At the mouth of the alley that led from a side street to the rear of the jail, the policeman plucked at Hedin’s sleeve, and turned in.  Mechanically Hedin fell in beside him.  Someone passed upon the street.  “See who that was?” asked the officer maliciously, for he knew all the town gossip.  Hedin scarcely heard the question.  “It was McNabb’s gal.  Her throwin’ you over fer this here Wentworth didn’t give you no license to steal her old man’s fur coat, all right—­but maybe you ain’t so onlucky, at that.  Folks says she’s all right—­a little gay an’ the like of that—­but runnin’ the streets at midnight, like she was a Saturday, with a guy that goes after ’em like Wentworth!  Call it gay if they want to, but if it was anyone but old McNabb’s daughter, they’d be callin’ it somethin’ else.”

Smash!  Hedin’s fist drove with terrific force into the flappy jaw, and the big officer reeled, and crashed into the snow between a row of ash barrels, and a dilapidated board fence.  The young man stared in surprise as he waited for the other to regain his feet.  The officer’s words had roused a sudden flash of fury, and with nerves already strained to the breaking point, he had struck.  But the man, grotesquely sprawled behind the barrels, made no move.

Hedin glanced up and down the alley.  It was empty.  He was free!  Swiftly he proceeded down the alley, passed the jail, and turned into the street.  Here he slackened his pace, and walking leisurely to his hotel, hastily made up a light pack.  Passing around to the rear, he took his skis from their place, walking to the edge of town, fastened them on, and was soon swallowed up in the jack-pines.  For an hour he glided smoothly over the snow, and upon the edge of a balsam thicket sat down on a log to rest.

There were two courses open.  Either he could return to Terrace City and face the charge against him as best he could, or he could keep going.  It was only a few miles across country to Pipe Lake, where he could catch the P.M. for Detroit.

His thoughts turned abruptly from the problem of flight, and plunged into the problem of the missing coat.  It was not conceivable that the garment had been destroyed; therefore it was still in existence.  If in existence, somebody had it.  Who?  One by one, Hedin considered the personnel of the theatre party, and one by one he eliminated them until only Wentworth was left.  Wentworth!  If he could only prove it!  He remembered that someone had casually remarked that morning at breakfast that Wentworth had gone North for old John McNabb.  He had heard McNabb mention some pulp-wood lands in the North.  Gods Lake, wasn’t it?  Why, Gods Lake post was old Dugald Murchison’s post!  Hedin remembered Murchison well.  It was only last year he had spent a week as the guest of his old friend McNabb, and nearly every evening at dinner Hedin had sat at meat with them, and listened in fascination to the talk of the far outlands.  He remembered the shrewd gray eyes of Murchison—­eyes that bespoke wisdom, and justice tempered with mercy.