in'? Thought we
wouldn't know Constable Morgan, of the Mounted, did you? You was some
big noise on the Yukon, couple years back, wasn't you? Most always goin'
it alone an' makin' grandstand plays. Thought you was some stuff, didn't
you?" The man paused for breath, and Connie scrutinized his face, but
could not remember to have seen him before. He shifted his glance to the
other, who had returned to the edge of the bunk, and was regarding him
with a sneering smirk.

"Hello, Mr. Squigg," he said, in a voice under perfect control. "Still
up to your old crookedness, are you? It's a wonder to me they've let you
live this long."

The big man interrupted. "Know him, do you? But you don't know me. Well,
I'll tell you who I be, and I guess you'll know what yer up against. I'm
Black Moran!"

"Black Moran!" cried the boy. "Why, Black Moran was----"

[Illustration: "As he stepped through the doorway he was seized
violently from behind."

Drawn by Frank E. Schoonover]

"Was drounded when he tried to shoot them Pelly Rapids about three
jumps ahead of the police boat, was he? Well, that's what they said but
he wasn't, by a long sight. When the canoe smashed I went under all
right but the current throw'd me into a eddy, an' when the police boat
went down through the chute I was hangin' by my fingers to a rock. The
floater they found later in the lower river an' said was me, was someone
else--but I didn't take the trouble to set 'em right--not by a jug full,
I didn't. It suited me to a T."

"So you're the specimen that murdered old man Kinney for his dust
and----"

"Yup, I'm the party. An' they's a heft of other stuff they've got
charged up agin me--over on the Yukon side. But they ain't huntin' me,
'cause they think I'm dead." There was a cold glitter in the man's eye
and his voice took on a taunting note. "Still playin' a lone hand, eh?
Well, it got you at last, didn't it? Guess you've saw the handwritin' on
the wall by this time. You ain't a-goin' no place from here. You've
played yer string out. This here country ain't the Yukon. They ain't
nobody, nor nothin' here to prevent a man's doin' just what he wants to.
The barrens don't tell no tales. Yer smart, all right--an' you've got
the guts--that's why we ain't a-goin' to take no chances. By tomorrow
night it'll be snowin'. An' when the storm lets up, they won't be no
cabin here--just a heap of ashes in under the snow--an' you'll be part
of the ashes."

Connie had been i