av ye can. He'll t'row ut into ye wid
all manner av dhirty thricks, but howld ye're timper, an' maybe ye'll
winter ut out--an' maybe ye won't."

"What is a bird's-eye game?"

Fallon glanced at him sharply. "D'ye mane ye don't know about th'
bird's-eye?" he asked.

"Not a thing," replied Bill.

"Thin listen to me. Don't ye niver say bird's-eye in this camp av ye
expect to winter ut out."

Bill was anxious to hear more about the mysterious bird's-eye, but the
sled suddenly emerged into a wide clearing and Irish was pointing out
the various buildings of the log camp.

Bright squares of light showed from the windows of the bunk-house,
office, and grub-shack, with its adjoining cook-shack, from the iron
stovepipe of which sparks shot skyward in a continuous shower.

Fallon shouldered the wolf and, accompanied by Bill, made toward the
bunk-house, while the Frenchman turned the team toward the stable.

"Ag'in' we git washed up, supper'll be ready," announced Irish, as he
deposited the wolf carcass beside the door and entered.

Inside the long, low room, lined on either side by a double row of
bunks, were gathered upward of a hundred men waiting the supper call.

They were big men, for the most part, rough clad and unshaven. Many
were seated upon the edges of the bunks smoking and talking, others
grouped about the three big stoves, and the tobacco-reeking air was
laden with the rumble of throaty conversation, broken here and there by
the sharp scratch of a match, a loud laugh, or a deep-growled,
good-natured curse.

Into this assembly stepped Irish Fallon, closely followed by Bill, the
sight of whose blood-stained face attracted grinning attention. The two
men passed the length of the room to the wash-bench, where a few
loiterers still splashed noisily at their ablutions.

"I heard it plain, I'm tellin' you," some one was saying. "'Way off to
the south it sounded."

"That ain't no lie," broke in another, "I hearn it myself--jest before
dark, it was. An' I know! Didn't I hear it that night over on Ten Fork?
The time she got Jack Kane's woman, four year ago, come Chris'mus. Yes,
sir! I tell you the werwolf's nigh about this camp, an' it's me in off
the edges afore dark!"

"They say she never laughs but she makes a kill," said one.

"God! I was at Skelly's when they brought old man Frontenelle in,"
added a big man, whose heavy beard was shot with gray, as he turned
from the stove with a shudder.

"They's some