been on the
point of bustin' because I wanted to talk to someone, an' couldn't."

He rubbed his hands together, and held them out toward the fire. Baree
watched his movements and listened intently to every sound that escaped
his lips. His eyes had in them now a dumb sort of worship, a look that
warmed Carvel's heart and did away with the vast loneliness and
emptiness of the night. Baree had dragged himself nearer to the man's
feet, and suddenly Carvel leaned over and patted his head.

"I'm a bad one, old chap," he chuckled. "You haven't got it on me--not
a bit. Want to know what happened?" He waited a moment, and Baree
looked at him steadily. Then Carvel went on, as if speaking to a human,
"Let's see--it was five years ago, five years this December, just
before Christmas time. Had a Dad. Fine old chap, my dad was. No
Mother--just the Dad, an' when you added us up we made just One.
Understand? And along came a white-striped skunk named Hardy and shot
him one day because Dad had worked against him in politics. Out an' out
murder. An' they didn't hang that skunk! No, sir, they didn't hang him.
He had too much money, an' too many friends in politics, an' they let
'im off with two years in the penitentiary. But he didn't get there.
No--s'elp me God, he didn't get there!"

Carvel was twisting his hands until his knuckles cracked. An exultant
smile lighted up his face, and his eyes flashed back the firelight.
Baree drew a deep breath--a mere coincidence; but it was a tense moment
for all that.

"No, he didn't get to the penitentiary," went on Carvel, looking
straight at Baree again. "Yours truly knew what that meant, old chap.
He'd have been pardoned inside a year. An' there was my dad, the
biggest half of me, in his grave. So I just went up to that
white-striped skunk right there before the judge's eyes, an' the
lawyers' eyes, an' the eyes of all his dear relatives an' friends--AND
I KILLED HIM! And I got away. Was out through a window before they woke
up, hit for the bush country, and have been eating up the trails ever
since. An' I guess God was with me, Boy. For He did a queer thing to
help me out summer before last, just when the Mounties were after me
hardest an' it looked pretty black. Man was found drowned down in the
Reindeer Country, right where they thought I was cornered. An' the good
Lord made that man look so much like me that he was buried under my
name. So I'm officially dead, old chap. I don't need to be