In five years he heard but one kind word, received but one soft
stroke of a hand, and then he did not know what manner of things
they were. He leaped like the untamed thing he was, and his jaws
were together in a flash. It was the missionary at Sunrise, a
newcomer in the country, who spoke the kind word and gave the soft
stroke of the hand. And for six months after, he wrote no letters
home to the States, and the surgeon at McQuestion travelled two
hundred miles on the ice to save him from blood-poisoning.
Men and dogs looked askance at Batard when he drifted into their
camps and posts. The men greeted him with feet threateningly
lifted for the kick, the dogs with bristling manes and bared fangs.
Once a man did kick Batard, and Batard, with quick wolf snap,
closed his jaws like a steel trap on the man's calf and crunched
down to the bone. Whereat the man was determined to have his life,
only Black Leclere, with ominous eyes and naked hunting-knife,
stepped in between. The killing of Batard--ah, SACREDAM, THAT was
a pleasure Leclere reserved for himself. Some day it would happen,
or else--bah! who was to know? Anyway, the problem would be
solved.
For they had become problems to each other. The very breath each
drew was a challenge and a menace to the other.
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