rcel peered through the dim light of the forest into the opening lit
by the stars, when the clearing echoed with the uncanny sound.

Marcel's keen eyes strained across the star-lit snow into the murk
beyond, as Michel gasped in his ears:

"By Gar! I see noding dere! Eet ees de Windigo for sure!"

But the Frenchman was staring fixedly at a clump of spruce on the
opposite edge of the opening. As the unearthly sobbing rose again into
the night, he loosed the maddened dog and followed.

They were close to the spruce, when a great gray shape suddenly rose
from the snow directly in their path. For an instant a pair of pale
wings flapped wildly in their faces. Then a squawk of terror was
smothered as the fangs of Fleur struck at the feathered shape of a huge
snowy owl. A wrench of the dog's powerful neck, and the ghostly hunter
of the northern nights had made his last patrol, victim of his own
curiosity.

With a loud laugh Jean turned to the dazed Michel:

"Tak' good look at de Windigo, Michel. My fox trap hold heem fas' w'ile
he seeng to de star."

The amazed Michel stared at the white demon in the fox trap with open
mouth. "I t'ink--dat h'owl--de Windigo for sure," he stuttered.

"I nevaire hear de h'owl cry dat way myself, Michel, but I know dat
Fleur and my gun mak' any Windigo een dees countree look whiter dan dat
bird. W'en we come near dees place I expect somet'ing een dat fox trap."

And strangely, through the remaining moons of the long snows, the sleep
of the lad was not again disturbed by the wailing of Windigos seeking to
devour a young half-breed Cree by the name of Michel Beaulieu.

CHAPTER XXXV

RAW WOUNDS

June once again found Marcel paddling into Whale River. The sight of the
high-roofed Mission, where, in the past, he had known so much of joy and
pain, quickened his stroke. He wondered whether she had gone away with
Wallace at Christmas, or whether there would be a wedding when the trade
was over and the steamer would take them to East Main. Avoiding the
Mission until he had learned from Jules what he so longed to know,
Marcel went up to the trade-house where he found Gillies and McCain. Too
proud to speak of what was nearest his heart, he told his friends of his
winter in the Salmon country. It had paid him well, his long portage
from the Ghost, the previous September, to the untrapped valleys to the
north. When, unlashing his fur-pack, he tossed on the counter three
glossy black-fox p