“You stay here, Pied-Bot.  Understand?  You stay here.”

He pressed him down gently with his hand, so that Peter understood.  Then, slinking low, and swift as a cat, Jolly Roger ran to the end of the cabin where there was no window.  With his head close to the ground he peered out cautiously at the door.  It was closed.  Then he looked at the windows.  To the west the curtains were up, as he had left them.  And to the east—­

A whimsical smile played at the corners of his mouth.  Those curtains he had kept tightly drawn.  One of them was down now.  But the other was raised two inches, so that one hidden within the cabin could watch the approach from the trail!

He drew back, and under his breath he chuckled.  He recognized the sheer nerve of the thing, the clever handiwork of it.  Someone was inside the cabin, and he was ready to stake his life it was Cassidy, the Irish bloodhound of “M” Division.  If anyone ferreted him out way down here on the edge of civilization he had gambled with himself that it would be Cassidy.  And Cassidy had come—­ Cassidy, who had hung like a wolf to his trails for three years, who had chased him across the Barren Lands, who had followed him up the Mackenzie, and back again—­who had fought with him, and starved with him, and froze with him, yet had never brought him to prison.  Deep down in his heart Jolly Roger loved Cassidy.  They had played, and were still playing, a thrilling game, and to win that game had become the life’s ambition of each.  And now Cassidy was in there, confident that at last he had his man, and waiting for him to step into the trap.

To Jolly Roger, in the face of its possible tragedy, there was a deep-seated humor in the situation.  Three times in the last year and a half had he turned the tables on Cassidy, leaving him floundering in the cleverly woven webs which the man-hunter had placed for his victim.  This was the fourth time.  And Cassidy would be tremendously upset!

Praying that Peter would remain quiet, Jolly Roger took off his shoes.  After that he made no more sound than a ferret as he crept to the door.  An inch at a time he raised himself, until he was standing up, with his ear half an inch from the crack that ran lengthwise of the frame.  Holding his breath, he listened.  For an interminable time, it seemed to him, there was no sound from within.  He guessed what Cassidy was doing—­peering through that slit of window under the curtain.  But he was not absolutely sure.  And he knew the necessity of making no error, with Cassidy in there, gripping the butt of his gun.

Suddenly he heard a movement.  A man’s steps, subdued and yet distinct, were moving from the window toward the door.  Half way they paused, and turned to one of the windows looking westward.  But it was evident the watcher was not expecting his game from that direction, for after a moment’s silence he returned to the window through which he could see the trail.  This time Jolly Roger was sure.  Cassidy was again peering through the window, with his back toward him, and every muscle in the forest rover’s body gathered for instant action.  In another moment he had flung open the door, and the watcher at the window whirled about to find himself looking straight into the muzzle of Jolly Roger’s gun.