ick up a canoe, and I can get grub of the Indians."
Skirting the clearing, he entered the bush and came out on the shore of
the lake at some distance below the landing, where several canoes had
been beached for the night. Stooping, he righted one, and as he
straightened up he found himself face to face with Corporal Downey of
the Mounted. For a moment the two stood regarding each other in
silence, while through Wentworth's brain flashed a mighty fear. Had
McNabb changed his mind and sent Downey to arrest him for the theft of
the coat? He thought of Orcutt's big bills in his pocket, and his
blood seemed to turn to water within him. Then suddenly he remembered
that for the present, at least, he held those bills under color of
authority. In the deep twilight that is the summer midnight of the
North he searched the officer's face. Damn the man! Why didn't he say
something? Why did he always force another to open a conversation?
Wentworth cleared his throat.

"Hello, _Corporal_," he said sourly. "Aren't you out pretty late?"

"Not any later than you are, _Captain_. An' I'm headed in. Put over
any more big deals lately?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I run onto Cameron about a week back. He was huntin' you or
Orcutt. He told me how you beat old John McNabb out of his
pulp-wood--almost. You ought to be ashamed--a couple of up-to-date
financiers like you two, pickin' on an' old man that's just dodderin'
around in his second childhood."

Wentworth flushed hot at the grin that accompanied the words.

"To hell with McNabb--and you, too!" he cried angrily, and carrying the
canoe into the water, he placed his pack in it. When he returned for a
paddle, Downey was gone, and stepping into the canoe, he pushed it out
into the lake. "Of course, he'd have to show up, damn him!" he
muttered as he propelled the light craft southward with swift strokes
of the paddle. "And now if Orcutt should show up within the next day
or two, Downey will know just where to follow, and even with a two
days' start, I doubt if I could keep ahead of him. They say he's a
devil on the trail. But I'll fool him. I'll leave the canoe at the
end of the lake, and instead of striking on down the river I'll hit out
overland. Once I get to the railway, they can all go to hell!"

The mistake Wentworth made on the trail when he first came into the
North was not so much the insisting upon bringing in his trunk, nor his
refusal to carry a pack; it