"Take your axe, Makamuk, and stand so. I shall lie down. When I raise
my hand, strike, and strike with all your might. And be careful that no
one stands behind you. The medicine is good, and the axe may bounce from
off my neck and right out of your hands."

He looked at the two sleds, with the dogs in harness, loaded with furs
and fish. His rifle lay on top of the beaver skins. The six hunters who
were to act as his guard stood by the sleds.

"Where is the girl?" the Pole demanded. "Bring her up to the sleds
before the test goes on."

When this had been carried out, Subienkow lay down in the snow, resting
his head on the log like a tired child about to sleep. He had lived so
many dreary years that he was indeed tired.

"I laugh at you and your strength, O Makamuk," he said. "Strike, and
strike hard."

He lifted his hand. Makamuk swung the axe, a broadaxe for the squaring
of logs. The bright steel flashed through the frosty air, poised for a
perceptible instant above Makamuk's head, then descended upon Subienkow's
bare neck. Clear through flesh and bone it cut its way, biting deeply
into the log beneath. The amazed savages saw the head bounce a yard away
from the blood-spouting trunk.

There was a great bewilderment and silence, while slowly it began to dawn
in their minds that there had been no medicine. The fur-thief had
outwitted them. Alone, of all their prisoners, he had escaped the
torture. That had been the stake for which he played. A great roar of