"I cannot understand," said Joe Delesse. "It was strange, m'sieu, very strange. I know that Elise, even after that coward ran away, still loved him. And yet—well, something happened. I overheard a terrible quarrel one day between Jan Thiebout, father of Elise, and Jacques Dupont. After that Thiebout was very much afraid of Dupont. I have my own suspicion. Now that Thiebout is dead it is not wrong for me to say what it is. I think Thiebout killed the halfbreed Bedore who was found dead on his trap-line five years ago. There was a feud between them. And Dupont, discovering Thiebout's secret—well, you can understand how easy it would be after that, m'sieu. Thiebout's winter trapping was in that Burntwood country, fifty miles from neighbor to neighbor, and very soon after Bedore's death Jacques Dupont became Thiebout's partner. I know that Elise was forced to marry him. That was four years ago. The next year old Thiebout died, and in all that time not once has Elise been to Post Lac Bain!"
"Like the Yellow-back—she never returned," breathed Reese Beaudin.
"Never. And now—it is strange—"
"What is strange, Joe Delesse?"
"That for the first time in all these years she is going to Lac Bain—to the dog sale."
Reese Beaudin's face was again hidden in the smoke of his pipe. Through it his voice came.
"It is a cold night, M'sieu Delesse. Hear the wind howl!"
"Yes, it is cold—so cold the foxes will not run. My traps and poison-baits will need no tending tomorrow."
"Unless you dig them out of the drifts."
"I will stay in the cabin."