Tell me! Tell me quick. An-ina, my second mother, she's alone at the post. A woman! G.o.d in heaven! Tell me quick."

The change was supreme. No tone the girl had used could compare with the force of Marcel's demand. There was no laugh on his lips now, no smile in his eyes. A deadly fear, such as Keeko had never beheld in them before, had taken possession of them. He was stirred to the depths of his very soul.

Keeko's reply came at once.

"Yes. Nicol's the man I believed my step-father. He's a murderer. He's the man who sent my mother to her grave before I made home last summer.

He's the man who Lorson Harris is going to hand a hundred thousand dollars for the murder of your outfit, and to steal your trade. He's the man who asked me to share with him the price of his crime, and would have held me prisoner to obey his will if I hadn't just had the means right there to help myself. Oh, my dear, my dear. I'm scared. I'm scared to death now for the folks you love. That's why I struck out on a chance for this old moose head, with my boys and dogs. I hoped, I prayed--oh, G.o.d, how I prayed!--that I could get around and find you, and hand you warning."

Marcel was no longer seated. He was standing, his great height towering over the girl who was gazing up at him with tears of emotion shining in her pretty eyes. He did not realize them. He was no longer thinking of her. He was no longer thinking of his love, and the happiness that was so newly born. His thought was far back over the trail of ice and snow over which he had so recently pa.s.sed. He was contemplating a dusky face with eyes of velvet softness, carrying out her patient labours for the men she loved. He was contemplating the stealing approach of the would-be murderer. He saw in fancy the dawn of horror in the mother woman's eyes as she awoke to realization----

Suddenly he flung out his clenched fists in a gesture of superlative determination and threat.

"Say!" he cried, his eyes hot with a fire such as Keeko had never thought to see in them. "It's two hundred miles of h.e.l.l's own territory with the thaw coming. I'm going right back--now. I'm going just as quick as I can load my outfit. She's alone--do you get it? An-ina! She raised me--she's my Indian mother woman. G.o.d help the swine that harms her body!"

He turned and moved abruptly away. Keeko had come to him with her love.

She had faced everything the north country could show her to bring him the warning. He had forgotten her. He had forgotten everything, but the gentle creature whose dark-eyed terror haunted him.

Keeko understood. She had no feeling other than a great, unvoiced joy in the splendid manhood of it all. She stood up. She moved after the man as he made towards his camp. She overtook him.

"They're all down there, Marcel dear. They're down there on the river,"

she said, as she came to his side and her two hands clasped themselves about his swinging arm. "There's Little One Man, Snake Foot, and Med'cine Charlie. They're good boys, and the dogs are fresh, and ready.

I saw to that. We can start right away, and I guess you can't just set the gait too hot."

CHAPTER XIX

THE STORE-HOUSE

Steve pushed back from the table in An-ina's kitchen. The woman was standing ready to minister to his lightest demands. She had waited on him throughout the meal, and remained standing the whole time. It was a habit, which, throughout their years of life together, Steve had been powerless to break her of. It was her pride thus to wait upon him.

Her soft, watchful eyes were observing him closely as he filled and lit his pipe. There was something approaching anxiety in their depths. It may have been the dull yellow lamplight that robbed the man's face of its usual look of robust health. But if the shadows wrought upon it and the curious pasty yellow tint of the skin were due to the lamplight, certainly the hollows about the eyes, the cheeks, which had become almost alarmingly drawn, and the sunken lines about the firm mouth could not have been attributed to a similar cause.

An-ina understood this. She understood more. She had realized, during the weeks that had elapsed since Steve's return from the heart of Unaga, a curious growing bodily la.s.situde in the man. It was something approaching inertia, and she knew its cause. Fear had grown up in her simple Indian mind and heart. She wanted to speak. She wanted to offer her warning. But somehow Steve's will was her law, and she knew that will was driving him now in a fashion that would only leave her words wasted. So, while her lips remained silent, her feelings were clearly enough expressed in her eyes.

"Just a draw or two at the old pipe, An-ina," Steve said, with his flicker of a smile that was full of gentleness. "Guess you can't know the relief of being rid of the mask for awhile. The taste of every breath I draw through it makes me well-nigh sick. Still, it's got to be.

It's that or quick death. And I'm not yearning to 'cash in' yet. There's more than two weeks of it still. We brought a h.e.l.l of a cargo of the stuff. More than I guessed. I'd like to get through with it before Marcel gets back with--this Keeko."

An-ina nodded. Something of her anxiety became absorbed by her tender smile at the reference to Marcel and Keeko.

"The thaw him no come," she said. "Maybe him not find Keeko. Maybe it long--heap long time. Oh, yes?"

Steve stood up and turned his back to the cook-stove. His sunken eyes were reflective.

"No. The thaw's quit, and a sharp spell's closed down again," he said.

"He guessed the girl was coming up the river." He shook his head.

"There'll be no river open for weeks yet."

He pa.s.sed across to the door and flung it open. Outside the night was coldly bright, and the still air had a bitter snap in it. He remained only a moment, then he closed the door again.

"We'll get no change till the next moon," he said as he returned.

"Anyway, I'll need to get things through before he comes. I don't want the boy to take a hand in the packing. It's a big risk."

"Yes. Boss Steve take all risk. An-ina know." The woman sighed. "An-ina mak' pack. Oh, no! Much big risk. She not mak' pack. So Boss Steve him say. Boss Steve die all up bimeby. Leave An-ina. Leave him Marcel--an'

this Keeko. All mak' big weep. Oh, yes."

Steve's eyes smiled gently. He came over to the woman's side. One hand, that seemed to have lost much of its muscular shape, rested gently on her shoulder.

"Don't you just worry a thing, An-ina," he said. "Guess I know. When Marcel gets back I'll be around all right. I reckon to get through quick. That's why I work late into the night. After I get through, and get quit of the masks, I'll eat good, and be as I was. I just get sick with the dope on the mask, that's all. I'll get right on now."

He laid aside his pipe and pa.s.sed out of the kitchen. And, as he went, the woman's eyes gazed yearningly after him.

Steve had lit his lamp. It burned up. It flooded the great store-room with its rank light. He watched it till it settled into full flame, half his strong face hidden up under the mask saturated with its nauseating "dope." Habit forced him to a swift upward glance at the three ventilators in the roof. They were all set wide open. Then he glanced round him surveying the work that occupied his working-day, and half the night he would gladly have devoted to much-needed rest.

It was a curious scene. It was full of fascination in that it represented the complete triumph which for so many years had been withheld from him.

The great store-house, built with so much care and close study of its purposes, and which had stood for so long empty, a pathetic expression of man's hope deferred, was filled to its capacity. A greater part of its shelving was groaning under bales of closely pressed Adresol in hermetically-sealed wrappings, while the floor was piled with vast quant.i.ties of the deadly plant awaiting the process that would render it comparatively harmless to those who had yet to handle it.

In its raw, limp state the plant was unwholesome enough to look at. Its pale foliage had something of the rubbery look of seaweed. But the crushed blooms, oozing thick sap from their wounds, were something almost evil for eyes that had knowledge behind them. Even in his most triumphant mood Steve was not without a feeling of repulsion at the sight. His mask held him impervious to the deadly fumes of the oozing sap, but well enough he knew that, in such a presence, it was only that ingenious contrivance that stood between him and swift death.

He turned to the window to see that it was secure. The door, too, he tried to a.s.sure himself that it was shut tight. He was fearful lest the heavy escaping fumes should reach those beyond. The ventilators were built high, chimneys that carried the fumes well up into the night air, where their diffusion was a.s.sured, leaving them robbed of their deadly poison. But the window and door were dangerous outlets that needed close watch.

Finally he pa.s.sed to the far end of the room where his lamp stood on the bench beside the baling machine, and the rolls of curious-looking cloth, almost like oilskin, or some rubber-proofed material, and the large vessel of sealing solution with its brush for application sticking up in it. And forthwith he set to work at the scales upon which he measured his quant.i.ties. The organization of it all was perfect. It was Steve through and through, and his calm method seemed to rob the whole process of any sense of danger.

But Steve was sick. He knew it. He knew it was a race between his condition and the completion of the work. He was living in an atmosphere of contending poisons, breathing one to nullify the effects of the other. There were moments when he wondered how long his body could endure the struggle which he knew must go on to the end, whatever that end might be.

His determination remained unweakening. He knew that An-ina had become aware of his condition, and it only made him the more urgent that his task should be completed before Marcel's return. Whatever happened Marcel must not be permitted to partic.i.p.ate in the danger. So, for all his appearance of calm, he worked with a feverish energy in the deadly atmosphere.

Whatever Steve's bodily condition mentally he was fully alert. It even seemed as if his bodily weakness stimulated the clear activity of his mental powers. Working through the long hours of voiceless solitude he held under almost microscopic review every aspect of the situation his final triumph had created. Everything must fall out--provided his sick body endured--just as he had calculated. There was only one thing that disturbed the perfect smoothness of the road that lay open before him.

It was the story he had listened to from the lips of An-ina. It was Marcel, and this girl with the Indian name of--"Keeko."

The thought was in his mind now. He was uneasy. The whole possibility of Marcel's encountering such a woman in Unaga had seemed so absurdly remote. A white girl! And yet An-ina had a.s.sured him it was true, and the manner of her a.s.surance left it impossible for him to doubt.

Who was this Keeko? How came she in those far remotenesses which he knew Marcel hunted? He could not think, unless--His searching mind offered him only one solution. It seemed remote enough. It even seemed extravagant. Lorson Harris was the evil genius he had to fear. And he sought to connect him with the mystery of it all. Was this Keeko some Delilah seeking to betray the secret he had fought to retain so long?

Had she discovered Marcel for the sole purpose of serving Lorson Harris?

Was she one of those beautiful lost souls haunting the vice-ridden sh.o.r.es of Seal Bay? It was just possible. There were such women, clever enough, hardy enough to accomplish such a task. It looked like the only solution of the mystery. And he smiled to himself as he thought of the tender soul who had told him the story of it all with such appreciation of its romance.

He realized only too well the fascination such a woman must exercise over a boy of Marcel's years. He would be clay in her hands. Chivalrous, honourable, unsuspicious, what an easy prey he must prove! It was too pitifully easy once the woman discovered him. But even with this realization he was by no means dismayed. He remembered poignantly that An-ina had a.s.sured him that Marcel would bring the woman to the fort.

Well, if that happened Lorson Harris was by no means likely to have things all his own way. He, Steve, had learned his lesson of women, and was not likely to----

Steve was in the act of bearing down upon the lever of the baling machine. He paused, with the lever pressed only half way home. He stood listening, his bent figure unmoving. There was a sound beyond the door.

It might have been the sound of a snowfall from the roof above him. It might have found its source in many things. Yet it was unusual enough to hold the man listening acutely.

Presently, as there was no repet.i.tion of it, he dismissed the matter. He was always fearful of possible approach. A moment's thoughtlessness on the part of An-ina, on the part of his Indians, and the mischief would be done. Even there was always the risk of Marcel's return, and the attraction of the light of the lamp through the window. He dared not for his own sake bar the door. There was always the risk of his mask failing him.