Swiftly he retraced his steps, and, kneeling beside the wounded man, raised him from the snow.  Blood oozed from the corners of the officer’s lips, and, mingling with the snow, formed a red slush which clung to the boyish cheek.  With his knife MacNair cut through the clothing and disclosed an ugly hole below the right shoulder-blade.  He bound up the wound, plugging the hole with suet chewed from a lump which he carried in his pocket.  Leaving Ripley upon his face to prevent strangulation from the blood in his throat, he hastened to the camp on the shore of the lake, harnessed the dogs, and returned to the prostrate man; it was the work of a few moments to bind him securely upon the sled.  Skilfully MacNair guided his dogs through the maze of the black spruce swamp, and, throwing caution to the winds, crossed the lake, struck into the timber, and headed straight for Chloe Elliston’s school.

In the living-room of the little cottage on the Yellow Knife, Harriet Penny and Mary, the Louchoux girl, sat sewing, while Chloe Elliston, with chair pulled close to the table, read by the light of an oil-lamp from a year-old magazine.  If the Louchoux girl failed to follow the intricacies of the plot, an observer would scarcely have known it.  Nor would he have guessed that less than two short months before this girl had been a skin-clad native of the North who had mushed for thirty days unattended through the heart of the barren grounds.  So marvellously had the girl improved and so desirously had she applied her needle, that save for the beaded moccasins upon her feet, her clothing differed in no essential detail from that of Chloe Elliston or of Harriet Penny.

Chloe paused in her reading, and the three occupants of the little room stared inquiringly into each other’s faces as a rough-voiced “Whoa!” sounded from beyond the door.  A moment of silence followed the command, and then came the sounds of a heavy footfall upon the veranda.  The Louchoux girl sprang to the door, and as she wrenched it open the yellow lamplight threw into bold relief the huge figure of a man, who, bearing a blanket-wrapped form in his arms, staggered into the room, and, without a word deposited his burden upon the floor.  The man looked up, and Chloe Elliston started back with an exclamation of angry amazement.  The man was Bob MacNair!  And Chloe noticed that the Louchoux girl, after one terrified glance into his face, fled incontinently to the kitchen.

“You!  You!” cried Chloe, groping for words.

The man interrupted her gruffly.  “This is no time to talk.  Corporal Ripley has been shot.  For three days I have burned up the snow getting him here.  He’s hard hit, but the bleeding has stopped, and a good bed and good nursing will pull him through.”

As he snapped out the words, MacNair busied himself in removing the wounded man’s blankets and outer garments.  Chloe gave some hurried orders to Big Lena, and followed MacNair into her own room, where he laid the wounded man upon her bed—­the same he, himself, had once occupied while recovering from the effect of Lapierre’s bullet.  Then he straightened and faced Chloe, who stood regarding him with flashing eyes.