t came the long dark hours of fever and delirium. They crawled
along into days, and day and night Philip fought to keep life in the
body of the man who had given the world to him, for as the fight
continued he began more and more to accept Josephine as his own. He had
come fairly. He had kept his pledge. And Peter God had spoken.

"You must go. You must tell her Peter God is dead."

And Philip began to accept this, not altogether as his joy, but as his
duty. He could not argue with Peter God when he rose from his sick bed.
He would go back to Josephine.

For many days he and Peter God fought with the "red death" in the
little cabin. It was a fight which he could never forget. One
afternoon--to strengthen himself for the terrible night that was
coming--he walked several miles back into the stunted spruce on his
snowshoes. It was mid-afternoon when he returned with a haunch of
caribou meat on his shoulder. Three hundred yards from the cabin
something stopped him like a shot. He listened. From ahead of him came
the whining and snarling of dogs, the crack of a whip, a shout which he
could not understand. He dropped his burden of meat and sped on. At the
southward edge of a level open he stopped again. Straight ahead of him
was the cabin. A hundred yards to the right of him was a dog team and a
driver. Between the team and the cabin a hooded and coated figure was
running in the direction of the danger signal on the sapling pole.

With a cry of warning Philip darted in pursuit. He overtook the figure
at the cabin door. His hand caught it by the arm. It turned--and he
stared into the white, terror-stricken face of Josephine McCloud!

"Good God!" he cried, and that was all.

She gripped him with both hands. He had never heard her voice as it was
now. She answered the amazement and horror in his face.

"I sent you a letter," she cried pantingly, "and it didn't overtake
you. As soon as you were gone, I knew that I must come--that I must
follow--that I must speak with my own lips what I had written. I tried
to catch you. But you traveled faster. Will you forgive me--you will
forgive me--"

She turned to the door. He held her.

"It is the smallpox," he said, and his voice was dead.

"I know," she panted. "The man over there--told me what the little flag
means. And I'm glad--glad I came in time to go in to him--as he is. And
you--you--must forgive!"

She snatched herself free from his grasp. The door opened. It closed
b