have a Chippewayan who'll go with you as far as the Chariot. That's the
end of his territory, and what you'll do after that God only knows."

"I'll take the chance," said Philip. "We'll start after dinner. I've got
two dogs, a little lame, but even at that they'll have DeBar's outfit
handicapped."

It was less than two hours later when Philip and the Chippewayan set off
into the western forests, the Indian ahead and Philip behind, with the
dogs and sledge between them. Both men were traveling light. Philip had
even strapped his carbine and small emergency bag to the toboggan, and
carried only his service revolver at his belt. It was one o'clock and
the last slanting beams of the winter sun, heatless and only cheering
to the eye, were fast dying away before the first dull gray approach of
desolate gloom which precedes for a few hours the northern night. As the
black forest grew more and more somber about them, he looked over the
grayish yellow back of the tugging huskies at the silent Indian striding
over the outlaw's trail, and a slight shiver passed through him, a
shiver that was neither of cold nor fear, yet which was accompanied by
an oppression which it was hard for him to shake off. Deep down in his
heart Philip had painted a picture of William DeBar--of the man--and it
was a picture to his liking. Such men he would like to know and to
call his friends. But now the deepening gloom, the darkening of the sky
above, the gray picture ahead of him--the Chippewayan, as silent as
the trees, the dogs pulling noiselessly in their traces like slinking
shadows, the ghost-like desolation about him, all recalled him to that
other factor in the game, who was DeBar the outlaw, and not DeBar
the man. In this same way, he imagined, Forbes, Bannock, Fleisham and
Gresham had begun the game, and they had lost. Perhaps they, too, had
gone out weakened by visions of the equity of things, for the sympathy
of man for man is strong when they meet above the sixtieth.

DeBar was ahead of him--DeBar the outlaw, watching and scheming as he
had watched and schemed when the other four had played against him. The
game had grown old to him. It had brought him victim after victim, and
each victim had made of him a more deadly enemy of the next. Perhaps at
this moment he was not very far ahead, waiting to send him the way of
the others. The thought urged new fire into Philip's blood. He spurted
past the dogs and stopped the Chippewayan, and then e