elieved the blue-eyed girl down at
Cragg's Ridge was fighting for him, and had sent her spirit out in quest
of him. And he was going back to her. GOING!

The last word, as it came from his lips, meant that nothing would stop
them. He almost shouted it. And Peter answered.

In spite of their effort, darkness closed in on them. With the first
dusk of this night there came sudden lulls in which the blizzard seemed
to have exhausted itself. Jolly Roger read the signs. By tomorrow there
would be no storm and Breault the Ferret would be on the trail again,
along with Porter and Tavish.

It was his old craft, his old cunning, that urged him to go on.
Strangely, he prayed for the blizzard not to give up the ghost.
Something must be accomplished before its fury was spent; and he was
glad when after each lull he heard again the moaning and screeching of
it over the open spaces, and the slashing together of spruce tops where
there was cover. In a chaos of gloom they came to the low ridge which
reached across an open sweep of tundra to the finger of shelter where
the cabin was built. An hour later they were at its door. Jolly Roger
opened it and staggered in. For a space he stood leaning against the
wall while his lungs drank in the warmer air. The intake of his breath
made a whistling sound and he was surprised to find himself so near
exhaustion. He heard the thud of Peter's body as it collapsed to the
floor.

"Tired, Pied-Bot?"

It was difficult for his storm-beaten lips to speak the words.

Peter thumped his tail. The rat-tap-tap of it came in one of those lulls
of the storm which Jolly Roger had begun to dread.

"I hope it keeps up another two hours," he said, wetting his lips to
take the stiffness out of them. "If it doesn't--"

He was thinking of Breault as he drew off his mittens and fumbled for a
match. It was Breault he feared. The Ferret would find his cabin and his
trail if the storm died out too soon.

He lighted the tin lamp on his table and after that, assured that
wastefulness would cost him nothing now, he set two bear-drip candles
going, one at each end of the cabin. The illumination filled the single
room. There was little for it to reveal--the table he had made, a chair,
a battered little sheet-iron stove, and the humped up blanket in his
bunk, under which he had stored the remainder of his possessions. Back
of the stove was a pile of dry wood, and in another five minutes the
roar of flames in the chim