-five; almost slim as Pierre himself, with eyes as steely blue as
Pierre's were black. There was a time, away back, when he wore a dress
suit as no other man in the big western city where he lived; now the
sleeves of his caribou skin coat were frayed and torn, his hands were
knotted, in his face were the lines of storm and wind.

"It is impossible," he said. "Bram Johnson is dead!"

"He is alive, M'sieu."

In Pierre's voice there was a strange tremble.

"If I had only HEARD, if I had not SEEN, you might disbelieve, M'sieu,"
he cried, his eyes glowing with a dark fire. "Yes, I heard the cry of
the pack first, and I went to the door, and opened it, and stood there
listening and looking out into the night. UGH! they went near. I could
hear the hoofs of the caribou. And then I heard a great cry, a voice
that rose above the howl of the wolves like the voice of ten men, and I
knew that Bram Johnson was on the trail of meat. MON DIEU--yes--he is
alive. And that is not all. No. No. That is not all--"

His fingers were twitching. For the third or fourth time in the last
three-quarters of an hour Raine saw him fighting back a strange
excitement. His own incredulity was gone. He was beginning to believe
Pierre.

"And after that--you saw him?"

"Yes. I would not do again what I did then for all the foxes between
the Athabasca and the Bay, M'sieu. It must have been--I don't know
what. It dragged me out into the night. I followed. I found the trail
of the wolves, and I found the snowshoe tracks of a man. Oui. I still
followed. I came close to the kill, with the wind in my face, and I
could hear the snapping of jaws and the rending of flesh--yes--yes--AND
A MAN'S TERRIBLE LAUGH! If the wind had shifted--if that pack of
devils' souls had caught the smell of me--tonnerre de dieu!" He
shuddered, and the knuckles of his fingers snapped as he clenched and
unclenched his hands. "But I stayed there, M'sieu, half buried in a
snow dune. They went on after a long time. It was so dark I could not
see them. I went to the kill then, and--yes, he had carried away the
two hind quarters of the caribou. It was a bull, too, and heavy. I
followed--clean across that strip of Barren down to the timber, and it
was there that Bram built himself the fire. I could see him then, and I
swear by the Blessed Virgin that it was Bram! Long ago, before he
killed the man, he came twice to my cabin--and he had not changed. And
around him, in the fire-glow, the