suddenly Connie remembered the mirage with the blazing plague flag in
the sky.

"Yes," he answered, reverently, "I guess maybe He did."

That night the wind came, the aurora flashed and hissed in the heavens,
and early in the morning when Connie opened the door the air was alive
with the keen tang of the North. Hastily he made up his pack for the
trail. Most of the grub he left behind, and when the woman protested he
laughed, and lied nobly, in that he told her that they had far too much
grub for their needs. While 'Merican Joe looked solemnly on and said
nothing.

With the blessing of the woman ringing in their ears they started on the
trail of Rene Bossuet. When they were out of sight of the cabin, the
Indian halted and looked straight into the boy's eyes.

"We have one day's grub, for a three-day's trail if we hit straight for
Fort Norman," he announced. "Why then do we follow this man's trail? He
has done nothing to us! Why do you always take upon yourself the
troubles of others?"

"Where would _you_ have been if I didn't?" flashed the boy angrily. "And
where would the trapper have been and that woman and little baby? When I
first struck Alaska I was just a little kid with torn clothes and only
eight dollars and I thought I didn't have a friend in the world. And
then, at Anvik, I found that every one of the big men of the North was
my friend! And ever since that time I have been trying to pay back the
debt I owe the men of the North--and I'll keep on trying till I die!"

With a shrug 'Merican Joe started his dogs and took up the trail. Two
hours later Connie took the lead, and pointed to the tracks in the snow.
"He's slowing up," he exclaimed. "If we don't strike his camp within a
half an hour, we'll strike--something else!"

A few minutes later both halted abruptly. Before them was a wide place
in the snow that had been trampled by many feet--the soft padded feet of
the wolf pack. A toboggan, with its pack still securely lashed, stood at
the end of Rene Bossuet's trail. Small scraps of leather showed where
the dogs had been torn from the harness. Connie closed his eyes and
pictured to himself what had happened there, in the night, in the sound
of the roaring wind, and in the changing lights of the brilliantly
flashing aurora. Then he opened his eyes and stepped out into the
trampled space and gazed thoughtfully down upon the few scattered bits
that lay strewn about upon the snow--a grinning skull, deeply g