Reese Beaudin turned, facing them
all, the wintry sun glowing in his beard, his eyes smiling, his head
high--unfraid now, more fearless than any other man that had ever set
foot in Lac Bain. And McDougall, with his arm touching Elise's hair, felt
the wild and throbbing pulse of her body. This day--this hour--this
minute in which she stood still, inbreathing--had confirmed her belief in
Reese Beaudin. As she had dreamed, so had he risen. First of all the men
in the world he stood there now, just as he had been first in the days
when she had loved his dreams, his music, and his pictures. To her he was
the old god, more splendid,--for he had risen above fear, and he was
facing Dupont now with that strange quiet smile on his lips. And then,
all at once, her soul broke its fetters, and over the women's heads she
reached out her arms, and all there heard her voice in its triumph, its
joy, its fear.
"Reese! Reese--my sakeakun!"
Over the heads of all the forest people she called him beloved! Like the
fang of an adder the word stung Dupont's brain. And like fire touched to
powder, swiftly as lightning illumines the sky, the glory of it blazed in
Reese Beaudin's face. And all that were there heard him clearly:
"I am Reese Beaudin. I am the Yellow-back. I have returned to meet a man
you all know--Jacques Dupont. He is a monkey-man--a whipper of boys, a
stealer of women, a cheat, a coward, a thing so foul the crows will not
touch him when he dies--"
There was a roar.
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