"But why should you be killed?"
"Ask the man who ordered it," answered Stane with a grim laugh.
"I will when I come up with him. But tell me the rest, old man."
Stane continued his narrative, and when he had finished, Anderton spoke again. "That solitary man with the team whom you saw coming down the lake, must have been me. I turned into the wood a mile or two on the other side of this bluff to camp out of the snow which I saw was coming. Then it struck me that I should do better on this side, and I worked towards it. I was just on the other side when the shooting began, and I hurried forward, but the snow came and wiped out everything, though I had an impression of a second dog-team waiting by the shore as I came round. When I looked for it I couldn't find it; and then I tumbled on this camp, and as there was nothing else to be done until the snow slackened I unharnessed."
Stane looked round. "This would be the place where the man, who was to have paid the kidnappers their price, waited for them."
"And paid them in lead, no doubt with the idea of covering his own tracks completely."
"That seems likely," agreed Stane.
"But who——" Anderton broke off suddenly and leaped to his feet. "Great Christopher! Look there!" Stane looked swiftly in the direction indicated, and as the veil of snow broke for a moment, caught sight of a huddled form crawling in the snow.
"What——" he began.
"It's a man. I saw him distinctly," interrupted the policeman, and then as the snow swept down again he ran from the shelter of the camp.