"As he stepped through the doorway he was seized violently from behind."
Drawn by Frank E. Schoonover
"Was drounded when he tried to shoot them Pelly Rapids about three jumps ahead of the police boat, was he? Well, that's what they said but he wasn't, by a long sight. When the canoe smashed I went under all right but the current throw'd me into a eddy, an' when the police boat went down through the chute I was hangin' by my fingers to a rock. The floater they found later in the lower river an' said was me, was someone else—but I didn't take the trouble to set 'em right—not by a jug full, I didn't. It suited me to a T."
"So you're the specimen that murdered old man Kinney for his dust and——"
"Yup, I'm the party. An' they's a heft of other stuff they've got charged up agin me—over on the Yukon side. But they ain't huntin' me, 'cause they think I'm dead." There was a cold glitter in the man's eye and his voice took on a taunting note. "Still playin' a lone hand, eh? Well, it got you at last, didn't it? Guess you've saw the handwritin' on the wall by this time. You ain't a-goin' no place from here. You've played yer string out. This here country ain't the Yukon. They ain't nobody, nor nothin' here to prevent a man's doin' just what he wants to. The barrens don't tell no tales. Yer smart, all right—an' you've got the guts—that's why we ain't a-goin' to take no chances. By tomorrow night it'll be snowin'. An' when the storm lets up, they won't be no cabin here—just a heap of ashes in under the snow—an' you'll be part of the ashes."
Connie had been in many tight places in his life, but he realized as he sat in his chair and listened to the words of Black Moran that he was at that moment facing the most dangerous situation of his career. He knew that unless the man had fully made up his mind to kill him he would never have disclosed his identity. And he knew that he would not hesitate at the killing—for Black Moran, up to the time of his supposed drowning, had been reckoned the very worst man in the North. Escape seemed impossible, yet the boy showed not the slightest trace of fear. He even smiled into the face of Black Moran. "So you think I'm still with the Mounted do you?" he asked.
"Oh, no, we don't think nothin' like that," sneered the man. "Sure, we don't. That there ain't no service revolver we tuk offen you. That there's a marten trap, I s'pose. 'Course you're trappin', an' don't know nothin' 'bout us tradin' hooch. What we'd ort to do is to sell you some flour an' beans, an' let you go back to yer traps."