rd Aldous, his eyes gleaming. "In the last six months there's been
forty dead men dragged out of the Frazer between Tete Jaune an' Fort
George. You know that. The papers have called 'em accidents--the 'toll of
railroad building.' Mebby a part of it is. Mebby a half of them forty died
by accident. The other half didn't. They were sent down by Culver Rann and
Bill Quade. Once you go floatin' down the Frazer there ain't no questions
asked. Somebody sees you an' pulls you out--mebby a Breed or an Indian--an'
puts you under a little sand a bit later. If it's a white man he does
likewise. There ain't no time to investigate floaters over-particular in
the wilderness. Besides, you git so beat up in the rocks you don't look
like much of anything. I know, because I worked on the scows three months,
an' helped bury four of 'em. An' there wasn't anything, not even a scrap of
paper, in the pockets of two of 'em! Is that suspicious, or ain't it? It
don't pay to talk too much along the Frazer. Men keep their mouths shut.
But I'll tell you this: Culver Rann an' Bill Quade know a lot."

"And you think I'll go in the Frazer?"

"Egzactly. Quade would rather have you in there than in the Athabasca. And
then----"

"Well?"

Stevens spat into the bush, and shrugged his shoulders. "This beautiful
lady you've taken an interest in will turn up missing, Aldous. She'll
disappear off the face of the map--just like Stimson's wife did. You
remember Stimson?"

"He was found in the Frazer," said Aldous, gripping the other's arm in the
darkness.

"Egzactly. An' that pretty wife of his disappeared a little later. Up there
everybody's too busy to ask where other people go. Culver Rann an' Bill
Quade know what happened to Stimson, an' they know what happened to
Stimson's wife. You don't want to go to Tete Jaune. You don't want to let
_her_ go. I know what I'm talking about. Because----"

There fell a moment's silence. Aldous waited. Stevens spat again, and
finished in a whisper:

"Quade went to Tete Jaune to-night. He went on a hand-car. He's got
something he wants to tell Culver Rann that he don't dare telephone or
telegraph. An' he wants to get that something to him ahead of to-morrow's
train. Understand?"

CHAPTER VIII

John Aldous confessed to himself that he did not quite understand, in spite
of the effort Stevens had made to impress upon him, the importance of not
going to Tete Jaune. He was bewildered over a number of things, and