g got you out of the way, I'd let him slip by
and out?"

"It looks like it."

"But, man, don't you realise that our interests are the same?"

"Since when?"

"Since you told me of a woman who was done to death on a Yukon river,
and lay unburied all winter till the thaw came, and her body was
washed down to a creek near Forty-Mile, where it lay through the
summer naked, gazed upon, uncovered, and defiled."

"I fancy you knew all that when you helped Spurling to escape."

"Yes, but I didn't know that it was a woman, and I didn't know her
name."

"And you don't know her name now."

"I do; it was Jervis Mordaunt who wore a man's disguise."

"I told you that she wore a woman's dress."

"I know. I know."

"Then do you mean to tell me that I lied?"

"Perhaps, but not to accuse you. You said it out of kindness, and that
was partly true which you said. You meant that the body was naked when
it was found."

"If you dare to speak of her like that again, I'll choke you, and run
the risk of getting hanged myself. The land has debased you, as the
Yukon debased your friend. I can read you; you're still half-minded to
play his game, and that's why you want to turn me back."

"Yes, I want to turn you back. Spurling's a hard-pressed man and he's
dangerous. You can judge of what he is capable by what has just
happened. He's cunning and, in his way, he's brave; he wouldn't
scruple to take your life. Your best policy is to wait--either here or
at God's Voice, as you think best. The ice will soon be unsafe to
travel; already a mile from here, where the river flows rapidly round
from the south-west, the part on the inside bend is rotten. I had to
guide Spurling round that. At first, before I saw you and knew who you
were, I was tempted not to warn you, to let you take your own chance
and go on by yourself, and, perhaps, get drowned; but now, after I
have seen you and after what you have told me, I can't do that."

"So you were tempted to let me drown myself, and now you are
repentant?"

Granger bowed his head.

"Then I tell you that if the ice were as rotten as your soul or
Spurling's, I would still follow him, though I had to follow him to
Hell. If I've got to die, I'll die game--and you shan't turn me back."

Granger ran out after him, calling him to stay, offering to guide him
round the danger spot in his trail. But suspicion and untruthfulness
had done their work. Only once did he turn his head, when at the crack
o