Joe ardently desired to continue the poker game on borrowed capital, but Ralph pointed out that he had announced in advance his intention of retiring from the game. "I've got to sleep," he said.

"Camp here if you like," growled Joe.

Ralph shook his head. "I'll drop down the river a little piece," he said. "I want to get an early start."

"You'll have to get up early to keep ahead of us in that contraption," said Crusoe with a laugh. "It's no more than a dunnage bag stretched on a couple of half hoops!"

"You can't go down the Stanley rapids in her," said the breed. "She all bus' up."

"Don't expect to go down the Stanley rapids," said Ralph with a great air of carelessness. "I'm going up the Stanley."

He observed that Stack and Joe were listening attentively.

"You can't track her," the breed said scornfully.

"My partner is waiting for me at the Forks," lied Ralph. "He's got a dugout."

"Where the hell did you pick up a pardner?" Joe burst out, forgetting himself.

Ralph opened his eyes wide in affected surprise. "Well, say, give me time," he drawled, "and I'll tell you all my private business!"

The laugh was fairly on Joe. He flung away with a muttered curse.

Ralph, embarking, paddled no farther than around the first bend. Here he made his camp on the same side of the river as the others. He thought it likely Stack would try to communicate with him during the night. Ralph was highly satisfied with the results of the evening's entertainment. Besides winning about fifty dollars, he had shown them he was not afraid, and he had put them, he hoped, on a false scent as to his destination.

He made a little fire, and retired under his shelter, but not to sleep. He had plenty to occupy his mind. After an hour or so he heard a rustle in the underbrush, and presently a scared voice whispering:

"Doctor Cowdray! Doctor Cowdray!"

Ralph sprang up.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" cried the voice in terror. "It's only me, Stack."

Ralph laughed.

The little man drew near, cringing. "Won't you put out the fire?" he whined. "In case any of them should come."

Ralph scattered the embers.

Stack needed no encouragement to make him speak. It came tumbling out; truth and lies, complaints and excuses all mixed. "My God! Doctor! What a terrible position I'm in!" he wailed. "I don't know which way to turn. I gave Mixer two hundred and fifty dollars to guide me through the country, and look at the way they treat me! You saw it! I have to wash the dishes, and wait on the half-breed! Me! with a college education! I'm in momentary terror of my life. I hired Mixer, thinking no wrong, and now I find him pursuing some murderous vengeance against you! If you could hear how he talks about you! Look what a position that puts me in—travelling with a gang of murderers! What must you think of me?"

Ralph listened to all this, smoking impassively. "What are you making this trip for?" he asked.

"Just to see the country," whined Stack. "Didn't I tell you that? I wish to heaven I was well out of it!"

"That's a lie," said Ralph coolly.

"Oh, Doctor Cowdray, I wouldn't lie to you! I wouldn't do such a thing!" he protested volubly.

"Did you hire Joe Mixer to bring you after me?" Ralph demanded imperatively.

"Yes," faltered Stack. "But for a purely legitimate purpose. I swear it!"

"Have you, as Joe said, been trailing me all the way from the coast?"

"Yes," he confessed. "But meaning no harm at all—purely legitimate, Doctor, purely legitimate!" His voice trailed away.

"Well I'm damned!" said Ralph. There was a silence while he smoked. "What was your purpose?" he finally demanded to know.

"It's such an improbable story I didn't dare tell you," said Stack. "And I haven't any proof of it."

"You tell me and I'll decide as to the proof," said Ralph.

Stack took a breath and began with renewed glibness: "I'm a newspaper reporter—Pacific Herald. The city editor was told you had made a big new strike up here, and he sent me to follow you in, and get the first story of it for the Herald. I had to do what I was told," he whined, "or lose my job. You can't blame me——!"

"Who told him about me?" asked Ralph astonished.

"Don't ask me," said Stack. "I've heard they have the assay office watched. I don't know."

It was obvious to Ralph from the man's silky, fawning voice that he was lying still. His gorge rose. Evidently the truth had to be terrified out of such a creature. They were sitting beside the last faint embers of the fire. Ralph shot out his hand and gripped Stack by the collar. A faint, gasping cry escaped the little man, and he went limp in Ralph's grasp.

"I have my revolver in the other hand," Ralph said in a rasping voice. "The truth now, or I'll crack your skull with it! It was you who watched the assay office."

"Yes," murmured Stack in accents of honest terror.

"You followed me up here on your own responsibility, hoping to get in on my strike?"

"Yes."

Ralph dropped him. "Now we know where we stand!" he said.

Stack, like all born liars, had an infinite capacity for swallowing his lies. Ralph had no sooner dropped him than he unblushingly appropriated the credit for his confession.

"I had to come and square myself with you," he whined. "I couldn't rest until I had come and told you the truth!"

"Well, I'm damned!" said Ralph again. "Go on!"

"You're the only friend I've got!"

"Friend!" said Ralph with a snort of scornful amusement. "This is good! Give it to me straight," he went on curiously. "What did you come here for to-night?"

Stack's voice rose to a piteous wail. "Any night I may be murdered in my blankets!"

"Sure," said Ralph coolly. "But what can I do for you?"

"Take me with you in your boat," Stack blurted out.

"Well, upon my word!" cried Ralph.

"Don't refuse! Don't refuse!" said Stack breathlessly. "They wouldn't dare touch me if I was with you. They're afraid of you. That was magnificent of you to come to their camp and sit in the game as if nothing had happened. It had its effect, I can tell you! Oh! take me with you!" he went on, stuttering in his eagerness. "I can help you escape from them. Two heads are better than one. I have a good head for planning when I'm not in mortal fear of my life!"

"Fine!" said Ralph. "And you get right in on my strike!"

"I wouldn't ask much," said Stack. "I'd be content with whatever you wanted to let me have. Why can't we work together? You need a representative outside. You've got to file a lot of dummy claims to cover the whole field. You've got to form a company. I can attend to all that for you. It's just my line!"

"Thought you said newspaper reporter?" remarked Ralph.

"That was just making out," said Stack hastily. "I know the mining business from A to Z. I've got legal training. You need me!"

"Thanks," said Ralph coolly. "I prefer to pick my own company."

"If anything happens to me it'll be on your head," whimpered Stack. "Aren't you going to take me with you?"

"No!" said Ralph in a tone there was no mistaking.

"What shall I do? What shall I do?" moaned Stack. "If you won't let me travel with you, tell me where you're going, and if I can escape from them, I'll try to reach you. In common humanity you can't refuse that!"

Ralph smiled into the darkness. "Is it possible he still thinks I am fool enough to give away my secret!" he thought. "If he does, all right!" Aloud, he said carelessly: "I've no objection to telling you that. But I won't guarantee you a welcome."

"Anyway, you're not a murderer!" whined Stack.

"It's about twenty-five miles up the Stanley River from the Grand Forks——"

"Then you were telling the truth?" said Stack with na?ve surprise.

"Why not?" said Ralph coolly. "I'm not afraid of them." He bethought himself of adding a few convincing touches to his lie. "You enter a tributary that comes in on the right-hand side of the Stanley, and ascend it as far as you can go into the foothills. There you will find our camp."

"How will I know the mouth of the right tributary?" asked Stack.

"By two pine trees that lean across, one at each side, until their tops almost meet," said Ralph readily. "My partner and I call it the A River."

"Take me with you!" Stack began all over again. "You need me!"

"Cut it out!" said Ralph impatiently.

"You ought to take me with you," Stack persisted. An indescribable, sly, cringing threat crept into his whine. "Now that I know where you're going, if they torture me I might let it out in spite of myself!"

Disgust overmastered Ralph. He sprang up. "You little cur!" he cried. "Get out of here before I hurt you!"

Stack waited to hear no more.


During the next three days the two boats seesawed on the lakes and rivers, Ralph now ahead, and now Joe Mixer's party. Ralph kept much longer working hours, but the others made it up in speed. Whenever they passed each other it became the occasion for an exchange of half-serious abuse, which was only prevented from developing into a fight by Ralph's unshakable, steely smile. Ralph insisted on making out that it was all a joke. Joe was itching for a fight, but the smile cut the ground from under him. Meanwhile Ralph gave as good as he got. Stack never took part in these contests of wit. He sat in the dugout haggard and abstracted, gripping the gunwales under his skinny knuckles. When he thought Ralph's gaze rested on him, he did his best to look meek and imploring, but succeeded very ill in disguising his hatred. Joe Mixer carried a deal of liquor in his baggage as evinced by their frequent thickness of speech.

At the end of the third day they had travelled far down the Rice River. By paddling until near dark Ralph succeeded in pitching his camp three miles in advance of the other party. It was his intention to sleep for four hours only, and then go on. According to his calculations he was within a few hours' journey of the Grand Forks, and it was essential to his plan that he get there first. He meant to watch from some place of concealment on the shore, to make sure that they turned up the Stanley River instead of continuing downstream. In case they were not deceived by his false lead, and did not leave the main stream, he had one more desperate card to play. The moon was now nearly full again, and he could be sure of a certain light until dawn.

Ralph pitched his little shelter in an opening among the willows that thickly lined this part of the bank. His boat was drawn high up on the stones below, and tied to the willow trunks. He ate a hasty supper and turned in. As he lay waiting for sleep, once again he was warned by a vague disq............