belonged to the one who could hold it by fair fight or foul. The wild blood of the coureurs-de-bois which coursed the veins of the Frenchman was up.
Next morning Hertel started under the stars, promising to return before sunset. He was following the shoulder of a long ridge on which were set cabane traps for fisher and marten. In a few of these the bait, as usual, had lured foraging moose-birds or squirrel interlopers to their doom. Resetting the traps, he continued on until a shattered cabane with the silent witnesses in the snow about it told a story which brought from his throat a cry of rage.
The jaws of the steel trap gripped the severed fore foot of a marten, while, strewn with tufts of fur, the blood-stained snow in the vicinity was trampled by the same tracks which had crossed the sled-trail on the river.
Quickly freeing the excited husky from his harness, Hertel, fierce for revenge, abandoned his sled and took up the trail. With this plunderer loose on his trapping-grounds, his long days of toil would be thrown away. He must either kill his enemy at once or drive him from the valley. Over ridges and horsebacks, down along frozen watercourses, the pursuing trapper followed the tracks in the snow. For a space the eager husky led, but at length the long snow-shoe swing wore down the plunging dog, who sank deep at every leap, and he was content to follow in the better going of the packed trail of his master. On through the hours of the short December day toiled man and dog. If his quarry had not too long a start on him,
