his work.

Now he moved with unnecessarily stealthy steps over to the darkest
corner of the hut, to where a pile of rough skins stood. The steady
nerve which had hitherto served him seemed in a measure to have
weakened. It was a phase which a man of his disposition must
inevitably pass through in the perpetration of a first crime. He was
assailed by a sensation of watching eyes following his every movement;
with a feeling that another presence than those two slumbering forms
moved with him in the dim light of the dugout. He was haunted by his
other self; the moral self.

From beneath the pile of furs he drew a heavy revolver which he
carefully examined. The chambers were loaded.

Again came the sound of the dogs outside. And he even fancied he heard
the shuffling of Rainy-Moon's moccasins over the beaten snow just
outside the door. He turned his face in the direction. The expression
of his great hungry eyes was malevolent. Whatever moral fear might
have been his, there could be no doubt that he would carry his purpose
out. He gripped his pistol firmly and moved towards the door.

As his hand rested on the latch he paused. Just for one instant he
hesitated. It seemed as though all that was honest in him was making
one final appeal to the evil passions which swayed him. His eyelids
lowered suddenly, as though he could not even face the dim light of
that gloomy interior. It was the attitude of one who fully realizes
the nature of his actions, of one who shrinks from the light of honest
purpose and prefers the obscure recesses of his own moral darkness.
Then with an effort he pulled himself together; he gripped his nerve.
The next moment he flung wide the door.

A flood of wintry sunshine suffused the interior of the dugout. The
glare of the crystal white earth was dazzling to a degree, and the
hungry-looking trapper stood blinking in the light. His pistol was
concealed behind him. The sleigh was before the door. Rainy-Moon stood
on the far side of the path in the act of hitching the dogs up. One of
the animals, the largest of them all, was already harnessed, the
others were standing or squatting around, held in leash by the
Indian.

When he heard the door open Rainy-Moon looked up from his work. He was
standing with his back to the precipice which bordered the narrow
ledge. His great stolid face expressed nothing but solemn gravity. He
grunted and turned again to his work.

Like a flash the trapper's pistol darted