hip and the club.

Philip drew forth the wallet.

"You lost something--when you camped that night near Pierre Breault's
cabin," he said, and his own voice seemed strange and thick to him.
"I've followed you--to give it back. I could have killed you if I had
wanted to--when I fired over your head. But I wanted to stop you. I
wanted to give you--this."

He held out to Bram the golden snare.

CHAPTER VIII

It must have been fully half a minute that Bram stood like a living
creature turned suddenly into dead stone. His eyes had left Philip's
face and were fixed on the woven tress of shining hair. For the first
time his thick lips had fallen agape. He did not seem to breathe. At
the end of the thirty seconds his hand unclenched from about the whip
and the club and they fell into the snow. Slowly, his eyes still fixed
on the snare as if it held for him an overpowering fascination, he
advanced a step, and then another, until he reached out and took from
Philip the thing which he held. He uttered no word. But from his eyes
there disappeared the greenish fire. The lines in his heavy face
softened and his thick lips lost some of their cruelty as he held up
the snare before his eyes so that the light played on its sheen of
gold. It was then that Philip saw that which must have meant a smile in
Bram's face.

Still this strange man made no spoken sound as he coiled the silken
thread around one of his great fingers and then placed it somewhere
inside his coat. He seemed, all at once, utterly oblivious of Philip's
presence. He picked up the revolver, gazed heavily at it for a moment,
and with a grunt which must have reflected his mental decision hurled
it far out over the plain. Instantly the wolves were after it in a mad
rush. The knife followed the revolver; and after that, as coolly as
though breaking firewood, the giant went to Philip's rifle, braced it
across his knee, and with a single effort snapped the stock off close
to the barrel.

"The devil!" growled Philip.

He felt a surge of anger rise in him, and for an instant the
inclination to fling himself at Bram in the defense of his property. If
he had been helpless a few minutes before, he was utterly so now. In
the same breath it flashed upon him that Bram's activity in the
destruction of his weapons meant that his life was spared, at least for
the present. Otherwise Bram would not be taking these precautions.

The futility of speech kept his own lips close