s passing, and the rivers were starting to flood. The feathered
world might wing to greet the new-born season. It might darken the sky
with its legions. Such things had no power to stir his pulses, any more
than had the thought of the great triumph he had achieved over the
desperate Arctic elements, if all was not well with--Marcel.

This was his haunting fear. He was thinking of Marcel--and this white
girl, Keeko. Even when he had listened to the delighted tones of An-ina,
as she told him the story which she had obtained from the boy's own
lips, his fears had been stirred. The woman's delight had been the
simple delight of a woman in such romance. That side of it had left him
cold. He knew the Northern world, his world, too well. He knew the type
of woman that haunted the habitations of man in such regions as Unaga.
And so he had feared for Marcel.

Since that time had happened those things which warned him of a
wide-flung conspiracy of which his secret trade in Adresol was the
centre. Oh, yes, it had needed but one flash of inspiration to warn him
of this thing, and his concern was that this beautiful white woman,
Keeko, was a link in the chain of the conspiracy with which he was
surrounded.

He saw the hand of Lorson Harris in it, guiding, prompting, from that
office he knew so well in Seal Bay.

Hervey Garstaing was his tool. There could be no doubt as to that to
which the man had sunk. It was the simple logic of such a career as his.
A man reduced to haunting Mallard's in his endeavour to escape the law
must inevitably sink lower and lower. Garstaing was a Northern man.
Sooner or later the Northern wilderness would claim him. The next step
would be the embrace of Lorson Harris. No man "on the crook" north of
60 deg. could escape that. Then--? But there was no need to look further in
that direction.

But this girl, or woman, this Keeko--her very name suggested to him the
vampire creatures haunting the muddy shores of Seal Bay--had discovered
Marcel last summer. Marcel, a boy. A boy in years--a child in mind. She
would be beautiful. Oh, yes, Lorson Harris would see to that. She would
be possessed of every art and wile of the women of her trade. It would
be too pitifully easy. She must have returned to her headquarters with
the secret he had held so long hidden. And then the coming of the
murderer to complete the task Lorson Harris had set.

Now Marcel had gone again to meet this Delilah. He had returned to her