He grinned, and to his own astonishment Philip grinned.

“I was tight after you, Bill.”

“Ho! ho! ho!” laughed the outlaw.  “That sounds good!  I’ve gone by another name, of course, and that’s the first time I’ve heard my own since—­”

He stopped suddenly, and the laugh left his voice and face.

“It sounds—­homelike,” he added more gently.  “What’s yours, pardner?”

“Steele—­Philip Steele, of the R.N.W.M.P.,” said Philip.

“Used to know a Steele once,” went on DeBar.  “That was back—­where it happened.  He was one of my friends.”

For a moment he turned his eyes on Philip.  They were deep gray eyes, set well apart in a face that among a hundred others Philip would have picked out for its frankness and courage.  He knew that the man before him was not much more than his own age, yet he appeared ten years older.

He sat up on his sledge as DeBar left his bird to thrust sticks into the snow, on the ends of which he hung Philip’s frozen garments close to the fire.  From the man Philip’s eyes traveled to the dog.  The hound yawned in the heat and he saw that one of his fangs was gone.

“If you’re starving, why don’t you kill the dog?” he asked.

DeBar turned quickly, his white teeth gleaming through his beard.

“Because he’s the best friend I’ve got on earth, or next to the best,” he said warmly.  “He’s stuck to me through thick and thin for ten years.  He starved with me, and fought with me, and half died with me, and he’s going to live with me as long as I live.  Would you eat the flesh of your brother, Steele?  He’s my brother—­the last that your glorious law has left to me.  Would you kill him if you were me?”

Something stuck hard and fast in Philip’s throat, and he made no reply.  DeBar came toward him with the hot bird on the end of his stick.  With his knife the outlaw cut the bird into two equal parts, and one of these parts he cut into quarters.  One of the smaller pieces he tossed to the hound, who devoured it at a gulp.  The half he stuck on the end of his knife and offered to his companion.

“No,” said Philip.  “I can’t.”

The eyes of the two men met, and DeBar, on his knees, slowly settled back, still gazing at the,” said DeBar, after a moment, “don’t be a fool, Steele.  Let’s forget, for a little while.  God knows what’s going to happen to both of us to-morrow or next day, and it’ll be easier to die with company than alone, won’t it?  Let’s forget that you’re the Law and I’m the Man, and that I’ve killed one or two.  We’re both in the same boat, and we might as well be a little bit friendly for a few hours, and shake hands, and be at peace when the last minute comes.  If we get out of this, and find grub, we’ll fight fair and square, and the best man wins.  Be square with me, old man, and I’ll be square with you, s’elp me God!”

He reached out a hand, gnarled, knotted, covered with callouses and scars, and with a strange sound in his throat Philip caught it tightly in his own.