true, is none the less unfair to the hound. A hound is a good dog at
heart.

In the January storm it may be that the vengeful spirit of Francois
Breault set out in company with Corporal Blake to witness the
consummation of his vengeance. That first night, as he sat close to his
fire in the shelter of a thick spruce timber, Blake felt the unusual
and disturbing sensation of a presence somewhere near him. The storm
was at its height. He had passed through many storms, but to-night
there seemed to be an uncannily concentrated fury in its beating and
wailing over the roofs of the forests.

He was physically comfortable. The spruce trees were so dense that the
storm did not reach him, and fortune favored him with a good fire and
plenty of fuel. But the sensation oppressed him. He could not keep away
from him his mental vision of Breault as he had helped to pry him from
the sledge--his frozen features, the stiffened fingers, the curious
twist of the icy lips that had been almost a grin.

Blake was not superstitious. He was too much a man of iron for that.
His soul had lost the plasticity of imagination. But he could not
forget Breault's lips as they had seemed to grin up at him. There was a
reason for it. On his last trip down, Breault had said to him, with
that same half-grin on his face:

"M'sieu, some day you may go after my murderer, and when you do,
Francois Breault will go with you."

That was three months ago. Blake measured the time back as he sucked at
his pipe, and at the same time he looked at the shadowy and half-lost
forms of his dogs, curled up for the night in the outer rim of
firelight.

Over the tree-tops a sudden blast of wind howled. It was like a monster
voice. Blake rose to his feet and rolled upon the fire the big night
log he had dragged in, and to this he added, with the woodman's craft
of long experience, lengths of green timber, so arranged that they
would hold fire until morning. Then he went into his silk service tent
and buried himself in his sleeping-bag.

For a long time he did not sleep. He listened to the crackle of the
fire. Again and again he heard that monster voice moaning and shrieking
over the forest. Never had the rage of storm filled him with the
uneasiness of to-night. At last the mystery of it was solved for him.
The wind came and went each time in a great moaning, half shrieking
sound: B-r-r-r-r--e-e-e-e--aw-w-w-w!

It was like a shock to him; and yet, he was not a supers