“Remember what I told you that day in Nolan. Well, I ain’t fergot. I had plenty time to think it over, back there in Nome. Six months they kep’ me in their damn jail--all on account of you an’ Old Man Gordon--an’ now it’s my turn.” His voice fairly quivered with insane rage as he jerked off his mitten and extended the twisted claw that had been a hand. “An’ that’s what yer damn dog done! But he won’t never chaw no one else up! An’ Old Man Gordon won’t never beat another race, neither. An’ you--well--you an’ me might git on all right when you come to know me better--an’ then agin--we mightn’t.” A cold calm took possession of the girl: “Don’t be a fool, Dalzene,” she said. “The man you just passed is coming back in a few minutes, and when he does, he will kill you.” “Oh, that’s it, is it? That’s what’s goin’ on up here on Myrtle? Kind of thought Old Man Gordon’s b’iler would cost him about all the race money, time he got it up here. You ort to move down where they’s more men.” Lou Gordon understood nothing of the man’s implication, but the look in the leering eyes brought a hot flush of shame to her face. Dalzene continued: “But, you don’t need to bother about him--he’s through.” “What do you mean?” she shrieked the question, staring wide-eyed into the leering face. The man laughed: “You know what yer friends would do to me if they ketched me on the Koyukuk. Well, I done it first--that’s all. He’s layin’ back there in the snow, ’bout five mile down the crick. An’ he ain’t comin’ back--none whatever.” A single piercing cry forced itself from between the girl’s lips. _Huloimee Tilakum_ was dead! And before her the man who had killed him stood and grinningly bragged of his deed. A red haze filmed her brain. Like a flash she whirled in her tracks and disappeared around the bend. In the cabin was the rifle! She would kill these two human beasts as she would kill wolves. A wild primordial fury gripped her heart--a fury that for the moment overshadowed the pain. This man had killed her man--and in red vengeance he should be killed! With the hand of all men against him Jake Dalzene hated all men. Brooding upon this hate during the term of his imprisonment had transformed him into a veritable beast of hate. A malignant, dangerous thing of evil he was turned loose upon the North at the expiration of his term. Hating all men, he concentrated the full venom of his insane rage upon the Gordons upon whom he laid the blame for his downfall. It was Old Man Gordon who had caused him to lose his money on the Koyukuk, and indirectly had turned the whole Koyukuk against him. Over there they would kill him on sight--as they would kill a snake. The Gordon dog had maimed him for life, and Lou Gordon had treated him with supreme contempt in the roadhouse at Nolan, and later had outwitted him (as he thought) in Nome.