The Montaignis came down to the post on one of their trading expeditions, and they told weird tales of seeing a tall figure on strange wide snow-shoes up among the hills, two hundred miles away. This figure, they said, had been seen by many of the tribe, but no one had been able to get close enough to speak to him.

Tritou, since the time of his wounding Verbaux, had been always on the watch for the familiar tracks, but had never found anything, so he listened eagerly to the mountaineers’ stories.

“C’est Verbaux, Ah know,” he said afterward to one of his cronies; “he no comme back ici!” and he nodded wisely. Dumois overheard this affirmation. “V’y for Verbaux he no comme back?” he asked, and Tritou became silent. He had not told any one of his misfortune—how Verbaux had borrowed his dog-team and left it, eighty miles away, at RiviÈre Noire; but revenge burned fiercely in his thoughts, and he would mutter curses when Verbaux’s name was mentioned.

Thus it was that Tritou, to follow up the blood price he promised himself day by day, got permission from the factor to take a trip with the Montaignis, when they returned to their hill country. He did not tell his true reason for wishing to go, but whispered in the factor’s ear, that “mabbe un gran’ territoire pour la chasse lÀ-bas, an’ ve sen’ mans from la poste, hein?”

The factor saw the force of this argument, and agreed that Tritou should go.

The Montaignis waited about the post, camped outside the stockade, until the weather should be good for the start. The snow-storms in their territory were much more to be feared than they were here, about the post. The Athabascan country is treacherous in the snow months, January and March, and no Indian sets out long trap-lines then.

One evening, Washook, the Montaignis leader, said that they would leave the next morning at daylight. Tritou’s eyes gleamed when he heard this, but he said nothing. He was alone in his tepee, getting his blankets and supplies ready, when the flap was pushed aside, and Le Grand came in. “Bon soi’, Tritou!” he said.

Tritou was not overfond of Le Grand, because he felt that in some way Verbaux and he were friends. It was strange that no one could say a word against Verbaux without Le Grand contradicting him quietly and firmly. When asked his reasons for this, he would refuse to explain, saying always, “Ah know of vat Ah say!” So Tritou was suspicious of the visit, feeling uncomfortable in Le Grand’s presence, as though the latter knew that revenge was his object for going away into the Montaignis country.

Le Grand opened the conversation. “You goin’ get des skeens, hein, Tritou?”

“’Ope so!” the latter answered shortly, and went on folding up his blankets in small bundles, tying them with caribou-thongs.

“Ah see Verbaux hees track yes’day!” announced Le Grand suddenly, watching Tritou closely. This was a lie, but Le Grand wanted to know how much of Tritou’s desire for the long, hard trip with the Montaignis was actuated by his madness to find Verbaux.

Tritou looked up quickly, and his breath came faster. “Vat figure, den, dose Montaignis dey talk h’about?” he asked.

Le Grand did not answer at once, but stared fixedly at his host. Then he spoke. “Tritou, you goin’ h’aftaire Verbaux; Ah know eet, an’ Ah goin’ warn you, Tritou, dat you veel be keel, keel! Ond’stan’, Tritou?”

Tritou’s face was ugly to see: the black eyes gleamed dully, and the broad nostrils quivered; the lips were drawn back in a half-snarl, and the tobacco-stained teeth looked like the fangs of a wolf.

“An’ Ah tell to you, Le Grand, dat eet ees no you’ affaire. You lak’ Verbaux, Ah t’ink, an’ Ah goin’ breeng back Verbaux hees head cut hoff, to show to la poste, tu comprends Ça?” and he leered horribly.

“You veel t’ink somme taime of Le Grand, vat he tol’ to you! Bon soi’, Tritou!” With these words Le Grand left the tepee.

Tritou chuckled. “Ah Ça, you no can sauf Verbaux!” he said to himself. Then, his preparations completed, he rolled up in his blankets and slept.

The next morning was a beautiful one, and amid laughter, cheers and au r’voirs the Montaignis left the post, bound for home, two hundred and thirty miles away to the northwest. Tritou accompanied them with his big sledge and ten dogs. As he went out of the gate Le Grand called to him, “Gare Jules Verbaux!” and Tritou scowled.

Day after day the party travelled on across miles of deep timber and long stretches of barrens where the wind bit fiercely and the frost patched their faces with gray. Night after night they camped, built big fires, and curled up round them in their blankets, and all the time Tritou was sullen and spoke rarely to his companions. One day, when travelling over soft crust in single file, the man’s sled just in front of Tritou’s upset, and the load scattered over the snow. Tritou never offered to help him reload, but made a detour to avoid the accident, and kept on in silence. These things were noticed by the Montaignis, and they began to wonder what sort of man was this who wouldn’t talk, who wouldn’t even smoke with them by the fire in the evenings. Mutterings were frequent among the Indians about it, and at last suspicion was openly talked of in their own language, which Tritou did not understand. They suspected him of being a Company spy, and one of them went so far as to tell him so in halting, broken French. Tritou made no answer, and the Indians grew uglier toward him.

On the sixth day out from the post, the chief, who was in the lead, suddenly stopped and examined some tracks which crossed their course; the others gathered about and jabbered excitedly. Tritou noticed the unusual commotion from his place in the rear, and came up to find out the cause. He saw the strange, wide snow-shoe trail, and his eyes glistened venomously; but still he said nothing. That night, when the party made camp, he was missing. No one had seen him leave, and conjectures were many and loud.

The chief listened to them all, and decided that they had better not do anything about it; that Tritou had gone of his own volition, and that it was his affair, not theirs. “He has probably turned back to the post,” he said; so the next day the Montaignis went on without him.

Tritou had at once recognised the snow-shoe trail as that of Verbaux, and when he dropped back to his position in the line, he determined to leave the Montaignis secretly at the first opportunity, go back, pick up the trail and follow it to its maker. The Indians’ course took them through a wooded ravine; Tritou saw it a long way off, and he dropped back little by little, intending to leave the others when they turned the ravine corner at the upper end. It happened as he planned; the others kept on steadily, and he slowed up until there was five hundred yards between him and the last of his travelling companions.

When the ravine was reached they all went up through it, turned the corner, and Tritou stopped his team, threw himself on the sledge and lashed the dogs. They bounded forward, and he was soon out of hearing of the Indians’ voices, going back to his enemy’s trail. It was only five miles off, and Tritou soon covered that distance, for he was going very fast.

“Ah-ha-a-a! at las’, Verbaux!” he said hoarsely when he came to the tracks again, “Ah goin’ keel you dees taime!”

Before starting on the chase he lashed the load firmly on the sledge, filled his rifle with cartridges, and looked to the dogs’ harness; then, with everything secured he started on the trail. The country was entirely strange to him, as this was two hundred and ten miles from the post, and he had never hunted in this direction. It was all hills and valleys; the timber was thick, and the hillsides steep; his advance, therefore, was slow. The wide tracks led due north; over hill and through valley, up ravines and across barrens it went, straight as a compass course. It was at least a day old, Tritou decided; and he coaxed the dogs to their best efforts. The tracks led over a high, bare hill, and he stopped to look about. He could see a long, long way ahead, but as far as his eyes could reach were barrens on barrens, white and desolate; not a living thing in sight on the snow or in the air.

The sun shone over the glare-crust with dazzling brilliancy, and he could not look on it long. “Mush!” he shouted to the dogs, and went on. The trail kept its northern course, straight over the barrens and down through the deep timber on the far side; always a day old it seemed to Tritou, fast as he went. The dogs were lagging; he stopped to feed them, and ate some cold food himself. He did not dare to light a fire for fear of warning the man he was after. In an hour he started on again. The landscape changed. He came to a big lake, where ice was black and deep, and where the cutting wind made him shiver and draw his muffler close. He lost the trail here, but remembering Jules’s old tricks, he went across the ice in a northern direction and found that the tracks began again on the other side.

It was coming twilight; the sun was sinking; it grew colder, and Tritou saw that he should not get up on Verbaux that night. He travelled as long as he could see the tracks before him; then he lay down among the dogs, and slept.

Day was just beginning to lighten the sky when he was up and, after a hasty, cold breakfast, went on again. The trail turned a little to the northeast as he went, and then he came to the remnants of a fire, and saw where Jules had slept, and where the dogs had dug holes for themselves in the snow. The signs were not very old; indeed, Tritou fancied that he could still feel heat in the ashes. With renewed vigour he pushed on and on. The course lay through heavy timber now, and he had to stop and puzzle out the faint snow-shoe scratches in several places. He came to another lake, but this was covered with snow, and the tracks showed clear upon it. Half-way across he stopped; to the northeast of him, in the woods, a thin blue haze indicated smoke. Tritou breathed faster, and followed the tracks to the edge of the woods. There he left the team and, rifle in hand, sneaked along the snow-shoe marks. “At las’!” he whispered, as he saw the smoke ascending through the trees two hundred yards in front of him. He loosened the knife in his belt, and made sure that the rifle was ready. Then he crept forward warily.

Jules was skinning some marten in front of a little shed hut; a fire burned brightly near him, and he sang merrily as he peeled the sleek fur from the little stiff body in his hands.

Crang! His ear stung and he drew his hand away from it bloody. Crang! His cap twitched as he flung the marten to one side and dashed behind a big pine. All was silent. He wondered who it was that had fired at him. Then he took off his cap and saw the bullet-hole in it, near the fur tassel. “C’est prÈs, Ça! Dat close!” he said. He stuck the cap on a twig and pushed it carefully from behind the trunk. Cran-ng! and the cap fell to the crust. “He shoot good!” muttered Jules, as he kept perfectly still behind his tree.

A soft crunch broke the silence; Verbaux stuck his head in and out from the tree trunk quickly.

“Tritou!” His voice quivered ominously, and his hands clenched. He had seen Tritou as the latter, knowing that Jules had no gun, went from one tree to another, to get a near shot when opportunity offered.

“Bon! you tak’ care!” shouted Jules.

A mocking laugh from the other was the only answer.

Round and round Verbaux worked about his tree, keeping its protecting trunk between him and Tritou. The latter did not dare approach too close, as he feared that Jules might rush him if he did. The long afternoon passed thus, each man seeking an opportunity that would not come. The shadows grew deeper, and the skies turned a dark green-blue; still the two watched and waited. Darkness came and the forest was plunged in black. Verbaux listened intently. Everything was absolutely still, except for the hoot of an owl in the distance. Slowly, very slowly he stepped out from behind his tree and listened again. No sound! Inch by inch he worked his way in Tritou’s direction. It was wonderful; he moved over the crust and made not the tiniest crackle. Swish—crunch! came from the darkness beyond, very softly, but Jules heard it and sneaked on. “Diable!” he thought, as an unseen stick crackled under him; he stopped. Tritou had heard it, too, and was fleeing through the woods, his snow-shoes clicking loudly. He had not dreamed that Jules was so near. Verbaux started after him. Tritou’s snow-shoes gave him a decided advantage, because Jules slipped and slid on the crust. He did not have on his moccasins with caribou-hair soles. Cran-ng! sounded the rifle, and the bullet pi-i-nged viciously over Jules’s head. He made no answer, but ran on at full speed. Cran-ng! again, and the bullet thudded into a tree near by. Tritou was firing toward the sound of Jules’s leaps on the crust! Cran-ng! The leaden missile zi-i-i-ped at Jules’s feet. He dodged to the right and listened. Tritou stopped, too, and the woods were deathlike in their stillness.

“You, Tri—” Cran-ng! Jules did not hear the bullet this time. “Tritou!” he called again; no answer. “Tritou! tak’ care!” Whe-e-e! the bullet whined from a tree close by. Jules said no more, but knelt down and took off his moccasins; then he stole forward in his coarse stockings. “Dat bettaire,” he muttered, as the woollen material stuck well to the slippery surface.

Tritou had not moved, and Jules edged noiselessly forward, listening between each step. He put his hand on a big pine to lighten his weight, and stopped again. Swsht! a light rustle came from behind it. Jules drew his knife softly from his shirt and put it between his teeth, then sprang like lightning round the trunk. “Ha-rgh-rr!” he growled as his hands felt a warm, living body. “Tu diable!” screamed Tritou and fired the rifle. The bullet went wild and the two men fell, rolling over and over on the crust. Jules felt Tritou trying to draw his knife, and he used both hands to prevent him. His own knife was still clenched in his jaws. “Ah tear ze eyes h’out of your tÊte!” screamed Tritou, crazed with rage. “Ah cut ze hearrt’ f’om your corps!” and he struggled again for his knife. Jules made no answer. The two men writhed and tumbled over the snow, one snarling like an animal, the other silent. Jules held on grimly, waiting his chance. The struggle grew fiercer instead of less; now both men breathed in loud gasps, and grunted as one or the other came underneath in their rolling.

All this time Jules was silent, fighting strongly; of a sudden the animal sprang up in him, something snapped in his brain, his strength redoubled, and dropping the knife from his teeth, he threw his head forward, and down to Tritou’s throat, and opened his mouth as he felt the hot, sweating flesh on his lips; his teeth closed tighter and tighter, cutting through skin, blood-vessels, and muscle. “Arh! Arh! Arh! Arh!” screeched Tritou, kicking and writhing; he felt the teeth crunching and chewing, mouthing his life away. Jules bit deeper and deeper; his teeth sank into the gums, he held them there, then with a supreme effort he twisted his head sidewise, wrenching Tritou’s throat apart. The body under him relaxed, quivered, and jerked spasmodically, then lay still. The hot blood covered Jules’s face; it was up his nose, and had gone down his open throat. He got up slowly and looked at the limp body he could just see in the darkness at his feet. Then he sank to his knees and crossed himself.

“Oh, bon Dieu! Leesten vat Jules say! Zis Tritou, he follow me ev’ place, he try for to keel me so h’often, an’ now, bon Dieu, Ah have keel heem! Pardon, bon Dieu! GrÂce for me, miserabl’ dat Ah am!”

He rose, dull-eyed and trembling, and went away, leaving the dead man stretched out and stiffening on the snow.