FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   >>  
surge of a sudden sweep of wind, yet when they camped at the beginning of darkness Philip was confident the madman and his pack were close behind them. Utter exhaustion blotted out the hours for Celie and himself, while Olaf, buried in two heavy Eskimo coats he had foraged from the field of battle, sat on guard through the night. Twice in the stillness of his long vigil he heard strange cries. Once it was the cry of a beast. The second time it was that of a man. The second day, with dogs refreshed, they traveled faster, and it was this night that they camped in the edge of timber and built a huge fire. It was such a fire as illumined the space about them for fifty paces or more, and it was into this light that Bram Johnson stalked, so suddenly and so noiselessly that a sharp little cry sprang from Celie's lips, and Olaf and Philip and the Duke of Rugni stared in wide-eyed amazement. In his right hand the wolf-man bore a strange object. It was an Eskimo coat, tied into the form of a bag, and in the bottom of this improvision was a lump half the size of a water pail. Bram seemed oblivious of all presence but that of Celie. His eyes were on her alone as he advanced and with a weird sound in his throat deposited the bundle at her feet. In another moment he was gone. The Swede rose slowly from where he was sitting, and speaking casually to Celie, took the wolf-man's gift up in his hands. Philip observed the strange look in his face as he turned his back to Celie in the firelight and opened the bag sufficiently to get a look inside. Then he walked out into the darkness, and a moment later returned without the bundle, and with a laugh apologized to Celie for his action. "No need of telling her what it was," he said to Philip then. "I explained that it was foul meat Bram had brought in as a present. As a matter of fact it was Blake's head. You know the Kogmollocks have a pretty habit of pleasing a friend by presenting him with the head of a dead enemy. Nice little package for her to have opened, eh?" After all, there are some very strange happenings in life, and the adventurers of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police come upon their share. The case of Bram Johnson, the mad wolf-man of the Upper Country, happened to be one of them, and filed away in the archives of the Department is a big envelope filled with official and personal documents, signed and sworn to by various people. There is, for instance, the brief and straight
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   >>  



Top keywords:
Philip
 

strange

 

camped

 

Johnson

 

moment

 
opened
 
darkness
 

bundle

 
Eskimo
 

matter


brought

 

explained

 
present
 

turned

 
firelight
 

sufficiently

 
observed
 
casually
 

speaking

 

inside


telling

 

action

 

apologized

 

walked

 

returned

 

archives

 

Department

 

Country

 

happened

 

envelope


filled

 
people
 

instance

 

straight

 

official

 
personal
 

documents

 
signed
 

package

 
sitting

pretty
 

pleasing

 
friend
 
presenting
 

Mounted

 

Northwest

 
Police
 

adventurers

 
happenings
 

Kogmollocks