When Wentworth left the trading room he went straight to his cabin, and disregarding his open trunk, he lifted a pack-sack from the floor and swung it to his shoulders. It was the pack he had deposited there scarcely an hour before when he had trailed in from the mill site, and he knew that it contained three or four days' supply of rations.

On the Shamattawa he had heard from a truck driver that an old man and a girl had started for Gods Lake post, and he instantly recognized McNabb and Jean from the man's description. Thereupon he made up a pack and headed for the post for the sole purpose of baiting the two, and of flaunting his prowess as a financier in their faces.

An angry flush flooded his face as he realized how completely the tables had turned. Then the flush gave place to a crafty smile, as he remembered the bills in his pocket. "McNabb's money, or Orcutt's," he muttered under his breath, "it's all the same to me. Three hundred and fifty thousand is more money than I ever expected to handle. And now for the get-away."

Closing the door behind him he struck across the clearing toward the northeast. At the end of the bush he paused. "Hell!" he growled. "I can't hit for the railway. Cameron said he had wired Orcutt at the bank, and I might meet him coming in." For some time he stood irresolute. "There's a way out straight south," he speculated, "about three hundred miles, and a good share of it water trail. I'll be all right if I can pick 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 was in striking Alex Thumb with the dog-whip when he refused to pull the outfit in the face of a blizzard. Thumb's reputation as a "bad Injun" was well founded. The son of a hot-tempered French trader and a Cree mother, his early life had been a succession of merciless beatings. At the age of fourteen he killed his father with a blow from an ice chisel, and thereafter served ten years of an indeterminate sentence, during the course of which the unmerciful beatings were administered for each infraction of reformatory rules, until in his heart was born a sullen hatred of all white men and an abysmal hatred of the lash. When Wentworth struck, his doom was sealed, but as Murchison said, Alex Thumb was canny. He had no mind to serve another term in prison.

All through the spring and summer he trailed the engineer, waiting with the patience that is the heritage of the wilderness dweller for the time and the place to strike and avoid suspicion. And as time drew on the half-breed's hatred against all white men seemed to concentrate into a mighty rage against this one white man. There had been times when he could have killed him from afar. More than once on the trail Wentworth unconsciously stood with the sights of Alex Thumb's rifle trained upon his head, or his heart. But such was his hatred that Thumb always stayed the finger that crooked upon the trigger—and bided his time.

Thus it was that half an hour after Wentworth pushed out into the lake another canoe shot out from the shore and fell in behind, its lone occupant, paddling noiselessly, easily kept just within sight of the fleeing man. When daylight broadened Wentworth landed upon a sandy point and ate breakfast. Upon another point, a mile to the rear, Alex Thumb lay on his belly and chewed jerked meat as his smouldering black eyes regarded gloatingly the man in the distance.

Gods Lake is nearly fifty miles in its north and south reach, and all day Wentworth paddled southward, holding well to the western shore.

At noon he rested for an hour and ate luncheon, his eyes now and then scanning the back reach of the lake. But he saw nothing, and from an aspen thicket scarce half a mile away Alex Thumb watched in silence.

As the afternoon wore to a closer the half-breed drew nearer. The shadows of the bordering balsams were long on the water when Wentworth first caught sight of the pursuing canoe. His first thought was that Orcutt had arrived at the post and that Downey had taken the trail. He ceased paddling for a moment and his light canoe swung into the trough of the waves and rocked crankily.

The other canoe was only a half mile behind, and Wentworth saw with relief that its occupant was not Downey. Some Indian fishing, he thought, and resumed his paddling. The south shore was only an hour away now, and tired as he was, he redoubled his efforts.

Farther on he looked back again. The canoe still followed. Surely no
Indian would set his nets so far from his camp. Yet the man was an
Indian. He had drawn closer and Wentworth could distinguish the short,
jabbing strokes of the paddle.

Another quarter of an hour and Wentworth looked again—and as he looked, the blood seemed to freeze in his veins. The pursuing canoe was close now, and he was staring straight into the eyes of Alex Thumb. The half-breed was smiling—a curious, twisted smile that was the very embodiment of savage hate. Wentworth's muscles felt weak, and it was with difficulty that he drove them to the task of forcing the canoe out of the trough of the waves. Mechanically he paddled with his eyes fixed on the ever nearing south shore. He was very tired. He would soon make land now. But when he did make land—what then? He cursed himself for going unarmed. He could hear the slop of the waves on Thumb's canoe. He turned his head and saw that the man was only two lengths behind him. What would he do? With the mechanical swing of his arms the words of Murchison and Downey repeated themselves in his brain. "Serving with the devils in hell; serving with the devils in hell," with a certain monotonous rhythm the words kept repeating themselves through his brain. Why had he ever come North? Why hadn't he told McNabb that he would have nothing to do with his pulp-wood? The half-breed's canoe was alongside, but its occupant did not speak. He merely jabbed at the waves with his paddle and looked with that devilish twisted smile.

Wentworth hardly knew when his canoe grated upon the gravel. Stiffly he half walked, half crawled to the bow and lifted out his pack. Alex Thumb stood upon the gravel and smiled.

"What do you want?" faltered Wentworth, his voice breaking nervously.

The half-breed shrugged. "You no lak no pardner on de trail?" he asked.

"Where are you going?"

Thumb pointed vaguely toward the south. "Me—I'm lak de pardner on de trail."

"Look here," cried Wentworth suddenly. "Do you want money? More money than you ever saw before?"

The breed shook his head. "No. De money can't buy w'at I wan'."

"What do you want?"

Again came the twisted smile. "Mebbe-so we eat de suppaire firs'. I got som' feesh. We buil' de fire an' cook 'um."

The meal was eaten in silence, and during its progress Wentworth in a measure recovered his nerve.

"You haven't told me yet what you want," he suggested when they had lighted their pipes and thrown on an armful of greens for a smudge.

Between the narrowed lids the black eyes seemed to smoulder as they fixed upon the face of the white man. "I wan' you heart," he said, casually. "Red in my han's I wan' it, an' squeeze de blood out, an' watch it splash on de rocks. Mebbe-so I'm eat a piece dat heart, an' feed de res' to my dog."

Wentworth's pipe dropped to the gravel and lay there. He uttered no sound. The wind had died down and save for the droning hum of a billion mosquitoes the silence was absolute. A thin column of smoke streamed from the bowl of the neglected pipe. In profound fascination Wentworth watched it flow smoothly upward. An imperceptible air current set the column swaying and wavering, and a light puff of breeze dispersed it in a swirl of heavy yellow smoke from the smudge. Dully, impersonally, he sensed that the half-breed had just told him that he would squeeze the red blood from his heart and watch it splash upon the rocks. His eyes rested upon the rocks rimmed up by the ice above the gravelly beach. The blood would splash there, and there, and those other rocks would be spattered with tiny drops of it—his blood, the blood from his own heart which Alex Thumb would squeeze dry, as one would wring water from a sponge. He wondered that he felt no sense of fear. He believed that Alex Thumb would do that, yet it was a matter that seemed not of any importance. He raised his eyes and encountered the malevolent glare of the breed. The black eyes seemed to glow with an inner lustre, like the smoulder of banked fires.

With a start he seemed to have returned from some far place. The words of Corporal Downey flittered through his brain: "You'll be servin' with the devils in hell if you don't quit makin' enemies of men like Alex Thumb." And there was Alex Thumb regarding him through narrowed smouldering eyes across the little fire. Alex Thumb would kill him! Would kill him—Ross Wentworth! The whole thing was preposterous. If the man had really meant to kill him he would have done it before this. He wouldn't dare; there were the Mounted. Other words of Downey came to him, "If he does kill you, I'll get him." So there was a possibility that the man would kill him. Why not? Who would ever know? They would think he disappeared with Orcutt's money—would even institute a world-wide search from him—but not in the bush. Thought of the money nerved him to speak.

"How much will you take to get into your canoe and paddle back the way you came?" he asked.

The breed laughed. "Wen I'm keel you I'm got you money, anyway. But I'm ain' wan' so mooch de money. I'm wan' you heart." A dangerous glitter supplanted the smouldering glow of the black eyes. "Me—I'm stay ten year in de prison, for 'cause I'm keel my own fadder, an' dat dam' good t'ing. For why I'm keel heem? 'Cause he whip me wit' de dog-whip. In de prison de guards whip me mor' as wan t'ousan' tam. In de night w'en I ain' can sleep 'cause my back hurt so bad from de whip, I'm lay in de dark an' keel dem all. Every wan I ha' keel wan hondre tam dere in de dark w'en I lay an' t'ink 'bout it. An' I know how I'm goin' do dat. Den you hit me wit de whip on de trail. All right. I'm ain' kin keel de guards. I keel you here in de bush; I shoot you in de head, an' I'm cut de heart out before he quit jumpin'."

Wentworth moistened his lips with his tongue. "Downey will take you in, if you do. And they'll hang you—choke you to death with a rope."

"No. Downey ain' kin fin'. I'm bur' you in de bush—all but de heart.
I'm keep de heart all tam."

"Good God, man, you couldn't kill me like that—in cold blood!" Beyond the fire the half-breed laughed, a dry evil laugh that held nothing of mirth. With a scream of terror Wentworth leaped to his feet and crashed into the bush.

Beside the fire Alex Thumb laughed—and spread his blankets for the night.

Four hours later the breed wriggled from his blanket and lighted the fire. While the water heated for his tea, he carried the two canoes back into the scrub and cached them, together with the two packs. He swallowed his breakfast and picking up his rifle walked slowly into the bush, his eyes on the ground. A mile away the lips twisted into their sardonic grin as he noted where the fleeing man had floundered through a muskeg, the flattened grass telling of his frequent falls. In a balsam thicket he lifted a scrap of cloth from a protruding limb, and again he smiled. Where Wentworth forded a waist-deep stream he had lain down to rest on the sand of the opposite bank. The trail started toward the south. By midforenoon Thumb noted with a grin that he was traveling due east.

At noon he overtook Wentworth, mired to the middle in a marl bed, supporting himself on a half sunken spruce.

Laying aside his rifle, the breed cut a pole with his belt ax and after
some difficulty succeeded in dragging the engineer to solid ground.
Wentworth was muttering and mumbling about a Russian sable coat, and
Thumb had to support him as he bound him to a spruce tree.

On the edge of the lake Corporal Downey picked up the trail. He located the cached canoes, and returning to the fire, he reached down and picked Wentworth's pipe from the gravel. "It's Thumb, all right," he said, as he stood holding the pipe. "I know his canoe. They were both here at the same time. I don't savvy that, because Wentworth left first. Thumb's trail is only three hours old. Maybe—if I hurry——"

From far to the southeastward came the sound of a shot. Downey straightened, and for the space of minutes stood tense as a pointer. The sound was not repeated—and swiftly the officer of the Mounted sped through the bush.