CHAPTER II
The other man was Raine--Philip Raine.
To-night he sat in Pierre Breault's cabin, with Pierre at the oppositeside of the table between them, and the cabin's sheet iron stoveblazing red just beyond. It was a terrible night outside. Pierre, thefox hunter, had built his shack at the end of a long slim forefinger ofscrub spruce that reached out into the Barren, and to-night the windwas wailing and moaning over the open spaces in a way that made Raineshiver. Close to the east was Hudson's Bay--so close that a few momentsbefore when Raine had opened the cabin door there came to him the low,never-ceasing thunder of the under-currents fighting their way downthrough the Roes Welcome from the Arctic Ocean, broken now and then bya growling roar as the giant forces sent a crack, like a great knife,through one of the frozen mountains. Westward from Pierre's cabin therestretched the lifeless Barren, illimitable and void, without rock orbush, and overhung at day by a sky that always made Raine think of aterrible picture he had once seen of Dore's "Inferno"--a low, thicksky, like purple and blue granite, always threatening to pitch itselfdown in terrific avalanches. And at night, when the white foxes yapped,and the wind moaned--
"As I have hope of paradise I swear that I saw him--alive, M'sieu,"Pierre was saying again over the table.
Raine, of the Fort Churchill patrol of the Royal Northwest MountedPolice, no longer smiled in disbelief. He knew that Pierre Breault wasa brave man, or he would not have perched himself alone out in theheart of the Barren to catch the white foxes; and he was notsuperstitious, like most of his kind, or the sobbing cries and strifeof the everlasting night-winds would have driven him away.
"I swear it!" repeated Pierre.
Something that was almost eagerness was burning now in Philip's face.He leaned over the table, his hands gripping tightly. He wasthirty-five; almost slim as Pierre himself, with eyes as steely blue asPierre's were black. There was a time, away back, when he wore a dresssuit as no other man in the big western city where he lived; now thesleeves of his caribou skin coat were frayed and torn, his hands wereknotted, in his face were the lines of storm and wind.
"It is impossible," he said. "Bram Johnson is dead!"
"He is alive, M'sieu."
In Pierre's voice there was a strange tremble.
"If I had only HEARD, if I had not SEEN, you might disbelieve, M'sieu,"he cried, his eyes glowing with a dark fire. "Yes, I heard the cry ofthe pack first, and I went to the door, and opened it, and stood therelistening and looking out into the night. UGH! they went near. I couldhear the hoofs of the caribou. And then I heard a great cry, a voicethat rose above the howl of the wolves like the voice of ten men, and Iknew that Bram Johnson was on the trail of meat. MON DIEU--yes--he isalive. And that is not all. No. No. That is not all--"
His fingers were twitching. For the third or fourth time in the lastthree-quarters of an hour Raine saw him fighting back a strangeexcitement. His own incredulity was gone. He was beginning to believePierre.
"And after that--you saw him?"
"Yes. I would not do again what I did then for all the foxes betweenthe Athabasca and the Bay, M'sieu. It must have been--I don't knowwhat. It dragged me out into the night. I followed. I found the trailof the wolves, and I found the snowshoe tracks of a man. Oui. I stillfollowed. I came close to the kill, with the wind in my face, and Icould hear the snapping of jaws and the rending of flesh--yes--yes--ANDA MAN'S TERRIBLE LAUGH! If the wind had shifted--if that pack ofdevils' souls had caught the smell of me--tonnerre de dieu!" Heshuddered, and the knuckles of his fingers snapped as he clenched andunclenched his hands. "But I stayed there, M'sieu, half buried in asnow dune. They went on after a long time. It was so dark I could notsee them. I went to the kill then, and--yes, he had carried away thetwo hind quarters of the caribou. It was a bull, too, and heavy. Ifollowed--clean across that strip of Barren down to the timber, and itwas there that Bram built himself the fire. I could see him then, and Iswear by the Blessed Virgin that it was Bram! Long ago, before hekilled the man, he came twice to my cabin--and he had not changed. Andaround him, in the fire-glow, the wolves huddled. It was then that Icame to my reason. I could see him fondling them. I could see theirgleaming fangs. Yes, I could HEAR their bodies, and he was talking tothem and laughing with them through his great beard--and I turned andfled back to the cabin, running so swiftly that even the wolves wouldhave had trouble in catching me. And that--that--WAS NOT ALL!"
Again his fingers were clenching and unclenching as he stared at Raine.
"You believe me, M'sieu?"
Philip nodded.
"It seems impossible. And yet--you could not have been dreaming,Pierre."
Breault drew a deep breath of satisfaction, and half rose to his feet.
"And you will believe me if I tell you the rest?"
"Yes."
Swiftly Pierre went to his bunk and returned with the caribou skinpouch in which he carried his flint and steel and fire material for thetrail.
"The next day I went back, M'sieu," he said, seating himself againopposite Philip. "Bram and his wolves were gone. He had slept in ashelter of spruce boughs. And--and--par les mille cornes du diable ifhe had even brushed the snow out! His great moccasin tracks were allabout among the tracks of the wolves, and they were big as the spoor ofa monster bear. I searched everywhere for something that he might haveleft, and I found--at last--a rabbit snare."
Pierre Breault's eyes, and not his words--and the curious twisting andinterlocking of his long slim fingers about the caribou-skin bag in hishand stirred Philip with the thrill of a tense and mysteriousanticipation, and as he waited, uttering no word, Pierre's fingersopened the sack, and he said:
"A rabbit snare, M'sieu, which had dropped from his pocket into thesnow--"
In another moment he had given it into Philip's hands. The oil lamp washung straight above them. Its light flooded the table between them, andfrom Philip's lips, as he stared at the snare, there broke a gasp ofamazement. Pierre had expected that cry. He had at first beendisbelieved; now his face burned with triumph. It seemed, for a space,as if Philip had ceased breathing. He stared--stared--while the lightfrom above him scintillated on the thing he held. It was a snare. Therecould be no doubt of that. It was almost a yard in length, with thecurious Chippewyan loop at one end and the double-knot at the other.
The amazing thing about it was that it was made of a woman's goldenhair.
The Golden Snare Page 2