how utterly the other was at his mercy, and with an exultant laugh he
leaned his rifle against a tree, pulled oft his mittens, and began
loading his pipe. This was the triumph he had looked forward to, the
torture he had waited for. In his soul there was a hatred as deadly as
Baree's, the hatred that a man might have for a man. He had expected to
send a bullet through the dog. But this was better--to watch him dying
by inches, to taunt him as he would have taunted a human, to walk about
him so that he could hear the clank of the traps and see the fresh
blood drip as Baree twisted his tortured legs and body to keep facing
him. It was a splendid vengeance. He was so engrossed in it that he did
not hear the approach of snowshoes behind him. It was a voice--a man's
voice--that turned him round in his tracks.

The man was a stranger, and he was younger than McTaggart by ten years.
At least he looked no more than thirty-five or six, even with the short
growth of blond beard he wore. He was of that sort that the average man
would like at first glance; boyish, and yet a man; with clear eyes that
looked out frankly from under the rim of his fur cap, a form lithe as
an Indian's, and a face that did not bear the hard lines of the
wilderness. Yet McTaggart knew before he had spoken that this man was
of the wilderness, that he was heart and soul a part of it. His cap was
of fisher skin. He wore a windproof coat of softly tanned caribou skin,
belted at the waist with a long sash, and Indian fringed. The inside of
the coat was furred. He was traveling on the long, slender bush country
snowshoe. His pack, strapped over the shoulders, was small and compact;
he was carrying his rifle in a cloth jacket. And from cap to snowshoes
he was TRAVEL WORN. McTaggart, at a guess, would have said that he had
traveled a thousand miles in the last few weeks. It was not this
thought that sent the strange and chilling thrill up his back; but the
sudden fear that in some strange way a whisper of the truth might have
found its way down into the south--the truth of what had happened on
the Gray Loon--and that this travel-worn stranger wore under his
caribou-skin coat the badge of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. For
that instant it was almost a terror that possessed him, and he stood
mute.

The stranger had uttered only an amazed exclamation before. Now he
said, with his eyes on Baree:

"God save us, but you've got the poor devil in a right proper m