wo sleds--one for me and one for my
furs and fish. And my rifle must be returned to me. If you do not like
the price, in a little while the price will grow."

Yakaga whispered to the chief.

"But how can I know your medicine is true medicine?" Makamuk asked.

"It is very easy. First, I shall go into the woods--"

Again Yakaga whispered to Makamuk, who made a suspicious dissent.

"You can send twenty hunters with me," Subienkow went on. "You see, I
must get the berries and the roots with which to make the medicine. Then,
when you have brought the two sleds and loaded on them the fish and the
beaver skins and the rifle, and when you have told off the six hunters
who will go with me--then, when all is ready, I will rub the medicine on
my neck, so, and lay my neck there on that log. Then can your strongest
hunter take the axe and strike three times on my neck. You yourself can
strike the three times."

Makamuk stood with gaping mouth, drinking in this latest and most
wonderful magic of the fur-thieves.

"But first," the Pole added hastily, "between each blow I must put on
fresh medicine. The axe is heavy and sharp, and I want no mistakes."

"All that you have asked shall be yours," Makamuk cried in a rush of
acceptance. "Proceed to make your medicine."

Subienkow concealed his elation. He was playing a desperate game, and
there must be no slips. He spoke arrogantly.

"You have been slow. My medicine is offended. To make the offence clean
you must give me your daughter."

He pointed to the girl, an unwholesome creature, with a cast in one eye
and a bristling wolf-tooth. Makamuk was angry, but the Pole remained
imperturbable, rolling and lighting another cigarette.

"Make haste," he threatened. "If you are not quick, I shall demand yet
more."

In the silence that followed, the dreary northland scene faded before
him, and he saw once more his native land, and France, and, once, as he
glanced at the wolf-toothed girl, he remembered another girl, a singer
and a dancer, whom he had known when first as a youth he came to Paris.

"What do you want with the girl?" Makamuk asked.

"To go down the river with me." Subienkow glanced over her critically.
"She will make a good wife, and it is an honour worthy of my medicine to
be married to your blood."

Again he remembered the singer and dancer and hummed aloud a song she had
taught him. He lived the old life over, but in a detached, impersonal
sort of