“I suppose it’s largely because of the hair on our faces,” he said.  “You know a beard can cover a multitude of physical sins—­and differences, old chap.  I wore mine two years before I started out after you, vandyked rather carefully, you understand, so you’d better not use a razor.  Physically you won’t run a ghost of a chance of being caught.  You’ll look the part.  The real fun is coming in other ways.  In the next twenty-four hours you’ve got to learn by heart the history of Derwent Conniston from the day he joined the Royal Mounted.  We won’t go back further than that, for it wouldn’t interest you, and ancient history won’t turn up to trouble you.  Your biggest danger will be with McDowell, commanding F Division at Prince Albert.  He’s a human fox of the old military school, mustaches and all, and he can see through boiler-plate.  But he’s got a big heart.  He has been a good friend of mine, so along with Derwent Conniston’s story you’ve got to load up with a lot about McDowell, too.  There are many things—­oh, god—­”

He flung a hand to his chest.  Grim horror settled in the little cabin as the cough convulsed him.  And over it the wind shrieked again, swallowing up the yapping of the foxes and the rumble of the ice.

That night, in the yellow sputter of the seal-oil lamp, the fight began.  Grim-faced—­one realizing the nearness of death and struggling to hold it back, the other praying for time—­two men went through the amazing process of trading their identities.  From the beginning it was Conniston’s fight.  And Keith, looking at him, knew that in this last mighty effort to die game the Englishman was narrowing the slight margin of hours ahead of him.  Keith had loved but one man, his father.  In this fight he learned to love another, Conniston.  And once he cried out bitterly that it was unfair, that Conniston should live and he should die.  The dying Englishman smiled and laid a hand on his, and Keith felt that the hand was damp with a cold sweat.

Through the terrible hours that followed Keith felt the strength and courage of the dying man becoming slowly a part of himself.  The thing was epic.  Conniston, throttling his own agony, was magnificent.  And Keith felt his warped and despairing soul swelling with a new life and a new hope, and he was thrilled by the thought of what he must do to live up to the mark of the Englishman.  Conniston’s story was of the important things first.  It began with his acquaintance with McDowell.  And then, between the paroxysms that stained his lips red, he filled in with incident and smiled wanly as he told how McDowell had sworn him to secrecy once in the matter of an incident which the chief did not want the barracks to know—­and laugh over.  A very sensitive man in some ways was McDowell!  At the end of the first hour Keith stood up in the middle of the floor, and with his arms resting on the table and his shoulders sagging Conniston put him through the drill.