the main camp, "we
start for de barren and hunt de deer hard while dey stay in dees
countree." The partners spoke, at times, in French patois and Cree, at
times in broken English.

"Wat you say, Jean? I got trap-line to travel to-morrow," objected
Antoine Beaulieu.

"I say dis," returned Marcel, commanding the attention of the two men by
the gravity of his face. "De deer will not be in dis countree een
t'ree--four day."

"Ha! Ha! dat ees good joke, Jean Marcel!" exclaimed Piquet.

"Oui, dat ees good joke!" returned Marcel, rising and shaking a finger
in the grinning faces of his partners. "But I say dis to you, Antoine
Beaulieu an' Joe Piquet. We go to de barren and hunt deer to-morrow or I
tak' my share of flour and mak' my own camp."

Marcel's threat sobered the half-breeds. They had no desire to break
with the Frenchman, whose initiative and daring they respected.

"De deer are plentee, I count seexteen to-day," argued Antoine.

"Oui, to-day de deer are here, but, whiff!" Jean waved his hand, "an'
dey are gone; for las' night I hear de white wolves, not t'ree or four,
but manee, ver' manee, drive de deer in de hills. Dey starve in de nord
and come here for meat. To-morrow we go!"

Piquet and Beaulieu readily admitted that the white wolves, if they
appeared in numbers, would drive the caribou--called deer, in the
north--out of the country, but they insisted that what Jean had heard
was the echoing of the call and answer of three or four timber wolves
gathering for a hunt. Never in his life had Joe Piquet, who was thirty,
heard of arctic wolves appearing on the Great Whale headwaters. Thus
they argued, but Jean was obdurate. On the following day the three men
started back into the barrens with Fleur and the sled.

CHAPTER XII

THE WORK OF THE WHITE WOLVES

The first day, by hard hunting they shot three caribou, but to the
surprise and chagrin of Antoine and Joe, on the second day, in a country
where they had never failed to get meat earlier in the winter, the
hunters got but one. After that not a caribou was seen on the wide
barrens, while many trails were crossed, all heading south, and
following the signs of the fleeing caribou were the tracks of wolves,
not singly or in couples, but in packs.

When the hunters had satisfied themselves that the caribou had left the
country, they relayed their meat into camp with the help of Fleur and
lines attached to the sled to aid her.

That night the trap