"Absolutely. Joanne gave me Mortimer FitzHugh's photograph to destroy. I am
sorry that I burned it before you saw it. But there is no doubt. Mortimer
FitzHugh and Culver Rann are the same man."

Slowly the old mountaineer turned to the door. Aldous was ahead of him, and
stood with his hand on the knob.

"I don't want you to go yet, Mac."

"I--I'll see you a little later," said Donald clumsily.

"Donald!"

"Johnny!"

For a full half minute they looked steadily into each other's eyes.

"Only a week, Johnny," pleaded Donald. "I'll be back in a week."

"You mean that you will kill him?"

"He'll never come back. I swear it, Johnny!"

As gently as he might have led Joanne, Aldous drew the mountaineer back to
the chair.

"That would be cold-blooded murder," he said, "and I would be the murderer.
I can't send you out to do my killing, Mac, as I might send out a hired
assassin. Don't you see that I can't? Good heaven, some day--very soon--I
will tell you how this hound, Mortimer FitzHugh, poisoned Joanne's life,
and did his worst to destroy her. It's to me he's got to answer, Donald.
And to me he shall answer. I am going to kill him. But it will not be
murder. Since you have come into this room I have made my final plan, and I
shall follow it to the end coolly and deliberately. It will be a great
game, Mac--and it will be a fair game; and I shall play it happily, because
Joanne will not know, and I will be strengthened by her love.

"Quade wants my life, and tried to hire Stevens, up at Miette, to kill me.
Culver Rann wants my life; a little later it will come to be the greatest
desire of his existence to have me dead and out of the way. I shall give
him the chance to do the killing, Mac. I shall give him a splendid chance,
and he will not fail to accept his opportunity. Perhaps he will have an
advantage, but I am as absolutely certain of killing him as I am that the
sun is going down behind the mountains out there. If others should step
in, if I should have more than Culver Rann on my hands--why, then you may
deal yourself a hand if you like, Donald. It may be a bigger game than One
against One."

"It will," rumbled MacDonald. "I learned other things early this afternoon,
Johnny. Quade did not stay behind. He went with Rann. DeBar and the woman
are with them, and two other men. They went over the Lone Cache Pass, and
this minute are hurrying straight for the headwaters of the Parsnip. There
are five of 'em--f