Then, suddenly, Durant lurched himself backward, and it seemed to Miki as though a giant trap of steel had closed about his neck.  Instantly his wind was cut off.  He could make no sound as he struggled frantically to free himself.  Hand over hand Durant dragged him to the bars, and there, with his feet still braced, he choked with his whole weight until—­when at last he let up on the WAHGUN—­Miki collapsed as if dead.  Ten seconds later Durant was looping a muzzle over his closed jaws.  He left the cage door open when he went back to his sledge, carrying Miki in his arms.  Nanette’s slow wits would never guess, he told himself.  She would think that Le Bete had escaped into the forest.

It was not his scheme to club Miki into serfdom, as Le Beau had failed to do.  Durant was wiser than that.  In his crude and merciless way he had come to know certain phenomena of the animal mind.  He was not a psychologist; oh the other hand brutality had not utterly blinded him.  So, instead of lashing Miki to the sledge as Le Beau had fastened him to his improvised drag, Durant made his captive comfortable, covering him with a warm blanket before he began his journey eastward.  He made sure, however, that there was no flaw in the muzzle about Miki’s jaws, and that the free end of the chain to which he was still fastened was well hitched to the Gee-bar of his sledge.

When these things were done Durant set off in the direction of Fort O’ God, and if Jacques Le Beau could have seen him then he would have had good reason to guess at his elation.  By taint of birth and blood Durant was a gambler first, and a trapper afterward.  He set his traps that he might have the thrill of wagering his profits, and for half a dozen successive years he had won at the big annual dog fight at Post Fort O’ God.  But this year he had been half afraid.  His fear had not been of Jacques Le Beau and Netah, but of the halfbreed away over on Red Belly Lake.  Grouse Piet was the halfbreed’s name, and the “dog” that he was going to put up at the fight was half wolf.  Therefore, in the foolish eagerness of his desire, had Durant offered two cross foxes and ten reds—­the price of five dogs and not one—­for the possession of Le Beau’s wild dog.  And now that he had him for nothing, and Nanette was poorer by twelve skins, he was happy.  For he had now a good match for Grouse Piet’s half wolf, and he would chance his money and his credit at the Post to the limit.

When Miki came back to his senses Durant stopped his dogs, for he had been watching closely for this moment.  He bent over the sledge and began talking, not in Le Beau’s brutal way, but in a careless chummy sort of voice, and with his mittened hand he patted his captive’s head.  This was a new thing to Miki, for he knew that it was not the hand of Nanette, but of a man-beast, and the softness of his nest in the blanket, over which Henri had thrown a bear skin, was also new.  A short time ago he was frozen and