g, but he was determined to fight for Spurling's life,
and, if that were necessary, for his own revenge.

"And you have not seen Spurling go by the Point?" asked Strangeways.

"No." He said it quite ordinarily, as if he were answering a
commonplace. Then he realised that he had been caught in a trap and
had not manifested enough surprise. He slowly raised up his eyes,
shame-facedly, like a schoolboy detected cribbing, when the master
steals up behind.

"I'm afraid, after all, that you are not a gentleman," was all that
Strangeways said.

Granger shrank back and flushed as if he had been struck across the
face; he did not attempt to defend himself or expostulate. The wind
had died down outside; it was evident that the storm had spent itself.
In the silence which followed he could hear the padding steps of the
huskies going round the house, and the sound of them sniffing about
the door. Strangeways, who had been fastening on his snowshoes
preparatory to departure, walked across the room and raised the latch.
He stepped out, leaving the door open behind him. A bar of moonlight
leapt instantly inside, as it had been a fugitive who had been kept
long waiting. Then he heard the voice of Strangeways calling,
"Granger, Granger."

He rose up hurriedly, thinking that perhaps Spurling had been driven
back by the blizzard and was returning to his danger. When he reached
the threshold he saw only this--the moon tossing restlessly in a
cloudy sky, shining above a shadowy land of white; Strangeways
standing twenty paces distant with his back towards him; and, seated
on their haunches between Strangeways and the threshold, five lank
grey huskies, one of which had a patch of brindled-brown upon its
right hindquarters and a yellow face.

CHAPTER VII

THE CORPORAL SETS OUT

It would have been easy to shoot Strangeways at that time, and he must
have known it; yet, he was so much a gentleman that he accepted the
risk, and had the decency to turn his back when circumstances
compelled him to give a man the lie. Granger wondered whether courtesy
was the motive; or whether he was only testing him out of curiosity,
to see of what fresh vulgarity of deceit he was capable.

As he stood in the doorway, his gaze wandered from the broad shoulders
of Corporal Strangeways, late stroke of the 'Varsity Eight, to the
treacherous eyes of the gaunt grey beast before him which, by reason
of its unusual markings and untimely appearance, ha