Bucky Nome for breakfast. And then, M'sieur--then we shall see what we
shall see."

Later that night he wrote a few words on a slip of paper and tacked the
paper to the inside of his door. To any who might follow in his
footsteps it conveyed this information and advice:

NOTICE!

This cabin and what's in it are quasheed by me. Fill your gizzard but
not your pockets.

Steele, Northwest Mounted.



Chapter II. A Face Out Of The Night

Steele came up to the Hudson's Bay Company's post at Lac Bain on the
seventh day after the big storm, and Breed, the factor, confided two
important bits of information to him while he was thawing out before the
big box-stove in the company's deserted and supply-stripped store. The
first was that a certain Colonel Becker and his wife had left Fort
Churchill, on Hudson's Bay, to make a visit at Lac Bain; the second,
that Buck Nome had gone westward a week before and had not returned.
Breed was worried, not over Nome's prolonged absence, but over the
anticipated arrival of the other two. According to the letter which had
come to him from the Churchill factor. Colonel Becker and his wife had
come over on the last supply ship from London, and the colonel was a
high official in the company's service. Also, he was an old gentleman.