'll give him this note. It says that your
name is Johnson, and that for my sake he's going to put you on
your feet, so that it is going to be pretty blamed comfortable for
yourself--and the noblest little woman I've ever met. Do you understand,
Thorpe?"

He looked up. Thorpe's wife had gone to her husband. She stood now, half
in his arms, and looking at him; as they were, they reminded him of a
couple who had played the finale in a drama which he had seen a year
before.

"There is one favor which you must do me, Thorpe," he went on. "At
home I am rich. Up here I'm only Phil Steele, of the Royal Mounted. I'm
telling you so that you won't think that I'm stripping myself when I
make you take this. It's a little ready cash, and a check for a thousand
dollars. Some day, if you want to, you can pay it back. Now hustle
up and get on your clothes. I imagine that your friends are somewhere
near--with the sledge that brought me up from Le Pas. Tomorrow, of
course, I shall be compelled to take up the pursuit. But if you hurry I
don't believe that I shall catch you."

He rose and put on his hat, leaving the money and the check on the
table. The woman staggered toward him, the man following in a dazed,
stunned sort of way. He saw the woman's arms reaching out to him again,
a look in her beautiful face that he would never forget.

In another moment he had opened the door and was gone.

Chapter VIII. Another Letter For Philip

From beside his prisoner in the deep gloom Philip saw Thorpe and his
wife come out of the cabin a minute later and hurry away through the
night. Then he dragged the guard into the prison, relocked the door,
left the key in the lock, and returned to Hodges' office to replace the
old clothes for his uniform. Not until he stood looking down upon the
dead body again did the enormity of his own offense begin to crowd upon
him. But he was not frightened nor did he regret what he had done.
He turned out the light, sat down, coolly filled his pipe, and began
turning the affair over, detail by detail, in his mind. He had, at
least, followed Inspector MacGregor's injunction--he had followed his
conscience. Hodges had got what he deserved, and he had saved a man and
a woman.

But in spite of his first argument, he knew that MacGregor had not
foreseen a tragedy of this sort, and that, in the eyes of the law, he
was guilty of actively assisting in the flight of two people who could
not possibly escape the penalt