Her chant of despair was heard beyond the tepee. In the smaller tents other voices took up the wail. The women were singing the death song, their primitive protest and acquiescence to what they considered the irrevocable pleasure of their dark gods. Reivers waited until the last squaw had whined herself into silence. Even then he did not speak at once. He knew that these simple people, who for his deeds had given him the expressive name of Snow-Burner, were waiting for him to speak, and he knew the value of silence upon their primitive souls. He sat with folded arms, looking above the heads of the two hunters. “You have done well,” he said, nodding impressively, but not looking at the two young men. “You have hunted as men who have the true hunter’s heart. But what can man do when the gods are against him? The gods are against you. They are not against me. To-morrow I slay you your fill of caribou.” “Snow-Burner,” whispered one of the hunters in the awe-stricken silence that followed this announcement, “there are no caribou here. Are you greater than the gods?” Reivers looked at him, and at the light in his eyes the young man drew back in fright. “To-morrow I give you your fill of meat,” he said slowly. “Not only enough for one day, but enough for all Winter. Each tepee shall be piled high with meat. Even the dogs shall eat till they want no more. I have promised. I alone. Do you—” he pointed at the hunters—“bring me to-night the two best rifles in the camp. If they do not shoot true to-morrow, do not let me find you here when I return from the hunt. And now the rest of you—all of you—go from here. Go, I will be alone.” They rose and went out obediently, except Tillie who watched Reivers’s face with avid eyes as the young girl left the tepee. Then she crawled forward and touched her forehead to his hand, for Reivers had not bestowed upon the girl a glance. Presently the hunters came back and placed their Winchesters at his feet. He examined each weapon carefully, found them in perfect order and fully loaded, and dismissed the men with a wave of his arm. Tillie sat with bowed head, humbly waiting his pleasure, but Reivers rolled himself in his blanket and lay down alone by the fire. “I wish to sleep warm,” he said. “See that the fire does not go out till the night is half gone. Be ready to go with me in the hour before daylight. Have the swiftest and strongest team of dogs and the largest sledge hitched and waiting to bear us to the hunt. Go! Now I sleep.” CHAPTER XXVIII—THE SNOW-BURNER HUNTS The snarling of dogs being put into harness awoke him in the morning, but he lay pretending to sleep until Tillie, having overseen the hitching-up, came in, prepared food over the fire, which had not gone out all night, and came timidly and laid a hand on his shoulder.