f I went--and the thing
happens which I guess is going to happen--"

"Qui? Surely you will tell me--"

"Yes, I will tell you. Jacques Dupont knows that Elise has never
stopped loving the Yellow-back. I do not believe she has ever tried to
hide it from him. Why should she? And there is a rumor, m'sieu, that
the Yellow-back will be at the Lac Bain dog sale."

Reese Beaudin rose slowly to his feet, and yawned in that smoke-filled
cabin.

"And if the Yellow-back should turn the tables, Joe Delesse, think of
what a fine thing you will miss," he said.

Joe Delesse also rose, with a contemptuous laugh.

"That fiddler, that picture-drawer, that book-reader--Pouff! You are
tired, m'sieu, that is your bunk."

Reese Beaudin held out a hand. The bulk of the two stood out in the
lamp-glow, and Joe Delesse was so much the bigger man that his hand was
half again the size of Reese Beaudin's. They gripped. And then a
strange look went over the face of Joe Delesse. A cry came from out of
his beard. His mouth grew twisted. His knees doubled slowly under him,
and in the space of ten seconds his huge bulk was kneeling on the
floor, while Reese Beaudin looked at him, smiling.

"Has Jacques Dupont a greater grip than that, Joe Delesse?" he asked in
a voice that was so soft it was almost a woman's.

"Mon Dieu!" gasped Delesse. He staggered to his feet, clutching his
crushed hand. "M'sieu--"

Reese Beaudin put his hands to the other's shoulders, smiling, friendly.

"I will apologize, I will explain, mon ami," he said. "But first, you
must tell me the name of that Yellow-back who ran away years ago. Do
you remember it?"

"Oui, but what has that to do with my crushed hand? The Yellow-back's
name was Reese Beaudin--"

"And I am Reese Beaudin," laughed the other gently.

On that day--the day of Wakoa, the dog sale--seven fat caribou were
roasting on great spits at Post Lac Bain, and under them were seven
fires burning red and hot of seasoned birch, and around the seven fires
were seven groups of men who slowly turned the roasting carcasses.

It was the Big Day of the mid-winter festival, and Post Lac Bain, with
a population of twenty in times of quiet, was a seething wilderness
metropolis of two hundred excited souls and twice as many dogs. From
all directions they had come, from north and south and east and west;
from near and from far, from the Barrens, from the swamps, from the
farther forests, from river and lake and hidden t