hatic. "He was sitting on his porch
again this morning, half asleep, and says that after a great deal of
thought he has come to the definite opinion that he can do nothing for
you. He read your note and burned it with a match. He asked me to tell
you that the scheme he had in mind was too risky--for him. He says he
won't come up again. And--"

The missioner was rubbing his brown, knotted hands together raspingly.

"Go on," said Kent a little thickly.

"He has also sent Inspector Kedsty the same word," finished Father
Layonne. "His word to Kedsty is that he can see no fighting chance for
you, and that it is useless effort on his part to put up a defense for
you. Jimmy!" His hand touched Kent's arm gently.

Kent's face was white. He faced the window, and for a space he did not
see. Then with pencil and paper he wrote again to Fingers.

It was late in the afternoon before Father Layonne returned with an
answer. Again it was verbal. Fingers had read his note and had burned
it with a match. He was particular that the last scrap of it was turned
into ash, the missioner said. And he had nothing to say to Kent that he
had not previously said. He simply could not go on with their plans.
And he requested Kent not to write to him again. He was sorry, but that
was his definite stand in the matter.

Even then Kent could not bring himself to believe. All the rest of the
day he tried to put himself in Fingers' brain, but his old trick of
losing his personality in that of another failed him this time. He
could find no reason for the sudden change in Fingers, unless it was
what Fingers had frankly confessed to Father Layonne--fear. The
influence of mind, in this instance, had failed in its assault upon a
mass of matter. Fingers' nerve had gone back on him.

The fifth day Kent rose from his cot with hope still not quite dead in
his heart. But that day passed and the sixth, and the missioner brought
word that Fingers was the old Dirty Fingers again, sitting from morning
till night on his porch.

On the seventh day came the final crash to Kent's hopes. Kedsty's
program had changed. He, Kent, was to start for Edmonton the following
morning under charge of Pelly and a special constable!

After this Kent felt a strange change come over him. Years seemed to
multiply themselves in his body. His mind, beaten back, no longer
continued in its old channels of thought. The thing pressed upon him
now as fatalistic. Fingers had failed him. F