old days of happiness and hope.  It was Jackpine who recalled him at last to what was happening.  In amazement he saw that O’Grady and his Chippewayan had ceased paddling.  They passed a dozen yards abreast of them.  O’Grady’s great arms and shoulders were glistening with perspiration.  His face was purplish.  In his eyes and on his lips was the old taunting sneer.  He was panting like a wind-broken animal.  As Jan passed he uttered no word.

An eighth of a mile ahead was the point where the regular portage began, but Jan swung around this into a shallow inlet from which his own secret trail was cut.  Not until he was ashore did he look back.  O’Grady and his Indian were paddling in a leisurely manner toward the head of the point.  For a moment it looked as though they had given up the race, and Jan’s heart leaped exultantly.  O’Grady saw him and waved his hand.  Then he jumped out to his knees in the water and the Chippewayan followed him.  He shouted to Jan, and pointed down at the canoe.  The next instant, with a powerful shove, he sent the empty birchbark speeding far out into the open water.

Jan caught his breath.  He heard Jackpine’s cry of amazement behind him.  Then he saw the two men start on a swift run over the portage trail, and with a fierce, terrible cry he sprang toward his rifle, which he had leaned against a tree.

In that moment he would have fired, but O’Grady and the Indian had disappeared into the timber.  He understood—­O’Grady had tricked him, as he had tricked him in other ways.  He had a second canoe waiting for him at the end of the portage, and perhaps others farther on.  It was unfair.  He could still hear O’Grady’s taunting laughter as it had rung out in Porcupine City, and the mystery of it was solved.  His blood grew hot—­so hot that his eyes burned, and his breath seemed to parch his lips.  In that short space in which he stood paralyzed and unable to act his brain blazed like a volcano.  Who—­was helping O’Grady by having a canoe ready for him at the other side of the portage?  He knew that no man had gone North from Porcupine City during those tense days of waiting.  The code which all understood had prohibited that.  Who, then, could it be?—­who but Marie herself!  In some way O’Grady had got word to her, and it was the Cummins’ canoe that was waiting for him!

With a strange cry Jan lifted the bow of the canoe to his shoulder and led Jackpine in a run.  His strength had returned.  He did not feel the whiplike sting of boughs that struck him across the face.  He scarcely looked at the little cabin of logs when they passed it.  Deep down in his heart he called upon the Virgin to curse those two—­Marie Cummins and Clarry O’Grady, the man and the girl who had cheated him out of love, out of home, out of everything he had possessed, and who were beating him now through perfidy and trickery.