Verbaux travelled on and on across the wilderness of silence and of space. He heard nothing but the howling of the wolves, saw nothing but colourless barrens, dark green timber depths, and frozen waters. He came at last to the clearing by Lac des Sables, and built up his wrecked home. It took him two days to finish the work, and two more to catch the dogs he had turned loose to shift for themselves sixteen days gone.

It was evening; a cheery fire crackled on the little hearth. The interior shone warm and comfortable in its glow, but the log walls were gray and bare instead of warm and brown with skins as they used to be. Jules sat before the fire; his eyes reflected the light dully and his thoughts were far away—where he knew not, but of whom he knew. The old heartbroken moan for Marie, Marie came from his lips, and he would start violently, as though dreaming, and shake his head. “Je suis content!” he muttered; tears came, nevertheless, and rolled slowly down the bronzed cheeks, dripping drop by drop and glistening on the rough shirt.

The yellow-red flames played noiselessly in the air, but their sources snapped and gave out tiny diamond sparks that died two inches from the place of birth. A storm was coming from the northeast. Little by little the wind increased in strength, first whispering, then sighing, then moaning fitfully by gusts, and finally shrieking through the millions of branches that are the forest. Jules heard but heeded not. The violent draft carried the smoke away in straight blue lines, the sparks had longer lives and disappeared in the wooden flue. A dog yelped, the others awoke and joined him, and their voices blended into one long minor clamour that sounded above the whistling wind, and cadenced with the now loud, then softer notes of the gale. A muffled roaring came down the little chimney; sometimes the powerful back draft imprisoned the smoke and it filled the hut with its pungent acrid smell. Dream figures appeared to Jules and passed in long review before his half-closed eyes. The very flames were distorted into living things that moved and, as he saw them, disappeared. He rose, went to the new bed of boughs, fell on it, and slept instantly. And in his vague, unrestful slumber the figures came and passed again before his brain.

“TraÎtre!” he growled in his sleep; “Ah, Maquette, mon vieux, how ees, hein? An you, Bossu, an’ Hibou, mes camarades dat Ah sauve’!” The changeless voice shrilled then, and the long arms stretched out, “Petite! Marie!” He awoke, dazed, and heard the sobbing of the storm overhead. “Bon Dieu, grÂce!” he said, and knelt by the bough bed, his face buried in his hands. He prayed, but always, even in his prayers, the squat, ugly figure of Manou with his treacherous eyes came before him; and much as the body cried out for the woman that lived somewhere under the broad expanse of God’s heavens, still the iron will and reason spoke through the pain-compressed lips and said, “Je suis content!” The fight was awful in its terrible fierceness; at last he sank, utterly exhausted, on the boughs and slept dreamlessly. The northern hurricane grew under the black skies; it lashed the trees until they groaned and snapped. As an accompaniment to the shrieking voices of the wind sounded the crashing reports of falling trees, here, there, everywhere. The two giant pines on each side of the hut moved to their foundations and twisted; their great roots heaved and tore the frozen sod beneath its white cover, and the walls of the camp trembled at each furious gust. And Verbaux slept on.

Long past its regular hour, the timid light of dawn appeared and broadened over the wild, tumultuous earth. By its light the flying masses of filmy clouds tore across the leaden skies. Sometimes a big black one came over the horizon and was whirled away over the lonely north at tremendous speed. Two sables came to the hut, pushed and buffeted by the gale, their tree home destroyed by the storm; they crept within the shelter of its lee side and curled up there together, hungry and frightened. The dogs howled at intervals, but their voices were almost lost in the heavy peals of the monstrous noises of the forest.

A gray shape came speeding past the hut, saw it, and stopped under its lee, disturbing the little sables. It was a tall caribou that stood there panting, its scarlet tongue dripping with foam, its great eyes drooping, its tired sides pumping air ceaselessly to satisfy the big lungs. And in a moment a dozen dark forms came and stood silently in a half-circle before the hut, breathing hoarsely, drool streaming from their open jaws. The wind pushed them about, but they stayed and watched. The dogs caught a whiff of the stench of wolves and set up a great cry in their shed, that sounded even above the hurricane. The dark forms listened, heard, recognised, and disappeared at once, wrapped in dim snow-clouds, through which their fleeing shapes appeared for an instant and were gone.

The caribou rested awhile, then faded away among the trees. Jules slept on, inert, on the boughs; the little sables cuddled closer together and were still.

More and more light came, and Verbaux awoke to another day. The weather remained the same, and he pulled his fur cap well down when he went out to the traps. Trees fell about him, broken branches dropped, rattling on the crust, great rents in the trunks of the hemlocks showed the fierce wrenching power of the wind. No living thing moved in the complaining, groaning forests, but Jules was happy in the chaos, and his loneliness and longing left him for a time. “By gar! Ah get beaucoup de poils!” he said. Every third trap held its dead prisoner. When he had finished the line, the load of furs on his back was heavy: eight sable, two lynx, three wolverine, four marten, and a gray fox.

He was on his way to the camp when suddenly, faint in the gale, he heard a voice calling “Holla, lÀ-bas!” Then he saw coming toward him a short, broad figure on snow-shoes. The stranger came along easily, watching the trees that snapped and squeaked and bowed to their waists. Jules stopped and waited. “Bo’ jou’!” said the stranger in a friendly way. He was a French-Canadian, keen of eye, characteristic in face, strong in figure.

“Je suis Philippe Crevier. Ah comme two hunder’ mile’ look for un homme; you got fir’?”

“Oui; comme!” Jules said, and the two travelled across the timber-land to Verbaux’s camp.

Jules lighted the fire, then set food on the table. Crevier sat and watched him silently; with a nod, he ate a hearty meal.

“Ah-h, c’est bon!” and he sighed comfortably when he had finished, and ceremoniously drew out his quilled and beaded tobacco-bag and presented it to Jules. The latter filled his pipe; Crevier did the same; then Verbaux leaned back against the wall with legs firmly spread, the gray eyes fixed on the other, who was stretched on the green boughs. They smoked in silence for several minutes; the interior was redolent with the powerful reek of the black tobacco; the roof quivered with the sudden impacts of heavy wind, and there was the faint patter of millions of crust bits that, driven before the storm, struck the logs with all their minute weight and strength.

“Ah look for vone Jules Verbaux. Dat Le Grand h’at Poste Reliance he comme dere nine days h’ago wid une femme; by gar, she vas tire’ and hongree! She vas tak’ by Hodson Baie Compagnie at la destruction de Isle la Crosse by dat Annaotaha. Le Grand, fr’en’ to me, fin’ dis girrl and mak’ bataille avec dat scÉlÉrat. Le Grand seeck ver’ bad; he say to me, he say: ‘Philippe, you go fin’ Jules Verbaux; dees femme hees wife; she loove him mooch, mais he don’ t’ink dat trrue. You tell to heem, eef you can fin’ heen, dat ol’ Le Grand he ver’ bad, and vant for to see heem befor’ Le Grand est mort.’ Den Ah comme loook!”

Jules listened; his face was expressionless and at rest. His eyes glistened for an instant, then they too were void of feeling; he seemed interested, nothing more.

“You know dis Verbaux?” Crevier asked.

A flash came to the gray eyes. “Oui, Ah know heem; dis ees hees territoire; he gon’ Fond du Lac h’eight jour’ passÉ.”

“B’en, Ah go to Fond du Lac to-mor’; Ah geeve promesse to Le Grand for to fin’ heem eef eet possible, and he pay moi ten skin’ de day for do heet. Ah can stay avec vous ici to-night, hein?”

“Certainement!” Jules answered.

There was a silence—one man comfortable, happy, care-free; the other too full for utterance, but with calm, undisturbed features through it all.

The storm raved on through the afternoon, but with the coming of night it slackened, the gusts were less fierce, the trees ceased their contortions, and gradually a deep stillness spread over the forest. In the hut the two men ate their supper; Jules fed the dogs. The fire burned lightly, and Crevier’s dark face showed in sharp relief against the light-gray logs.

“Vat you t’ink—” he began; then he caught sight of the child’s cap in its old place over the bed. He looked at it, then looked at Verbaux.

Jules had not seen the discovery of the cap. He sat, his broad shoulders stooped forward, his chin in his hands.

“Jules Verbaux!” Crevier spoke the name slowly and quietly.

Verbaux started, then his eyes looked sharply from under the strong, heavy brows. “Pourquoi you call me Jules Verbaux?” he asked. Crevier’s arm stretched out, long in the dancing light, the dark hand pointed silently to the little cap, and he smoked again.

“Ah tol’ you dat dees Verbaux hees place, hees territoire, dat he gone ’way las’ weeek!” Jules spoke aggressively.

Crevier shook his head. “Non!”

“Pourquoi non? You say dat I mak’ de lie?”

The other seemed not to notice the angry tones; he took his pipe leisurely from his mouth and spoke again in a low, soft voice. “Le Grand he tol’ to me dat Verbaux he had petite fille vonce, dat he loove dat enfant ver’ mooch. You tell to me dat dees ees hees place to mak’ la chasse; Ah see dat leetle chapeau lÀ,” and he looked up again at the cap. “an’ den Ah, Crevier, say dat you aire Verbaux.”

“Pourquoi?” asked Jules again.

“Becaus’ Verbaux no go ’way an’ leave dat souvenir of enfant ici!”

Crevier looked at Jules through drooping lids. The stooped figure swayed a little, stopped, swayed again, then shivered very slightly, and was still.

Crevier stood up and went to the door. Outside, it was a fine, clear night. The straggler clouds of the storm hurried in little groups across the light faces of the stars to catch up with the main body. The cold, penetrating air was fresh-smelling of the pine and laden with ozone of the wind and snow. He turned.

“To-mor’ ve go back to Poste Reliance!” he said quietly, then stepped out into the shadowless gloom.

Verbaux raised his head and listened; everything was still but the snapping fire at his feet.

“Pauvre Le Grand,” he murmured. “Ah mus’ go an’ see heem, mais Ah go seul’ment for dat, seul’ment for dat!” he repeated rapidly, as though trying to choke down the other thoughts that craved expression in different words from those that he had just spoken. Alternately a pale, wan face, then a rugged, kindly one, came before his eyes. “Ah not go for to see dat femme!” he almost shouted, because he feared to trust himself in the silence.

“Toi ver’ beeg fool!”

Crevier stood in the door; his arms held a pile of fire-wood, and jets of freezing moisture streamed from his nostrils as he came in out of the night and closed the bark door. He threw his load down in the corner, the dry sticks breaking sharply above the crackle of the hearth fire. He got out a light blanket from his carry-bag and laid it over some skins that were on the floor. “À demain, Verbaux,” he said as he stretched himself on it; he turned over, and was asleep in a moment. Jules stood looking down at the still form for long minutes.

“Ah go ’way for leetle taime. Ah no can go weet heem!” he whispered to himself; then silently and quickly he took his snow-shoes, reached up for the little cap and put it in his shirt, took some food, and went away into the darkness.

For a long time after he had gone nothing stirred. The trees were resting after their long turmoil, and stood as though carved from green-black marble. Crevier slept on quietly.