Deep in the night, Marcel waked cold. Lifting his head from theblankets, his face met an icy draft driving through the open door of theshack which framed a patch of sky swarming with frozen stars.
Wondering why the door was open, he rose to close it, when the starlightfell on Piquet's empty bunk.
"Ah-hah! Joe he steal some more, maybe!" he muttered, hastily drawing onhis moccasins.
Then stepping into the thongs of his snow-shoes which stood in the snowbeside the door, he hurried to the cache.
Beneath the food scaffold crouched a dark form.
"So you steal my share of de meat and hide eet, before I go, eh? Yout'ief!"
Caught in the act, Piquet rose from the provision bags as Marcel reachedhim, to take full in the face a blow backed by the concentrated fury ofthe Frenchman. Reeling back against a spruce support to the cache, thedazed half-breed sank to his snow-shoes, then, slowly struggling to hisknees, lunged wildly with his knife at the man sneering down at him.Missing, Piquet's thrust carried him head-first into the snow, his armsburied to the shoulders. In a flash, Marcel fell on the prostrate breedwith his full weight, driving both knees hard into Piquet's back. With asmothered grunt the half-breed lay limp in the snow.
"Get up, Antoine!" called Marcel, returning to the shack with Fleur, whohad left her bed under a spruce, "you fin' a cache-robber, widout fur onheem, out dere. I tak' my grub an' go."
"W'ere ees Joe?" asked the confused Beaulieu, rubbing his eyes.
"Joe, he got w'at t'ieves deserve. Go an' see."
Antoine appeared shortly, followed by the muttering Piquet.
"Ah, bo'-jo', M'sieu Carcajou! You have wake up," Jean jeered.
One of Piquet's beady eyes was swollen shut, but the other snappedevilly as he limped to his bunk.
Taking his share of the food, Marcel loaded his sled, hitched Fleur,then looked into the shack, where he found the two men arguingexcitedly.
"A'voir, Antoine! Better hide your grub or M'sieu Wolverine weel stealeet w'ile you sleep."
With an oath, Piquet was on his feet with his knife, but Beaulieu hurledhim back on his bunk and held him, as he cursed the man who stoodcoolly in the doorway, sneering at the helpless breed blocked in hisattempt at revenge.
"A'voir, Antoine!" Jean repeated, as the troubled face of Beaulieuturned to the old partner he respected, "don' let de carcajou keel youfor de grub." And ignoring the proffered hand of the hunter who followedhim out to the sled, took the trail north.
As dawn broke blue over the bald ridges to the east, Marcel raised hisset-lines and net at the lake and pushed on toward the silent hills ofthe Salmon headwaters.