ight for a
canoe--for gold--while he--HE--would fight for something else, for the
vengeance of a man whose soul and honor had been sold. He cared nothing
for the canoe. He cared nothing for the gold. He told himself, in this
one tense moment of waiting, that he cared no longer for Marie. It was
the fulfillment of the code.

He was still smiling when O'Grady was so near that he could see the red
glare in his eyes. There was no word, no shout, no sound of fury or
defiance as the two men stood for an instant just out of striking
distance. Jan heard the coming together of Jackpine and the
Chippewayan. He heard them straggling, but not the flicker of an
eyelash did his gaze leave O'Grady's face. Both men understood. This
time had to come. Both had expected it, even from that day of the fight
in the woods when fortune had favored Jan. The burned canoe had only
hastened the hour a little. Suddenly Jan's free hand reached behind him
to his belt. He drew forth the second knife and tossed it at O'Grady's
feet.

O'Grady made a movement to pick it up, and then, while Jan was partly
off his guard, came at him with a powerful swing of the club. It was
his catlike quickness, the quickness almost of the great northern loon
that evades a rifle ball, that had won for Jan in the forest fight. It
saved him now. The club cut through the air over his head, and, carried
by the momentum of his own blow, O'Grady lurched against him with the
full force of his two hundred pounds of muscle and bone. Jan's knife
swept in an upward flash and plunged to the hilt through the flesh of
his enemy's forearm. With a cry of pain O'Grady dropped his club, and
the two crashed to the stone floor of the trail. This was the attack
that Jan had feared and tried to foil, and with a lightning-like
squirming movement he swung himself half free, and on his back, with
O'Grady's huge hands linking at his throat, he drew back his knife arm
for the fatal plunge.

In this instant, so quick that he could scarcely have taken a breath in
the time, his eyes took in the other struggle between Jackpine and the
Chippewayan. The two Indians had locked themselves in a deadly embrace.
All thought of masters, of life or death, were forgotten in the
roused-up hatred that fired them now in their desire to kill. They had
drawn close to the edge of the chasm. Under them the thundering roar of
the whirlpool was unheard, their ears caught no sound of the moaning
surge of the flames fa