From the log ceiling hung a big oil lamp with a tin reflector, and under this he hung the skull.

“You’ll make a pretty ornament, M’sieur Janette,” he exclaimed, standing off to contemplate the white thing leering and bobbing at him from the end of its string.  “Mon Dieu, I tell you that when the lamp is lighted Bucky Nome must be blind if he doesn’t recognize you, even though you’re dead, M’sieur!”

He lighted a smaller lamp, shaved himself, and changed his clothes.  It was dark when he was ready for supper, and Nome had not returned.  He waited a quarter of an hour longer, then put on his cap and coat and lighted the big oil lamp.  At the door he turned to look back.  The cavernous sockets of the skull stared at him.  From where he stood he could see the ragged hole above the ear.

“It’s your game to-night, M’sieur Janette,” he cried back softly, and closed the door behind him.

They were gathered before a huge fire of logs in the factor’s big living-room when Philip joined the others.  A glance told him why Nome had not returned to the cabin.  Breed and the colonel were smoking cigars over a ragged ledger of stupendous size, which the factor had spread out upon a small table, and both were deeply absorbed.  Mrs. Becker was facing the fire, and close beside her sat Nome, leaning toward her and talking in a voice so low that only a murmur of it came to Steele’s ears.  The man’s face was flushed when he looked up, and his eyes shone with the old fire which made Philip hate him.

As the woman turned to greet him Steele felt a suddenly sickening sensation grip at his heart.  Her cheeks, too, were flushed, and the color in them deepened still more when he bowed to her and joined the two men at the table.  The colonel shook hands with him, and Philip noticed that once or twice after that his eyes shifted uneasily in the direction of the two before the fire, and that whenever the low laughter of Mrs. Becker and Nome came to them he paid less attention to the columns of figures which Breed was pointing out to him.  When they rose to go into supper, Philip’s blood boiled as Nome offered his arm to Mrs. Becker, who accepted it with a swift, laughing glance at the colonel.  There was no response in the older man’s pale face, and Philip’s fingers dug hard into the palms of his hands.  At the table Nome’s attentions to Mrs. Becker were even more marked.  Once, under pretext of helping her to a dish, he whispered words which brought a deeper flush to her cheeks, and when she looked at the colonel his eyes were fixed upon her in stern reproof.  It was abominable!  Was Nome mad?  Was the woman—­

Steele did not finish the thought in his own mind.  His eyes encountered those of the colonel’s wife across the table.  He saw a sudden, quick catch of breath in her throat; even as he looked the flush faded from her face, and she rose from her seat, her gaze still upon him.

“I—­I am not feeling well,” she said.  “Will you please excuse me?”