to have comp'ny," he said, when he came back with his load.
"My God, do you know I've never felt quite like this--so easy and happy
like, since years and years? I wonder if it is because I know the end is
near?"

"There's still hope," replied Philip.

"Hope!" cried DeBar. "It's more than hope, man. It's a certainty for
me--the end, I mean. Don't you see, Phil--" He came and sat down close
to the other on the sledge, and spoke as if he had known him for
years. "It's got to be the end for me, and I guess that's what makes me
cheerful like. I'm going to tell you about it, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind; I want to hear," said Philip, and he edged a little
nearer, until they sat shoulder to shoulder.

"It's got to be the end," repeated DeBar, in a low voice. "If we get out
of this, and fight, and you win, it'll be because I'm dead, Phil. D'ye
understand? I'll be dead when the fight ends, if you win. That'll be one
end."

"But if you win, Bill."

A flash of joy shot into DeBar's eyes.

"Then that'll be the other end," he said more softly still. He pointed
to the big Mackenzie hound. "I said he was next to my best friend
an earth, Phil. The other--is a girl--who lived back there--when it
happened, years and years ago. She's thirty now, and she's stuck to me,
and prayed for me, and believed in me for--a'most since we were kids
together, an' she's written to me--'Frank Symmonds'--once a month for
ten years. God bless her heart! That is what's kept me alive, and in
every letter she's begged me to let her come to me, wherever I was.
But--I guess the devil didn't get quite all of me, for I couldn't, 'n'
wouldn't. But I've give in now, and we've fixed it up between us. By
this time she's on her way to my brothers in South America, and if I
win--when we fight--I'm going where she is. And that's the other end,
Phil, so you see why I'm happy. There's sure to be an end of it for
me--soon."

He bowed his wild, unshorn head in his mittened hands, and for a time
there was silence between them.

Philip broke it, almost in a whisper.

"Why don't you kill me--here--now-while I'm sitting helpless beside you,
and you've a knife in your belt?"

DeBar lifted his head slowly and looked with astonishment into his
companion's face.

"I'm not a murderer!" he said.

"But you've killed other men," persisted Philip.

"Three, besides those we hung," replied DeBar calmly. "One at Moose
Factory, when I tried to help John, and the oth