alf an hour after his
arrival at Tatpan's camp. Stampede, declaring himself a new man after
his brief rest and the meal which followed it, would not listen to
Alan's advice that he follow later, when he was more refreshed.

A fierce and reminiscent gleam smoldered in the little gun-fighter's
eyes as he watched Alan during the first half-hour leg of their race
through the foothills to the tundras. Alan did not observe it, or the
grimness that had settled in the face behind him. His own mind was
undergoing an upheaval of conjecture and wild questioning. That Rossland
had discovered Mary Standish was not dead was the least astonishing
factor in the new development. The information might easily have
reached him through Sandy McCormick or his wife Ellen. The astonishing
thing was that he had in some mysterious way picked up the trail of her
flight a thousand miles northward, and the still more amazing fact that
he had dared to follow her and reveal himself openly at his range. His
heart pumped hard, for he knew Rossland must be directly under
Graham's orders.

Then came the resolution to take Stampede into his confidence and to
reveal all that had happened on the day of his departure for the
mountains. He proceeded to do this without equivocation or hesitancy,
for there now pressed upon him a grim anticipation of impending events
ahead of them.

Stampede betrayed no astonishment at the other's disclosures. The
smoldering fire remained in his eyes, the immobility of his face
unchanged. Only when Alan repeated, in his own words, Mary Standish's
confession of love at Nawadlook's door did the fighting lines soften
about his comrade's eyes and mouth.

Stampede's lips responded with an oddly quizzical smile. "I knew that a
long time ago," he said. "I guessed it that first night of storm in the
coach up to Chitina. I knew it for certain before we left Tanana. She
didn't tell me, but I wasn't blind. It was the note that puzzled and
frightened me--the note she stuffed in her slipper. And Rossland told
me, before I left, that going for you was a wild-goose chase, as he
intended to take Mrs. John Graham back with him immediately."

"And you left her alone after _that_?"

Stampede shrugged his shoulders as he valiantly kept up with Alan's
suddenly quickened pace.

"She insisted. Said it meant life and death for her. And she looked it.
White as paper after her talk with Rossland. Besides--"

"What?"

"Sokwenna won't sleep unt