For a full minute not a sound passed between the two men.  Philip’s hand had slipped to the butt of his revolver, but he had no intention of using it.  Then he found his voice.  It seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should say what he did.

“Hello, Bram!”

“Boo-joo, m’sieu!”

Only Bram’s thick lips moved.  His voice was low and guttural.  Almost instantly his head disappeared from the opening.

Philip dug himself quickly from his sleeping-bag.  Through the aperture there came to him now another sound, the yearning whine of beasts.  He could not hear Bram.  In spite of the confidence which his first look at Bram had given him he felt a sudden shiver run up his spine as he faced the end of the tunnel on his hands and knees, his revolver in his hand.  What a rat in a trap he would be if Bram loosed his wolves!  What sport for the pack—­and perhaps for the master himself!  He could kill two or three—­and that would be all.  They would be in on him like a whirlwind, diving through his snow walls as easily as a swimmer might cut through water.  Had he twice made a fool of himself?  Should he have winged Bram Johnson, three times a murderer, in place of offering him a greeting?

He began crawling toward the opening, and again he heard the snarl and whine of the beasts.  The sound seemed some distance away.  He reached the end of the tunnel and peered out through the “door” he had made in the crust.

From his position he could see nothing—­nothing but the endless sweep of the Barren and his old trail leading up to the snow dune.  The muzzle of his revolver was at the aperture when he heard Bram’s voice.

“M’sieu—­ze revolv’—­ze knife—­or I mus’ keel yon.  Ze wolve plent’ hungr’—­”

Bram was standing just outside of his line of vision.  He had not spoken loudly or threateningly, but Philip felt in the words a cold and unexcited deadliness of purpose against which he knew that it would be madness for him to fight.  Bram had more than the bad man’s ordinary drop on him.  In his wolves he possessed not only an advantage but a certainty.  If Philip had doubted this, as he waited for another moment with the muzzle of his revolver close to the opening, his uncertainty was swept away by the appearance thirty feet in front of his tunnel of three of Bram’s wolves.  They were giants of their kind, and as the three faced his refuge he could see the snarling gleam of their long fangs.  A fourth and a fifth joined them, and after that they came within his vision in twos and threes until a score of them were huddled straight in front of him.  They were restless and whining, and the snap of their jaws was like the clicking of castanets.  He caught the glare of twenty pairs of eyes fastened on his retreat and involuntarily he shrank back that they might not see him.  He knew that it was Bram who was holding them back, and yet he had heard no word, no command.  Even as he stared a long snakelike shadow uncurled itself swiftly in the air and the twenty foot lash of Bram’s caribou-gut whip cracked viciously over the heads of the pack.  At the warning of the whip the horde of beasts scattered, and Bram’s voice came again.