where in my
make-up there's a streak of such as you!" Again a moment of silence, in
which the elder man felt the blue eyes of the younger piercing him
through and through. "If I thought there was a trace, or the suggestion
of a trace, before God, I'd kill you and myself, and I'd do it now!" The
speaker scanned the prostrate figure from head to foot, and back again.
"And do it now," he repeated.

Silence fell; and in it, though he dared not look, coward Tom Blair
fancied he heard a movement, imagined the other man about to put the
threat into execution.

"No, no!" he pleaded. "People are different--different as day and night.
You belong to your mother's kind, and she was good and pure." Every
trace of the man's nerve was gone. But one instinct was active--to
placate this relentless being, his captor. He fairly grovelled. "I swear
she was pure. I swear it!"

Without speaking a word, Ben turned. Going back to his snow-blind, he
packed his blanket and camp kit swiftly and strapped them to his
shoulders. Returning, he gathered the things he had found upon the
other's person--the rifle, the revolvers, the sheath-knife--into a pile;
then deliberately, one against the other, he broke them until they were
useless. Only the blanket he preserved, tossing it down by the side of
the prostrate figure.

"Tom Blair," he said, no indication now that he had ever been nearer to
the other than a stranger, "Tom Blair, I've got a few things to say to
you, and if you're wise you'll listen carefully, for I sha'n't repeat
them. You're going with me, and you're going free; but if you try to
escape, or cause me trouble, as sure as I'm alive this minute I'll strip
off every stitch of clothing you wear and leave you where I catch you
though the snow be up to your waist."

Slowly he reached over and untied first the feet then the hands. "Get
up," he ordered.

Tom Blair arose, stretched himself stiffly.

"Take that," Ben indicated the blanket, "and go ahead straight for the
river."

The bearded man obeyed. To have secured his freedom he could not have
done otherwise.

For ten minutes they moved ahead, only the crunching snow breaking the
stillness.

"Trot!" said Ben.

"I can't."

"Trot!" There was no misunderstanding the tone.

In single file they jogged ahead, reached the river, and descended to
the level surface of its bed.

"Keep to the middle, and go straight ahead."

On they went--jog, jog, jog.

Of a sudden from under co