d upright towards me with his
arms upstretched--only for a second, then the bridge went down and the
water leapt over it, driving timbers, and floe, and man below the
surface, carrying them northwards passed the city, out of sight.

"The thing had been so sudden that only a few of those who were
watching had realised what had happened; of these still fewer had seen
the man; and of these only one had known and recognised my partner, as
I had done. None of them could say for certain whether the man they
had seen upon the floe had been alive or dead. In the confusion which
followed the catastrophe this rumour was at first regarded as an idle
tale to which no one paid much attention. But, when that one man who
had seen and recognised came to me and inquired as to my partner's
whereabouts, and I could give him no satisfactory answers, curiosity
was aroused.

"The Mounted Police instituted a search for the body, but as yet it
was not found.

"I was half-minded to leave the country and go outside. Would to God I
had! But I was afraid that such conduct, following immediately upon
this occurrence, would attract attention. I returned to the Squaw
River and spent the half of another year up there. Then one day in
November an Indian, who was passing up-river, stepped into my cabin
and told me that the Mounted Police were searching for me. When I
asked him why, he said that the English friends of my partner had been
inquiring for him, and that I was known to have been the last man to
be seen in his company. When that had been said, I knew the meaning of
the sight I had witnessed when the bridge gave--my partner had sent
his body down river on the first of the flood to warn me of my danger,
as if he would say, '_Escape while you can; it will soon be
discovered_.'

"I gathered together what gold I could carry and, travelling by night
only that I might not be noticed (and you know how long November
nights can be in the Yukon), I struck the trail for Skaguay--the route
by which two and a half years before you had fled. I got out
undetected, as I thought, and arrived at Vancouver. There I read in a
paper that at Forty-Mile the body had been found. I was seized with
panic and hurried on to Winnipeg; on the way I was alarmed to find
that I was being shadowed. I escaped my follower on my arrival there
and sought out Wrath, the only man I knew in town. I was sure that I
could trust him if he were sufficiently heavily bribed; so I gave h