CHAPTER VIII




It must have been fully half a minute that Bram stood like a
living creature turned suddenly into dead stone. His eyes had left
Philip's face and were fixed on the woven tress of shining hair.
For the first time his thick lips had fallen agape. He did not
seem to breathe. At the end of the thirty seconds his hand
unclenched from about the whip and the club and they fell into the
snow. Slowly, his eyes still fixed on the snare as if it held for
him an overpowering fascination, he advanced a step, and then
another, until he reached out and took from Philip the thing which
he held. He uttered no word. But from his eyes there disappeared
the greenish fire. The lines in his heavy face softened and his
thick lips lost some of their cruelty as he held up the snare
before his eyes so that the light played on its sheen of gold. It
was then that Philip saw that which must have meant a smile in
Bram's face.

Still this strange man made no spoken sound as he coiled the
silken thread around one of his great fingers and then placed it
somewhere inside his coat. He seemed, all at once, utterly
oblivious of Philip's presence. He picked up the revolver, gazed