Short Stories
"Dat," said Leclere, dryly, "dat is my biz'ness, M'sieu'."
And the men marvelled that Batard did not run away. They
did not understand. But Leclere understood. He was a man who
lived much in the open, beyond the sound of human tongue, and
he had learned the voices of wind and storm, the sigh of night,
the whisper of dawn, the clash of day. In a dim way he could
hear the green things growing, the running of the sap, the burst-
ing of the bud. And he knew the subtle speech of the things that
moved, of the rabbit in the snare, the moody raven beating the
air with hollow wing, the baldface shuffling under the moon, the
wolf like a grey shadow gliding betwixt the twilight and the
dark. And to him Batard spoke clear and direct. Full well he un-
derstood why Batard did not run away, and he looked more of-
ten over his shoulder.
When in anger, Batard was not nice to look upon, and more
than once had he leapt for Leclere's throat, to be stretched quiv-
ering and senseless in the snow, by the butt of the ever ready
dogwhip. And so Batard learned to bide his time. When he
reached his full strength and prime of youth, he thought the
time had come. He was broad-chested, powerfully muscled, of
far more than ordinary size, and his neck from head to shoulders
was a mass of bristling hair—to all appearances a full-blooded
wolf. Leclere was lying asleep in his furs when Batard deemed
the time to be ripe. He crept upon him stealthily, head low to
earth and lone ear laid back, with a feline softness of tread. Ba-
tard breathed gently, very gently, and not till he was close at
hand did he raise his head. He paused for a moment and looked
at the bronzed bull throat, naked and knotty, and swelling to a
deep steady pulse. The slaver dripped down his fangs and slid
off his tongue at the sight, and in that moment he remembered
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