The Brute entered, a dark and surly monster.  He was in a wicked humour.  His freshly caught furs he flung to the floor.  He pointed to them, and his eyes were narrowed to menacing slits as they fell upon her.

“He was there again—­that devil!” he growled.  “See, he has spoiled the fisher, and he has cleaned out my baits and knocked down the trap-houses.  Par les mille cornes du diable, but I will kill him!  I have sworn to cut him into bits with a knife when I catch him—­ and catch him I will, to-morrow.  See to it there—­the skins—­when you have got me something to eat.  Mend the fisher where he is torn in two, and cover the seam well with fat so that the agent over at the post will not discover it is bad.  Tonnerre de Dieu!—­that brat!  Why do you always keep his squalling until I come in?  Answer me, Bete!”

Such was his greeting.  He flung his snowshoes into a corner, stamped the snow off his feet, and got himself a fresh plug of black tobacco from a shelf over the stove.  Then he went out again, leaving the woman with a cold tremble in her heart and the wan desolation of hopelessness in her face as she set about getting him food.

From the cabin Le Beau went to his dog-pit, a corral of saplings with a shelter-shack in the centre of it.  It was The Brute’s boast that he had the fiercest pack of sledge-dogs between Hudson Bay and the Athabasca.  It was his chief quarrel with Durant, his rival farther north; and his ambition was to breed a pup that would kill the fighting husky which Durant brought down to the Post with him each winter at New Year.  This season he had chosen Netah ("The Killer”) for the big fight at God’s Lake.  On the day he would gamble his money and his reputation against Durant’s, his dog would be just one month under two years of age.  It was Netah he called from out of the pack now.

The dog slunk to him with a low growl in his throat, and for the first time something like joy shone in Le Beau’s face.  He loved to hear that growl.  He loved to see the red and treacherous glow in Netah’s eyes, and hear the menacing click of his jaws.  Whatever of nobility might have been in Netah’s blood had been clubbed out by the man.  They were alike, in that their souls were dead.  And Netah, for a dog, was a devil.  For that reason Le Beau had chosen him to fight the big fight.

Le Beau looked down at him, and drew a deep breath of satisfaction.

“Ow! but you are looking fine, Netah,” he exulted.  “I can almost see running blood in those devil-eyes of yours; oui—­red blood that smells and runs, as the blood of Durant’s POOS shall run when you sink those teeth in its jugular.  And to-morrow we are going to give you the test—­such a beautiful test!—­with the wild dog that is robbing my traps and tearing my fishers into bits.  For I will catch him, and you shall fight him until he is almost dead; and then I shall cut his heart out alive, as I have promised, and you will eat it while it is still beating, so that there will be no excuse for your losing to that POOS which M’sieu Durant will bring down.  COMPRENEZ?  It will be a beautiful test—­to-morrow.  And if you fail I will kill you.  Oui; if you so much as let a whimper out of you, I will kill you—­dead.”