as Pierre and his partner were coming home, intending to
kill them for their outfit. The murderers, who are a breed and a white
trapper, have probably gone to their shack half a dozen miles up the
creek. Now, Mr. Philip Steele, here's a little work for you!"

MacGregor himself had never stirred Philip Steele's blood as did the
doctor's unexpected wards, but the two men watching him saw nothing
unusual in their effect. He set down his ice and coolly took off his
coat, then advanced to the side of the wounded man.

"I'm glad you're better," he said, looking down into the other's strong,
pale face. "It was a pretty close shave. Guess you were a little out of
your head, weren't you?"

For an instant the man's eyes shifted past Philip to where the doctor
was standing.

"Yes--I must have been. He says I was calling for Pierre, and Pierre was
dead. I left him ten miles back there in the snow." He closed his eyes
with a groan of pain and continued, after a moment, "Pierre and I have
been trapping foxes. We were coming back with supplies to last us until
late spring when--it happened. The white man's name is Dobson, and
there's a breed with him. Their shack is six or seven miles up the
creek."

Philip saw the doctor examining a revolver which he had taken from the
pocket of his big coat. He came over to the bunkside with it in his
hand.

"That's enough, Phil," he said softly. "He must not talk any more for
an hour or two or we'll have him in a fever. Get on your coat. I'm going
with you."

"I'm going alone," said Phil shortly. "You attend to your patient."
He drank a cup of coffee, ate a piece of toasted bannock, and with the
first gray breaking of dawn started up the creek on a pair of Pierre's
old snow-shoes. The doctor followed him to the creek and watched him
until he was out of sight.

The wounded man was sitting on the edge of the cot when McGill reentered
the cabin.

His exertion had brought a flush of color back into his face, which
lighted up with a smile as the other came through the door.

"It was a close shave, thanks to you," he said, repeating Philip's
words.

"Just so," replied the doctor. He had placed a brace of short bulldog
revolvers on the table and offered one of them now to his companion.

"The shaving isn't over yet, Falkner."

They ate breakfast, each with a gun beside his tin plate. Now and then
the doctor interrupted his meal to go to the door and peer over the
broadening vista of the