As if nothing had happened, he went to the table, where there was a pen and ink and a pad of paper.
“Perhaps your wife hasn't told you everything that has happened to-night, Thorpe,” he said. “If she hasn't, she will—soon. Now, listen!”
He had pulled a small book from an inner pocket and was writing.
“My name is Steele, Philip Steele, of the Royal Mounted. Down in Chicago I've got a father, Philip Egbert Steele, a banker, who's worth half a dozen millions or so. You're going down to him as fast as dog-sledge and train can carry you, and you'll give him this note. It says that your name is Johnson, and that for my sake he's going to put you on your feet, so that it is going to be pretty blamed comfortable for yourself—and the noblest little woman I've ever met. Do you understand, Thorpe?”
He looked up. Thorpe's wife had gone to her husband. She stood now, half in his arms, and looking at him; as they were, they reminded him of a couple who had played the finale in a drama which he had seen a year before.
“There is one favor which you must do me, Thorpe,” he went on. “At home I am rich. Up here I'm only Phil Steele, of the Royal Mounted. I'm telling you so that you won't think that I'm stripping myself when I make you take this. It's a little ready cash, and a check for a thousand dollars. Some day, if you want to, you can pay it back. Now hustle up and get on your clothes. I imagine that your friends are somewhere near—with the sledge that brought me up from Le Pas. Tomorrow, of course, I shall be compelled to take up the pursuit. But if you hurry I don't believe that I shall catch you.”
He rose and put on his hat, leaving the money and the check on the table. The woman staggered toward him, the man following in a dazed, stunned sort of way. He saw the woman's arms reaching out to him again, a look in her beautiful face that he would never forget.
In another moment he had opened the door and was gone.