“Wolf in camp,” replied Delgezie, nursing his injured fingers.
“Why didn’t you waken me? I could have shot it,” demanded Roy.
“Guns outside,” said the old man drily.
Whipping a revolver from his hip-pocket, Roy said: “I keep this little thing for occasions like that.” Then observing that Delgezie was in pain, he added, “But what have you done to your fingers?”
Delgezie explained, and his adventure caused much amusement during the rest of the evening.
On the following morning, Delgezie, with Minnihak as guide, left the track in order to get a load of meat from a cache some distance from the camp and off the direct route to the Fort, and sitting on the sled smoking idly while the dogs ran briskly to the sound of jingling bells, Roy returned to the Fort alone.
CHAPTER XIII.
A DASTARDLY DEED.
When Broom came to himself after rushing from the scene of his violence he discovered that he had returned instinctively to the Fort.
Finding the house in darkness he groped his way across the kitchen to the inner room, where, after a little, he succeeded in finding and lighting a lamp. As its rays fell upon his features they clearly disclosed the hateful effects of his debauch, the havoc his ungovernable paroxysms of violence and passion had worked upon him. The veins of his forehead were dark and swollen, his eyes inflamed and hollow, his look that of a worn-out demon. He was still agitated, and his blood-shot eyes swept the room fiercely like a wild beast still unsatisfied. His breathing was labored and his mood still that of half-suppressed fear and rage. Frowning and irresolute, he paused after lighting the lamp, then began to pace the floor unsteadily, his pace increasing in fretful rapidity as he continued his short, irregular perambulations. At last, as if wearying of this, he stopped short and leaned his weight against the pair of sleeping-bunks.
Just then the indistinct form of a man appeared noiselessly in the doorway.