that door came the mingling aroma of coffee and
tobacco! An Eskimo might have tobacco, or even tea. But coffee--never!

Every drop of blood in his body pounded like tiny beating fists as he
crossed silently and swiftly the short space between the corner of the
cabin and the open door. For perhaps half a dozen seconds he closed his
eyes to give his snow-strained vision an even chance with the man in
the cabin. Then he looked in.

It was a small cabin. It was possibly not more than ten feet square
inside, and at the far end of it was a fireplace from which rose the
chimney through the roof. At first Philip saw nothing except the dim
outlines of things. It was a moment or two before he made out the
figure of a man stooping over the fire. He stepped over the threshold,
making no sound. The occupant of the cabin straightened himself slowly,
lifting with, extreme care a pot of coffee from the embers. A glance at
his broad back and his giant stature told Philip that he was not an
Eskimo. He turned. Even then for an infinitesimal space he did not see
Philip as he stood fronting the door with the light in his face. It was
a white man's face--a face almost hidden in a thick growth of beard and
a tangle of hair that fell to the shoulders. Another instant and he had
seen the intruder and stood like one turned suddenly into stone.

Philip had leveled Celie's little revolver.

"I am Philip Raine of His Majesty's service, the Royal Mounted," he
said. "Throw, up your hands!"

The moment's tableau was one of rigid amazement on one side, of waiting
tenseness on the other. Philip believed that the shadow of his body
concealed the size of the tiny revolver in his hand. Anyway it would be
effective at that distance, and he expected to see the mysterious
stranger's hands go over his head the moment he recovered from the
shock that had apparently gone with the command. What did happen he
expected least of all. The arm holding the pot of steaming coffee shot
out and the boiling deluge hissed straight at Philip's face. He ducked
to escape it, and fired. Before he could throw back the hammer of the
little single-action weapon for a second shot the stranger was at him.
The force of the attack sent them both crashing back against the wall
of the cabin, and in the few moments that followed Philip blessed the
providential forethought that had made him throw off his fur coat and
strip for action. His antagonist was not an ordinary man. A growl l