ash.

"Got you that time--didn't I, you old devil!" whispered McCready, his
face strangely pale in the firelight. "Changed your name, eh? But I
_got_ you--didn't I?"

CHAPTER III

McCREADY PAYS THE DEBT

For a long time after he had uttered those words McCready sat in silence
beside the fire. Only for a moment or two at a time did his eyes leave
Kazan. After a little, when he was sure that Thorpe and Isobel had
retired for the night, he went into his own tent and returned with a
flask of whisky. During the next half-hour he drank frequently. Then he
went over and sat on the end of the sledge, just beyond the reach of
Kazan's chain.

"Got you, didn't I?" he repeated, the effect of the liquor beginning to
show in the glitter of his eyes. "Wonder who changed your name, Pedro.
And how the devil did _he_ come by you? Ho, ho, if you could only
talk--"

They heard Thorpe's voice inside the tent. It was followed by a low
girlish peal of laughter, and McCready jerked himself erect. His face
blazed suddenly red, and he rose to his feet, dropping the flask in his
coat pocket. Walking around the fire, he tiptoed cautiously to the
shadow of a tree close to the tent and stood there for many minutes
listening. His eyes burned with a fiery madness when he returned to the
sledge and Kazan. It was midnight before he went into his own tent.

In the warmth of the fire, Kazan's eyes slowly closed. He slumbered
uneasily, and his brain was filled with troubled pictures. At times he
was fighting, and his jaws snapped. At others he was straining at the
end of his chain, with McCready or his mistress just out of reach. He
felt the gentle touch of the girl's hand again and heard the wonderful
sweetness of her voice as she sang to him and his master, and his body
trembled and twitched with the thrills that had filled him that night.
And then the picture changed. He was running at the head of a splendid
team--six dogs of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police--and his master was
calling him Pedro! The scene shifted. They were in camp. His master was
young and smooth-faced and he helped from the sledge another man whose
hands were fastened in front of him by curious black rings. Again it was
later--and he was lying before a great fire. His master was sitting
opposite him, with his back to a tent, and as he looked, there came out
of the tent the man with the black rings--only now the rings were gone
and his hands were free, and in one of