For another day and another night they traveled westward,
and this brought them into the thick country of swamp and timber along
the Waterfound.

And as Kazan and Gray Wolf came from the west, there came from the
Hudson's Bay post to the east a slim dark-faced French half-breed by the
name of Henri Loti, the most famous lynx hunter in all the Hudson's Bay
country. He was prospecting for "signs," and he found them in abundance
along the Waterfound. It was a game paradise, and the snow-shoe rabbit
abounded in thousands. As a consequence, the lynxes were thick, and
Henri built his trapping shack, and then returned to the post to wait
until the first snows fell, when he would come back with his team,
supplies and traps.

And up from the south, at this same time, there was slowly working his
way by canoe and trail a young university zoologist who was gathering
material for a book on _The Reasoning of the Wild_. His name was Paul
Weyman, and he had made arrangements to spend a part of the winter with
Henri Loti, the half-breed. He brought with him plenty of paper, a
camera and the photograph of a girl. His only weapon was a pocket-knife.

And meanwhile Kazan and Gray Wolf found the home they were seeking in a
thick swamp five or six miles from the cabin that Henri Loti had built.

CHAPTER XI

ALWAYS TWO BY TWO

It was January when a guide from the post brought Paul Weyman to Henri
Loti's cabin on the Waterfound. He was a man of thirty-two or three,
full of the red-blooded life that made Henri like him at once. If this
had not been the case, the first few days in the cabin might have been
unpleasant, for Henri was in bad humor. He told Weyman about it their
first night, as they were smoking pipes alongside the redly glowing box
stove.

"It is damn strange," said Henri. "I have lost seven lynx in the traps,
torn to pieces like they were no more than rabbits that the foxes had
killed. No thing--not even bear--have ever tackled lynx in a trap
before. It is the first time I ever see it. And they are torn up so bad
they are not worth one half dollar at the post. Seven!--that is over two
hundred dollar I have lost! There are two wolves who do it. Two--I know
it by the tracks--always two--an'--never one. They follow my trap-line
an' eat the rabbits I catch. They leave the fisher-cat, an' the mink,
an' the ermine, an' the marten; but the lynx--_sacre_ an' damn!--they
jump on him an' pull the fur from him like you pull