Rossland’s voice rose above the crackle and roar of the burning cabin.  “Alan Holt!  Are you there?”

“Yes, I am here,” shouted Alan, “and I have a line on your heart, Rossland, and my finger is on the trigger.  What do you want?”

There was a moment of silence, as if the thought of what he was facing had at last stricken Rossland dumb.  Then he said:  “We are giving you a last chance, Holt.  For God’s sake, don’t be a fool!  The offer I made you today is still good.  If you don’t accept it—­the law must take its course.”

“The law!” Alan’s voice was a savage cry.

“Yes, the law.  The law is with us.  We have the proper authority to recover a stolen wife, a captive, a prisoner held in restraint with felonious intent.  But we don’t want to press the law unless we are forced to do so.  You and the old Eskimo have killed three of our men and wounded two others.  That means the hangman, if we take you alive.  But we are willing to forget that if you will accept the offer I made you today.  What do you say?”

Alan was stunned.  Speech failed him as he realized the monstrous assurance with which Graham and Rossland were playing their game.  And when he made no answer Rossland continued to drive home his arguments, believing that at last Alan was at the point of surrender.

Up in the dark attic the voices had come like ghost-land whispers to old Sokwenna.  He lay huddled at the window, and the chill of death was creeping over him.  But the voices roused him.  They were not strange voices, but voices which came up out of a past of many years ago, calling upon him, urging him, persisting in his ears with cries of vengeance and of triumph, the call of familiar names, a moaning of women, a sobbing of children.  Shadowy hands helped him, and a last time he raised himself to the window, and his eyes were filled with the glare of the burning cabin.  He struggled to lift his rifle, and behind him he heard the exultation of his people as he rested it over the sill and with gasping breath leveled it at something which moved between him and the blazing light of that wonderful sun which was the burning cabin.  And then, slowly and with difficulty, he pressed the trigger, and Sokwenna’s last shot sped on its mission.

At the sound of the shot Alan looked through the window.  For a moment Rossland stood motionless.  Then the pole in his hands wavered, drooped, and fell to the earth, and Rossland sank down after it making no sound, and lay a dark and huddled blot on the ground.

The appalling swiftness and ease with which Rossland had passed from life into death shocked every nerve in Alan’s body.  Horror for a brief space stupefied him, and he continued to stare at the dark and motionless blot, forgetful of his own danger, while a grim and terrible silence followed the shot.  And then what seemed to be a single cry broke that silence, though it was made up of many men’s