For sport Jean had played with wounded lynx; his was the quickness of sight, of instinct--the quickness of the great north loon that had often played this same game with his rifle-fire, of the sledge-dog whose ripping fangs carried death so quickly that eyes could not follow.

A third and a fourth time he came within distance and Howland struck and missed.
"I am going to kill you," he said again.
To this point Howland had remained cool.

Self-possession in his science he knew to be half the battle.

But he felt in him now a slow, swelling anger.

The smiling flash in Jean's eyes began to irritate him; the fearless, taunting gleam of his teeth, his audacious confidence, put him on edge.