thought my vengeance would come—in time—to save her, Nat. But—it failed. I knew of one other way and when all seemed lost—I took it. I killed the old people—the murderers of her father—of my Jean! I knew that would destroy Strang's power—"
In a sudden spasm of strength he lifted his head. His voice came in a hoarse, excited whisper.
"You won't tell Marion—you won't tell Marion that I killed them—"
"No—never."
Obadiah fell back with a relieved sigh. After a moment he added.
"In a chest in the cabin there is a letter for Marion. It tells her about her mother—and the gold there—is for her—and Neil—"
His eyes closed. A shudder passed through his form.
"Marion—" he breathed. "Marion!"
Nathaniel rose to his feet and ran to the cabin door.
"Marion!" he called.
Blinding tears shut out the vision of the girl from his eyes. He pointed, looking from her, and she, knowing what he meant, sped past him to the old councilor.
In the great low room in which Obadiah Price had spent so many years planning his vengeance Captain Plum waited.
After a time, the girl came back.
There was great pain in her voice as she stretched out her arms to him blindly, sobbing his name.
"Gone—gone—they're all gone now—but Neil!"
Nathaniel held out his arms.
"Only Neil,"—he cried, "only Neil—Marion—?"
"And you—you—you—"
Her arms were around his neck, he held her throbbing against his breast.
"And you—"
She raised her face, glorious in its love.
"If you want me—still."
And he whispered:
"For ever and for ever!"
THE DANGER TRAIL
Chapter I. The Girl of the Snows
Chapter II. Lips that Speak Not
Chapter III. The Mysterious Attack
Chapter V. Howland's Midnight Visitor
Chapter VII. The Blowing of the Coyote
Chapter VIII. The Hour of Death
Chapter X. A Race into the North
Chapter XI. The House of the Red Death
Chapter XIV. The Gleam of the Light
Chapter XV. In the Bedroom Chamber
CHAPTER I
THE GIRL OF THE SNOWS
For perhaps the first time in his life Howland felt the spirit of romance, of adventure, of sympathy for the picturesque and the unknown surging through his veins. A billion stars glowed like yellow, passionless eyes in the polar cold of the skies. Behind him, white in its sinuous twisting through the snow-smothered wilderness, lay the icy Saskatchewan, with a few scattered lights visible where Prince Albert, the last outpost of civilization, came down to the river half a mile away.
But it was into the North that Howland looked. From the top of the great ridge which he had climbed he gazed steadily into the white gloom which reached for a thousand miles from where he stood to the Arctic Sea. Faintly in the grim silence of the winter night there came to his ears the soft hissing sound of the aurora borealis as it played in its age-old song over the dome of the earth, and as he watched the cold flashes shooting like pale arrows through the distant sky and listened to its whispering music of unending loneliness and mystery, there came on him a strange feeling that it was beckoning to him and calling to him--telling him that up there very near to the end of the earth lay all that he had dreamed of and hoped for since he had grown old enough to begin the shaping of a destiny of his own.
He shivered as the cold nipped at his blood, and lighted a fresh cigar, half-turning to shield himself from a wind that was growing out of the east. As the match flared in the cup of his hands for an instant there came from the black gloom of the balsam and spruce at his feet a wailing, hungerful cry that brought a startled breath from his lips. It was a cry such as Indian dogs make about the tepees of masters who are newly dead. He had never heard such a cry before, and yet he knew that it was a wolf's. It impressed him with an awe which was new to him and he stood as motionless as the trees about him until, from out the gray night-gloom to the west, there came an answering cry, and then, from far to the north, still another.
"Sounds as though I'd better go back to town," he said to himself, speaking aloud. "By George, but it's lonely!"
