It was the _amanita_, the deadliest and the most widely distributed of the fungi, and the direst of all vegetable poisons to man and beast alike. The alkaloid which it contains takes effect only some hours after its ingestion, when it has entered the blood-streams and begun its disintegrating action upon the red corpuscles. The dogs must have partaken of it on the preceding afternoon. Jacqueline joined me. The tears were streaming down her cheeks; she slipped her arm through mine and looked mutely at me. I knew this was Leroux's work. He had tricked me again. I had seen clusters of the frozen fungus outside St. Boniface. I suppose that, when winter comes suddenly, such growths remain standing till spring thaws and rots them, retaining in the meanwhile all their noxious qualities. It would have been an easy matter for one of Leroux's agents to have cast a few handfuls of the deadly powder over the fish while the sleigh stood waiting outside Danton's door, and the jolting of the vehicle would have shaken the substance down into the middle of the heap, so that it would be three or four days before the dogs got to the poisoned fish. I was mad with anger. The white landscape seemed to swim before my eyes. I meant to kill the man now, and without mercy. I would be as unscrupulous as he. He would be in this place by the afternoon; I would wait for him outside the trail. My pistols---- Jacqueline was looking up into my face in terror. The sight of her recalled me to my senses. Leroux afterward--first my duty to her! "Paul! What is the matter, Paul?" she cried. "I never saw you look like that before." I calmed myself and led her away, and presently we were standing before the fire again. "Jacqueline," I said, "it is easier to go on than to turn back now." She watched me like a lip-reader. "Yes, Paul; let us go on," she answered. So we went on. But our journey was to be very different now. There was no possibility of taking much baggage with us. We took a few things out of our suit-cases and disposed them about us as best they could. The heavy sleeping-bags would have made our progress, encumbered as we were with our fur coats, too slow; but I had hopes that we would reach the trappers' huts that afternoon, and so decided to discard them in favour of the fur-lined sleigh-rug, which would, at least, keep Jacqueline warm. So we strapped on our snow-shoes, and I made a pack and put three days' supplies of food in it and fastened it on my shoulders, securing it with two straps from the harness. I rolled the rug into a bundle and tied it below the pack; and thus equipped, we left the dead beasts and the useless sleigh behind us for Leroux's satisfaction, and set out briskly upon our march.