sudden relief to their
lungs, choked with sulphur and the fumes of spent powder.

In a flash they were out of the open door; and there again, with the
suddenness of a panorama, they saw another picture--Paul kneeling in the
middle of the clearing, taking careful aim at the retreating form of the
first bear. They saw the puff of blue smoke rise from his rifle, they
heard the sharp report; and the bear rolled over on its face.

Steinmetz and the keeper were walking toward Paul. Claude de Chauxville,
standing outside his screen of brushwood, was staring with wide,
fear-stricken eyes at the hut which he had thought empty. He did not
know that there were three people behind him, watching him. What had
they seen? What had they understood?

Catrina and Maggie ran toward Paul. They were on snow-shoes, and made
short work of the intervening distance.

Paul had risen to his feet. His face was grave. There was a singular
gleam in his eyes, which was not a gleam of mere excitement such as the
chase brings into some men's eyes.

Steinmetz looked at him and said nothing. For a moment Paul stood still.
He looked round him, noting with experienced glance the lay of the whole
incident--the dead form of the bear ten yards behind his late
hiding-place, one hundred and eighty yards from the hut, one hundred and
sixty yards from the spot whence Karl Steinmetz had sent his unerring
bullet through the bear's brain. Paul saw it all. He measured the
distances. He looked at De Chauxville, standing white-faced at his post,
not fifty yards from the carcass of the second bear.

Paul seemed to see no one but De Chauxville. He went straight toward
him, and the whole party followed in breathless suspense. Steinmetz was
nearest to him, watching with his keen, quiet eyes.

Paul went up to De Chauxville and took the rifle from his hands. He
opened the breech and looked into the barrels. They were clean; the
rifle had not been fired off.

He gave a little laugh of contempt, and, throwing the rifle at De
Chauxville's feet, turned abruptly away.

It was Catrina who spoke.

"If you had killed him," she said, "I would have killed you!"

Steinmetz picked up the rifle, closed the breech, and handed it to De
Chauxville with a queer smile.

CHAPTER XXXII

A CLOUD

When the Osterno party reached home that same evening the starosta was
waiting to see Steinmetz. His news was such that Steinmetz sent for
Paul, and the three men went togethe