The dogs, with the company man at their head, were already making for the camp. Billy grinned at the corporal as they followed.
“Had a pretty good chance to get me, if you’d been alone, didn’t you, Bucky?” he asked, in a voice that Walker did not hear. “You see, I haven’t forgotten your threat.”
There was a steely hardness behind his laugh. He knew that Bucky Smith was a scoundrel whose good fortune was that he had never been found out in some of his evil work. In a flash his mind traveled back to that day at Norway House when Rousseau, the half Frenchman, had come to him from a sick-bed to tell him that Bucky had ruined his young wife. Rousseau, who should have been in bed with his fever, died two days later. Billy could still hear the taunt in Bucky’s voice when he had cornered him with Rousseau’s accusation, and the fight had followed. The thought that this man was now close after Isobel and Deane filled him with a sort of rage, and as Walker went ahead he laid a hand on Bucky’s arm.
“I’ve been thinking about you of late, Bucky,” he said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that affair down at Norway, an’ I’ve been lacking myself for not reporting it. I’m going to do it— unless you cut a right-angle track to the one you’re taking. I’m after Scottie Deane myself!”
In the next breath he could have cut out his tongue for having uttered the words. A gleam of triumph shot into Bucky’s eyes.
“I thought we was right,” he said. “We sort of lost the trail in the storm. Glad we found you to set us right. How much of a start of us has he and that squaw that’s traveling with him got?”
Billy’s mittened hands clenched fiercely. He made no reply, but followed quickly after Walker. His mind worked swiftly. As he came in to the fire he saw that the dogs had already dropped down in their traces and that they were exhausted. Walker’s face was pinched, his eyes half closed by the sting of the snow. The driver was half stretched out on the sledge, his feet to the fire. In a glance he had assured himself that both dogs and men had gone through a long and desperate struggle in the storm. He looked at Bucky, and this time there was neither rancor nor threat in his voice when he spoke.
“You fellows have had a hard time of it,” he said. “Make yourselves at home. I’m not overburdened with grub, but if you’ll dig out some of your own rations I’ll get it ready while you thaw out.”
Bucky was looking curiously at the two tents.
“Who’s with you?” he asked.