ere?

What she could see of his face must have been as pale as her own when
she looked at him. She smiled, and nodded at Bram. The giant was
turning slowly toward the window, and after a moment or two in which
they could hear him mumbling softly he sat down cross-legged against
the wall, divided the tress into three silken threads and began weaving
them into a snare. The color was returning to Celie's face when Philip
looked at her again. She told him with a gesture of her head and hands
that she was going into her room for a time. He didn't blame her. The
excitement had been rather unusual.

After she had gone he dug his shaving outfit out of his kit-bag. It
included a mirror and the reflection he saw in this mirror fairly
shocked him. No wonder the girl had been frightened at his first
appearance. It took him half an hour to shave his face clean, and all
that time Bram paid no attention to him but went on steadily at his
task of weaving the golden snare. Celie did not reappear until the
wolf-man had finished and was leaving the cabin. The first thing she
noticed was the change in Philip's face. He saw the pleasure in her
eyes and felt himself blushing.

From the window they watched Bram. He had called his wolves and was
going with them to the gate. He carried his snowshoes and his long
whip. He went through the gate first and one by one let his beasts out
until ten of the twenty had followed him. The gate was closed then.

Celie turned to the table and Philip saw that she had brought from her
room a pencil and a bit of paper. In a moment she held the paper out to
him, a light of triumph in her face. At last they had found a way to
talk. On the paper was a crude sketch of a caribou head. It meant that
Bram had gone hunting.

And in going Bram had left a half of his blood-thirsty pack in the
corral. There was no longer a doubt in Philip's mind. They were not the
chance guests of this madman. They were prisoners.

CHAPTER XII

For a few minutes after the wolf-man and his hunters had gone from the
corral Philip did not move from the window. He almost forgot that the
girl was standing behind him. At no time since Pierre Breault had
revealed the golden snare had the situation been more of an enigma to
him than now. Was Bram Johnson actually mad--or was he playing a
colossal sham? The question had unleashed itself in his brain with a
suddenness that had startled him. Out of the past a voice came to him
disti