Panting in the killer's frenzy, Loree struggled over the débris to reach his game. How oddly the deer had fallen! Heart, or brain, likely; as it went down like a log. Here was the thicket, and on the other side--yes, a patch of reddened snow, and the body of--no, not a deer, but a man, dead, it seemed, clad in a deerskin jacket, a rifle by his side and in his hand a note-book full of figures, its pages all stained and crumpled! There was a shout in the far distance, but Loree heard it not. He knew his solitude, and never looked for aid. The white strangeness of the face of the man he had shot overcame the sense of something familiar in it; and the colonel, after a moment's scrutiny of it, addressed himself frantically to the stanching of the blood. A deep groan seemed to warrant hope; and stooping beneath the body Loree took it up and began bearing it toward the camp. He had an overwhelming consciousness of the terrible task before him; but the realization of the human life dashed out, some home blasted, some infinity of woe, and the bare chance of rescue rolled sickeningly over him, and he set his teeth and attacked the task like an incarnate will. Logs and boughs and dead-wood held him back; countless obstacles exhausted him. He felt like crying out in agony as he realized that his age was telling against him. He felt strangely tender at this meeting with death in its simple and more merciful form. He clenched his teeth hard, felt his heart swell as if to burst, his lungs labor in agonized heavings--and when Trudeau the guide overtook him, he found him a frenzied man, covered with dark streaks and splashes of blood, unconquerably hurling upon his impossible task his last reserves of strength, with all that iron resolution with which he had beaten down resistance in his long battle with a relentless world. "For God's sake," he panted hoarsely, "help me get him to camp! We've got a doctor there!" * * * * * "How's the colonel?" said the doctor, when he had done all he could for the colonel's victim. "Knocked all to pieces," answered a young man. "Wants to know if we've found out who the man is." Colonel Loree was interrogating Trudeau; surprised that he did not know the name of the wounded man. "_Non_," answered Trudeau, "she tell me his name, and give me _carte_, but I lose heem an' forget firs' day. Remember wood', remember trail, remember face ver' well--but name; she I forget. She write lettaire an' cry, an' all time put fig' in book. Zis is heem; mebbe _she_ tell name!" The smutched names were strange to the colonel; but on another page there were some inexplicable references to Kosmos Chemical affairs; and on the cover were dim initials that looked like "F. V. D."