d not have used
his pistol unless forced to do so. He wanted to be hand to hand with
the treacherous half-breed, and his breath came in panting eagerness as
he ran.

Suddenly he stopped short. He had struck the trail. Here Croisset had
stood, fifty yards from his window, when he fired. The snow was beaten
down, and from the spot his retreating footsteps led toward the forest.
Like a dog Philip followed the trail. The first timber was thinned by
the axe, and the moon lighted up the white spaces ahead of him. He was
half across the darker wall of the spruce when his heart gave a sudden
jump. He had heard the snarl of a dog, the lash of a whip, a man's low
voice cursing the beast he was striking. The sounds came from the dense
cover of the spruce, and told him that Jean was not looking for
immediate pursuit. He slipped in among the shadows quietly, and a few
steps brought him to a smaller open space where a few trees had been
cut. In this little clearing a slim dark figure of a man was
straightening out the tangled traces of a sledge-team.

Philip could not see his face, but he knew that it was Jean. It was
Jean's figure, Jean's movement, his low, sharp voice as he spoke to the
dogs. Man and huskies were not twenty steps from him. With a tense
breath Philip replaced his pistol in its holster. He did not want to
kill, and he possessed a proper respect for the hair-trigger mechanism
of his automatic. In the fight he anticipated with Jean the weapon
would be safer in its holster than in his hand. Jean was at present
unarmed, except for his hunting-knife. His rifle leaned against a tree,
and in another moment Philip was between the gun and the half-breed.

One of the sledge dogs betrayed him. At its low and snarling warning
the half-breed whirled about with the alertness of a lynx, and he was
half ready when Philip launched himself at his throat. They went down
free of the dogs, the forest man under. One of Philip's hands had
reached his enemy's throat, but with a swift movement of his arm the
half-breed wrenched it off and slipped out from under his assailant
with the agility of an eel. Both were on their feet in an instant,
facing each other in the tiny moonlit arena a dozen feet from the
silent and watchful dogs.

Even now Philip could not see the half-breed's features because of a
hood drawn closely about his face. The "breed" had made no effort to
draw a weapon, and Philip flung himself upon him again. Thus in open
b