He smiled thoughtfully as he held his broiling stick over the flame. "I allowed myself to sleep soundly last night, feeling sure that Archie would accept the chance to escape."
As Dexter had expected, the boy's departing foot tracks were clearly defined in the wet earth, and after breakfast he packed up and started to follow. Alison seemed rather disquieted by his cool assurance, but she was ready to leave when he gave the word, and for the present, at least, she made no effort to delay him or to interfere with his plans.
The trail ran off in a generally northwest direction, leading through a scraggly patch of jack pines, across a grassy meadow, and thence through a winding defile that crawled upward at a sharp slant and came out at length on a barren slope of rock. The snow had almost disappeared during the last week, the few remaining white areas being found only in deep-wooded hollows and on the shady north hillsides. Where there was topsoil of loam, however, a forest-trained eye found little difficulty in tracing the imprints of feet that had gone ahead. But when he reached the granite outcrop, Dexter was brought suddenly to a halt.
The fugitive's boot soles were studded with hobnails, and there should have been a few faint scratches left here and there to indicate his direction of travel; but after a minute inspection of the ground about him, the corporal shook his head, and turned with a baffled frown to meet Alison's questioning gaze.
"I hardly gave Archie credit for being so smart," he remarked acidly. "I'll bet it was you who thought this out for him, and advised him to take off his boots if he struck rocks."
She faced him with her head slightly tilted, and there was mockery in the fleeting smile she gave him. But she kept discreetly silent, and neither admitted nor denied his accusation.
The corporal scrutinized her thoughtfully, with one eyebrow elevated; and then, lightly shrugging his shoulders, he moved onward to seek for the lost trail.
The bare surface of rock reached upward to the snow crests, and extended in a northerly direction around the curve of the steep mountainside. Archie might have climbed still higher, or circled across the pitch of the slope, or gradually worked his way downward to the forested valley below. Whichever course he had taken he must eventually pass beyond the rocks, and even if he kept on traveling in his stocking feet, he was certain to leave some trace of himself when he finally touched soft earth again. Dexter had only to swing around the circumference of the rock slope, and somewhere in moist soil or snow patch he was confident of picking up the broken line of foot tracks.
It meant a loss of time and effort to cast around an interrupted trail, but there was nothing else to be done, and the corporal gave no hint of annoyance as he pushed ahead.
A survey of the country told him that the easiest course of travel would be found along the valley bottoms. The fugitive would be anxious to make the fastest possible progress, and also he would instinctively dread the thought of exposing himself conspicuously on the barren mountain slopes. As soon as he imagined he had left a sufficient gap in his trail, he probably had quit the rock slope and struck downward into the concealing forest. This at least was the most probable supposition, so Dexter bent his steps down the hillside, and presently found himself in a deep, moist hollow, threading his way through dense timber.
He was striding along silently, his restless glance searching the ground before him, when all at once he stopped under a giant white fir that towered in solitary majesty above the tops of the neighboring spruce and pine. On the dark, seamy trunk of the ancient tree there showed a faint, weathered mark, like a wrinkle in the bark. Any other than a trained woodsman would have passed by unobserving. Alison apparently did not know why her companion had halted, even when she saw him bend forward to look at the old tree.
"What is it?" she asked as she read the eager curiosity in Dexter's face.
"Ancient trail blaze," he said. "All this is unmapped wilderness, yet somebody found the way through here before us—many years ago."
"Who? When?"
"I don't know. Some old-time explorer, perhaps. The tree probably has added many inches to its girth since that mark was entrusted to its keeping."
The girl moved forward to inspect the tiny line that was no more than a slight puckering of the bark. "You mean—that's a blaze—left there by somebody?"
Dexter nodded. "A fresh ax cut first glazes itself over with a film of pitch," he said. "Then the bark begins to draw itself together, and finally covers the wound. The annual rings of growth add their covering year by year, until the original scar is buried deep in the wood. In the end nothing is left to show what had happened, save a tiny wrinkle in the bark. But the mark itself is never lost, even if the tree should live for hundreds of years. Let's see."
He unbelted his keen bladed ax, and yielding the tool with his left hand, he began to chop into the sapwood, first above and then below the time-healed scar. In a few moments he was able to split out a long, thick slab; and with tense interest he leaned forward to see what might lie underneath.
"Look!" he exclaimed.
On the surface of white wood exposed, faint characters were discernible. He made out the carved tracery of a letter "W," and there were other lines that he could not quite decipher. For a moment he peered at the section of scribed wood, and then quietly nodded his head.
"I never heard of surveyors going through this part of the wilderness," he observed musingly, "yet this looks like a surveyor's line tree." He counted the growth rings, and looked with thoughtful eyes into the shadowy stillness beyond. "More than half a century ago some man passed through here and cut his blaze and left direction marks behind him," he said in a hushed voice. "The man probably is dead, and I don't suppose he ever knew that he had rendered a service to a later generation of the Canadian mounted."
"What do you mean?" asked the girl wonderingly.
"Let's look farther, and find out," Dexter temporized.
He moved forward again, walking slowly, and keeping sharp lookout about him: and two hundred yards farther on he halted with a smothered laugh to indicate a tall, thick-trunked spruce that stood amid a clump of smaller trees. "The blaze," he said, and pointed to an indented line in the rough bark.
Again he chopped out a block of wood, and presently reached an inner ring that bore dimly scratched characters similar to those found under the bark of the fir.
"Another 'W,'" Alison said with pursed lips, as she bent closer to look. "There's something else—I can't quite make out. What does it mean?"
"Some private mark, no doubt. It probably has no especial meaning now—after fifty years. But the important fact—these are line trees—undoubtedly."
"Yes?" she asked with a puzzled frown.
The corporal strode forward without answering, and presently showed his companion a third tree, the bark of which showed the seamed mark of an ancient blaze. His smile widened with satisfaction, and this time he did not halt. "The open road," he remarked: "I wish I could thank the old timer who stuck up the street signs."
"Where will they take us?" Alison asked with a dubious glance.
"To the lost pass, I hope. Nobody would have bothered to blaze a permanent trail, unless he knew where he was going. And the only place worth going from here would be the pass."
He walked a distance farther, and then suddenly checked himself and pointed to the ground. In the dark mold by a tiny rivulet of snow water, he showed her the clearly defined imprint of a nail-studded foot. "Your brother!" he remarked. "He came down from the rock slope, as I thought he might, and has put his boots back on. And now he's ahead of us, traveling our direction."
The girl looked askance at the tell-tale track. "It—you can't be sure it is his," was all she could think to say.
Dexter laughed. "I ought to know his boot marks after all the miles I've tramped with him. It's Archie."
He led the way forward again, walking as fast as he could through the dense timber. The rediscovered footprints soon turned away from the line of blazed trees, and he gathered that the fugitive had crossed the ancient trail by accident and was guiding his course by other landmarks. Dexter considered possibilities, and decided to place his trust in the old-time ax scars. He was confident that sooner or later he would be led to the mountain pass, and as he felt equally certain that Archie was making towards the same destination, it struck him as being foolish to stray from the clearly marked path to chase a faint foot-trail that might at any time leave him groping in the air.
All that day he and Alison labored onward through the silent wilderness, breaking their way through matted thickets, passing up long, dark glens that twisted aimlessly among the lower mountains, ascending steep hill slopes, climbing along the brink of cliffs where a misstep would have landed them into yawning gulfs below, crossing the scarp of saw-backed ridges, and finally attaining the edge of timberline under a thawing snow-field, whence they gazed afar through an open gap between the surrounding snow caps.
Dusk was approaching, but there was still light enough left to make out the dim, gray line of the northern horizon, distantly framed by the shadow of flanking mountain peaks. Dexter looked off from the heights, feeling the stir of the free north breeze, and nodded soberly to himself.
"The outlet!" he said at length. "The road is open from here, and the new country's beyond."
He moved forward again, across the slope of the look-out mountain, and presently struck descending ground, which he knew went down into the forested valley on the other side of the range. And before he had gone any distance he again discovered fresh marks in the earth to tell of hobnailed boots that had passed that way before him. Quietly he called Alison's attention. "Archie!" he said. "He used his own method, and evidently came around from a different direction; but he's also found the pass. He can't be so many hours ahead of us."
The girl cast an apprehensive glance into the twilight shadows, but her lips were closed, and when the corporal went on she followed mutely at his heels. He increased his stride, intending to travel as far as possible before darkness halted him, failing to remember that his companion's frailer strength might not be able to keep the pace he set. But he was aware presently that she was breathing quickly, stumbling along behind him. He turned questioningly.
"Tired?" he asked.
"We've been on our feet since early dawn," she reminded him.
Dexter regarded her in momentary suspicion. She would do anything to delay him, of course. On the other hand, there were drooping, pathetic lines about her mouth and eyes to tell him that she actually was on the verge of physical exhaustion. After reflection he decided that he might as well call a halt. It would soon be too dark to follow a trail, and besides, he felt rather done up himself. Morning would be soon enough to continue his journey.
In their path stood a great, dead spruce, rearing its barkless white column stark and ghostly in the gathering twilight. The corporal built his evening fire in the shelter of the giant tree, and after he and his companion had eaten supper, the blankets were spread on either side of the mighty trunk; and Dexter, for his part, sank instantly to sleep.
He was even more wearied than he had imagined, and he lay in quiet slumber, his ears deaf to the familiar forest sounds: the stirring of the north breeze in the pines, the far-flung screech of a snowy owl, the scurry of tiny feet in the brush, the babble of rivulets trickling down the mountainsides. A wolf howled somewhere in the distance, but there was nothing in the long-drawn note to alarm his senses, and he slept on as serenely as though he were bunking in the guarded barracks at Crooked Forks. The hours of darkness slipped by without his knowledge; but at length, some time before approaching dawn, he turned under his blanket with a startled movement, and opened his eyes, instantly wakeful, to stare about him.
There was no disturbing sound, and as he gazed up blankly at the starlit sky, he could not help wondering why the alarm clock of his mind had aroused him at this particular instant. Far down on the south-western horizon he made out the bright star Spica in the constellation of Virgo. By the position of the star he knew it was nearly seven in the morning.
For some unaccountable reason, a feeling of uneasiness took possession of him, and he turned on his side to glance across the hollow where the fire had been burning. And then he sat bolt upright, to stare in the darkness. Alison was gone.
Dexter scrambled to his feet, and crossed over to pick up the girl's discarded blanket. The woolen covering had been cast aside in a heap, and was wet with the morning dew. He inferred that she had left some while before. It had not occurred to him that she might break her pledged word, and he had not thought it necessary to keep an eye on her. But now he could not escape the fact that his confidence had been misplaced. She had stolen away in the night, just as her brother had done.
The corporal stood motionless, peering grimly into the all-shrouding darkness. The breeze had died, and the night-prowling creatures no longer stirred abroad in the forest. Utter silence had shut down upon the earth. Dexter looked towards the north, knowing it must be that direction that the girl had fled. By this time, no doubt she was hurrying through the lower pass, miles away.
He was on the point of gathering up his pack, intending to strike down the slope in pursuit, when all at once he stopped breathing and threw up his head with a jerk to listen. A whisper of sound reached him through the hush of darkness, and his startled ears identified the faint tones of a human voice.
It was a queer, disembodied voice, a tiny fluttering in the air, like ventriloquial speech, coming seemingly from infinite distances, without any point of direction. Small and unreal as it sounded, actual words came floating to him.
"Help!" said the ghostly cry. "David! Help!"
Dexter searched about him with wide bewildered eyes. A deep, lifeless hush brooded once more over the forest, and he saw nothing anywhere but the still shadows of trees. His woodsman's instinct assured him that no human being lurked within hailing distance. Yet he could not doubt the testimony of his own senses. He had heard the thin, far call; a muffled, impalpable voice, that was the voice of Alison Rayne.
As he waited with bated breath, the murmur of sound again flickered through space—microscopic syllables of speech, apparently sent from nowhere. "Cabin—lower pass—help!" He made out the words distinctly, and in spite of reason, he knew that he could not be mistaken. Alison Rayne was calling him from somewhere, needing him for some reason, and as though his mind were attuned telepathically to hers, he heard.
He did not stop to wonder what it all might mean. On occasions before this he had observed the effects of strange phenomena at work in the wilderness, and by now he would not allow himself to be surprised at anything that might happen. He knew only that he had received a mysterious appeal for help, and if Alison wanted him, he would go the world over to find her.
Luckily the directions were clear. The voice had mentioned a cabin in the lower pass. How far it might be, he did not know, but he had already puzzled his way through the mountains, and was confident that he would have no difficulty in locating the mouth of the valley beyond. And if there were a cabin along the route, he could not miss it. He did not linger even to pack his traveling equipment, but started forward as fast as darkness and difficult ground permitted.
The mountain slope tumbled downward at a sharp slant, and he pushed blindly on through obscurity, feeling his way among the trees, crashing recklessly through briary patches, stumbling and sometimes falling over unseen obstacles in his path. How he traversed that length of dangerous hillside, without broken bones, he could not have said. But the luck of the mounted was with him, and when dawn finally overtook him, he had gained the bottom levels and found safer ground opening before him.
He found himself in a wild, steep-walled gulley, where a mountain torrent rushed and swirled among ugly bowlders. Fed from the distant heights by melting snows, the stream had already flooded level with the high spring marks, and the water still appeared to be rising. The upper embankment shelved above the surface of the rapids and he struck a slippery pathway that enabled him to follow along with the current.
For four or five miles he descended through the cut, and then the walls of the ravine began to widen, and at length he reached an open stretch of valley land, where a second stream came plunging out of a forking gulch to join the creek that had led him from the heights. He halted briefly to peer ahead through the morning mist.
Before him lay a strip of rising ground—a wooded hummock that, in ordinary stages of the water, would have been accessible from the embankment on which he stood. But the branching creeks had overflown their banks and the flood washed around the spit of land forming a small, triangular-shaped island. As he gazed across the swollen current, he discerned the dim outline of a log cabin, half hidden among the trees.
Dexter stared across the stream with narrowing eyes. This was the lower pass, and before him stood the cabin that the voice had told him he would find. No sound reached him above the noise of the rapids, and no movement was visible through the smoky haze of the dawn. Nevertheless, it must be here that he had been summoned by the cry for help, and there was nothing to do but investigate.
He glanced dubiously at the swift-running stream that cut him off from the isolated shore. It was fifty feet or more across the main channel, and the water boiled and eddied dangerously among sharp, slippery rocks. Swimming in such water was out of the question. In places the stream appeared to be almost shallow enough for fording but if a man happened to be swept off his feet nothing could save him from the rapids, and death among the rocks. Realizing the chance he was taking, the corporal hesitated only long enough to settle upon the safest place of crossing. He chose the spot where the current ran whitest, knowing that there he would find the shoalest water; and without removing his boots, or making any sort of preparation, he stepped into the water and started to wade out from shore.
The bank dropped away at a steep slant, and almost before he knew it he had plunged waist-deep in the icy stream. The current pulled and tugged at his legs and body, but he dug in his toes, leaned his full weight against the seething tide, and slowly and laboriously made his way forward. The gravel bottom sloped gradually downward, and by the time he had fought his way to the middle channel the water was gurgling above his armpits. At this stage of his journey, fortunately, a series of bowlders offered him a precarious anchorage, and he managed to work his way from one to another, until at last he could plant his feet once more. The rest of the trip across was only a question of holding his balance between each cautious step, and he soon stumbled into shallow water and clambered out on the shore of the island.
For a moment he stood in the lee of a hazel thicket, shivering with the cold, peering towards the cabin that loomed in the shadows not twenty paces beyond him. He had come up on the rear of the place, and the door, presumably, opened on the farther side. There were two windows in the wall that fronted his direction, but both were barricaded tight with heavy shutters. No sign of smoke came from the clay-daubed chimney. Judging by appearances, there was nobody about the premises. Nevertheless, he moved with caution when he finally went forward.
Circling the clearing on tiptoe, he passed around the corner of the cabin, and halted suddenly with a quick-drawn breath. Before the shut door, almost within arm's reach, crouched a bulky human figure.
Instinctively the corporal's hand slid into his pocket, and came out again, gripping the small pistol that had served him on another occasion. The sound of the rapids had smothered his footfalls, and his presence so far was undiscovered. The intruder's back was turned to him, and he saw only a bulging pink neck and a fat, gross body belted in a Mackinaw coat. For several seconds Dexter held his position, looking on with keenest interest. The thick-waisted stranger held a hunting knife gripped in his hands, and was hacking and sawing away at the planks of the battened front door. He had chipped a hole through the heavy slabs, and was now engaged in enlarging the aperture. It would appear that he was trying to cut an opening big enough to reach the inner latch-bar.
Dexter watched in silence for a space, and then quietly interrupted the work. "My hand isn't quite as pudgy as yours," he remarked. "Maybe mine'll go through."
The man's fingers opened with a jerk, his knife fell to the ground, and he whirled with a choking gasp to stare behind him.
Dexter smiled as he observed the reddish, flabby face that had turned his direction. The man was the outlaw, "Pink" Crill.
For an interval of ten seconds Crill stood like a man turned to putty, his mouth sagging as though it had suddenly lost muscular support, his babyish complexion changing to a sickly grayish hue. "Where—what the—?" he started to mutter, and then somehow failed to find the words to finish.
"You're wondering how I got here?" inquired the corporal politely. "I merely followed down through the pass. I didn't die under that fallen tree, as you probably supposed."
"What are you doing here?" the officer pursued as Crill continued speechless. "Locked yourself out, or something? What's inside that makes it worth so much trouble to reach the bar?
"Find out for myself if you're tongue-tied," he added after a moment of straining silence. With revolver in hand he moved forward and kicked the door panel with his heavy boot. "Hello!" he called out. "Anybody in there?"
As he paused to listen he caught a creaking sound within, light footsteps approached the threshold, and a faint, frightened voice spoke through the door. "Oh—who is it?" some one asked breathlessly.
It was a woman—Alison Rayne: and his eyes grew thoughtful as he recognized her voice. She had called to him, and the far cry in some wondrous manner had reached him when he stood at the head of the pass, miles away. A miracle had been wrought, and he could not guess its manner of accomplishment. He did not try, but turned to Crill with a direful glance.
"So—you were trying to cut your way through the door!" he said harshly. His fingers unconsciously tightened upon the butt of his gun, but after measuring the man up and down, he swung around to the cabin entrance. "Alison!" he called. "It's I—Dexter."
"Oh, thanks—thanks!" he heard the girl say in a half sobbing voice; then the bar was thrown up, the door opened, and Alison stumbled forward to meet him.
He looked searchingly into the blue eyes that lifted to his. "What happened?" he asked.
"This man!" she said with a shudder. "I barred myself inside, and he—he's been trying to cut his way through the door—working for hours with his knife blade. He—he's a beast!"
The corporal favored Crill with a saturnine stare. "Well, he'll have something else to think about from now on," he remarked grimly. "There's a beam and a rope and a trap waiting for him in the Cook County jail yard."
"I ain't there yet," said the outlaw, with a throaty effort of speech.
Dexter ignored the man, and glanced again at Alison. "Why did you leave me?" he asked. "I trusted your word, you know."
She faced him with level gaze. "My word is good," she said quietly. "I had every intention of coming back."
"Then what—"
"My brother, of course," she interrupted. "I didn't think he could be far ahead of us, and I knew he'd have to stop for the night. I was afraid he might not get started early enough this morning, so I came on ahead, hoping that I might find him at this cabin. I meant to warn him to hurry on before you could overtake him."
"So it was only pretense last night—you're being too tired to travel."
"I was very tired," she said, "but—well, I admit I was able to go a little farther—after you were asleep."
Dexter could not help smiling at her frankness. "And you found your brother here at this cabin?"
"No. I thought he'd be here, but I guess he didn't stop. He must have hurried on in the night."
"To catch up with Stark, I suppose?"
She shook her head. "I don't know anything about Stark," she told him.
The corporal turned to Crill. "Where are your friends?" he asked.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" said the other with a sullen leer.
"I imagine that I do know," replied the officer placidly. "Probably not far ahead. You came back over the trail, I presume—after something you'd forgotten. And found Miss Rayne here. However it doesn't matter why you came. You're here. That's all I'm interested in knowing."
He eyed the outlaw somberly, wondering at the fact that he had risked a night abroad without a weapon. "What became of your rifle?" he inquired.
"Lost it in that cursed creek," was the reply. "Had to grab a rock when I was wading across, and the gun slipped from my hand. If it hadn't been for that, you wouldn't be standing there now asking me questions."
Dexter shrugged his shoulders lightly. "Let's go inside and cook bacon and coffee," he suggested. "I don't imagine any of us has had breakfast."
He stood warily aside and motioned towards the doorway, and after an instant's hesitation, the outlaw stepped forward and passed into the cabin. Dexter followed at his heels, and shut the door behind him.
There was but one room in the place—a solid walled chamber with a fireplace and built-in bunk, and three or four pieces of rude furniture scattered about. A packing box in the center of the floor apparently served as a table. Above it, from a ceiling beam, hung a lighted lantern. The corporal glanced swiftly about him and saw that the structure did not differ in any essential from the two cabins in the valley on the southern side of the pass. There were cooking utensils, a shelf full of provisions, and plenty of cut firewood. Evidently the place was one of a line of way stations intended for the accommodation of Stark's transient guests.
Dexter indicated a slab stool in the corner, and told Crill to sit down. He dropped the revolver into the side pocket of his jacket where it might be easily reached. "I won't hesitate to kill you," he said quietly. He eyed the outlaw's huge shoulders and big, ham-like hands, and knew that without the use of his right arm he could not hope to last two seconds in a physical encounter. "You stay your distance, always," he pursued. "The dead line is five feet and if you come nearer than that to me at any time, I'm going to let you have it."
Having delivered himself of his warning, he turned casually aside, laid kindling in the hearth, and built a fire. He ransacked a cupboard, helped himself to such provisions as he found there, and started breakfast for three people. Then, while the coffee pot was simmering, he stood as close as he dared to the fire, drying his dripping clothes.
Alison had come forward to toast the bacon, and he found a chance to talk to her, without being overheard by Crill.
"I heard your call for help," he told her. "The place was seven or eight miles from here. How was it done?"
"I may have cried out," she said. "I—I was terribly frightened when I realized that this man was cutting through the door to reach the latch."
"I heard your voice—recognized it," he persisted. "It was as though it had carried to me on the breeze from a great distance. And you spoke my name." He eyed her keenly. "How did you make me hear?"
Her glance shifted, and she refused to meet his gaze. "It could have been just your imagination," she said after a little pause. "I—I was in great trouble, and it could be that by a—some strange occult way my thoughts and fears were carried to you. Queer things like that have happened—things that none of us can understand." Her eyes softened as she lifted them fleetingly to his face. "But whatever it was you heard or fancied you heard, you came to me. I shall never forget that."
He regarded her tensely for a moment, and shook his head. Whatever the mystery of the far-off voice, she had no intention of confiding the truth to him. After all, he was her enemy, and he could expect no help from her in solving riddles. And from previous experience he knew how futile it was to cross-question her when she had made up her mind to keep silent. He smiled lightly. "All right," he said. "It's evident that Stark and his guests have some uncanny method of projecting voices through the wilderness. And you're wise not to tip yourselves off to the police. But whatever the system is, I'm glad at least that I heard, and got here in time."
The breakfast preparations were finished in silence, and while the girl put plates on the packing box table, he poured the coffee and served the grilled bacon strips, Crill was motioned to a place at the table opposite Dexter, and he sat down sullenly to eat.
"How did you reach this island?" the corporal was reminded to ask Alison as she pulled up a chair at his left hand.
"Why, I waded across," she said in apparent surprise. "It wasn't deep."
Dexter looked up from his plate with a start. "How deep?" he demanded.
"Not up to my knees."
"When did you reach here?" he asked sharply.
"Early in the morning. Several hours before you came."
The corporal suddenly pushed his stool back from the table and stood up. "Come with me, Crill," he commanded. "I want you where I can keep an eye on you." He pointed towards the doorway. The outlaw stared at him from under lowering brows, but after a sharp exchange of glances, the man got up reluctantly and moved across the room.
Dexter forced his prisoner to precede him outside the cabin, and together they walked down through the timber to the edge of the rapids. The corporal looked across the rushing, tumbling surface of the stream, and his worst fear was realized. The water had risen at least half a foot since he had crossed. Presumably an ice jam had broken somewhere in the mountains, and the flood was released. Some of the bowlders he had clung to now had disappeared from sight. He had barely managed to force the passage when he came from the opposite bank, and the few added inches of depth made the return impossible. He and Alison and Crill were marooned on the island, and it might be many days before the stream subsided sufficiently for them to dare the return trip. Meanwhile, it was a certainty that Stark and the others of his gang would soon be returning to look for the missing Crill.
Before the disconcerting discovery that he was trapped on the island, Dexter had already framed his tentative plans for the future. The capture of the Chicago outlaw at such a time had left him in a rather embarrassing situation. The man was too important a prisoner to take any chance on his escape. But to keep him in custody meant constant danger. Stark was not a person to let a belt full of gold slip through his fingers, and he undoubtedly would scour the woods to find its wearer.
Dexter had decided to play safe. It would be suicidal to push on northward where he was almost certain to encounter members of Stark's crowd; so he had made up his mind to turn back through the valley he had just quitted, make his way out through the southern gateway, and escort his two prisoners to Fort Dauntless. It was entirely possible that he might meet a party of re-enforcing police somewhere on the way. In any event he had discovered the route through the north pass, and after he had delivered Alison and Crill into safekeeping he could have returned with comrades to renew the hunt. Stark probably would continue his operations, and in some way or another the old trail could have been picked up.
But it was too late now to adopt the wiser course. There was nothing to be done but to sit still to wait until the stream might be forded again. And if Crill's companions put in their expected appearance, the corporal must fight them single-handed, with a thousand to one chance against his winning.
Dexter's face was an unreadable mask as he surveyed the turbulent waters, but Crill evidently understood the situation as well as he did. The outlaw exhibited his yellow teeth in a grin of saturnine gloating.
"Got yourself in a hole that you won't get out of alive," he remarked. "My gang'll be here after me, you bet, and when they come there'll be one less cop on the royal police force."
"The cops of the mounted do drop out at intervals," admitted the corporal calmly. "But there's always a new one to fill up the ranks. So that's all right." He smiled almost genially. "Meanwhile I advise you to step very carefully. Come on. We'll go back."
The three island castaways spent a long and tedious day in the cabin between the thundering rapids. Dexter found a few old dog-eared magazines that helped him beguile the dragging hours, but he was forced to do his reading in broken snatches, with one eye watching Crill or shifting restlessly towards the open door, through which he could see along the farther bank of the water-course.
The outlaw for his part did everything he could to keep his captor's nerves on edge. He had opened a window shutter, and found himself a seat on a bench under the sill. Part of the time he stared off downstream with an air of grim expectancy, as though he were confident that his friends would soon appear. At other moments he would swing around to fix Dexter with venomous, unwinking eyes. At intervals he would spring up from his stool and peer out the window, pretending that he had caught sight of some one approaching through the forest; only to sit down again with a mocking, throaty laugh when the corporal also lifted his head to look. Twice he lurched to his feet and started truculently across the room, moved apparently by a sudden savage impulse to hurl himself upon his captor. On one such occasion he advanced so near that the officer dropped the magazine he was reading and reached for his revolver. Whereupon Crill's face relaxed in an evil smirk, and he swaggered back to the bench to renew his vigil at the window.
Dexter would have liked to put an end to the man's antics by tying him hand and foot; but he could not hope to accomplish the job with only one serviceable arm. If Crill once laid hands on him he unquestionably would be crushed and beaten down by sheer bulk and weight of flesh. His only dependence were the three cartridges left in Alison Rayne's revolver, and the outlaw well knew that he would not fire, except in an extreme emergency.
The officer could have called on Alison to help him, and because of her fear of the murderer she probably would have consented; but the girl was also his prisoner, and it was a matter of pride and honor with him not to seek favors where duty forbade him to grant favors in return. So he made the best of matters by keeping his temper and patience, and maintaining unceasing vigilance.
For Alison the day passed with less monotony. The mere fact of being under a roof again served to awaken feminine instincts of orderliness, and she spent the entire afternoon cleaning the dirty and untidy cabin. She swept the floor, dusted the larder shelves, and scrubbed and scoured all the cooking utensils she could find about the place. Later she baked a pan of biscuits, and contrived an amazingly appetizing pudding, made of corn meal and dried apples and molasses, with bear fat for shortening.
That evening Dexter sat down to the first civilized dinner he had tasted in months; and when he finally finished, he got up with a guilty knowledge of having over-eaten. He was a bit alarmed to discover that he had grown very drowsy. To sleep soundly with Crill in the cabin meant to invite death, so he took the precaution of brewing an extra pot of strong coffee to drink before he turned in for the night.
There was only one bunk in the cabin, and this was allotted to Alison. Crill was ordered to spread his blankets before the fireplace, while Dexter made his bed by the opposite wall, where he could guard the front door. Before he retired he took a charred stick from the hearth and drew a half circle around the section of floor assigned to the outlaw.
"Your deadline," he remarked with somber emphasis. "If you stir beyond that mark I'll shoot you down without asking a question. Good night."
Through the long hours of darkness Dexter was permitted but little rest. At times he dozed off, but with every faint creak of sound about the cabin his hand reached automatically towards his revolver and he sat up, wide awake and staring, expecting any moment to see a crouching bulk stealing upon him from the shadow of the hearth. Three times during the night he left the cabin to circle the little island and to gaze up and down the moonlit shore across the way. On each of these occasions he forced Crill to get up and accompany him, and while the man muttered and grumbled over the indignity of being kept awake, he obeyed. Morning arrived at last, and although the outlaw had not yet ventured to make any hostile move, Dexter was fagged by his long vigil, and he knew that flesh and blood could not endure many more such nights.
Except for the fact that time seemed to drag more slowly, the second day was a repetition of the first. The corporal grew heavy-eyed as the hours passed, and by mid-afternoon he would have sold the tunic off his back for a thirty minutes' nap. He drank enormous quantities of coffee, and with Crill as his companion, went outdoors at frequent intervals to tramp doggedly up and down the banks of the rising stream, forcing himself to stay awake.
Alison alone had obtained her full night's rest, and she awakened fresh and clear-eyed, to resume her self-imposed duties about the cabin. She prepared the meals and washed the dishes, and smilingly, but stubbornly, refused to let any one help. When dinner was ready that evening she insisted on her companions sitting down ahead of her, while she waited on table.
"You make me feel like a scoundrel," Dexter protested as she forcibly pushed him to his stool and placed a steaming plate before him. "I don't just see why you're called upon to be the maid of all work."
She laughed pleasantly, and leaned lightly against his shoulder to put his coffee cup on the table. "It saves one from going crazy," she explained—"having something to keep the hands and mind occupied. I'm really glad to do it, and I don't want anybody bothering me."
Before the officer could say anything further, she moved away and bent in seeming absorption over a kettle she had left bubbling in the fireplace. A look of gentleness stole momentarily into Dexter's gray eyes, and without thinking what he was doing, he half turned on his stool to watch the slim, boyish figure bending before the hearth. For the instant he forgot that Crill was seated on the other side of the table, almost within arm's reach. His glance was tracing the graceful curve of the girl's throat and chin, shadowed in the ruddy glow of the fire, when some guarding sentinel of the brain gave him warning.
With a startled breath he whirled about, just in time to see Crill rise from his seat and fling himself across the table.
Dexter caught a glimpse of an evil, bloated face and two slits of eyes, glaring with ugly purpose. The table was overturned with a crash, and Crill lunged forward, reaching with his ponderous hands.
The corporal felt murderous fingers at his throat, but in the fraction of an instant vouchsafed him he twisted away, threw himself backwards and fell from his stool. He caught his weight on his left hand, and then, before his heavier assailant could drop upon him, he sprang to his feet, and a cat-like leap carried him back to the cabin wall.
Even as he dodged across the room, Dexter's hand had gone to his jacket pocket. If the man still came on, he must shoot him down. His fingers started to close upon the butt of his revolver, and found nothing to take hold of. A limp, helpless feeling came over him as he waited at bay, with his shoulders backed against the wall. His weapon was not in his pocket.
At times before this the corporal had faced death without a tremor of fear. Now, as he looked into the malignant face, hideous and bestial, looming before him in the shadow of the fireplace, he felt loathing and disgust, but he was not afraid. Crill outweighed him by nearly a hundred pounds; he was crippled, unarmed, defenseless. Yet as he felt the logs behind him, and knew there was no further retreat, the beat of his pulse grew slow and regular and an icy calmness gripped him.
His hand was still in his pocket, and he kept it there. "Stop!" he said in a low, chilling voice.
The outlaw checked himself in mid-stride, and as though drawn by hypnotic force, his glance wavered and focussed itself upon the pocket of the corporal's jacket. He balanced on his feet for an instant with tensely drawn muscles, torn between the madness to kill and the craven dread of taking a chance.
"Back!" commanded Dexter, his hand gripped rigidly in his lifted pocket.
For the length of a breath the murderer hesitated; a shifty, furtive look crept into his squinting eyes; his hands closed and opened again, and his arms fell slowly against his sides; and then, with a hoarse sound in his throat, his gross body relaxed, and he half stumbled backwards on his heel.
A hot thrill of exultance surged through Dexter's veins as he realized that he had won; but his voice remained frigid and the expression of his face did not change. "Pick up that table!" he ordered.
A sullen red color surged up over Crill's neck and ears, and his lips drew apart in a wolfish snarl; but something in Dexter's glance schooled him to silence. Without a word he turned on his heel, slouched back across the room, stooped over the table, and turned it back on its four legs.
"All right!" said Dexter, the note of triumph erased from his speech. "Also the dishes, if you don't mind!"
Knowing now that the man would obey him, he turned aside and sauntered across the floor to confront Alison. And it needed but a glance at her frightened, guilty face to tell him what had become of his revolver. He recalled now how she had leaned against him when she gave him his cup of coffee. As he remembered, he had the gun a few minutes before when he sat down at the table. She must have made the opportunity deliberately, and extracted the revolver from his pocket without his knowledge.
He scrutinized her for a moment in grim questioning, wondering what her purpose might have been. Was it her intention to strip him of his only means of defense, and leave him at the mercy of his enemies? The supposition was unthinkable, and with his first glimpse of Alison's eyes he dismissed it as an unworthy and horrible thought. There were two other possibilities: either she wanted the revolver for her own protection, or else she had taken it to get rid of evidence that might some day be used against her.
He knew that she must have the gun concealed about her person, but he dared not try to get it back again, or ask her why she had taken it. His life was an insurable risk only as long as Crill might be kept in ignorance of the truth.
"Your boarders owe you an apology," he remarked with a sardonic smile. "It isn't polite to be jumping up and down from the dinner table. But we'll both try to behave ourselves in the future." Alison was crouching by the fireplace with a smoking skillet in her hand, staring at the corporal with wide, awe-stricken eyes. She had seen him coerce a madman by sheer force of nerve, and the swift frustration of tragedy had left her breathless and trembling.
"If you don't mind," resumed Dexter in faint mockery, "we'll go on with the next course. The loss of the first is irreparable, but we'll try to forget it."
"I—there's enough left in the pot—I can fill your plates again," the girl stammered, and he knew that she had no sense of what she was saying.
The corporal nodded quietly, crossed the room and took his place at the table, opposite the glowering Crill. Alison came forward in trepidation to remove the empty plates; and for the present at least, the incident was closed.
Dexter returned to his dinner with unaffected appetite, quite as though nothing had happened; and when he had finished he pushed back his stool and invited his sulky companion to go outside with him for a walk.
The branching creek still rushed in swollen torrents around the little island, boiling and roaring among the rocks, carrying masses of ice and gyrating tree trunks along with the currents. The flood ran level with the high-water mark of the afternoon, and apparently the spring rise had reached its highest stage. From now on the water probably would gradually recede, but Dexter knew by previous experience with wilderness freshets, it might take two or three days longer before he could expect to recross the ford. He scanned the length of turbulent rapids, and shook his head. If Stark's party failed to show up in the meanwhile, and if he could force himself to stay awake for two more days and nights, he might escape from the island. But at that moment the prospects were not cheering.
When he went back to the cabin, he ordered Crill to retire into his marked circle before the fireplace. "I'm not going to stand for any more foolishness," he remarked with an assurance he was far from feeling. "That's your spot, and I advise you to stay in it."
Alison had already crept into her bunk. Her soft hair was tumbled over her face, and her head lay pillowed on her extended arm. She seemed to be asleep. Dexter looked down at her, and his lips quivered into a wistful, tender smile. For a moment he stood motionless in the concealing shadow by the bunk, and then, with a slow-drawn breath he tiptoed across the floor to dim the light of the lantern. A brief inspection of the inner premises assured him that the door and window shutters were fastened, and he retreated to his own corner of the room to take up his second night's vigil.
The fear that he might go to sleep had grown like a haunting specter in his mind. He knew that if he once allowed himself to drop off, he would sink into a deep slumber, from which there would be no awakening. Afraid to lie down, he planted himself on a stool, leaned his head and shoulders against the wall, and made himself as comfortable as he dared.
So he spent the night, listening as in an evil dream to the mutter of the rapids outside, nodding and dozing, but arousing himself each time he felt the muscles of his body begin to sag; conning over all the fragments of verse he could remember, doing sums in mental arithmetic; somehow forcing his reluctant brain to keep on functioning. He managed to watch out the night, but dawn found him slumping on his stool, haggard and hollow-eyed, knowing that he could not stick it out for many hours more.
By the exertion of all his will power, he managed to hold his leaden eyes open through the interminable hours of daylight. The forking waters had begun to fall, inch by inch. The channel, however, was still too deep for wading. By morning, perhaps, he might venture the crossing. He had not quite decided what he would do if he succeeded in reaching the open shore opposite, but his common sense advised him to let Crill escape. At least he could then creep off in hiding and sleep. Even if he lost a day or two it would not be too late to take up the trail again. But for the present he was in the situation of the trapper who caught the grizzly by the tail. He had his prisoner captive, and he couldn't let go.
The prospect of fighting off sleep through another night appalled him. Coffee had lost the power to stimulate his nerves, and he found himself moving about in a sort of daze, obsessed by the fear that he might doze off, even while he stood on his feet. He had read and re-read all the magazines in the cabin, and out of desperation that evening he sought about him for something to occupy his mind. On the back of one of the shelves he discovered a greasy pack of playing cards. He riffled the deck under his thumb, and cast a speculative glance towards Crill.
"Ever play any cards?" he inquired.
The outlaw looked over his shoulder with a twisted grin. "Sure," he said—"when they make it interesting. But no piker stuff!"
"What do you call piker stuff?"
"Slipping 'em off for dimes." Crill fixed the officer with his beady glance. "How much you got on you?"
Dexter shook his head depreciatingly. Money was of no use to a man in the wilderness, and when he had ridden out from Crooked Forks on long patrol, nearly a year ago, he carried in his pocket only a few dollars in cash that had been left from his last August's pay.
He produced two small bills, and at sight of the numerals Crill laughed raucously. "You don't think I'm going to fool around any with crockery marbles, do you?" he jeered. He started to turn away, but checked himself instantly, and faced the corporal with a sobered expression. "At that," he added, "you've got something I could use," he added. "If you want to get away from the little boy stuff, maybe we can talk."
"Yes?" said the corporal, a little puzzled. "What have I got?"
"Me!"
"What?"
"You get me." Crill's thick lips parted in a crafty smile. "I got three thousand in gold in my belt, and ten coarse notes that bring the total to fifteen grand. That's something for you to shoot at. And all you got to put up is something that don't cost you anything."
"Let's get this straight," said Dexter, his eyes narrowing. "You wish to play cards with me, you putting up money, I staking—your freedom?"
"You said it," replied the other tensely. "You got it quick."
"Just how would such a game be played?" asked Dexter in a smooth, milky tone.
"Poker—Jacks—the draw to fill—and a show-down." The outlaw drew a breath of kindling excitement. "Five hundred bucks at a smash—you swearing to let me go if you lose. If you win you've got some velvet to go on. And we keep going until you break me or I break you. Simple?"
"Quite!" Dexter stood for a moment in meditative silence. He had already decided to let his prisoner go, if he ever got the chance. So whether he should win or lose in this game of strangely matched stakes, the police were out nothing. There was no point of honor involved. The main consideration was the game itself. There ought to be enough interest in such an encounter to keep him awake, and no matter what the cost, he must not sleep to-night.
"If I should agree to release you," he said after a pause, "the promise goes only that far. I would give you only a day's start, and then I go after you again."
"A day's start is enough for me to shake any cop," returned Crill with a sneer.
"Another thing," pursued the corporal quietly: "If we play, we play fair. I want you to be entirely satisfied—as I know you wish me to be—that fortune alone governs the turn. An impartial third person deals the cards."
"Eh?" The outlaw looked up with an ugly scowl. "Who, for instance?"
"Miss Rayne, I'm sure, wouldn't mind dealing for each of us in turn."
Crill shifted his lowering glance from Dexter to the girl and his scowl changed gradually to an oily smirk. "All right, lady, you do it," he said. He snapped his fingers, devil-may-care. "Let's go!" he invited.
While the two men were settling the business at hand, Alison had stood by in silence, looking curiously from one to the other, a little bewildered, and also a little frightened by the singular turn of events. But as Dexter faced her, her head went up resolutely, and she mutely questioned him with her eyes.
"If you don't mind?" he asked with a smile.
"Why, no, not if you wish it," she replied.
"Please," he said. He placed a third stool at the table and laid the pack of cards before her. Then he coolly turned up the wick of the hanging lantern, so that the full light fell on the center of the board. Crill settled his bulk on a stool facing the fireplace, and Dexter slipped casually into the seat opposite.
The girl picked up the deck, and her slim hands were not quite steady as she started to shuffle the cards. "Ready?" she asked in a stifled voice.
"Let 'em go, lady," said the outlaw, and Dexter's fist clenched as he caught the leering glance across the table.
"Five apiece, isn't it?" Alison inquired without looking up.
"Five," the corporal said—"and one at a time."
Awkwardly she dealt from the pack, and waited with parted lips while the two men reached for their cards. Crill left his cards face down on the table, and warily bent up the corners to examine the pips. Dexter raked his hand towards him, gazed openly at the spots, and nodded.
"I have them," he remarked, and dropped two cards in front of him. "Draw three, please."
"One!" muttered Crill. "Throw 'em face up."
The overweighted silence was broken only by the soft, silky sound of cards slipping off the pack. A three of spades, a ten of clubs and a queen of hearts fell to the corporal's allotment, and with a quiet movement he turned over a pair of queens. "Threes," he announced.
Crill stared at a nine of spades that Alison had dropped in front of him, and sucked in his lips with an audible sound. "Just missed a flush," he said, and laughed disagreeably. "They're all pink but that one. First blood for you."
"Pay me," said Dexter.
"You get yours, all right," returned the outlaw between set teeth. He stirred heavily on his stool, opened his coat, and unbuckled a sagging chamois belt, which he deposited with a thump on the table. He unbuttoned one of the belt pockets and brought out a fistful of twenty-dollar gold pieces. Twenty-five of these were counted out in a stack and ungraciously shoved at the officer. "There!" he growled. "Let's see how long you hang on to 'em!"
Alison's flexible fingers again shuffled the deck, and with more self-possession now, she again distributed the cards. This time Crill announced openers, and after discarding and filling his hand, he sat back with an expression of smug contentment. "Three bullets!" he declared, and his huge hand started across the table towards the pile of gold he had just lost.
"One moment," interrupted the corporal pleasantly, as he exhibited his hand. "The queens are standing by me for some reason. There are three of them again, and a pair of deuces to back them up."
Crill's pink complexion turned a mottled red, and he snorted angrily through his nostrils; but there was no gainsaying the evidence of defeat. In ominous silence he reached into his belt and counted up another glinting pile of double eagles. "Go to it!" he said morosely.
For six hands running Dexter won, and the chamois belt was beginning to take on a limp and depleted appearance when his luck finally turned against him. He lost three pots, gained one, forfeited four more, and at length was reduced to his original stake.
"Let 'em go!" said the outlaw in unlovely gloating as he leaned his broad elbows over the heap of gold he had raked back to his side of the table.
Alison glanced sidewise at the corporal, and he thought he saw a tinge of anxiety in her glowing eyes. "If you please," he invited serenely.
She riffled the pack, and slowly and deliberately passed out the cards. Then she straightened on her stool and waited without breathing while the two players consulted fortune's sending.
"Jacks up," asserted the officer after the draw, as he spread his cards fan-shape under the flickering lantern rays.
"Beats tens and sixes," admitted Crill, gulping in his fleshy throat.
Dexter took the next pot and the next, was beaten twice, and then started on a winning streak that eventually stripped the outlaw of his last gold piece. But when the yellow treasury notes were forced out on the table, the break came, and the corporal's three thousand of winnings dribbled gradually away until he had nothing left to stake but his pledged word to free his prisoner if the next turn of the game fell against him.
But the hazard of the last chance switched in his favor. He piled up his winnings to formidable proportions once more, again dropped back to nothing but a promise, and again started accumulating gold pieces. So the game went on through the hushed hours of the night, see-sawing first one direction and then the other, with neither player gaining a final advantage, until along towards the approach of daylight, when the luck of the game swung definitely to Dexter's side of the table, and thereafter remained with him.
The first glimmering of dawn found the three strangely assembled companions still seated in a tense circle under a dim, sputtering lantern, watching the fall of cards on the greasy table top. The corporal had unbuttoned his tunic at the throat, and he had slumped down on his stool, his legs stretched at full length, and his lean jaw resting on his hand. His face looked gaunt and haggard in the yellow light, but his wide-open eyes were keen and watchful, glinting with feverish brightness. All desire to sleep had left him. On the table at his elbow was stacked three thousand dollars in gold coin, and a bundle of crisp treasury notes representing thirteen thousand more. Crill was down to his last bill.
The murderer's face was not pleasant to look upon. His thick, bloodless lips had drawn apart, baring his teeth in a poisonous misshapen smile. The flat nostrils were pinched in at the corners by muscular constriction, forcing him to breathe through his mouth, and the skin seemed to have stretched tighter across his bloated face, accentuating the white, bony hollows of the temples. The eyes that looked out between puckered rolls of flesh gleamed with ominous fixity, like hard black beads, never winking, never losing the malevolence and hatred that dwelt in their frozen depths.
Dexter, by accident, thrust out his leg too far and touched the murderer's ankle, and he jerked back his foot with shuddering haste. "I'm five hundred in that note," he said after a chilling silence. "If I win this time, it's the end."
The outlaw's tongue licked across his sagging lips, but he had no voice to reply.
"Any time you're ready, Miss Rayne," said the corporal.
A spot of bright color tinged the girl's cheeks, but otherwise she gave no sign of excitement. She twisted up the sleeve of her frayed white sweater, and then her slim hands manipulated the deck. Carefully and precisely, she slipped off the cards, until five lay on the table before each player. Then, laying the remaining pack beside her, she sat back to watch.
Dexter scooped up his cards with his left hand, thumbed them apart, and dropped one from among its companions. "Open," he said mildly. "I'm filling with the top one."
The outlaw gingerly bent the corners of his cards, and leaned forward with a stealthy movement to peer under his wrist. "Three!" he said at length in a thickly muffled voice.
Alison dealt the cards, one to Dexter, three to Crill, and dropped the deck with a gesture of finality. For a fleeting instant her glance shifted to the corporal's face, and a ghost of a smile hovered about her lips.
Dexter's stern features relaxed slightly in response, and he flopped his cards over on their backs. "I had 'em to start," he drawled—"nothing except treys and deuces."
Without a word Crill peeled up the edges of the three grimy pasteboards before him, and then, in an ungovernable fit of rage, he swept his arm across the table and sent the deck flying. For a moment he sat scowling in silence, and then he dropped his fat hands before him and stumbled drunkenly to his feet.
"I suppose you think you've broken me!" he rasped out, with a horrible effort to control his speech.
Dexter likewise stood up. He stacked the yellow backs in a neat pile, folded them lengthwise, and slipped the packet into the inside pocket of his tunic. Then he began thrusting chinking handfuls of gold into the receptacle of the chamois belt.
"You have the same chance of keeping that stuff as I have of turning into a preacher," said Crill, his face distorted in a hideous sneer.
The corporal looked up from under one lifted eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?" he inquired.
"Do you think Stark and his gang are going to let you get away with that? It's mine, but it also belongs to them." The murderer showed his teeth in a venomous grin. "Stark and his bunch are going to be here before you can get away. Or if they should happen to miss you, they'll hound you down through the woods until you croak on the trail. You didn't think Stark was going to let anybody cop fifteen thousand out of his fingers, did you?"
Dexter finished stowing away the gold pieces, and deliberately fastened the pocket flaps. "I can't manage with one hand," he said casually to Alison. "Will you help me buckle this belt around my waist?"
As the girl moved forward to give assistance, he turned abruptly to Crill. "You had some such mental reservation when you sat down to play?" he asked. "You knew if I won I wouldn't be allowed to keep my winnings? In other words, you were counting on Stark from the beginning?"
"I hope to tell you I was! Do I look crazy to you? I wasn't playing to lose anything."
"I only wanted to know," said the corporal. "I had a notion that I might return your money to you—in good season. I don't want it—wouldn't touch it. Wouldn't soil my hands. I'd about made up my mind to give it back to you, but that speech of yours has changed things." His teeth fastened in his lip as he fixed the outlaw with scornful regard. "I'll tell you what I've decided to do with it now—having won it fairly," he ended. "I'm going down to the rapids and dump it overboard."
Crill started as though he had received a blow in the face. "What?" he gasped. "Fifteen thousand—your money—fifteen thousand dollars? Why, you wouldn't—"
"To thwart Stark," returned the corporal serenely, "of course I would."
"But—" Crill drew a sobbing breath, and the madness of terror suddenly flared into his eyes. "It's the money—Stark—I'd never get out of these woods alive without the money to pay. He'd leave me to die, or kill me."
"Of course," agreed Dexter, nodding his head.
Crill stared at him for a single, incredulous instant, and wilted like a punctured balloon. "Oh, no!" he faltered, choking. He groped his way back to the table and his hands reached out in fawning appeal. "Please, Corporal Dexter! You don't—you don't know Stark—"
His voice broke in an agonized whisper, but before he could go on with his pleading, another voice interrupted from the farther side of the room.
"My ears are burning. I must have heard my own name." The words cut sharp and incisive, like rifle shots, from the front of the cabin.
Dexter and Crill and Alison swung around as though they had been jerked by a string, and they remained like three statues, staring towards the open doorway.
Framed in the early morning twilight, suave and smiling, stood Owen Stark.