e who
erred through that weakness. This man was not of those. He was a
vicious criminal whose earthly reward would be inadequate to his crimes.

"That won't help you a thing," he said frigidly. He knocked out his
pipe and thrust it into his pocket. His gaze was steadily fixed on the
eyes so furiously alight as they watched his every movement. "There's
more to this than the murder of Allan Mowbray, your share in which can
be proved clear out. Guess you've acted pretty bright, Murray. I
allow you've covered a whole heap of tracks. But you haven't covered
them all. Guess there never was a murderer born who knew how to cover
all his tracks. And it's just a mercy of Providence for the protection
of us folk. If you'd covered your last tracks you'd have dropped your
automatic in the Snake River, and lost it so deep in the mud it
wouldn't have been found in years. But you didn't act that way, and
that's why you're going to hang. You're going to hang for murdering
the son, as well as the father, and the whole blamed world'll breathe
freer for your hanging. Do you need me to tell you more? Do you need
me to tell you why you're not landing at the Fort? No, I guess not.
Your whole play is in our hands. You're here by force, sure, and by
force you're goin' to stay. Just as I guess by force you're going to
die. You've lived outside the law such a long spell I don't guess you
need teaching a thing. If we're acting outside the laws of man now, I
guess we're acting within the laws of justice. That's all that gets me
where you figger. I guess we'll eat. Charley'll know how to hand you
your food."

The prisoner made no reply. It was the final blow. Kars had withheld
it till the psychological moment. He had withheld it, not with any
thought of mercy, but with a crude desire to punish when the hurt would
be the greatest.

He had achieved more than he knew. Buoyed with the belief that his
earlier crime on Bell River had been so skilfully contrived that no
court of law could ever hope to convict him of a capital offence,
Murray McTavish had only endured the suspense and haunting fear of
uncertainty. Now he realized to the full the disaster that had
overtaken him. He was stunned by the blow that had fallen.

The cooked meat that was passed to him by the Indian was left
untouched. The dark night journey passed before his wide, unsleeping
eyes as the canoes sped on towards the Fort. The last hope had been
torn