s blowing the Pacific outa bed, an' you haven't hit the trail
with her all the way from Chitina to the Range as I did. If you'd done
that, Alan, you'd feel like killing a man who said anything
against her."

"I'm not inquiring into your personal affairs," reminded Alan. "It's
your own business."

"That's the trouble," protested Stampede. "It's not my business. It's
yours. If I'd guessed the truth before we hit the Range, everything
would have been different. I'd have rid myself of her some way. But I
didn't find out what she was until this evening, when I returned Keok's
music machine to their cabin. I've been trying to make up my mind what
to do ever since. If she was only making her get-away from the States, a
pickpocket, a coiner, somebody's bunco pigeon chased by the
police--almost anything--we could forgive her. Even if she'd shot up
somebody--" He made a gesture of despair. "But she didn't. She's worse
than that!"

He leaned a little nearer to Alan.

"She's one of John Graham's tools sent up here to sneak and spy on you,"
he finished desperately. "I'm sorry--but I've got the proof."

His hand crept over the top of the table; slowly the closed palm opened,
and when he drew it back, a crumpled paper lay between them. "Found it
on the floor when I took the phonograph back," he explained. "It was
twisted up hard. Don't know why I unrolled it. Just chance."

He waited until Alan had read the few words on the bit of paper,
watching closely the slight tensing of the other's face. After a moment
Alan dropped the paper, rose to his feet, and went to the window. There
was no longer a light in the cabin where Mary Standish had been accepted
as a guest. Stampede, too, had risen from his seat. He saw the sudden
and almost imperceptible shrug of Alan's shoulders.

It was Alan who spoke, after a half-mixture of silence. "Rather a
missing link, isn't it? Adds up a number of things fairly well. And I'm
grateful to you, Stampede. Almost--you didn't tell me."

"Almost," admitted Stampede.

"And I wouldn't have blamed you. She's that kind--the kind that makes
you feel anything said against her is a lie. And I'm going to believe
that paper is a lie--until tomorrow. Will you take a message to Tautuk
and Amuk Toolik when you go out? I'm having breakfast at seven. Tell
them to come to my cabin with their reports and records at eight. Later
I'm going up into the foothills to look over the herds."

Stampede nodded. It was a goo