And Reese Beaudin no longer smiled.  He laughed!

“Until I went away and met real men, I never knew what a pig of a man you were, M’sieu Dupont,” he taunted amiably, as though speaking in jest to a friend.  “You remind me of an aged and over-fat porcupine with his big paunch and crooked arms.  What horror must it have been for my Elise to have lived in sight of such a beast as you!”

With a bellow Dupont was at him.  And swifter than eyes had ever seen man move at Lac Bain before, Reese Beaudin was out of his way, and behind him; and then, as the giant caught himself at the edge of the platform, and turned, he received a blow that sounded like the broadside of a paddle striking water.  Reese Beaudin had struck him with the flat of his unclenched hand!

A murmur of incredulity rose out of the crowd.  To the forest man such a blow was the deadliest of insults.  It was calling him an Iskwao—­a woman—­a weakling—­a thing too contemptible to harden one’s fist against.  But the murmur died in an instant.  For Reese Beaudin, making as if to step back, shot suddenly forward—­straight through the giant’s crooked arms—­and it was his fist this time that landed squarely between the eyes of Dupont.  The monster’s head went back, his great body wavered, and then suddenly he plunged backward off the platform and fell with a crash to the ground.

A yell went up from the hooded stranger.  Joe Delesse split his throat.  The crowd drowned Reese Beaudin’s voice.  But above it all rose a woman’s voice shrieking forth a name.

And then Jacques Dupont was on the platform again.  In the moments that followed one could almost hear his neighbor’s heart beat.  Nearer and still nearer to each other drew the two men.  And now Dupont crouched still more, and Joe Delesse held his breath.  He noticed that Reese Beaudin was standing almost on the tips of his toes—­that each instant he seemed prepared, like a runner, for sudden flight.  Five feet—­four—­and Dupont leapt in, his huge arms swinging like the limb of a tree, and his weight following with crushing force behind his blow.  For an instant it seemed as though Reese Beaudin had stood to meet that fatal rush, but in that same instant—­so swiftly that only the hooded stranger knew what had happened—­he was out of the way, and his left arm seemed to shoot downward, and then up, and then his right straight out, and then again his left arm downward, and up—­and it was the third blow, all swift as lightning, that brought a yell from the hooded stranger.  For though none but the stranger had seen it, Jacques Dupont’s head snapped back—­and all saw the fourth blow that sent him reeling like a man struck by a club.