ot a strangle-holt
right away, and he dropped dead at my feet. He's--he's your step-father?
The man you came to warn me of?"

"Yes."

Steve nodded.

"Here, let's quit this place. Guess it's not wholesome standing around.
Pass me the masks. We'll get right over to the sheds. There, where it's
dry, and we can sit. There's things I need to tell you right away. Both
of you."

* * * * *

Marcel and Keeko were sitting side by side on one of the sleds which had
not yet been completely unloaded. Steve was squatting on an up-turned
box that had been used to contain food stores for the trail. He was
facing them, and his back was towards the building of the store. It was
rather the picture of two children listening to some wonderful fairy
story, told in the staid tones of a well-loved parent. Never for a
moment was attention diverted. Never was interruption permitted. Even
the approach of An-ina passed unremarked.

And as Steve talked a beam of sunlight fell athwart his sturdy figure,
lightening its rough clothing, and surrounding him with a penetrating
light that revealed the sprinkling of grey beginning to mar the dark hue
of his ample hair. The lines, too, in his strong face, fine-drawn and
scarcely noticeable ordinarily, the searching sun of spring had no mercy
upon.

"Oh, it's a heap long way back," he said, "and I guess it all belongs to
me. Anyway it did till Keeko got around. Say, you need to think of a
crazy sort of feller who guessed that most all there was in life was to
make good for the woman he loved, and the poor girl kiddie she'd borne
him. You need to figger on a feller who didn't know a thing else, and
thought he was acting square and right by his wife the whole darn time.
He was a fool, a crazy fool. But he did all he knew, and the way he knew
it. His duty was the law and order of a wide enough territory around
Athabasca, which is just one hell of a piece of country from here. When
you've thought of that you want to think of a real good woman, all
pretty, and bright, with blue eyes and fair hair, and her baby girl the
same. You want to reckon she was just about your ages, and was plumb
full of life, and ready for all the play going. When you've got that you
want to think of her man being away from their home months and months,
winter and summer. It was his work. And all the time there's a feller, a
mean, low, skunk of a feller with a good-looker face, and the manners
and