Side by side, Jan and his Indian ran to their canoe.  Jackpine was stripped to the waist, like O’Grady and his Chippewayan.  Jan threw off only his caribou-skin coat.  His dark woolen shirt was sleeveless, and his long slim arms, as hard as ribbed steel, were free.  Half the crowd followed him.  He smiled, and waved his hand, the dark pupils of his eyes shining big and black.  Their canoe shot out until it was within a dozen yards of the other, and those ashore saw him laugh into O’Grady’s sullen, set face.  He was cool.  Between smiling lips his white teeth gleamed, and the women stared with brighter eyes and flushed cheeks, wondering how Marie Cummins could have given up this man for the giant hulk and drink-reddened face of his rival.  Those among the men who had wagered heavily against him felt a misgiving.  There was something in Jan’s smile that was more than coolness, and it was not bravado.  Even as he smiled ashore, and spoke in low Cree to Jackpine, he felt at the belt that he had hidden under the caribou-skin coat.  There were two sheaths there, and two knives, exactly alike.  It was thus that his grandfather had set forth one summer day to avenge a wrong, nearly seventy years before.

The agent had entered the cabin, and now he reappeared, wiping his sweating face with a big red handkerchief.  The recorder followed.  He paused at the edge of the stream and made a megaphone of his hands.

“Gentlemen,” he cried raucously, “both claims have been thrown out!”

A wild yell came from O’Grady.  In a single flash four paddles struck the water, and the two canoes shot bow and bow up the stream toward the lake above the bend.  The crowd ran even with them until the low swamp at the lake’s edge stopped them.  In that distance neither had gained a yard advantage.  But there was a curious change of sentiment among those who returned to Porcupine City.  That night betting was no longer two and three to one on O’Grady.  It was even money.

For the last thing that the men of Porcupine City had seen was that cold, quiet smile of Jan Larose, the gleam of his teeth, the something in his eyes that is more to be feared among men than bluster and brute strength.  They laid it to confidence.  None guessed that this race held for Jan no thought of the gold at the end.  None guessed that he was following out the working of a code as old as the name of his race in the north.

As the canoes entered the lake the smile left Jan’s face.  His lips tightened until they were almost a straight line.  His eyes grew darker, his breath came more quickly.  For a little while O’Grady’s canoe drew steadily ahead of them, and when Jackpine’s strokes went deeper and more powerful Jan spoke to him in Cree, and guided the canoe so that it cut straight as an arrow in O’Grady’s wake.  There was an advantage in that.  It was small, but Jan counted on the cumulative results of good generalship.

His eyes never for an instant left O’Grady’s huge, naked back.  Between his knees lay his .303 rifle.  He had figured on the fraction of time it would take him to drop his paddle, pick up the gun, and fire.  This was his second point in generalship—­getting the drop on O’Grady.