lleys of
the Salmon watershed. But to the increasing satisfaction of the still
worried Michel, the sole noises of the night which had yet met his
fearful ears, had been the scream of lynx, the occasional caterwauling
of wolverine and the hunting chorus of timber wolves. But darkness still
held potential terror for the lad in whom, at his mother's knee, had
been instilled dread of the demon-infested bad-lands north of the Ghost,
and he never camped alone.

January came with its withering winds, burning and cracking the faces of
the hunters following their trap-lines; swirling with fine snow, which
struck like shot, and stung like the lash of whips. Often when facing
the drive of a blizzard even the hardy Fleur, wrinkling her nose with
pain, would stop and turn her back on the needle-pointed barrage. At
times when the fierce cold, freezing all moisture from the atmosphere,
filled the air with powdery crystals of ice, the true sun, flanked by
sun-dogs in a ringed halo, lifted above the shimmering barrens,
dazzlingly bright.

One night when Jean and Michel, camped in the timber at the end of the
farthest line of fox traps, had turned into their robes before a hot
fire, in front of which in a snow hole they had stretched a shed tent
both as windbreak and heat-reflector, a low wail, more sob than cry of
night prowler, drifted up the valley.

"You hear dat?" whispered Michel.

The hairy throat of Fleur, burrowed in the snow close to the tent,
rumbled like distant thunder.

Marcel, already fast drifting into sleep, muttered crossly:

"Eet ees de Windigo come to eat you, Michel."

Again upon the hushed valley under star-encrusted heavens where the
borealis flickered and pulsed and streamed in fantastic traceries of
fire, broke a wailing sob.

With a cry Michel sat up turning a face gray with fear to the man beside
him. Again Fleur growled, her lifted nose sniffing the freezing air, to
send her awakened puppies into a chorus of snarls and yelps.

Raised on an elbow, Marcel sleepily asked:

"What de trouble, Michel? You and Fleur hear de Windigo?"

"Listen!" insisted the boy. "I nevaire hear dat soun' before."

Silencing the dog, Jean pushed back his hood to free his ears, smiling
into the blanched face of the wild-eyed boy beside him.

Shortly the noiseless night was marred by a sobbing moan, as if some
stricken creature writhed under the torture of mangled flesh.

Marcel knew that neither wolf, lynx, nor wolveri