stening
as there came to him faintly the distant howling of a dog. After all,
had he done right? He laughed harshly and his hands clenched as he
thought of Bucky Nome. He had done right by him. But the skull--Mrs.
Becker--was that right? Like a flash there came to him out of the
darkness a picture of the scene beside the fire--of Mrs. Becker and the
colonel, of the woman's golden head resting on her husband's shoulder,
her sweet blue eyes filled with all the truth and glory of womanhood as
she had looked up into his grizzled face. And then there took its place
the scene beside the fire in the factor's room. He saw the woman's
flushed cheeks as she listened to the low voice of Bucky Nome, he saw
again what looked like yielding softness in her eyes--the grayish pallor
in the colonel's face as he had looked upon the flirtation. Yes, he
had done right. She had recovered herself in time, but she had taken a
little bit of life from the colonel, and from him. She had broken his
ideal--the ideal he had always hoped for, and had sought for, but had
never found, and he told himself that now she was no better than the
girl of the hyacinth letter, whose golden beauty and eyes as clear as an
angel's had concealed this same deceit that wrecked men's lives. M'sieur
Janette's clean, white skull and the story of how and why M'sieur
Janette had died would not be too great a punishment for her.

He resumed his journey, striving to concentrate his mind on other
things. Seven or eight miles to the south and west was the cabin of
Jacques Pierrot, a half-breed, who had a sledge and dogs. He would hire
Jacques to accompany him on his patrol in place of Bucky Nome. Then
he would return to Nelson House and send in his report of Bucky Nome's
desertion, since he knew well enough after the final remarks of that
gentleman that he did not intend to sever his connection with the
Northwest Mounted in the regular way. After that--He shrugged his
shoulders as he thought of the fourteen months' of service still ahead
of him. Until now his adventure as a member of the Royal Mounted had not
grown monotonous for an hour. Excitement, action, fighting against odds,
had been the spice of life to him, and he struggled to throw off
the change that had taken hold of him the moment he had opened the
hyacinth-scented letter of Mrs. Becker. "You're a fool," he argued.
"You're as big a fool as Bucky Nome. My God--you--Phil Steele--letting a
married woman upset you lik