ing hair--to all appearances a full-blooded wolf. Leclere
was lying asleep in his furs when Batard deemed the time to be ripe. He
crept upon him stealthily, head low to earth and lone ear laid back, with
a feline softness of tread. Batard breathed gently, very gently, and not
till he was close at hand did he raise his head. He paused for a moment
and looked at the bronzed bull throat, naked and knotty, and swelling to
a deep steady pulse. The slaver dripped down his fangs and slid off his
tongue at the sight, and in that moment he remembered his drooping ear,
his uncounted blows and prodigious wrongs, and without a sound sprang on
the sleeping man.

Leclere awoke to the pang of the fangs in his throat, and, perfect animal
that he was, he awoke clear-headed and with full comprehension. He
closed on Batard's windpipe with both his hands, and rolled out of his
furs to get his weight uppermost. But the thousands of Batard's
ancestors had clung at the throats of unnumbered moose and caribou and
dragged them down, and the wisdom of those ancestors was his. When
Leclere's weight came on top of him, he drove his hind legs upwards and
in, and clawed down chest and abdomen, ripping and tearing through skin
and muscle. And when he felt the man's body wince above him and lift, he
worried and shook at the man's throat. His team-mates closed around in a
snarling circle, and Batard, with failing breath and fading sense, knew
that their jaws were hungry for him. But that did not matter--it was the
man, the man above him, and he ripped and clawed, and shook and worried,
to the last ounce of his strength. But Leclere choked him with both his
hands, till Batard's chest heaved and writhed for the air denied, and his
eyes glazed and set, and his jaws slowly loosened, and his tongue
protruded black and swollen.

"Eh? _Bon_, you devil!" Leclere gurgled mouth and throat clogged with
his own blood, as he shoved the dizzy dog from him.

And then Leclere cursed the other dogs off as they fell upon Batard. They
drew back into a wider circle, squatting alertly on their haunches and
licking their chops, the hair on every neck bristling and erect.

Batard recovered quickly, and at sound of Leclere's voice, tottered to
his feet and swayed weakly back and forth.

"A-h-ah! You beeg devil!" Leclere spluttered. "Ah fix you; Ah fix you
plentee, by _Gar_!"

Batard, the air biting into his exhausted lungs like wine, flashed full
into th