A cry burst from his lips as he ran from cover.  Instantly the pair were facing him.  Lang was still panting from his run.  He held no weapons.  In the crook of Thoreau’s arm rested a rifle.  Swift as a flash he raised it to his shoulder, the muzzle levelled at Philip’s breast.  Josephine had turned.  From her smothered lips came a choking cry of agony.  Philip had now raised his automatic.  It was level with his waistline.  From that position he had trained himself to fire with the deadly precision that is a part of the training of the men of the Royal Northwest Mounted.  Before Thoreau’s forefinger had pressed the trigger of his rifle a stream of fire shot out from the muzzle of the automatic.

Thoreau did not move.  Then a shudder passed through him.  His rifle dropped from his nerveless hands.  Without a moan he crumpled down into the snow.  Three of the five bullets that had flashed like lightning from the black-muzzled Savage had passed completely through his body.  It had all happened in a space so short that Lang had not stirred.  Now he found himself looking into that little engine of death.  With a cry of fear he staggered back.

Philip did not fire.  He felt in himself now the tigerish madness that had been in John Adare.  To him Thoreau had been no more than a wolf, one of the many at Devil’s Nest.  Lang was different.  For all things this monster was accountable.  He had no desire to shoot.  He wanted to reach him with his hands—­to choke the life from him slowly, to hear from his own blackening lips the confession that had come through Jean Croisset.

He knew that Josephine was on her feet now, that she was struggling to free her hands, but it was only in a swift glance that he saw this.  In the same breath he had dropped his pistol and was at Lang’s throat.  They went down together.  Even Thoreau, a giant in size and strength, would not have been a match for him now.  Every animal passion in him was roused to its worst.

Lang’s jaws shot apart, his eyes protruded, his tongue came out—­ the breath rattled in his throat.  Then for a moment Philip’s death-grip relaxed.  He bent down until his lips were close to the death-filled face of his victim.

“The truth, Lang, or I’ll kill you!” he whispered hoarsely.

And then he asked the question—­and as he asked Josephine freed her hands.  She tore the cloth from her mouth, but before she could rush forward, through Lang’s mottling lips had come the choking words: 

“It was Miriam’s.”

Again Philip’s fingers sank in their death-grip in Lang’s throat.  Twenty seconds more and he would have fulfilled his pact with Jean.  A scream from Josephine turned his eyes for an instant from his victim.  Out of that same cover of balsam three men were rushing upon him.  A glance told him they were not of the forest people.  He had time to gain his feet before they were upon him.

It was a fight for life now, and his one hope lay in the fact that his assailants, escaping from the Nest, did not want to betray themselves by using firearms.  The first man at him he struck a terrific blow that sent him reeling.  A second caught his arm before he could recover himself—­and then it was the hopeless struggle of one against three.