ld?"

The stranger was looking at Baree. His face was turned away from
McTaggart. He said:

"I guess you are right. Let the devil rot. If you're heading for Lac
Bain, m'sieu, I'll travel a short distance with you now. It will take a
couple of miles to straighten out the line of my compass."

He picked up his gun. McTaggart led the way. At the end of half an hour
the stranger stopped, and pointed north.

"Straight up there--a good five hundred miles," he said, speaking as
lightly as though he would reach home that night. "I'll leave you here."

He made no offer to shake hands. But in going, he said:

"You might report that John Madison has passed this way."

After that he traveled straight northward for half a mile through the
deep forest. Then he swung westward for two miles, turned at a sharp
angle into the south, and an hour after he had left McTaggart he was
once more squatted on his heels almost within arms' reach of Baree.

And he was saying, as though speaking to a human companion:

"So that's what you've been, old boy. A trap robber, eh? An OUTLAW? And
you beat him at the game for two months! And for that, because you're a
better beast than he is, he wants to let you die here as slow as you
can. An OUTLAW!" His voice broke into a pleasant laugh, the sort of
laugh that warms one, even a beast. "That's funny. We ought to shake
hands, Boy, by George, we had! You're a wild one, he says. Well, so am
I. Told him my name was John Madison. It ain't. I'm Jim Carvel. And, oh
Lord!--all I said was 'police.' And that was right. It ain't a lie. I'm
wanted by the whole corporation--by every danged policeman between
Hudson's Bay and the Mackenzie River. Shake, old man. We're in the same
boat, an' I'm glad to meet you!"

CHAPTER 28

Jim Carvel held out his hand, and the snarl that was in Baree's throat
died away. The man rose to his feet. He stood there, looking in the
direction taken by Bush McTaggart, and chuckled in a curious, exultant
sort of way.

There was friendliness even in that chuckle. There was friendliness in
his eyes and in the shine of his teeth as he looked again at Baree.
About him there was something that seemed to make the gray day
brighter, that seemed to warm the chill air--a strange something that
radiated cheer and hope and comradeship just as a hot stove sends out
the glow of heat. Baree felt it. For the first time since the two men
had come his trap-torn body lost its tenseness; his bac