ou down on the trip to town."

"I was afraid to leave the furs at the cabin," Hager defended.
"Suppose somebody stole them while me and Ben were gone? A whole
season's catch. I just couldn't take a chance."

Maddox nodded with evident reluctance. "That's true enough, I guess. I
was just sort of wondering about it." He stood up. "Well, sorry to
have bothered you."

* * * * *

Hager made a generous gesture. "No bother at all." He watched as
Maddox left the room, grinning inwardly. Maddox apparently suspected
something in his snooping, suspicious way, but the only point of
attack he'd been able to find was one for which Hager had a
satisfactory explanation. Hager felt certain that he wouldn't be
questioned again. And with the snow blotting out the erratic trail the
sled had left, he was confident that he had nothing to fear from
Maddox any longer.

The grin crept out around his square lips. He was safe. He had
committed the perfect crime.

Hager checked in at the hotel, and after a pleasant evening spent at
one of Moose Gulch's two saloons, he returned and went to bed. He had
a restless night. The hotel was warm enough, and the covers on the bed
thick, but a strange feeling of cold seemed to envelop him. And though
he emptied the bottle of whisky he had brought with him, the cold
persisted.

He slept fitfully. Once he dreamed that he was tied, naked, to the
sled and being driven by Cahill through a terrific snow storm. The
cold was so intense it seared him like fire. He awoke, shivering, a
vivid recollection of Cahill's gaunt, accusing features in his mind.
Again he seemed to hear Cahill's dying promise.

"_You aren't going to get away with this, Matt. I'm going to get you.
I'm going to make you pay._"

And now, shuddering with that weird cold that seemed to enclose him
like a huge, vengeful fist, Hager wondered.

The cold remained with him in the days that followed. It not only
remained. It grew more unbearable.

Hager began to have a persecuted feeling. The cold stayed with him
wherever he went. Even near hot stoves, or in heated rooms, he felt
chilled. No one else seemed to notice it. The cold seemed intended for
him alone. More and more, he wondered about Cahill's threat.

He was materialistic. He didn't believe in ghosts. But he knew that
he was being haunted by an unnatural cold that nobody else seemed
able to feel.

He cast about for a method of escaping the cold. The