r bosom, and with that movement
there came a terrible, muffled report. With a groan the chief staggered
back and sank to the floor.

For a moment, stupefied by what she had done, Thorpe's wife stood with
smoking pistol in her hand, gazing upon the still form at her feet.
Then, slowly, like one facing a terrible accuser, she turned straight
to the coffin box. The weapon that she held fell to the floor. Without a
tremor in her beautiful face she went to one side of the room, picked
up a small belt-ax, and began prying off the cover to Philip's prison.
There was still no hesitation, no tremble of fear in her face or hands
when the cover gave way and Philip stood revealed, his face as white as
her own and bathed in a perspiration of excitement and horror. Calmly
she took away the cloth about his mouth, loosened the straps about his
legs and arms and body, and then she stood back, still speechless, her
hands clutching at her bosom while she waited for him to step forth.

His first movement was to fall upon his knees beside Hodges. He bowed
his head, listened, and held his hand under the man's waistcoat. Then
he looked up. The woman was bending over him, her eyes meeting his own
unflinchingly.

"He is dead!" he said quietly.

"Yes, my brother, he is dead!"

The sweet, low tones of the woman's voice rose scarcely above a whisper.
The meaning of her words sank into his very soul.

"My sister--" he repeated, hardly knowing that the words were on his
lips. "My--"

"Or--your wife," she interrupted, and her hand rested gently for a
moment upon his shoulder. "Or your wife--what would you have had her
do?"

Her voice--the gentleness of her touch, sent his mind flashing back to
that other tragic moment in a little cabin far north, when he had almost
killed a man, and for less than this that he had heard and seen. It
seemed, for an instant, as though the voice so near to him was coming,
faintly, pleadingly, from that other woman at Lac Bain--the woman
who had almost caused a tragedy similar to this, only with the sexes
changed. He would have excused Colonel Becker for killing Bucky Nome,
for defending his own honor and his wife's. And here--now--was a woman
who had fought and killed for her own honor, and to save her husband.
His sister--his wife--Would he have had them do this? Would he have Mrs.
Becker, the woman he loved, defend her honor as this woman had defended
hers? Would he not have loved her ten times--a hundred tim