“Dam’ fine of you, old man,” he mumbled between blistered lips.  “I’m Porter—­’N’ Division—­taking Superintendent Tavish to Fort Churchill—­Tavish and his daughter.  Made a hell of a mess of it, haven’t I?”

He struggled to his knees.

“There’s brandy in our kit.  It might help—­over there,” and he nodded toward the girl and the gray-bearded man on the blankets.

CHAPTER XIV

Jolly Roger did not answer, but crawled through the hole and found the sledge in the outer darkness.  He heard Peter coming after him, and he saw Porter’s bloodless face in the illumination of the alcohol lamp, where he waited to help him with the dunnage.  In those seconds he fought to get a grip on himself.  A quarter of an hour ago he had laughed at the thought of the law.  Never had it seemed to be so far away from him, and never had he been more utterly isolated from the world.  His mind was still a bit dazed by the thing that had happened.  The police had not trailed him.  They had not ferreted him out, nor had they stumbled upon him by accident.  It was he who had gone out into the night and deliberately dragged them in!  Of all the trickery fate had played upon him this was the least to be expected.

His mind began to work more swiftly as in darkness he cut the babiche cordage that bound the patrol dunnage to the sledge.  “N” Division, he told himself, was away over in the Athabasca country.  He had never heard of Porter, nor of Superintendent Tavish, and inasmuch as the outfit was evidently a special escort to Fort Churchill it was very likely that Porter and his companions would not be thinking of outlaws, and especially of Jolly Roger McKay.  This was his one chance.  To attempt an escape through the blizzard was not only a desperate hazard.  It was death.

There were only two packs on the sledge, and these he passed through the hole to Porter.  A few moments later he was holding a flask of liquor to the lips of the gray-bearded man, while the girl looked at him with eyes that were widening as the snow-sting left them.  Tavish gulped, and his mittened hand closed on the girl’s arm.

“I’m all right, Jo,” he mumbled.  “All right—­”

His eyes met McKay’s, and then took in the snow walls of the dug-out.  They were deep, piercing eyes, overhung by shaggy brows.  Jolly Roger felt the intentness of their gaze as he gave the girl a swallow of the brandy, and then passed the flask to Porter.

“You have saved our lives,” said Tavish, in a voice that was clearer.  “I don’t just understand how it happened.  I remember stumbling in the darkness, and being unable to rise.  I was behind the sledge.  Porter and Breault were dragging it, and Josephine, my daughter, was sheltered under the blankets.  After that—­”

He paused, and Jolly Roger explained how it all had come about.  He pointed to Peter.  It was the dog, he said.  Peter had insisted there was someone outside, and they had taken a chance by going in search of them.  He was John Cummings, a fox trapper, and the storm had caught him fifty miles from his cabin.  He was traveling without a dog-sledge, and had only a pack-outfit.