Early in January the second great storm of that year came from out of the
North. It gave no warning, and Falkner was caught ten miles from camp. He
was making a struggle for life before he reached the shack. He was
exhausted, and half blinded. He could hardly stand on his feet when he
staggered up against his own door. He could see nothing when he entered.
He stumbled over a stool, and fell to the floor. Before he could rise a
strange weight was upon him. He made no resistance, for the storm had
driven the last ounce of strength from his body.
"It's been a long chase, but I've got you now, Falkner," he heard a
triumphant voice say. And then came the dreaded formula, feared to the
uttermost limits of the great Northern wilderness: "I warn you! You are
my prisoner, in the name of His Majesty, the King!"
Corporal Carr, of the Royal Mounted of the Northwest, was a man without
human sympathies. He was thin faced, with a square, bony jaw, and lips
that formed a straight line. His eyes were greenish, like a cat's, and
were constantly shifting. He was a beast of prey, as much as the wolf,
the lynx, or the fox--and his prey was men. Only such a man as Carr,
alone would have braved the treacherous snows and the intense cold of the
Arctic winter to run him down. Falkner knew that, as an hour later he
looked over the roaring stove at his captor. About Carr there was
something of the unpleasant quickness, the sinuous movement, of the
little white ermine--the outlaw of the wilderness.
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