of the cabin and the open door. For perhaps half a dozen seconds
he closed his eyes to give his snow-strained vision an even
chance with the man in the cabin. Then he looked in.

It was a small cabin. It was possibly not more than ten feet
square inside, and at the far end of it was a fireplace from which
rose the chimney through the roof. At first Philip saw nothing
except the dim outlines of things. It was a moment or two before
he made out the figure of a man stooping over the fire. He stepped
over the threshold, making no sound. The occupant of the cabin
straightened himself slowly, lifting with, extreme care a pot of
coffee from the embers. A glance at his broad back and his giant
stature told Philip that he was not an Eskimo. He turned. Even
then for an infinitesimal space he did not see Philip as he stood
fronting the door with the light in his face. It was a white man's
face--a face almost hidden in a thick growth of beard and a tangle
of hair that fell to the shoulders. Another instant and he had
seen the intruder and stood like one turned suddenly into stone.

Philip had leveled Celie's little revolver.

"I am Philip Raine of His Majesty's service, the Royal Mounted,"
he said. "Throw, up your hands!"

The moment's tableau was one of rigid amazement on one side, of
waiting tenseness on the other. Philip believed that the shadow of
his body concealed the size of the tiny revolver in his hand.
Anyway it would be effective at that distance, and he expected to
see the mysterious stranger's hands go over his head the moment he
recovered from the shock that had apparently gone with the