st in time to see a great silvery-white shape leave the snow and
launch itself straight at him. He saw, in a flash, the red tongue and
the gleaming white fangs, and the huge white ruff, each hair of which
stuck straight out from the great body.

A single shrill shriek of mortal terror resounded through the forest,
followed by a dull thud, as man and wolf-dog struck the snow together.
And then--the silence of the barrens.

It was long past noon. The storm predicted by Black Moran had been
raging for hours, and for hours the little wizened man who had left the
cabin before dawn had been plodding at the head of his dogs. At
intervals of an hour or so he would stop and strain his eyes to pierce
the boiling white smother of snow that curtained the back-trail. Then he
would plod on, glancing to the right and to the left.

The over-burden of snow slipping from a spruce limb brushed his parka
and he shrieked aloud, for the feel of it was a feel of a heavy hand
upon his shoulder. Farther on he brought up trembling in every limb at
the fall of a wind-broken tree. The snapping of dead twigs as the spruce
wallowed to earth through the limbs of the surrounding trees sounded in
his ears like--the crackling of flames--flames that licked at the dry
logs of a--burning cabin. A dead limb cracked loudly and the man
crouched in fear. The sound was the sound of a pistol shot from
behind--from the direction of Black Moran.

"Why don't he come?" whispered the wizened man. "What did he send me
alone for? Thought I didn't have the nerve fer--fer--what he was goin'
to do. An' I ain't, neither. I wisht I had--but, I ain't." The man
shuddered: "It's done by this time, an'--why don't he come? What did I
throw in with him fer? I'm afraid of him. If he thought I stood in his
way he'd bump me off like he'd squ'sh a fly that was bitin' him. If I
thought I could git away with it, I'd hit out right now--but I'm afraid.
If he caught me--" The wizened man shuddered and babbled on, "An' if he
didn't, the Mounted would. An' if they didn't--" again he paused, and
glanced furtively into the bush. "They _is_ things in the woods that men
don't know! I've heered 'em--an' seen 'em, too. They _is_ ghosts! And
they _do_ ha'nt men down. They're white, an--it's beginnin' to git dark!
Why don't Moran come? I'd ruther have him, than _them_--an' now there's
another one of 'em--to raise out of the ashes of a fire! I'd ort to
camp, but if I keep a pluggin' along mebbe I