died. Fanchet, the half-breed who had robbed a dozen wilderness
mail sledges, had come nearest to trapping him and putting him out
of business. Fanchet was a desperate man and had few scruples. But
even Fanchet--before he was caught--would not have cornered a man
with such bloodthirsty unfairness as Carrigan found himself
cornered now. He no longer had a doubt as to what was in the
other's mind. It was not to wound and make merely helpless. It was
to kill. It was not difficult to prove this. Careful not to expose
a part of his arm or shoulder, he drew a white handkerchief from
his pocket, fastened it to the end of his rifle, and held the flag
of surrender three feet above the rock. And then, with equal
caution, he slowly thrust up a flat piece of shale, which at a
distance of a hundred yards might appear as his shoulder or even
his head. Scarcely was it four inches above the top of the rock
before there came the report of a rifle, and the shale was
splintered into a hundred bits.

Carrigan lowered his flag and gathered himself in tighter. The
accuracy of the other's marksmanship was appalling. He knew that
if he exposed himself for an instant to use his own rifle or the
heavy automatic in his holster, he would be a dead man before he
could press a trigger. And that time, he felt equally sure, would
come sooner or later. His muscles were growing cramped. He could
not forever double himself up like a four-bladed jackknife behind
the altogether inefficient shelter of the rock.

His executioner was hidden in the edge of the timber, not directly
opposite him, but nearly a hundred yards down stream. Twenty times
he had wondered why the fiend with the rifle did not creep up
through that timber and take a good, open pot-shot at him from the