post,
Mac--unless it's between men. And I'm not going to see this fight,
because I'm afraid I'd kill some one if I did."

CHAPTER TWENTY

It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The caribou were roasting brown.
In two more hours the feast would begin. The hour of the fight was at
hand.

In the centre of the clearing three hundred men, women, and children
were gathered in a close circle about a sapling cage ten feet square.
Close to this cage, one at each side, were drawn the two smaller cages.
Beside one of these cages stood Henri Durant; beside the other, Grouse
Piet. They were not bantering now. Their faces were hard and set. And
three hundred pairs of eyes were staring at them, and three hundred
pairs of ears waiting for the thrilling signal.

It came--from Grouse Piet.

With a swift movement Durant pulled up the door of Miki's cage. Then,
suddenly, he prodded him from behind with a crotched stick, and with a
single leap Miki was in the big cage. Almost at the same instant the
wolf-dog leapt from Grouse Piet's cage, and the two faced each other in
the arena.

With the next breath he drew Durant could have groaned. What happened
in the following half minute was a matter of environment with Miki. In
the forest the wolf-dog would have interested him to the exclusion of
everything else, and he would have looked upon him as another Netah or
a wild wolf. But in his present surroundings the idea of fighting was
the last to possess him. He was fascinated by that grim and waiting
circle of faces closing in the big cage; he scrutinized it, turning his
head sharply from point to point, as if hoping to see Nanette and the
baby, or even Challoner his first master. To the wolf-dog Grouse Piet
had given the name of Taao, because of the extraordinary length of his
fangs; and of Taao, to Durant's growing horror, Miki was utterly
oblivious after that first head-on glance. He trotted to the edge of
the cage and thrust his nose between the bars, and a taunting laugh
rose out of Grouse Piet's throat. Then he began making a circle of the
cage, his sharp eyes on the silent ring of faces. Taao stood in the
centre of the cage, and not once did his reddish eyes leave Miki. What
was outside of the cage held small interest for him. He understood his
business, and murder was bred in his heart. For a space during which
Durant's heart beat like a hammer Taao turned, as if on a pivot,
following Miki's movement, and the crest on his sp