ed; and not only was it buttoned, Delesse observed, but also was
it carefully pinned. And even now, facing that monster who would soon
be at him, Reese Beaudin was smiling.

For a moment the closely hooded stranger stood between them, and
Jacques Dupont crouched himself for his vengeance. Never to the people
of Lac Bain had he looked more terrible. He was the gorilla-fighter,
the beast fighter, the fighter who fights as the wolf, the bear and the
cat--crushing out life, breaking bones, twisting, snapping, inundating
and destroying with his great weight and his monstrous strength. He was
a hundred pounds heavier than Reese Beaudin. On his stooping shoulders
he could carry a tree. With his giant hands he could snap a two-inch
sapling. With one hand alone he had set a bear-trap. And with that
mighty strength he fought as the cave-man fought. It was his boast
there was no trick of the Chippewan, the Cree, the Eskimo or the forest
man that he did not know. And yet Reese Beaudin stood calmly, waiting
for him, and smiling!

In another moment the hooded stranger was gone, and there was none
between them.

"A long time I have waited for this, m'sieu," said Reese, for Dupont's
ears alone. "Five years is a long time. And my Elise still loves me."

Still more like a gorilla Jacques Dupont crept upon him. His face was
twisted by a rage to which he could no longer give voice. Hatred and
jealousy robbed his eyes of the last spark of the thing that was human.
His great hands were hooked, like an eagle's talons. His lips were
drawn back, like a beast's. Through his red beard yellow fangs were
bared.

And Reese Beaudin no longer smiled. He laughed!

"Until I went away and met real men, I never knew what a pig of a man
you were, M'sieu Dupont," he taunted amiably, as though speaking in
jest to a friend. "You remind me of an aged and over-fat porcupine with
his big paunch and crooked arms. What horror must it have been for my
Elise to have lived in sight of such a beast as you!"

With a bellow Dupont was at him. And swifter than eyes had ever seen
man move at Lac Bain before, Reese Beaudin was out of his way, and
behind him; and then, as the giant caught himself at the edge of the
platform, and turned, he received a blow that sounded like the
broadside of a paddle striking water. Reese Beaudin had struck him with
the flat of his unclenched hand!

A murmur of incredulity rose out of the crowd. To the forest man such a
blow was the