dead hero than a live captive in the
hands of Kurt's dear friends across the pole.

Without warning, Ross threw his body to the left, striving to pin Kurt
against the driver's side of the cabin, his hands clawing at the fur
ruff bordering the other's hood, trying for a throat hold. Perhaps it
was Kurt's over-confidence which betrayed him and left him open to a
surprise attack. He struggled hard to bring up his arm, but both his
weight and Ross's held him tight. Ross caught at his wrist, noticing a
gleam of metal.

They threshed about, the bulkiness of the fur clothing hampering them.
Ross wondered fleetingly why the other had not made sure of him earlier.
As it was he fought with all his vigor to keep Kurt immobile, to try and
knock him out with a lucky blow.

In the end Kurt aided in his own defeat. When Ross relaxed somewhat, the
other pushed against him, only to have Ross flinch to one side. Kurt
could not stop himself, and his head cracked against the wheel of the
cat. He went limp.

Ross made the most of the next few moments. He brought his belt from
under his parka, twisting it around Kurt's wrists with no gentleness.
Then he wriggled about, changing places with the unconscious man.

He had no idea of where to go, but he was sure he was going to get
away--at the cat's top speed--from that point. And with that in mind and
only a limited knowledge of how to manage the machine, Ross started up
and turned in a wide circle until he was sure the cat was headed in the
opposite direction.

The light which had guided them was still on. Would reversing its
process take him back to the base? Lost in the immensity of the cold
wilderness, he made the only choice possible and gunned the cat again.

CHAPTER 4

Once again Ross sat waiting for others to decide his future. He was as
outwardly composed as he had been in Judge Rawle's chambers, but
inwardly he was far more apprehensive. Out in the wilderness of the
polar night he had had no chance for escape. Heading away from Kurt's
rendezvous, Ross had run straight into the search party from the base,
had seen in action that mechanical hound that Kurt had said they would
put on the fugitives' trail--the thing which would have gone on hunting
them until its metal rusted into powder. Kurt's boasted immunity to that
tracker had not been as good as he had believed, though it had won them
a start.

Ross did not know just how much it might count in his favor that he h