gain. "So--he has told you? Well, he told me the same thing today. He
didn't intend to, of course. But he was half mad, and he had been
drinking. He has given me twenty-four hours."

"In which to--surrender?"

There was no need to reply.

For the first time Blake smiled. There was something in that smile that
made her flesh creep. "Twenty-four hours is a short time," he said,
"and in this matter, Mrs. Keith, I think that you will find Captain
Rydal a man of his word. No need to ask you why you don't appeal to the
crew! Useless! But you have hope that I can help you? Is that it?"

Her heart throbbed. "That is why I have come to you, Mr. Blake. You
told me today that Fort Confidence is only a hundred and fifty miles
away and that a Northwest Mounted Police garrison is there this
winter--with a doctor. Will you help me?"

"A hundred and fifty miles, in this country, at this time of the year,
is a long distance, Mrs. Keith," reflected Blake, looking into her eyes
with a steadiness that at any other time would have been embarrassing.
"It means the McFarlane, the Lacs Delesse, and the Arctic Barren. For a
hundred miles there isn't a stick of timber. If a storm came--no man or
dog could live. It is different from the coast. Here there is shelter
everywhere." He spoke slowly, and he was thinking swiftly. "It would
take five days at thirty miles a day. And the chances are that your
husband would not stand it. One hundred and twenty hours at fifty
degrees below zero, and no fire until the fourth day. He would die."

"It would be better--for if we stay--" she stopped, unclenching her
hands slowly.

"What?" he asked.

"I shall kill Captain Rydal," she declared. "It is the only thing I can
do. Will you force me to do that, or will you help me? You have sledges
and many dogs, and we will pay. And I have judged you to be--a man."

He rose from the table, and for a moment his face was turned from her.
"You probably do not understand my position, Mrs. Keith," he said,
pacing slowly back and forth and chuckling inwardly at the shock he was
about to give her. "You see, my livelihood depends on such men as
Captain Rydal. I have already done a big business with him in bone,
oil, pelts--and Eskimo women."

Without looking at her he heard the horrified intake of her breath. It
gave him a pleasing sort of thrill, and he turned, smiling, to look
into her dead-white face. Her eyes had changed. There was no longer
hope or entreaty in