r last resort. And she was thinking in that flash of the days "back
home" when she was counted the best revolver shot at the Piping Rock.
She could beat Peter, and Peter was good. Her fingers twined a bit
fondly about the pearl-handled thing in her pocket. The last
resort--and from the first it had given her courage to keep the truth
from Peter!

She knocked at the heavy door of the igloo cabin. Blake was still up,
and when he opened it, he stared at her in wide-eyed amazement. Wapi
hung outside when Dolores entered, and the door closed. "I know you
think it strange for me to come at this hour," she apologized, "but in
this terrible gloom I've lost all count of hours. They have no
significance for me any more. And I wanted to see you--alone."

She emphasized the word. And as she spoke, she loosened her coat and
threw back her hood, so that the glow of the lamp lit up the ruffled
mass of gold the hood had covered. She sat down without waiting for an
invitation, and Blake sat down opposite her with a narrow table between
them. Her face was flushed with cold and wind as she looked at him. Her
eyes were blue with the blue of a steady flame, and they met his own
squarely. She was not nervous. Nor was she afraid.

"Perhaps you can guess--why I have come?" she asked.

He was appraising her almost startling beauty with the lamp glow
flooding down on her. For a moment he hesitated; then he nodded,
looking at her steadily. "Yes, I think I know," he said quietly. "It's
Captain Rydal. In fact, I'm quite positive. It's an unusual situation,
you know. Have I guessed correctly?"

She nodded, drawing in her breath quickly and leaning a little toward
him, wondering how much he knew and how he had come by it.

"A very unusual situation," he repeated. "There's nothing in the world
that makes beasts out of men--most men--more quickly than an arctic
night, Mrs. Keith. And they're all beasts out there--now--all except
your husband, and he is contented because he possesses the one white
woman aboard ship. It's putting it brutally plain, but it's the truth,
isn't it? For the time being they're beasts, every man of the twenty,
and you--pardon me!--are very beautiful. Rydal wants you, and the fact
that your husband is dying--"

"He is not dying," she interrupted him fiercely. "He shall not die! If
he did--"

"Do you love him?" There was no insult in Blake's quiet voice. He asked
the question as if much depended on the answer, as if he m