For a long time after he had rolled himself in his own blanket Philip lay awake, wondering at the strangeness of this thing that had happened to him.  It was Her hair that he had seen shining this night under the old spruce, lustrous and soft, and coiled in its simple glory, as he had seen it last on the night when Chesbro had broken in on them at the ball.  It was very easy for him to imagine that it had been Her face, with soul and heart and love added to its beauty.  More than ever he knew what had been missing for him now, and blessed Chesbro for his blundering, and fell asleep to dream of the new face, and to awaken hours later to the unpleasant realization that his visions were but dream-fabric after all, and that the woman was the wife of Colonel Becker.

Chapter III.  A Skull And A Flirtation

It was late afternoon when they came into Lac Bain, and as soon as Philip had turned over the colonel and his wife to Breed, he hurried to his own cabin.  At the door he encountered Buck Nome.  The two men had not met since a month before at Nelson House, and there was but little cordiality in Sng to say howdy to ’em,” explained Nome, pausing for a moment.  “Deuce of a good joke on you, Steele!  How do you like the job of bringing in an old colonel’s frozen wife, or a frozen colonel’s old wife, eh?”

Every fiber in Steele’s body grew tense at the banter in the other’s voice.  He whirled upon Nome, who had partly turned away.

“You remember—­you lied down there at Nelson to get just such a ‘job’ as this,” he reminded.  “Have you forgotten what happened—­after that?”

“Don’t get miffed about it, man,” returned Nome with an irritating laugh.  “All’s fair in love and war.  That was love down there, ’pon my word of honor it was, and this is about as near the other thing as I want to come.”

There was something in his laugh that drew Steele’s lips in a tight line as he entered the cabin.  It was not the first time that he had listened to Nome’s gloating chuckle at the mention of certain women.  It was this more than anything else that made him hate the man.

Physically, Nome was a magnificent specimen, beyond doubt the handsomest man in the service north of Winnipeg; so that while other men despised him for what they knew, women admired and loved him—­until, now and then too late for their own salvation, they discovered that his moral code was rotten to the core.

Such a thing had happened at Nelson House, and Philip felt himself burning with a desire to choke the life out of Nome as he recalled the tragedy there.  And what would happen—­now?  The thought came to him like a dash of cold water, and yet, after a moment, his teeth gleamed in a smile as a vision rose before him of the love and purity which he had seen in the sweet face of the colonel’s wife.  He chuckled softly to himself as he dragged out a pack from under his bunk; but there was no humor in the chuckle.  From it he took a bundle wrapped in soft birch-bark, and from this produced the skull that he had brought up with him from the South.  There was a tremble of excitement in his low laugh as he glanced about the gloomy interior of the cabin.