“An’ here’s where she cut off into the woods,” the convict went on.  “She’s hidin’ up there now.  I’m hittin’ the trail after her hot-foot.”

Whaley’s derisive smile vanished almost before it appeared.  What he knew was his own business.  If West wanted to take a walk in the woods, it was not necessary to tell him that a man was waiting for him there behind some tree.

“Think I’ll follow this fellow,” Whaley said, with a lift of the hand toward the tracks that led across the lake.  “We’ve got to find out where he went.  If the Mounted are hot on our trail, we want to know it.”

“Sure.”  West assented craftily, eyes narrowed to conceal the thoughts that crawled through his murderous brain.  “We gotta know that.”

He believed Whaley was playing into his hands.  The man meant to betray him to the police.  He would never reach them.  And he, Bully West, would at last be alone with the girl, nobody to interfere with him.

The gambler was used to taking chances.  He took one now and made his first mistake in the long duel he had been playing with West.  The eagerness of the fellow to have him gone was apparent.  The convict wanted him out of the way so that he could go find the girl.  Evidently he thought that Whaley was backing down as gracefully as he could.

“I’ll start right after him.  Back soon,” the gambler said casually.

“Yes, soon,” agreed West.

Their masked eyes still clung to each other, wary and watchful.  As though without intent Whaley backed away, still talking to the other.  He wanted to be out of revolver range before he turned.  West also was backing clumsily, moving toward the sled.  The convict wheeled and slid rapidly to it.

Whaley knew his mistake now.  West’s rifle lay on the sled and the man was reaching for it.

The man on the ice-field did the only thing possible.  He bent low and traveled fast.  When the first shot rang out he was nearly a hundred fifty yards away.  He crumpled down into the snow and lay still.

West’s hands were cold, his fingers stiff.  He had not been sure of his aim.  Now he gave a whoop of triumph.  That was what happened to any one who interfered with Bully West.  He fired again at the still huddled heap on the lake.

Presently he would go out there and make sure the man was dead.  Just now he had more important business, an engagement to meet a girl in the woods back of the house.

“Got him good,” he told himself aloud.  “He sure had it comin’ to him, the damned traitor.”

To find the McRae girl could not be difficult.  She had left tracks as she waded away in the deep snow.  There was no chance for her to hide.  Nor could she have gone far without webs.  The little catamount might, of course, shoot him.  He had to move carefully, not to give her an opportunity.

As he went forward he watched every tree, every stick of timber behind which she might find cover to ambush him.  He was not of a patient temperament, but life in the wilds had taught him to subdue when he must his gusty restlessness.  Now he took plenty of time.  He was in a hurry to hit the trail with his train and be off, but he could not afford to be in such great haste as to stop a bullet with his body.