stabbed at his heart. She was not there. What could
it mean? Distant shots from the marsh to the west marked the absence of
at least one of the breeds. But where was Fleur?

Marcel was too "bush-wise" to take any chances. Still keeping to cover,
he made his approach up-wind until he lay within a stone's throw of the
tent, when a shift in the breeze warned a pair of keen nostrils that
some living thing skulked not far off.

The heart of Jean Marcel leaped as the howl of Fleur betrayed his
presence, for huskies never bark. Grasping his rifle, he waited. The
uproar of the dog brought no response. The breeds were both away.
Rising, he ran to the excited puppy lashed to a stake back of the tent.

"Fleur! _Ma petite chienne!_" Dropping his rifle, he approached his dog
with outstretched arms. With flattened ears, the puppy crouched,
growling at the stranger, her mane bristling.

"Fleur! Don't you know me, pup?" continued Marcel in soothing tones,
holding out his hand.

The puppy's ears went forward. She sniffed long at the hand that had
once caressed her. Slowly the growl died in her throat.

"Fleur! Fleur! My poor puppy! Don't you remember Jean Marcel?"

Again the puzzled dog drew deep whiffs through her black nostrils. Back
in her brain memory was at work. Slowly the soothing tones of the voice
of Marcel stirred the ghosts of other days; vague hints, blurred by the
cruelty of weeks, of a time when the hand of a master caressed her and
did not strike, when a voice called to her as this voice--then another
sniff, and she knew. With a whimper her warm tongue licked his hand, and
Jean Marcel had his puppy in his arms. Mad with joy, the yelping husky
strained at her rawhide bonds as her anxious master examined a great
lump on her head, and her ribs, ridged with welts from kick and blow.

"So they tied her up and beat her, my Fleur? Well, she not leave Jean
Marcel again. Were he go, Fleur go!"

Suddenly in his ears were hissed the words:

"W'at you do wid dat dog?" And a fierce blow on the back of the head
hurled the kneeling Marcel flat on his face.

For a space he lay stunned, his numbed senses blurred beyond thought or
action. Then, as his dazed brain cleared, the realization that life hung
on his presence of mind, for he would receive no mercy from the thieves,
held him limp on the ground as though unconscious.

Snarling curses at the crumpled body of his victim, the half-breed was
busy with the joining of some ra