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She knew now that he must understand fully what she had been trying to tell him. Bram, in his madness, had been good to her. Philip did not hesitate in the impulse of the moment. He caught Bram's hand and shook it. And Bram, his laugh dying away in a mumbling sound, seemed not to notice it.
He made no effort to analyze the confidence with which he watched for Bram. When he at last heard the curious ZIP ZIP ZIP of snowshoes approaching his blood ran no faster than it had in the preceding minutes of his expectation, so sure had he been that the man he was after would soon loom up out of the starlight.
Purposely he stood in front of Bram as he ate the raw steak, feigning a greater relish than he actually enjoyed in consuming his uncooked meal. Bram did not wait for him to finish. No sooner had he swallowed the last of his own breakfast than he was on his feet giving sharp commands to the pack. Instantly the wolves were alert in their traces.
Before Philip could raise an arm in defense his enemy had him by the throat. Back over the sledge they went. Philip scarcely knew how it happened but in another moment the giant had hurled him clean over his head and he struck the frozen plain with a shock that stunned him. When he staggered to his feet, expecting a final assault that would end him, Bram was kneeling beside his pack.
It was weird and chuckling, as though Bram was laughing at him. In the starlight Philip flung up his revolver. He did not aim to hit. Twice he fired over Bram's head and shoulders, so close that the fugitive must have heard the whine of the bullets. "Bram Bram Johnson!" he shouted a third time.
He went to the meat and began carving off chunks for the pack, and for a long time after that one would have thought that he was dumb. Philip made greater effort than ever to rouse him into speech. He laughed, and whistled, and once tried the experiment of singing a snatch of the Caribou Song which he knew that Bram must have heard many times before.
The girl, as she stood there now, seemed glad that Bram had returned; and with a heart choking him with its suspense he waited for Bram to speak, and act. When the girl ceased speaking the wolf-man's response came in a guttural cry that was like a paean of triumph. He dropped on his knees beside the dunnage bag and mumbling thickly as he worked he began emptying its contents upon the floor.
But what would they avail against that horde of beasts! They would stop them no more than so many pin-pricks. And what even would the club avail? Against two or three he might put up a fight. But against seven He cursed Bram under his breath. It was curious that in that same instant the thought flashed upon him that the wolf-man might not have fallen a victim to the Eskimos.
In that hour his nerves had been keyed to a tension that was almost at the breaking point. Not a sound came from off the Barren or from out of the scrub timber that did not hold a mental and physical shock for him. He believed that Bram and his pack would come up quietly; that he would not hear the man's footsteps or the soft pads of his beasts until they were very near.
Bram Stoker, whose recently published "Reminiscences of Irving" have told, as well as it ever can be told, the history of the Lyceum Theater under Irving's direction, was as good a servant in the front of the theater as Loveday was on the stage. Like a true Irishman, he has given me some lovely blarney in his book.
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