of his coat, and under his breath prayed to God that the day would come before the Eskimos closed in.  Only one thing did he see ahead of him now—­a last tremendous fight for Celie, and he wanted the light of dawn to give him accuracy.  He had thirty cartridges, and it was possible that he could put up a successful running fight until they reached Armin’s cabin.  After that fate would decide.  He was already hatching a scheme in his brain.  If he failed to get Blake early in the fight which he anticipated he would show the white flag, demand a parley with the outlaw under pretense of surrendering Celie, and shoot him dead the moment they stood face to face.  With Blake out of the way there might be another way of dealing with Upi and his Kogmollocks.  It was Blake who wanted Celie.  In Upi’s eyes there were other things more precious than a woman.  The thought revived in him a new thrill of hope.  It recalled to him the incident of Father Breault and the white woman nurse who, farther west, had been held for ransom by the Nanamalutes three years ago.  Not a hair of the woman’s head had been harmed in nine months of captivity.  Olaf Anderson had told him the whole story.  There had been no white man there—­only the Eskimos, and with the Eskimos he believed that he could deal now if he succeeded in killing Blake.  Back at the cabin he could easily have settled the matter, and he felt like cursing himself for his shortsightedness.

In spite of the fact that he had missed his main chance he began now to see more than hope in a situation that five minutes before had been one of appalling gloom.  If he could keep ahead of his enemies until daybreak he had a ninety percent chance of getting Blake.  At some spot where he could keep the Kogmollocks at bay and scatter death among them if they attacked he would barricade himself and Celie behind the sledge and call out his acceptance of Blake’s proposition to give up Celie as the price of his own safety.  He would demand an interview with Blake, and it was then that his opportunity would come.

But ahead of him were the leaden hours of the gray night!  Out of that ghostly mist of pale moonlight through which the dogs were traveling like sinuous shadows Upi and his tribe could close in on him silently and swiftly, unseen until they were within striking distance.  In that event all would be lost.  He urged the dogs on, calling them by the names which he had heard Blake use, and occasionally he sent the long lash of his whip curling over their backs.  The surface of the Coppermine was smooth and hard.  Now and then they came to stretches of glare ice and at these intervals Philip rode behind Celie, staring back into the white mystery of the night out of which they had come.  It was so still that the click, dick, click of the dogs’ claws sounded like the swift beat of tiny castanets on the ice.  He could hear the panting breath of the beasts.  The whalebone runners of the sledge creaked with the shrill protest