dogs in the manner of the Eskimo driver.  Dolores did not wait for Peter’s demand for a further explanation of their running away and her remarkable words to Blake.  She told him.  She omitted, for the sake of Peter’s peace of mind, the physical insults she had suffered at Captain Rydal’s hands.  She did not tell him that Rydal had forced her into his arms a few hours before and kissed her.  What she did reveal made Peter’s arms and shoulders grow tense and he groaned in his helplessness.

“If you’d only told me!” he protested.  Dolores laughed triumphantly, with her arm about his shoulder.  “I knew my dear old Peter too well for that,” she exulted.  “If I had told you, what a pretty mess we’d be in now, Peter!  You would have insisted on calling Captain Rydal into our cabin and shooting him from the bed—­and then where would we have been?  Don’t you think I’m handling it pretty well, Peter dear?”

Peter’s reply was smothered against her hooded cheek.

He began to question her more directly now, and with his ability to grasp at the significance of things he pointed out quickly the tremendous hazard of their position.  There were many more dogs and other sledges at Blake’s place, and it was utterly inconceivable that Blake and Captain Rydal would permit them to reach Fort Confidence without making every effort in their power to stop them.  Once they succeeded in placing certain facts in the hands of the Mounted Police, both Rydal and Blake would be done for.  He impressed this uncomfortable truth on Dolores and suggested that if she could have smuggled a rifle along in the dunnage sack it would have helped matters considerably.  For Rydal and Blake would not hesitate at shooting.  For them it must be either capture or kill—­death for him, anyway, for he was the one factor not wanted in the equation.  He summed up their chances and their danger calmly and pointedly, as he always looked at troubling things.  And Dolores felt her heart sinking within her.  After all, she had not handled the situation any too well.  She almost wished she had killed Rydal herself and called it self-defense.  At least she had been criminally negligent in not smuggling along a rifle.

“But we’ll beat them out,” she argued hopefully.  “We’ve got a splendid team, Peter, and I’ll take off my coat and run behind the sledge as much as I can.  Uppy won’t dare play a trick on us now, for he knows that if I should miss him, Wapi would tear the life out of him at a word from me.  We’ll win out, Peter dear.  See if we don’t!”

Peter hugged his thoughts to himself.  He did not tell her that Blake and Rydal would pursue with a ten- or twelve-dog team, and that there was almost no chance at all of a straight get-away.  Instead, he pulled her head down and kissed her.