t of the north. He broke
through the scrub to see the lynx spring backward from the rush of the
dog and leap for the limbs of a low cedar. But the cat was too slow, for
at the same instant, Fleur's jaws snapped on his loins, and with a
wrench of her powerful neck, the husky threw the animal to the snow with
a broken back. In a flash she changed her grip, the long fangs crunching
through the neck of the helpless beast, and with a quiver, the lynx was
dead.

Hot with the lust of battle, Fleur worried the body of her enemy.
Reaching her, Jean proudly patted his dog's back.

"My Fleur! She make de _loup-cervier_ run!" he cried, delighted with
the courage and power of his puppy.

Then he anxiously examined the slashes of rapier claws on Fleur's muzzle
and shoulders.

"Bon!" he said, relieved. "De lynx he very weak or he cut you deeper dan
dese scratch."

As Jean hastily skinned the dead cat he marvelled at its emaciation.

"Ah! He also miss de rabbit. Lucky he starve or you get de beeg scratch,
Fleur."

For answer the hot tongue of the dog sought his hands as she raised her
brown eyes to his. With arms around her shaggy shoulders her proud
master muttered into the ears of the delighted husky love words that
would have been strange indeed to any but Fleur, who found them sweet
beyond measure.

"My Fleur, she grow to be de dog, de most _sauvage_!" he cried. "Some
day she keel de wolf, eh?"

Owing to the weakened condition of the lynx, Fleur's were but surface
scratches. So furious had been the husky's assault on the starved cat
that she had left no opening to the knife-like claws of the powerful
hind legs.

Continuing east, four days later Marcel camped in a valley on the flank
of a great barren. In the morning, tying Fleur with a rawhide thong
which she could have chewed through with ease but had been taught to
respect, he followed the scrub along the edge of the barren searching
for caribou signs. Often he stopped to gaze out across the white waste
reaching away east to the horizon, seeking for blue-gray objects whose
movements in scraping away the snow to the moss beneath, would alone
mark them as caribou. In places the great winds had swept the plateau
almost bare, beating down the snow to a depth of less than a foot. All
day he skirted the barren but at last turned back to his camp sick at
heart and spent with the long day on the crust, following his meagre
breakfast. Deep in the shelter of the thick timber