He was making a struggle for life before he reached the
shack. He was exhausted, and half blinded. He could hardly stand on his
feet when he staggered up against his own door. He could see nothing
when he entered. He stumbled over a stool, and fell to the floor.
Before he could rise a strange weight was upon him. He made no
resistance, for the storm had driven the last ounce of strength from
his body.

"It's been a long chase, but I've got you now, Falkner," he heard a
triumphant voice say. And then came the dreaded formula, feared to the
uttermost limits of the great Northern wilderness: "I warn you! You are
my prisoner, in the name of His Majesty, the King!"

Corporal Carr, of the Royal Mounted of the Northwest, was a man without
human sympathies. He was thin faced, with a square, bony jaw, and lips
that formed a straight line. His eyes were greenish, like a cat's, and
were constantly shifting. He was a beast of prey, as much as the wolf,
the lynx, or the fox--and his prey was men. Only such a man as Carr,
alone would have braved the treacherous snows and the intense cold of
the Arctic winter to run him down. Falkner knew that, as an hour later
he looked over the roaring stove at his captor. About Carr there was
something of the unpleasant quickness, the sinuous movement, of the
little white ermine--the outlaw of the wilderness. His eyes were as
merciless. At times Falkner caught the same red glint in them. And
above his despair, the utter hopelessness of his situation, there rose
in him an intense hatred and loathing of the man.

Falkner's hands were then securely tied behind him.

"I'd put the irons on you," Carr had explained a hard, emotionless
voice, "only I lost them somewhere back there."

Beyond that he had not said a dozen words. He had built up the fire,
thawed himself out, and helped himself to food. Now, for the first
time, he loosened up a bit.

"I've had a devil of a chase," he said bitterly, a cold glitter in his
eyes as he looked at Falkner. "I've been after you three months, and
now that I've got you this accursed storm is going to hold me up! And I
left my dogs and outfit a mile back in the scrub."

"Better go after 'em," replied Falkner. "If you don't there won't be
any dogs an' outfit by morning."

Corporal Carr rose to his feet and went to the window. In a moment he
turned.

"I'll do that," he said. "Stretch yourself out on the bunk. I'll have
to lace you down pretty tight to keep you