again.

"It is three hundred miles from here to Fort Churchill," he said. "Half
way, at the lower end of Jesuche Lake, MacVeigh and his patrol have
made their headquarters. If I go after Bram, Pierre, I must first make
certain of getting a message to MacVeigh, and he will see that it gets
to Fort Churchill. Can you leave your foxes and poison-baits and your
deadfalls long enough for that?"

A moment Pierre hesitated.

Then he said:

"I will take the message."

Until late that night Philip sat up writing his report. He had started
out to run down a band of Indian thieves. More important business had
crossed his trail, and he explained the whole matter to Superintendent
Fitzgerald, commanding "M" Division at Fort Churchill. He told Pierre
Breault's story as he had heard it. He gave his reasons for believing
it, and that Bram Johnson, three times a murderer, was alive. He asked
that another man be sent after the Indians, and explained, as nearly as
he could, the direction he would take in his pursuit of Bram.

When the report was finished and sealed he had omitted just one thing.

Not a word had he written about the rabbit snare woven from a woman's
hair.

CHAPTER IV

The next morning the tail of the storm was still sweeping bitterly over
the edge of the Barren, but Philip set out, with Pierre Breault as his
guide, for the place where the half-breed had seen Bram Johnson and his
wolves in camp. Three days had passed since that exciting night, and
when they arrived at the spot where Bram had slept the spruce shelter
was half buried in a windrow of the hard, shot like snow that the
blizzard had rolled in off the open spaces.

From this point Pierre marked off accurately the direction Bram had
taken the morning after the hunt, and Philip drew the point of his
compass to the now invisible trail. Almost instantly he drew his
conclusion.

"Bram is keeping to the scrub timber along the edge of the Barren," he
said to Pierre. "That is where I shall follow. You might add that much
to what I have written to MacVeigh. But about the snare, Pierre
Breault, say not a word. Do you understand? If he is a loup-garou man,
and weaves golden hairs out of the winds--"

"I will say nothing, M'sieu," shuddered Pierre.

They shook hands, and parted in silence. Philip set his face to the
west, and a few moments later, looking back, he could no longer see
Pierre. For an hour after that he was oppressed by the feeling that