"And that?"
Carter gave his thin shoulders a suggestive shrug.
"Has it occurred to you how nice it will be if—in these two years of change you have anticipated—something has happened to Curry? Death, for instance?"
Peter looked at his companion to see if he was joking. Carter's face was set and unsmiling.
"Why not?" he argued. "Aleck, although a brother of the Devil, isn't calamity-proof. With him under six feet of good, honest dirt, or mysteriously missing, or kicked out of the force by an authority greater than his uncle—you would be a free man, and Father Albanel could ring the wedding bell the day you reach Five Fingers. Maybe it's only a dream I've had—but I seem to see Aleck Curry safely out of your way, now or very soon. If he has tried to take advantage of Mona Guyon during your absence——"
"Simon McQuarrie or Pierre Gourdon would kill him!"
"Exactly!" And Carter lighted his pipe and said no more, nor did he raise his eyes to see the strained look which he knew was in Peter's face.
That night they slept on the northward slope of the ridge that separated the waterways of a continent.
Two days later, on the first of June, they crossed the southern line of rail and camped in the deep wilderness between it and Lake Superior.