lly Roger's eyes had grown very bright, and suddenly he dropped on
his knees beside Peter, and spoke softly, close up to his flattened ear.

"You say it isn't a wolverine, Peter? Is that what you're trying to
tell me?"

Peter's teeth clicked, and he whimpered, never taking his eyes from
ahead.

There was a cold light in Jolly Roger's eyes as he rose to his feet,
and he turned swiftly and quietly into the edge of the forest, and in
the gloom that was gathering there his hand carried the big automatic.
Peter followed him now, and Jolly Roger swung in a wide circle, so that
they came up on that forest side of the cabin where there was no
window. And here Jolly Roger knelt down beside Peter again, and
whispered to him.

"You stay here, _Pied-Bot_. Understand? You stay here."

He pressed him down gently with his hand, so that Peter understood.
Then, slinking low, and swift as a cat, Jolly Roger ran to the end of
the cabin where there was no window. With his head close to the ground
he peered out cautiously at the door. It was closed. Then he looked at
the windows. To the west the curtains were up, as he had left them. And
to the east--

A whimsical smile played at the corners of his mouth. Those curtains he
had kept tightly drawn. One of them was down now. But the other was
raised two inches, so that one hidden within the cabin could watch the
approach from the trail!

He drew back, and under his breath he chuckled. He recognized the sheer
nerve of the thing, the clever handiwork of it. Someone was inside the
cabin, and he was ready to stake his life it was Cassidy, the Irish
bloodhound of "M" Division. If anyone ferreted him out way down here on
the edge of civilization he had gambled with himself that it would be
Cassidy. And Cassidy had come--Cassidy, who had hung like a wolf to his
trails for three years, who had chased him across the Barren Lands, who
had followed him up the Mackenzie, and back again--who had fought with
him, and starved with him, and froze with him, yet had never brought
him to prison. Deep down in his heart Jolly Roger loved Cassidy. They
had played, and were still playing, a thrilling game, and to win that
game had become the life's ambition of each. And now Cassidy was in
there, confident that at last he had his man, and waiting for him to
step into the trap.

To Jolly Roger, in the face of its possible tragedy, there was a
deep-seated humor in the situation. Three times in the last year a