usly, for he was
hungry. In an unresponsive way he tolerated the advances of these two.
A second night he was left alone in the cabin. When Durant and Ribon
came back again in the early dawn they brought with them a cage four
feet square made of small birch saplings. The open door of this cage
they drew close to the door of the cabin, and by means of a chunk of
fresh meat Miki was induced to enter through it. Instantly the trap
fell, and he was a prisoner. The cage was already fastened on a wide
toboggan, and scarcely was the sun up when Miki was on his way to Fort
O' God.

This was the big day at the carnival--the day of the caribou-roast and
the fight. For many minutes before they came in sight of Fort O' God
Miki heard the growing sound. It amazed him, and he stood up on his
feet in his cage, rigid and alert, utterly unconscious of the men who
were pulling him. He was looking ahead of them, and Durant chuckled
exultantly as they heard him growl, and his teeth click.

"Oui, he will fight! He would fight NOW," he chuckled.

They were following the shore of a lake. Suddenly they came around the
end of a point, and all of Fort O' God lay on the rising shelf of the
shore ahead of them. The growl died in Miki's throat. His teeth shut
with a last click. For an instant his heart seemed to grow dead and
still. Until this moment his world had held only half a dozen human
beings. Now, so suddenly that he had no flash of warning, he saw a
hundred of them, two hundred, three hundred. At sight of Durant and the
cage a swarm of them began running down to the shore. And everywhere
there were wolves, so many of them that his senses grew dazed as he
stared. His cage was the centre of a clamouring, gesticulating horde of
men and boys as it was dragged up the slope. Women began joining the
crowd, many of them with small children in their arms. Then his journey
came to an end. He was close to another cage, and in that cage was a
beast like himself. Beside this cage there stood a tall, swarthy,
shaggy-headed halfbreed who looked like a pirate. The man was Grouse
Piet, Durant's rival.

A contemptuous leer was on his thick-lipped face as he looked at Miki.
He turned, and to the group of dark-faced Indians and breeds about him
he said something that roused a guttural laugh.

Durant's face flamed red.

"Laugh, you heathen," he challenged, "but don't forget that Henri
Durant is here to take your bets!" Then he shook the two cross and te