revolver.

"You beast!" she repeated. "I ought to kill you. I ought to shoot you
down where you stand, for you are a cur and a coward. I know what you
have planned. I followed you when you went to Rydal's cabin a little
while ago, and I heard everything that passed between you. Listen, Peter,
and I'll tell you what these brutes were going to do with us. You were to
go with the six-dog team and I with the five, and out on the barrens we
were to become separated, you to go on and be killed when you we're a
proper distance away, and I to be brought back--to Rydal. Do you
understand, Peter dear? Isn't it splendid that we should have forced on
us like this such wonderful material for a story!"

She was gloriously unafraid now. A paean of triumph rang in her voice,
triumph, contempt, and utter fearlessness. Her mittened hand pressed on
Peter's shoulder, and before the weapon in her other hand Blake stood as
if turned into stone.

"You don't know," she said, speaking to him directly, "how near I am to
killing you. I think I shall shoot unless you have the meat and kindlings
put on Peter's sledge immediately and give Uppy instructions--in
English--to drive us to Fort Confidence. Peter and I will both go with
the six-dog sledge. Give the instructions quickly, Mr. Blake!"

Blake, recovering from the shock she had given him, flashed back at her
his cool and cynical smile. In spite of being caught in an unpleasant
lie, he admired this golden-haired, blue-eyed slip of a woman for the
colossal bluff she was playing. "Personally, I'm sorry," he said, "but I
couldn't help it. Rydal--"