w he takes second place. The reason's beyond
me."

His friend's mind jumped at a conclusion. "I reckon I know why he's
followin' the straight and narrow path. The guide's got a line round
his waist and West's tied to it."

"Why?"

The sun's rays, reflected from the snow in a blinding, brilliant
glare, smote Morse full in the eyes. For days the white fields had
been very trying to the sight. There had been moments when black spots
had flickered before him, when red-hot sand had been flung against his
eyeballs if he could judge by the burning sensation.

He knew now, in a flash, what was wrong with West.

To Beresford he told it in two words.

The constable slapped his thigh. "Of course. That's the answer."

Night fell, the fugitives still not in sight. The country was so rough
that they might be within a mile or two and yet not be seen.

"Better camp, I reckon," Morse suggested.

"Yes. Here. We'll come up with them to-morrow."

They were treated that evening to an indescribably brilliant
pyrotechnic display in the heavens. An aurora flashed across the sky
such as neither of them had ever seen before. The vault was aglow with
waves of red, violet, and purple that danced and whirled, with fickle,
inconstant flashes of gold and green and yellow bars. A radiant
incandescence of great power lit the arch and flooded it with light
that poured through the cathedral windows of the Most High.

At daybreak they were up. Quickly they breakfasted and loaded. The
trail they followed was before noon a rotten one, due to a sudden rise
in the temperature, but it still bore south steadily.

They reached the camp where West and his guide had spent the night.
Another chapter of the long story of the trail was written here. The
sled and the guide had gone on south, but West had not been with them.
His webs went wandering off at an angle, hesitant and uncertain.
Sometimes they doubled across the track he had already made.

Beresford was breaking trail. His hand shot straight out. In the
distance there was a tiny black speck in the waste of white. It moved.

Even yet the men who had come to bring the law into the Lone Lands did
not relax their vigilance. They knew West's crafty, cunning mind.
This might be a ruse to trap them. When they left the sled and moved
forward, it was with rules ready. The hunters stalked their prey as
they would have done a musk ox. Slowly, noiselessly, they approached.

The figure was that of a huge