you lay your
traps once your quarry's on the run."

Hellbeam nodded.

"That's good sense."

"Sure it is," retorted the agent. "I'm glad you see it that way," he
added with a smile under which the financier grew restive once more.

"Yes. Well, see you get him. Money? It doesn't matter. Get him! Get
him!" he reiterated fiercely. "You understand me? It doesn't matter how
you get him. I can deal with the rest."

Suddenly he raised a clenched fist, fat, and strong, and white, and
extended his thumb. He turned it downwards and pressed its extremity on
the gold mounted blotting pad before him with a force that bent the
knuckle backwards. "Get him so I can crush him--like that," he cried.
"Get him alive. I want him alive. See?"

"I see. I'll get him--sure. You needn't worry a thing."

And as Walter Idepski rose to take his departure, for all his nerve, he
felt glad that the passion of this Swede's hate was not directed against
him.

PART II

EIGHT YEARS LATER

CHAPTER I

BULL STERNFORD

A great gathering thronged the heart of the clearing. There were men of
every shade of colour, men of well-nigh every type. They stood about in
a wide circle, whose regularity remained definite even under the
stirring of fierce excitement. They had gathered for a fight, a great
fight between two creatures, full human in shape and splendid manhood,
but bestial in the method of the battle demanded. It was a battle with
muscles of iron, and hearts that knew no mercy, and body and mind tuned
only to endure and conquer. It was a battle that belonged to the savage
out-world, acknowledging only the vicious laws of "rough and tough."

The rough creatures stood voiceless and well-nigh breathless. The
combatants were well matched and redoubtable, even in a community whose
only deity was physical might and courage and the skill of the wielded
axe. The lust of it all was burning fiercely in every heart.

The sun poured out its flood of summer upon a world of virgin forest.
The sky was without blemish. A dome of perfect azure roofed in the
length and breadth of Nature's kingdom. Nevertheless the fairness of the
summer day, with its ravishing accompaniment of soft, mystery sounds
from an unseen world and the lavish beauty of shadowed woods were fit
setting for the pulsing of savage emotions. It was far out in the lost
world of Northern Quebec. It was far, far beyond the widest-flung
frontiers of civilisation. It was out there