“And after that?” questioned Reese Beaudin, in a voice that was scarcely above a whisper.

“I cannot understand,” said Joe Delesse.  “It was strange, m’sieu, very strange.  I know that Elise, even after that coward ran away, still loved him.  And yet—­well, something happened.  I overheard a terrible quarrel one day between Jan Thiebout, father of Elise, and Jacques Dupont.  After that Thiebout was very much afraid of Dupont.  I have my own suspicion.  Now that Thiebout is dead it is not wrong for me to say what it is.  I think Thiebout killed the halfbreed Bedore who was found dead on his trap-line five years ago.  There was a feud between them.  And Dupont, discovering Thiebout’s secret—­well, you can understand how easy it would be after that, m’sieu.  Thiebout’s winter trapping was in that Burntwood country, fifty miles from neighbor to neighbor, and very soon after Bedore’s death Jacques Dupont became Thiebout’s partner.  I know that Elise was forced to marry him.  That was four years ago.  The next year old Thiebout died, and in all that time not once has Elise been to Post Lac Bain!”

“Like the Yellow-back—­she never returned,” breathed Reese Beaudin.

“Never.  And now—­it is strange—­”

“What is strange, Joe Delesse?”

“That for the first time in all these years she is going to Lac Bain—­to the dog sale.”

Reese Beaudin’s face was again hidden in the smoke of his pipe.  Through it his voice came.

“It is a cold night, M’sieu Delesse.  Hear the wind howl!”

“Yes, it is cold—­so cold the foxes will not run.  My traps and poison-baits will need no tending tomorrow.”

“Unless you dig them out of the drifts.”

“I will stay in the cabin.”

“What!  You are not going to Lac Bain!”

“I doubt it.”

“Even though Elise, your cousin, is to be there?”

“I have no stomach for it, m’sieu.  Nor would you were you in my boots, and did you know why he is going.  Par les mille cornes d’u diable, I cannot whip him but I can kill him—­and if I went—­and the thing happens which I guess is going to happen—­”

“Qui?  Surely you will tell me—­”

“Yes, I will tell you.  Jacques Dupont knows that Elise has never stopped loving the Yellow-back.  I do not believe she has ever tried to hide it from him.  Why should she?  And there is a rumor, m’sieu, that the Yellow-back will be at the Lac Bain dog sale.”

Reese Beaudin rose slowly to his feet, and yawned in that smoke-filled cabin.

“And if the Yellow-back should turn the tables, Joe Delesse, think of what a fine thing you will miss,” he said.

Joe Delesse also rose, with a contemptuous laugh.

“That fiddler, that picture-drawer, that book-reader—­Pouff!  You are tired, m’sieu, that is your bunk.”

Reese Beaudin held out a hand.  The bulk of the two stood out in the lamp-glow, and Joe Delesse was so much the bigger man that his hand was half again the size of Reese Beaudin’s.  They gripped.  And then a strange look went over the face of Joe Delesse.  A cry came from out of his beard.  His mouth grew twisted.  His knees doubled slowly under him, and in the space of ten seconds his huge bulk was kneeling on the floor, while Reese Beaudin looked at him, smiling.