“It can’t be much farther,” he encouraged her.  “We’ve got to overtake him pretty soon, dear.  Mighty soon.”  Her hand pressed gently against his cheek, and he swallowed a thickness that in spite of his effort gathered in his throat.  During that last half hour a different look had come into her eyes.  It was there now as she lay limply with her head on his breast—­a look of unutterable tenderness, and of something else.  It was that which brought the thickness into his throat.  It was not fear.  It was the soft glow of a great love—­and of understanding.  She knew that even he was almost at the end of his fight.  His endurance was giving out.  One of two things must happen very soon.  She continued to stroke his cheek gently until he placed her on her feet again, and then she held one of his hands close to her breast as they looked behind them, and listened.  He could feel the soft throbbing of her heart.  If he needed greater courage then it was given to him.

They went on.  And then, so suddenly that it brought a stifled cry from the girl’s lips, they came upon the cabin.  It was not a hundred yards from them when they first saw it.  It was no longer abandoned.  A thin spiral of smoke was rising from the chimney.  There was no sign of life other than that.

For half a minute Philip stared at it.  Here, at last, was the final hope.  Life or death, all that the world might hold for him and the girl at his side, was in that cabin.  Gently he drew her so that she would be unseen.  And then, still looking at the cabin, he drew off his coat and dropped it in the snow.  It was the preparation of a man about to fight.  The look of it was in his face and the stiffening of his muscles, and when he turned to his little companion she was as white as the snow under her feet.

“We’re in time,” he breathed.  “You—­you stay here.”

She understood.  Her hands clutched at him as he left her.  A gulp rose in her throat.  She wanted to call out.  She wanted to hold him back—­or go with him.  Yet she obeyed.  She stood with a heart that choked her and watched him go.  For she knew, after all, that it was the thing to do.  Sobbingly she breathed his name.  It was a prayer.  For she knew what would happen in the cabin.

CHAPTER XX

Philip came up behind the windowless end of the cabin.  He noticed in passing with Bram that on the opposite side was a trap-window of saplings, and toward this he moved swiftly but with caution.  It was still closed when he came where he could see.  But with his ear close to the chinks he heard a sound—­the movement of some one inside.  For an instant he looked over his shoulder.  Celia was standing where he had left her.  He could almost feel the terrible suspense that was in her eyes as she watched him.

He moved around toward the door.  There was in him an intense desire to have it over with quickly.  His pulse quickened as the thought grew in him that the maker of the strange snowshoe trail might be a friend after all.  But how was he to discover that fact?  He had decided to take no chances in the matter.  Ten seconds of misplaced faith in the stranger might prove fatal.  Once he held a gun in his hands he would be in a position to wait for introductions and explanations.  But until then, with their Eskimo enemies close at their heels—­