About noon a figure appeared in the distance; it grew, and as it approached the tall, gaunt form of Jules Verbaux was recognisable. He came directly, unerringly to the spot where he had broken his trail the night before, and he laughed as he looked on the changes that had been wrought.
“Ma foi, garçon! La tempête du Nord she get you, hein?”
He prodded about in the drifts with his sledge-stick, and struck something hard; he dug in, and found Manou’s sledge. He prodded farther, and found the bodies of the dogs buried deep.
“Seex chiens, poor beas’! Mais Manou, Ah vondaire v’ere ees he?”
He searched round, and dug in several places, but with no success. “Ah, b’en, he ees feenesh. Ah no have to faire dis!” and he drew out the long knife that glittered in the sunlight. He pried the bone runners from the other’s sledge, and fastened them to his own, on top of the load of fur it now carried, where yesterday it had been empty.
“Mush! Allez! Mush!” and the dogs scampered on.
“Manou!”—and he shook his fist at the four quarters of the horizon,—“you took my wife, you vant steal my skins, and now le diable he have you! Je suis content!”
And he followed on after the sledge with the same old easy stride.