t. For, enured to the cold, the husky
knows no winter shelter and needs none, sleeping curled, nose in bushy
tail, in a hole dug in the snow, through the bitter nights without frost
bite.

As the dusk slowly blanketed the forest, here and there stars pricked
out of the dark canopy of sky to light gradually the white hills rolling
away north to the dread valleys of the forbidden land of the Crees.
Later, as the night deepened, the Milky Way drew its trail across the
swarming stars. In the pinch of the strengthening cold, spruce and
jack-pine snapped in the encircling forest, while the ice of lake and
river, contracting, boomed intermittently, like the shot of distant
artillery.

On the northern horizon, the camp-fires of the giants flickered and
glowed, fitfully; then, at length, loosing their bonds, snake-like
ribbons of light writhed and twisted from the sky-line to the high
heavens, in grotesque traceries; and across the white wastes of the
polar stage swept the eerie "Dance of the Spirits."

For a space Jean stood outside the tepee watching the never-ceasing
wonder of the aurora; then sending Fleur to her bed, sought his
blankets. But no sting of freezing air might keep the furred and
feathered marauders of the night from their hunting; for faintly on the
tense silence floated the "hoo-hoo!" of the snowy owl, patrolling the
haunts of the wood-mice. Out of the murk of a cedar swamp rose the
scream of a starving lynx. Presently, over star-lit ridges drifted the
call of a mating timber wolf.

The Northern Lights had dimmed and faded. Sentinel stars alone guarded
the white solitudes, when, from the gloom of the spruce out into the
lighted snow moved a dark shape. Noiselessly the muffled racquettes of
the skulker advanced. As the figure crept nearer the tent, it suddenly
stopped, frozen into rigidity, head forward, as though listening. After
a space, it stirred again. Something held in the hands glinted in the
starlight, like steel. It was the action of a rifle, made bright by
wear.

When the creeping shape reached the banking of the tepee, again it
stopped, stiff as a spruce. The seconds lengthened into minutes. Then a
hand reached out to the canvas. In the hand was a knife. Slowly the keen
edge sawed at the frozen fabric. At last the tent was slit.

Leaning forward the hunter of sleeping men enlarged the opening and
pressed his face to the rent. Long he gazed into the darkened tepee.
Then withdrawing his hooded