He had come fairly.
He had kept his pledge. And Peter God had spoken.
"You must go. You must tell her Peter God is dead."
And Philip began to accept this, not altogether as his joy, but as his
duty. He could not argue with Peter God when he rose from his sick bed.
He would go back to Josephine.
For many days he and Peter God fought with the "red death" in the little
cabin. It was a fight which he could never forget. One afternoon--to
strengthen himself for the terrible night that was coming--he walked
several miles back into the stunted spruce on his snowshoes. It was
mid-afternoon when he returned with a haunch of caribou meat on his
shoulder. Three hundred yards from the cabin something stopped him like a
shot. He listened. From ahead of him came the whining and snarling of
dogs, the crack of a whip, a shout which he could not understand. He
dropped his burden of meat and sped on. At the southward edge of a level
open he stopped again. Straight ahead of him was the cabin. A hundred
yards to the right of him was a dog team and a driver. Between the team
and the cabin a hooded and coated figure was running in the direction of
the danger signal on the sapling pole.
With a cry of warning Philip darted in pursuit. He overtook the figure at
the cabin door. His hand caught it by the arm. It turned--and he stared
into the white, terror-stricken face of Josephine McCloud!
"Good God!" he cried, and that was all.
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