ched at the corners.

"Who was your representative?" he demanded abruptly. "And, how did it
come that he arrived just in the nick of time?"

"Why, his name is Sven Larsen. He's Murchison's clerk," answered the
Scot. "And he was here all the time."

"Sven Larsen!" yelled Wentworth. "That half-wit! Why, he hasn't got
sense enough to come in out of the rain!"

"Maybe ye're right," admitted McNabb, "but that isn't what I hired him
to do."

With an oath, Wentworth pushed past Cameron and started for the door to
find himself suddenly face to face with Sven Larsen. "Get out of my
way, damn you!" he cried. "Go up in the loft and wallow in your
stinking furs!"

"Furs!" repeated the clerk dully, but without giving an inch. "Oh,
yes, furs." He was looking Wentworth squarely in the eyes with a heavy
stare. "Some fur is good, and some is bad. A Russian sable is better
than a baum marten." At the words, Jean McNabb, who had been a silent
but fascinated listener to all that transpired, leaned swiftly forward,
her eyes staring into the uncouth face of the speaker, who continued,
"And when the coat is dark, and of matched skins, it is very much
better than any baum marten. And when one receives the sable coat on a
winter's night from the hands of a beautiful Russian princess whom one
is helping to escape through a roaring blizzard in a motor car--or was
it a sleigh?"

"Stop, damn you!" In the lamp-light the on-lookers saw that the face
of the engineer had gone livid. His words came thickly. "You fool!
Are you crazy? Have you forgotten Pollak, and what happened in the
shop of Levinski, the furrier? Where is Pollak?"

A slow grin overspread the face of Sven Larsen. "I invented Pollak to
cover a mistake I made. There never was any Pollak, Wentworth, but
there is a Russian sable coat. The coat is in your trunk in the cabin.
It is the coat you stole from Miss McNabb on the night of the Campbell
dinner."

"Oskar!" cried Jean, leaping from her chair at the moment that
Wentworth hurled himself upon Hedin. Her cry was drowned in the swift
impact of bodies and the sound of blows, and grunts, and heavy
breathing. McNabb and Cameron drew back and the bodies, locked in a
clench, toppled to the floor, overturning a chair.

"Oh, stop them! Stop them!" shrieked the girl. "He'll kill him!"

"Who'll kill who?" grinned McNabb, holding her back with one hand,
without taking his eyes from the struggling, fighting figur