adness. And then, even as Philip stared, the change came.
The giant flung back his head and his wild, mad laugh rocked the cabin.
Out in the corral the snarl and cry of the wolves gave a savage
response to it.

It took a tremendous effort for Philip to keep a grip on himself. In
that momentary flash of sanity Bram had shown a chivalry which must
have struck deep home in the heart of the girl. There was a sort of
triumph in her eyes when he looked at her. She knew now that he must
understand fully what she had been trying to tell him. Bram, in his
madness, had been good to her. Philip did not hesitate in the impulse
of the moment. He caught Bram's hand and shook it. And Bram, his laugh
dying away in a mumbling sound, seemed not to notice it. As Philip
began preparing the fish the wolf-man took up a position against the
farther wall, squatted Indian-fashion on his heels. He did not take his
eyes from the girl until she had finished, and Philip brought him a
half of the fried fish. He might as well have offered the fish to a
wooden sphinx. Bram rose to his feet, mumbling softly, and taking what
was left of one of the two caribou quarters he again left the cabin.

His mad laugh and the snarling outcry of the wolves came to them a
moment later.

CHAPTER XI

Scarcely had the door closed when Celie Armin ran to Philip and pulled
him to the table. In the tense half hour of Bram's watchfulness she had
eaten her own breakfast as if nothing unusual had happened; now she
insisted on adding potatoes and bannock to Philip's fish, and turned
him a cup of coffee.

"Bless your heart, you don't want to see me beat out of a breakfast, do
you?" he smiled up at her, feeling all at once an immense desire to
pull her head down to him and kiss her. "But you don't understand the
situation, little girl. Now I've been eating this confounded
bannock"--he picked up a chunk of it to demonstrate his
point--"morning, noon and night until the sight of it makes me almost
cry for one of mother's green cucumber pickles. I'm tired of it. Bram's
fish is a treat. And this coffee, seeing that you have turned it in
that way--"

She sat opposite him while he ate, and he had the chance of observing
her closely while his meal progressed. It struck him that she was
growing prettier each time that he looked at her, and he was more
positive than ever that she was a stranger in the northland. Again he
told himself that she was not more than twenty. Me