of joy and anticipation deepening in the wolf-man's face
the appalling thought of what it meant sickened him. He clenched his
hands. Bram did not see the act. He was looking again toward the cabin
and at the spiral of smoke rising out of the chimney.

Then he faced Philip, and said,

"M'sieu, you go to ze cabin."

He held the gate open, and Philip entered. He paused to make certain of
Bram's intention. The wolf-man swept an arm about the enclosure.

"In ze pit I loose ze wolve, m'sieu."

Philip understood. The stockade enclosure was Bram's wolf-pit, and Bram
meant that he should reach the cabin before he gave the pack the
freedom of the corral. He tried to conceal the excitement in his face
as he turned toward the cabin. From the gate to the door ran a path
worn by many footprints, and his heart beat faster as he noted the
smallness of the moccasin tracks. Even then his mind fought against the
possibility of the thing. Probably it was an Indian woman who lived
with Bram, or an Eskimo girl he had brought down from the north.

He made no sound as he approached the door. He did not knock, but
opened it and entered, as Bram had invited him to do.

From the gate Bram watched the cabin door as it closed behind him, and
then he threw back his head and such a laugh of triumph came from his
lips that even the tired beasts behind him pricked up their ears and
listened.

And Philip, in that same moment, had solved the mystery of the golden
snare.

CHAPTER IX

Philip had entered Bram Johnson's cabin from the west. Out of the east
the pale fire of the winter sun seemed to concentrate itself on the one
window of Bram's habitation, and flooded the opposite partition. In
this partition there was a doorway, and in the doorway stood a girl.

She was standing full in the light that came through the window when
Philip saw her. His first impression was that she was clouded in the
same wonderful hair that had gone into the making of the golden snare.
It billowed over her arms and breast to her hips, aflame with the
living fires of the reflected sun. His second impression was that his
entrance had interrupted her while she was dressing and that she was
benumbed with astonishment as she stared at him. He caught the white
gleam of her bare shoulders under her hair. And then, with a shock, he
saw what was in her face.

It turned his blood cold. It was the look of a soul that had been
tortured. Agony and doubt burned in th