This comparison, if quite true, is none
the less unfair to the hound. A hound is a good dog at heart.
In the January storm it may be that the vengeful spirit of Francois
Breault set out in company with Corporal Blake to witness the
consummation of his vengeance. That first night, as he sat close to his
fire in the shelter of a thick spruce timber, Blake felt the unusual and
disturbing sensation of a presence somewhere near him. The storm was at
its height. He had passed through many storms, but to-night there seemed
to be an uncannily concentrated fury in its beating and wailing over the
roofs of the forests.
He was physically comfortable. The spruce trees were so dense that the
storm did not reach him, and fortune favored him with a good fire and
plenty of fuel. But the sensation oppressed him. He could not keep away
from him his mental vision of Breault as he had helped to pry him from
the sledge--his frozen features, the stiffened fingers, the curious twist
of the icy lips that had been almost a grin.
Blake was not superstitious. He was too much a man of iron for that. His
soul had lost the plasticity of imagination. But he could not forget
Breault's lips as they had seemed to grin up at him. There was a reason
for it. On his last trip down, Breault had said to him, with that same
half-grin on his face:
"M'sieu, some day you may go after my murderer, and when you do, Francois
Breault will go with you.
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