sat down again to wear out the hours of darkness.

The problem that pressed on him could no longer be evaded. A stark
decision lay before him. To postpone it was to choose one of the
alternatives. He knew now, almost beyond any possibility of doubt,
that either West must die or else he and his friend. If he had not
snatched himself awake so promptly an hour ago, Win and he would
already be dead men. It might be that the constable was going to die,
anyhow, but he had a right to his chance of life.

On the other hand there was one rigid rule of the North-West Mounted.
The Force prided itself on living up to it literally. When a man
was sent out to get a prisoner, _he brought him in alive_. It was
a tradition. The Mounted did not choose the easy way of killing
lawbreakers because of the difficulty of capturing them. They walked
through danger, usually with aplomb, got their man, and brought him
in.

That was what Beresford had done with Pierre Poulette after the
Frenchman had killed Buckskin Jerry. He had followed the man for
months, captured him, lived with him alone for a fourth of a year in
the deep snows, and brought him back to punishment. It was easy enough
to plead that this situation was a wholly different one. Pierre
Poulette was no such dangerous wild beast as Bully West. Win did not
have with him a companion wounded almost to death who had to be nursed
back to health, one struck down by the prisoner treacherously. There
was just a fighting chance for the officers to get back to Desolation
if West was eliminated from the equation. Tom knew he would have a
man's work cut out for him to win through--without the handicap of the
prisoner.

Deep in his heart he believed that it was West's life or theirs. It
wasn't humanly possible, in addition to all the other difficulties
that pressed on him, to guard this murderer and bring him back for
punishment. There was no alternative, it seemed to Tom. Thinking could
not change the conditions. It might be sooner, it might be later, but
under existing circumstances the desperado would find his chance to
attack, _if he were alive to take it_.

The fellow's life was forfeit. As soon as he was turned over to the
State, it would be exacted of him. Since his assault on Beresford,
surely he had lost all claim to consideration as a human being.

Just now there were only three men in the world so far as they were
concerned. These three constituted society. Beresford, his mind s