And this was all.  There was no date, no word of explanation; even his own name had been omitted from this second order.  He picked up the envelope which had fallen to the floor and looked at the postmark.  It had been stamped four-thirty.  It was after five, an hour later, that he had received his verbal instructions from MacGregor!  The inspector must have written the note before their interview of the preceding afternoon—­before his repeated injunction of “Whatever happens, bring back your prisoner!” But this letter was evidently intended as final instructions since it had been sent so as to reach him at this time.  What did it mean?  The question buzzed in Philip’s brain, repeated itself twenty times, fifty times, as he hurried through the gathering darkness of the semi-polar night toward the log hotel of the place.  He was convinced that there was some hidden motive in the inspector’s actions.  What was he to understand?

Suddenly he stopped, a hundred yards from the glimmering lights of the Little Saskatchewan hotel, and chuckled audibly as he stuffed his pipe.  It flashed upon him now why MacGregor had chosen him instead of an ordinary service man to bring down the prisoner from Wekusko.  MacGregor knew that he, Philip Steele, college man and man of the world, would reason out the key to this little puzzle, whereas Sergeant Moody and others of his type would turn back for explanations.  And Inspector MacGregor, twenty years in the service, and recognized as the shrewdest man-hunter between the coasts, wished to give no explanation.  Philip’s blood tingled with fresh excitement as the tremendous risk which the inspector himself was running, dawned upon him.  Publicity of the note which he held in his hand would mean the disgrace and retirement even of Felix MacGregor.

He thrust the letter in his pocket and hurried on.  The lights of the settlement were already agleam.  From the edge of the frozen river there came the sound of a wheezy accordion in a Chinese cafe, and the howling of a dog, either struck by man or worsted in a fight.  Where the more numerous lights of the one street shone red against the black background of forest, a drunken half-breed was chanting in half-Cree, half-French, the chorus of the caribou song.  He heard the distant snapping of a whip, the yelping response of huskies, and a moment later a sledge and six dogs passed him so close that he was compelled to leap from their path.  This was Le Pas—­the wilderness!  Beyond it, just over the frozen river which lay white and silent before him, stretched that endless desolation of romance and mystery which he had grown to love, a world of deep snows, of silent-tongued men, of hardship and battle for life where the law of nature was the survival of the fittest, and that of man, “Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you.”  Never did Philip Steele’s heart throb with the wild, free pulse of life and joy as in such moments as these, when his fortune, his clubs, and his friends were a thousand miles away, and he stood on the edge of the big northern Unknown.