Short Stories
his jaws were together in a flash. It was the missionary at Sun-
rise, 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 McQues-
tion 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 threaten-
ingly 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? An-
yway, 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. Their hate
bound them together as love could never bind. Leclere was bent
on the coming of the day when Batard should wilt in spirit and
cringe and whimper at his feet. And Batard—Leclere knew what
was in Batard's mind, and more than once had read it in Batard's
eyes. And so clearly had he read, that when Batard was at his
back, he made it a point to glance often over his shoulder.
Men marvelled when Leclere refused large money for the
dog. "Some day you'll kill him and be out his price," said John
Hamlin once, when Batard lay panting in the snow where
Leclere had kicked him, and no one knew whether his ribs were
broken, and no one dared look to see.
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