he concluded, although a total stranger in these parts, was a person of consequence, a leader of some sort, accustomed to being obeyed.  There seemed a brutal certainty about the way he ordered the servants of the place to do his bidding.  There was a constant wrinkle of a frown between his eyes.  A man, perhaps without a sense of humor, he would force every issue to the utmost.  Once given an idea, he would override all obstacles to carry it through, not stopping at death, or at many deaths.  This had been Johnny’s mental analysis of the character of the man, and at once he began to half hate and half admire him.  He had lost sight of him immediately, and had not discovered him again.  Whether the Russian had left town before the native band did, Johnny could not tell.  But, if he had moved on, where did he go?

The other shock was similar in character.  The woman who had bought furs for the North had also been in Khabarask.  Whether she was a Japanese Johnny was not prepared to say, and that in spite of the fact that he had studied her carefully for five days.  She might be a Chukche who, through some strange impulse, had been led south to seek culture and education.  He doubted that.  She might be an Eskimo from Alaska making her way north to cross Behring Strait in the spring.  He doubted that also.  Finally she might be a Japanese woman, but in that case, what could be the explanation of her presence here, some two hundred miles north of the last vestige of civilization?

Now, not ten feet from the spot where Johnny lay in an igloo assigned for her private use by the natives, that identical girl slept at this moment.  Only four hours before, Johnny had bade her good night, after an enjoyable repast of tea, reindeer meat and hard bread prepared by her own hand over a small wood fire.  It was she who was his fellow passenger, whose igloo he had erected, close to his own.  Yes, there was mystery enough about the whole situation to keep any fellow awake; yet Johnny hated himself for not sleeping.  He felt that the time was coming when he would need stored strength.

He had half dosed off when a sound very close at hand, within the walls of canvas he thought, started him again into wakefulness.  His arm ready and free for action, he lay still.  His breathing well regulated and even, as in sleep, he watched through narrow slit eyes the deer skin curtain rise, and a head appear.  The ugly shaved head of a Chukche it was; and in the intruder’s hand was a knife.

The knife startled Johnny.  He could not believe his eyes.  He thought he was seeing double; yet he did not move.

Slowly, silently the arm of the native rose until it hung over Johnny’s heart.  In a second it would—­

In that second something happened.  There came a deadly thwack.  The native, without a cry, fell backward beyond the curtain.  His knife shot outward too, and stuck hilt downward in the snow.

Johnny drew himself slowly from beneath the furs.  Lifting the deer skin curtain cautiously, he looked out.  Then he chuckled a cold, dry chuckle.  His knuckles were bloody, for the only weapon he had used was that truly American weapon, a clenched fist.  Johnny, as I have suggested before, was somewhat handy with his “dukes.”  His left was a bit out of repair just now, but his right was quite all right, as the crumpled heap of a man testified.