It was Gregson. As the two men gripped hands the young engineer stared at the other in astonishment. This was not the Gregson he had known in the Chicago office, round-faced, full of life, as active as a cricket.
“Never so glad to see any one in my life, Howland!” he cried, shaking the other's hand again and again. “Another month and I'd be dead. Isn't this a hell of a country?”
“I'm falling more in love with it at every breath, Gregson. What's the matter? Have you been sick?”
Gregson laughed as they turned toward the lighted building. It was a short, nervous laugh, and with it he gave a curious sidewise glance at his companion's face.
“Sick?—yes, sick of the job! If the old man hadn't sent us relief Thorne and I would have thrown up the whole thing in another four weeks. I'll warrant you'll get your everlasting fill of log shanties and half-breeds and moose meat and this infernal snow and ice before spring comes. But I don't want to discourage you.”
“Can't discourage me!” laughed Howland cheerfully. “You know I never cared much for theaters and girls,” he added slyly, giving Gregson a good-natured nudge. “How about 'em up here?”
“Nothing—not a cursed thing.” Suddenly his eyes lighted up. “By George, Howland, but Idid see the prettiest girl I ever laid my eyes on to-day! I'd give a box of pure Havanas—and we haven't had one for a month!—if I could know who she is!”
They had entered through the low door of the log boarding-house and Gregson was throwing off his heavy coat.
“A tall girl, with a fur hat and muff?” queried Howland eagerly.
“Nothing of the sort. She was a typical Northerner if there ever was one—straight as a birch, dressed in fur cap and coat, short caribou skin skirt and moccasins, and with a braid hanging down her back as long as my arm. Lord, but she was pretty!”
“Isn't there a girl somewhere up around our camp named Meleese?” asked Howland casually.
“Never heard of her,” said Gregson.
“Or a man named Croisset?”
“Never heard of him.”
“The deuce, but you're interesting,” laughed the young engineer, sniffing at the odors of cooking supper. “I'm as hungry as a bear!”
From outside there came the sharp cracking of a sledge-driver's whip and Gregson went to one of the small windows looking out upon the clearing. In another instant he sprang toward the door, crying out to Howland,
“By the god of love, there she is, old man! Quick, if you want to get a glimpse of her!”
He flung the door open and Howland hurried to his side. There came another crack of the whip, a loud shout, and a sledge drawn by six dogs sped past them into the gathering gloom of the early night.
From Howland's lips, too, there fell a sudden cry; for one of the two faces that were turned toward him for an instant was that of Croisset, and the other—white and staring as he had seen it that first night in Prince Albert—was the face of the beautiful girl who had lured him into the ambush on the Great North Trail!

CHAPTER V. HOWLAND'S MIDNIGHT VISITOR


For a moment after the swift passing of the sledge it was on Howland's lips to shout Croisset's name; as he thrust Gregson aside and leaped out into the night he was impelled with a desire to give chase, to overtake in some way the two people who, within the space of forty-eight hours, had become so mysteriously associated with his own life, and who were now escaping him again.
It was Gregson who recalled him to his senses.
“I thought you didn't care for theaters—and girls, Howland,” he exclaimed banteringly, repeating Howland's words of a few minutes before. “A pretty face affects you a little differently up here, eh? Well, after you've been in this fag-end of the universe for a month or so you'll learn—”
Howland interrupted him sharply.
“Did you ever see either of them before, Gregson?”
“Never until to-day. But there's hope, old man.