“You’re due to leave camp,” he was told, “and you’re going to take the first boat from Dyea.  Is there anything you want to say. anything you want to do, before you go?”

“I—­want something to—­eat,” Joe answered, hoarsely.  “I’m hungry.”  These were the first words he had uttered; they met with astonishment; nevertheless he was led to the nearest restaurant.  Surrounded by a silent, curious group, he crouched over the board counter and wolfed a ravenous meal.  When he had finished he rose, turned, and stared questioningly at the circle of hostile faces; his eyes still glittered with that basilisk glare of hatred and defiance.  There was something huge, disconcerting, about the man.  Not once had he appealed for mercy, not once had he complained, not once had he asked about his brother; he showed neither curiosity nor concern over Jim’s fate, and now he betrayed the utmost indifference to his own.  He merely shifted that venomous stare from one face to another as if indelibly to photograph each and every one of them upon his mind.

But the citizens of Sheep Camp were not done with him yet.  His hands were again bound, this time behind him; a blanket roll was roped upon his shoulders, upon his breast was hung a staring placard which read: 

“I am a thief!  Spit on me and send me along.”

Thus decorated, he met his crowning indignity.  Extending from the steps of the restaurant far down the street twin rows of men had formed, and this gauntlet Joe McCaskey was forced to run.  He bore this ordeal as he had borne the other.  Men jeered at him, they flung handfuls of wet moss and mud at him, they spat upon him, some even struck him, bound as he was.

Sickened at the sight, Pierce Phillips witnessed the final chapter of this tragedy into which the winds of chance had blown him.  For one instant only did his eyes meet those of his former tentmate, but during that brief glance the latter made plain his undying hatred.  McCaskey’s gaze intensified, his upper lip drew back in a grimace similar to that which he had lifted to the sky when agony ran through his veins like fire; he seemed to concentrate the last ounce of his soul’s energy in the sending of some wordless message.  Hellish fury, a threat too baneful, too ominous, for expression dwelt in that stare; then a splatter of mire struck him in the face and blotted it out.

When the last jeer had died away, when the figure of Joe McCaskey had disappeared into the misty twilight, Phillips drew a deep breath.  What a day this had been, what a tumult he had lived through, what an experience he had undergone!  This was an adventure!  He had lived, he had made an enemy.  Life had come his way, and the consciousness of that fact caused him to tingle.  This would be something to talk about; what would the folks back home say to this?  And the Countess—­that wonderful woman of ice and fire!  That superwoman who could sway the minds of men, whose wit was quicker than light.