t know myself exactly why I'm taking you there, except
that--well, if anything should happen to me, Lapierre would--you see,
he might--that is---- Damn it!" he broke out wrathfully. "Can't you
see he'll have things his own way with _her_?"

Ripley grinned broadly. "Oh! So that's it, eh? Well, a fellow ought
to look out for his friends. She seemed right anxious to have _you_
put where nothing would hurt you."

"Shut up!" growled MacNair shortly. "And before we start there's one
little condition you must agree to. If we find Lapierre at the fort,
in return for my showing you the place, you've got to promise to make
no attempt to arrest him without first returning to Fort Resolution.
If I can't get him in the meantime I ought to lose."

"You're on," grinned Ripley, "I promise. But man, if he's there he
won't be alone! What chance will you have single-handed against a
whole gang of outlaws?"

MacNair smiled grimly. "That's my lookout. Remember, your word has
passed, and when we locate Lapierre, you head back for Fort Resolution."

The other nodded regretfully, and when MacNair turned away from the
fort and headed eastward along the south shore of the lake, the officer
fell silently in behind the dogs.

They camped late in a thicket on the shore of South Bay, and at
daylight headed straight across the vast snow-level, that stretched for
sixty miles in an unbroken surface of white. That night they camped on
the ice, and toward noon of the following day drew into the scrub
timber directly north of the extremity of Peththenneh Island.

Long after dark they made a fireless camp directly opposite the
stronghold of the outlaws on the shore of Lac du Mort. Circling the
lake next morning, they reconnoitred the black spruce swamp, and
working their way, inch by inch, passed cautiously between the dense
evergreens in the direction of the high promontory upon which Lapierre
had built his "Bastile du Mort."

Silence enveloped the swamp. An intense, all-pervading stillness,
accentuated by the low-hung snow-weighted branches through which the
men moved like dark phantoms in the grey half-light of the dawn. They
moved not with the stealthy, gliding movement of the Indian, but with
the slow caution of trained woodsmen, pausing every few moments to
scrutinize their surroundings, and to strain their ears for a sound
that would tell them that other lurking forms glided among the silent
aisles and vistas of the snow-shr