"It's kinder private," he growled. "Oh, like that, is it?" Lonagon began to smell a rat. He pursed his lips and met Jim's flaming eyes. Undaunted, he placed his back to the door. "See here, we're mighty obliged to you for plugging them Injuns, but you ain't going in there till we know what your game is. You ain't safe--there's a skeery look in your eyes and--" he lowered his voice--"D'Arcy is hitting the long trail." Jim started back in amazement. The news brought him the bitterest disappointment he had yet suffered. After all this terrible time on the trail fate was to rob him of his reward! For a moment he became suspicious. "So he put you up to that, eh? Better stand away. I ain't in a humor for hossplay. We got a score to settle." Shanks stepped up to him. "That score will be settled in less'n an hour. The Injuns got D'Arcy over the heart. Go in and see. I reckon you'll find there's no need to settle scores." Lonagon, realizing that nothing could worsen D'Arcy's condition, turned away and watched Jim enter the cabin. Once inside the door, Jim saw that the two men had spoken the truth. D'Arcy's deathly white face was turned towards him and the hands were clenched on the brown blanket. Providence was robbing him of his vengeance, and despite his crushing sense of failure, somewhere in his heart leapt a great gladness. He approached the bed, and the sound of his heavy tread awoke the dying man to consciousness. He turned his glassy eyes on his visitor, and for a moment failed to recognize him. Then memory came. "You--you are the man--I saw--on the bank at Dawson.... Angela's husband!" Jim nodded grimly. "I've come," he said. "Didn't you know I'd come?" CHAPTER XVI THE GREAT LIE D'Arcy regarded him fixedly. It astonished him that a man should travel hundreds of miles in the Arctic winter to vent his wrath on another. "Why should you come?" he murmured. "You--you ask me that! You----" He stopped as a spasm of pain crossed D'Arcy's face. In the presence of impending Death he found a strange difficulty in giving full vent to his hate. "I see," gasped D'Arcy. "It's because I helped her to escape. Perhaps I was wrong, but believe me, it was better that way. I knew her years ago.... It gave you pain, but it may have saved her from hating you--eventually...." This seeming hypocrisy staggered Jim. That any man facing the shadow of Death could act in such manner was amazing. He quivered with violent repulsion. "I wasn't referring to that," he snapped. "She didn't escape--I brought her back." "You--you brought her back! Then why did you come here?" "I came to kill you--with my hands. Did you think I would rest until that score was settled?" D'Arcy attempted to drag himself into a sitting position, but the pain it caused him rendered the attempt vain. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then slowly opened them. He became conscious of the fact that they were at cross-purposes.