Never to the people of Lac
Bain had he looked more terrible. He was the gorilla-fighter, the beast
fighter, the fighter who fights as the wolf, the bear and the
cat--crushing out life, breaking bones, twisting, snapping, inundating
and destroying with his great weight and his monstrous strength. He was a
hundred pounds heavier than Reese Beaudin. On his stooping shoulders he
could carry a tree. With his giant hands he could snap a two-inch
sapling. With one hand alone he had set a bear-trap. And with that mighty
strength he fought as the cave-man fought. It was his boast there was no
trick of the Chippewan, the Cree, the Eskimo or the forest man that he
did not know. And yet Reese Beaudin stood calmly, waiting for him, and
smiling!
In another moment the hooded stranger was gone, and there was none
between them.
"A long time I have waited for this, m'sieu," said Reese, for Dupont's
ears alone. "Five years is a long time. And my Elise still loves me."
Still more like a gorilla Jacques Dupont crept upon him. His face was
twisted by a rage to which he could no longer give voice. Hatred and
jealousy robbed his eyes of the last spark of the thing that was human.
His great hands were hooked, like an eagle's talons. His lips were drawn
back, like a beast's. Through his red beard yellow fangs were bared.
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.
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