den body. Lonagon
put the blanket over the dead man's face, and Shanks made strange noises
in his throat.

"He was a white man, though he was a gentleman," muttered Lonagon.

Jim staggered to the door, dazed by the outcome of this meeting. But his
mind had cooled down and the crazy desire for vengeance, now vanished,
left him a more normal creature. But he felt sick and weary. The future
seemed so hopeless and blank. Had he the desire to search for Angela and
bring her back, his storm-wrecked body would have refused. Lonagon
approached him.

"So you didn't kill him?"

Jim glared.

"Wal, it's jest as well, for I'd hev sure killed you."

"And I'd have been darned glad," growled Jim.

A great nausea overtook him, and he clutched the door-post for support.
Shanks looked at him, and shook his head.

"Better not hit the trail to-day. You got fever."

Jim shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm all right. I'll be mushing back to my shack. 'Tain't far--two days'
run. So long!"

He went to the sled, untethered the dogs, and sent them scuttling up the
ravine. But the sickness remained. His head seemed nigh to bursting and
all his limbs set up a chronic aching. He vaguely realized that he was in
the grip of mountain fever, which had fastened on to his abused body and
was breaking him up.

He had estimated his journey back to occupy two days, but he meant to do
it in one. Illness on the trail meant death, and little as Life meant to
him now, the natural desire to fight for it mastered the inclination to
lay down and succumb to the fever and the elements.

Hour after hour the sled whirled along. Once he stopped and mechanically
gave the dogs a meal. He became transformed into an automaton, acting by
some subliminal power that set his direction correctly and assisted to
maintain his body in an upright position.

Only one part of his brain functioned, and that part was memory. All the
outstanding incidents of his adventurous career passed before him in
perspective. He saw himself fighting and winning from the time when first
he had set out with a gripsack to seek a fortune in the wide plains of the
West. At the end of this remarkable chain of successes was the dismal
picture of his present failure. A woman, rather than suffer subjugation at
his hands, had perjured her soul in a dreadful lie.

D'Arcy was right. Souls were not to be bought or "broken-in." He had won
in the old days because the primitive law prevailed in all thi