to judicious pressure. It was fortunate that Bertram
Challoner was coming to England, where he could more easily be reached.
This led Clarke to think of Blake, for he realized that Challoner was
right in pointing out that the man was his greatest difficulty. If
Blake maintained that the fault was his, nothing could be done; it was
therefore desirable that he should be kept out of the way. There was
another person to whom the same applied. Clarke had preyed on Benson's
weakness; but if the fellow had overcome it and should return to farm
industriously, his exploitation would no longer be possible. On the
other hand, if he failed to pay off his debts, Clarke saw how he could
with much advantage seize his possessions. Thus both Blake and Benson
were obstacles; and now that they had ventured into the icy North it
would be better if they did not reappear.

Clarke refilled his pipe, and his face wore a sinister look as he took
down a rather sketchy map of the wilds beyond the prairie belt. After
studying it keenly, he sank into an attitude of concentrated thought.
The stove crackled, its pipe glowing red; driving snow lashed the
shiplap walls; and the wind moaned drearily about the house. Its
occupant, however, was oblivious to his surroundings. He sat very
still in his chair, with pouches under his fixed eyes and his lips set
tight. He looked malignant and dangerous. Perhaps his mental attitude
was not quite normal; for close study and severe physical toil, coupled
with free indulgence, had weakened him; there were drugs to which he
was addicted; and he had long been possessed by one fixed idea. By
degrees it had become a mania; and he would stick at nothing that might
help him to carry out his purpose.

When at last he got up, with a shiver, to throw wood into the stove, he
thought he saw how his object could be secured.

A month before Clarke spent the evening thinking about them, Blake and
his comrades camped at sunset in a belt of small spruces near the edge
of the open waste that runs back to the Polar Sea. They were worn and
hungry, for the shortage of provisions had been a constant trouble, and
such supplies as they obtained from Indians, who seldom had much to
spare, soon ran out. Once or twice they had feasted royally after
shooting a big bull moose, but the frozen meat they were able to carry
did not last long, and again they were threatened with starvation.

It was a calm evening, with a coppery