even if it had
done so Gladwyne would have noticed and picked it up. It seems to me he
took it off to open one of the provision bags and couldn't find it
afterward because he'd trodden it into the snow."

Nasmyth could doubt no longer, and his face grew red.

"The hound!" he broke out. "He had a hand frost-bitten--one finger is
different from the others yet."

Lisle said nothing; he could understand and sympathize with what was
going on in his companion's mind and the latter was filled with
bitterness and humiliation. A man of his own kind and station in life,
one with whom he fished and shot, had broken faith with his starving
comrade and with incredible cowardice had left him to perish. Even this
was not the worst; though Nasmyth had always taken the personal courage
of his friends for granted. He was not a clever man and he had his
faults, but he shaped his life in accordance with a few simple but
inflexible rules. It was difficult for him to understand how one could
yield to a fit of craven fear; but there was a fact which made Gladwyne's
transgression still blacker.

"This thing hits hard," he said at length. "The man should have gone
back, if he had known it meant certain death."

Lisle filled his pipe and smoked in silence for several minutes during
which the eery cry of a loon rang about the camp. It roused Nasmyth to an
outbreak of anger.

"I hate that unearthly noise!" he exclaimed vehemently. "The thing seems
to be gloating; it's indecent! When I think of that call it will bring
back the long portage and this ghostly river! I wish I'd never made the
journey, or that I could blot the whole thing out!"

"It can't be done," Lisle replied. "It's too late. You have learned the
truth of what has been done here--but the results will work themselves
out. Neither you nor I can stop them; they have to be faced."

"The pity of it is that the innocent must suffer; they've borne enough
already."

"There's a point I don't quite understand," declared Lisle. "Whatever the
Hudson Bay agent thought, he'd have kept it to himself if he'd been
allowed--I've met him. It was Gladwyne who laid the whole blame on
Vernon; he forced the agent to bear him out. Why should he have taken so
much trouble? His own tale would have cleared him."

Nasmyth looked irresolute; and then he answered reluctantly:

"There's a fact I haven't told you yet--Clarence came into the family
property on George's death; a fine old place, a fairly