yourself, and, perhaps, get drowned; but now, after I have seen you and after what you have told me, I can't do that."[99] [99] "So you were tempted to let me drown myself, and now you are repentant?" Granger bowed his head. "Then I tell you that if the ice were as rotten as your soul or Spurling's, I would still follow him, though I had to follow him to Hell. If I've got to die, I'll die game—and you shan't turn me back." Granger ran out after him, calling him to stay, offering to guide him round the danger spot in his trail. But suspicion and untruthfulness had done their work. Only once did he turn his head, when at the crack of the whip the yellow-faced leader leapt forward in his traces. Then he answered him and cried, "He killed the woman I loved, and he shall pay the price though I follow him to Hell." So far as is known, these were the last words which Strangeways ever said. CHAPTER VIII [100] [100] THE LAST OF STRANGEWAYS Granger returned to his shack and, closing the door, sat down beside the stove in his accustomed place. He commenced to fill his pipe slowly, stretching out his legs as if he were preparing for a long night of late hours and thoughtfulness. But he could not rest, his whole sensitiveness was listening and alert; the muscles of his body twitched, as if rebuking him for the delay which he imposed on them. He was expecting to hear a cry; whose cry, and called forth by what agony, he did not dare to surmise, only he must get there before it was too late. Somewhere between his shack and the Forbidden River he must get before the agony began. He rose up, and putting on his capote and snowshoes hurriedly, went out following Strangeways' trail. He had no time to realise the folly of his action—this leaving of his store unguarded and setting forth without an outfit at a season of the year when, perhaps, within a week the ice would break. He did not consider how far he might have to follow before he could hope to come up with Strangeways; nor what Strangeways would think of and do with him if, turning on a sudden his head, he should see the man who had lied to him coming swiftly up behind. He would probably shoot him; but Granger in his frenzy to save Strangeways'
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