He stopped, appalled, crushed by his great desolation, and Uri Bram seized the moment.  He was not given to speech, this man, and that which followed was the longest in his life, save one long afterward in another place.

“That’s why I told you about my shack.  I can stow you there so they’ll never find you, and I’ve got grub in plenty.  Elsewise you can’t get away.  No dogs, no nothing, the sea closed, St. Michael the nearest post, runners to carry the news before you, the same over the portage to Anvik—­not a chance in the world for you!  Now wait with me till it blows over.  They’ll forget all about you in a month or less, what of stampeding to York and what not, and you can hit the trail under their noses and they won’t bother.  I’ve got my own ideas of justice.  When I ran after you, out of the El Dorado and along the beach, it wasn’t to catch you or give you up.  My ideas are my own, and that’s not one of them.”

He ceased as the murderer drew a prayer-book from his pocket.  With the aurora borealis glimmering yellow in the northeast, heads bared to the frost and naked hands grasping the sacred book, Fortune La Pearle swore him to the words he had spoken—­an oath which Uri Bram never intended breaking, and never broke.

At the door of the shack the gambler hesitated for an instant, marvelling at the strangeness of this man who had befriended him, and doubting.  But by the candlelight he found the cabin comfortable and without occupants, and he was quickly rolling a cigarette while the other man made coffee.  His muscles relaxed in the warmth and he lay back with half-assumed indolence, intently studying Uri’s face through the curling wisps of smoke.  It was a powerful face, but its strength was of that peculiar sort which stands girt in and unrelated.  The seams were deep-graven, more like scars, while the stern features were in no way softened by hints of sympathy or humor.  Under prominent bushy brows the eyes shone cold and gray.  The cheekbones, high and forbidding, were undermined by deep hollows.  The chin and jaw displayed a steadiness of purpose which the narrow forehead advertised as single, and, if needs be, pitiless.  Everything was harsh, the nose, the lips, the voice, the lines about the mouth.  It was the face of one who communed much with himself, unused to seeking counsel from the world; the face of one who wrestled oft of nights with angels, and rose to face the day with shut lips that no man might know.  He was narrow but deep; and Fortune, his own humanity broad and shallow, could make nothing of him.  Did Uri sing when merry and sigh when sad, he could have understood; but as it was, the cryptic features were undecipherable; he could not measure the soul they concealed.

“Lend a hand, Mister Man,” Uri ordered when the cups had been emptied.  “We’ve got to fix up for visitors.”