ng woodchuck, and then
being invited out to breakfast by a man with a club and a pack of
brutes with fangs that had gleamed at him like ivory stilettos. He had
guessed at the club, and a moment later as he thrust his sleeping-bag
out through the opening he saw that it was quite obviously a correct
one. Bram was possessing himself of the revolver and the knife. In the
same hand he held his whip and a club.

Seizing the opportunity, Philip followed his bed quickly, and when Bram
faced him he was standing on his feet outside the drift.

"Morning, Bram!"

His greeting was drowned in a chorus of fierce snarls that made his
blood curdle even as he tried to hide from Bram any visible betrayal of
the fact that every nerve up and down his spine was pricking him, like
a pin. From Bram's throat there shot forth at the pack a sudden sharp
clack of Eskimo, and with it the long whip snapped in their faces again.

Then he looked steadily at his prisoner. For the first time Philip saw
the look which he dreaded darkening his face. A greenish fire burned in
the strange eyes. The thick lips were set tightly, the flat nose seemed
flatter, and with a shiver Philip noticed Bram's huge, naked hand
gripping his club until the cords stood out like babiche thongs under
the skin. In that moment he was ready to kill. A wrong word, a wrong
act, and Philip knew that the end was inevitable.

In the same thick guttural voice which he used in his half-breed patois
he demanded,

"Why you shoot--las' night!"

"Because I wanted to talk with you, Bram," replied Philip calmly. "I
didn't shoot to hit you. I fired over your head."

"You want--talk," said Bram, speaking as if each word cost him a
certain amount of effort. "Why--talk?"

"I wanted to ask you why it was that you killed a man down in the God's
Lake country."

The words were out before Philip could stop them. A growl rose in
Bram's chest. It was like the growl of a beast. The greenish fire in
his eyes grew brighter.

"Ze poleece," he said. "KA, ze poleece--like kam from Churchill an' ze
wolve keel!"

Philip's hand was fumbling in his pocket. The wolves were behind him
and he dared not turn to look. It was their ominous silence that filled
him with dread. They were waiting--watching--their animal instinct
telling them that the command for which they yearned was already
trembling on the thick lips of their master. The revolver and the knife
dropped from Bram's hand. He held only the w