“I didn’t write this letter,” said Philip, looking hard at MacDougall.  “The signature is a fraud.  The letter which I sent to you, revealing my discoveries at Churchill, has been intercepted and replaced by this.  Do you know what it means?”

MacDougall was speechless.  His square jaw was set like an iron clamp, his heavy hands doubled into knots on his knees.

“It means—­fight,” continued Philip.  “To-night—­to-morrow—­at any moment now.  I can’t guess why the blow hasn’t fallen before this.”

He quickly related to MacDougall the chief facts he had gathered at Fort Churchill.  When he had finished, the young Scotchman reached over to the table, seized his revolver, and held the butt end of it out to Philip.

“Pump me full of lead—­for God’s sake, do, Phil,” he pleaded.

Philip laughed, and gripped his hand.

“Not while I need a few fighters like yourself, Sandy,” he objected.  “We’re on to the game in time.  By to-morrow morning we’ll be prepared for the war.  We haven’t an hour—­perhaps not a minute—­to lose.  How many men can you get hold of to-night whom we can depend upon to fight?”

“Ten or a dozen, no more.  The road gang that we were expecting up from the Grand Trunk Pacific came three days after you started for Churchill—­twenty-eight of ’em.  They’re a tough-looking outfit, but devilish good workers.  I believe you could hire that gang to do anything.  They won’t take a word from me.  It’s all up to Thorpe, the foreman who brought ’em up, and they won’t obey an order unless it comes through him.  Thorpe could get them to fight, but they haven’t anything to fight with, except a few knives.  I’ve got eight guns left, and I can scrape up eight men who’ll handle them for the glory of it.  Thorpe’s gang would be mighty handy in close quarters, if it came to that.”

MacDougall moved restlessly, and ran a hand through his tawny hair.

“I almost wish we hadn’t invited that bunch up here,” he added.  “They look to me like a lot of dollar thugs, but they work like horses.  Never saw such men with the shovel and pick.  And fight?  They’ve cleaned up on a half of the men in camp.  If we can get Thorpe—­”

“We’ll see him to-night,” interrupted Philip.  “Or to be correct, this morning.  It’s one o’clock.  How long will it take to round up our best men?”

“Half an hour,” said MacDougall, promptly, jumping to his feet.  “There are Roberts, Henshaw, Tom Cassidy, Lecault, the Frenchman, and the two St. Pierre brothers.  They’re all crack gun-men.  Give ’em each an automatic and they’re worth twenty ordinary men.”

A few moments later MacDougall extinguished the light, and the two men left the cabin.  Philip drew his companion’s attention to the dimly lighted window of the cabin to which he had followed the stranger a short time before,

“That’s Thorpe’s,” said the young engineer.  “I haven’t seen him since morning.  Guess he must be up.”