For eight of the eleven months of his life the wilderness
had been his master; it had tempered him to the hardness of living
steel; it had wrought him without abeyance to age in the mould of
its pitiless schooling--had taught him to fight for his life, to
kill that he might live, and to use his brain before he used his
jaws. He was as powerful as Netah, The Killer, who was twice his
age, and with his strength he possessed a cunning and a quickness
which The Killer would never know. Thus had the raw wilderness
prepared him for this day.
As the sun fired up the forest with a cold flame Miki set off in
direction of Le Beau's trapline. He came to where Le Beau had
passed yesterday and sniffed suspiciously of the man-smell that
was still strong in the snowshoe tracks. He had become accustomed
to this smell, but he had not lost his suspicion of it. It was
repugnant to him, even as it fascinated him. It filled him with an
inexplicable fear, and yet he found himself powerless to run away
from it. Three times in the last ten days he had seen the man-
brute himself. Once he had been hiding within a dozen yards of Le
Beau when he passed.
This morning he headed straight for the swamp through which Le
Beau's traps were set.
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