As gently as he might have led Joanne, Aldous drew the mountaineer back to the chair.
"That would be cold-blooded murder," he said, "and I would be the murderer. I can't send you out to do my killing, Mac, as I might send out a hired assassin. Don't you see that I can't? Good heaven, some day—very soon—I will tell you how this hound, Mortimer FitzHugh, poisoned Joanne's life, and did his worst to destroy her. It's to me he's got to answer, Donald. And to me he shall answer. I am going to kill him. But it will not be murder. Since you have come into this room I have made my final plan, and I shall follow it to the end coolly and deliberately. It will be a great game, Mac—and it will be a fair game; and I shall play it happily, because Joanne will not know, and I will be strengthened by her love.
"Quade wants my life, and tried to hire Stevens, up at Miette, to kill me. Culver Rann wants my life; a little later it will come to be the greatest desire of his existence to have me dead and out of the way. I shall give him the chance to do the killing, Mac. I shall give him a splendid chance, and he will not fail to accept his opportunity. Perhaps he will have an advantage, but I am as absolutely certain of killing him as I am that the sun is going down behind the mountains out there. If others should step in, if I should have more than Culver Rann on my hands—why, then you may deal yourself a hand if you like, Donald. It may be a bigger game than One against One."
"It will," rumbled MacDonald. "I learned other things early this afternoon, Johnny. Quade did not stay behind. He went with Rann. DeBar and the woman are with them, and two other men. They went over the Lone Cache Pass, and this minute are hurrying straight for the headwaters of the Parsnip. There are five of 'em—five men."
"And we are two," smiled Aldous. "So there is an advantage on their side, isn't there, Mac? And it makes the game most eminently fair, doesn't it?"
"Johnny, we're good for the five!" cried old Donald in a low, eager voice. "If we start now——"
"Can you have everything ready by morning?"
"The outfit's waiting. It's ready now, Johnny."
"Then we'll leave at dawn. I'll come to you to-night in the coulee, and we'll make our final plans. My brain is a little muddled now, and I've got to clear it, and make myself presentable before supper. We must not let Joanne know. She must suspect nothing—absolutely nothing."
"Nothing," repeated MacDonald as he went to the door.