"Wa! Wa! What a sight she sec there! Poor Michel he pretty near done. She can't see his face no more for blood. She think he got no face now. Michel he see her come, and say to her loud as he can: 'Go way! Go way! You get hurt and John Gaviller give me hell!'
"Colina say not know what to do. Them two turn around so fas' she 'fraid to shoot. She run aroun' and aroun' them always looking for a chance. Bam-by she see the handle of Michel's knife in a hole in the snow. She grab it up. She watch her chance. Woof! She stick that bear between the neck and the shoulder!
"That is all!" said Poly. "Bear, him grunt and fall down. Stick his snoot in the snow. Michel crawl away. Colina is fall down too and cry lak a baby. For a little while all three are dead!
"Then Colina wash his wounds with clean snow, and tear up her petticoat for to mak' bandage. She put him on his snowshoes and drag him back where the dogs is. She bring him quick to the fort. In one week Michel is go to his traps same as ever. That is the story!"
"By God, there's a woman!" cried Peter. Ambrose said nothing.
When Poly Goussard reembarked in his dug-out a heavy constraint fell upon the two partners.
Ambrose dreaded to hear Peter call attention to the remarkable coincidence of Poly's story following so close upon their own talk together. He suspected that Peter would want to sit up and thrash the matter to conclusions.
At the bare idea of talking about it Ambrose felt as helpless and sullen as a convicted felon.
In this he underrated Peter's perceptions. Peter had lived in the woods for many years. He intuitively apprehended something of the confusion in the younger man's mind, and he was only anxious to let Ambrose understand that it was not necessary to say anything one way or the other.
But he overdid it a little, and when Ambrose saw that Peter was "on to him," as he would have said, he became still more hang-dog and perverse.