Philip stopped with a sudden uncomfortable thrill.  MacDougall lowered his gun.

“Lord preserve us, but that’s the time you almost drew a perforation!” he exclaimed.  “It isn’t safe to cut-up in these diggings any more—­not with Sandy MacDougall!”

He held out a hand with a relieved laugh, and the two men shook in a grip that made their fingers ache.

“Is this the way you welcome all of your friends, Mac?”

MacDougall shrugged his shoulders and laid his gun on a table in the center of the room.

“Can’t say that I’ve got a friend left in camp,” he said, with a curious grimace.  “What in thunder do you mean, Phil?  I’ve tried to reason something out of it, but I can’t!”

Philip was hanging up his cap and coat on one of a number of wooden pegs driven into the long wall.  He turned quickly.

“Reason something out of what?” he said.

“Your instructions from Churchill,” replied MacDougall, picking up a big, black-bowled pipe from the table.

Philip sat down with a restful sigh, crossed his legs, loaded his pipe, and lighted it.

“Thought I made myself lucid enough, even for a Scotchman, Sandy,” he said.  “I learned at Churchill that the big fight is going to be pulled off mighty soon.  It’s about time for the fireworks.  So I told you to put the sub-camps in fighting shape, and arm every responsible man in this camp.  There’s going to be a whole lot of gun-work before you’re many days older.  Great Scott, man, don’t you understand now?  What’s the matter?”

MacDougall was staring at him as if struck dumb.

“You told me—­to arm—­the camps?” he gasped.

“Yes, I sent you full instructions two weeks ago.”

“MacDougall tapped his forehead suspiciously with a stubby forefinger.

“You’re mad—­or trying to pull off a poor brand of joke!” he exclaimed.  “If you’re dreaming, come out of it.  Look here, Phil,” he cried, a little heatedly, “I’ve been having a hell of a time since you left the camp, and I want to talk seriously.”

It was Philip who stared now.  He fairly thrust himself upon the engineer.

“Do you mean to say you didn’t get my letter telling you to put the camps in fighting shape?”

“No, I didn’t get it,” said MacDougall.  “But I got the other.”

“There was no other!”

MacDougall jumped to his feet, darted to his bunk, and came back a moment later with a letter.  He thrust it almost fiercely into Philip’s hands.  A sweat broke out upon his face as he saw its effect upon his companion.  Philip’s face was deadly pale when he looked up from the letter.

“My God! you haven’t done this?” he gasped.

“What else could I do?” demanded MacDougall.  “It’s down there in black and white, isn’t it?  It charges me to outfit six prospecting parties of ten men each, arm every man with a rifle and revolver, victual them for two months, and send them to the points named there.  That letter came ten days ago, and the last party, under Tom Billinger, has been gone a week.  You told me to send your very best men, and I have.  It has fairly stripped the camp of the men we depended upon, and there are hardly enough guns left to kill meat with.”