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.
"Has Jacques Dupont a greater grip than that, Joe Delesse?" he asked in a
voice that was so soft it was almost a woman's.
"Mon Dieu!" gasped Delesse. He staggered to his feet, clutching his
crushed hand. "M'sieu--"
Reese Beaudin put his hands to the other's shoulders, smiling, friendly.
"I will apologize, I will explain, mon ami," he said. "But first, you
must tell me the name of that Yellow-back who ran away years ago. Do you
remember it?"
"Oui, but what has that to do with my crushed hand? The Yellow-back's
name was Reese Beaudin--"
"And I am Reese Beaudin," laughed the other gently.
On that day--the day of Wakoa, the dog sale--seven fat caribou were
roasting on great spits at Post Lac Bain, and under them were seven fires
burning red and hot of seasoned birch, and around the seven fires were
seven groups of men who slowly turned the roasting carcasses.
It was the Big Day of the mid-winter festival, and Post Lac Bain, with a
population of twenty in times of quiet, was a seething wilderness
metropolis of two hundred excited souls and twice as many dogs. From all
directions they had come, from north and south and east and west; from
near and from far, from the Barrens, from the swamps, from the farther
forests, from river and lake and hidden trail--a few white men, mostly
French; half-breeds and 'breeds, Chippewans, and Crees, and here and
there a strange, dark-visaged little interloper from the north with his
strain of Eskimo blood.
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