“Is tremendously clever, but not rich,” finished the inspector.  “He has caused us more trouble than any other man in Canada.  He is the youngest of the seven brothers, and you know there are curious superstitions about seventh brothers.  In the first pursuit after the private hanging he shot two men.  He killed a third in an attempt to save his brother at Moose Factory.  Since then, Forbes, Bannock, Fleisham and Gresham have disappeared, and they all went out after him.  They were all good men, powerful physically, skilled in the ways of the wilderness, and as brave as tigers.  Yet they all failed.  And not only that, they lost their lives.  Whether DeBar killed them, or led them on to a death for which his hands were not directly responsible, we have never known.  The fact remains that they went out after De Bar—­and died.  I am not superstitious, but I am beginning to think that DeBar is more than a match for any one man.  What do you say?  Will you go with Moody, or—­”

“I’ll go alone, with your permission,” said Philip.

The inspector’s voice at once fell into its formal tone of command.

“Then you may prepare to leave at once,” he said.  “The factor at Fond du Lac will put you next to your man.  Whatever else you require I will give you in writing some time to-day.”

Philip accepted this as signifying that the interview was at an end, and rose from his seat.

That night he added a postscript to the letter which he had written home, saying that for a long time he would not be heard from again.  The midnight train was bearing him toward Le Pas.

Chapter X. Isobel’s Disappearance

Four hundred miles as an arrow might fly, five hundred by snowshoes and dog-sledge; up the Pelican Lake waterway, straight north along the edge of the Geikie Barrens, and from Wollaston westward, Philip hurried—­not toward the hiding place of William DeBar, but toward Lac Bain.

A sledge and six dogs with a half-breed driver took him from Le Pas as far as the Churchill; with two Crees, on snow-shoes, he struck into the Reindeer country, and two weeks later bought a sledge and three dogs at an Indian camp on the Waterfound.  On the second day, in the barrens to the west, one of the dogs slit his foot on a piece of ice; on the third day the two remaining dogs went lame, and Philip and his guide struck camp at the headwater of the Gray Beaver, sixty miles from Lac Bain.  It was impossible for the dogs to move the following day, so Philip left his Indian to bring them in later and struck out alone.