d, having read, Donald McTavish mechanically lighted his pipe,
and began to smoke furiously.

CHAPTER X

THE ESCAPE

It was the old battle between love and duty. The pile of covered
newspapers lay unheeded beside the young man's chair. He pictured
Jean Fitzpatrick in every conceivable peril of the winter on those
desolate barrens--as the prisoner of Indians, of trappers, as the
prey of wild beasts, as the prey of men. He writhed at his impotence,
and cursed the day that had seen his rescue on Death Trail. Better
a skeleton without flesh, he thought, than a living being whose
every thought tortured him to desperation.

And, yet, there was something in the idea of escape that seemed
shameful to him. If he had done wrong, he must take his medicine;
if he had failed, he must atone for the failure according to the
decrees of his superior. That was the discipline in him responding
to the discipline of Fitzpatrick. It was the iron McTavish to the
fore rather than the passionate flesh-and-blood McTavish.

A grim smile lighted his features for a moment, as he thought of
Laura, the factor's daughter, innocently placing in his hands the
means of setting at naught her father's commands. Her naive zeal
for his welfare might react to her own loss.

The thing that at last decided Donald was the abiding sense of
injustice that had all along burned in him against this humiliating
confinement. Had he been actually unfaithful to duty, he would have
put the thought of escape away harshly. As it was, the inherent
fear of that great, inevitable Juggernaut, the Company, stirred in
him. But he crushed it down resolutely. This was an affair of
persons, not of companies... He would go!

To-night was the fifth after Jean's departure. There was much to
be done before he could be ready. Then, too, something might have
happened to Peter to prevent his reaching the rendezvous on time.
Donald decided that he would go the next night.

The manner Peter Rainy had indicated was the only feasible one for
escape. The room in which the captive was confined was one of some
twenty-odd built along the strong wall that surrounded the post.
Across the narrow corridor that connected the row of rooms on the
inside, the heavy masonry of the wall jutted out roughly. At the
end of the corridor, a stout door was locked and bolted at night,
so that during the dark hours the window was the only means of
egress.

Next morning, after breakfast, Donald ca