And at night, when the white foxes yapped, and the wind moaned-- "As I have hope of paradise I swear that I saw him--alive, M'sieu," Pierre was saying again over the table.
Raine, of the Fort Churchill patrol of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, no longer smiled in disbelief.

He knew that Pierre Breault was a brave man, or he would not have perched himself alone out in the heart of the Barren to catch the white foxes; and he was not superstitious, like most of his kind, or the sobbing cries and strife of the everlasting night-winds would have driven him away.
"I swear it!" repeated Pierre.
Something that was almost eagerness was burning now in Philip's face.
He leaned over the table, his hands gripping tightly.

He was thirty-five; almost slim as Pierre himself, with eyes as steely blue as Pierre's were black.

There was a time, away back, when he wore a dress suit as no other man in the big western city where he lived; now the sleeves of his caribou skin coat were frayed and torn, his hands were knotted, in his face were the lines of storm and wind.
"It is impossible," he said.

"Bram Johnson is dead!" "He is alive, M'sieu." In Pierre's voice there was a strange tremble.
"If I had only HEARD, if I had not SEEN, you might disbelieve, M'sieu," he cried, his eyes glowing with a dark fire.