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176 that ends the transaction. I am not asking any commission. Good-night."

He turned on his heel and left her, walking straight up the beach to the barracks. Jennifer stood still, watching him; half-giddy yet with relief and thankfulness.

The lights were pulsing brightly on the shore, and the bagpipe skirl and the laughter came up fitfully. They had been less than an hour away, but to Jennifer it had been many ages. She had won out for Ducane, because Dick would most certainly start for Lobstick Island at once. And she had lost for herself; lost for always, because she could never feel contempt for the man who had flung his contempt at her so unequivocally. She went back, and through the verandah-door to her own room, dropping wearily on the bed. For the fire that had charged her actions was spent, and the grey ash of it lay chill on her heart.

Dick went into the barracks and found Forsyth, the sergeant, preparing for bed. And he stood in the door and delivered his desires without circumlocution.

"I'll want you," he said. "And I want a boat that will sail. I'm starting up the lake for Lobstick in ten minutes."

The jar in walk and tone enlightened Forsyth. He knew of Dick as a man absolutely invaluable in his own class of work and utterly dangerous to thwart.

"Sure," he said placidly, and proceeded to get into his boots again.

He limped as he moved, quite perceptibly, for the tendons of his left leg were stiffened by an ice-cut won on a midwinter Yukon patrol. He had spliced and sewn up the wound and gone his way of two hundred miles and over. But he would never walk like other men again. Dick took belt and revolver from the bed-foot and buckled them on. He had left them there earlier in the evening.

"What's doing on the beach?" he said.

Forsyth was Dick's superior in the Force, but he had the wit to recognise the younger man's superiority in everything else.

"Why—they're mostly goin' home. Amazin' peaceable they are, too. Ducane was gittin' nasty, but Robison