The air he was taking into his half strangled lungs cleared his head and he drew away from Celie to begin the search of the room.  His eyes were more accustomed to the gloom, and suddenly he gave a cry of exultation.  Against the end of the mud and stone fireplace stood a rifle and over the muzzle of this hung a belt and holster.  In the holster was a revolver.  In his excitement and joy his breath was almost a sob as he snatched it from the holster and broke it in the light of the door.  It was a big Colt Forty-five—­ and loaded to the brim.  He showed it to Celie, and thrust her to the door.

“Watch!” he cried, sweeping his arm to the open.  “Just two minutes more.  That’s all I want—­two minutes—­and then—­”

He was counting the cartridges in the belt as he fastened it about his waist.  There were at least forty, two-thirds of them soft-nosed rifle.  The caliber was .303 and the gun was a Savage.  It was modern up to the minute, and as he threw down the lever enough to let him glimpse inside the breech he caught the glisten of cartridges ready for action.  He wanted nothing more.  The cabin might have held his weight in gold and he would not have turned toward it.

With the rifle in his hands he ran past Celie out into the day.  For the moment the excitement pounding in his body had got beyond his power of control.  His brain was running riot with the joyous knowledge of the might that lay in his hands now and he felt an overmastering desire to shout his triumph in the face of their enemies.

“Come on, you devils!  Come on, come on,” he cried.  And then, powerless to restrain what was in him, he let out a yell.

From the door Celie was staring at him.  A few moments before her face had been dead white.  Now a blaze of color was surging back into her cheeks and lips and her eyes shone with the glory of one who was looking on more than triumph.  From her own heart welled up a cry, a revelation of that wonderful thing throbbing in her breast which must have reached Philip’s ears had there not in that same instant come another sound to startle them both into listening silence.

It was not far distant.  And it was unmistakably an answer to Philip’s challenge.

CHAPTER XXI

As they listened the cry came again.  This time Philip caught in it a note that he had not detected before.  It was not a challenge but the long-drawn ma-too-ee of an Eskimo who answers the inquiring hail of a comrade.

“He thinks it is the man in the cabin,” exclaimed Philip, turning to survey the fringe of forest through which their trail had come.  “If the others don’t warn him there’s going to be one less Eskimo on earth in less than three minutes!”