ce against Miki's head. The blood spurted
from his mouth and nostrils. He was dazed and half blinded. He leapt
again, and the club caught him once more. He heard Le Beau's ferocious
cry of joy. A third, a fourth, and a fifth time he went down under the
club, and Le Beau no longer laughed, but swung his weapon with a look
that was half fear in his eyes. The sixth time the club missed, and
Miki's jaws closed against The Brute's chest, ripping away the thick
coat and shirt as if they had been of paper, and leaving on Le Beau's
skin a bleeding gash. Ten inches more--a little better vision in his
blood-dimmed eyes--and he would have reached the man's throat. A great
cry rose out of Le Beau. For an instant he felt the appalling nearness
of death.

"Netah! Netah!" he cried, and swung the club wildly.

Netah did not respond. It may be that in this moment he sensed the fact
that it was his master who had made him into a monster. About him was
the wilderness, opening its doors of freedom. When Le Beau called again
The Killer was slinking away, dripping blood as he went--and this was
the last that Le Beau saw of him. Probably he joined the wolves, for
The Killer was a quarter-strain wild.

Le Beau got no more than a glimpse of him as he disappeared. His
club-arm shot out again, a clean miss; and this time it was pure chance
that saved him. The trap-chain caught, and Miki fell back when his hot
breath was almost at The Brute's jugular. He fell upon his side. Before
he could recover himself the club was pounding his head into the snow.
The world grew black. He no longer had the power to move. Lying as if
dead he still heard over him the panting, exultant voice of the
man-beast. For Le Beau, black though his heart was, could not keep back
a prayerful cry of thankfulness that he was victor--and had missed
death, though by a space no wider than the link of a chain.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Nanette, the woman, saw Jacques come out of the edge of the timber late
in the afternoon, dragging something on the snow behind him. In her
heart, ever since her husband had begun to talk about him, she had kept
secret to herself a pity for the wild dog. Long before the last baby
had come she had loved a dog. It was this dog that had given her the
only real affection she had known in the company of The Brute, and with
barbarous cruelty Le Beau had driven it from her. Nanette herself had
encouraged it to seek freedom in the wilderness, as Neta