p in the racial shrug that means all
things from total ignorance to infinite understanding.

"Then why do you not kill him?"

Again the shoulders went up.

"_Mon pere_," he said after a pause, "de taim is not yet. He is one
beeg devil. Some taim Ah break heem, so an' so, all to leetle bits. Hey?
some taim. _Bon_!"

A day came when Leclere gathered his dogs together and floated down in a
bateau to Forty Mile, and on to the Porcupine, where he took a commission
from the P. C. Company, and went exploring for the better part of a year.
After that he poled up the Koyokuk to deserted Arctic City, and later
came drifting back, from camp to camp, along the Yukon. And during the
long months Batard was well lessoned. He learned many tortures, and,
notably, the torture of hunger, the torture of thirst, the torture of
fire, and, worst of all, the torture of music.

Like the rest of his kind, he did not enjoy music. It gave him exquisite
anguish, racking him nerve by nerve, and ripping apart every fibre of his
being. It made him howl, long and wolf-life, as when the wolves bay the
stars on frosty nights. He could not help howling. It was his one
weakness in the contest with Leclere, and it was his shame. Leclere, on
the other hand, passionately loved music--as passionately as he loved
strong drink. And when his soul clamoured for expression, it usually
uttered itself in one or the other of the two ways, and more usually in
both ways. And when he had drunk, his brain a-lilt with unsung song and
the devil in him aroused and rampant, his soul found its supreme
utterance in torturing Batard.

"Now we will haf a leetle museek," he would say. "Eh? W'at you t'ink,
Batard?"

It was only an old and battered harmonica, tenderly treasured and
patiently repaired; but it was the best that money could buy, and out of
its silver reeds he drew weird vagrant airs that men had never heard
before. Then Batard, dumb of throat, with teeth tight clenched, would
back away, inch by inch, to the farthest cabin corner. And Leclere,
playing, playing, a stout club tucked under his arm, followed the animal
up, inch by inch, step by step, till there was no further retreat.

At first Batard would crowd himself into the smallest possible space,
grovelling close to the floor; but as the music came nearer and nearer,
he was forced to uprear, his back jammed into the logs, his fore legs
fanning the air as though to beat off the rippling wave