? Three or four hours lost in a 嵐／襲撃する—what may they not mean to more than one human heart on this train? The 最高の Arbiter plays His 手渡す, if you wish to call it that, with 推論する／理由 and 意図. To someone, somewhere, the most insignificant occurrence may mean life or death. And to-night—this—means something."

A sudden 爆破 drove the night screeching over our 長，率いるs, and the whining of the pines was almost like human 発言する／表明するs. Forsythe sucked a cigar that had gone out.

"Long ago," said Father Charles, "I knew a young man and a young woman who were to be married. The man went West to 勝利，勝つ a fortune. Thus 運命／宿命 separated them, and in the lapse of a year such terrible misfortune （機の）カム to the girl's parents that she was 軍隊d into a marriage with wealth—a 物々交換する of her white 団体／死体 for an old man's gold. When the young man returned from the West he 設立する his sweetheart married, and hell upon earth was their lot. But hope ぐずぐず残るs in your hearts. He waited four years; and then, discouraged, he married another woman. Gentlemen, three days after the wedding his old sweetheart's husband died, and she was 解放（する）d from bondage. Was not that the 手渡す of the 最高の Arbiter? If he had waited but three days more, the old happiness might have lived.

"But wait! One month after that day the young man was 逮捕（する）d, taken to a Western 明言する／公表する, tried for 殺人, and hanged. Do you see the point? In three days more the girl who had sold herself into slavery for the 救済 of those she loved would have been 解放（する）d from her bondage only to marry a 殺害者!"

There was silence, in which all five listened to that wild moaning of the 嵐／襲撃する. There seemed to be something in it now—something more than the inarticulate sound of 勝利，勝つd and trees. Forsythe scratched a match and relighted his cigar.

"I never thought of such things in just that light," he said.

"Listen to the 勝利，勝つd," said the little priest. "Hear the pine-trees shriek out there! It 解任するs to me a night of years and years ago—a night like this, when the 嵐／襲撃する moaned and 新たな展開d about my little cabin, and when the 最高の Arbiter sent me my first penitent. Gentlemen, it is something which will bring you nearer to an understanding of the 発言する／表明する and the 手渡す of God. It is a sermon on the mighty significance of little things, this story of my first penitent. If you wish, I will tell it to you."

"Go on," said Forsythe.

The traveling men drew nearer.

"It was a night like this," repeated Father Charles, "and it was in a 広大な／多数の／重要な wilderness like this, only miles and miles away. I had been sent to 設立する a 使節団; and in my cabin, that wild night, alone and with the 嵐／襲撃する shrieking about me, I was busy at work sketching out my 計画（する）s. After a time I grew nervous. I did not smoke then, and so I had nothing to 慰安 me but my thoughts; and, in spite of my 成果／努力s to make them さもなければ, they were cheerless enough. The forest grew to my door. In the fiercer 爆破s I could hear the 攻撃するing of the pine-trees over my 長，率いる, and now and then an arm of one of the moaning trees would reach 負かす／撃墜する and sweep across my cabin roof with a sound that made me shudder and 恐れる. This wilderness 恐れる is an oppressive and terrible thing when you are alone at night, and the world is 新たな展開ing and 涙／ほころびing itself outside. I have heard the pine-trees shriek like dying women, I have heard them wailing like lost children, I have heard them sobbing and moaning like human souls writhing in agony—"

Father Charles paused, to peer through the window out into the 黒人／ボイコット night, where the pine-trees were sobbing and moaning now. When he turned, Forsythe, the 木材／素質 スパイ／執行官, whose life was a wilderness life, nodded understandingly.

"And when they cry like that," went on Father Charles, "a living 発言する／表明する would be lost の中で them as the splash of a pebble is lost in the roaring sea. A hundred times that night I fancied that I heard human 発言する／表明するs; and a dozen times I went to my door, drew 支援する the bolt, and listened, "with the snow and the 勝利，勝つd （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing about my ears.

"As I sat shuddering before my 解雇する／砲火／射撃, there （機の）カム a thought to me of a story which I had long ago read about the sea—a story of impossible 業績／成就 and of impossible heroism. As vividly as if I had read it only the day before, I 解任するd the description of a wild and 嵐の night when the ヘロイン placed a lighted lamp in the window of her sea-bound cottage, to guide her lover home in safety. Gentlemen, the reading of that 調書をとる／予約する in my boyhood days was but a trivial thing. I had read a thousand others, and of them all it was かもしれない the least 重要な; but the 最高の Arbiter had not forgotten.

"The memory of that 調書をとる／予約する brought me to my feet, and I placed a lighted lamp の近くに up against my cabin window. Fifteen minutes later I heard a strange sound at the door, and when I opened it there fell in upon the 床に打ち倒す at my feet a young and beautiful woman. And after her, dragging himself over the threshold on his 手渡すs and 膝s, there （機の）カム a man.

"I の近くにd the door, after the man had はうd in and fallen 直面する downward upon the 床に打ち倒す, and turned my attention first to the woman. She was covered with snow. Her long, beautiful hair was loose and disheveled, and had blown about her like a 隠す. Her big, dark 注目する，もくろむs looked at me pleadingly, and in them there was a terror such as I had never beheld in human 注目する，もくろむs before. I bent over her, ーするつもりであるing to carry her to my cot; but in another moment she had thrown herself upon the prostrate form of the man, with her 武器 about his 長，率いる, and there burst from her lips the first sounds that she had uttered. They were not much more intelligible than the wailing grief of the pine-trees out in the night, but they told me plainly enough that the man on the 床に打ち倒す was dearer to her than life.

"I knelt beside him, and 設立する that he was breathing in a quick, panting sort of way, and that his wide-open 注目する，もくろむs were looking at the woman. Then I noticed for the first time that his 直面する was 削減（する） and bruised, and his lips were swollen. His coat was loose at the throat, and I could see livid 示すs on his neck.

"'I'm all 権利,' he whispered, struggling for breath, and turning his 注目する，もくろむs to me. 'We should have died—in a few minutes more—if it hadn't been for the light in your window!'

"The young woman bent 負かす／撃墜する and kissed him, and then she 許すd me to help her to my cot. When I had …に出席するd to the young man, and he had 回復するd strength enough to stand upon his feet, she was asleep. The man went to her, and dropped upon his 膝s beside the cot. Tenderly he drew 支援する the 激しい 集まりs of hair from about her 直面する and shoulders. For several minutes he remained with his 直面する 圧力（をかける）d の近くに against hers; then he rose, and 直面するd me. The woman—his wife—knew nothing of what passed between us during the next half-hour. During that half-hour gentlemen, I received my first 自白. The young man was of my 約束. He was my first penitent."

It was growing colder in the coach, and Father Charles stopped to draw his thin 黒人／ボイコット coat closer to him. Forsythe relighted his cigar for the third time. The transient 乗客 gave a sudden start as a gust of 勝利，勝つd （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 against the window like a 脅すing 手渡す.

"A rough stool was my confessional, gentlemen," 再開するd Father Charles. "He told me the story, ひさまづくing at my feet—a story that will live with me as long as I live, always reminding me that the little things of life may be the greatest things, that by sending a 嵐／襲撃する to 停止する a coach the 最高の Arbiter may change the 地図／計画する of the world. It is not a long story. It is not even an unusual story.

"He had come into the North about a year before, and had built for himself and his wife a little home at a pleasant river 位置／汚点／見つけ出す ten miles distant from my cabin. Their love was of the 肉親，親類d we do not often see, and they were as happy as the birds that lived about them in the wilderness. They had taken a 木材／素質 （人命などを）奪う，主張する. A few months more, and a new life was to come into their little home; and the knowledge of this made the girl an angel of beauty and joy. Their nearest neighbor was another man, several miles distant. The two men became friends, and the other （機の）カム over to see them frequently. It was the old, old story. The neighbor fell in love with the young 植民／開拓者's wife.

"As you shall see, this other man was a beast. On the day 先行する the night of the terrible 嵐／襲撃する, the woman's husband 始める，決める out for the 解決／入植地 to bring 支援する 供給（する）s. Hardly had he gone, when the beast （機の）カム to the cabin. He 設立する himself alone with the woman.

"A mile from his cabin, the husband stopped to light his 麻薬を吸う. See, gentlemen, how the 最高の Arbiter played His 手渡す. The man 試みる／企てるd to unscrew the 茎・取り除く, and the 茎・取り除く broke. In the wilderness you must smoke. Smoke is your company. It is 発言する／表明する and companionship to you. There were other 麻薬を吸うs at the 解決／入植地, ten miles away; but there was also another 麻薬を吸う at the cabin, one mile away. So the husband turned 支援する. He （機の）カム up 静かに to his door, thinking that he would surprise his wife. He heard 発言する／表明するs—a man's 発言する／表明する, a woman's cries. He opened the door, and in the excitement of what was happening within neither the man nor the woman saw nor heard him. They were struggling. The woman was in the man's 武器, her hair torn 負かす／撃墜する, her small 手渡すs （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing him in the 直面する, her breath coming in low, terrified cries. Even as the husband stood there for the fraction of a second, taking in the terrible scene, the other man caught the woman's 直面する to him, and kissed her. And then—it happened.

"It was a terrible fight; and when it was over the beast lay on the 床に打ち倒す, bleeding and dead. Gentlemen, the 最高の Arbiter BROKE A PIPE-STEM, and sent the husband 支援する in time!"

No one spoke as Father Charles drew his coat still closer about him. Above the tumult of the 嵐／襲撃する another sound （機の）カム to them—the distant, piercing shriek of a whistle.

"The husband dug a 墓／厳粛／彫る／重大な through the snow and in the frozen earth," 結論するd Father Charles; "and late that afternoon they packed up a bundle and 始める，決める out together for the 解決／入植地. The 嵐／襲撃する overtook them. They had dropped for the last time into the snow, about to die in each other's 武器, when I put my light in the window. That is all; except that I knew them for several years afterward, and that the old happiness returned to them—and more, for the child was born, a miniature of its mother. Then they moved to another part of the wilderness, and I to still another. So you see, gentlemen, what a snow-bound train may mean, for if an old sea tale, a broken 麻薬を吸う-茎・取り除く—"

The door at the end of the smoking-room opened suddenly. Through it there （機の）カム a 冷淡な 爆破 of the 嵐／襲撃する, a cloud of snow, and a man. He was bundled in a 広大な／多数の／重要な bearskin coat, and as he shook out its 倍のs his strong, ruddy 直面する smiled cheerfully at those whom he had interrupted.

Then, suddenly, there （機の）カム a change in his 直面する. The merriment went from it. He 星／主役にするd at Father Charles. The priest was rising, his 直面する more 緊張した and whiter still, his 手渡すs reaching out to the stranger.

In another moment the stranger had leaped to him—not to shake his 手渡すs, but to clasp the priest in his 広大な／多数の／重要な 武器, shaking him, and crying out a strange joy, while for the first time that night the pale 直面する of Father Charles was lighted up with a red and joyous glow.

After several minutes the newcomer 解放（する）d Father Charles, and turned to the others with a 広大な／多数の／重要な hearty laugh.

"Gentlemen," he said, "you must 容赦 me for interrupting you like this. You will understand when I tell you that Father Charles is an old friend of 地雷, the dearest friend I have on earth, and that I 港／避難所't seen him for years. I was his first penitent!"

PETER GOD

Peter God was a trapper. He 始める，決める his deadfalls and fox-baits along the 辛勝する／優位 of that long, わずかな／ほっそりした finger of the 広大な／多数の／重要な Barren, which reaches out of the East 井戸／弁護士席 into the country of the 広大な／多数の／重要な 耐える, far to the West. The door of his sapling-built cabin opened to the dark and 冷気／寒がらせるing gray of the 北極の Circle; through its one window he could watch the sputter and play of the Northern Lights; and the curious hissing purr of the Aurora had grown to be a monotone in his ears.

Whence Peter God had come, and how it was that he bore the strange 指名する by which he went, no man had asked, for curiosity belongs to the white man, and the nearest white men were up at Fort MacPherson, a hundred or so miles away.

Six or seven years ago Peter God had come to the 地位，任命する for the first time with his furs. He had given his 指名する as Peter God, and the Company had not questioned it, or wondered. Stranger 指名するs than Peter's were a part of the Northland; stranger 直面するs than his （機の）カム in out of the white wilderness 追跡するs; but 非，不，無 was more silent, or （機の）カム in and went more quickly. In the gray of the afternoon he drove in with his dogs and his furs; night would see him on his way 支援する to the Barrens, 供給（する）s for another three months of loneliness on his sledge.

It would have been hard to 裁判官 his age—had one taken the trouble to try. Perhaps he was thirty-eight. He surely was not French. There was no Indian 血 in him. His 激しい 耐えるd was 赤みを帯びた, his long 厚い hair distinctly blond, and his 注目する，もくろむs were a bluish-gray.

For seven years, season after season, the Hudson's Bay Company's clerk had written items something like the に引き続いて in his 記録，記録的な／記録する-調書をとる／予約するs:

Feb. 17. Peter God （機の）カム in to-day with his furs. He leaves this afternoon or to-night for his trapping grounds with fresh 供給（する）s.

The year before, in a momentary fit of curiosity, the clerk had 追加するd:

Curious why Peter God never stays in Fort MacPherson 夜通し.

And more curious than this was the fact that Peter God never asked for mail, and no letter ever （機の）カム to Fort MacPherson for him.

The 広大な／多数の／重要な Barren enveloped him and his mystery. The yapping foxes knew more of him than men. They knew him for a hundred miles up and 負かす／撃墜する that white finger of desolation; they knew the 危険，危なくする of his baits and his deadfalls; they snarled and barked their 憎悪 and 反抗 at the glow of his lights on dark nights; they watched for him, 匂いをかぐd for 調印するs of him, and walked into his clever deathpits.

The foxes and Peter God! That was what this white world was made up of—foxes and Peter God. It was a world of 争い between them. Peter God was 殺人，大当り—but the foxes were winning. Slowly but surely they were breaking him 負かす／撃墜する—they and the terrible loneliness. Loneliness Peter God might have stood for many more years. But the foxes were 運動ing him mad. More and more he had come to dread their yapping at night. That was the deadly combination—night and the yapping. In the day-time he laughed at himself for his 恐れるs; nights he sweated, and いつかs 手配中の，お尋ね者 to 叫び声をあげる. What manner of man Peter God was or might have been, and of the strangeness of the life that was lived in the maddening loneliness of that mystery-cabin in the 辛勝する／優位 of the Barren, only one other man knew.

That was Philip Curtis.

Two thousand miles south, Philip Curtis sat at a small （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する in a brilliantly lighted and 流行の／上流の cafe. It was 早期に June, and Philip had been 負かす／撃墜する from the North scarcely a month, the 深い tan was still in his 直面する, and tiny 勝利，勝つd and snow lines crinkled at the corners of his 注目する，もくろむs. He exuded the life of the big outdoors as he sat opposite pallid-cheeked and weak-chested Barrow, the Mica King, who would have given his millions to 所有する the red 血 in the other's veins.

Philip had made his "strike," away up on the Mackenzie. That day he had sold out to Barrow for a hundred thousand. To-night he was filled with the 紅潮／摘発する of joy and 勝利.

Barrow's 注目する，もくろむs shone with a new sort of enthusiasm as he listened to this man's story of grim and fighting 決意 that had led to the 発見 of that mountain of mica away up on the Clearwater Bulge. He looked upon the other's strength, his bronzed 直面する and the glory of 業績／成就 in his 注目する，もくろむs, and a 広大な／多数の／重要な and yearning hopelessness 燃やすd like a dull 解雇する／砲火／射撃 in his heart. He was no older than the man who sat on the other 味方する of the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する—perhaps thirty-five; yet what a 広大な 湾 lay between them! He with his millions; the other with that flood of red 血 coming and going in his 団体／死体, and his wonderful fortune of a hundred thousand! Barrow leaned a little over the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, and laughed. It was the laugh of a man who had grown tired of life, in spite of his millions. Day before yesterday a famous specialist had 警告するd him that the threads of his life were giving way, one by one. He told this to Curtis. He 自白するd to him, with that strange glow in his 注目する，もくろむs,—a glow that was like making a last fight against total extinguishment,—that he would give up his millions and all he had won for the other's health and the mountain of mica.

"And if it （機の）カム to a の近くに 取引," he said, "I wouldn't 持つ／拘留する out for the mountain. I'm ready to やめる—and it's too late."

Which, after a little, brought Philip Curtis to tell so much as he knew of the story of Peter God. Philip's 発言する／表明する was tuned with the 勝利，勝つd and the forests. It rose above the low and monotonous hum about them. People at the two or three 隣接するing （米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs might have heard his story, if they had listened. Within the immaculateness of his evening dress, Barrows shivered, 恐れるing that Curtis' 発言する／表明する might attract undue attention to them. But other people were 吸収するd in themselves. Philip went on with his story, and at last, so 明確に that it reached easily to the other （米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs, he spoke the 指名する of Peter God.

Then （機の）カム the interruption, and with that interruption a strange and sudden 激変 in the life of Philip Curtis that was to mean more to him than the 発見 of the mica mountain. His 注目する，もくろむs swept over Barrow's shoulder, and there he saw a woman. She was standing. A low, stifled cry had broken from her almost 同時に with his first glimpse of her, and as he looked, Philip saw her lips form gaspingly the 指名する he had spoken—Peter God!

She was so 近づく that Barrow could have turned and touched her. Her 注目する，もくろむs were like luminous 解雇する／砲火／射撃s as she 星／主役にするd at Philip. Her 直面する was strangely pale. He could see her quiver, and catch her breath. And she was looking at him. For that one moment she had forgotten the presence of others.

Then a 手渡す touched her arm. It was the 手渡す of her 年輩の 護衛する, in whose 直面する were 苦悩 and wonder. The woman started and took her 注目する，もくろむs from Philip. With her 護衛する she seated herself at a （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する a few paces away, and for a few moments Philip could see she was fighting for composure, and that it cost her a struggle to keep her 注目する，もくろむs from turning in his direction while she talked in a low 発言する／表明する to her companion.

Philip's heart was 続けざまに猛撃するing like an engine. He knew that she was talking about him now, and he knew that she had cried out when he had spoken Peter God's 指名する. He forgot Barrow as he looked at her. She was exquisite, even with that gray pallor that had come so suddenly into her cheeks. She was not young, as the age of 青年 is 手段d. Perhaps she was thirty, or thirty-two, or thirty-five. If some one had asked Philip to 述べる her, he would have said 簡単に that she was glorious. Yet her 入り口 had 原因（となる）d no 動かす. Few had looked at her until she had uttered that sharp cry. There were a 得点する／非難する／２０ of women under the brilliantly lighted chandeliers 所有するd of more みごたえのある beauty, Barrow had partly turned in his seat, and now, with careful 産む／飼育するing, he 直面するd his companion again.

"Do you know her?" Philip asked.

Barrow shook his 長，率いる.

"No." Then he 追加するd: "Did you see what made her cry out like that?"

"I believe so," said Philip, and he turned purposely so that the four people at the next （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する could hear him. "I think she 新たな展開d her ankle. It's an 時折の penance the women make for wearing these high-heeled shoes, you know."

He looked at her again. Her form was bent toward the white-haired man who was with her. The man was 星／主役にするing straight over at Philip, a strange searching look in his 直面する as he listened to what she was 説. He seemed to question Philip through the short distance that separated them. And then the woman turned her 長，率いる slowly, and once more Philip met her 注目する，もくろむs squarely—深い, dark, glowing 注目する，もくろむs that thrilled him to the quick of his soul. He did not try to understand what he saw in them. Before he turned his ちらりと見ること to Barrow he saw that color had swept 支援する into her 直面する; her lips were parted; he knew that she was struggling to 抑える a tremendous emotion.

Barrow was looking at him curiously—and Philip went on with his story of Peter God. He told it in a lower 発言する／表明する. Not until he had finished did he look again in the direction of the other （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. The woman had changed her position わずかに, so that he could not see her 直面する. The uptilt of her hat 明らかにする／漏らすd to him the warm soft glow of 向こうずねing coils of brown hair. He was sure that her 護衛する was keeping watch of his movements.

Suddenly Barrow drew his attention to a man sitting alone a dozen （米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs from them.

"There's DeVoe, one of the Amalgamated 長，指導者s," he said. "He has almost finished, and I want to speak to him before he leaves. Will you excuse me a minute—or will you come along and 会合，会う him?"

"I'll wait," said Philip.

Ten seconds later, the woman's white-haired 護衛する was on his feet. He （機の）カム to Philip's （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, and seated himself casually in Barrow's 議長，司会を務める, as though Philip were an old friend with whom he had come to 雑談（する） for a moment.

"I beg your 容赦 for the 課税 which I am laying upon you," he said in a low, 静かな 発言する／表明する. "I am 陸軍大佐 McCloud. The lady with me is my daughter. And you, I believe, are a gentleman. If I were not sure of that, I should not have taken advantage of your friend's 一時的な absence. You heard my daughter cry out a few moments ago? You 観察するd that she was—乱すd?"

Philip nodded.

"I could not help it. I was 直面するing her. And since then I have thought that I—unconsciously—was the 原因（となる） of her perturbation. I am Philip Curtis, 陸軍大佐 McCloud, from Fort MacPherson, two thousand miles north of here, on the Mackenzie Kiver. So you see, if it is a 事例／患者 of mistaken 身元—"

"No—no—it is not that," interrupted the older man. "As we were passing your （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する we—my daughter—heard you speak a 指名する. Perhaps she was mistaken. It was—Peter God."

"Yes. I know Peter God. He is a friend of 地雷."

Barrow was returning. The other saw him over Philip's shoulder, and his 発言する／表明する trembled with a sudden and subdued excitement as he said quickly:

"Your friend is coming' 支援する. No one but you must know that my daughter is 利益／興味d in this man—Peter God. She 信用s you. She sent me to you. It is important that she should see you to-night and talk with you alone. I will wait for you outside. I will have a taxicab ready to take you to our apartments. Will you come?"

He had risen. Philip heard Barrow's footsteps behind him.

"I will come," he said.

A few minutes later 陸軍大佐 McCloud and his daughter left the cafe. The half-hour after that passed with leaden slowness to Philip. The fortunate arrival of two or three friends of Barrow gave him an 適切な時期 to excuse himself on the 嘆願 of an important 約束／交戦, and he bade the Mica King good-night. 陸軍大佐 McCloud was waiting for him outside the cafe, and as they entered a taxicab, he said:

"My daughter is やめる unstrung to-night, and I sent her home. She is waiting for us. Will you have a smoke, Mr. Curtis?"

With a feeling that this night had 始める，決める stirring a brew of strange and unforeseen events for him, Philip sat in a softly lighted and richly furnished room and waited. The 陸軍大佐 had been gone a 十分な ４半期/4分の1-hour. He had left a box half filled with cigars on a （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する at Philip's 肘, 圧力（をかける）ing him to smoke. They were an English brand of cigar, and on the box was stamped the 指名する of the Montreal 売買業者 from whom they had been 購入（する）d.

"My daughter will come presently," 陸軍大佐 McCloud had said.

A curious thrill 発射 through Philip as he heard her footsteps and the soft swish of her skirt. Involuntarily he rose to his feet as she entered the room. For fully ten seconds they stood 直面するing each other without speaking. She was dressed in filmy gray stuff. There was lace at her throat. She had 転換d the 厚い 有望な coils of her hair to the 栄冠を与える of her 長，率いる; a splendid glory of hair, he thought. Her cheeks were 紅潮／摘発するd, and with her 手渡すs against her breast, she seemed 鎮圧するing 支援する the strange excitement that glowed in her 注目する，もくろむs. Once he had seen a fawn's 注目する，もくろむs that looked like hers. In them were suspense, 恐れる—a yearning that was almost 苦痛. Suddenly she （機の）カム to him, her 手渡すs outstretched. Involuntarily, too, he took them. They were warm and soft. They thrilled him—and they clung to him.

"I am Josephine McCloud," she said. "My father has explained to you? You know—a man—who calls himself—God?"

Her fingers clung more tightly to his, and the sweetness of her hair, her breath, her 注目する，もくろむs were very の近くに as she waited.

"Yes, I know a man who calls himself Peter God."

"Tell me—what he is like?" she whispered. "He is tall—like you?"

"No. He is of medium 高さ."

"And his hair? It is dark—dark like yours?"

"No. It is blond, and a little gray."

"And he is young—younger than you?"

"He is older."

"And his 注目する，もくろむs—are dark?"

He felt rather than heard the throbbing of her heart as she waited for him to reply. There was a 推論する／理由 why he would never forget Peter God's 注目する，もくろむs.

"いつかs I thought they were blue, and いつかs gray," he said; and at that she dropped his 手渡すs with a strange little cry, and stood a step 支援する from him, a joy which she made no 成果／努力 to keep from him 炎上ing in her 直面する.

It was a look which sent a sudden hopelessness through Curtis—a stinging pang of jealousy. This night had 始める，決める wild and tumultous emotions aflame in his breast. He had come to Josephine McCloud like one in a dream. In an hour he had placed her above all other women in the world, and in that hour the little gods of 運命／宿命 had brought him to his 膝s in the worship of a woman. The fact did not seem unreal to him. Here was the woman, and he loved her. And his heart sank like a ひどく 負わせるd thing when he saw the transfiguration of joy that （機の）カム into her 直面する when he said that Peter God's 注目する，もくろむs were not dark, but were いつかs blue and いつかs gray.

"And this Peter God?" he said, 緊張するing to make his 発言する／表明する even. "What is he to you?"

His question 削減（する） her like a knife. The wild color ebbed 速く out of her cheeks. Into her 注目する，もくろむs swept a haunting 恐れる which he was to see and wonder at more than once. It was as if he had done something to 脅す her. "We—my father and I—are 利益／興味d in him," she said. Her words cost her a 明白な 成果／努力. He noticed a quick throbbing in her throat, just above the filmy lace. "Mr. Curtis, won't you 容赦 this—this betrayal of excitement in myself? It must be unaccountable to you. Perhaps a little later you will understand. We are 課すing on you by not confiding in you what this 利益／興味 is, and I beg you to 許す me. But there is a 推論する／理由. Will you believe me? There is a 推論する／理由."

Her 手渡すs 残り／休憩（する）d lightly on Philip's arm. Her 注目する，もくろむs implored him.

"I will not ask for 信用／信任s which you are not 解放する／自由な to give," he said gently.

He was rewarded by a soft glow of thankfulness.

"I cannot make you understand how much that means to me," she cried tremblingly. "And you will tell us about Peter God? Father—"

She turned.

陸軍大佐 McCloud had reentered the room.

With the feeling of one who was not やめる sure that he was awake, Philip paused under a street lamp ten minutes after leaving the McCloud apartments, and looked at his watch. It was a ４半期/4分の1 of two o'clock. A low whistle of surprise fell from his lips. For three hours he had been with 陸軍大佐 McCloud and his daughter. It had seemed like an hour. He still felt the thrill of the warm, parting 圧力 of Josephine's 手渡す; he saw the 感謝 in her 注目する，もくろむs; he heard her 発言する／表明する, low and tremulous, asking him to come again to-morrow evening. His brain was in a strange whirl of excitement, and he laughed—laughed with gladness which he had not felt before in all the days of his life.

He had told a 広大な／多数の／重要な many things about Peter God that night; of the man's life in the little cabin, his loneliness, his aloofness, and the mystery of him. Philip had asked no questions of Josephine and her father, and more than once he had caught that almost tender 感謝 in Josephine's 注目する，もくろむs. And at least twice he had seen the swift, haunting 恐れる—the first time when he told of Peter God's coming and goings at Port MacPherson, and again when he について言及するd a patrol of the 王室の Northwest 機動力のある Police that had passed Peter God's cabin while Philip was there, laid up during those weeks of 不明瞭 and 嵐／襲撃する with a fractured 脚.

Philip told how tenderly Peter God nursed him, and how their 知識 grew into brotherhood during the long gray nights when the 星／主役にするs gleamed like pencil-points and the foxes yapped incessantly. He had seen the dewy shimmer of 涙／ほころびs in Josephine's 注目する，もくろむs. He had 公式文書，認めるd the 緊張した lines in 陸軍大佐 McCloud's 直面する. But he had asked them no questions, he had made no 成果／努力 to unmask the secret which they so evidently 願望（する）d to keep from him.

Now, alone in the 冷静な／正味の night, he asked himself a hundred questions, and yet with a feeling that he understood a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 of what they had kept from him. Something had whispered to him then—and whispered to him now—that Peter God was not Peter God's 権利 指名する, and that to Josephine McCloud and her father he was a brother and a son. This thought, so long as he could think it without a 疑問, filled his cup of hope to 洪水ing. But the 疑問 固執するd. It was like a 誘発する that 辞退するd to go out. Who was Peter God? What was Peter God, the half-wild fox-hunter, to Josephine McCloud? Yes—he could be but that one thing! A brother. A 黒人／ボイコット sheep. A wanderer. A son who had disappeared—and was now 設立する. But if he was that, only that, why would they not tell him? The 疑問 sputtered up again.

Philip did not go to bed. He was anxious for the day, and the evening that was to follow. A woman had unsettled his world. His mica mountain became an unimportant reality. Barrow's greatness no longer ぼんやり現れるd up for him. He walked until he was tired, and it was 夜明け when he went to his hotel. He was like a boy living in the 予期 of a 広大な／多数の／重要な 約束—restless, excited, even feverishly anxious all day. He made 調査s about 陸軍大佐 James McCloud at his hotel. No one knew him, or had even heard of him. His 指名する was not in the city directory or the telephone directory. Philip made up his mind that Josephine and her father were 事実上 strangers in the city, and that they had come from Canada—probably Montreal, for he remembered the stamp on the box of cigars.

That night, when he saw Josephine again, he 手配中の，お尋ね者 to reach out his 武器 to her. He 手配中の，お尋ね者 to make her understand how 完全に his wonderful love 所有するd him, and how utterly lost he was without her. She was dressed in simple white—again with that bank of filmy lace at her throat. Her hair was done in those lustrous, shimmering coils, so 有望な and soft that he would have given a tenth of his mica mountain to touch them with his 手渡すs. And she was glad to see him. Her 切望 shone in her 注目する，もくろむs, in the warm 紅潮／摘発する of her cheeks, in the joyous tremble of her 発言する／表明する.

That night, too, passed like a dream—a dream in 楽園 for Philip. For a long time they sat alone, and Josephine herself brought him the box of cigars, and 勧めるd him to smoke. They talked again about the North, about Fort MacPherson—where it was, what it was, and how one got to it through a thousand miles or so of wilderness. He told her of his own adventures, how for many years he had sought for mineral treasure and at last had 設立する a mica mountain.

"It's の近くに to Fort MacPherson," he explained.

"We can work it from the Mackenzie. I 推定する／予想する to start 支援する some time in August."

She leaned toward him, last night's strange excitement glowing for the first time in her 注目する，もくろむs.

"You are going 支援する? You will see Peter God?"

In her 切望 she laid a 手渡す on his arm.

"I am going 支援する. It would be possible to see Peter God."

The touch of her 手渡す did not lighten the 負わせる that was tugging again at his heart.

"Peter God's cabin is a hundred miles from Fort MacPherson," he 追加するd. "He will be 追跡（する）ing foxes by the time I get there."

"You mean—it will be winter."

"Yes. It is a long 旅行. And"—he was looking at her closely as he spoke—"Peter God may not be there when I return. It is possible he may have gone into another part of the wilderness."

He saw her quiver as she drew 支援する.

"He has been there—for seven—years," she said, as if speaking to herself. "He would not move—now!"

"No; I don't think he would move now."

His own 発言する／表明する was low, scarcely above a whisper, and she looked at him quickly and strangely, a 紅潮／摘発する in her cheeks.

It was late when he bade her good-night. Again he felt the warm thrill of her 手渡す as it lay in his. The next afternoon he was to take her 運動ing.

The days and weeks that followed these first 会合s with Josephine McCloud were 負わせるd with many things for Philip. Neither she nor her father enlightened him about Peter God. Several times he believed that Josephine was on the point of confiding in him, but each time there （機の）カム that strange 恐れる in her 注目する，もくろむs, and she caught herself.

Philip did not 勧める. He asked no questions that might be embarrassing. He knew, after the third week had passed, that Josephine could no longer be unconscious of his love, even though the mystery of Peter God 抑制するd him from making a 宣言 of it. There was not a day in the week that they did not see each other. They 棒 together. The three frequently dined together. And still more frequently they passed the evenings in the McCloud apartments. Philip had been 訂正する in his guess—they were from Montreal. Beyond that fact he learned little.

As their 知識 became closer and as Josephine saw in Philip more and more of that something which he had not spoken, a change developed in her. At first it puzzled and then alarmed him. At times she seemed almost 脅すd. One evening, when his love all but trembled on his lips, she turned suddenly white.

It was the middle of July before the words （機の）カム from him at last. In two or three weeks he was starting for the North. It was evening, and they were alone in the big room, with the 冷静な／正味の 微風 from the lake drifting in upon them. He made no 成果／努力 to touch her as he told her of his love, but when he had done, she knew that a strong man had laid his heart and his soul at her feet.

He had never seen her whiter. Her 手渡すs were clasped tightly in her （競技場の）トラック一周. There was a silence in which he did not breathe. Her answer （機の）カム so low that he leaned 今後 to hear.

"I am sorry," she said. "It is my fault—that you love me. I knew. And yet I let you come again and again. I have done wrong. It is not fair—now—for me to tell you to go—without a chance. You—would want me if I did not love you? You would marry me if I did not love you?"

His heart 続けざまに猛撃するd. He forgot everything but that he loved this woman with a love beyond his 力／強力にする to 推論する／理由.

"I don't think that I could live without you now, Josephine," he cried in a low 発言する／表明する. "And I 断言する to make you love me. It must come. It is 信じられない that I cannot make you love me—loving you as I do."

She looked at him 明確に now. She seemed suddenly to become 緊張した and vibrant with a new and wonderful strength.

"I must be fair with you," she said. "You are a man whose love most women would be proud to 所有する. And yet—it is not in my 力／強力にする to 受託する that love, or give myself to you. There is another to whom you must go."

"And that is—"

"Peter God!"

It was she who leaned 今後 now, her 注目する，もくろむs 燃やすing, her bosom rising and 落ちるing with the quickness of her breath.

"You must go to Peter God," she said. "You must take a letter to him—from me. And it will be for him—for Peter God—to say whether I am to be your wife. You are honorable. You will be fair with me. You will take the letter to him. And I will be fair with you. I will be your wife, I will try hard to care for you—if Peter God—says—"

Her 発言する／表明する broke. She covered her 直面する, and for a moment, too stunned to speak, Philip looked at her while her slender form trembled with sobs. She had 屈服するd her 長，率いる, and for the first time he reached out and laid his 手渡す upon the soft glory of her hair. Its touch 始める，決める aflame every 繊維 in him. Hope swept through him, 鎮圧するing his 恐れるs like a juggernaut. It would be a simple 仕事 to go to Peter God! He was tempted to take her in his 武器. A moment more, and he would have caught her to him, but the 負わせる of his 手渡す on her 長，率いる roused her, and she raised her 直面する, and drew 支援する. His 武器 were reaching out. She saw what was in his 注目する，もくろむs.

"Not now," she said. "Not until you have gone to him. Nothing in the world will be too 広大な／多数の／重要な a reward for you if you are fair with me, for you are taking a chance. In the end you may receive nothing. For if Peter God says that I cannot be your wife, I cannot. He must be the arbiter. On those 条件s, will you go?"

"Yes, I will go," said Philip.

It was 早期に in August when Philip reached Edmonton. From there he took the new line of rail to Athabasca 上陸; it was September when he arrived at Fort McMurray and 設立する Pierre Gravois, a half-産む／飼育する, who was to …を伴って him by canoe up to Fort MacPherson. Before leaving this final outpost, whence the real 旅行 into the North began, Philip sent a long letter to Josephine.

Two days after he and Pierre had started 負かす／撃墜する the Mackenzie, a letter （機の）カム to Fort McMurray for Philip. "Long" La Brie, a special messenger, brought it from Athabasca 上陸. He was too late, and he had no 指示／教授／教育s—and had not been paid—to go さらに先に.

Day after day Philip continued 刻々と northward. He carried Josephine's letter to Peter God in his breast pocket, securely tied in a little waterproof 捕らえる、獲得する. It was a 厚い letter, and time and again he held it in his 手渡す, and wondered why it was that Josephine could have so much to say to the lonely fox-hunter up on the 辛勝する／優位 of the Barren.

One night, as he sat alone by their 解雇する／砲火／射撃 in the 冷気／寒がらせる of September 不明瞭, he took the letter from its 解雇（する） and saw that the contents of the bulging envelope had sprung one end of the flap loose. Before he went to bed Pierre had 始める，決める a pail of water on the coals. A cloud of steam was rising from it. Those two things—the steam and the 緩和するd flap—sent a thrill through Philip. What was in the letter? What had Josephine McCloud written to Peter God?

He looked toward sleeping Pierre; the pail of water began to 泡 and sing—he drew a 緊張した breath, and rose to his feet. In thirty seconds the steam rising from the pail would 解放する／自由な the 残り／休憩（する） of the flap. He could read the letter, and reseal it.

And then, like a shock, （機の）カム the thought of the few 公式文書，認めるs Josephine had written to him. On each of them she had never failed to stamp her 調印（する） in a lavender-colored wax. He had 観察するd that 陸軍大佐 McCloud always used a 調印（する）, in 有望な red. On this letter to Peter God there was no 調印（する）! She 信用d him. Her 約束 was implicit. And this was her proof of it. Under his breath he laughed, and his heart grew warm with new happiness and hope. "I have 約束 in you," she had said, at parting; and now, again, out of the letter her 発言する／表明する seemed to whisper to him, "I have 約束 in you."

He 取って代わるd the letter in its 解雇（する）, and はうd between his 一面に覆う／毛布s の近くに to Pierre.

That night had seen the beginning of his struggle with himself. This year, autumn and winter （機の）カム 早期に in the North country. It was to be a winter of terrible 冷淡な, of 深い snow, of 飢饉 and pestilence—the winter of 1910. The first oppressive gloom of it 追加するd to the 恐れる and suspense that began to grow in Philip.

For days there was no 調印する of the sun. The clouds hung low. Bitter 勝利，勝つd （機の）カム out of the North, and nights these 勝利，勝つd wailed desolately through the 最高の，を越すs of the spruce under which they slept. And day after day and night after night the 誘惑 （機の）カム upon him more 堅固に to open the letter he was carrying to Peter God.

He was 納得させるd now that the letter—and the letter alone—held his 運命／宿命, and that he was 事実上の／代理 blindly. Was this 司法（官） to himself? He 手配中の，お尋ね者 Josephine. He 手配中の，お尋ね者 her above all else in the world. Then why should he not fight for her—in his own way? And to do that he must read the letter. To know its contents would mean—Josephine. If there was nothing in it that would stand between them, he would have done no wrong, for he would still take it on to Peter God. So he argued. But if the letter 危険にさらすd his chances of 所有するing her, his knowledge of what it 含む／封じ込めるd would give him an 適切な時期 to 勝利，勝つ in another way. He could even answer it himself and take 支援する to her 誤った word from Peter God, for seven 霜-biting years along the 辛勝する／優位 of the Barren had surely changed Peter God's handwriting. His treachery, if it could be called that, would never be discovered. And it would give him Josephine.

This was the 誘惑. The 力／強力にする that resisted it was the spirit of that big, clean, fighting North which makes men out of a beginning of flesh and bone. Ten years of that North had seeped into Philip's 存在. He hung on. It was November when he reached Port MacPherson, and he had not opened the letter.

深い snows fell, and 猛烈な／残忍な blizzards 発射 like gunblasts from out of the 北極の. Snow and 勝利，勝つd were not what brought the deeper gloom and 恐れる to Fort MacPherson. La mort 紅, smallpox,—the "red death,"—was galloping through the wilderness. 噂するs were first 立証するd by facts from the Dog Eib Indians. A ４半期/4分の1 of them were 負かす／撃墜する with the 天罰（を下す） of the Northland. From Hudson's Bay on the east to the 広大な／多数の／重要な 耐える on the west, the fur 地位，任命するs were sending out their 走者s, and a hundred Paul 深い尊敬の念を抱くs of the forests were riding 速く behind their dogs to spread the 警告. On the afternoon of the day Philip left for the cabin of Peter God, a patrol of the 王室の 機動力のある （機の）カム in on snowshoes from the South, and 任意に went into 検疫.

Philip traveled slowly. For three days and nights the 空気／公表する was filled with the "北極の dust" snow that was hard as flint and stung like 発射; and it was so 冷淡な that he paused frequently and built small 解雇する／砲火／射撃s, over which he filled his 肺s with hot 空気／公表する and smoke. He knew what it meant to have the 肺s "touched"—sloughing away in the spring, 血-spitting, and 確かな death.

On the fourth day the 気温 began to rise; the fifth it was （疑いを）晴らす, and thirty degrees warmer. His 温度計 had gone to sixty below 無. It was now thirty below.

It was the morning of the sixth day when he reached the 厚い fringe of stunted spruce that 避難所d Peter God's cabin. He was half blinded. The snow-filled blizzards 削減（する） his 直面する until it was swollen and purple. Twenty paces from Peter God's cabin he stopped, and 星／主役にするd, and rubbed his 注目する，もくろむs—and rubbed them again—as though not やめる sure his 見通し was not playing him a trick.

A cry broke from his lips then. Over Peter God's door there was nailed a slender sapling, and at the end of that sapling there floated a tattered, windbeaten red rag. It was the signal. It was the one 発言する／表明する ありふれた to all the wilderness—a 警告 to man, woman and child, white or red, that had come 負かす／撃墜する through the centuries. Peter God was 負かす／撃墜する with the smallpox!

For a few moments the 発見 stunned him. Then he was filled with a 冷気／寒がらせる, creeping horror. Peter God was sick with the 天罰（を下す）. Perhaps he was dying. It might be—that he was dead. In spite of the terror of the thing ahead of him, he thought of Josephine. If Peter God was dead—

Above the low moaning of the 勝利，勝つd in the spruce 最高の，を越すs he 悪口を言う／悪態d himself. He had thought a 罪，犯罪, and he clenched his mittened 手渡すs as he 星／主役にするd at the one window of the cabin. His 注目する，もくろむs 転換d 上向き. In the 空気／公表する was a filmy, floating gray. It was smoke coming from the chimney. Peter God was not dead.

Something kept him from shouting Peter God's 指名する, that the trapper might come to the door. He went to the window, and looked in. For a few moments he could see nothing. And then, dimly, he made out the cot against the 塀で囲む. And Peter God sat on the cot, hunched 今後, his 長，率いる in his 手渡すs. With a quick breath Philip turned to the door, opened it, and entered the cabin. Peter God staggered to his feet as the door opened. His 注目する，もくろむs were wild and filled with fever.

"You—Curtis!" he cried huskily. "My God, didn't you see the 旗?"

"Yes."

Philip's half-frozen features were smiling, and now he was 持つ／拘留するing out a 手渡す from which he had drawn his mitten.

"Lucky I happened along just now, old man. You've got it, eh?"

Peter God shrank 支援する from the other's outstretched 手渡す.

"There's time," he cried, pointing to the door.

"Don't breathe this 空気／公表する. Get out. I'm not bad yet—but it's smallpox, Curtis!"

"I know it," said Philip, beginning to throw off his hood and coat. "I'm not afraid of it. I had a touch of it three years ago over on the Gray Buzzard, so I guess I'm 免疫の. Besides, I've come two thousand miles to see you, Peter God—two thousand miles to bring you a letter from Josephine McCloud."

For ten seconds Peter God stood 緊張した and motionless. Then he swayed 今後.

"A letter—for Peter God—from Josephine McCloud?" he gasped, and held out his 手渡すs.

An hour later they sat 直面するing each other—Peter God and Curtis. The beginning of the 天罰（を下す） betrayed itself in the red 紅潮／摘発する of Peter God's 直面する, and the fever in his 注目する，もくろむs. But he was 静める. For many minutes he had spoken in a 静かな, even 発言する／表明する, and Philip Curtis sat with scarcely a breath and a heart that at times had risen in his throat to choke him. In his 手渡す Peter God held the pages of the letter he had read.

Now he went on:

"So I'm going to tell it all to you, Curtis—because I know that you are a man. Josephine has left nothing out. She has told me of your love, and of the reward she has 約束d you—if Peter God sends 支援する a 確かな word. She says 率直に that she does not love you, but that she 栄誉（を受ける）s you above all men—except her father, and one other. That other, Curtis, is myself. Years ago the woman you love—was my wife."

Peter God put a 手渡す to his 長，率いる, as if to 冷静な／正味の the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 that was beginning to 燃やす him up.

"Her 指名する wasn't Mrs. Peter God," he went on, and a smile fought grimly on his lips. "That's the one thing I won't tell you, Curtis—my 指名する. The story itself will be enough.

"Perhaps there were two other people in the world happier than we. I 疑問 it. I got into politics. I made an enemy, a deadly enemy. He was a blackmailer, a どろぼう, the 長，率いる of a political （犯罪の）一味 that lived on 汚職，収賄. Through my 成果／努力s he was exposed, And then he laid for me—and he got me.

"I must give him credit for doing it cleverly and 完全に. He 始める，決める a 罠（にかける） for me, and a woman helped him. I won't go into 詳細（に述べる）s. The 罠（にかける） sprung, and it caught me. Even Josephine could not be made to believe in my innocence; so cleverly was the 罠（にかける） 始める，決める that my best friends の中で the newspapers could find no excuse for me.

"I have never 非難するd Josephine for what she did after that. To all the world, and most of all to her, I was caught 現行犯で. I knew that she loved me even as she was 離婚ing me. On the day the 離婚 was given to her, my brain went bad. The world turned red, and then 黒人／ボイコット, and then red again. And I—"

Peter God paused again, with a 手渡す to his 長，率いる.

"You （機の）カム up here," said Philip, in a low 発言する／表明する.

"Not—until I had seen the man who 廃虚d me," replied Peter God 静かに. "We were alone in his office. I gave him a fair chance to redeem himself—to 自白する what he had done. He laughed at me, exulted over my 落ちる, taunted me. And so—I killed him."

He rose from his 議長，司会を務める and stood swaying. He was not excited.

"In his office, with his dead 団体／死体 at my feet, I wrote a 公式文書，認める to Josephine," he finished. "I told her what I had done, and again I swore my innocence. I wrote her that some day she might hear from me, but not under my 権利 指名する, as the 法律 would always be watching for me. It was ironic that on that human cobra's desk there lay an open Bible, open at the 調書をとる／予約する of Peter, and involuntarily I wrote the words to Josephine—PETER GOD. She has kept my secret, while the 法律 has 追跡（する）d for me. And this—"

He held the pages of the letter out to Philip.

"Take the letter—go outside—and read what she has written," he said. "Come 支援する in half an hour. I want to think."

支援する of the cabin, where Peter God had piled his winter's 燃料, Philip read the letter; and at times the soul within him seemed smothered, and at times it quivered with a strange and joyous emotion.

At last vindication had come for Peter God, and before he had read a page of the letter Philip understood why it was that Josephine had sent him with it into the North. For nearly seven years she had known of Peter God's innocence of the thing for which she had 離婚d him. The woman—the dead man's 共犯者—had told her the whole story, as Peter God a few minutes before had told it to Curtis; and during those seven years she had traveled the world 捜し出すing for him—the man who bore the 指名する of Peter God.

Each night she had prayed God that the next day she might find him, and now that her 祈り had been answered, she begged that she might come to him, and 株 with him for all time a life away from the world they knew.

The woman breathed like life in the pages Philip read; yet with that wonderful message to Peter God she pilloried herself for those red and insane hours in which she had lost 約束 in him. She had no excuse for herself, except her 広大な／多数の／重要な love; she crucified herself, even as she held out her 武器 to him across that thousand miles of desolation. 率直に she had written of the 広大な／多数の／重要な price she was 申し込む／申し出ing for this one chance of life and happiness. She told of Philip's love, and of the reward she had 申し込む／申し出d him should Peter God find that in his heart love had died for her. Which should it be?

Twice Philip read that wonderful message he had brought into the North, and he envied Peter God the 無法者.

The thirty minutes were gone when he entered the cabin. Peter God was waiting for him. He 動議d him to a seat の近くに to him.

"You have read it?" he asked.

Philip nodded. In these moments he did not 信用 himself to speak. Peter God understood. The 紅潮／摘発する was deeper in his 直面する; his 注目する，もくろむs 燃やすd brighter with the fever; but of the two he was the calmer, and his 発言する／表明する was 安定した.

"I 港／避難所't much time, Curtis," he said, and he smiled faintly as he 倍のd the pages of the letter, "My 長，率いる is 割れ目ing. But I've thought it all out, and you've got to go 支援する to her—and tell her that Peter God is dead."

A gasp broke from Philip's lips. It was his only answer.

"It's—best," continued Peter God, and he spoke more slowly, but 堅固に. "I love her, Curtis. God knows that it's been only my dreams of her that have kept me alive all these years. She wants to come to me, but it's impossible. I'm an 無法者. The 法律 won't excuse my 殺人，大当り of the cobra. We'd have to hide. All our lives we'd have to hide. And—some day—they might get me. There's just one thing to do. Go 支援する to her. Tell her Peter God is dead. And—make her happy—if you can."

For the first time something rose and 圧倒するd the love in Philip's breast.

"She wants to come to you," he cried, and he leaned toward Peter God, white-直面するd, clenching his 手渡すs. "She wants to come!" he repeated. "And the 法律 won't find you. It's been seven years—and God knows no word will ever go from me. It won't find you. And if it should, you can fight it together, you and Josephine."

Peter God held out his 手渡すs.

"Now I know I need have no 恐れる in sending you 支援する," he said huskily. "You're a man. And you've got to go. She can't come to me, Curtis. It would kill her—this life. Think of a winter here—madness—the yapping of the foxes—"

He put a 手渡す to his 長，率いる, and swayed.

"You've got to go. Tell her Peter God is dead—"

Philip sprang 今後 as Peter God crumpled 負かす／撃墜する on his bunk.

After that （機の）カム the long dark hours of fever and delirium. They はうd along into days, and day and night Philip fought to keep life in the 団体／死体 of the man who had given the world to him, for as the fight continued he began more and more to 受託する Josephine as his own. He had come 公正に／かなり. He had kept his 誓約（する）. And Peter God had spoken.

"You must go. You must tell her Peter God is dead."

And Philip began to 受託する this, not altogether as his joy, but as his 義務. He could not argue with Peter God when he rose from his sick bed. He would go 支援する to Josephine.

For many days he and Peter God fought with the "red death" in the little cabin. It was a fight which he could never forget. One afternoon—to 強化する himself for the terrible night that was coming—he walked several miles 支援する into the stunted spruce on his snowshoes. It was 中央の-afternoon when he returned with a haunch of caribou meat on his shoulder. Three hundred yards from the cabin something stopped him like a 発射. He listened. From ahead of him （機の）カム the whining and snarling of dogs, the 割れ目 of a whip, a shout which he could not understand. He dropped his 重荷（を負わせる） of meat and sped on. At the southward 辛勝する／優位 of a level open he stopped again. Straight ahead of him was the cabin. A hundred yards to the 権利 of him was a dog team and a driver. Between the team and the cabin a hooded and coated 人物／姿／数字 was running in the direction of the danger signal on the sapling 政治家.

With a cry of 警告 Philip darted in 追跡. He overtook the 人物／姿／数字 at the cabin door. His 手渡す caught it by the arm. It turned—and he 星／主役にするd into the white, terror-stricken 直面する of Josephine McCloud!

"Good God!" he cried, and that was all.

She gripped him with both 手渡すs. He had never heard her 発言する／表明する as it was now. She answered the amazement and horror in his 直面する.

"I sent you a letter," she cried pantingly, "and it didn't 追いつく you. As soon as you were gone, I knew that I must come—that I must follow—that I must speak with my own lips what I had written. I tried to catch you. But you traveled faster. Will you 許す me—you will 許す me—"

She turned to the door. He held her.

"It is the smallpox," he said, and his 発言する／表明する was dead.

"I know," she panted. "The man over there—told me what the little 旗 means. And I'm glad—glad I （機の）カム in time to go in to him—as he is. And you—you—must 許す!"

She snatched herself 解放する／自由な from his しっかり掴む. The door opened. It の近くにd behind her. A moment later he heard through the sapling door a strange cry—a woman's cry—a man's cry—and he turned and walked ひどく 支援する into the spruce forest.

THE MOUSE

"Why, you ornery little cuss," said Falkner, pausing with a forkful of beans half way to his mouth. "Where in God A'mighty's 指名する did YOU come from?"

It was against all of Jim's 天然のまま but honest 倫理学 of the big wilderness to take the Lord's 指名する in vain, and the words he uttered were filled more with the softness of a 祈り than the harshness of profanity. He was big, and his 手渡すs were hard and knotted, and his 直面する was covered with a coarse red scrub of 耐えるd. But his hair was blond, and his 注目する，もくろむs were blue, and just now they were filled with unbounded amazement. Slowly the fork 負担d with beans descended to his plate, and he said again, barely above a whisper:

"Where in God A'mighty's 指名する DID you come from?"

There was nothing human in the one room of his wilderness cabin to speak of. At the first ちらりと見ること there was nothing alive in the room, with the exception of Jim Falkner himself. There was not even a dog, for Jim had lost his one dog weeks before. And yet he spoke, and his 注目する，もくろむs glistened, and for a 十分な minute after that he sat as motionless as a 激しく揺する. Then something moved—at the さらに先に end of the rough board （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. It was a mouse—a soft, brown, 有望な-注目する，もくろむd little mouse, not as large as his thumb. It was not like the mice Jim had been accustomed to see in the North 支持を得ようと努めるd, the larger, sharp-nosed, ネズミ-like creatures which sprung his 罠（にかける）s now and then, and he gave a sort of gasp through his 耐えるd.

"I'm as crazy as a loon if it isn't a sure-enough 負かす／撃墜する-home mouse, just like we used to catch in the kitchen 負かす／撃墜する in Ohio," he told himself. And for the third time he asked. "Now where in God A'mighty's 指名する DID YOU come from?"

The mouse made no answer. It had humped itself up into a little ball, and was 注目する，もくろむing Jim with the keenest of 疑惑.

"You're a thousand miles from home, old man," Falkner 演説（する）／住所d it, still without a movement. "You're a clean thousand miles straight north of the 肉親，親類d o' civilization you was born in, and I want to know how you got here. By George—is it possible—you got mixed up in that box of stuff SHE sent up? Did you come from HER?"

He made a sudden movement, as if he 推定する／予想するd an answer, and in a flash the mouse had scurried off the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する and had disappeared under his bunk.

"The little cuss!" said Falkner. "He's sure got his 神経!"

He went on eating his beans, and when he had done he lighted a lamp, for the half 北極の 不明瞭 was 落ちるing 早期に, and began to （疑いを）晴らす away the dishes. When he had done he put a 捨てる of bannock and a few beans on the corner of the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する.

"I'll bet he's hungry, the little cuss," he said. "A thousand miles—in that box!"

He sat 負かす／撃墜する の近くに to the sheet-アイロンをかける box stove, which was glowing red-hot, and filled his 麻薬を吸う. Kerosene was a precious 商品／必需品, and he had turned 負かす／撃墜する the lamp wick until he was mostly in gloom. Outside a 嵐／襲撃する was wailing 負かす／撃墜する across the Barrens from the North. He could hear the swish of the spruce-boughs 総計費, and those moaning, half-shrieking sounds that always （機の）カム with 嵐／襲撃する from out of the North, and いつかs fooled even him into thinking they were human cries. They had seemed more and more human to him during the past three days, and he was growing afraid. Once or twice strange thoughts had come into his 長，率いる, and he had tried to fight them 負かす／撃墜する. He had known of men whom loneliness had driven mad—and he was terribly lonely. He shivered as a piercing 爆破 of 勝利，勝つd filled with a 嘆く／悼むing wail swept over the cabin.

And that day, too, he had been taken with a touch of fever. It 燃やすd more hotly in his 血 to-night, and he knew that it was the loneliness—the emptiness of the world about him, the despair and 黒人／ボイコット foreboding that （機の）カム to him with the first 早期に twilights of the Long Night. For he was in the 辛勝する／優位 of that Long Night. For weeks he would only now and then catch a glimpse of the sun. He shuddered.

A hundred and fifty miles to the south and east there was a Hudson's Bay 地位，任命する. Eighty miles south was the nearest trapper's cabin he knew of. Two months before he had gone 負かす／撃墜する to the 地位，任命する, with a 厚い 耐えるd to cover his 直面する, and had brought 支援する 供給（する）s—and the box. His wife had sent up the box to him, only it had come to him as "John Blake" instead of Jim Falkner, his 権利 指名する. There were things in it for him to wear, and pictures of the 甘い-直面するd wife who was still filled with 祈り and hope for him, and of the kid, their boy. "He is walking now," she had written to him, "and a dozen times a day he goes to your picture and says 'Pa-pa—Pa-pa'—and every night we talk about you before we go to bed, and pray God to send you 支援する to us soon."

"God bless 'em!" breathed Jim.

He had not lighted his 麻薬を吸う, and there was something in his 注目する，もくろむs that shimmered and glistened in the dull light. And then, as he sat silent, his 注目する，もくろむs （疑いを）晴らすing, he saw that the little mouse had climbed 支援する to the 辛勝する／優位 of the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. It did not eat the food he had placed there for it, but humped itself up in a tiny ball again, and its tiny 向こうずねing 注目する，もくろむs looked in his direction.

"You're not hungry," said Jim, and he spoke aloud. "YOU'RE lonely, too—that's it!"

A strange thrill 発射 through him at the thought, and he wondered again if he was mad at the longing that filled him—the 願望（する） to reach out and snuggle the little creature in his 手渡す, and 持つ／拘留する it の近くに up to his bearded 直面する, and TALK TO IT! He laughed, and drew his stool a little more into the light. The mouse did not run. He 辛勝する／優位d nearer and nearer, until his 肘s 残り／休憩（する）d on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, and a curious feeling of 楽しみ took the place of his loneliness when he saw that the mouse was looking at him, and yet seemed unafraid.

"Don't be scairt," he said softly, speaking 直接／まっすぐに to it. "I won't 傷つける you. No, siree, I'd—I'd 削減（する） off a 手渡す before I'd do that. I ain't had any company but you for two months. I ain't seen a human 直面する, or heard a human 発言する／表明する—nothing—nothing but them shrieks 'n' wails 'n' baby-cryings out there in the 勝利，勝つd. I won't 傷つける you—" His 発言する／表明する was almost pleading in its gentleness. And for the tenth time that day he felt, with his fever, a sickening dizziness in his 長，率いる. For a moment or two his 見通し was blurred, but he could still see the mouse—さらに先に away, it seemed to him.

"I don't s'提起する／ポーズをとる you've killed anyone—or anything," he said, and his 発言する／表明する seemed 厚い and distant to him. "Mice don't kill, do they? They live on—cheese. But I have—I've killed. I killed a man. That's why I'm here."

His dizziness almost overcame him, and he leaned ひどく against the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. Still the little mouse did not move. Still he could see it through the strange gauze 隠す before his 注目する，もくろむs.

"I killed—a man," he repeated, and now he was wondering why the mouse did not say something at that remarkable 自白. "I killed him, old man, an' you'd have done the same if you'd been in my place. I didn't mean to. I struck too hard. But I 設立する 'im in my cabin, an' SHE was fighting—fighting him until her 直面する was scratched an' her 着せる／賦与するs torn,—God bless her dear heart!—fighting him to the last breath, an' I come just in time! He didn't think I'd be 支援する for a day—a 黒人／ボイコット-hearted devil we'd fed when he （機の）カム to our door hungry. I killed him. And they've 追跡（する）d me ever since. They'll put a rope 一連の会議、交渉／完成する my neck, an' choke me to death if they catch me—because I （機の）カム in time to save her! That's 法律!

"But they won't find me. I've been up here a year now, and in the spring I'm going 負かす／撃墜する there —where you come from—支援する to the Girl and the Kid. The policemen won't be looking for me then. An' we're going to some other part of the world, an' live happy. She's waitin' for me, she an' the kid, an' they know I'm coming in the spring. Yessir, I killed a man. An' they want to kill me for it. That's the 法律—Canadian 法律—the 法律 that wants an 注目する，もくろむ for an 注目する，もくろむ and a tooth for a tooth, an' where there ain't no extenuatin' circumstance. They call it 殺人. But it wasn't—was it?"

He waited for an answer. The mouse seemed going さらに先に and さらに先に away from him. He leaned more ひどく on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する.

"It wasn't—was it?" he 固執するd.

His 武器 reached out; his 長，率いる dropped 今後, and the little mouse scurried to the 床に打ち倒す. But Falkner did not know that it had gone.

"I killed him, an' I guess I'd do it again," he said, and his words were only a whisper. "An' to-night they're prayin' for me 負かす／撃墜する there—she 'n the kid—an' he's sayin', 'Pa-pa—Pa-pa'; an' they sent you up—to keep me comp'ny—"

His 長，率いる dropped wearily upon his 武器. The red stove crackled, and turned slowly 黒人／ボイコット. In the cabin it grew darker, except where the 薄暗い light 燃やすd on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. Outside the 嵐／襲撃する wailed and screeched 負かす／撃墜する across the Barren. And after a time the mouse （機の）カム 支援する. It looked at Jim Falkner. It （機の）カム nearer, until it touched the unconscious man's sleeve. More daringly it ran over his arm. It smelled of his fingers.

Then the mouse returned to the corner of the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, and began eating the food that Falkner had placed there for it.

The wick of the lamp had 燃やすd low when Falkner raised his 長，率いる. The stove was 黒人／ボイコット and 冷淡な. Outside, the 嵐／襲撃する still 激怒（する）d, and it was the shivering shriek of it over the cabin that Falkner first heard. He felt terribly dizzy, and there was a sharp, knife-like 苦痛 just 支援する of his 注目する，もくろむs. By the gray light that （機の）カム through the one window he knew that what was left of 北極の day had come. He rose to his feet, and staggered about like a drunken man as he rebuilt the 解雇する／砲火／射撃, and he tried to laugh as the truth 夜明けd upon him that he had been sick, and that he had 残り／休憩（する）d for hours with his 長，率いる on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. His 支援する seemed broken. His 脚s were numb, and 傷つける when he stepped on them. He swung his 武器 a little to bring 支援する 循環／発行部数, and rubbed his 手渡すs over the 解雇する／砲火／射撃 that began to crackle in the stove.

It was the sickness that had 打ち勝つ him—he knew that. But the thought of it did not appall him as it had yesterday, and the day before. There seemed to be something in the cabin now that 慰安d and soothed him, something that took away a part of the loneliness that was 運動ing him mad. Even as he searched about him, peering into the dark corners and at the 明らかにする 塀で囲むs, a word formed on his lips, and he half smiled. It was a woman's 指名する—Hester. And a warmth entered into him. The 苦痛 left his 長，率いる. For the first time in weeks he felt DIFFERENT. And slowly he began to realize what had wrought the change. He was not alone. A message had come to him from the one who was waiting for him miles away; something that lived, and breathed, and was as lonely as himself. It was the little mouse.

He looked about 熱望して, his 注目する，もくろむs brightening, but the mouse was gone. He could not hear it. There seemed nothing unusual to him in the words he spoke aloud to himself.

"I'm going to call it after the Kid," he chuckled, "I'm goin' to call it Little Jim. I wonder if it's a girl mouse—or a boy mouse?"

He placed a pan of snow-water on the stove and began making his simple 準備s for breakfast. For the first time in many days he felt 現実に hungry. And then all at once he stopped, and a low cry that was half joy and half wonder broke from his lips. With tensely gripped 手渡すs and 注目する，もくろむs that shone with a strange light he 星／主役にするd straight at the blank surface of the スピードを出す／記録につける 塀で囲む—through it—and a thousand miles away. He remembered THAT day—years ago—the scenes of which （機の）カム to him now as though they had been but yesterday. It was afternoon, in the glorious summer, and he had gone to Hester's home. Only the day before Hester had 約束d to be his wife, and he remembered how fidgety and uneasy and yet wondrously happy he was as he sat out on the big white veranda, waiting for her to put on her pink muslin dress, which went go 井戸／弁護士席 with the gold of her hair and the blue of her 注目する，もくろむs. And as he sat there, Hester's maltese pet （機の）カム up the steps, bringing in its jaws a tiny, quivering brown mouse. It was playing with the almost lifeless little creature when Hester （機の）カム through the door.

He heard again the low cry that （機の）カム from her lips then. In an instant she had snatched the tiny, limp thing from between the cat's paws, and had 直面するd him. He was laughing at her, but the glow in her blue 注目する，もくろむs sobered him. "I didn't think you—would take 楽しみ in that, Jim," she said. "It's only a mouse, but it's alive, and I can feel its poor little heart （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing!"

They had saved it, and he, a little ashamed at the smallness of the 行為／法令／行動する, had gone with Hester to the barn and made a nest for it in the hay. But the wonderful words that he remembered were these: "Perhaps some day a little mouse will help you, Jim!" Hester had spoken laughingly. And her words had come true!

All the time that Falkner was 準備するing and eating his breakfast he watched for the mouse, but it did not appear. Then he went to the door. It swung outward, and it took all his 負わせる to 軍隊 it open. On one 味方する of the cabin the snow was drifted almost to the roof. Ahead of him he could barely make out the dark 影をつくる／尾行する of the scrub spruce forest beyond the little （疑いを）晴らすing he had made. He could hear the spruce-最高の，を越すs wailing and 新たな展開ing in the 嵐／襲撃する, and the snow and 勝利，勝つd stung his 直面する, and half blinded him.

It was dark—dark with that gray and maddening gloom that yesterday would have driven him still nearer to the 合併する of madness. But this morning he laughed as he listened to the wailings in the 空気／公表する and 星／主役にするd out into the ghostly 大混乱. It was not the thought of his loneliness that come to him now, but the thought that he was 安全な. The 法律 could not reach him now, even if it knew where he was. And before it began its 追跡（する） for him again in the spring he would be 引き上げ（る）ing southward, to the Girl and the Baby, and it would still be 追跡（する）ing for him when they three would be making a new home for themselves in some other part of the world. For the first time in months he was almost happy. He の近くにd and bolted the door, and began to WHISTLE. He was amazed at the change in himself, and wonderingly he 星／主役にするd at his reflection in the 割れ目d bit of mirror against the 塀で囲む. He grinned, and 演説（する）／住所d himself aloud.

"You need a shave," he told himself. "You'd 脅す fits out of anything alive! Now that we've got company we've got to spruce up, an' look civilized."

It took him an hour to get rid of his 激しい 耐えるd. His 直面する looked almost boyish again. He was 検査／視察するing himself in the mirror when he heard a sound that turned him slowly toward the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. The little mouse was nosing about his tin plate. For a few moments Falkner watched it, 恐れるing to move. Then he 慎重に began to approach the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する. "Hello there, old chap," he said, trying to make his 発言する／表明する soft and ingratiating. "Pretty late for breakfast, ain't you?"

At his approach the mouse humped itself into a motionless ball and watched him. To Falkner's delight it did not run away when he reached the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する and sat 負かす／撃墜する. He laughed softly.

"You ain't afraid, are you?" he asked. "We're goin' to be chums, ain't we? Yessir, we're goin' to be chums!"

For a 十分な minute the mouse and the man looked 刻々と at each other. Then the mouse moved deliberately to a crumb of bannock and began nibbling at its breakfast.

For ten days there was only an 時折の なぎ in the 嵐／襲撃する that （機の）カム from out of the North. Before those ten days were half over, Jim and the mouse understood each other. The little mouse itself solved the problem of their nearer 知識 by running up Falkner's 脚 one morning while he was at breakfast, and coolly 調査／捜査するing him from the strings of his moccasin to the collar of his blue shirt. After that it showed no 恐れる of him, and a few days later would nestle in the hollow of his big 手渡す and nibble fearlessly at the bannock which Falkner would 申し込む／申し出 it. Then Jim took to carrying it about with him in his coat pocket. That seemed to 控訴 the mouse immensely, and when Jim went to bed nights, or it grew too warm for him in the cabin, he would hang the coat over his bunk, with the mouse still in it, so that it was not long before the little creature made up its mind to take 十分な 所有／入手 of the pocket. It intimated as much to Falkner on the tenth and last day of the 嵐／襲撃する, when it began very 商売／仕事-like 操作／手術s of building a nest of paper and rabbits' fur in the coat pocket. Jim's heart gave a big and sudden jump of delight when he saw the work going on.

"Bless my soul, I wonder if it's a girl mouse an' we're goin' to have BABIES!" he gasped.

After that he did not wear the coat, through 恐れる of 乱すing the nest. The two became more and more friendly, until finally the mouse would sit on Jim's shoulder at meal time, and nibble at bannock. What little trouble the mouse 原因（となる）d only 追加するd to Falkner's love for it.

"He's a human little cuss," he told himself one day, as he watched the mouse busy at work （武器などの）隠匿場所ing away 捨てるs of food, which it carried through a 割れ目 in the sapling 床に打ち倒す. "He's that human I've got to put all my 得る，とらえる in the tin cans or we'll go short before spring!" His 長，指導者 trouble was to keep his snowshoes out of his tiny companion's reach. The mouse had developed an unholy passion for babiche, the caribou 肌 thongs used in the webs of his shoes, and one of the webs was half eaten away before Falkner discovered what was going on. At last he was compelled to 一時停止する the shoes from a nail driven in one of the roof-beams.

In the evening, when the stove glowed hot, and a cotton wick sputtered in a pan of caribou grease on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する, Falkner's 長，指導者 転換 was to tell the mouse all about his 計画（する）s, and hopes, and what had happened in the past. He took an almost boyish 楽しみ in these one-味方するd entertainments—and yet, after all, they were not 完全に one-味方するd, for the mouse would keep its 有望な, serious-looking little 注目する，もくろむs on Falkner's 直面する; it seemed to understand, if it could not talk.

Falkner loved to tell the little fellow of the wonderful days of four or five years ago away 負かす／撃墜する in the sunny Ohio valley where he had 法廷，裁判所d the Girl and where they lived before they moved to the farm in Canada. He tried to impress upon Little Jim's mind what it meant for a 広大な／多数の／重要な big, unhandsome fellow like himself to be loved by a tender slip of a girl whose hair was like gold and whose 注目する，もくろむs were as blue as the 支持を得ようと努めるd-violets. One evening he fumbled for a minute under his bunk and （機の）カム 支援する to the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する with a worn and finger-示すd manila envelope, from which he drew tenderly and with almost trembling care a long, 向こうずねing tress of golden hair.

"That HERS," he said proudly, placing it on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する の近くに to the mouse. "An' she's got so much of it you can't see her to the hips when she takes it 負かす／撃墜する; an' out in the sun it 向こうずねs like—like—glory!"

The stove door 衝突，墜落d open, and a number of coals fell out upon the 床に打ち倒す. For a few minutes Falkner was busy, and when he returned to the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する he gave a gasp of astonishment. The curl and the mouse were gone! Little Jim had almost reached its nest with its lovely 重荷（を負わせる） when Falkner 逮捕（する）d it.

"You little cuss!" he breathed revently. "Now I know you come from her! I know it!"

In the weeks that followed the 嵐／襲撃する Falkner again followed his 罠（にかける）-lines, and scattered 毒（薬）-baits for the white foxes on the Barren. 早期に in January the second 広大な／多数の／重要な 嵐／襲撃する of that year （機の）カム from out of the North. It gave no 警告, and Falkner was caught ten miles from （軍の）野営地，陣営. He was making a struggle for life before he reached the shack. He was exhausted, and half blinded. He could hardly stand on his feet when he staggered up against his own door. He could see nothing when he entered. He つまずくd over a stool, and fell to the 床に打ち倒す. Before he could rise a strange 負わせる was upon him. He made no 抵抗, for the 嵐／襲撃する had driven the last ounce of strength from his 団体／死体.

"It's been a long chase, but I've got you now, Falkner," he heard a 勝利を得た 発言する／表明する say. And then （機の）カム the dreaded 決まり文句／製法, 恐れるd to the uttermost 限界s of the 広大な／多数の／重要な Northern wilderness: "I 警告する you! You are my 囚人, in the 指名する of His Majesty, the King!"

Corporal Carr, of the 王室の 機動力のある of the Northwest, was a man without human sympathies. He was thin 直面するd, with a square, bony jaw, and lips that formed a straight line. His 注目する，もくろむs were greenish, like a cat's, and were 絶えず 転換ing. He was a beast of prey, as much as the wolf, the lynx, or the fox—and his prey was men. Only such a man as Carr, alone would have 勇敢に立ち向かうd the 背信の snows and the 激しい 冷淡な of the 北極の winter to run him 負かす／撃墜する. Falkner knew that, as an hour later he looked over the roaring stove at his captor. About Carr there was something of the unpleasant quickness, the sinuous movement, of the little white ermine—the 無法者 of the wilderness. His 注目する，もくろむs were as merciless. At times Falkner caught the same red glint in them. And above his despair, the utter hopelessness of his 状況／情勢, there rose in him an 激しい 憎悪 and loathing of the man.

Falkner's 手渡すs were then securely tied behind him.

"I'd put the アイロンをかけるs on you," Carr had explained a hard, emotionless 発言する／表明する, "only I lost them somewhere 支援する there."

Beyond that he had not said a dozen words. He had built up the 解雇する／砲火／射撃, 雪解けd himself out, and helped himself to food. Now, for the first time, he 緩和するd up a bit.

"I've had a devil of a chase," he said 激しく, a 冷淡な glitter in his 注目する，もくろむs as he looked at Falkner. "I've been after you three months, and now that I've got you this accursed 嵐／襲撃する is going to 持つ／拘留する me up! And I left my dogs and outfit a mile 支援する in the scrub."

"Better go after 'em," replied Falkner. "If you don't there won't be any dogs an' outfit by morning."

Corporal Carr rose to his feet and went to the window. In a moment he turned.

"I'll do that," he said. "Stretch yourself out on the bunk. I'll have to lace you 負かす／撃墜する pretty tight to keep you from playing a trick on me."

There was something so merciless and 残虐な in his 注目する，もくろむs and 発言する／表明する that Falkner felt like leaping upon him, even with his 手渡すs tied behind his 支援する.

He was glad, however, that Carr had decided to go. He was, filled with an 圧倒的な 願望（する） to be rid of him, if only for an hour.

He went to the bunk and lay 負かす／撃墜する. Corporal Carr approached, pulling a roll of babiche cord from his pocket.

"If you don't mind you might tie my 手渡すs in 前線 instead of behind," 示唆するd Falkner. "It's goin' to be mighty unpleasant to have 'em under me, if I've got to lay here for an hour or two."

"Not on your life I won't tie 'em in 前線!" snapped Carr, his little 注目する，もくろむs glittering. And then he gave a cackling laugh, and his 注目する，もくろむs were as green as a cat's. "An' it won't be half so unpleasant as having something '一連の会議、交渉／完成する your NECK!" he joked.

"I wish I was 解放する／自由な," breathed Falkner, his chest heaving. "I wish we could fight, man t' man. I'd be willing to hang then, just to have the chance to break your neck. You ain't a man of the 法律. You're a devil."

Carr laughed the sort of laugh that sends a 冷気／寒がらせる up one's 支援する, and drew the caribou-肌 cord tight about Falkner's ankles.

"Can't 非難する me for 存在 a little careful," he said in his 反乱ing way. "By your hanging I become a Sergeant. That's my reward for running you 負かす／撃墜する."

He lighted the lamp and filled the stove before he left the cabin. From the door he looked 支援する at Falkner, and his 直面する was not like a man's, but like that of some terrible death-spirit, ghostly, and thin, and exultant in the 薄暗い glow of the lamp. As he opened the door the roar of the blizzard and a gust of snow filled the cabin. Then it の近くにd, and a groaning 悪口を言う／悪態 fell from Falkner's lips. He 緊張するd ひどく at the thongs that bound him, but after the first few minutes he lay still breathing hard, knowing that every 成果／努力 he made only 強化するd the caribou-肌 cord that bound him.

On his 支援する, he listened to the 嵐／襲撃する. It was filled with the same strange cries and moaning sound that had almost driven him to madness, and now they sent through him a shivering 冷気／寒がらせる that he had not felt before, even in the darkest and most hopeless hours of his loneliness and despair. A breath that was almost a sob broke from his lips as a 見通し of the Girl and the Kid （機の）カム to shut out from his ears the moaning tumult of the 勝利，勝つd. A few hours before he had been filled with hope—almost happiness, and now he was lost. From such a man as Carr there was no hope for mercy, or of escape. Flat on his 支援する, he の近くにd his 注目する，もくろむs, and tried to think—to 計画／陰謀 something that might happen in his 好意, to 予知する an 適切な時期 that might give him one last chance. And then, suddenly, he heard a sound. It traveled over the 一面に覆う／毛布 that formed a pillow for his 長，率いる. A 冷静な／正味の, soft little nose touched his ear, and then tiny feet ran 速く over his shoulder, and 停止（させる）d on his breast. He opened his 注目する，もくろむs, and 星／主役にするd.

"You little cuss!" he breathed. A hundred times he had spoken those words, and each time they were of 増加するing wonder and adoration. "You little cuss!" he whispered again, and he chuckled aloud.

The mouse was humped on his breast in that curious little ball that it made of itself, and was 注目する，もくろむing him, Jim thought, in a 尋問 sort of way, "What's the 事柄 with you?" it seemed to ask. "Where are your 手渡すs?"

And Jim answered:

"They've got me, old man. Now what the dickens are we going to do?"

The mouse began 調査／捜査するing. It 診察するd his shoulder, the end of his chin, and ran along his arm, as far as it could go.

"Now what do you think of that!" Falkner exclaimed softly. "The little cuss is wondering where my 手渡すs are!" Gently he rolled over on his 味方する.

"There they are," he said, "hitched tighter 'n bark to a tree!"

He wiggled his fingers, and in a moment he felt the mouse. The little creature ran across the opened palm of his 手渡す to his wrist, and then every muscle in Falkner's 団体／死体 grew 緊張した, and one of the strangest cries that ever fell from human lips （機の）カム from his. The mouse had 設立する once more the 乾燥した，日照りのd hide-flesh of which the snowshoe webs were made. It had 設立する babiche. And it had begun TO GNAW!

In the minutes that followed Falkner scarcely breathed. He could feel the mouse when it worked. Above the stifled （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing of his heart he could hear its tiny jaws. In those moments he knew that his last hope of life hung in the balance. Five, ten minutes passed, and not until then did he 緊張する at the thongs that bound his wrists. Was that the bed that had snapped? Or was it the breaking of one of the babiche cords? He 緊張するd harder. The thongs were 緩和するing; his wrists were freer; with a cry that sent the mouse scurrying to the 床に打ち倒す he 二塁打d himself half 築く, and fought like a madman. Five minutes later and he was 解放する／自由な.

He staggered to his feet, and looked at his wrists. They were torn and bleeding. His second thought was of Corporal Carr—and a 武器. The man-hunter had taken the 警戒 to empty the 議会s of Falkner's revolver and ライフル銃／探して盗む and throw his cartridges out in the snow. But his skinning-knife was still in its sheath and belt, and he buckled it about his waist. He had no thought of 殺人，大当り Carr, though he hated the man almost to the point of 殺人. But his lips 始める，決める in a grim smile as he thought of what he WOULD do.

He knew that when Carr returned he would not enter at once into the cabin. He was the sort of man who would never take an unnecessary chance. He would go first to the little window—and look in. Falkner turned the lamp-wick lower, and placed the lamp on the （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する 直接／まっすぐに between the window and the bunk. Then he rolled his 一面に覆う／毛布s into something like a human form, and went to the window to see the 影響. The bunk was in 深い 影をつくる／尾行する. From the window Corporal Carr could not see beyond the lamp. Then Falkner waited, out of 範囲 of the window, and の近くに to the door.

It was not long before he heard something above the wailing of the 嵐／襲撃する. It was the whine of a dog, and he knew that a moment later the Corporal's ghostly 直面する was peering in at the window. Then there （機の）カム the sudden, swift 開始 of the door, and Carr sprang in like a cat, his 手渡す on the butt of his revolver, still obeying that first 治める／統治するing 法律 of his merciless life—警告を与える, Falkner was so 近づく that he could reach out and touch Carr, and in an instant he was at his enemy's throat. Not a cry fell from Carr's lips. There was death in the terrible 支配する of Falkner's 手渡すs, and like one whose neck had been broken Carr sank to the 床に打ち倒す. Falkner's 支配する 強化するd, and he did not 緩和する it until Carr was 黒人／ボイコット in the 直面する and his jaw fell open. Then Falkner bound him 手渡す and foot with the babiche thongs, and dragged him to the bunk.

Through the open door one of the sledge-dogs had thrust his 長，率いる and shoulders. It was a 兵舎 team, accustomed to warmth and 避難所, and Falkner had no difficulty in getting the leader and his three mates inside. To make friends with them he fed them chunks of raw caribou meat, and when Carr opened his 注目する，もくろむs he was busy packing. He laughed joyously when he saw that the man-hunter had 回復するd consciousness, and was 星／主役にするing at him with evident malice.

"Hello, Carr," he 迎える／歓迎するd affably. "Feeling better? （米）棚上げする／（英）提議するs sort of turned, ain't they?"

Carr made no answer. His white lips were 始める，決める like thin 禁止（する）d of steel.

"I'm getting ready to leave you," Falkner explained, as he rolled up a 一面に覆う／毛布 and 押すd it into his rubber pack-pouch. "And you're going to stay here—until spring. Do you get の上に that? You've GOT to stay. I'm going to leave you marooned, so to speak. You couldn't travel a hundred yards out there without snowshoes, and I'm goin' to take your snowshoes. And I'm goin' to take your guns, and 燃やす your pack, your coat, mittens, cap, an' moccasins. Catch on? I'm not goin' to kill you, and I'm going to leave you enough grub to last until spring, but you won't dare 危険 yourself out in the 冷淡な and snow. If you do, you'll 凍結する off your tootsies, and make your 肺s sick. Don't you feel sort of pleasant—you—you—devil!"

Six hours later Falkner stood outside the cabin. The dogs were in their traces, and the sledge was packed. The 嵐／襲撃する had blown itself out, and a warmer 気温 had followed in the path of the blizzard. He wore his coat now, and gently he felt of the bulging pocket, and laughed joyously as he 直面するd the South.

"It's goin' to be a long 引き上げ（る）, you little cuss," he said softly. "It's goin' to be a darned long 引き上げ（る）. But we'll make it. Yessir, we'll make it. And won't they be s'prised when we 落ちる in on 'em, six months ahead of time?"

He 診察するd the pocket carefully, making sure that he had buttoned 負かす／撃墜する the flap.

"I wouldn't want to lose you," he chuckled. "Next to her, an' the kid, I wouldn't want to lose you!"

Then, slowly, a strange smile passed over his 直面する, and he gazed questioningly for a moment at the pocket which he held in his 手渡す.

"You nervy little cuss!" he grinned. "I wonder if you're a girl mouse, an' if we're goin' to have a fam'ly on the way home! An'—an'—what the dickens do you 料金d baby mice?"

He lowered the pocket, and with a sharp 命令（する） to the waiting dogs turned his 直面する into the South.

THE END

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