of imagination. With five hundred
men ready to turn him loose in the plains without dogs or food, he carried
himself with a watchful coolness and complacent determination which got
home to their minds with great force.

For hours the struggle for the murderer went on, a struggle of mind over
inferior mind and matter.

Arrowhead was a chief whose will had never been crossed by his own people,
and to master that will by a superior will, to hold back the destructive
force which, to the ignorant minds of the braves, was only a natural force
of defence, meant a task needing more than authority behind it. For the
very fear of that authority put in motion was an incentive to present
resistance--to stave off the day of trouble. The faces that surrounded Jim
were thin with hunger, and the murder that had been committed by the chief
had, as its origin, the foolish replies of the Hudson's Bay Company's man
to their demand for supplies. Arrowhead had killed him with his own hand.

But Jim Templeton was of a different calibre. Although he had not been
told it, he realized that, indirectly, hunger was the cause of the crime
and might easily become the cause of another; for their tempers were
sharper even than their appetites. Upon this he played; upon this he made
an exhortation to the chief. He assumed that Arrowhead had become violent
because of his people's straits, that Arrowhead's heart yearned for his
people and would make sacrifice for them. Now, if Arrowhead came quietly,
he would see that supplies of food were sent at once, and that
arrangements were made to meet the misery of their situation. Therefore,
if Arrowhead came freely, he would have so much in his favor before his
judges; if he would not come quietly, then he must be brought by force;
and if they raised a hand to prevent it, then destruction would fall upon
all--all save the women and children. The law must be obeyed. They might
try to resist the law through him, but, if violence was shown, he would
first kill Arrowhead, and then destruction would descend like a wind out
of the north, darkness would swallow them, and their bones would cover the
plains.

As he ended his words a young brave sprang forward with hatchet raised.
Jim's revolver slipped down into his palm from his sleeve, and a bullet
caught the brave in the lifted arm. The hatchet dropped to the ground.

Then Jim's eyes blazed, and he turned a look of anger on the chief, his
face pale and hard, as h