record-breaking clean-up when the waters of
the melting snow should be turned into sluices in the spring.

With his mind easy in his fancied security, and in order that every
moment of time and every ounce of man-power should be devoted to the
digging of gold, Lapierre had neglected to bring his rifles and
ammunition from the Lac du Mort rendezvous and from the storehouse of
Chloe Elliston's school. An omission for which he cursed himself
roundly upon an evening, early in February when an Indian, gaunt and
wide-eyed from the strain of a forced snow-trail, staggered from the
black shadow of the bush into the glare of the blazing night-fires, and
in a frenzied gibberish of jargon proclaimed that Bob MacNair had
returned to the Northland. And not only that he had returned, but had
visited Lac du Mort in company with a man of the Mounted.

At first Lapierre flatly refused to credit the Indian's yarn, but when
upon pain of death the man refused to alter his statement, and added
the information that he himself had fired at MacNair from the shelter
of a snow-ridden spruce, and that just as he pulled the trigger the man
of the soldier-police had intervened and stopped the speeding bullet,
Lapierre knew that the Indian spoke the truth.

In the twinkling of an eye the quarter-breed realized the extreme
danger of his position. His wrath knew no bounds. Up and down he
raged in his fury, cursing like a madman, while all about him--blaming,
reviling, advising--cursed the men of his ill-favoured crew. For not a
man among them but knew that somewhere someone had blundered. And for
some inexplicable reason their situation had suddenly shifted from
comparative security to extreme hazard. They needed not to be told
that with MacNair at large in the Northland their lives hung by a
slender thread. For at that very moment Brute MacNair was, in all
probability, upon the Yellow Knife leading his armed Indians toward
Snare Lake.

In addition to this was the certain knowledge that the vengeance of the
Mounted would fall in full measure upon the heads of all who were in
any way associated with Pierre Lapierre. An officer had been shot, and
the men of Lapierre were outlawed from Ungava to the Western sea. The
intricate system had crumbled in the batting of an eye. Else why
should a man of the Mounted have been found before the barricade of the
Bastile du Mort in company with Brute MacNair?

The quick-witted Lapierre was the first t