"Fleur! Fleur! My poor puppy! Don't you remember Jean Marcel?"
Again the puzzled dog drew deep whiffs through her black nostrils. Back in her brain memory was at work. Slowly the soothing tones of the voice of Marcel stirred the ghosts of other days; vague hints, blurred by the cruelty of weeks, of a time when the hand of a master caressed her and did not strike, when a voice called to her as this voice--then another sniff, and she knew. With a whimper her warm tongue licked his hand, and Jean Marcel had his puppy in his arms. Mad with joy, the yelping husky strained at her rawhide bonds as her anxious master examined a great lump on her head, and her ribs, ridged with welts from kick and blow.
"So they tied her up and beat her, my Fleur? Well, she not leave Jean Marcel again. Were he go, Fleur go!"
Suddenly in his ears were hissed the words:
"W'at you do wid dat dog?" And a fierce blow on the back of the head hurled the kneeling Marcel flat on his face.
For a space he lay stunned, his numbed senses blurred beyond thought or action. Then, as his dazed brain cleared, the realization that life hung on his presence of mind, for he would receive no mercy from the thieves, held him limp on the ground as though unconscious.
Snarling curses at the crumpled body of his victim, the half-breed was busy with the joining of some rawhide thongs. Then Jean's dizziness faded. Cautiously he raised an eyelid. The breed was bending over him with a looped thong. Not a muscle moved as the Frenchman waited. Nearer leaned the thief. He reached to slip the looped rawhide over one of Marcel's outstretched hands, when, with a lunge from the ground, the arms of the latter clamped on his legs like a sprung trap. With a wrench, the surprised thief was thrown heavily.
Cat-like, the hunter was on his man, bearing him down. And then began a battle in which quarter was neither asked nor given. Heavier but slower than the younger man, the thief vainly sought to reach Marcel's throat, for the Frenchman's arms, having the under grip, blocked the half-breed from Jean's knife and his own. Over and over they rolled, locked together; so evenly matched in strength that neither could free a hand. Near them yelped Fleur, frantic with excitement, plunging at her stake.