Montell’s jaw thrust forward. He blinked at Barreau, at his daughter, at me, and then back to Barreau. A flush swept up into his puffy cheeks, surged to his temples, a flush that darkened to purple. His very face seemed to swell, to bulge with the rising blood. His little, swinish eyes dilated. His mouth opened. He gasped. And all at once, with a hoarse rattling in his throat, he swayed and fell forward on his face. We picked him up, Barreau and I, and felt of his heart. It fluttered. We loosened his clothing, and laved his wrists and temples with the snow water. The body lay flaccid; the jaw sagged. When I laid my ear to his breast again the fluttering had ceased. Barreau listened; felt with his hand; shook his head. “No use,” he muttered. Jessie was standing over us when we gave over. “He’s dead,” Barreau looked up at her and murmured. “He’s dead.” He rose to his feet and stared down at the great hulk of unsentient flesh that had vibrated with life and passion ten minutes before. “After all his plotting and planning—to die like that.” The girl stood looking from one to the other, from the dead man in the firelight to me, and to Barreau. Of a sudden Barreau held out his hands to her. But she turned away with a sob, and it was to me she turned, and it was upon my shoulder that she cried, “Oh, Bobby, Bobby!” as if her heart would break. And at that Barreau dropped to his haunches beside the fire. There, when the storm of her grief was hushed, he still sat, his chin resting on his palms, his dark face somber as the North itself. CHAPTER XIX—THE STRENGTH OF MEN—AND THEIR WEAKNESS No wind could reach us where we sat. At the worst, a gale could little more than set the tree-tops swaying, so thick stood the surrounding timber. But the blasting cold pressed in everywhere. Our backs chilled to freezing while our faces were hot from nearness to the flame. Presently, at Barreau’s suggestion, we set up Montell’s tent—fashioned after an Indian lodge—in the center of which could be built a small fire. This was for her. We chopped a pile of dry wood and placed it within. By that time the moose meat was thawed so that we could haggle off ragged slices. These I fried while Barreau mixed a bannock and cooked it in an open pan. Also we had tea. Jessie shook her head when I offered her food. Willy-nilly, her eyes kept drifting to the silent figure opposite. “You _must_ eat,” Barreau broke in harshly upon my fruitless coaxing. “Food means strength. You can’t walk out of these woods on an empty stomach, and we can’t carry you.”