It gave him something to think about besides Neewa and his aloneness.

As the fox returns to peer stealthily upon the deadfall that has almost caught him, so the trapline was possessed now of a new thrill for Miki.

Heretofore the man-smell had held for him only a vague significance; now it marked the presence of a real and concrete danger.
And he welcomed it.

His wits were sharpened.

The fascination of the trapline was deadlier than before.
From the burned windfall he made a wide detour to a point where Le Beau's snowshoe trail entered the edge of the swamp; and here, hidden in a thick clump of bushes, he watched him as he travelled homeward half an hour later.
From that day he hung like a grim, gray ghost to the trapline.
Silent-footed, cautious, always on the alert for the danger which threatened him, he haunted Jacques Le Beau's thoughts and footsteps with the elusive persistence of a were-wolf--a loup-garou of the Black Forest.