surge of a sudden sweep of wind, yet when they camped at the beginning
of darkness Philip was confident the madman and his pack were close
behind them. Utter exhaustion blotted out the hours for Celie and
himself, while Olaf, buried in two heavy Eskimo coats he had foraged
from the field of battle, sat on guard through the night. Twice in the
stillness of his long vigil he heard strange cries. Once it was the cry
of a beast. The second time it was that of a man.

The second day, with dogs refreshed, they traveled faster, and it was
this night that they camped in the edge of timber and built a huge
fire. It was such a fire as illumined the space about them for fifty
paces or more, and it was into this light that Bram Johnson stalked, so
suddenly and so noiselessly that a sharp little cry sprang from Celie's
lips, and Olaf and Philip and the Duke of Rugni stared in wide-eyed
amazement. In his right hand the wolf-man bore a strange object. It was
an Eskimo coat, tied into the form of a bag, and in the bottom of this
improvision was a lump half the size of a water pail. Bram seemed
oblivious of all presence but that of Celie. His eyes were on her alone
as he advanced and with a weird sound in his throat deposited the
bundle at her feet. In another moment he was gone. The Swede rose
slowly from where he was sitting, and speaking casually to Celie, took
the wolf-man's gift up in his hands. Philip observed the strange look
in his face as he turned his back to Celie in the firelight and opened
the bag sufficiently to get a look inside. Then he walked out into the
darkness, and a moment later returned without the bundle, and with a
laugh apologized to Celie for his action.

"No need of telling her what it was," he said to Philip then. "I
explained that it was foul meat Bram had brought in as a present. As a
matter of fact it was Blake's head. You know the Kogmollocks have a
pretty habit of pleasing a friend by presenting him with the head of a
dead enemy. Nice little package for her to have opened, eh?"

After all, there are some very strange happenings in life, and the
adventurers of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police come upon their
share. The case of Bram Johnson, the mad wolf-man of the Upper Country,
happened to be one of them, and filed away in the archives of the
Department is a big envelope filled with official and personal
documents, signed and sworn to by various people. There is, for
instance, the brief and straight