The Washington herald., 1912-07-28
PHILIP STEELE

movement Philip freed himself and
sprang back step to gather force for
the final blow.
The move was fatal. Behind him his
heel caught in a snow-smothered log
and he pitched backward with DeBar
on top of him.
Again the iron fingers burned at his
throat. But this time he made no re-
sistance, and after moment the outlaw
rose TO his feet and stared down into
the white, still face half buried in the
snow. Then he gently lifted Philips
head in his arms. There was a crim-
son blotch in the snow and close to it
the black edge of hidden rock.
| As quickly as possible DeBar carried
Philip into the cabin and placed him on
one of the cots. Then he gathered GER
tain articles of food from Pierre's stock
and put them in his pack. He had car
ried the pack half way to the door when
he stopped, dropped his load gently to
the floor. and thrust hand inside his
coat pocket From it he drew forth a
letter. 1t was a woman's letter-and
he read it now with bowed head, let
ter of infinite faith, and hope. and love,
and when once more he turned toward
Philip his face was filled with the flush
of great happiness.
"Mebby you don't just understand,
Phil" he whispered, as if the other
were listening to him. I'm going to
leave this"
With the stub of a pencil he scrib-
bled few words at the bottom of the
crumpled letter.
He wrote in a crude, awkward hand:
You'd won if it hadn't been for the
rock But l guess mebby that it was
God who put the rock there, Phil While
you was asleep took the bullets out OF
your cartridges and put in damp paper,
for / didn't want to see any harm done
with the guns | didn't shoot to hit
you, and after all, I'm glad it was the
rock that hurt you instead of me"
He leaned over the cot to assure HIM
| self that Philips breath was coming
steadier and stronger, and then laid the
letter on the young mans breast.
Five minutes later he was ploddng
steadily ahead of his big Mackenzie
hound into the peopleless barrens to the
south and west.
And still later Philip opened his eyes
and saw what DeBar had left for him.
He struggled into a sitting posture and
read the few lines which the outlaw
had written.
Here's to you, Mr.. Felix MacGreg-
or" he chuckled feebly. balancing him
self on the edge of the bunk. You're
right. It'll take two men to lay out
Mr.. William DeBar-if you ever get
him AT all!'
Three days later, still in the cabin,
he raised hand to his oandaged head
with an odd grimace, half of pain, half
Of laughter.
said to himself, limping back and forth
across the narrow space OF the cabin.
You've got them all beaten to rag
when it comes TO playing the chump,
Phil Steele Here you go up to Big
and say to him, I can get that man,
and when the big chief says you can't,
you call him four-ply ignoramus in
your mind, and get permission to 60
after him anyway-just because you're
in love. You follow your man up here
-four hundred miles or so-and what's
the consequence? You lose all hope
of finding her, and your man does Just
what the big chief said he would do,
and lays you out-though it wasn't your
fault after all Then you take possession
of another mans shack when he isn't
at home, eat his grub, nurse broken
head, and wonder why the devil you
ever joined the glorious Royal Mount
ed when you've got money to burn.
You're wise one, you are, Phil Steele
but you've learned something new.
You've learned there's never a man so
good but there's better one somewhere
even if he is man-killer like Mr..
William DeBar"
He lighted his pipe and went to the
door. For the first time in days the
sun was shining in cold blaze of fire
over the southeastern edge Of the bar
rens, which swept away in a limitless
waste of snow-dune and rock and
stunted scrub among which occasional
Indian and half-breed trappers set their
dead-falls and poison bats for the
northern fox Sixty miles to the west
was Fort Smith. A hundred miles to
the south lay the Hudson's Bay Com |
panys post at Chippewayan; hundred
and fifty miles to the south and east |
was the post at Fond du Lac, and to |
the north-nothing. A thousand miles |
or so up there one would have struck |
the polar sea and the Eskimo, and it |
was with this thought of the lifelessness
and mystery of dead and empty world
that Philip turned his eyes from the
sun into the gray desolation that reach
ed from Pierre Thoreau's door to the
end of the earth Far off to the north
he saw a black speck moving in the
chaos of white 1t might have been a
fox coming over a snow-dune a rife
shot away, for distances are elusive
where the sky and the earth seem to
meet in cold gray rim about one; or
it might have been a musk-ox or Carl
bou at greater distance, but the longer |
he looked the more convinced he be-
came that it was none of these-but a
man. 1t moved slowly, disappeared for
few minutes in one of the dips of the
plain and came into view again much
nearer. This time he made out a man.
and behind, sledge and dogs.