by the heels, looking high and low,
what do I want with your shack? I want to get out of here--away! away!
away! Cursed swine! I've half a mind to go back and run amuck, and
settle for a few of them, the pigs! One gorgeous, glorious fight, and
end the whole damn business! It's a skin game, that's what life is, and
I'm sick of it!"

He stopped, appalled, crushed by his great desolation, and Uri Bram
seized the moment. He was not given to speech, this man, and that which
followed was the longest in his life, save one long afterward in another
place.

"That's why I told you about my shack. I can stow you there so they'll
never find you, and I've got grub in plenty. Elsewise you can't get
away. No dogs, no nothing, the sea closed, St. Michael the nearest post,
runners to carry the news before you, the same over the portage to
Anvik--not a chance in the world for you! Now wait with me till it blows
over. They'll forget all about you in a month or less, what of
stampeding to York and what not, and you can hit the trail under their
noses and they won't bother. I've got my own ideas of justice. When I
ran after you, out of the El Dorado and along the beach, it wasn't to
catch you or give you up. My ideas are my own, and that's not one of
them."

He ceased as the murderer drew a prayer-book from his pocket. With the
aurora borealis glimmering yellow in the northeast, heads bared to the
frost and naked hands grasping the sacred book, Fortune La Pearle swore
him to the words he had spoken--an oath which Uri Bram never intended
breaking, and never broke.

At the door of the shack the gambler hesitated for an instant, marvelling
at the strangeness of this man who had befriended him, and doubting. But
by the candlelight he found the cabin comfortable and without occupants,
and he was quickly rolling a cigarette while the other man made coffee.
His muscles relaxed in the warmth and he lay back with half-assumed
indolence, intently studying Uri's face through the curling wisps of
smoke. It was a powerful face, but its strength was of that peculiar
sort which stands girt in and unrelated. The seams were deep-graven,
more like scars, while the stern features were in no way softened by
hints of sympathy or humor. Under prominent bushy brows the eyes shone
cold and gray. The cheekbones, high and forbidding, were undermined by
deep hollows. The chin and jaw displayed a steadiness of purpose which
the narrow forehe