s David Nicol has located your post, and he's right on his way there
now--for murder. There's----"

"On his way there now?" Marcel broke in sharply, fiercely. "How? How
d'you mean? He's located--Who's--this David Nicol? God! An-ina alone!
Tell me! Tell me quick. An-ina, my second mother, she's alone at the
post. A woman! God in heaven! Tell me quick."

The change was supreme. No tone the girl had used could compare with the
force of Marcel's demand. There was no laugh on his lips now, no smile
in his eyes. A deadly fear, such as Keeko had never beheld in them
before, had taken possession of them. He was stirred to the depths of
his very soul.

Keeko's reply came at once.

"Yes. Nicol's the man I believed my step-father. He's a murderer. He's
the man who sent my mother to her grave before I made home last summer.
He's the man who Lorson Harris is going to hand a hundred thousand
dollars for the murder of your outfit, and to steal your trade. He's the
man who asked me to share with him the price of his crime, and would
have held me prisoner to obey his will if I hadn't just had the means
right there to help myself. Oh, my dear, my dear. I'm scared. I'm scared
to death now for the folks you love. That's why I struck out on a chance
for this old moose head, with my boys and dogs. I hoped, I prayed--oh,
God, how I prayed!--that I could get around and find you, and hand you
warning."

Marcel was no longer seated. He was standing, his great height towering
over the girl who was gazing up at him with tears of emotion shining in
her pretty eyes. He did not realize them. He was no longer thinking of
her. He was no longer thinking of his love, and the happiness that was
so newly born. His thought was far back over the trail of ice and snow
over which he had so recently passed. He was contemplating a dusky face
with eyes of velvet softness, carrying out her patient labours for the
men she loved. He was contemplating the stealing approach of the
would-be murderer. He saw in fancy the dawn of horror in the mother
woman's eyes as she awoke to realization----

Suddenly he flung out his clenched fists in a gesture of superlative
determination and threat.

"Say!" he cried, his eyes hot with a fire such as Keeko had never
thought to see in them. "It's two hundred miles of hell's own territory
with the thaw coming. I'm going right back--now. I'm going just as quick
as I can load my outfit. She's alone--do you get it? An-ina! She ra