like himself, shall steal the
prize he seeks; a troupe of broad-antlered deer racing headlong down the
valley; shaggy wolves, grey or red, lurking within the shadow, as though
fearing the open daylight, or perhaps him whose voice has summoned them;
these things they see, but their meaning is lost to the feathered
wanderers, as they wing their way onward.

The cry of the human floats over the tree-tops and beats itself out upon
the solemn hillsides. It has in it a deep-toned note of invitation to
the fierce denizens of the forest. A note which they cannot resist; and
they answer it, and come from hill and valley, gathering, gathering,
with hungry bellies and frothing jowls.

Driving his way through close-growing bush comes the unkempt figure of a
man. A familiar figure, but so changed as to be hardly recognizable. His
clothes are rent and scored by the horny branches. His feet crush
noisily over the pine-cones in moccasins that have rotted from his feet
with the journey over melting snow and sodden vegetation. There is a
quivering fire burning in his eyes, an uncertain light, like the sun's
reflections upon rippling water. He looks neither this way nor that, yet
his eyes seem to be flashing in all directions at once. The bloody scar
upon his cheek is dreadful to look upon, for it has scarce begun to
heal, and the cold has got into it. He is armed, as Davia had said, this
strange horrific figure, and at intervals his head is thrown back to
give tongue to his wolfish cry. It almost seems as if the Spirit of the
Forest has claimed him.

He journeys on through the twilit gloom. The horror of the life gathered
about him is no more grim than is the condition of his witless brain.
Over hills and through brakes; in valleys and along winding tracks made
by the forest lords; now pushing his way through close-growing scrub,
now passing like a fierce shadow among the bare, primeval tree-trunks,
he moves forward. His goal is ahead, and one instinct, one desire, urges
him onward. He knows nought of his surroundings, he sees nought. His
chaotic brain is aware only of its mad purpose.

Suddenly the bush parts. There stands the store of Victor Gagnon in the
bright light of day. Swift to the door he speeds, but pauses as he finds
it locked. The pause is brief. A shot from his pistol shatters the lock,
the door flies open at his touch, and he passes within. Then follows a
cry that has in it the tone of a baffled creature robbed of its p