The Golden Snare | Page 7

seemed, for a space,
as if Philip had ceased breathing. He stared--stared--while the light
from above him scintillated on the thing he held. It was a snare. There
could be no doubt of that. It was almost a yard in length, with the
curious Chippewyan loop at one end and the double-knot at the other.
The amazing thing about it was that it was made of a woman's golden
hair.

CHAPTER III

The process of mental induction occasionally does not pause to reason
its way, but leaps to an immediate and startling finality, which, by

reason of its very suddenness, is for a space like the shock of a sudden
blow. After that one gasp of amazement Philip made no sound. He
spoke no word to Pierre. In a sudden lull of the wind sweeping over the
cabin the ticking of his watch was like the beating of a tiny drum. Then,
slowly, his eyes rose from the silken thread in his fingers and met
Pierre's. Each knew what the other was thinking. If the hair had been
black. If it had been brown. Even had it been of the coarse red of the
blond Eskimo of the upper Mackenzie! But it was gold--shimmering
gold.
Still without speaking, Philip drew a knife from his pocket and cut the
shining thread above the second knot, and worked at the finely wrought
weaving of the silken filaments until a tress of hair, crinkled and
waving, lay on the table before them. If he had possessed a doubt, it
was gone now. He could not remember where he had ever seen just that
colored gold in a woman's hair. Probably he had, at one time or another.
It was not red gold. It possessed no coppery shades and lights as it
rippled there in the lamp glow. It was flaxen, and like spun silk--so fine
that, as he looked at it, he marveled at the patience that had woven it
into a snare. Again he looked at Pierre. The same question was in their
eyes.
"It must be--that Bram has a woman with him," said Pierre.
"It must be," said Philip. "Or--"
That final word, its voiceless significance, the inflection which Philip
gave to it as he gazed at Pierre, stood for the one tremendous question
which, for a space, possessed the mind of each. Pierre shrugged his
shoulders. He could not answer it. And as he shrugged his shoulders he
shivered, and at a sudden blast of the wind against the cabin door he
turned quickly, as though he thought the blow might have been struck
by a human hand.
"Diable!" he cried, recovering himself, his white teeth flashing a smile
at Philip. "It has made me nervous--what I saw there in the light of the
campfire, M'sieu. Bram, and his wolves, and THAT!"
He nodded at the shimmering strands.
"You have never seen hair the color of this, Pierre?"
"Non. In all my life--not once."
"And yet you have seen white women at Fort Churchill, at York
Factory, at Lac la Biche, at Cumberland House, and Norway House,

and at Fort Albany?"
"Ah-h-h, and at many other places, M'sieu. At God's Lake, at Lac Seul,
and over on the Mackenzie--and never have I seen hair on a woman
like that."
"And Bram has never been out of the northland, never farther south
than Fort Chippewyan that we know of," said Philip. "It makes one
shiver, eh, Pierre? It makes one think of--WHAT? Can't you answer?
Isn't it in your mind?"
French and Cree were mixed half and half in Pierre's blood. The pupils
of his eyes dilated as he met Philip's steady gaze.
"It makes one think," he replied uneasily, "of the chasse-galere and the
loup-garou, and--and--almost makes one believe. I am not superstitious,
M'sieu--non--non--I am not superstitious," he cried still more uneasily.
"But many strange things are told about Bram and his wolves;--that he
has sold his soul to the devil, and can travel through the air, and that he
can change himself into the form of a wolf at will. There are those who
have heard him singing the Chanson de Voyageur to the howling of his
wolves away up in the sky. I have seen them, and talked with them, and
over on the McLeod I saw a whole tribe making incantation because
they had seen Bram and his wolves building themselves a conjuror's
house in the heart of a thunder-cloud. So--is it strange that he should
snare rabbits with, a woman's hair?"
"And change black into the color of the sun?" added Philip, falling
purposely into the other's humor.
"If the rest is true--"
Pierre did not finish. He caught himself, swallowing hard, as though a
lump had risen in his throat, and for a moment or