y own
life--or the lives of others. It was but the impulse of an unguarded
moment that caused me to forget that I had not the right--forget that I
am a gentleman. We love as we kill in the North. And now, good-by, I
am going Southward. I will return, if it is within the power of man to
return, before the ice skims the lakes and the rivers."

He paused, but the girl remained as though she had not heard him. He
leaned closer, his lips almost upon her ear. "Please, Miss Elliston,
can you not forgive me--wish me one last bon voyage?"

Slowly, as one in a dream, Chloe offered him her hand. "Good-by!" she
said simply, in a dull, toneless voice. The man seized the hand,
pressed it lightly, and turning abruptly, crossed to the table. As he
drew his Stetson toward him, its brim came into violent contact with
the porcelain medicine cup. The cup crashed to the floor, its contents
splashing widely over the whip-sawed boards.

With a hurried word of apology he passed out of the door--passed close
beside the form of Big Lena onto whose cold, fishlike eyes the black
eyes stared insolently, even as the thin lips twisted into a
smile--cynical, sardonic, mocking.

CHAPTER XII

A FIGHT IN THE NIGHT

The days immediately following Lapierre's departure were busy days for
Chloe Elliston. The word had passed along the lakes and the rivers,
and stolid, sullen-faced Indians stole in from the scrub to gaze
apathetically at the buildings on the banks of the Yellow Knife. Chloe
with pain-staking repetition, through LeFroy as interpreter, explained
to each the object of her school; with the result that a goodly number
remained and lost no time in installing themselves in the commodious
barracks.

On the evening of the second day the girl tiptoed into the sick-room
and, bending over MacNair, was startled to encounter the steady gaze of
the steel-grey eyes. "I thought you never would come to," she smiled.
"You see, I don't know much about surgery, and I was afraid perhaps--"

"Perhaps Lapierre had done his work well?"

Chloe started at the weak, almost gentle tones of the gruff voice she
had learned to associate with this man of the North. She flushed as
she met the steady, disconcerting stare of the grey eyes. "He shot on
the spur of the moment. He thought you were going to shoot him."

"And he shot from--far to the Southward?"

"Oh! You do not think--you do not believe that I deliberately _lied_
to you! That I