In the excitement of unburdening himself of a matter which he had borne in secret for many days, Stampede did not observe the effect of his words upon his companion.  Incredulity shot into Alan’s eyes, and the humorous lines about his mouth vanished when he saw clearly that Stampede was not drawing upon his imagination.  Yet what he had told him seemed impossible.  Mary Standish had come aboard the Nome a fugitive.  All her possessions she had brought with her in a small hand-bag, and these things she had left in her cabin when she leaped into the sea.  How, then, could she logically have had such a sum of money at Fairbanks as Stampede described?  Was it possible the Thlinkit Indian had also become her agent in transporting the money ashore on the night she played her desperate game by making the world believe she had died?  And was this money—­possibly the manner in which she had secured it in Seattle—­the cause of her flight and the clever scheme she had put into execution a little later?

He had been thinking crime, and his face grew hot at the sin of it.  It was like thinking it of another woman, who was dead, and whose name was cut under his father’s in the old cottonwood tree.

Stampede, having gained his wind, was saying:  “You don’t seem interested, Alan.  But I’m going on, or I’ll bust.  I’ve got to tell you what happened, and then if you want to lead me out and shoot me, I won’t say a word.  I say, curse a firecracker anyway!”

“Go on,” urged Alan.  “I’m interested.”

“I got ’em on the boat,” continued Stampede viciously.  “And she with me every minute, smiling in that angel way of hers, and not letting me out of her sight a flick of her eyelash, unless there was only one hole to go in an’ come out at.  And then she said she wanted to do a little shopping, which meant going into every shack in town and buyin’ something, an’ I did the lugging.  At last she bought a gun, and when I asked her what she was goin’ to do with it, she said, ’Stampede, that’s for you,’ an’ when I went to thank her, she said:  ’No, I don’t mean it that way.  I mean that if you try to run away from me again I’m going to fill you full of holes.’  She said that!  Threatened me.  Then she bought me a new outfit from toe to summit—­boots, pants, shirt, hat and a necktie!  And I didn’t say a word, not a word.  She just led me in an’ bought what she wanted and made me put ’em on.”

Stampede drew in a mighty breath, and a fourth time wasted a match on his pipe.  “I was getting used to it by the time we reached Tanana,” he half groaned.  “Then the hell of it begun.  She hired six Indians to tote the luggage, and we set out over the trail for your place.  ’You’re goin’ to have a rest, Stampede,’ she says to me, smiling so cool and sweet like you wanted to eat her alive.  ’All you’ve got to do is show us the way and carry the bums.’  ‘Carry the what?’ I asks.  ‘The bums,’ she says, an’ then she explains