North, and nights these winds wailed desolately
through the tops of the spruce under which they slept. And day after
day and night after night the temptation came upon him more strongly to
open the letter he was carrying to Peter God.

He was convinced now that the letter--and the letter alone--held his
fate, and that he was acting blindly. Was this justice to himself? He
wanted Josephine. He wanted her above all else in the world. Then why
should he not fight for her--in his own way? And to do that he must
read the letter. To know its contents would mean--Josephine. If there
was nothing in it that would stand between them, he would have done no
wrong, for he would still take it on to Peter God. So he argued. But if
the letter jeopardized his chances of possessing her, his knowledge of
what it contained would give him an opportunity to win in another way.
He could even answer it himself and take back to her false word from
Peter God, for seven frost-biting years along the edge of the Barren
had surely changed Peter God's handwriting. His treachery, if it could
be called that, would never be discovered. And it would give him
Josephine.

This was the temptation. The power that resisted it was the spirit of
that big, clean, fighting North which makes men out of a beginning of
flesh and bone. Ten years of that North had seeped into Philip's being.
He hung on. It was November when he reached Port MacPherson, and he had
not opened the letter.

Deep snows fell, and fierce blizzards shot like gunblasts from out of
the Arctic. Snow and wind were not what brought the deeper gloom and
fear to Fort MacPherson. La mort rouge, smallpox,--the "red
death,"--was galloping through the wilderness. Rumors were first
verified by facts from the Dog Rib Indians. A quarter of them were down
with the scourge of the Northland. From Hudson's Bay on the east to the
Great Bear on the west, the fur posts were sending out their runners,
and a hundred Paul Reveres of the forests were riding swiftly behind
their dogs to spread the warning. On the afternoon of the day Philip
left for the cabin of Peter God, a patrol of the Royal Mounted came in
on snowshoes from the South, and voluntarily went into quarantine.

Philip traveled slowly. For three days and nights the air was filled
with the "Arctic dust" snow that was hard as flint and stung like shot;
and it was so cold that he paused frequently and built small fires,
over which he filled his lungs wi