“I am Reese Beaudin.  I am the Yellow-back.  I have returned to meet a man you all know—­Jacques Dupont.  He is a monkey-man—­a whipper of boys, a stealer of women, a cheat, a coward, a thing so foul the crows will not touch him when he dies—­”

There was a roar.  It was not the roar of a man, but of a beast—­and Jacques Dupont was on the platform!

Quick as Dupont’s movement had been it was no swifter than that of the closely-hooded stranger.  He was as tall as Dupont, and about him there was an air of authority and command.

“Wait,” he said, and placed a hand on Dupont’s heaving chest.  His smile was cold as ice.  Never had Dupont seen eyes so like the pale blue of steel.

“M’sieu Dupont, you are about to avenge a great insult.  It must be done fairly.  If you have weapons, throw them away.  I will search this—­this Reese Beaudin, as he calls himself!  And if there is to be a fight, let it be a good one.  Strip yourself to that great garment you have on, friend Dupont.  See, our friend—­this Reese Beaudin—­is already stripping!”

He was unbuttoning the giant’s heavy Hudson’s Bay coat.  He pulled it off, and drew Dupont’s knife from its sheath.  Paquette, like a stunned cat that had recovered its ninth life, was scrambling from the platform.  The Indian was already gone.  And Reese Beaudin had tossed his coat to Joe Delesse, and with it his cap.  His heavy shirt was closely buttoned; and not only was it buttoned, Delesse observed, but also was it carefully pinned.  And even now, facing that monster who would soon be at him, Reese Beaudin was smiling.

For a moment the closely hooded stranger stood between them, and Jacques Dupont crouched himself for his vengeance.  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.