Part 8 (2/2)

A second time he went around the piled-up mass of fallen timber On three sides it was completely smothered under the deep snow Only where Miki's trail entered was it open

Getting the wind behind him Le Beau made his ISKOO of birch-bark and dry wood at the far end of the windfall The seasoned logs and tree-tops caught the fire like tinder, and within a few an to crackle and roar in aFor a space the s, with his rifle in his bare hands, did not for an instant let his eyes leave the spot where the wild dog ent whiff of smoke filled Miki's nostrils, and a thin white cloud crept in a ghostly veil between hian to pour between two logs within a yard of hirew nearer andflashes of yellow flaled debris as the fire ate into the heart of a mass of pitch-filled spruce In another ten seconds the flames leapt twenty feet into the air, and Jacques Le Beau stood with his rifle half to his shoulder, ready to kill

Appalled by the danger that was upon hiet Le Beau

With an instinct sharpened to fox-like keenness his mind leapt instantly to the truth of the matter It was the man-beast who had set this new ene, theSo, like the fox, he did what Le Beau least expected He crawled back swiftly through the tangled tops until he cah this he burrowed his way almost as quickly as the fox hih the half-inch outer crust, and a moment later stood in the open, with the fire between hi furnace, and suddenly Le Beau ran back a dozen steps so that he could see on the farther side A hundred yards away he saw Mikifor the deeper forest

It was a clear shot At that distance Le Beau would have staked his life that it was impossible for him to miss He did not hurry One shot, and it would be over He raised his rifle, and in that instant a wisp of sht him fairly in the eyes, and his bullet passed three inches over Miki's head The whining snarl of it was a new thing to Miki But he recognized the thunder of the gun--and he knehat a gun could do To Le Beau, still firing at hiray streak flashi+ng to the thick tie of a dense clu back a defiant howl He disappeared as Le Beau's last shot shovelled up the snow at his heels

The narrowness of his escape frohten Miki out of the Jackson's Knee country If anything, it held hi to think about besides Neewa and his aloneness As the fox returns to peer stealthily upon the deadfall that has alht him, so the trapline was possessed now of a new thrill for Miki Heretofore the nificance; now it er

And he welcomed it His ere sharpened The fascination of the trapline was deadlier than before

From the burned windfall he made a wide detour to a point where Le Beau's snowshoe trail entered the edge of the swamp; and here, hidden in a thick clump of bushes, he watched him as he travelled ho like a grihost to the trapline

Silent-footed, cautious, always on the alert for the danger which threatened hihts and footsteps with the elusive persistence of a olf--a loup-garou of the Black Forest Twice in the next week Le Beau caught a flash of him Three times he heard him howl And twice he followed his trail until, in despair and exhaustion, he turned back Never was Miki caught unaware

He ate no more baits in the trap-houses Even when Le Beau lured him with the whole carcass of a rabbit he would not touch it, nor would he touch a rabbit frozen dead in a snare Fros, chiefly birds and squirrels and the big web-footed snowshoe rabbits And because a mink jumped at him once, and tore open his nose, he destroyed a number of minks so utterly that their pelts were spoiled He found hio to it directly, but to approach it, and leave it, in a roundabout way

Day and night Le Beau, the ainst him He set many poison-baits He killed a doe, and scattered strychnine in its entrails He built deadfalls, and baited the fat He hs, and sat for long hours, watching with his rifle And still Miki was the victor

One day Miki found a huge fisher-cat in one of the traps He had not forgotten the battle of long ago with Oochak, the other fisher-cat, or the whipping he had received But there was no thought of vengeance in his heart on the early evening he became acquainted with Oochak the Second Usually he was in his windfall at dusk, but this afternoon a great and devouring loneliness had held him on the trail The spirit of Kuskayetu heavily upon hi desire of flesh and blood for the companionshi+p of other flesh and blood It burned in his veins like a fever It took away froer or of the hunt In his soul was a vast, unfilled yearning

It was then that he cao If so, he had grown even as Miki had grown He was splendid, with his long silken fur and his sleek body, and he was not struggling, but sat awaiting his fate without excitement To Miki he looked warm and soft and comfortable It hts they had slept together His desire leapt out to Oochak He whined softly as he advanced He would make friends

Even with Oochak, his old enereat was the gnawing emptiness in his heart

Oochak made no response, nor did heMiki as he crept nearer on his belly Sogled and thuain he seeet the old trouble, Oochak Let's be friends I've got a fine windfall--and I'll kill you a rabbit”

And still Oochak did not move or make a sound At last Miki could aled himself still nearer, and his tail thuet you out of the trap,” he”It's the man-beast's trap--and I hate hiuard hith of the trap-chain and was at hiashes in Miki's nose Even then the blood of battle rose slowly in hiot a hold in his shoulder With a roar he tried to shake himself free, but Oochak held on Then his jaws snapped at the back of the fisher-cat's neck When he was done Oochak was dead

He slunk away, but in him there was no more the thrill of the victor

He had killed, but in killing he had found no joy Upon him--the four-footed beast--had fallen at last the oppression of the thing that drives men mad He stood in the heart of a vast world, and for hi out for cos feared him or hated him He was a pariah; a wanderer without a friend or a holooht

He did not return to his windfall In a little open he sat on his haunches, listening to the night sounds, and watching the stars as they came out There was an earlyred disc that seemed filled with life, he howledburn a little later, and there the night was like day, so clear that his shadow followed his about hiht wind a sound which he had heard many times before

It came from far away, and it was like a whisper at first, an echo of strange voices riding on the wind, A hundred tiun, the she-wolf, had gashed his shoulder so fiercely away back in the days of his puppyhood he had evaded the path of that cry He had learned, in a way, to hate it But he could not wipe out entirely the thrill that caht it rode over all his fear and hatred Out there was COMPANY Whence the cry ca two by two, and three by three, and there was COMRADEshi+P His body quivered

An answering cry rose in his throat, dying away in a whine, and for an hour after that he heard noto the west--so far away that their voices were lost And it passed--with the ht over them--close to the shack of Pierrot, the halfbreed