an ounce, and we'll feast
on him shortly. I haven't had a full mouth of grub since day before
yesterday morning, but you're welcome to a half of him, if you're hungry
enough."

"Where'd your chuck go?" asked Philip.

He was conscious of a new warmth and comfort in his veins, but it was
not this that sent a heat into his face at the outlaw's offer. DeBar
had saved his life, and now, when DeBar might have killed him, he was
offering him food. The man was spitting the bird on the sharpened end
of a stick, and when he had done this he pointed to the big Mackenzie
hound, tied to the broken stub of a dead sapling.

"I brought enough bannock to carry me to Chippewayan, but he got into
it the first night, and what he left was crumbs. You lost yours in the
lake, eh?"

"Dogs and everything," said Philip. "Even matches."

"Those ice-traps are bad," said DeBar companionably, slowly turning the
bird. "You always want to test the lakes in this country. Most of 'em
come from bog springs, and after they freeze, the water drops. Guess
you'd had me pretty soon if it hadn't been for the lake, wouldn't you?"

He grinned, and to his own astonishment Philip grinned.

"I was tight after you, Bill."

"Ho! ho! ho!" laughed the outlaw. "That sounds good! I've gone by
another name, of course, and that's the first time I've heard my own
since--"

He stopped suddenly, and the laugh left his voice and face.

"It sounds--homelike," he added more gently. "What's yours, pardner?"

"Steele--Philip Steele, of the R.N.W.M.P.," said Philip.

"Used to know a Steele once," went on DeBar. "That was back--where it
happened. He was one of my friends."

For a moment he turned his eyes on Philip. They were deep gray eyes,
set well apart in a face that among a hundred others Philip would have
picked out for its frankness and courage. He knew that the man before
him was not much more than his own age, yet he appeared ten years older.

He sat up on his sledge as DeBar left his bird to thrust sticks into the
snow, on the ends of which he hung Philip's frozen garments close to the
fire. From the man Philip's eyes traveled to the dog. The hound yawned
in the heat and he saw that one of his fangs was gone.

"If you're starving, why don't you kill the dog?" he asked.

DeBar turned quickly, his white teeth gleaming through his beard.

"Because he's the best friend I've got on earth, or next to the best,"
he said warmly. "He's stuck to me through thick