ar me out; try to consider my proposition on its merits. For a
number of years I've known the existence of the oil and have tried to
prospect the country. It was difficult; to transport enough food and
tools meant a costly expedition and the attracting of undesirable
attention. I went alone, living with primitive Russian settlers and
afterwards with the Indians. To gain a hold on them I studied the
occult sciences and learned tricks that impose upon the credulous. To
the white men I'm a crank, to the Indians something of a magician, but
my search for the oil has gone on, and now while I already know where
boring would be commercially profitable, I'm on the brink of tapping a
remarkable flow."

"What will you do if it comes up to your expectations?" Challoner
asked, for he had grown interested.

"Turn it over to a company strong enough to exact good terms from the
American producers or, failing that, to work the wells. Then I'd go
back to London where with money and the standing it would buy me I'd
take up my old profession. I believe I've kept abreast of medical
progress and could still make my mark and reinstate myself. It has
been my steadfast object ever since I became an outcast; I've schemed
and cheated to gain it, besides risking my life often in desolate
muskegs and the Arctic frost. Now I ask you to make it possible, and
you cannot refuse."

Challoner was silent for a minute or two while Clarke smoked
impassively. The former knew he had a determined man to deal with and
believed moreover that he had spoken the truth. Still, the fellow,
although in some respects to be pitied, was obviously a dangerous
rascal, embittered and robbed of all scruples by injustice. There was
something malignant in his face that testified against him, and, worse
than all, he had come there resolved to extort money as the price of
his connivance in a wrong.

"Well?" Clarke said, breaking the pause.

"So far as I can judge, your ultimate object's creditable, but I can't
say as much for the means you are ready to employ in raising the money.
If you go on with the scheme, it must be without any help of mine."

Clarke's face grew hard, and there was something forbidding in the way
he knitted his brows.

"Think! Have you gauged the consequences of your refusal?"

"It's more to the purpose that I've tried to estimate the importance of
your version of what happened during the night attack. It has one
fatal weakness whic