or using wolf dope: a handsome, elusive devil who
sometimes haunted the lumber woods at the lower end of Lac Tremblant,
trapping or robbing traps as seemed good to him, and paying back
interruptions with such interest that no one was keen to interfere with
him. If the Frenchwoman's son were in with Collins in trying to hold up
the La Chance gold, and was at Skunk's Misery now, I saw
daylight,--anyhow about the wolf dope.

But the woman by the fire knocked that idea out of me, half-made. The
Frenchwoman's son had not been there for two months past and had only
come there at all to build a house. It was empty now, but no one had
dared to go into it. She could show it to me, but she was sure he had
had nothing to do with that liniment, if I wanted any more. After which
she relapsed into indifference, or I thought so, till I showed her what
little money I had in my pocket. She rose then, abruptly, and led the
way out of her hut to the deserted house the Frenchwoman's son had built
for caprice and never lived in.

It was deserted enough, in all conscience. The door was open, and the
November wind free to play through the place as it liked. I stood on the
threshold, thinking. I had found out nothing about any wolf-bait,
excepting the one bottle the Frenchwoman's son might or might not have
left there; certainly nothing about Collins ever having got hold of any;
and if I had meant to spend the rest of the night in Skunk's Misery I
saw no particular sense in doing it. I had a solid conviction that the
boy's mother would not mention I had ever been there, for fear she might
have to share what little I had given her--which, as it fell out, was
true--and turned to go.

But when the woman had left me to creep home in the dark, while I made
my own way out of the village, I altered my mind about going. I cut
down enough pine boughs to make a bed under me, shut the door of the
deserted house--that I knew enough of the Frenchwoman's son to know
would have no visitors--had a drink from my flask, and slept the sleep
of the hunting dog till it should be daylight.

And, like the hunting dog, I went on with my business in my dreams; till
my legs jerked and woke me, to see a waning moon peering in from the
west, through the hole that served the hut for a chimney, and I rose to
go back to Billy Jones. For I dreamed there was a gang of men in a
cellar under the very hut I slept in, with a business-like row of
wolf-bait bottles at their fee