ich he cut the caribou meat. He was staring at it.
From the knife he looked at Philip.

"I keel ze man at God's Lake because he steal ze knife--an' call me
lie. I keel heem--lak that!"--and he snatched up a stick and broke it
into two pieces.

His weird laugh followed the words. He went to the meat and began
carving off chunks for the pack, and for a long time after that one
would have thought that he was dumb. Philip made greater effort than
ever to rouse him into speech. He laughed, and whistled, and once tried
the experiment of singing a snatch of the Caribou Song which he knew
that Bram must have heard many times before. As he roasted his steak
over the fire he talked about the Barren, and the great herd of caribou
he had seen farther east; he asked Bram questions about the weather,
the wolves, and the country farther north and west. More than once he
was certain that Bram was listening intently, but nothing more than an
occasional grunt was his response.

For an hour after they had finished their supper they continued to melt
snow for drinking water for themselves and the wolves. Night shut them
in, and in the glow of the fire Bram scooped a hollow in the snow for a
bed, and tilted the big sledge over it as a roof. Philip made himself
as comfortable as he could with his sleeping bag, using his tent as an
additional protection. The fire went out. Bram's heavy breathing told
Philip that the wolf-man was soon asleep. It was a long time before he
felt a drowsiness creeping over himself.

Later he was awakened by a heavy grasp on his arm, and roused himself
to hear Bram's voice close over him.

"Get up, m'sieu."

It was so dark he could not see Bram when he got on his feet, but he
could hear him a moment later among the wolves, and knew that he was
making ready to travel. When his sleeping-bag and tent were on the
sledge he struck a match and looked at his watch. It was less than a
quarter of an hour after midnight.

For two hours Bram led his pack straight into the west. The night
cleared after that, and as the stars grew brighter and more numerous in
the sky the plain was lighted up on all sides of them, as on the night
when Philip had first seen Bram. By lighting an occasional match Philip
continued to keep a record of direction and time. It was three o'clock,
and they were still traveling west, when to his surprise they struck a
small patch of timber. The clump of stunted and wind-snarled spruce
covered no