"Well, de old men were wrong," Marcel calmly insisted, as his companions paled at the meaning of his words. "Eet ees dees year w'en you net leetle feesh, dat de rabbits die."
"No, eet ees a meestake!" they protested as the lean features of the Frenchman hardened in a bitter smile.
"On de last trip to my traps," went on the imperturbable Marcel, "I find four rabbit dead from de plague an' since de last snow I cross few fresh tracks."
"I fin' none een two days myself," echoed Antoine.
The stark truth of Marcel's contention drove itself home. At last, convinced, they gazed with blanched faces into each others' eyes from which looked fear—fear of the dread weeks of the March moon and the slow death which starvation might bring. The grim spectre which ever hovers over the winter camps in the white silences now menaced the shack on the Ghost.
Shortly, fresh rabbit tracks became rare. After years of plenty, the days of lean hunting for lynx and fox had returned. The plague, which periodically sweeps the north, would bring starvation, as well, to many a tepee of the improvident children of the snows.