“So,” Johnny thought, “he is the fellow we have been trailing.  The Jap girl wanted to follow him and so, perhaps, did Iyok-ok.  I wonder why?  And say, old dear,” he whispered, “I wonder if it could have been you who dropped that harpoon.  It’s plain enough from the looks of you that you’d do it, once you fancied you’d half a reason.  I’ve a good mind—­” His hand reached for his automatic.

“No,” he decided, “I won’t do it.  I don’t really know that you deserve it; besides I hate corpses, and things like that.  But I say!”

A new and wonderful thought had come to him.  He felt that, at any rate, he owed this person something, and he should have it.  Beside Johnny on the ledge, where some native had left it, out of reach of the dog’s, was a sewed up seal skin full of seal oil.  To the native of the north seal oil is what Limburger cheese is to a Dutchman.  He puts it away in skin sacks to bask in the sun for a year or more and ripen.  This particular sackful was “ripe”; it was over ripe and had been for some time.  Johnny could tell that by the smooth, balloon-like rotundity of the thing.  In fact, he guessed it was about due to burst.  Once Johnny had taken a cup of this liquid for tea.  He had it close enough to his face to catch a whiff of it.  He could still recall the smell of it.

Now his right hand smoothed the bloated skin tenderly.  He twisted it about, and balanced it in his hand.  Yes, he could do it!  The Russian was not looking up.  There was a convenient ledge, some three feet above his head.  There the sack would strike and burst.  The boy smiled, in contemplation of that bursting.

“This for what you may have done,” Johnny whispered, and balancing the sack in his hand, as if it had been a football, he gave it a little toss.  Over the cliff it went to a sheer fall of fifteen feet.  There followed a muffled explosion.  It had burst!  Johnny saw the Russian completely deluged with the vile smelling liquid.  Then he ducked.

As he lay flat on the ledge, he caught a silvery laugh.  Looking quickly about, he found himself staring into the eyes of the little Jap girl.  She had been watching him.

“You—­you—­know him?” he stammered.

The girl shrugged her shoulders.

“Your friend?”

She shook her head vigorously.

“Enemy?  Kill?” Johnny’s hand sought his automatic.

“No!  No!  No!” she fairly screamed.  “Not kill!” Her hand was on his arm with a frantic grip.

“Why?”

“No can tell.  Only, not kill; not kill now.  No!  No!  No!  Mebby never!”

“Well, I’ll be—­” Johnny took his hand from his gun and peered over the ledge.  The man was gone.  It was a dirty trick he had played.  He half wished he had not done it.  And yet, the Jap girl had laughed.  She knew what the man was.  She had been close enough to have stopped him, had she thought it right.  She had not done so.  His conscience was clear.