e, and that they would probably go from there to Winnipeg. I
didn't ask which way they would go."

"From Nelson House it would be by the Saskatchewan and Le Pas trail,"
cried Philip. He was looking straight over the little doctor's head. "If
it wasn't for this damnable DeBar--whom I ought to go after again--"

"Drop DeBar," interrupted McGill quietly. "He's got too big a start of
you anyway--so what's the use? Drop 'im. I dropped a whole lot of things
when I came up here."

"But the law--"

"Damn the law!" exploded the doctor with unexpected vehemence.
"Sometimes I think the world would be just as happy without it."

Their eyes met, sharp and understanding.

"You're a professor in a college," chuckled Philip, his voice trembling
again with hope and eagerness. "You ought to know more than I do. What
would you do if you were in my place?"

"I'd hustle for a pair of wings and fly," replied the little professor
promptly. "Good Lord, Phil--if it was my wife--and I hadn't got her
yet--I wouldn't let up until I'd chased her from one end of the earth to
the other. What's a little matter of duty compared to that girl hustling
toward Winnipeg? Next to my own little girl at home she's the prettiest
thing I ever laid my eyes on."

Philip laughed aloud.

"Thanks, McGill. By Heaven, I'll go! When do you start?"

"The dogs are ready, and so is Mrs. William Falkner."

Philip turned about quickly.

"I'll go over and say good-by to the detachment, and get my pack," he
said over his shoulder. "I'll be back inside of half an hour."

It was a slow trip down. The snow was beginning to soften in the warmth
of the first spring suns by the time they arrived at Lac la Crosse. Two
days before they reached the post at Montreal Lake, Philip began to feel
the first discomfort of a strange sickness, of which he said nothing.
But the sharp eyes of the doctor detected that something was wrong,
and before they came to Montreal House he recognized the fever that had
begun to burn in Philip's body.

"You've set too fast a pace," he told him. "It's that--and the blow you
got when DeBar threw you against the rock. You'll have to lay up for a
spell."

In spite of his protestations, the doctor compelled him to go to bed
when they arrived at the post. He grew rapidly worse, and for five weeks
the doctor and Falkner's wife nursed him through the fever. When they
left for the South, late in May, he was still too weak to travel, and it
was a mo