The Golden Snare | Page 8

two Philip saw him
fighting with himself, struggling with the age-old superstitions which
had flared up for an instant like a powder- flash. His jaws tightened,
and he threw back his head.
"But those stories are NOT true, M'sieu," he added in a repressed voice.
"That is why I showed you the snare. Bram Johnson is not dead. He is
alive. And there is a woman with him, or--"
"Or--"
The same thought was in their eyes again. And again neither gave voice
to it. Carefully Philip was gathering up the strands of hair, winding
them about his forefinger, and placing them afterward in a leather

wallet which he took from his pocket. Then, quite casually, he loaded
his pipe and lighted it. He went to the door, opened it, and for a few
moments stood listening to the screech of the wind over the Barren.
Pierre, still seated at the table, watched him attentively. Philip's mind
was made up when he closed the door and faced the half-breed again.
"It is three hundred miles from here to Fort Churchill," he said. "Half
way, at the lower end of Jesuche Lake, MacVeigh and his patrol have
made their headquarters. If I go after Bram, Pierre, I must first make
certain of getting a message to MacVeigh, and he will see that it gets to
Fort Churchill. Can you leave your foxes and poison-baits and your
deadfalls long enough for that?"
A moment Pierre hesitated.
Then he said:
"I will take the message."
Until late that night Philip sat up writing his report. He had started out
to run down a band of Indian thieves. More important business had
crossed his trail, and he explained the whole matter to Superintendent
Fitzgerald, commanding "M" Division at Fort Churchill. He told Pierre
Breault's story as he had heard it. He gave his reasons for believing it,
and that Bram Johnson, three times a murderer, was alive. He asked
that another man be sent after the Indians, and explained, as nearly as
he could, the direction he would take in his pursuit of Bram.
When the report was finished and sealed he had omitted just one thing.
Not a word had he written about the rabbit snare woven from a
woman's hair.

CHAPTER IV

The next morning the tail of the storm was still sweeping bitterly over
the edge of the Barren, but Philip set out, with Pierre Breault as his
guide, for the place where the half-breed had seen Bram Johnson and
his wolves in camp. Three days had passed since that exciting night,
and when they arrived at the spot where Bram had slept the spruce
shelter was half buried in a windrow of the hard, shot like snow that the
blizzard had rolled in off the open spaces.

From this point Pierre marked off accurately the direction Bram had
taken the morning after the hunt, and Philip drew the point of his
compass to the now invisible trail. Almost instantly he drew his
conclusion.
"Bram is keeping to the scrub timber along the edge of the Barren," he
said to Pierre. "That is where I shall follow. You might add that much
to what I have written to MacVeigh. But about the snare, Pierre Breault,
say not a word. Do you understand? If he is a loup-garou man, and
weaves golden hairs out of the winds--"
"I will say nothing, M'sieu," shuddered Pierre.
They shook hands, and parted in silence. Philip set his face to the west,
and a few moments later, looking back, he could no longer see Pierre.
For an hour after that he was oppressed by the feeling that he was
voluntarily taking a desperate chance. For reasons which he had arrived
at during the night he had left his dogs and sledge with Pierre, and was
traveling light. In his forty-pound pack, fitted snugly to his shoulders,
were a three pound silk service-tent that was impervious to the fiercest
wind, and an equal weight of cooking utensils. The rest of his burden,
outside of his rifle, his Colt's revolver and his ammunition, was made
up of rations, so much of which was scientifically compressed into
dehydrated and powder form that he carried on his back, in a matter of
thirty pounds, food sufficient for a month if he provided his meat on the
trail. The chief article in this provision was fifteen pounds of flour; four
dozen eggs he carried in one pound of egg powder; twenty-eight
pounds of potatoes in four pounds of the dehydrated article; four
pounds of onions in a quarter of a pound of the concentration, and so
on through the list.
He laughed a little grimly as he thought of this concentrated efficiency
in the pack on his shoulders. In a curious