blazed with a dark fire. One of her hands caught
his arm and her fingers pinched his flesh. He stared dumbly for a
moment at the strange transformation in her. He almost believed that
she wanted to fight--that she was ready to rush out shoulder to
shoulder with him against their enemies. Scarcely had the cry fallen
from her lips when she turned and ran swiftly into her room. It seemed
to Philip that she was not gone ten seconds. When she returned she
thrust into his hand a revolver.

It was a toy affair. The weight and size of the weapon told him that
before he broke it and looked at the caliber. It was a "stocking" gun
as they called those things in the service, fully loaded with .22
caliber shots and good for a possible partridge at fifteen or twenty
paces. Under other conditions it would have furnished him with
considerable amusement. But the present was not yesterday or the day
before. It was a moment of grim necessity--and the tiny weapon gave him
the satisfaction of knowing that he was not entirely helpless against
the javelins. It would shoot as far as the stockade, and it might
topple a man over if he hit him just right. Anyway, it would make a
noise.

A noise! The grin that had come into his face died out suddenly as he
looked at Celie. He wondered if to her had come the thought that now
flashed upon him--if it was that thought that had made her place the
revolver in his hand. The blaze of excitement in her wonderful eyes
almost told him that it was. With Bram gone, the Eskimos believed she
was alone and at their mercy as soon as the wolves were out of the way.
Two or three shots from the revolver--and Philip's appearance in the
corral--would shake their confidence. It would at least warn them that
Celie was not alone, and that her protector was armed. For that reason
Philip thanked the Lord that a "stocking" gun had a bark like the
explosion of a toy cannon even if its bite was like that of an insect.

Cautiously he took another look at Bram's wolves. The last javelin had
transfixed another of their number and the animal was dragging itself
toward the center of the corral. The remaining seven were a dozen yards
on the other side of the gate now, leaping and snarling at the
stockade, and he knew that the next attack would come from there. He
sprang to the door. Celie was only a step behind him as he ran out, and
was close at his side when he peered around the end of the cabin.

"They must not see you," he