t
ambush, lay crouched the hidden death. And if he should die, whose
fault would that be? Granger was man enough to answer, "The fault
would be mine. I told him untruth till he could not believe me when I
spoke the truth which would save his life."

Now that he was left solitary again, he resumed that old habit of
lonely men of arguing with himself. Between each hurrying stride, he
panted out within his brain his unspoken words, his thoughts gasping
one behind the other as if his very mind was out of breath. Why had
Spurling come back? Why hadn't he killed all ten huskies outright, and
so prevented Strangeways from pursuing farther until the break-up of
the ice? He would have gained a month by that. His deed bore about it
signs of the ineffectual cunning of the maniac; it had been only worth
the doing if carried out bitterly to the end. Yet Spurling had not
gone mad; he was too careful of his life and future happiness to
permit himself to do that. Then he must have done it for a threat,
hoping by the daring and grim humour of his brutality to strike terror
into Strangeways and warn him back. Perhaps this was only one of many
such experiences which had occurred all along the trail from Selkirk,
and the pursuer had recognised both the motive and the challenge.
Well, if you're compelled to play the game of life-taking, you may as
well keep your temper, and set about it sportsmanly with a jest. Even
in this horrid revelation of character there was some of the old
Spurling left.

Then his thoughts turned to Strangeways. He wondered, had he lied or
told the truth when he asserted that the body was not Mordaunt's which
was found at Forty-Mile? He hoped for the best, but he doubted. His
manner had been against it, and so had Spurling's; they had both been
keeping something back. Perhaps he had lied out of jealousy, because
he could not endure to think that this girl, for whom he had been
searching, who now was dead, had been loved by another man--and not a
worthy man either, but one whom he despised.

(Granger knew that he also would have felt like that. The mere denial
of such a fact would have seemed somehow to reserve her more entirely
for himself.)

He had not been able to bear the thought that, now that she was beyond
reach of all men's search, her memory should be shared with him by
another man with an equal quality of affection--it had seemed to him
like her hand stretched out from the grave to strip him of the few