He found a wild currant bush, glistening with its juscious black berries, and began nibbling at them.  A gopher, coming to his supper bush, gave a little squeak of annoyance, and Peter saw the bright eyes of the midget glaring at him from under a big fern leaf.  Peter wagged his tail, for the savagery of his existence was qualified by that mellowing sense of humor which had always been a part of his master.  He yipped softly, in a companionable sort of way.

And then there smote upon his ears a sound which hardened every muscle in his body.

“Throw up your hands, McKay!”

He turned his head.  Close to him stood a man.  In an instant he had recognized him.  It was the man whose scent he had first discovered down at Cragg’s Ridge, the man from whom his master was always running away, the man whose voice he had heard again at Yellow Bird’s Camp a few nights ago—­Corporal Terence Cassidy, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.

Twenty paces away stood McKay.  His dunnage was on his back, his paddle in his hand.  And Cassidy, smiling grimly, a dangerous humor in his eyes, was leveling an automatic at his breast.  It was, in that instant, a tableau which no man could ever forget.  Cassidy was bareheaded, and the sun burned hotly in his red hair.  And his face was red, and in the pale blue of his Irish eyes was a fierce joy of achievement.  At last, after months and years, the thrilling game of One against One was at an end.  Cassidy had made the last move, and he was winner.

For half a minute after the command to throw up his hands McKay did not move.  And Cassidy did not repeat the command, for he sensed the shock that had fallen upon his adversary, and was charitable enough to give him time.  And then, with something like a deep sigh from between his lips, Jolly Roger’s body sagged.  The dunnage dropped from his shoulder to the sand.  The paddle slipped from his hand.  Slowly he raised his arms above his head, and Cassidy laughed softly.

A few days ago McKay would have grinned back, coolly, good humoredly, appreciative of the other’s craftsmanship even in the hour of his defeat.  But today there was another soul within him.

His eyes no longer saw the old Cassidy, brave and loyal to his duty, a chivalrous enemy, the man he had yearned to love as brother loves brother, even in the hours of sharpest pursuit.  In Cassidy he saw now the hangman himself.  The whole world had turned against him, and in this hour of his greatest despair and hopelessness a bitter fate had turned up Cassidy to deal him the finishing blow.

A swift rage burned in him, even as he raised his hands.  It swept through his brain in a blinding inundation.  He did not think of the law, or of death, or of freedom.  It was the unfairness of the thing that filled his soul with the blackness of one last terrible desire for vengeance.  Cassidy’s gun, leveled at his breast, meant nothing.  A thousand guns leveled at his breast would have meant nothing.  A choking sound came from his lips, and like a shot his right hand went to his revolver holster.