feet was like struggling against an irresistible hail from machine-guns.
Then came the shelter of the dune.

One at a time McKay helped to drag them through the hole which he used
for a door. For a space his vision was blurred, and he saw through the
hazy film of storm-blindness the gray faces and heavily coated forms of
those he had rescued. The man he had found in the snow he placed on his
blankets, and the girl fell down upon her knees beside him. It was then
Jolly Roger began to see more clearly. And in that same instant came a
shock as unexpected as the smash of dynamite under his feet.

The girl had thrown back her parkee, and was sobbing over the man on the
blankets, and calling him father. She was not like Nada. Her hair was in
thick, dark coils, and she was older. She was not pretty--now. Her face
was twisted by the brutal beating of the storm, and her eyes were nearly
closed. But it was the man Jolly Roger stared at, while his heart choked
inside him. He was grizzled and gray-bearded, with military mustaches
and a bald head. He was not dead. His eyes were open, and his blue
lips were struggling to speak to the girl whose blindness kept her from
seeing that he was alive. And the coat which he wore was the regulation
service garment of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police!

Slowly McKay turned, wiping the film of snow-sweat from his eyes, and
stared at the other two. One of them had sunk down with his back to the
snow wall. He was a much younger man, possibly not over thirty, and
his face was ghastly. The third lay where he had fallen from exhaustion
after crawling through the hole. Both wore service coats, with holsters
at their sides.

The man against the snow-wall was making an effort to rise. He sagged
back, and grinned up apologetically at McKay.

"Dam' fine of you, old man," he mumbled between blistered lips.
"I'm Porter--'N' Division--taking Superintendent Tavish to Fort
Churchill--Tavish and his daughter. Made a hell of a mess of it, haven't
I?"

He struggled to his knees.

"There's brandy in our kit. It might help--over there," and he nodded
toward the girl and the gray-bearded man on the blankets.

CHAPTER XIV

Jolly Roger did not answer, but crawled through the hole and found the
sledge in the outer darkness. He heard Peter coming after him, and he
saw Porter's bloodless face in the illumination of the alcohol lamp,
where he waited to help him with the dunnage. In those seconds he fought