drawn towards the Pole by that charm--deadly and beautiful--for
which men have given up three points of the compass, with their
pleasures and ease, to seek a grave solitude, broken only by the beat
of a musk-ox's hoofs, the long breath of the caribou, or the wild cry of
the puma.

Sir Duke Lawless had felt this charm, and had sworn that one day he
would again leave his home in Devon and his house in Pont Street, and,
finding Pierre, Shon M'Gann, and others of his old comrades, together
they would travel into those austere yet pleasant wilds. He kept his
word, found Shon M'Gann, and on an autumn day of a year not so long
ago lounged in this hut on Clear Mountain. They had had three months of
travel and sport, and were filled, but not sated, with the joy of the
hunter. They were very comfortable, for their host, Pourcette, the
French Canadian, had fire and meat in plenty, and, if silent, was
attentive to their comfort--a little, black-bearded, grey-headed man,
with heavy brows over small vigilant eyes, deft with his fingers, and an
excellent sportsman, as could be told from the skins heaped in all the
corners of the large hut.

The skins were not those of mere foxes or martens or deer, but of
mountain lions and grizzlies. There were besides many soft, tiger-like
skins, which Sir Duke did not recognise. He kept looking at them, and at
last went over and examined one.

"What's this, Monsieur Pourcette?" he said, feeling it as it lay on the
top of the pile.

The little man pushed the log on the fireplace with his moccasined foot
before he replied: "Of a puma, m'sieu'."

Sir Duke smoothed it with his hand. "I didn't know there were pumas
here."

"Faith, Sir Duke--"

Sir Duke Lawless turned on Shon quickly. "You're forgetting again, Shon.
There's no 'Sir Dukes' between us. What you were to me years ago on
the wally-by-track and the buffalo-trail, you are now, and I'm the same
also: M'Gann and Lawless, and no other."

"Well, then, Lawless, it's true enough as he says it, for I've seen more
than wan skin brought in, though I niver clapped eye on the beast alive.
There's few men go huntin' them av their own free will, not more than
they do grizzlies; but, bedad, this French gintleman has either the luck
o' the world, or the gift o' that man ye tould me of, that slew the
wild boars in anciency. Look at that, now: there's thirty or forty
puma-skins, and I'd take my oath there isn't another man in the country
that's shot