flash was his movement then, as the companion bracelet
snapped over Nada's wrist. He stepped back, facing them with a grin.

"Got you both now, haven't I?" he gloated. "Can't get away, can you?"
He put his gun away, and bowed low to Nada. "How do you like married
life, Mrs. Jolly Roger?"

McKay's face was whiter than Nada's.

"You coward!" he spoke in a low, quiet voice. "You low-down miserable
coward. You're a disgrace to the Service. Do you mean you are going to
keep my wife ironed like this?"

"Sure," said Breault. "I'm going to make you pay for some of the
trouble I've had over you. I believe in a man paying his debts, you
know. And a woman, too. And probably you've lied to her like the very
devil."

"He hasn't!" protested Nada fiercely. "You're a--a--"

"Say it," nodded Breault good humoredly. "By all means say it, Mrs.
Jolly Roger. If you can't find words, let me help you," and while he
waited he loaded his pipe and lighted it.

"You see I don't exactly live up to regulations when I'm with good
friends like you," he apologized cynically. "In other words you're a
couple of hard cases. Cassidy has turned in all sorts of evidence about
you. He says that you, McKay, should be hung the moment we catch you.
He warned me not to take a chance--that you'd slit my throat in the
dark without a prick of conscience. And I'm a valuable man in the
Service. It can't afford to lose me."

McKay shut his lips tightly, and did not answer.

"Now, while you're helpless, I want to tell you a few things," Breault
went on. "And while I'm talking I'll start the fire, so we can have
breakfast. Peter and, I are hungry. A good dog, McKay. He saved us up
on the Barren. Have you told Mrs. Jolly Roger about that?"

He expected no answer, and whistled as he lighted a pile of birchbark
which he had already placed under dry cedar wood which McKay had
gathered the preceding evening.

"That's where _my_ trouble began--up there on the Barren, Mrs. Jolly
Roger," he continued, ignoring McKay. "You see the three of us,
Superintendent Tavish, and Porter--who is now his son-in-law--and I had
a splendid chance to die like martyrs, and go down forever in the
history of the Service, if it hadn't been for this fool of a husband of
yours, and Peter. I can't blame Peter, because he's only a dog. But
McKay is responsible. He robbed us of a beautiful opportunity of dying
in an unusual way by hunting us up and dragging us into his shelter. A
shabby t