“Sit down, Nome—­right there, under the man you killed!” he commanded.  “Sit down, or by the gods I’ll blow your head off where you stand!  There—­and I’ll sit here, like this, so that the cur’s heart within you is a bull’s-eye for this gun.  It’s M’sieur Janette’s turn tonight,” he went on, leaning over the little table, the red spots in his cheeks growing redder and brighter as Nome cringed before his revolver.  “M’sieur Janette’s—­and the colonel’s; but mostly Janette’s.  Remember that, Nome.  It’s for Janette.  I’m not thinking much about Mrs. Becker—­just now.”

Steele’s breath came quickly and his lips were almost snarling in his hatred of the man before him.

“It’s a lie!” gasped Nome chokingly, his face ashen white.  “You lie when you say I killed—­Janette.”

The fingers of Steele’s pistol hand twitched.

“How I’d like to kill you!” he breathed.  “You won his wife, Nome; you broke his heart—­and after that he killed himself.  You sent a report into headquarters that he killed himself by accident.  You lied.  It was you who killed him—­by taking his wife.  I got his skull because I thought I might need it against you to show that it was a pistol instead of a rifle that killed him.  And this isn’t the first man you’ve sent to hell, Nome, and is isn’t the first woman.  But your next won’t be Mrs. Becker!”

He thrust his revolver almost into the other man’s face as Nome opened his lips to speak.

“Shut up!” he cried.  “If you open your dirty mouth again I’ll be tempted to kill you where you sit!  Don’t you know what happened to-night?  Don’t you know that Mrs. Becker forgot herself, and remembered again, just in time, and that you’ve taken a little blood from the colonel’s heart as you took all of it from—­his?” He reached up and broke the string that held the skull, turning the empty face of the thing toward Nome.  “Look at it, you scoundrel!  That’s the man you killed, as you would kill the colonel if you could.  That’s Janette!”

His voice fell to a hissing whisper as he shoved the skull slowly across the table, so close that a sudden movement would have sent it against the other’s breast.

“We’ve been fixing this thing up between us, Bucky—­M’sieur Janette and I,” he went on, “and we’ve come to the conclusion that we won’t kill you, but that you don’t belong to the service.  Understand?”

“You mean—­to drive me out—­” One of Nome’s hands had stolen to his side, and Steele’s pistol arm grew tense.

“On the table with your hands, Bucky!  There, that’s better,” he laughed softly.

“Yes, we’re going to drive you out.  You’re going to pack up a few things right away, Bucky, and you’re going to run like the devil away from this place.  I’d advise you to go straight back to headquarters and resign from the Northwest Mounted.  MacGregor knows you pretty well, Bucky, and knows one or two things you’ve done, even though your whole record is not an open