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diff --git a/old/53929-0.txt b/old/53929-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c172a67..0000000 --- a/old/53929-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6923 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Baree, Son of Kazan, by James Oliver Curwood - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Baree, Son of Kazan - -Author: James Oliver Curwood - -Illustrator: Frank B. Hoffman - -Release Date: January 9, 2017 [EBook #53929] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BAREE, SON OF KAZAN *** - - - - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR - - The Courage of Captain Plum - The Honor of the Big Snows - The Gold Hunters - The Wolf Hunters - The Danger Trail - Philip Steele - The Great Lakes - Flower of the North - Isobel - Kazan - God’s Country—and the Woman - The Hunted Woman - The Grizzly King - Baree, Son of Kazan - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -[Illustration: Baree had not killed, but he had conquered. His first -great day—or night—had come. The world was filled with a new promise for -him, as vast as the night itself.] - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - BAREE, SON OF KAZAN - - BY - JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD - - ILLUSTRATED BY - FRANK B. HOFFMAN - - Garden City New York - DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY - 1917 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - Copyright, 1917, by - Doubleday, Page & Company - - All rights reserved, including that of - translation into foreign languages, - including the Scandinavian - - COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE RED BOOK CORPORATION - UNDER THE TITLE “A SON OF KAZAN” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - PREFACE - -Since the publication of my two animal books, “Kazan” and “The Grizzly -King,” I have received so many hundreds of letters from friends of wild -animal life, all of which were more or less of an enquiring nature, that -I have been encouraged to incorporate in this preface of the third of my -series—“Baree, Son of Kazan”—something more of my desire and hope in -writing of wild life, and something of the foundation of fact whereupon -this and its companion books have been written. - -I have always disliked the preaching of sermons in the pages of romance. -It is like placing a halter about an unsuspecting reader’s neck and -dragging him into paths for which he may have no liking. But if fact and -truth produce in the reader’s mind a message for himself, then a work -has been done. That is what I hope for in my nature books. The American -people are not and never have been lovers of wild life. As a nation we -have gone after Nature with a gun. - -And what right, you may ask, has a confessed slaughterer of wild life -such as I have been to complain? None at all, I assure you. I have -twenty-seven guns—and I have used them all. I stand condemned as having -done more than my share toward extermination. But that does not lessen -the fact that I have learned; and in learning I have come to believe -that if boys and girls and men and women could be brought into the homes -and lives of wild birds and animals as their homes are made and their -lives are lived we would all understand at last that wherever a heart -beats it is very much like our own in the final analysis of things. To -see a bird singing on a twig means but little; but to live a season with -that bird, to be with it in courting days, in matehood and motherhood, -to understand its griefs as well as its gladness means a great deal. And -in my books it is my desire to tell of the lives of the wild things -which I know as they are actually lived. It is not my desire to humanize -them. If we are to love wild animals so much that we do not want to kill -them we _must know them as they actually live_. And in their lives, in -the _facts_ of their lives, there is so much of real and honest romance -and tragedy, so much that makes them akin to ourselves that the animal -biographer need not step aside from the paths of actuality to hold one’s -interest. - -Perhaps rather tediously I have come to the few words I want to say -about Baree, the hero of this book. Baree, after all, is only another -Kazan. For it was Kazan I found in the way I have described—a bad dog, a -killer about to be shot to death by his master when chance, and my own -faith in him, gave him to me. - -We travelled together for many thousands of miles through the -northland—on trails to the Barren Lands, to Hudson’s Bay and to the -Arctic. Kazan, the bad dog, the half-wolf, the killer—was the best -four-legged friend I ever had. He died near Fort MacPherson, on the Peel -River, and is buried there. And Kazan was the father of Baree; Gray -Wolf, the full-blooded wolf was his mother. Nepeese, The Willow, still -lives near God’s Lake; and it was in the country of Nepeese and her -father that for three lazy months I watched the doings at Beaver Town, -and went on fishing trips with Wakayoo, the bear. Sometimes I have -wondered if old Beaver Tooth himself did not in some way understand that -I had made his colony safe for his people. It was Pierrot’s trapping -ground; and to Pierrot—father of Nepeese—I gave my best rifle on his -word that he would not harm my beaver friends for two years. And the -people of Pierrot’s breed keep their word. Wakayoo, Baree’s big bear -friend is dead. He was killed as I have described, in that “pocket” -among the ridges, while I was on a jaunt to Beaver Town. We were -becoming good friends and I missed him a great deal. The story of -Pierrot and of his princess wife, Wyola, is true; they are buried side -by side under the tall spruce that stood near their cabin. Pierrot’s -murderer, instead of dying as I have told it, was killed in his attempt -to escape the Royal Mounted farther west. When I last saw Baree he was -at Lac Seul House, where I was the guest of Mr. William Patterson, the -factor; and the last word I heard from him was through my good friend -Frank Aldous, factor at White Dog Post, who wrote me only a few weeks -ago that he had recently seen Nepeese and Baree and the husband of -Nepeese, and that the happiness he found in their far wilderness home -made him regret that he was a bachelor. I feel sorry for Aldous. He is a -splendid young Englishman, unattached, and some day I am going to try -and marry him off. I have in mind some one at the present moment—a -fox-trapper’s daughter up near the Barren, very pretty, and educated at -a Missioner’s school; and as Aldous is going with me on my next trip I -may have something to say about them in the book that is to follow -“Baree, Son of Kazan.” - - James Oliver Curwood. - - Owosso, Michigan, - June 12, 1917. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - Baree had not killed, but he had conquered. His first great day—or - night—had come _Frontispiece_ - - Nepeese, the trapper’s daughter, known to the forest men as “The - Willow,” who became a big factor in the life of the pup Baree - - Baree stood still. Nepeese was not more than twenty feet from him. - She sat on a rock, full in the early morning sun - - With an oath McTaggart snatched his revolver from its holster. The - Willow was ahead of him - - The Willow rose slowly to her feet and looked at Pierrot. Her eyes - were big and dark and steady - - When Baree joined the pack, a maddened, mouth-frothing, snarling - horde, Napamoos, the young caribou bull, was well out in the river - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - BAREE, SON OF KAZAN - - - - - CHAPTER I - - -To Baree, for many days after he was born, the world was a vast gloomy -cavern. - -During these first days of his life his home was in the heart of a great -windfall where Gray Wolf, his blind mother, had found a safe nest for -his babyhood, and to which Kazan, her mate, came only now and then, his -eyes gleaming like strange balls of greenish fire in the darkness. It -was Kazan’s eyes that gave to Baree his first impression of something -existing away from his mother’s side, and they brought to him also his -discovery of vision. He could feel, he could smell, he could hear—but in -that black pit under the fallen timber he had never _seen_ until the -eyes came. At first they frightened him; then they puzzled him, and his -fear changed to an immense curiosity. He would be looking straight at -them, when all at once they would disappear. This was when Kazan turned -his head. And then they would flash back at him again out of the -darkness with such startling suddenness that Baree would involuntarily -shrink closer to his mother, who always trembled and shivered in a -strange sort of way when Kazan came in. - -Baree, of course, would never know their story. He would never know that -Gray Wolf, his mother, was a full-blooded wolf, and that Kazan, his -father, was a dog. In him nature was already beginning its wonderful -work, but it would never go beyond certain limitations. It would tell -him, in time, that his beautiful wolf-mother was blind, but he would -never know of that terrible battle between Gray Wolf and the lynx in -which his mother’s sight had been destroyed. Nature could tell him -nothing of Kazan’s merciless vengeance, of the wonderful years of their -matehood, of their loyalty, their strange adventures in the great -Canadian wilderness—it could make him only a son of Kazan. - -But at first, and for many days, it was all mother. Even after his eyes -had opened wide and he had found his legs so that he could stumble about -a little in the darkness, nothing existed for Baree but his mother. When -he was old enough to be playing with sticks and moss out in the -sunlight, he still did not know what she looked like. But to him she was -big and soft and warm, and she licked his face with her tongue, and -talked to him in a gentle, whimpering way that at last made him find his -own voice in a faint, squeaky yap. - -And then came that wonderful day when the greenish balls of fire that -were Kazan’s eyes came nearer and nearer, a little at a time, and very -cautiously. Heretofore Gray Wolf had warned him back. To be alone was -the first law of her wild breed during mothering-time. A low snarl from -her throat, and Kazan had always stopped. But on this day the snarl did -not come. In Gray Wolf’s throat it died away in a low, whimpering sound. -A note of loneliness, of gladness, of a great yearning. “It is all right -now,” she was saying to Kazan; and Kazan—pausing for a moment to make -sure—replied with an answering note deep in his throat. - -Still slowly, as if not quite sure of what he would find, Kazan came to -them, and Baree snuggled closer to his mother. He heard Kazan as he -dropped down heavily on his belly close to Gray Wolf. He was -unafraid—and mightily curious. And Kazan, too, was curious. He sniffed. -In the gloom his ears were alert. After a little Baree began to move. An -inch at a time he dragged himself away from Gray Wolf’s side. Every -muscle in her lithe body tensed. Again her wolf blood was warning her. -There was danger for Baree. Her lips drew back, baring her fangs. Her -throat trembled, but the note in it never came. Out of the darkness two -yards away came a soft, puppyish whine, and the caressing sound of -Kazan’s tongue. - -Baree had felt the thrill of his first great adventure. He had -discovered his father. - -This all happened in the third week of Baree’s life. He was just -eighteen days old when Gray Wolf allowed Kazan to make the acquaintance -of his son. If it had not been for Gray Wolf’s blindness and the memory -of that day on the Sun Rock when the lynx had destroyed her eyes, she -would have given birth to Baree in the open, and his legs would have -been quite strong. He would have known the sun and the moon and the -stars; he would have realized what the thunder meant, and would have -seen the lightning flashing in the sky. But as it was, there had been -nothing for him to do in that black cavern under the windfall but -stumble about a little in the darkness, and lick with his tiny red -tongue the raw bones that were strewn about them. Many times he had been -left alone. He had heard his mother come and go, and nearly always it -had been in response to a yelp from Kazan that came to them like a -distant echo. He had never felt a very strong desire to follow until -this day when Kazan’s big, cool tongue caressed his face. In those -wonderful seconds nature was at work. His instinct was not quite born -until then. And when Kazan went away, leaving them alone in darkness, -Baree whimpered for him to come back, just as he had cried for his -mother when now and then she had left him in response to her mate’s -call. - -The sun was straight above the forest when, an hour or two after Kazan’s -visit, Gray Wolf slipped away. Between Baree’s nest and the top of the -windfall were forty feet of jammed and broken timber through which not a -ray of light could break. This blackness did not frighten him, for he -had yet to learn the meaning of light. Day, and not night, was to fill -him with his first great terror. So quite fearlessly, with a yelp for -his mother to wait for him, he began to follow. If Gray Wolf heard him, -she paid no attention to his call, and the scrape of her claws on the -dead timber died swiftly away. - -This time Baree did not stop at the eight-inch log which had always shut -in his world in that particular direction. He clambered to the top of it -and rolled over on the other side. Beyond this was vast adventure, and -he plunged into it courageously. - -It took him a long time to make the first twenty yards. Then he came to -a log worn smooth by the feet of Gray Wolf and Kazan, and stopping every -few feet to send out a whimpering call for his mother, he made his way -farther and farther along it. As he went, there grew slowly a curious -change in this world of his. He had known nothing but blackness. And now -this blackness seemed breaking itself up into strange shapes and -shadows. Once he caught the flash of a fiery streak above him—a gleam of -sunshine—and it startled him so that he flattened himself down upon the -log and did not move for half a minute. Then he went on. An ermine -squeaked under him. He heard the swift rustling of a squirrel’s feet, -and a curious _whut-whut-whut_ that was not at all like any sound his -mother had ever made. He was off the trail. - -The log was no longer smooth, and it was leading him upward higher and -higher into the tangle of the windfall, and was growing narrower every -foot he progressed. He whined. His soft little nose sought vainly for -the warm scent of his mother. The end came suddenly when he lost his -balance and fell. He let out a piercing cry of terror as he felt himself -slipping, and then plunged downward. He must have been high up in the -windfall, for to Baree it was a tremendous fall. His soft little body -thumped from log to log as he shot this way and that, and when at last -he stopped, there was scarcely a breath left in him. But he stood up -quickly on his four trembling legs—and blinked. - -A new terror held Baree rooted there. In an instant the whole world had -changed. It was a flood of sunlight. Everywhere he looked he could see -strange things. But it was the sun that frightened him most. It was his -first impression of fire, and it made his eyes smart. He would have -slunk back into the friendly gloom of the windfall, but at this moment -Gray Wolf came around the end of a great log, followed by Kazan. She -muzzled Baree joyously, and Kazan in a most doglike fashion wagged his -tail. This mark of the dog was to be a part of Baree. Half wolf, he -would always wag his tail. He tried to wag it now. Perhaps Kazan saw the -effort, for he emitted a muffled yelp of approbation as he sat back on -his haunches. - -Or he might have been saying to Gray Wolf: - -“Well, we’ve got the little rascal out of that windfall at last, haven’t -we?” - -For Baree it had been a great day. He had discovered his father—and the -world. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - -And it was a wonderful world—a world of vast silence, empty of -everything but the creatures of the wild. The nearest Hudson’s Bay post -was a hundred miles away, and the first town of civilization was a -straight three hundred to the south. Two years before, Tusoo, the Cree -trapper, had called this his domain. It had come down to him, as was the -law of the forests, through generations of forefathers; but Tusoo had -been the last of his worn-out family; he had died of smallpox, and his -wife and his children had died with him. Since then no human foot had -taken up his trails. The lynx had multiplied. The moose and caribou had -gone unhunted by man. The beaver had built their homes undisturbed. The -tracks of the black bear were as thick as the tracks of the deer farther -south. And where once the deadfalls and poison-baits of Tusoo had kept -the wolves thinned down, there was no longer a menace for these -_mohekuns_ of the wilderness. - -Following the sun of this first wonderful day came the moon and the -stars of Baree’s first real night. It was a splendid night, and with it -a full red moon sailed up over the forests, flooding the earth with a -new kind of light, softer and more beautiful to Baree. The wolf was -strong in him, and he was restless. He had slept that day in the warmth -of the sun, but he could not sleep in this glow of the moon. He nosed -uneasily about Gray Wolf, who lay flat on her belly, her beautiful head -alert, listening yearningly to the night sounds, and for the tonguing of -Kazan, who had slunk away like a shadow to hunt. - -Half a dozen times, as Baree wandered about near the windfall, he heard -a soft whir over his head, and once or twice he saw gray shadows -floating swiftly through the air. They were the big northern owls -swooping down to investigate him, and if he had been a rabbit instead of -a wolf-dog whelp, his first night under the moon and stars would have -been his last; for unlike Wapoos, the rabbit, he was not cautious. Gray -Wolf did not watch him closely. Instinct told her that in these forests -there was no great danger for Baree except at the hands of man. In his -veins ran the blood of the wolf. He was a hunter of all other wild -creatures, but no other creature, either winged or fanged, hunted him. - -In a way Baree sensed this. He was not afraid of the owls. He was not -afraid of the strange blood-curdling cries they made in the black -spruce-tops. But once fear entered into him, and he scurried back to his -mother. It was when one of the winged hunters of the air swooped down on -a snowshoe rabbit, and the squealing agony of the doomed creature set -his heart thumping like a little hammer. He felt in those cries the -nearness of that one ever-present tragedy of the wild—death. He felt it -again that night when, snuggled close to Gray Wolf, he listened to the -fierce outcry of a wolf-pack that was close on the heels of a young -caribou bull. And the meaning of it all, and the wild thrill of it all, -came home to him early in the gray dawn when Kazan returned, holding -between his jaws a huge rabbit that was still kicking and squirming with -life. - -This rabbit was the climax in the first chapter of Baree’s education. It -was as if Gray Wolf and Kazan had planned it all out, so that he might -receive his first instruction in the art of killing. When Kazan had -dropped it, Baree approached the big hare cautiously. The back of -Wapoos, the rabbit, was broken. His round eyes were glazed, and he had -ceased to feel pain. But to Baree, as he dug his tiny teeth into the -heavy fur under Wapoos’s throat, the hare was very much alive. The teeth -did not go through into the flesh. With puppyish fierceness Baree hung -on. He thought that he was killing. He could feel the dying convulsions -of Wapoos. He could hear the last gasping breaths leaving the warm body, -and he snarled and tugged until finally he fell back with a mouthful of -fur. When he returned to the attack, Wapoos was quite dead, and Baree -continued to bite and snarl until Gray Wolf came with her sharp fangs -and tore the rabbit to pieces. After that followed the feast. - -So Baree came to understand that to eat meant to kill, and as other days -and nights passed, there grew in him swiftly the hunger for flesh. In -this he was the true wolf. From Kazan he had taken other and stronger -inheritances of the dog. He was magnificently black, which in later days -gave him the name of _Kusketa Mohekun_—the black wolf. On his breast was -a white star. His right ear was tipped with white. His tail, at six -weeks, was bushy and hung low. It was a wolf’s tail. His ears were Gray -Wolf’s ears—sharp, short, pointed, always alert. His fore-shoulders gave -promise of being splendidly like Kazan’s, and when he stood up he was -like the trace dog, except that he always stood _sidewise_ to the point -or object he was watching. This, again, was the wolf, for a dog faces -the direction in which he is looking intently. - -One brilliant night, when Baree was two months old, and when the sky was -filled with stars and a June moon so bright that it seemed scarcely -higher than the tall spruce-tops, Baree settled back on his haunches and -howled. It was a first effort. But there was no mistake in the note of -it. It was the wolf-howl. But a moment later when Baree slunk up to -Kazan, as if deeply ashamed of his effort, he was wagging his tail in an -unmistakably apologetic manner. And this again was the dog. If Tusoo, -the dead Indian trapper, could have seen him then, he would have judged -him by that wagging of his tail. It revealed the fact that deep in his -heart—and in his soul, if we can concede that he had one—Baree was dog. - -In another way Tusoo would have found judgment of him. At two months the -wolf whelp has forgotten how to play. He is a slinking part of the -wilderness, already at work preying on creatures smaller and more -helpless than himself. Baree still played. In his excursions away from -the windfall he had never gone farther than the creek, a hundred yards -from where his mother lay. He had helped to tear many dead and dying -rabbits into pieces; he believed, if he thought upon the matter at all, -that he was exceedingly fierce and courageous. But it was his ninth week -before he felt his spurs and fought his terrible battle with the young -owl in the edge of the thick forest. - -The fact that Oohoomisew, the big snow-owl, had made her nest in a -broken stub not far from the windfall was destined to change the whole -course of Baree’s life, just as the blinding of Gray Wolf had changed -hers, and a man’s club had changed Kazan’s. The creek ran close past the -stub, which had been shriven by lightning; and this stub stood in a -still, dark place in the forest, surrounded by tall, black spruce and -enveloped in gloom even in broad day. Many times Baree had gone to the -edge of this mysterious bit of forest and had peered in curiously, and -with a growing desire. - -On this day of his great battle its lure was over-powering. Little by -little he entered into it, his eyes shining brightly and his ears alert -for the slightest sounds that might come out of it. His heart beat -faster. The gloom enveloped him more. He forgot the windfall and Kazan -and Gray Wolf. Here before him lay the thrill of adventure. He heard -stranger sounds, but very soft sounds, as if made by padded feet and -downy wings, and they filled him with a thrilling expectancy. Under his -feet there were no grass or weeds or flowers, but a wonderful brown -carpet of soft evergreen needles. They felt good to his feet, and were -so velvety that he could not hear his own movement. - -He was fully three hundred yards from the windfall when he passed -Oohoomisew’s stub and into a thick growth of young balsams. And -there—directly in his path—crouched the monster! - -Papayuchisew (Young Owl) was not more than a third as large as Baree. -But he was a terrifying looking object. To Baree he seemed all head and -eyes. He could see nobody at all. Kazan had never brought in anything -like this, and for a full half-minute he remained very quiet, eyeing it -speculatively. Papayuchisew did not move a feather. But as Baree -advanced, a cautious step at a time, the bird’s eyes grew bigger and the -feathers about his head ruffled up as if stirred by a bit of wind. He -came of a fighting family, this little Papayuchisew—a savage, fearless, -and killing family—and even Kazan would have taken note of those -ruffling feathers. - -With a space of two feet between them, the pup and the owlet eyed each -other. In that moment, if Gray Wolf could have seen, she might have said -to Baree: “Use your legs—and run!” And Oohoomisew, the old owl, might -have said to Papayuchisew: “You little fool—use your wings and fly!” - -They did neither—and the fight began. - -Papayuchisew started it, and with a single wild yelp Baree went back in -a heap, the owlet’s beak fastened like a red-hot vise in the soft flesh -at the end of his nose. That one yelp of surprise and pain was Baree’s -first and last cry in the fight. The wolf surged in him; rage and the -desire to kill possessed him. As Papayuchisew hung on, he made a curious -hissing sound; and as Baree rolled and gnashed his teeth and fought to -free himself from that amazing grip on his nose, fierce little snarls -rose out of his throat. - -For fully a minute Baree had no use of his jaws. Then, by accident, he -wedged Papayuchisew in a crotch of a low ground-shrub, and a bit of his -nose gave way. He might have run then, but instead of that he was back -at the owlet like a flash. Flop went Papayuchisew on his back, and Baree -buried his needle-like teeth in the bird’s breast. It was like trying to -bite through a pillow, the feathers were so close and thick. Deeper and -deeper Baree sank his fangs, and just as they were beginning to prick -the owlet’s skin, Papayuchisew—jabbing a little blindly with a beak that -snapped sharply every time it closed—got him by the ear. - -The pain of that hold was excruciating to Baree, and he made a more -desperate effort to get his teeth through his enemy’s thick armour of -feathers. In the struggle they rolled under the low balsams to the edge -of the ravine through which ran the creek. Over the steep edge they -plunged, and as they rolled and bumped to the bottom, Baree loosed his -hold. Papayuchisew hung valiantly on, and when they reached the bottom -he still had his grip on Baree’s ear. - -Baree’s nose was bleeding; his ear felt as if it were being pulled from -his head; and in this uncomfortable moment a newly awakened instinct -made Baby Papayuchisew discover his wings as a fighting asset. An owl -has never really begun to fight until he uses his wings, and with a -joyous hissing, Papayuchisew began beating his antagonist so fast and so -viciously that Baree was dazed. He was compelled to close his eyes, and -he snapped blindly. For the first time since the battle began he felt a -strong inclination to get away. He tried to tear himself free with his -forepaws, but Papayuchisew—slow to reason but of firm conviction—hung to -Baree’s ear like grim fate. - -At this critical point, when the understanding of defeat was forming -itself swiftly in Baree’s mind, chance saved him. His fangs closed on -one of the owlet’s tender feet. Papayuchisew gave a sudden squeak. The -ear was free at last—and with a snarl of triumph Baree gave a vicious -tug at Papayuchisew’s leg. - -In the excitement of battle he had not heard the rushing tumult of the -creek close under them, and over the edge of a rock Papayuchisew and he -went together, the chill water of the rain-swollen stream muffling a -final snarl and a final hiss of the two little fighters. - - - - - CHAPTER III - - -To Papayuchisew, after his first mouthful of water, the stream was -almost as safe as the air, for he went sailing down it with the -lightness of a gull, wondering in his slow-thinking big head why he was -moving so swiftly and so pleasantly without any effort of his own. - -To Baree it was a different matter. He went down almost like a stone. A -mighty roaring filled his ears; it was dark, suffocating, terrible. In -the swift current he was twisted over and over. For twenty feet he was -under water. Then he rose to the surface and desperately began using his -legs. It was of little use. He had only time to blink once or twice and -catch a lungful of air when he shot into a current that was running like -a millrace between the butts of two fallen trees, and for another twenty -feet the sharpest eyes could not have seen hair or hide of him. He came -up again at the edge of a shallow riffle over which the water ran like -the rapids at Niagara in miniature, and for fifty or sixty yards he was -flung along like a hairy ball. From this he was hurled into a deep, cold -pool; and then—half dead—he found himself crawling out on a gravelly -bar. - -For a long time Baree lay there in a pool of sunlight without moving. -His ear hurt him; his nose was raw, and burned as if he had thrust it -into fire. His legs and body were sore, and as he began to wander along -the gravel bar, he was the most wretched pup in the world. He was also -completely turned around. In vain he looked about him for some familiar -mark—something that might guide him back to his windfall home. -Everything was strange. He did not know that the water had flung him out -on the wrong side of the stream, and that to reach the windfall he would -have to cross it again. He whined, but that was as loud as his voice -rose. Gray Wolf could have heard his barking, for the windfall was not -more than two hundred and fifty yards up the stream. But the wolf in -Baree held him silent, except for his low whining. - -Striking the main shore, Baree began going downstream. This was away -from the windfall, and each step that he took carried him farther and -farther from home. Every little while he stopped and listened. The -forest was deeper. It was growing blacker and more mysterious. Its -silence was frightening. At the end of half an hour Baree would even -have welcomed Papayuchisew. And he would not have fought him—he would -have inquired, if possible, the way back home. - -Baree was fully three quarters of a mile from the windfall when he came -to a point where the creek split itself into two channels. He had but -one choice to follow—the stream that flowed a little south and east. -This stream did not run swiftly. It was not filled with shimmering -riffles, and rocks about which the water sang and foamed. It grew black, -like the forest. It was still and deep. Without knowing it, Baree was -burying himself deeper and deeper into Tusoo’s old trapping-grounds. -Since Tusoo had died, they had lain undisturbed except for the wolves, -for Gray Wolf and Kazan had not hunted on this side of the waterway—and -the wolves themselves preferred the more open country for the chase. - -Suddenly Baree found himself at the edge of a deep, dark pool in which -the water lay still as oil, and his heart nearly jumped out of his body -when a great, sleek, shining creature sprang out from almost under his -nose and landed with a tremendous splash in the centre of it. It was -Nekik, the otter. - -The otter had not heard Baree, and in another moment Napanekik, his -wife, came sailing out of a patch of gloom, and behind her came three -little otters, leaving behind them four shimmering wakes in the -oily-looking water. What happened after that made Baree forget for a few -minutes that he was lost. Nekik had disappeared under the surface, and -now he came up directly under his unsuspecting mate with a force that -lifted her half out of the water. Instantly he was gone again, and -Napanekik took after him fiercely. To Baree it did not look like play. -Two of the baby otters had pitched on the third, which seemed to be -fighting desperately. The chill and ache went out of Baree’s body. His -blood ran excitedly; he forgot himself, and let out a bark. In a flash -the otters disappeared. For several minutes the water in the pool -continued to rock and heave—and that was all. After a little, Baree drew -himself back into the bushes and went on. - -It was about three o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun should still -have been well up in the sky. But it was growing darker steadily, and -the strangeness and fear of it all lent greater speed to Baree’s legs. -He stopped every little while to listen, and at one of these intervals -he heard a sound that drew from him a responsive and joyous whine. It -was a distant howl—a wolf’s howl—straight ahead of him. Baree was not -thinking of wolves but of Kazan, and he ran through the gloom of the -forest until he was winded. Then he stopped and listened a long time. -The wolf-howl did not come again. Instead of it there rolled up from the -west a deep and thunderous rumble. Through the treetops there flashed a -vivid streak of lightning. A moaning whisper of wind rode in advance of -the storm; the thunder grew nearer; and a second flash of lightning -seemed searching Baree out where he stood shivering under a canopy of -great spruce. This was his second storm. The first had frightened him -terribly, and he had crawled far back into the shelter of the windfall. -The best he could find now was a hollow under a big root, and into this -he slunk, crying softly. It was a babyish cry, a cry for his mother, for -home, for warmth, for something soft and protecting to nestle up to; and -as he cried, the storm burst over the forest. - -Baree had never before heard so much noise, and he had never seen the -lightning play in such sheets of fire as when this June deluge fell. It -seemed at times as though the whole world were aflame, and the earth -seemed to shake and roll under the crashes of the thunder. He ceased his -crying and made himself as small as he could under the root, which -protected him partly from the terrific beat of the rain which came down -through the treetops in a flood. It was now so black that except when -the lightning ripped great holes in the gloom he could not see the -spruce-trunks twenty feet away. Twice that distance from Baree there was -a huge dead stub that stood out like a ghost each time the fires swept -the sky, as if defying the flaming hands up there to strike—and strike, -at last, one of them did! A bluish tongue of snapping flame ran down the -old stub; and as it touched the earth, there came a tremendous explosion -above the treetops. The massive stub shivered, and then it broke asunder -as if cloven by a gigantic axe. It crashed down so close to Baree that -earth and sticks flew about him, and he let out a wild yelp of terror as -he tried to crowd himself deeper into the shallow hole under the root. - -With the destruction of the old stub the thunder and lightning seemed to -have vented their malevolence. The thunder passed on into the south and -east like the rolling of ten thousand heavy cart-wheels over the roofs -of the forest, and the lightning went with it. The rain fell steadily. -The hole in which he had taken shelter was soppy. He was drenched; his -teeth chattered as he waited for the next thing to happen. - -It was a long wait. When the rain stopped, and the sky cleared, it was -night. Through the tops of the trees Baree could have seen the stars if -he had poked out his head and looked upward. But he clung to his hole. -Hour after hour passed. Exhausted, half drowned, footsore, and hungry, -he did not move. At last he fell into a troubled sleep, a sleep in which -every now and then he cried softly and forlornly for his mother. When he -ventured out from under the root it was morning, and the sun was -shining. - -At first Baree could hardly stand. His legs were cramped; every bone in -his body seemed out of joint; his ear was stiff where the blood had -oozed out of it and hardened, and when he tried to wrinkle his wounded -nose, he gave a sharp little yap of pain. If such a thing were possible, -he looked even worse than he felt. His hair had dried in muddy patches; -he was dirt-stained from end to end; and where yesterday he had been -plump and shiny, he was now as thin and wretched as misfortune could -possibly make him. And he was hungry. He had never before known what it -meant to be really hungry. - -When he went on, continuing in the direction he had been following -yesterday, he slunk along in a disheartened sort of way. His head and -ears were no longer alert, and his curiosity was gone. He was not only -stomach-hungry: mother-hunger rose above his physical yearning for -something to eat. He wanted his mother as he had never wanted her before -in his life. He wanted to snuggle his shivering little body close up to -her and feel the warm caressing of her tongue and listen to the -mothering whine of her voice. And he wanted Kazan, and the old windfall, -and that big blue spot that was in the sky right over it. While he -followed again along the edge of the creek, he whimpered for them as a -child might grieve. - -The forest grew more open after a time, and this cheered him up a -little. Also the warmth of the sun was taking the ache out of his body. -He grew hungrier and hungrier. He had depended entirely on Kazan and -Gray Wolf for food. His parents had, in some ways, made a great baby of -him. Gray Wolf’s blindness accounted for this, for since his birth she -had not taken up her hunting with Kazan, and it was quite natural that -Baree should stick close to her, though more than once he had been -filled with a great yearning to follow his father. Nature was hard at -work trying to overcome its handicap now. It was struggling to impress -on Baree that the time had now come when he must seek his own food. The -fact impinged itself upon him slowly but steadily, and he began to think -of the three or four shellfish he had caught and devoured on the stony -creek-bar near the windfall. He also remembered the open clam-shell he -had found, and the lusciousness of the tender morsel inside it. A new -excitement began to possess him. He became, all at once, a hunter. - -With the thinning out of the forest the creek grew more shallow. It ran -again over bars of sand and stones, and Baree began to nose along the -edge of these. For a long time he had no success. The few crayfish that -he saw were exceedingly lively and elusive, and all the clam-shells were -shut so tight that even Kazan’s powerful jaws would have had difficulty -in smashing them. It was almost noon when he caught his first crayfish, -about as big as a man’s forefinger. He devoured it ravenously. The taste -of food gave him fresh courage. He caught two more crayfish during the -afternoon. It was almost dusk when he stirred a young rabbit out from -under a cover of grass. If he had been a month older, he could have -caught it. He was still very hungry, for three crayfish—scattered -through the day—had not done much to fill the emptiness that was growing -steadily in him. - -With the approach of night Baree’s fears and great loneliness returned. -Before the day had quite gone he found himself a shelter under a big -rock, where there was a warm, soft bed of sand. Since his fight with -Papayuchisew, he had travelled a long distance, and the rock under which -he made his bed this night was at least eight or nine miles from the -windfall. It was in the open of the creek-bottom, with the dark forest -of spruce and cedars close on either side; and when the moon rose, and -the stars filled the sky, Baree could look out and see the water of the -stream shimmering in a glow almost as bright as day. Directly in front -of him, running to the water’s edge, was a broad carpet of white sand. -Across this sand, half an hour later, came a huge black bear. - -Until Baree had seen the otters at play in the creek, his conceptions of -the forests had not gone beyond his own kind, and such creatures as owls -and rabbits and small feathered things. The otters had not frightened -him, because he still measured things by size, and Nekik was not half as -big as Kazan. But the bear was a monster beside which Kazan would have -stood a mere pigmy. He was big. If nature was taking this way of -introducing Baree to the fact that there were more important creatures -in the forests than dogs and wolves and owls and crayfish, she was -driving the point home with a little more than necessary emphasis. For -Wakayoo, the bear, weighed six hundred pounds if he weighed an ounce. He -was fat and sleek from a month’s feasting on fish. His shiny coat was -like black velvet in the moonlight, and he walked with a curious rolling -motion with his head hung low. The horror grew when he stopped broadside -in the carpet of sand not more than ten feet from the rock under which -Baree was shivering as if he had the ague. - -It was quite evident that Wakayoo had caught scent of him in the air. -Baree could hear him sniff—could hear his breathing—caught the starlight -flashing in his reddish-brown eyes as they swung suspiciously toward the -big boulder. If Baree could have known then that _he_—his insignificant -little self—was making that monster actually nervous and uneasy, he -would have given a yelp of joy. For Wakayoo, in spite of his size, was -somewhat of a coward when it came to wolves. And Baree carried the -wolf-scent. It grew stronger in Wakayoo’s nose; and just then, as if to -increase whatever nervousness was growing in him, there came from out of -the forest behind him a long and wailing howl. - -With an audible grunt, Wakayoo moved on. Wolves were pests, he argued. -They wouldn’t stand up and fight. They’d snap and yap at one’s heels for -hours at a time, and were always out of the way quicker than a wink when -one turned on them. What was the use of hanging around where there were -wolves, on a beautiful night like this? He lumbered on decisively. Baree -could hear him splashing heavily through the water of the creek. Not -until then did the wolf-dog draw a full breath. It was almost a gasp. - -But the excitement was not over for the night. Baree had chosen his bed -at a place where the animals came down to drink, and where they crossed -from one of the creek forests to the other. Not long after the bear had -disappeared he heard a heavy crunching in the sand, and hoofs rattling -against stones, and a bull moose with a huge sweep of antlers passed -through the open space in the moonlight. Baree stared with popping eyes, -for if Wakayoo had weighed six hundred pounds, this gigantic creature -whose legs were so long that it seemed to be walking on stilts weighed -at least twice as much. A cow moose followed, and then a calf. The calf -seemed all legs. It was too much for Baree, and he shoved himself -farther and farther back under the rock until he lay wedged in like a -sardine in a box. And there he lay until morning. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - -When Baree ventured forth from under his rock at the beginning of the -next day, he was a much older puppy than when he met Papayuchisew, the -young owl, in his path near the old windfall. If experience can be made -to take the place of age, he had aged a great deal in the last -forty-eight hours. In fact, he had passed almost out of puppyhood. He -awoke with a new and much broader conception of the world. It was a big -place. It was filled with many things, of which Kazan and Gray Wolf were -not the most important. The monsters he had seen on the moonlit plot of -sand had roused in him a new kind of caution, and the one greatest -instinct of beasts—the primal understanding that it is the strong that -prey upon the weak—was wakening swiftly in him. As yet he quite -naturally measured brute force and the menace of things by size alone. -Thus the bear was more terrible than Kazan, and the moose was more -terrible than the bear. - -It was quite fortunate for Baree that this instinct did not go to the -limit in the beginning and make him understand that his own breed—the -wolf—was most feared of all the creatures, claw, hoof, and wing, of the -forests. Otherwise, like the small boy who thinks he can swim before he -has mastered a stroke, he might somewhere have jumped in beyond his -depth and had his head chewed off. - -Very much alert, with the hair standing up along his spine, and a little -growl in his throat, Baree smelled of the big footprints made by the -bear and the moose. It was the bear-scent that made him growl. He -followed the tracks to the edge of the creek. After that he resumed his -wandering, and also his hunt for food. - -For two hours he did not find a crayfish. Then he came out of the green -timber into the edge of a burned-over country. Here everything was -black. The stumps of the trees stood up like huge charred canes. It was -a comparatively fresh “burn” of last autumn, and the ash was still soft -under Baree’s feet. Straight through this black region ran the creek, -and over it hung a blue sky in which the sun was shining. It was quite -inviting to Baree. The fox, the wolf, the moose, and the caribou would -have turned back from the edge of this dead country. In another year it -would be good hunting-ground, but now it was lifeless. Even the owls -would have found nothing to eat out there. - -It was the blue sky and the sun and the softness of the earth under his -feet that lured Baree. It was pleasant to travel in after his painful -experiences in the forest. He continued to follow the stream, though -there was now little possibility of his finding anything to eat. The -water had become sluggish and dark; the channel was choked with charred -débris that had fallen into it when the forest had burned, and its -shores were soft and muddy. After a time, when Baree stopped and looked -about him, he could no longer see the green timber he had left. He was -alone in that desolate wilderness of charred tree-corpses. It was as -still as death, too. Not the chirp of a bird broke the silence. In the -soft ash he could not hear the fall of his own feet. But he was not -frightened. There was the assurance of safety here. - -If he could only find something to eat! That was the master-thought that -possessed Baree. Instinct had not yet impressed upon him that this which -he saw all about him was starvation. He went on, seeking hopefully for -food. But at last, as the hours passed, hope began to die out of him. -The sun sank westward. The sky grew less blue; a low wind began to ride -over the tops of the stubs, and now and then one of them fell with a -startling crash. - -Baree could go no farther. An hour before dusk he lay down in the open, -weak and starved. The sun disappeared behind the forest. The moon rolled -up from the east. The sky glittered with stars—and all through the night -Baree lay as if dead. When morning came, he dragged himself to the -stream for a drink. With his last strength he went on. It was the wolf -urging him—compelling him to struggle to the last for his life. The dog -in him wanted to lie down and die. But the wolf-spark in him burned -stronger. In the end it won. Half a mile farther on he came again to the -green timber. - -In the forests as well as in the great cities fate plays its changing -and whimsical hand. If Baree had dragged himself into the timber half an -hour later he would have died. He was too far gone now to hunt for -crayfish or kill the weakest bird. But he came just as Sekoosew, the -ermine—the most bloodthirsty little pirate of all the wild—was making a -kill. - -That was fully a hundred yards from where Baree lay stretched out under -a spruce, almost ready to give up the ghost. Sekoosew was a mighty -hunter of his kind. His body was about seven inches long, with a tiny -black-tipped tail appended to it, and he weighed perhaps five ounces. A -baby’s fingers could have encircled him anywhere between his four legs, -and his little sharp-pointed head with its beady red eyes could slip -easily through a hole an inch in diameter. For several centuries -Sekoosew had helped to make history. It was he—when his pelt was worth a -hundred dollars in king’s gold—that lured the first shipload of -gentlemen adventurers over the sea, with Prince Rupert at their head; it -was little Sekoosew who was responsible for the forming of the great -Hudson’s Bay Company and the discovery of half a continent; for almost -three centuries he had fought his fight for existence with the trapper. -And now, though he was no longer worth his weight in yellow gold, he was -the cleverest, the fiercest, and the most merciless of all the creatures -that made up his world. - -As Baree lay under his tree, Sekoosew was creeping on his prey. His game -was a big fat spruce-hen standing under a thicket of black currant -bushes. The ear of no living thing could have heard Sekoosew’s movement. -He was like a shadow—a gray dot here, a flash there, now hidden behind a -stick no larger than a man’s wrist, appearing for a moment, the next -instant gone as completely as if he had not existed. Thus he approached -from fifty feet to within three feet of the spruce-hen. That was his -favourite striking distance. Unerringly he launched himself at the -drowsy partridge’s throat, and his needle-like teeth sank through -feathers into flesh. - -Sekoosew was prepared for what happened then. It always happened when he -attacked Napanao, the wood-partridge. Her wings were powerful, and her -first instinct when he struck was always that of flight. She rose -straight up now with a great thunder of wings. Sekoosew hung tight, his -teeth buried deep in her throat, and his tiny, sharp claws clinging to -her like hands. Through the air he whizzed with her, biting deeper and -deeper, until a hundred yards from where that terrible death-thing had -fastened to her throat, Napanao crashed again to earth. - -Where she fell was not ten feet from Baree. For a few moments he looked -at the struggling mass of feathers in a daze, not quite comprehending -that at last food was almost within his reach. Napanao was dying, but -she still struggled convulsively with her wings. Baree rose stealthily, -and after a moment in which he gathered all his remaining strength, he -made a rush for her. His teeth sank into her breast—and not until then -did he see Sekoosew. The ermine had raised his head from the death-grip -at the partridge’s throat, and his savage little red eyes glared for a -single instant into Baree’s. Here was something too big to kill, and -with an angry squeak the ermine was gone. Napanao’s wings relaxed, and -the throb went out of her body. She was dead. Baree hung on until he was -sure. Then he began his feast. - -With murder in his heart, Sekoosew hovered near, whisking here and there -but never coming nearer than half a dozen feet from Baree. His eyes were -redder than ever. Now and then he emitted a sharp little squeak of rage. -Never had he been so angry in all his life! To have a fat partridge -stolen from him like this was an imposition he had never suffered -before. He wanted to dart in and fasten his teeth in Baree’s jugular. -But he was too good a general to make the attempt, too good a Napoleon -to jump deliberately to his Waterloo. An owl he would have fought. He -might even have given battle to his big brother—and his deadliest -enemy—the mink. But in Baree he recognized the wolf-breed, and he vented -his spite at a distance. After a time his good sense returned, and he -went off on another hunt. - -Baree ate a third of the partridge, and the remaining two thirds he -cached very carefully at the foot of the big spruce. Then he hurried -down to the creek for a drink. The world looked very different to him -now. After all, one’s capacity for happiness depends largely on how -deeply one has suffered. One’s hard luck and misfortune form the -measuring-stick for future good luck and fortune. So it was with Baree. -Forty-eight hours ago a full stomach would not have made him a tenth -part as happy as he was now. Then his greatest longing was for his -mother. Since then a still greater yearning had come into his life—for -food. In a way it was fortunate for him that he had almost died of -exhaustion and starvation, for his experience had helped to make a man -of him—or a wolf-dog, just as you are of a mind to put it. He would miss -his mother for a long time. But he would never miss her again as he had -missed her yesterday, and the day before. - -That afternoon Baree took a long nap close to his cache. Then he -uncovered the partridge and ate his supper. When his fourth night alone -came, he did not hide himself as he had done on the three preceding -nights. He was strangely and curiously alert. Under the moon and the -stars he prowled in the edge of the forest and out on the burn. He -listened with a new kind of thrill to the far-away cry of a wolf-pack on -the hunt. He listened to the ghostly _whoo-whoo-whoo_ of the owls -without shivering. Sounds and silences were beginning to hold a new and -significant note for him. - -For another day and night Baree remained in the vicinity of his cache. -When the last bone was picked, he moved on. He now entered a country -where subsistence was no longer a perilous problem for him. It was a -lynx country, and where there are lynx, there are also a great many -rabbits. When the rabbits thin out, the lynx emigrate to better -hunting-grounds. As the snowshoe rabbit breeds all the summer through, -Baree found himself in a land of plenty. It was not difficult for him to -catch and kill the young rabbits. For a week he prospered and grew -bigger and stronger each day. But all the time, stirred by that seeking, -Wanderlust spirit—still hoping to find the old home and his mother—he -travelled into the north and east. - -And this was straight into the trapping country of Pierrot, the -halfbreed. - -Pierrot, until two years ago, had believed himself to be one of the most -fortunate men in the big wilderness. That was before _La Mort Rouge_—the -Red Death—came. He was half French, and he had married a Cree chief’s -daughter, and in their log cabin on the Gray Loon they had lived for -many years in great prosperity and happiness. Pierrot was proud of three -things in this wild world of his: he was immensely proud of Wyola, his -royal-blooded wife; he was proud of his daughter; and he was proud of -his reputation as a hunter. Until the Red Death came, life was quite -complete for him. It was then—two years ago—that the smallpox killed his -princess-wife. He still lived in the little cabin on the Gray Loon, but -he was a different Pierrot. The heart was sick in him. It would have -died, had it not been for Nepeese, his daughter. His wife had named her -Nepeese, which means the Willow. Nepeese had grown up like the willow, -slender as a reed, with all her mother’s wild beauty, and with a little -of the French thrown in. She was sixteen, with great, dark, wonderful -eyes, and hair so beautiful that an agent from Montreal passing that way -had once tried to buy it. It fell in two shining braids, each as big as -a man’s wrist, almost to her knees. “_Non, M’sieu_,” Pierrot had said, a -cold glitter in his eyes as he saw what was in the agent’s face. “It is -not for barter.” - -Two days after Baree had entered his trapping-ground, Pierrot came in -from the forests with a troubled look in his face. - -“Something is killing off the young beavers,” he explained to Nepeese, -speaking to her in French. “It is a lynx or a wolf. To-morrow——” He -shrugged his thin shoulders, and smiled at her. - -“We will go on the hunt,” laughed Nepeese happily, in her soft Cree. - -When Pierrot smiled at her like that, and began with “To-morrow,” it -always meant that she might go with him on the adventure he was -contemplating. - - * * * * * - -Still another day later, at the end of the afternoon, Baree crossed the -Gray Loon on a bridge of driftwood that had wedged between two trees. -This was to the north. Just beyond the driftwood bridge there was a -small open, and on the edge of this Baree paused to enjoy the last of -the setting sun. As he stood motionless and listening, his tail drooping -low, his ears alert, his sharp-pointed nose sniffing the new country to -the north, there was not a pair of eyes in the forest that would not -have taken him for a young wolf. - -From behind a clump of young balsams, a hundred yards away, Pierrot and -Nepeese had watched him come over the driftwood bridge. Now was the -time, and Pierrot levelled his rifle. It was not until then that Nepeese -touched his arm softly. Her breath came a little excitedly as she -whispered: - -“Nootawe, let me shoot. I can kill him!” - -With a low chuckle Pierrot gave the gun to her. He counted the whelp as -already dead. For Nepeese, at that distance, could send a bullet into an -inch square nine times out of ten. And Nepeese, aiming carefully at -Baree, pressed steadily with her brown forefinger upon the trigger. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - -As the Willow pulled the trigger of her rifle, Baree sprang into the -air. He felt the force of the bullet before he heard the report of the -gun. It lifted him off his feet, and then sent him rolling over and over -as if he had been struck a hideous blow with a club. For a flash he did -not feel pain. Then it ran through him like a knife of fire, and with -that pain the dog in him rose above the wolf, and he let out a wild -outcry of puppyish yapping as he rolled and twisted on the ground. - -Pierrot and Nepeese had stepped from behind the balsams, the Willow’s -beautiful eyes shining with pride at the accuracy of her shot. Instantly -she caught her breath. Her brown fingers clutched at the barrel of her -rifle. The chuckle of satisfaction died on Pierrot’s lips as Baree’s -cries of pain filled the forest. - -“_Uchi Moosis!_” gasped Nepeese, in her Cree. - -Pierrot caught the rifle from her. - -“_Diable!_ A dog—a puppy!” he cried. - -He started on a run for Baree. But in their amazement they had lost a -few seconds and Baree’s dazed senses were returning. He saw them clearly -as they came across the open—a new kind of monster of the forests! With -a final wail he darted back into the deep shadows of the trees. It was -almost sunset, and he ran for the thick gloom of the heavy spruce near -the creek. He had shivered at sight of the bear and the moose, but for -the first time he now sensed the real meaning of danger. And it was -close after him. He could hear the crashing of the two-legged beasts in -pursuit; strange cries were almost at his heels—and then suddenly he -plunged without warning into a hole. - -It was a shock to have the earth go out from under his feet like that, -but Baree did not yelp. The wolf was dominant in him again. It urged him -to remain where he was, making no move, no sound—scarcely breathing. The -voices were over him; the strange feet almost stumbled in the hole where -he lay. Looking out of his dark hiding-place, he could see one of his -enemies. It was Nepeese, the Willow. She was standing so that a last -glow of the day fell upon her face. Baree did not take his eyes from -her. Above his pain there rose in him a strange and thrilling -fascination. The girl put her two hands to her mouth and in a voice that -was soft and plaintive and amazingly comforting to his terrified little -heart, cried: - -“_Uchimoo—Uchimoo—Uchimoo!_” - -And then he heard another voice; and this voice, too, was far less -terrible than many sounds he had listened to in the forests. - -“We cannot find him, Nepeese,” the voice was saying. “He has crawled off -to die. It is too bad. Come.” - -Where Baree had stood in the edge of the open Pierrot paused and pointed -to a birch sapling that had been cut clean off by the Willow’s bullet. -Nepeese understood. The sapling, no larger than her thumb, had turned -her shot a trifle and had saved Baree from instant death. - -She turned again, and called: - -“_Uchimoo—Uchimoo—Uchimoo!_” - -Her eyes were no longer filled with the thrill of slaughter. - -“He would not understand that,” said Pierrot, leading the way across the -open. “He is wild—born of the wolves. Perhaps he was of Koomo’s -lead-bitch, who ran away to hunt with the packs last winter.” - -“And he will die——” - -“_Ayetun_—yes, he will die.” - -But Baree had no idea of dying. He was too tough a youngster to be -shocked to death by a bullet passing through the soft flesh of his -fore-leg. That was what had happened. His leg was torn to the bone, but -the bone itself was untouched. He waited until the moon had risen before -he crawled out of his hole. - -His leg had grown stiff then; it had stopped bleeding, but his whole -body was racked by a terrible pain. A dozen Papayuchisews, all holding -tight to his ears and nose, could not have hurt him more. Every time he -moved, a sharp twinge shot through him; and yet he persisted in moving. -Instinctively he felt that by travelling away from the hole he would get -away from danger. This was the best thing that could have happened to -him, for a little later a porcupine came wandering along, chattering to -itself in its foolish, good-humoured way, and fell with a fat thud into -the hole. Had Baree remained, he would have been so full of quills that -he must surely have died. - -[Illustration: Nepeese, the trapper’s daughter, known to the forest men -as “The Willow,” who became a big factor in the life of the pup Baree.] - -In another way the exercise of travel was good for Baree. It gave his -wound no opportunity to “set,” as Pierrot would have said, for in -reality his hurt was more painful than serious. For the first hundred -yards he hobbled along on three legs, and after that he found that he -could use his fourth by humouring it a great deal. He followed the creek -for a half-mile. Whenever a bit of brush touched his wound, he would -snap at it viciously, and instead of whimpering when he felt one of the -sharp twinges shooting through him, an angry little growl gathered in -his throat, and his teeth clicked. Now that he was out of the hole, the -effect of the Willow’s shot was stirring every drop of wolf-blood in his -body. In him there was a growing animosity—a feeling of rage not against -any one thing in particular, but against all things. It was not the -feeling with which he had fought Papayuchisew, the young owl. On this -night the dog in him had disappeared. An accumulation of misfortunes had -descended upon him, and out of these misfortunes—and his present -hurt—the wolf had risen savage and vengeful. - -This was the first night Baree had travelled. He was, for the time, -unafraid of anything that might creep up on him out of the darkness. The -blackest shadows had lost their thrill. It was the first big fight -between the two natures that were born in him—the wolf and the dog—and -the dog was vanquished. Now and then he stopped to lick his wound, and -as he licked it he growled, as though for the hurt itself he held a -personal antagonism. If Pierrot could have seen and heard, he would have -understood very quickly, and he would have said: “Let him die. The club -will never take that devil out of him.” - -In this humour Baree came, an hour later, out of the heavy timber of the -creek-bottom into the more open spaces of a small plain that ran along -the foot of a ridge. It was in this plain that Oohoomisew hunted. -Oohoomisew was a huge snow-owl. He was the patriarch among all the owls -of Pierrot’s trapping domain. He was so old that he was almost blind, -and therefore he never hunted as other owls hunted. He did not hide -himself in the black cover of spruce- and balsam-tops, or float softly -through the night, ready in an instant to swoop down upon his prey. His -eyesight was so poor that from a spruce-top he could not have seen a -rabbit at all, and he might have mistaken a fox for a mouse. - -So old Oohoomisew, learning wisdom from experience, hunted from ambush. -He would squat on the ground, and for hours at a time he would remain -there without making a sound and scarcely moving a feather, waiting with -the patience of Job for something to eat to come his way. Now and then -he had made mistakes. Twice he had mistaken a lynx for a rabbit, and in -the second attack he had lost a foot, so that when he slumbered aloft -during the day he hung to his perch with one claw. Crippled, nearly -blind, and so old that he had long ago lost the tufts of feathers over -his ears, he was still a giant in strength, and when he was angry, one -could hear the snap of his beak twenty yards away. - -For three nights he had been unlucky, and to-night he had been -particularly unfortunate. Two rabbits had come his way, and he had -lunged at each of them from his cover. The first he had missed entirely; -the second had left with him a mouthful of fur—and that was all. He was -ravenously hungry, and he was gritting his bill in his bad temper when -he heard Baree approaching. - -Even if Baree could have seen under the dark bush ahead, and had -discovered Oohoomisew ready to dart from his ambush, it is not likely -that he would have gone very far aside. His own fighting blood was up. -He, too, was ready for war. - -Very indistinctly Oohoomisew saw him at last, coming across the little -open which he was watching. He squatted down. His feathers ruffled up -until he was like a ball. His almost sightless eyes glowed like two -bluish pools of fire. Ten feet away, Baree stopped for a moment and -licked his wound. Oohoomisew waited cautiously. Again Baree advanced, -passing within six feet of the bush. With a swift hop and a sudden -thunder of his powerful wings the great owl was upon him. - -This time Baree let out no cry of pain or of fright. The wolf is -_kipichi-mao_, as the Indians say. No hunter ever heard a trapped wolf -whine for mercy at the sting of a bullet or the beat of a club. He dies -with his fangs bared. To-night it was a wolf-whelp that Oohoomisew was -attacking, and not a dog-pup. The owl’s first rush keeled Baree over, -and for a moment he was smothered under the huge, outspread wings, while -Oohoomisew—pinioning him down—hopped for a claw-hold with his one good -foot, and struck fiercely with his beak. - -One blow of that beak anywhere about the head would have settled for a -rabbit, but at the first thrust Oohoomisew discovered that it was not a -rabbit he was holding under his wings. A blood-curdling snarl answered -the blow, and Oohoomisew remembered the lynx, his lost foot, and his -narrow escape with his life. The old pirate might have beaten a retreat, -but Baree was no longer the puppyish Baree of that hour in which he had -fought young Papayuchisew. Experience and hardship had aged and -strengthened him; his jaws had passed quickly from the bone-licking to -the bone-cracking age—and before Oohoomisew could get away, if he was -thinking of flight at all, Baree’s fangs closed with a vicious snap on -his one good leg. - -In the stillness of night there rose a still greater thunder of wings, -and for a few moments Baree closed his eyes to keep from being blinded -by Oohoomisew’s furious blows. But he hung on grimly, and as his teeth -met through the flesh of the old night-pirate’s leg, his angry snarl -carried defiance to Oohoomisew’s ears. Rare good fortune had given him -that grip on the leg, and Baree knew that triumph or defeat depended on -his ability to hold it. The old owl had no other claw to sink into him, -and it was impossible—caught as he was—for him to tear at Baree with his -beak. So he continued to beat that thunder of blows with his four-foot -wings. - -The wings made a great tumult about Baree, but they did not hurt him. He -buried his fangs deeper. His snarls rose more fiercely as he got the -taste of Oohoomisew’s blood, and through him there surged more hotly the -desire to kill this monster of the night, as though in the death of this -creature he had the opportunity of avenging himself for all the hurts -and hardships that had befallen him since he lost his mother. - -Oohoomisew had never felt a great fear until now. The lynx had snapped -at him but once—and was gone, leaving him crippled. But the lynx had not -snarled in that wolfish way, and it had not hung on. A thousand and one -nights Oohoomisew had listened to the wolf-howl. Instinct had told him -what it meant. He had seen the packs pass swiftly through the night, and -always when they passed he had kept in the deepest shadows. To him, as -for all other wild things, the wolf-howl stood for death. But until now, -with Baree’s fangs buried in his leg, he had never sensed fully the -wolf-fear. It had taken it years to enter into his slow, stupid head—but -now that it was there, it possessed him as no other thing had ever -possessed him in all his life. - -Suddenly Oohoomisew ceased his beating and launched himself upward. Like -huge fans his powerful wings churned the air, and Baree felt himself -lifted suddenly from the earth. Still he held on—and in a moment both -bird and beast fell back with a thud. - -Oohoomisew tried again. This time he was more successful, and he rose -fully six feet into the air with Baree. They fell again. A third time -the old outlaw fought to wing himself free of Baree’s grip; and then, -exhausted, he lay with his giant wings outspread, hissing and cracking -his bill. - -Under those wings Baree’s mind worked with the swift instincts of the -killer. Suddenly he changed his hold, burying his fangs into the under -part of Oohoomisew’s body. They sank into three inches of feathers. -Swift as Baree had been, Oohoomisew was equally swift to take advantage -of his opportunity. In an instant he had swooped upward. There was a -jerk, a rending of feathers from flesh—and Baree was alone on the field -of battle. - -Baree had not killed, but he had conquered. His first great day—or -night—had come. The world was filled with a new promise for him, as vast -as the night itself. And after a moment he sat back on his haunches, -sniffing the air for his beaten enemy; and then, as if defying the -feathered monster to come back and fight to the end, he pointed his -sharp little muzzle up to the stars and sent forth his first babyish -wolf-howl into the night. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - -Baree’s fight with Oohoomisew was good medicine for him. It not only -gave him great confidence in himself, but it also cleared the fever of -ugliness from his blood. He no longer snapped and snarled at things as -he went on through the night. - -It was a wonderful night. The moon was straight overhead, and the sky -was filled with stars, so that in the open spaces the light was almost -like that of day, except that it was softer and more beautiful. It was -very still. There was no wind in the treetops, and it seemed to Baree -that the howl he had given must have echoed to the end of the world. - -Now and then Baree heard a sound—and always he stopped, attentive and -listening. Far away he heard the long, soft mooing of a cow moose; he -heard a great splashing in the water of a small lake that he came to, -and once there came to him the sharp cracking of horn against horn—two -bucks settling a little difference of opinion a quarter of a mile away. -But it was always the wolf-howl that made him sit and listen longest, -his heart beating with a strange impulse which he did not as yet -understand. It was the call of his breed, growing in him slowly but -insistently. - -He was still a wanderer—_pupamootao_, the Indians call it. It is this -“wander spirit” that inspires for a time nearly every creature of the -wild as soon as it is able to care for itself—nature’s scheme, perhaps, -for doing away with too close family relations and possibly dangerous -interbreeding. Baree, like the young wolf seeking new hunting-grounds, -or the young fox discovering a new world, had no reason or method in his -wandering. He was simply “travelling”—going on. He wanted something -which he could not find. The wolf-note brought it to him. - -The stars and the moon filled Baree with a yearning for this something. -The distant sounds impinged upon him his great aloneness. And instinct -told him that only by questing could he find. It was not so much Kazan -and Gray Wolf that he missed now—not so much motherhood and home as it -was companionship. Now that he had fought the wolfish rage out of him in -his battle with Oohoomisew, the dog part of him had come into its own -again—the lovable half of him, the part that wanted to snuggle up near -something that was alive and friendly, small odds whether it wore -feathers or fur, was clawed or hoofed. - -He was sore from the Willow’s bullet, and he was sore from battle, and -toward dawn he lay down under a shelter of alders at the edge of a -second small lake and rested until midday. Then he began questing in the -reeds and close to the pond-lilies for food. He found a dead jackfish, -partly eaten by a mink, and finished it. - -His wound was much less painful this afternoon, and by nightfall he -scarcely noticed it at all. Since his almost tragic end at the hands of -Nepeese, he had been travelling in a general northeasterly direction, -following instinctively the run of the water-ways; but his progress had -been slow, and when darkness came again he was not more than eight or -ten miles from the hole into which he had fallen after the Willow had -shot him. - -Baree did not travel far this night. The fact that his wound had come -with dusk, and his fight with Oohoomisew still later, filled him with -caution. Experience had taught him that the dark shadows and the black -pits in the forest were possible ambuscades of danger. He was no longer -afraid, as he had once been, but he had had fighting enough for a time, -and so he accepted circumspection as the better part of valour and held -himself aloof from the perils of darkness. It was a strange instinct -that made him seek his bed on the top of a huge rock up which he had -some difficulty in climbing. Perhaps it was a harkening back to the days -of long ago when Gray Wolf, in her first motherhood, sought refuge at -the summit of the Sun Rock which towered high above the forest-world of -which she and Kazan were a part, and where later she was blinded in her -battle with the lynx. - -Baree’s rock, instead of rising for a hundred feet or more straight up, -was possibly as high as a man’s head. It was in the edge of the -creek-bottom, with the spruce forest close at his back. For many hours -he did not sleep, but lay keenly alert, his ears tuned to catch every -sound that came out of the dark world about him. There was more than -curiosity in his alertness to-night. His education had broadened -immensely in one way: he had learned that he was a very small part of -all this wonderful earth that lay under the stars and the moon, and he -was keenly alive with the desire to become better acquainted with it -without any more fighting or hurt. To-night he knew what it meant when -he saw now and then gray shadows float silently out of the forest into -the moonlight—the owls, monsters of the breed with which he had fought. -He heard the crackling of hoofed feet and the smashing of heavy bodies -in the underbrush. He heard again the mooing of the moose. Voices came -to him that he had not heard before—the sharp _yap-yap-yap_ of a fox, -the unearthly, laughing cry of a great Northern loon on a lake half a -mile away, the scream of a lynx that came floating through miles of -forest, the low, soft croaks of the nighthawks between himself and the -stars. He heard strange whisperings in the treetops—whisperings of the -winds; and once, in the heart of a dead stillness, a buck whistled -shrilly close behind his rock—and at the wolf-scent in the air shot away -in a terror-stricken gray streak. - -All these sounds held their new meaning for Baree. Swiftly he was coming -into his knowledge of the wilderness. His eyes gleamed; his blood -thrilled. For many minutes at a time he scarcely moved. But of all the -sounds that came to him, the wolf-cry thrilled him most. Again and again -he listened to it. At times it was far away, so far that it was like a -whisper, dying away almost before it reached him; and then again it -would come to him full-throated, hot with the breath of the chase, -calling him to the red thrill of the hunt, to the wild orgy of torn -flesh and running blood—calling, calling, calling. That was it, calling -him to his own kin, to the bone of his bone and the flesh of his -flesh—to the wild, fierce hunting-packs of his mother’s tribe! It was -Gray Wolf’s voice seeking for him in the night—Gray Wolf’s blood -inviting him to the Brotherhood of the Pack. - -Baree trembled as he listened. In his throat he whined softly. He edged -to the sheer face of the rock. He wanted to go; nature was urging him to -go. But the call of the wild was struggling against odds; for in him was -the dog, with its generations of subdued and sleeping instincts—and all -that night the dog in him kept Baree to the top of his rock. - -Next morning Baree found many crawfish along the creek, and he feasted -on their succulent flesh until he felt that he would never be hungry -again. Nothing had tasted quite so good since he had eaten the partridge -of which he had robbed Sekoosew the ermine. - -In the middle of the afternoon Baree came into a part of the forest that -was very quiet and very peaceful. The creek had deepened. In places its -banks swept out until they formed small ponds. Twice he made -considerable detours to get around these ponds. He travelled very -quietly, listening and watching. Not since the ill-fated day he had left -the old windfall had he felt quite so much at home as now. It seemed to -him that at last he was treading country which he knew, and where he -would find friends. Perhaps this was another miracle-mystery of -instinct—of nature. For he was in old Beaver-tooth’s domain. It was here -that his father and mother had hunted in the days before he was born. It -was not far from here that Kazan and Beaver-tooth had fought that mighty -duel under water, from which Kazan had escaped with his life without -another breath to lose. - -Baree would never know these things. He would never know that he was -travelling over old trails. But something deep in him gripped at him -strangely. He sniffed the air, as if in it he found the scent of -familiar things. It was only a faint breath—an indefinable promise that -brought him to the point of a mysterious anticipation. - -The forest grew deeper. It was wonderful. There was no undergrowth, and -travelling under the trees was like being in a vast, mystery-filled -cavern through the roof of which the light of day broke softly, -brightened here and there by golden splashes of the sun. For a mile -Baree made his way quietly through this forest. He saw nothing but a few -winged flittings of birds; there was almost no sound. Then he came to a -still larger pond. Around this pond there was a thick growth of alders -and willows; the larger trees had thinned out. He saw the glimmer of -afternoon sunlight on the water—and then, all at once, he heard life. - -There had been few changes in Beaver-tooth’s colony since the days of -his feud with Kazan and the otters. Old Beaver-tooth was still older. He -was fatter. He slept a great deal, and perhaps he was less cautious. He -was dozing on the great mud-and-brushwood dam of which he had been -engineer-in-chief, when Baree came out softly on a high bank thirty or -forty feet away. So noiseless had Baree been that none of the beavers -had seen or heard him. He squatted himself flat on his belly, hidden -behind a tuft of grass, and with eager interest watched every movement. -Beaver-tooth was rousing himself. He stood on his short legs for a -moment; then he tilted himself up on his broad, flat tail like a soldier -at attention, and with a sudden whistle dived into the pond with a great -splash. - -In another moment it seemed to Baree that the pond was alive with -beavers. Heads and bodies appeared and disappeared, rushing this way and -that through the water in a manner that amazed and puzzled him. It was -the colony’s evening frolic. Tails hit the water like flat boards. Odd -whistlings rose above the splashing—and then as suddenly as it had -begun, the play came to an end. There were probably twenty beavers, not -counting the young, and as if guided by a common signal—something which -Baree had not heard—they became so quiet that hardly a sound could be -heard in the pond. A few of them sank under the water and disappeared -entirely, but most of them Baree could watch as they drew themselves out -on shore. - -The beavers lost no time in getting at their labour, and Baree watched -and listened without so much as rustling a blade of the grass in which -he was concealed. He was trying to understand. He was striving to place -these curious and comfortable-looking creatures in his knowledge of -things. They did not alarm him; he felt no uneasiness at their number or -size. His stillness was not the quiet of discretion, but rather of a -strange and growing desire to get better acquainted with this curious -four-legged brotherhood of the pond. Already they had begun to make the -big forest less lonely for him. And then, close under him—not more than -ten feet from where he lay—he saw something that almost gave voice to -the puppyish longing for companionship that was in him. - -Down there, on a clean strip of the shore that rose out of the soft mud -of the pond, waddled fat little Umisk and three of his playmates. Umisk -was just about Baree’s age, perhaps a week or two younger. But he was -fully as heavy, and almost as wide as he was long. Nature can produce no -four-footed creature that is more lovable than a baby beaver, unless it -is a baby bear; and Umisk would have taken first prize at any beaver -baby-show in the world. His three companions were a bit smaller. They -came waddling from behind a low willow, making queer little chuckling -noises, their little flat tails dragging like tiny sledges behind them. -They were fat and furry, and mighty friendly looking to Baree, and his -heart beat a sudden swift _pit-a-pat_ of joy. - -But Baree did not move. He scarcely breathed. And then, suddenly, Umisk -turned on one of his playmates and bowled him over. Instantly the other -two were on Umisk, and the four little beavers rolled over and over, -kicking with their short feet and spatting with their tails, and all the -time emitting soft little squeaking cries. Baree knew that it was not -fight but frolic. He rose up on his feet. He forgot where he was—forgot -everything in the world but those playing, furry balls. For the moment -all the hard training nature had been giving him was lost. He was no -longer a fighter, no longer a hunter, no longer a seeker after food. He -was a puppy, and in him there rose a desire that was greater than -hunger. He wanted to go down there with Umisk and his little chums and -roll and play. He wanted to tell them, if such a thing were possible, -that he had lost his mother and his home, and that he had been having a -mighty hard time of it, and that he would like to stay with them and -their mothers and fathers if they didn’t care. - -In his throat there came the least bit of a whine. It was so low that -Umisk and his playmates did not hear it. They were tremendously busy. - -Softly Baree took his first step toward them, and then another—and at -last he stood on the narrow strip of shore within half a dozen feet of -them. His sharp little ears were pitched forward, and he was wiggling -his tail as fast as he could, and every muscle in his body was trembling -in anticipation. - -It was then that Umisk saw him, and his fat little body became suddenly -as motionless as a stone. - -“Hello!” said Baree, wiggling his whole body and talking as plainly as a -human tongue could talk. “Do you care if I play with you?” - -Umisk made no response. His three playmates now had their eyes on Baree. -They didn’t make a move. They looked stunned. Four pairs of staring, -wondering eyes were fixed on the stranger. - -Baree made another effort. He grovelled on his fore-legs, while his tail -and hind-legs continued to wiggle, and with a sniff he grabbed a bit of -stick between his teeth. - -“Come on—let me in,” he urged. “I know how to play!” - -He tossed the stick in the air as if to prove what he was saying, and -gave a little yap. - -Umisk and his brothers were like dummies. - -And then, of a sudden, some one saw Baree. It was a big beaver swimming -down the pond with a sapling timber for the new dam that was under way. -Instantly he loosed his hold and faced the shore. And then, like the -report of a rifle, there came the crack of his big flat tail on the -water—the beaver’s signal of danger that on a quiet night can be heard -half a mile away. - -“_Danger_,” it warned. “_Danger—danger—danger!_” - -Scarcely had the signal gone forth when tails were cracking in all -directions—in the pond, in the hidden canals, in the thick willows and -alders. To Umisk and his companions they said: - -“_Run for your lives!_” - -Baree stood rigid and motionless now. In amazement he watched the four -little beavers plunge into the pond and disappear. He heard the sounds -of other and heavier bodies striking the water. And then there followed -a strange and disquieting silence. Softly Baree whined, and his whine -was almost a sobbing cry. Why had Umisk and his little mates run away -from him? What had he done that they didn’t want to make friends with -him? A great loneliness swept over him—a loneliness greater even than -that of his first night away from his mother. The last of the sun faded -out of the sky as he stood there. Darker shadows crept over the pond. He -looked into the forest, where night was gathering—and with another -whining cry he slunk back into it. He had not found friendship. He had -not found comradeship. And his heart was very sad. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - -For two or three days Baree’s excursions after food took him farther and -farther away from the pond. But each afternoon he returned to it—until -the third day, when he discovered a new creek, and Wakayoo. The creek -was fully two miles back in the forest. This was a different sort of -stream. It sang merrily over a gravelly bed and between chasm walls of -split rock. It formed deep pools and foaming eddies, and where Baree -first struck it, the air trembled with the distant thunder of a -waterfall. It was much pleasanter than the dark and silent -beaver-stream. It seemed possessed of life, and the rush and tumult of -it—the song and thunder of the water—gave to Baree entirely new -sensations. He made his way along it slowly and cautiously, and it was -because of this slowness and caution that he came suddenly and -unobserved upon Wakayoo, the big black bear, hard at work fishing. - -Wakayoo stood knee-deep in a pool that had formed behind a sand bar, and -he was having tremendously good luck. Even as Baree shrank back, his -eyes popping at sight of this monster he had seen but once before, in -the gloom of night, one of Wakayoo’s big paws sent a great splash of -water high in the air, and a fish landed on the pebbly shore. A little -while before, the suckers had run up the creek in thousands to spawn, -and the rapid lowering of the water had caught many of them in these -prison-pools. Wakayoo’s fat, sleek body was evidence of the prosperity -this circumstance had brought him. Although it was a little past the -“prime” season for bearskins, Wakayoo’s coat was splendidly thick and -black. - -For a quarter of an hour Baree watched him while he knocked fish out of -the pool. When at last he stopped, there were twenty or thirty fish -among the stones, some of them dead and others still flopping. From -where he lay flattened out between two rocks, Baree could hear the -crunching of flesh and bone as the bear devoured his dinner. It sounded -good, and the fresh smell of fish filled him with a craving that had -never been roused by crawfish or even partridge. - -In spite of his fat and his size, Wakayoo was not a glutton, and after -he had eaten his fourth fish he pawed all the others together in a pile, -partly covered them by raking up sand and stones with his long claws, -and finished his work of caching by breaking down a small balsam sapling -so that the fish were entirely concealed. Then he lumbered slowly away -in the direction of the rumbling waterfall. - -Twenty seconds after the last of Wakayoo had disappeared in a turn of -the creek, Baree was under the broken balsam. He dragged out a fish that -was still alive. He ate the whole of it, and it was delicious. - -Baree now found that Wakayoo had solved the food problem for him, and -this day he did not return to the beaver pond, nor the next. The big -bear was incessantly fishing up and down the creek, and day after day -Baree continued his feasts. It was not difficult for him to find -Wakayoo’s caches. All he had to do was to follow along the shore of the -stream, sniffing carefully. Some of the caches were getting old, and -their perfume was anything but pleasant to Baree. These he avoided—but -he never missed a meal or two out of a fresh one. - -For a week life continued to be exceedingly pleasant. And then came the -break—the change that was destined to mean as much for Baree as that -other day, long ago, had meant for Kazan, his father, when he killed the -man-brute in the edge of the wilderness. - -This change came on the day when, in trotting around a great rock near -the waterfall, Baree found himself face to face with Pierrot the hunter -and Nepeese, the star-eyed girl who had shot him in the edge of the -clearing. - -It was Nepeese whom he saw first. If it had been Pierrot, he would have -turned back quickly. But again the blood of his forbear was rousing -strange tremblings within him. Was it like this that the first woman had -looked to Kazan? - -Baree stood still. Nepeese was not more than twenty feet from him. She -sat on a rock, full in the early morning sun, and was brushing out her -wonderful hair. Her lips parted. Her eyes shone in an instant like -stars. One hand remained poised, weighted with the jet tresses. She -recognized him. She saw the white star on his breast and the white tip -on his ear, and under her breath she whispered “_Uchi moosis!_”—“The -dog-pup!” It was the wild-dog she had shot—and thought had died! - -The evening before Pierrot and Nepeese had built a shelter of balsams -behind the big rock, and on a small white plot of sand Pierrot was -kneeling over a fire preparing breakfast while the Willow arranged her -hair. He raised his head to speak to her, and saw Baree. In that instant -the spell was broken. Baree saw the man-beast as he rose to his feet. -Like a shot he was gone. - -Scarcely swifter was he than Nepeese. - -“_Dépêchez vous, mon père!_” she cried. “It is the dog-pup! Quick——” - -In the floating cloud of her hair she sped after Baree like the wind. -Pierrot followed, and in going he caught up his rifle. It was difficult -for him to catch up with the Willow. She was like a wild spirit, her -little moccasined feet scarcely touching the sand as she ran up the long -bar. It was wonderful to see the lithe swiftness of her, and that -wonderful hair streaming out in the sun. Even now, in this moment’s -excitement, it made Pierrot think of McTaggart, the Hudson’s Bay -Company’s factor over at Lac Bain, and what he had said yesterday. Half -the night Pierrot had lain awake, gritting his teeth at thought of it; -and this morning, before Baree ran upon them, he had looked at Nepeese -more closely than ever before in his life. She was beautiful. She was -lovelier even than Wyola, her princess mother, who was dead. That -hair—which made men stare as if they could not believe! Those eyes—like -pools filled with wonderful starlight! Her slimness, that was like a -flower! And McTaggart had said—— - -Floating back to him there came an excited cry. - -“Hurry, Nootawe! He has turned into the blind cañon. He cannot escape us -now.” - -She was panting when he came up to her. The French blood in her glowed a -vivid crimson in her cheeks and lips. Her white teeth gleamed like milk. - -“In there!” And she pointed. - -They went in. - -Ahead of them Baree was running for his life. He sensed instinctively -the fact that these wonderful two-legged beings he had looked upon were -all-powerful. And they were after him! He could hear them. Nepeese was -following almost as swiftly as he could run. Suddenly he turned into a -cleft between two great rocks. Twenty feet in, his way was barred, and -he ran back. When he darted out, straight up the cañon, Nepeese was not -a dozen yards behind him, and he saw Pierrot almost at her side. The -Willow gave a cry. - -“_Mana_—_mana_—there he is!” - -She caught her breath, and darted into a copse of young balsams where -Baree had disappeared. Like a great entangling web her loose hair -impeded her in the brush, and with an encouraging cry to Pierrot she -stopped to gather it over her shoulder as he ran past her. She lost only -a moment or two, and was after him. Fifty yards ahead of her Pierrot -gave a warning shout. Baree had turned. Almost in the same breath he was -tearing over his back-trail, directly toward the Willow. He did not see -her in time to stop or swerve aside, and Nepeese flung herself down in -his path. For an instant or two they were together. Baree felt the -smother of her hair, and the clutch of her hands. Then he squirmed away -and darted again toward the blind end of the cañon. - -Nepeese sprang to her feet. She was panting—and laughing. Pierrot came -back wildly, and the Willow pointed beyond him. - -“I had him—and he didn’t bite!” she said, breathing swiftly. She still -pointed to the end of the cañon, and she said again: “I had him—and he -didn’t bite me, Nootawe!” - -That was the wonder of it. She had been reckless—and Baree had not -bitten her! It was then, with her eyes shining at Pierrot, and the smile -fading slowly from her lips, that she spoke softly the word “_Baree_,” -which in her tongue meant “the wild dog”—a little brother of the wolf. - -“Come,” cried Pierrot, “or we will lose him!” - -Pierrot was confident. The cañon had narrowed. Baree could not get past -them unseen. Three minutes later Baree came to the blind end of the -cañon—a wall of rock that rose straight up like the curve of a dish. -Feasting on fish and long hours of sleep had fattened him, and he was -half winded as he sought vainly for an exit. He was at the far end of -the dishlike curve of rock, without a bush or a clump of grass to hide -him, when Pierrot and Nepeese saw him again. Nepeese made straight -toward him. Pierrot, foreseeing what Baree would do, hurried to the -left, at right-angles to the end of the cañon. - -In and out among the rocks Baree sought swiftly for a way of escape. In -a moment more he had come to the “box,” or cup of the cañon. This was a -break in the wall, fifty or sixty feet wide, which opened into a natural -prison about an acre in extent. It was a beautiful spot. On all sides -but that leading into the coulée it was shut in by walls of rock. At the -far end a waterfall broke down in a series of rippling cascades. The -grass was thick underfoot and strewn with flowers. In this trap Pierrot -had got more than one fine haunch of venison. From it there was no -escape, except in the face of his rifle. He called to Nepeese as he saw -Baree entering it, and together they climbed the slope. - -Baree had almost reached the edge of the little prison-meadow when -suddenly he stopped himself so quickly that he fell back on his -haunches, and his heart jumped up into his throat. - -Full in his path stood Wakayoo, the huge black bear! - -For perhaps a half-minute Baree hesitated between the two perils. He -heard the voices of Nepeese and Pierrot. He caught the rattle of stones -under their feet. And he was filled with a great dread. Then he looked -at Wakayoo. The big bear had not moved an inch. He, too, was listening. -But to him there was a thing more disturbing than the sounds he heard. -It was the scent which he caught in the air—the man-scent. - -Baree, watching him, saw his head swing slowly even as the footsteps of -Nepeese and Pierrot became more and more distinct. It was the first time -Baree had ever stood face to face with the big bear. He had watched him -fish; he had fattened on Wakayoo’s prowess; he had held him in splendid -awe. Now there was something about the bear that took away his fear and -gave him in its place a new and thrilling confidence. Wakayoo, big and -powerful as he was, would not run from the two-legged creatures who -pursued him! If Baree could only get past Wakayoo he was safe! - -Baree darted to one side and ran for the open meadow. Wakayoo did not -stir as Baree sped past him—no more than if he had been a bird or a -rabbit. Then came another breath of air, heavy with the scent of man. -This, at last, put life into him. He turned and began lumbering after -Baree into the meadow-trap. Baree, looking back, saw him coming—and -thought it was pursuit. Nepeese and Pierrot came over the slope, and at -the same instant they saw both Wakayoo and Baree. - -Where they entered into the grassy dip under the rock walls, Baree -turned sharply to the right. Here was a great boulder, one end of it -tilted up off the earth. It looked like a splendid hiding-place, and -Baree crawled under it. - -But Wakayoo kept straight ahead into the meadow. - -From where he lay Baree could see what happened. Scarcely had he crawled -under the rock when Nepeese and Pierrot appeared through the break in -the dip, and stopped. The fact that they stopped thrilled Baree. They -were afraid of Wakayoo! The big bear was two thirds of the way across -the meadow. The sun fell on him, so that his coat shone like black -satin. Pierrot stared at him for a moment. Pierrot did not kill for the -love of killing. Necessity made him a conservationist. But he saw that -in spite of the lateness of the season, Wakayoo’s coat was splendid—and -he raised his rifle. - -Baree saw this action. He saw, a moment later, something spit from the -end of the gun, and then he heard that deafening crash that had come -with his own hurt, when the Willow’s bullet had burned through his -flesh. He turned his eyes swiftly to Wakayoo. The big bear had stumbled; -he was on his knees; and then he struggled up and lumbered on. - -The roar of the rifle came again, and a second time Wakayoo went down. -Pierrot could not miss at that distance. Wakayoo made a splendid mark. -It was slaughter; yet for Pierrot and Nepeese it was business—the -business of life. - -Baree was shivering. It was more from excitement than fear, for he had -lost his own fear in the tragedy of these moments. A low whine rose in -his throat as he looked at Wakayoo, who had risen again and faced his -enemies—his jaws gaping, his head swinging slowly, his legs weakening -under him as the blood poured through his torn lungs. Baree -whined—because Wakayoo had fished for him, because he had come to look -on him as a friend, and because he knew it was death that Wakayoo was -facing now. There was a third shot—the last. Wakayoo sank down in his -tracks. His big head dropped between his forepaws. A racking cough or -two came to Baree. And then there was silence. - -It was slaughter—but business. - -A minute later, standing over Wakayoo, Pierrot said to Nepeese: - -“_Mon Dieu_, but it is a fine skin, _Sakahet!_ It is worth twenty -dollars over at Lac Bain!” - -He drew forth his knife and began whetting if on a stone which he -carried in his pocket. In these minutes Baree might have crawled out -from under his rock and escaped down the cañon; for a space he was -forgotten. Then Nepeese thought of him, and in that same strange, -wondering voice she spoke again the word “_Baree_.” - -Pierrot, who was kneeling, looked up at her. - -“_Oui, Sakahet._ He was born of the wild. And now he is gone——” - -The Willow shook her head. - -“_Non_, he is not gone,” she said, and her dark eyes quested the sunlit -meadow. - -[Illustration: Baree stood still. Nepeese was not more than twenty feet -from him. He sat on a rock, full in the early morning sun. She saw the -white star on his breast and the white tip on his ear, and under her -breath she whispered “_Uchi moosis!_”—“The dog-pup!” It was the wild-dog -she had shot—and thought had died!] - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - -As Nepeese gazed about the rock-walled end of the cañon, the prison into -which they had driven Wakayoo and Baree, Pierrot looked up again from -his skinning of the big black bear, and he muttered something that no -one but himself could have heard. “_Non_, it is not possible,” he had -said a moment before; but to Nepeese it was possible—the thought that -was in her mind. It was a wonderful thought. It thrilled her to the -depth of her wild, beautiful soul. It sent a glow into her eyes and a -deeper flush of excitement into her cheeks and lips. - -As she quested the ragged edges of the little meadow for signs of the -dog-pup, her thoughts flashed back swiftly. Two years ago they had -buried her princess mother under the tall spruce near their cabin. That -day Pierrot’s sun had set for all time, and her own life was filled with -a vast loneliness. There had been three at the graveside that afternoon -as the sun went down—Pierrot, herself, and a dog, a great, powerful -husky with a white star on his breast and a white-tipped ear. He had -been her dead mother’s pet from puppyhood—her bodyguard, with her -always, even with his head resting on the side of her bed as she died. -And that night, the night of the day they buried her, the dog had -disappeared. He had gone as quietly and as completely as her spirit. No -one ever saw him after that. It was strange, and to Pierrot it was a -miracle. Deep in his heart he was filled with the wonderful conviction -that the dog had gone with his beloved Wyola into heaven. - -But Nepeese had spent three winters at the Missioner’s school at Nelson -House. She had learned a great deal about white people and the real God, -and she knew that Pierrot’s thought was impossible. She believed that -her mother’s husky was either dead or had joined the wolves. Probably he -had gone to the wolves. So—was it not possible that this youngster she -and her father had pursued was of the flesh and blood of her mother’s -pet? It was more than possible. The white star on his breast, the -white-tipped ear—the fact that he had not bitten her when he might -easily have buried his fangs in the soft flesh of her arms! She was -convinced. While Pierrot skinned the bear, she began hunting for Baree. - -Baree had not moved an inch from under his rock. He lay like a thing -stunned, his eyes fixed steadily on the scene of the tragedy out in the -meadow. He had seen something that he would never forget—even as he -would never quite forget his mother and Kazan and the old windfall. He -had witnessed the death of the creature he had thought all-powerful. -Wakayoo, the big bear, had not even put up a fight. Pierrot and Nepeese -had killed him _without touching him_; now Pierrot was cutting him with -a knife which shot silvery flashes in the sun; and Wakayoo made no -movement. It made Baree shiver, and he drew himself an inch farther back -under the rock, where he was already wedged as if he had been shoved -there by a strong hand. - -He could see Nepeese. She came straight back to the break through which -his flight had taken him, and stood at last not more than twenty feet -from where he was hidden. Now that she stood where he could not escape, -she began weaving her shining hair into two thick braids. Baree had -taken his eyes from Pierrot, and he watched her curiously. He was not -afraid now. His nerves tingled. In him a strange and growing force was -struggling to solve a great mystery—the reason for his desire to creep -out from under his rock and approach that wonderful creature with the -shining eyes and the beautiful hair. - -Baree wanted to approach. It was like an invisible string tugging at his -very heart. It was Kazan, and not Gray Wolf, calling to him back through -the centuries, a “call” that was as old as the Egyptian pyramids and -perhaps ten thousand years older. But against that desire Gray Wolf was -pulling from out the black ages of the forests. The wolf held him quiet -and motionless. Nepeese was looking about her. She was smiling. For a -moment her face was turned toward him, and he saw the white shine of her -teeth, and her beautiful eyes seemed glowing straight at him. - -And then, suddenly, she dropped on her knees and peered under the rock. - -Their eyes met. For at least half a minute there was not a sound. -Nepeese did not move, and her breath came so softly that Baree could not -hear it. Then she said, almost in a whisper: - -“_Baree! Baree! Upi Baree!_” - -It was the first time Baree had heard his name, and there was something -so soft and assuring in the sound of it that in spite of himself the dog -in him responded to it in a whimper that just reached the Willow’s ears. -Slowly she stretched in an arm. It was bare and round and soft. He might -have darted forward the length of his body and buried his fangs in it -easily. But something held him back. He knew that it was not an enemy; -he knew that the dark eyes shining at him so wonderfully were not filled -with the desire to harm—and the voice that came to him softly was like a -strange and thrilling music. - -“_Baree! Baree! Upi Baree!_” - -Over and over again the Willow called to him like that, while on her -face she tried to draw herself a few inches farther under the rock. She -could not reach him. There was still a foot between her hand and Baree, -and she could not wedge herself in an inch more. And then she saw where -on the other side of the rock there was a hollow, shut in by a stone. If -she had removed the stone, and come in that way—— - -She drew herself out and stood once more in the sunshine. Her heart -thrilled. Pierrot was busy over his bear—and she would not call him. She -made an effort to move the stone which closed in the hollow under the -big boulder, but it was wedged in tightly. Then she began digging with a -stick. If Pierrot had been there, his sharp eyes would have discovered -the significance of that stone, which was not larger than a water pail. -Possibly for centuries it had lain there, its support keeping the huge -rock from toppling down, just as an ounce-weight may swing the balance -of a wheel that weighs a ton. - -Five minutes—and Nepeese could move the stone. She tugged at it. Inch by -inch she dragged it out until at last it lay at her feet and the opening -was ready for her body. She looked again toward Pierrot. He was still -busy, and she laughed softly as she untied a big red-and-white Bay -handkerchief from about her shoulders. With this she would secure Baree. -She dropped on her hands and knees and then lowered herself flat on the -ground and began crawling into the hollow under the boulder. - -Baree had moved. With the back of his head flattened against the rock, -he had heard something which Nepeese had not heard; he had felt a slow -and growing pressure, and from this pressure he had dragged himself -slowly—and the pressure still followed. The mass of rock was settling! -Nepeese did not see or hear or understand. She was calling to him more -and more pleadingly: - -“Baree—Baree—Baree——” - -Her head and shoulders and both arms were under the rock now. The glow -of her eyes was very close to Baree. He whined. The thrill of a great -and impending danger stirred in his blood. And then—— - -In that moment Nepeese felt the pressure of the rock on her shoulder, -and into the eyes that had been glowing softly at Baree there shot a -sudden wild look of horror. And then there came from her lips a cry that -was not like any other sound Baree had ever heard in the -wilderness—wild, piercing, filled with agonized fear. Pierrot did not -hear that first cry. But he heard the second and the third—and then -scream after scream as the Willow’s tender body was slowly crushed under -the settling mass. He ran toward it with the speed of the wind. The -cries were weaker—dying away. He saw Baree as he came out from under the -rock and ran into the cañon, and in the same instant he saw a part of -the Willow’s dress and her moccasined feet. The rest of her was hidden -under the death-trap. Like a madman Pierrot began digging. When a few -moments later he drew Nepeese out from under the boulder she was white -and deathly still. Her eyes were closed. His hand could not feel that -she was living, and a great moan of anguish rose out of his soul. But he -knew how to fight for a life. He tore open her dress and found that she -was not crushed as he had feared. Then he ran for water. When he -returned, the Willow’s eyes were open and she was gasping for breath. - -“The blessed saints be praised!” sobbed Pierrot, falling on his knees at -her side. “_Nepeese, ma Nepeese!_” - -She smiled at him, with her two hands on her bare breast, and Pierrot -hugged her up to him, forgetting the water he had run so hard to get. - -Still later, when he got down on his knees and peered under the rock, -his face turned white and he said: - -“_Mon Dieu_, if it had not been for that little hollow in the earth, -Nepeese——” - -He shuddered, and said no more. But Nepeese, happy in her salvation, -made a movement with her hand and said, smiling at him: - -“I would have been like—_that_. Ah, _mon père_, I hope I shall never -have a lover like that rock!” - -Pierrot’s face darkened as he bent over her. - -“_Non!_” he said fiercely. “Never!” - -He was thinking again of McTaggart, the factor at Lac Bain, and his -hands clenched while his lips softly touched the Willow’s hair. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - -Impelled by the wild alarm of the Willow’s terrible cries and the sight -of Pierrot dashing madly toward him from the dead body of Wakayoo, Baree -did not stop running until it seemed as though his lungs could not draw -another breath. When he stopped, he was well out of the cañon and headed -for the beaver-pond. For almost a week Baree had not been near the pond. -He had not forgotten Beaver-tooth and Umisk and the other little -beavers, but Wakayoo and his daily catch of fresh fish had been too big -a temptation for him. Now Wakayoo was gone. He sensed the fact that the -big black bear would never fish again in the quiet pools and shimmering -eddies, and that where for many days there had been peace and plenty, -there was now great danger; and just as in another country he would have -fled for safety to the old windfall, he now fled desperately for the -beaver-pond. - -Exactly wherein lay Baree’s fears it would be difficult to say—but -surely it was not because of Nepeese. The Willow had chased him hard. -She had flung herself upon him. He had felt the clutch of her hands and -the smother of her soft hair, and yet of her he was not afraid! If he -stopped now and then in his flight and looked back, it was to see if -Nepeese was following. He would not have run hard from her—alone. Her -eyes and voice and hands had set something stirring in him; he was -filled with a greater yearning and a greater loneliness now—and that -night he dreamed troubled dreams. - -He found himself a bed under a spruce root not far from the beaver-pond, -and all through the night his sleep was filled with that restless -dreaming—dreams of his mother, of Kazan, the old windfall, of Umisk—and -of Nepeese. Once, when he awoke, he thought the spruce root was Gray -Wolf; and when he found that she was not there, Pierrot and the Willow -could have told what his crying meant if they had heard it. Again and -again he had visions of the thrilling happenings of that day. He saw the -flight of Wakayoo over the little meadow—he saw him die again. He saw -the glow of the Willow’s eyes close to his own, heard her voice—so sweet -and low that it was like strange music to him—and again he heard her -terrible screams. - -Baree was glad when the dawn came. He did not seek for food, but went -down to the pond. There was little hope and anticipation in his manner -now. He remembered that, as plainly as animal ways could talk, Umisk and -his playmates had told him they wanted nothing to do with him. And yet -the fact that they were there took away some of his loneliness. It was -more than loneliness. The wolf in him was submerged. The dog was master. -And in these passing moments, when the blood of the wild was almost -dormant in him, he was depressed by the instinctive and growing feeling -that he was not of that wild, but a fugitive in it, menaced on all sides -by strange dangers. - -Deep in the northern forests the beaver does not work and play in -darkness only, but uses day even more than night, and many of -Beaver-tooth’s people were awake when Baree began disconsolately to -investigate the shores of the pond. The little beavers were still with -their mothers in the big houses that looked like great domes of sticks -and mud out in the middle of the lake. There were three of these houses, -one of them at least twenty feet in diameter. Baree had some difficulty -in following his side of the pond. When he got back among the willows -and alders and birch, dozens of little canals crossed and criss-crossed -in his path. Some of these canals were a foot wide, and others three or -four feet, and all were filled with water. No country in the world ever -had a better system of traffic than this domain of the beavers, down -which they brought their working materials and food into the main -reservoir—the pond. - -In one of the larger canals Baree surprised a big beaver towing a -four-foot cutting of birch as thick through as a man’s leg—half a dozen -breakfasts and dinners and suppers in that one cargo. The four or five -inner barks of the birch are what might be called the bread and butter -and potatoes of the beaver menu, while the more highly prized barks of -the willow and young alder take the place of meat and pie. - -Baree smelled curiously of the birch cutting after the old beaver had -abandoned it in flight, and then went on. He did not try to hide himself -now, and at least half a dozen beavers had a good look at him before he -came to the point where the pond narrowed down to the width of the -stream, almost half a mile from the dam. Then he wandered back. All that -morning he hovered about the pond, showing himself openly. - -In their big mud-and-stick strongholds the beavers held a council of -war. They were distinctly puzzled. There were four enemies which they -dreaded above all others: the otter, who destroyed their dams in the -winter-time and brought death to them from cold and by lowering the -water so they could not get to their food-supplies; the lynx, who preyed -on them all, young and old alike; and the fox and wolf, who would lie in -ambush for hours in order to pounce on the very young, like Umisk and -his playmates. If Baree had been any one of these four, wily -Beaver-tooth and his people would have known what to do. But Baree was -surely not an otter, and if he was a fox or a wolf or a lynx, his -actions were very strange, to say the least. Half a dozen times he had -had the opportunity to pounce on his prey, if he had been seeking prey. -But at no time had he shown the desire to harm them. - -It may be that the beavers discussed the matter fully among themselves. -It is possible that Umisk and his playmates told their parents of their -adventure, and of how Baree made no move to harm them when he could -quite easily have caught them. It is also more than likely that the -older beavers who had fled from Baree that morning gave an account of -their adventures, again emphasizing the fact that the stranger, while -frightening them, had shown no disposition to attack them. All this is -quite possible, for if beavers can make a large part of a continent’s -history, and can perform engineering feats that nothing less than -dynamite can destroy, it is only reasonable to suppose that they have -some way of making one another understand. - -However this may be, courageous old Beaver-tooth took it upon himself to -end the suspense. - -It was early in the afternoon that for the third or fourth time Baree -walked out on the dam. This dam was fully two hundred feet in length, -but at no point did the water run over it, the overflow finding its way -through narrow sluices. A week or two ago Baree could have crossed to -the opposite side of the pond on this dam, but now—at the far -end—Beaver-tooth and his engineers were adding a new section of dam, and -in order to accomplish their work more easily, they had flooded fully -fifty yards of the low ground on which they were working. The main dam -held a fascination for Baree. It was strong with the smell of beaver. -The top of it was high and dry, and there were dozens of smoothly worn -little hollows in which the beavers had taken their sun-baths. In one of -these hollows Baree stretched himself out, with his eyes on the pond. -Not a ripple stirred its velvety smoothness. Not a sound broke the -drowsy stillness of the afternoon. The beavers might have been dead or -asleep, for all the stir they made. And yet they knew that Baree was on -the dam. Where he lay, the sun fell in a warm flood, and it was so -comfortable that after a time he had difficulty in keeping his eyes open -to watch the pond. Then he fell asleep. - -Just how Beaver-tooth sensed this fact is a mystery. Five minutes later -he came up quietly, without a splash or a sound, within fifty yards of -Baree. For a few moments he scarcely moved in the water. Then he swam -very slowly parallel with the dam across the pond. At the other side he -drew himself ashore, and for another minute sat as motionless as a -stone, with his eyes on that part of the dam where Baree was lying. Not -another beaver was moving, and it was very soon apparent that -Beaver-tooth had but one object in mind—getting a closer observation of -Baree. When he entered the water again, he swam along close to the dam. -Ten feet beyond Baree he began to climb out. He did this with great -slowness and caution. At last he reached the top of the dam. - -A few yards away Baree was almost hidden in his hollow, only the top of -his shiny black body appearing to Beaver-tooth’s scrutiny. To get a -better look, the old beaver spread his flat tail out beyond him and rose -to a sitting posture on his hind-quarters, his two front paws held -squirrel-like over his breast. In this pose he was fully three feet -tall. He probably weighed forty pounds, and in some ways he resembled -one of those fat, good-natured, silly-looking dogs that go largely to -stomach. But his brain was working with amazing celerity. Suddenly he -gave the hard mud of the dam a single slap with his tail—and Baree sat -up. Instantly he saw Beaver-tooth, and stared. Beaver-tooth stared. For -a full half-minute neither moved the thousandth part of an inch. Then -Baree stood up and wagged his tail. - -That was enough. Dropping to his forefeet. Beaver-tooth waddled -leisurely to the edge of the dam and dived over. He was neither cautious -nor in very great haste now. He made a great commotion in the water and -swam boldly back and forth under Baree. When he had done this several -times, he cut straight up the pond to the largest of the three houses -and disappeared. Five minutes after Beaver-tooth’s exploit word was -passing quickly among the colony. The stranger—Baree—was not a lynx. He -was not a fox. He was not a wolf. Moreover, he was very young—and -harmless. Work could be resumed. Play could be resumed. There was no -danger. Such was Beaver-tooth’s verdict. - -If some one had shouted these facts in beaver-language through a -megaphone, the response could not have been quicker. All at once it -seemed to Baree, who was still standing on the edge of the dam, that the -pond was alive with beavers. He had never seen so many at one time -before. They were popping up everywhere, and some of them swam up within -a dozen feet of him and looked him over in a leisurely and curious way. -For perhaps five minutes the beavers seemed to have no particular object -in view. Then Beaver-tooth himself struck straight for the shore and -climbed out. Others followed him. Half a dozen workers disappeared in -the canals. As many more waddled out among the alders and willows. -Eagerly Baree watched for Umisk and his chums. At last he saw them, -swimming forth from one of the smaller houses. They climbed out on their -playground—the smooth bar above the shore of mud. Baree wagged his tail -so hard that his whole body shook, and hurried along the dam. - -When he came out on the level strip of shore, Umisk was there alone, -nibbling his supper from a long, freshly cut willow. The other little -beavers had gone into a thick clump of young alders. - -This time Umisk did not run. He looked up from his stick. Baree squatted -himself, wiggling in a most friendly and ingratiating manner. For a few -seconds Umisk regarded him. - -Then, very coolly, he resumed his supper. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - -Just as in the life of every man there is one big, controlling -influence, either for good or bad, so in the life of Baree the -beaver-pond was largely an arbiter of destiny. Where he might have gone -if he had not discovered it, and what might have happened to him, are -matters of conjecture. But it held him. It began to take the place of -the old windfall, and in the beavers themselves he found a companionship -which made up, in a way, for his loss of the protection and friendship -of Kazan and Gray Wolf. - -This companionship, if it could be called that, went just so far and no -farther. With each day that passed the older beavers became more -accustomed to seeing Baree. At the end of two weeks, if Baree had gone -away, they would have missed him—but not in the same way that Baree -would have missed the beavers. It was a matter of good-natured -toleration on their part. With Baree it was different. He was still -_uskahis_, as Nepeese would have said; he still wanted mothering; he was -still moved by the puppyish yearnings which he had not yet had the time -to outgrow; and when night came—to speak that yearning quite plainly—he -had the desire to go into the big beaver house with Umisk and his chums -and sleep. - -During this fortnight that followed Beaver-tooth’s exploit on the dam -Baree ate his meals a mile up the creek, where there were plenty of -crawfish. But the pond was home. Night always found him there, and a -large part of his day. He slept at the end of the dam, or on top of it -on particularly clear nights, and the beavers accepted him as a -permanent guest. They worked in his presence as if he did not exist. - -Baree was fascinated by this work, and he never grew tired of watching -it. It puzzled and bewildered him. Day after day he saw them float -timber and brush through the water for the new dam. He saw this dam -growing steadily under their efforts. One day he lay within a dozen feet -of an old beaver who was cutting down a tree six inches through. When -the tree fell, and the old beaver scurried away, Baree scurried, too. -Then he came back and smelled of the cutting, wondering what it was all -about, and why Umisk’s uncle or grandfather or aunt had gone to all that -trouble. - -He still could not induce Umisk and the other young beavers to join him -in play, and after the first week or so he gave up his efforts. In fact, -their play puzzled him almost as much as the dam-building operations of -the older beavers. Umisk, for instance, was fond of playing in the mud -at the edge of the pond. He was like a very small boy. Where his elders -floated timbers from three inches to a foot in diameter to the big dam, -Umisk brought small sticks and twigs no larger around than a lead-pencil -to his playground, and built a make-believe dam of his own. - -Umisk would work an hour at a time on this play-dam as industriously as -his father and mother were working on the big dam, and Baree would lie -flat on his belly a few feet away, watching him and wondering mightily. -And through this half-dry mud Umisk would also dig his miniature canals, -just as a small boy might have dug his Mississippi River and -pirate-infested oceans in the outflow of some back-lot spring. With his -sharp little teeth he cut down his big timber—willow-sprouts never more -than an inch in diameter; and when one of these four or five-foot -sprouts toppled down, he undoubtedly felt as great a satisfaction as -Beaver-tooth felt when he sent a seventy-foot birch crashing into the -edge of the pond. Baree could not understand the fun of all this. He -could see some reason for nibbling at sticks—he liked to sharpen his -teeth on sticks himself; but it puzzled him to explain why Umisk so -painstakingly stripped the bark from the sticks and swallowed it. - -Another method of play still further discouraged Baree’s advances. A -short distance from the spot where he had first seen Umisk there was a -shelving bank that rose ten or twelve feet from the water, and this bank -was used by the young beavers as a slide. It was worn smooth and hard. -Umisk would climb up the bank at a point where it was not so steep. At -the top of the slide he would put his tail out flat behind him and give -himself a shove, shooting down the toboggan and landing in the water -with a big splash. At times there were from six to ten young beavers -engaged in this sport, and now and then one of the older beavers would -waddle to the top of the slide and take a turn with the youngsters. - -One afternoon, when the toboggan was particularly wet and slippery from -recent use, Baree went up the beaver-path to the top of the bank, and -began investigating. Nowhere had he found the beaver-smell so strong as -on the slide. He began sniffing and incautiously went too far. In an -instant his feet shot out from under him, and with a single wild yelp he -went shooting down the toboggan. For the second time in his life he -found himself struggling under water, and when a minute or two later he -dragged himself up through the soft mud to the firmer footing of the -shore, he had at last a very well-defined opinion of beaver play. - -It may be that Umisk saw him. It may be that very soon the story of his -adventure was known by all the inhabitants of Beaver Town. For when -Baree came upon Umisk eating his supper of alder-bark that evening, -Umisk stood his ground to the last inch, and for the first time they -smelled noses. At least Baree sniffed audibly, and plucky little Umisk -sat like a rolled-up sphinx. That was the final cementing of their -friendship—on Baree’s part. He capered about extravagantly for a few -moments, telling Umisk how much he liked him, and that they’d be great -chums. Umisk didn’t talk. He didn’t make a move until he resumed his -supper. But he was a companionable looking little fellow, for all that, -and Baree was happier than he had been since the day he left the old -windfall. - -This friendship, even though it outwardly appeared to be quite -one-sided, was decidedly fortunate for Umisk. When Baree was at the -pond, he always kept as near to Umisk as possible, when he could find -him. One day he was lying in a patch of grass, half asleep, while Umisk -busied himself in a clump of alder-shoots a few yards away. It was the -warning crack of a beaver tail that fully roused Baree; and then another -and another, like pistol-shots. He jumped up. Everywhere beavers were -scurrying for the pond. - -Just then Umisk came out of the alders and hurried as fast as his short, -fat legs would carry him toward the water. He had almost reached the mud -when a lightning flash of red passed before Baree’s eyes in the -afternoon sun, and in another instant Napakasew—the he-fox—had fastened -his sharp fangs in Umisk’s throat. Baree heard his little friend’s -agonized cry; he heard the frenzied _flap-flap-flap_ of many tails—and -his blood pounded suddenly with the thrill of excitement and rage. - -As swiftly as the red fox himself, Baree darted to the rescue. He was as -big and as heavy as the fox, and when he struck Napakasew, it was with a -ferocious snarl that Pierrot might have heard on the farther side of the -pond, and his teeth sank like knives into the shoulder of Umisk’s -assailant. The fox was of a breed of forest highwaymen which kills from -behind. He was not a fighter when it came fang-to-fang, unless -cornered—and so fierce and sudden was Baree’s assault that Napakasew -took to flight almost as quickly as he had begun his attack on Umisk. - -Baree did not follow him, but went to Umisk, who lay half in the mud, -whimpering and snuffling in a curious sort of way. Gently Baree nosed -him, and after a moment or two Umisk got up on his webbed feet, while -fully twenty or thirty beavers were making a tremendous fuss in the -water near the shore. - -After this the beaver-pond seemed more than ever like home to Baree. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - -While lovely Nepeese was shuddering over her thrilling experience under -the rock—while Pierrot still offered grateful thanks in his prayers for -her deliverance and Baree was becoming more and more a fixture at the -beaver-pond—Bush McTaggart was perfecting a little scheme of his own up -at Post Lac Bain, about forty miles north and west. McTaggart had been -factor at Lac Bain for seven years. In the Company’s books down in -Winnipeg he was counted a remarkably successful man. The expense of his -post was below the average, and his semi-annual report of furs always -ranked among the first. After his name, kept on file in the main office, -was one notation which said: “Gets more out of a dollar than any other -man north of God’s Lake.” - -The Indians knew why this was so. They called him _Napao Wetikoo_—the -man-devil. This was under their breath—a name whispered sinisterly in -the glow of tepee fires, or spoken softly where not even the winds might -carry it to the ears of Bush McTaggart. They feared him; they hated him. -They died of starvation and sickness, and the tighter Bush McTaggart -clenched the fingers of his iron rule, the more meekly, it seemed to -him, did they respond to his mastery. His was a small soul, hidden in -the hulk of a brute, which rejoiced in power. And here—with the raw -wilderness on four sides of him—his power knew no end. The Big Company -was behind him. It had made him king of a domain in which there was -little law except his own. And in return he gave back to the Company -bales and bundles of furs beyond their expectation. It was not for them -to have suspicions. They were a thousand or more miles away—and dollars -counted. - -Gregson might have told. Gregson was the Investigating Agent of that -district, who visited McTaggart once each year. He might have reported -that the Indians called McTaggart _Napao Wetikoo_ because he gave them -only half price for their furs; he might have told the Company quite -plainly that he kept the people of the trap-lines at the edge of -starvation through every month of the winter, that he had them on their -knees with his hands at their throats—putting the truth in a mild and -pretty way—and that he always had a woman or a girl, Indian or -halfbreed, living with him at the Post. But Gregson enjoyed his visits -too much at Lac Bain. Always he could count on two weeks of coarse -pleasures; and in addition to that, his own womenfolk at home wore a -rich treasure of fur that came to them from McTaggart. - -One evening, a week after the adventure of Nepeese and Baree under the -rock, McTaggart sat under the glow of an oil lamp in his “store.” He had -sent his little pippin-faced English clerk to bed, and he was alone. For -six weeks there had been in him a great unrest. It was just six weeks -ago that Pierrot had brought Nepeese on her first visit to Lac Bain -since McTaggart had been factor there. She had taken his breath away. -Since then he had been able to think of nothing but her. Twice in that -six weeks he had gone down to Pierrot’s cabin. To-morrow he was going -again. Marie, the slim Cree girl over in his cabin, he had -forgotten—just as a dozen others before Marie had slipped out of his -memory. It was Nepeese now. He had never seen anything quite so -beautiful as Pierrot’s girl. - -Audibly he cursed Pierrot as he looked at a sheet of paper under his -hand, on which for an hour or more he had been making notes out of worn -and dusty Company ledgers. It was Pierrot who stood in his way. -Pierrot’s father, according to those notes, had been a full-blooded -Frenchman. Therefore Pierrot was half French, and Nepeese was quarter -French—though she was so beautiful he could have sworn there was not -more than a drop or two of Indian blood in her veins. If they had been -all Indian—Chippewayan, Cree, Ojibway, Dog Rib—anything—there would have -been no trouble at all in the matter. He would have bent them to his -power, and Nepeese would have come to his cabin, as Marie came six -months ago. But there was the accursed French of it! Pierrot and Nepeese -were different. And yet—— - -He smiled grimly, and his hands clenched tighter. After all, was not his -power sufficient? Would even Pierrot dare stand against that? If Pierrot -objected, he would drive him from the country—from the trapping regions -that had come down to him as heritage from father and grandfather, and -even before their day. He would make of Pierrot a wanderer and an -outcast, as he had made wanderers and outcasts of a score of others who -had lost his favour. No other Post would sell to or buy from Pierrot if -_Le Bête_—the black cross—was put after his name. That was his power—a -law of the Factors that had come down through the centuries. It was a -tremendous power for evil. It had brought him Marie, the slim, dark-eyed -Cree girl, who hated him—and in spite of her hatred “kept house for -him.” That was the polite way of explaining her presence if explanations -were ever necessary. - -McTaggart looked again at the notes he had made on the sheet of paper. -Pierrot’s trapping-country, his own property according to the common law -of the wilderness, was very valuable. During the last seven years he had -received an average of a thousand dollars a year for his furs, for -McTaggart had been unable to cheat Pierrot quite as completely as he had -cheated the Indians. A thousand dollars a year! Pierrot would think -twice before he gave that up. McTaggart chuckled as he crumpled the -paper in his hand and prepared to put out the light. Under his -close-cropped shaggy beard his reddish face blazed with the fire that -was in his blood. It was an unpleasant face—like iron, merciless, filled -with the look that gave him his name of _Napao Wetikoo_. His eyes -gleamed, and he drew a quick breath as he put out the light. - -He chuckled again as he made his way through the darkness to the door. -Nepeese as good as belonged to him. He would have her if it -cost—_Pierrot’s life_. And—_why not_? It was all so easy. A shot on a -lonely trap-line, a single knife-thrust—and who would know? Who would -guess where Pierrot had gone? And it would all be Pierrot’s fault. For -the last time he had seen Pierrot, he had made an honest proposition: he -would marry Nepeese. Yes, even that. He had told Pierrot so. He had told -Pierrot that when the latter was his father-in-law, he would pay him -double price for furs. - -And Pierrot had stared—had stared with that strange, stunned look in his -face, like a man dazed by a blow from a club. And so if he did not get -Nepeese without trouble it would all be Pierrot’s fault. To-morrow -McTaggart would start again for the halfbreed’s country. And the next -day Pierrot would have an answer for him. Bush McTaggart chuckled again -when he went to bed. - -Until the next to the last day Pierrot said nothing to Nepeese about -what had passed between him and the factor at Lac Bain. Then he told -her. - -“He is a beast—a man-devil,” he said, when he had finished. “I would -rather see you out there—with her—dead.” And he pointed to the tall -spruce under which the princess mother lay. - -Nepeese had not uttered a sound. But her eyes had grown bigger and -darker, and there was a flush in her cheeks which Pierrot had never seen -there before. She stood up when he had done, and she seemed taller to -him. Never had she looked quite so much like a woman, and Pierrot’s eyes -were deep-shadowed with fear and uneasiness as he watched her while she -gazed off into the northwest—toward Lac Bain. - -She was wonderful, this slip of a girl-woman. Her beauty troubled him. -He had seen the look in Bush McTaggart’s eyes. He had heard the thrill -in McTaggart’s voice. He had caught the desire of a beast in McTaggart’s -face. It had frightened him at first. But now—he was not frightened. He -was uneasy, but his hands were clenched. In his heart there was a -smoldering fire. At last Nepeese turned and came and sat down beside him -again, at his feet. - -“He is coming to-morrow, _ma chérie_,” he said. “What shall I tell him?” - -The Willow’s lips were red. Her eyes shone. But she did not look up at -her father. - -“Nothing, Nootawe—except that you are to say to him that I am the one to -whom he must come—for what he seeks.” - -Pierrot bent over and caught her smiling. The sun went down. His heart -sank with it, like cold lead. - - * * * * * - -From Lac Bain to Pierrot’s cabin the trail cut within half a mile of the -beaver-pond, a dozen miles from where Pierrot lived; and it was here, on -a twist of the creek in which Wakayoo had caught fish for Baree, that -Bush McTaggart made his camp for the night. Only twenty miles of the -journey could be made by canoe, and as McTaggart was travelling the last -stretch afoot, his camp was a simple affair—a few cut balsams, a light -blanket, a small fire. Before he prepared his supper, the Factor drew a -number of copper-wire snares from his small pack and spent half an hour -in setting them in rabbit runways. This method of securing meat was far -less arduous than carrying a gun in hot weather, and it was certain. -Half a dozen snares were good for at least three rabbits, and one of -these three was sure to be young and tender enough for the frying-pan. -After he had placed his snares McTaggart set a skillet of bacon over the -coals and boiled his coffee. - -Of all the odours of a camp, the smell of bacon reaches farthest in the -forest. It needs no wind. It drifts on its own wings. On a still night a -fox will sniff it a mile away—twice that far if the air is moving in the -right direction. It was this smell of bacon that came to Baree where he -lay in his hollow on top of the beaver-dam. - -Since his experience in the cañon and the death of Wakayoo, he had not -fared particularly well. Caution had held him near the pond, and he had -lived almost entirely on crawfish. This new perfume that came with the -night wind roused his hunger. But it was elusive: now he could smell -it—the next instant it was gone. He left the dam and began questing for -the source of it in the forest, until after a time he lost it -altogether. McTaggart had finished frying his bacon and was eating it. - -It was a splendid night that followed. Perhaps Baree would have slept -through it in his nest on the top of the dam if the bacon smell had not -stirred the new hunger in him. Since his adventure in the cañon, the -deeper forest had held a dread for him, especially at night. But this -night was like a pale, golden day: it was moonless; but the stars shone -like a billion distant lamps, flooding the world in a soft and billowy -sea of light. A gentle whisper of wind made pleasant sounds in the -treetops. Beyond that it was very quiet, for it was _Puskowepesim_—the -Moulting Moon—and the wolves were not hunting, the owls had lost their -voice, the foxes slunk with he silence of shadows, and even the beavers -had begun to cease their labours. The horns of the moose, the deer, and -the caribou were in tender velvet, and they moved but little and fought -not at all. It was late July, Moulting Moon of the Cree, Moon of Silence -for the Chippewayan. - -In this silence Baree began to hunt. He stirred up a family of -half-grown partridges, but they escaped him. He pursued a rabbit that -was swifter than he. For an hour he had no luck. Then he heard a sound -that made every drop of blood in him thrill. He was close to McTaggart’s -camp, and what he had heard was a rabbit in one of McTaggart’s snares. -He came out into a little starlit open and there he saw the rabbit going -through a most marvellous pantomime. It amazed him for a moment, and he -stopped in his tracks. - -Wapoos, the rabbit, had run his furry head into the snare, and his first -frightened jump had “shot” the sapling to which the copper wire was -attached so that he was now hung half in midair, with only his hind feet -touching the ground. And there he was dancing madly while the noose -about his neck slowly choked him to death. - -Baree gave a sort of gasp. He could understand nothing of the part that -the wire and the sapling were playing in this curious game. All he could -see was that Wapoos was hopping and dancing about on his hind legs in a -most puzzling and unrabbit-like fashion. It may be that he thought it -some sort of play. In this instance, however, he did not regard Wapoos -as he had looked on Umisk the beaver. He knew that Wapoos made mighty -fine eating, and after another moment or two of hesitation he darted -upon his prey. - -Wapoos, half gone already, made almost no struggle, and in the glow of -the stars Baree finished him, and for half an hour afterward he feasted. - -McTaggart had heard no sound, for the snare into which Wapoos had run -his head was the one set farthest from his camp. Beside the smouldering -coals of his fire he sat with his back to a tree, smoking his black pipe -and dreaming covetously of Nepeese, when Baree continued his -night-wandering. Baree no longer had the desire to hunt. He was too -full. But he nosed in and out of the starlit spaces, enjoying immensely -the stillness and the golden glow of the night. He was following a -rabbit-run when he came to a place where two fallen logs left a trail no -wider than his body. He squeezed through; something tightened about his -neck; there was a sudden snap—a swish as the sapling was released from -its “trigger”—and Baree was jerked off his feet so suddenly that he had -no time to conjecture as to what was happening. - -The yelp in his throat died in a gurgle, and the next moment he was -going through the pantomimic actions of Wapoos, who was having his -vengeance inside him. For the life of him Baree could not keep from -dancing about, while the wire grew tighter and tighter about his neck. -When he snapped at the wire and flung the weight of his body to the -ground, the sapling would bend obligingly, and then—in its rebound—would -yank him for an instant completely off the earth. Furiously he -struggled. It was a miracle that the fine wire held him. In a few -moments more it must have broken—but McTaggart had heard him! The Factor -caught up his blanket and a heavy stick as he hurried toward the snare. -It was not a rabbit making those sounds—he knew that. Perhaps a -fisher-cat—a lynx, a fox, a young wolf—— - -It was the wolf he thought of first when he saw Baree at the end of the -wire. He dropped the blanket and raised the club. If there had been -clouds overhead, or the stars had been less brilliant, Baree would have -died as surely as Wapoos had died. With the club raised over his head -McTaggart saw in time the white star, the white-tipped ear, and the jet -black of Baree’s coat. - -With a swift movement he exchanged the club for the blanket. - -In that hour, could McTaggart have looked ahead to the days that were to -come, he would have used the club. Could he have foreseen the great -tragedy in which Baree was to play a vital part, wrecking his hopes and -destroying his world, he would have beaten him to a pulp there under the -light of the stars. And Baree, could he have foreseen what was to happen -between this brute with a white skin and the most beautiful thing in the -forests, would have fought even more bitterly before he surrendered -himself to the smothering embrace of the Factor’s blanket. On this night -Fate had played a strange hand for them both, and only that Fate, and -perhaps the stars above, held a knowledge of what its outcome was to be. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - -Half an hour later Rush McTaggart’s fire was burning brightly again. In -the glow of it Baree lay trussed up like an Indian papoose, tied into a -balloon-shaped ball with _babiche_ thong, his head alone showing where -his captor had cut a hole for it in the blanket. He was hopelessly -caught—so closely imprisoned in the blanket that he could scarcely move -a muscle of his body. A few feet away from him McTaggart was bathing a -bleeding hand in a basin of water. There was also a red streak down the -side of McTaggart’s bullish neck. - -“You little devil!” he snarled at Baree. “You little devil!” - -He reached over suddenly and gave Baree’s head a vicious blow with his -heavy hand. - -“I ought to beat your brains out, and—I believe I will!” - -Baree watched him as he picked up a stick close at his side—a bit of -firewood. Pierrot had chased him, but this was the first time he had -been near enough to the man-monster to see the red glow in his eyes. -They were not like the eyes of the wonderful creature who had almost -caught him in the web of her hair, and who had crawled after him under -the rock. They were beast-eyes. They made him shrink and try to draw his -head back into the blanket as the stick was raised. At the same time he -snarled. His white fangs gleamed in the firelight. His ears were flat. -He wanted to sink his teeth in the red throat where he had already drawn -blood. - -The stick fell. It fell again and again, and when McTaggart was done, -Baree lay half stunned, his eyes partly closed by the blows, and his -mouth bleeding. - -“That’s the way we take the devil out of a wild dog,” snarled McTaggart. -“I guess you won’t try the biting game again, eh, youngster? A thousand -devils—but you went almost to the bone of this hand!” - -He began washing the wound again. Baree’s teeth had sunk deep, and there -was a troubled look in the Factor’s face. It was July—a bad month for -bites. From his kit he got a small flask of whisky and turned a bit of -the raw liquor on the wound, cursing Baree as it burned into his flesh. - -Baree’s half-shut eyes were fixed on him steadily. He knew that at last -he had met the deadliest of all his enemies. And yet he was not afraid. -The club in Bush McTaggart’s hand had not killed his spirit. It had -killed his fear. It had roused in him a hatred such as he had never -known—not even when he was fighting Oohoomisew, the outlaw owl. The -vengeful animosity of the wolf was burning in him now, along with the -savage courage of the dog. He did not flinch when McTaggart approached -him again. He made an effort to raise himself, that he might spring at -this man-monster. In the effort, swaddled as he was in the blanket, he -rolled over in a helpless and ludicrous heap. - -The sight of it touched McTaggart’s risibilities, and he laughed. He sat -down with his back to the tree again and filled his pipe. - -Baree did not take his eyes from McTaggart as he smoked. He watched the -man when the latter stretched himself out on the bare ground and went to -sleep. He listened, still later, to the man-monster’s heinous snoring. -Again and again during the long night he struggled to free himself. He -would never forget that night. It was terrible. In the thick, hot folds -of the blanket his limbs and body were suffocated until the blood almost -stood still in his veins. Yet he did not whine. - -They began to journey before the sun was up, for if Baree’s blood was -almost dead within him, Bush McTaggart’s was scorching his body with the -heat of its anticipation. He made his last plans as he walked swiftly -through the forest with Baree under his arm. He would send Pierrot at -once for Father Grotin at his Mission seventy miles to the west. He -would marry Nepeese—yes, marry her! That would tickle Pierrot. And he -would be alone with Nepeese while Pierrot was gone for the missioner. - -This thought flamed McTaggart’s blood like strong whisky. There was no -thought in his hot and unreasoning brain of what Nepeese might say—of -what she might think. He was not after the soul of her. His hand -clenched, and he laughed harshly as there flashed on him for an instant -the thought that perhaps Pierrot would not want to give her up. Pierrot! -Bah! It would not be the first time he had killed a man—or the second. - -McTaggart laughed again, and he walked still faster. There was no chance -of his losing—no chance for Nepeese to get away from him. He—Bush -McTaggart—was lord of this wilderness, master of its people, arbiter of -their destinies. He was power—and the law. - -The sun was well up when Pierrot, standing in front of his cabin with -Nepeese, pointed to a rise in the trail three or four hundred yards -away, over which McTaggart had just appeared. - -“He is coming.” - -With a face which had aged since last night he looked at Nepeese. Again -he saw the dark glow in her eyes and the deepening red of her parted -lips, and his heart was sick again with dread. Was it possible—— - -She turned on him, her eyes shining, her voice trembling. - -“Remember, Nootawe—you must send him to me for his answer,” she cried -quickly, and she darted into the cabin. With a cold, gray face Pierrot -faced Bush McTaggart. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - -From the window, her face screened by the folds of the curtain which she -had made for it, the Willow saw what happened outside. She was not -smiling now. She was breathing quickly, and her body was tense. Bush -McTaggart paused not a dozen feet from the window and shook hands with -Pierrot, her father. She heard McTaggart’s coarse voice, his boisterous -greeting, and then she saw him showing Pierrot what he carried under his -arm. There came to her distinctly his explanation of how he had caught -his captive in a rabbit-snare. He unwrapped the blanket. Nepeese gave a -cry of amazement. In an instant she was out beside them. She did not -look at McTaggart’s red face, blazing in its joy and exultation. - -“It is Baree!” she cried. - -She took the bundle from McTaggart and turned to Pierrot. - -“Tell him that Baree belongs to me,” she said. - -She hurried into the cabin. McTaggart looked after her, stunned and -amazed. Then he looked at Pierrot. A man half blind could have seen that -Pierrot was as amazed as he. Nepeese had not spoken to him—the Factor of -Lac Bain! She had not _looked_ at him! And she had taken the dog from -him with as little concern as though he had been a wooden man. The red -in his face deepened as he stared from Pierrot to the door through which -she had gone, and which she had closed behind her. - -On the floor of the cabin Nepeese dropped on her knees and finished -unwrapping the blanket. She was not afraid of Baree. She had forgotten -McTaggart. And then, as Baree rolled in a limp heap on the floor, she -saw his half-closed eyes and the dry blood on his jaws, and the light -left her face as swiftly as the sun is shadowed by a cloud. “Baree,” she -cried softly. “Baree—Baree!” - -She partly lifted him in her two hands. Baree’s head sagged. His body -was numbed until he was powerless to move. His legs were without -feeling. He could scarcely see. But he heard her voice! It was the same -voice that had come to him that day he had felt the sting of the bullet, -the voice that had pleaded with him under the rock! - -The voice of the Willow thrilled Baree. It seemed to stir the sluggish -blood in his veins, and he opened his eyes wider and saw again the -wonderful stars that had glowed at him so softly the day of Wakayoo’s -death. One of the Willow’s long braids fell over her shoulder, and he -smelled again the sweet scent of her hair as her hand caressed him and -her voice talked to him. Then she got up suddenly and left him, and he -did not move while he waited for her. In a moment she was back with a -basin of water and a cloth. Gently she washed the blood from his eyes -and mouth. And still Baree made no move. He scarcely breathed. But -Nepeese saw the little quivers that shot through his body when her hand -touched him, like electric shocks. - -“He beat you with a club,” she was saying, her dark eyes within a foot -of Baree’s. “He beat you! That man-beast!” - -There came an interruption. The door opened, and the man-beast stood -looking down on them, a grin on his red face. Instantly Baree showed -that he was alive. He sprang back from under the Willow’s hand with a -sudden snarl and faced McTaggart. The hair of his spine stood up like a -brush; his fangs gleamed menacingly, and his eyes burned like living -coals. - -“There is a devil in him,” said McTaggart. “He is wild—born of the wolf. -You must be careful or he will take off a hand, _ka sakahet_!” It was -the first time he had called her that lover’s name in Cree—_sweetheart_! -Her heart pounded. She bent her head for a moment over her clenched -hands, and McTaggart—looking down on what he thought was her -confusion—laid his hand caressingly on her hair. From the door Pierrot -had heard the word, and now he saw the caress, and he raised a hand as -if to shut out the sight of a sacrilege. - -“_Mon Dieu!_” he breathed. - -In the next instant he had given a sharp cry of wonder that mingled with -a sudden yell of pain from McTaggart. Like a flash Baree had darted -across the floor and fastened his teeth in the Factor’s leg. They had -bitten deep before McTaggart freed himself with a powerful kick. With an -oath he snatched his revolver from its holster. The Willow was ahead of -him. With a little cry she darted to Baree and caught him in her arms. -As she looked up at McTaggart, her soft, bare throat was within a few -inches of Baree’s naked fangs. Her eyes blazed. - -“You beat him!” she cried. “He hates you—hates you——” - -[Illustration: With an oath McTaggart snatched his revolver from its -holster. The Willow was ahead of him. With a little cry she darted to -Baree and caught him in her arms.... Her eyes blazed. “You beat him!” -she cried. “He hates you—hates you—hates you.”] - -“Let him go!” called Pierrot in an agony of fear. - -“_Mon Dieu!_ I say let him go or he will tear the life from you!” - -“He hates you—hates you—hates you——” the Willow was repeating over and -over again into McTaggart’s startled face. Then suddenly she turned to -her father. “No, he will not tear the life from me,” she cried. “See! It -is Baree. Did I not tell you that? It is Baree! Is it not proof that he -defended me——” - -“From me!” gasped McTaggart, his face darkening. - -Pierrot advanced and laid a hand on McTaggart’s arm. He was smiling. - -“Let us leave them to fight it out between themselves, m’sieu,” he said. -“They are two little firebrands, and we are not safe. If she is -bitten——” - -He shrugged his shoulders. A great load had been lifted from them -suddenly. His voice was soft and persuasive. And now the anger had gone -out of the Willow’s face. A coquettish uplift of her eyes caught -McTaggart, and she looked straight at him half smiling, as she spoke to -her father: - -“I will join you soon, _mon père_—you and M’sieu the Factor from Lac -Bain!” - -There were undeniable little devils in her eyes, McTaggart -thought—little devils laughing full at him as she spoke, setting his -brain afire and his blood to running wildly. Those eyes—full of dancing -witches! How he would tame them and play with them—very soon now! He -followed Pierrot outside. In his exultation he no longer felt the smart -of Baree’s teeth. - -“I will show you my new cariole that I have made for winter, m’sieu,” -said Pierrot as the door closed behind them. - - * * * * * - -Half an hour later Nepeese came out of the cabin. She could see that -Pierrot and the Factor had been talking about something that had not -been pleasant to her father. His face was strained. She caught in his -eyes the smoulder of fire which he was trying to smother, as one might -smother flames under a blanket. McTaggart’s jaws were set, but his eyes -flared up with pleasure when he saw her. She knew what it was about. The -Factor from Lac Bain had been demanding his answer of Pierrot, and -Pierrot had been telling him what she had insisted upon—that he must -come to her. And he was coming! She turned with a quick beating of the -heart and hurried down a little path. She heard McTaggart’s footsteps -behind her, and threw the flash of a smile over her shoulder. But her -teeth were set tight. The nails of her fingers were cutting into the -palms of her hands. - -Pierrot stood without moving. He watched them as they disappeared into -the edge of the forest, Nepeese still a few steps ahead of McTaggart. -Out of his breast rose a sharp breath. - -“_Par les mille cornes du diable!_” he swore softly. “Is it -possible—that she smiles from her heart at that beast? _Non!_ It is -impossible. And yet—if it is so——” - -One of his brown hands tightened convulsively about the handle of the -knife in his belt, and slowly he began to follow them. - -McTaggart did not hurry to overtake Nepeese. She was following the -narrow path deeper into the forest, and he was glad of that. They would -be alone—away from Pierrot. He was ten steps behind her, and again the -Willow smiled at him over her shoulder. Her body moved sinuously and -swiftly. She was keeping accurate measurement of the distance between -them—but McTaggart did not guess that this was why she looked back every -now and then. He was satisfied to let her go on. When she turned from -the narrow trail into a side path that scarcely bore the mark of travel, -his heart gave an exultant jump. If she kept on, he would very soon have -her alone—a good distance from the cabin. The blood ran hot in his face. -He did not speak to her, through fear that she would stop. Ahead of them -he heard the rumble of water. It was the creek running through the -chasm. - -Nepeese was making straight for that sound. With a little laugh she -started to run, and when she stood at the edge of the chasm, McTaggart -was fully fifty yards behind her. Twenty feet sheer down there was a -deep pool between the rock walls, a pool so deep that it was like blue -ink. She turned to face the Factor from Lac Bain. He had never looked -more like a red beast to her. Until this moment she had been unafraid. -But now—in an instant—he terrified her. Before she could speak what she -had planned to say, he was at her side, and had taken her face between -his two great hands, his coarse fingers twining in the silken strands of -her thick braids where they fell over her shoulders at the neck. - -“_Ka sakahet!_” he cried passionately. “Pierrot said you would have an -answer for me. But I need no answer now. You are mine! Mine!” - -She gave a cry. It was a gasping, broken cry. His arms were about her -like bands of iron, crushing her slender body, shutting off her breath, -turning the world almost black for her. She could neither struggle nor -cry out. She felt the hot passion of his lips on her face, heard his -voice—and then came a moment’s freedom, and air into her strangled -lungs. Pierrot was calling! He had come to the fork in the trail, and he -was calling the Willow’s name! - -McTaggart’s hot hand came over her mouth. - -“Don’t answer,” she heard him say. - -Strength—anger—hatred flared up in her, and fiercely she struck the hand -down. Something in her wonderful eyes held McTaggart. They blazed into -his very soul. - -“_Bête noir!_” she panted at him, freeing herself from the last touch of -his hands. “Beast—black beast!” Her voice trembled, and her face flamed. -“See—I came to show you my pool—and tell you what you wanted to hear—and -you—you—have crushed me like a beast—like a great rock——See! down -there—it is my pool!” - -She had not planned it like this. She had intended to be smiling, even -laughing, in this moment. But McTaggart had spoiled them—her carefully -made plans! And yet, as she pointed, the Factor from Lac Bain looked for -an instant over the edge of the chasm. And then she laughed—laughed as -she gave him a sudden shove from behind. - -“And that is my answer, M’sieu le Facteur from Lac Bain!” she cried -tauntingly as he plunged headlong into the deep pool between the rock -walls. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - -From the edge of the open Pierrot saw what had happened, and he gave a -great gasp. He drew back among the balsams. This was not a moment for -him to show himself. While his heart drummed like a hammer, his face was -filled with joy. - -On her hands and knees the Willow was peering over the edge. Bush -McTaggart had disappeared. He had gone down like the great clod he was; -the water of her pool had closed over him with a dull splash that was -like a chuckle of triumph. He appeared now, beating out with his arms -and legs to keep himself afloat, while the Willow’s voice came to him in -taunting cries. - -“_Bête noir!_ _Bête noir!_ Beast! Beast——” - -She flung small sticks and tufts of earth down at him fiercely; and -McTaggart, looking up as he gained his equilibrium, saw her leaning so -far over that she seemed about to fall. Her long braids hung down into -the chasm, gleaming in the sun; her eyes were laughing while her lips -taunted him; he could see the flash of her white teeth. - -“Beast! Beast!” - -He began swimming, still looking up at her. It was a hundred yards down -the slow-going current to the beach of shale where he could climb out, -and a half of that distance she followed him, laughing and taunting him, -and flinging down sticks and pebbles. He noted that none of the sticks -or stones was large enough to hurt him. When at last his feet touched -bottom, she was gone. - -Swiftly Nepeese ran back over the trail, and almost into Pierrot’s arms. -She was panting and laughing when for a moment she stopped. - -“I have given him the answer, Nootawe! He is in the pool!” - -Into the balsams she disappeared like a bird. Pierrot made no effort to -stop her or to follow. - -“_Tonnerre de Dieu!_” he chuckled—and cut straight across for the other -trail. - - * * * * * - -Nepeese was out of breath when she reached the cabin. Baree, fastened to -a table-leg by a _babiche_ thong, heard her pause for a moment at the -door. Then she entered and came straight to him. During the half-hour of -her absence Baree had scarcely moved. That half-hour, and the few -minutes that had preceded it, had made tremendous impressions upon him. -Nature, heredity, and instinct were at work, clashing and readjusting, -impinging on him a new intelligence—the beginning of a new -understanding. A swift and savage impulse had made him leap at Bush -McTaggart when the Factor put his hand on the Willow’s head. It was not -reason. It was a hearkening back of the dog to that day long ago when -Kazan, his father, had killed the man-brute in the tent, the man-brute -who had dared to attempt the sacrilege of Thorpe’s wife, whom Kazan -worshipped. It was the dog—and woman. - -And here again it was the woman. She had called to the great hidden -passion that was in Baree and that had come to him from Kazan. Of all -the living things in the world, he knew that he must not hurt this -creature that appeared to him through the door. He trembled as she knelt -before him again, and up through the years came the wild and glorious -surge of Kazan’s blood, overwhelming the wolf, submerging the savagery -of his birth—and with his head flat on the floor he whined softly, and -_wagged his tail_. - -Nepeese gave a cry of joy. - -“Baree!” she whispered, taking his head in her hands. “Baree!” - -Her touch thrilled him. It sent little throbs through his body, a -tremulous quivering which she could feel and which deepened the glow in -her eyes. Gently her hand stroked his head and his back. It seemed to -Nepeese that he did not breathe. Under the caress of her hand his eyes -closed. In another moment she was talking to him, and at the sound of -her voice his eyes shot open. - -“He will come here—that beast—and he will kill us,” she was saying. “He -will kill you because you bit him, Baree. Ugh, I wish you were bigger, -and stronger, so that you could take off his head for me!” - -She was untying the _babiche_ from about the table-leg, and under her -breath she laughed. She was not frightened. It was a tremendous -adventure—and she throbbed with exultation at the thought of having -beaten the man-beast in her own way. She could see him in the pool -struggling and beating about like a great fish. He was just about -crawling out of the chasm now—and she laughed again as she caught Baree -up under her arm. - -“Oh—_oopi-nao_—but you are heavy!” she gasped. “And yet I must carry -you—because I am going to run!” - -She hurried outside. Pierrot had not come, and she darted swiftly into -the balsams back of the cabin, with Baree hung in the crook of her arm, -like a sack filled at both ends and tied in the middle. He felt like -that, too. But he still had no inclination to wriggle himself free. -Nepeese ran with him until her arm ached. Then she stopped and put him -down on his feet, holding to the end of the caribou-skin thong that was -tied about his neck. She was prepared for any lunge he might make to -escape. She expected that he would make an attempt, and for a few -moments she watched him closely, while Baree, with his feet on earth -once more, looked about him. And then the Willow spoke to him softly. - -“You are not going to run away, Baree. _Non_, you are going to stay with -me, and we will kill that man-beast if he dares do to me again what he -did back there.” She flung back the loose hair from about her flushed -face, and for a moment she forgot Baree as she thought of that -half-minute at the edge of the chasm. He was looking straight up at her -when her glance fell on him again. “_Non_, you are not going to run -away—you are going to follow me,” she whispered. “Come.” - -The _babiche_ string tightened about Baree’s neck as she urged him to -follow. It was like another rabbit-snare, and he braced his forefeet and -bared his fangs just a little. The Willow did not pull. Fearlessly she -put her hand on his head again. From the direction of the cabin came a -shout, and at the sound of it she took Baree up under her arm once more. - -“_Bête noir—bête noir!_” she called back tauntingly, but only loud -enough to be heard a few yards away. “Go back to Lac Bain—_owases_—you -wild beast!” - -Nepeese began to make her way swiftly through the forest. It grew deeper -and darker, and there were no trails. Three times in the next half-hour -she stopped to put Baree down and rest her arm. Each time she pleaded -with him coaxingly to follow her. The second and third times Baree -wriggled and wagged his tail, but beyond those demonstrations of his -satisfaction at the turn his affairs had taken he would not go. When the -string tightened around his neck, he braced himself; once he -growled—again he snapped viciously at the _babiche_. So Nepeese -continued to carry him. - -They came at last into an open. It was a tiny meadow in the heart of the -forest, not more than three or four times as big as the cabin; underfoot -the grass was soft and green, and thick with flowers. Straight through -the heart of this little oasis trickled a streamlet across which the -Willow jumped with Baree under her arm, and on the edge of the rill was -a small wigwam made of freshly cut spruce- and balsam-boughs. Into her -diminutive _mekewap_ the Willow thrust her head to see that things were -as she had left them yesterday. Then, with a long breath of relief, she -put down her four-legged burden and fastened the end of the _babiche_ to -one of the cut spruce-limbs. - -Baree burrowed himself back into the wall of the wigwam, and with head -alert—and eyes wide open—watched attentively what happened after this. -Not a movement of the Willow escaped him. She was radiant—and happy. Her -laugh, sweet and wild as a bird’s trill, set Baree’s heart throbbing -with a desire to jump about with her among the flowers. - -For a time Nepeese seemed to forget Baree. Her wild blood raced with the -joy of her triumph over the Factor from Lac Bain. She saw him again, -floundering about in the pool—pictured him at the cabin now, soaked and -angry, demanding of _mon père_ where she had gone. And _mon père_, with -a shrug of his shoulders, was telling him that he didn’t know—that -probably she had run off into the forest. It did not enter into her head -that in tricking Bush McTaggart in that way she had played with -dynamite. She did not foresee the peril that in an instant would have -stamped the wild flush from her face and curdled the blood in her -veins—did not guess that McTaggart had become for her a deadlier menace -than ever. - -Nepeese knew that he was angry. But what had she to fear? _Mon père_ -would be angry, too, if she told him what had happened at the edge of -the chasm. But she would not tell him. He might kill the beast from Lac -Bain. A factor was great. But Pierrot, her father, was greater. It was -an unlimited faith in her, born of her mother. Perhaps even now Pierrot -was sending him back to Lac Bain, telling him that his business was -there. But she would not return to the cabin to see. She would wait -here. _Mon père_ would understand—and he knew where to find her when the -beast was gone. But it would have been such fun to throw sticks at him -as he went! - -After a little Nepeese returned to Baree. She brought him water and gave -him a piece of raw fish. For hours they were alone, and with each hour -there grew stronger in Baree the desire to follow the girl in every -movement she made, to crawl close to her when she sat down, to feel the -touch of her dress, of her hand—and hear her voice. But he did not show -this desire. He was still a little savage of the forests—a four-footed -barbarian born half of a wolf and half of a dog; and he lay still. With -Umisk he would have played. With Oohoomisew he would have fought. At -Bush McTaggart he would have bared his fangs, and buried them deep when -the chance came. But the girl was different. Like the Kazan of old, he -had begun to worship. If the Willow had freed Baree, he would not have -run away. If she had left him, he would possibly have followed her—at a -distance. His eyes were never away from her. He watched her build a -small fire and cook a piece of the fish. He watched her eat her dinner. -It was quite late in the afternoon when she came and sat down close to -him, with her lap full of flowers which she twined in the long, shining -braids of her hair. Then, playfully, she began beating Baree with the -end of one of these braids. He shrank under the soft blows, and with -that low, birdlike laughter in her throat, Nepeese drew his head into -her lap where the scatter of flowers lay. She talked to him. Her hand -stroked his head. Then it remained still, so near that he wanted to -thrust out his warm red tongue and caress it. He breathed in the -flower-scented perfume of it—and lay as if dead. It was a glorious -moment. Nepeese, looking down on him, could not see that he was -breathing. - -There came an interruption. It was the snapping of a dry stick. Through -the forest Pierrot had come with the stealth of a cat, and when they -looked up, he stood at the edge of the open. Baree knew that it was not -Bush McTaggart. But it was a man-beast! Instantly his body stiffened -under the Willow’s hand. He drew back slowly and cautiously from her -lap, and as Pierrot advanced, Baree snarled. The next instant Nepeese -had risen and had run to Pierrot. The look in her father’s face alarmed -her. - -“What has happened, _mon père_?” she cried. - -Pierrot shrugged his shoulders. - -“Nothing, _ma Nepeese_—except that you have roused a thousand devils in -the heart of the Factor from Lac Bain, and that——” - -He stopped as he saw Baree, and pointed at him. - -“Last night when M’sieu the Factor caught him in a snare, he bit -M’sieu’s hand. M’sieu’s hand is swollen twice its size, and I can see -his blood turning black. It is _pechipoo_.” - -“_Pechipoo!_” gasped Nepeese. - -She looked into Pierrot’s eyes. They were dark, and filled with a -sinister gleam—a flash of exultation, she thought. - -“Yes, it is the blood-poison,” said Pierrot. A gleam of cunning shot -into his eyes as he looked over his shoulder, and nodded. “I have hidden -the medicine—and told him there is no time to lose in getting back to -Lac Bain. And he is afraid—that devil! He is waiting. With that -blackening hand, he is afraid to start back alone—and so I go with him. -And—listen, _ma Nepeese_. We will be away by sundown, and there is -something you must know before I go.” - -Baree saw them there, close together in the shadows thrown by the tall -spruce trees. He heard the low murmur of their voices—chiefly of -Pierrot’s, and at last he saw Nepeese put her two arms up around the -man-beast’s neck, and then Pierrot went away again into the forest. He -thought that the Willow would never turn her face toward him after that. -For a long time she stood looking in the direction which Pierrot had -taken. And when after a time she turned and came back to Baree, she did -not look like the Nepeese who had been twining flowers in her hair. The -laughter was gone from her face and eyes. She knelt down beside him and -with sudden fierceness she cried: - -“It is _pechipoo_, Baree! It was you—you—who put the poison in his -blood. And I hope he dies! For I am afraid—afraid!” - -She shivered. - -Perhaps it was in this moment that the Great Spirit of things meant -Baree to understand—that at last it was given him to comprehend that his -day had dawned, that the rising and the setting of his sun no longer -existed in the sky but in this girl whose hand rested on his head. He -whined softly, and inch by inch he dragged himself nearer to her until -again his head rested in the hollow of her lap. - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - -For a long time after Pierrot left them the Willow did not move from -where she had seated herself beside Baree. It was at last the deepening -shadows and a near rumble in the sky that roused her from the fear of -the things Pierrot had told her. When she looked up, black clouds were -massing slowly over the open space above the spruce-tops. Darkness was -falling. In the whisper of the wind and the dead stillness of the -thickening gloom there was the sullen brewing of storm. To-night there -would be no glorious sunset. There would be no twilight hour in which to -follow the trail, no moon, no stars—and unless Pierrot and the Factor -were already on their way, they would not start in the face of the pitch -blackness that would soon shroud the land. - -Nepeese shivered and rose to her feet. For the first time Baree got up, -and he stood close at her side. Above them a lightning-flash cut the -clouds like a knife of fire, followed in an instant by a terrific crash -of thunder. Baree shrank back as if struck a blow. He would have slunk -into the shelter of the brush wall of the wigwam, but there was -something about the Willow as he looked at her which gave him -confidence. The thunder crashed again. But he retreated no farther. His -eyes were fixed on Nepeese. - -She stood straight and slim in that gathering gloom riven by the -lightning, her beautiful head thrown back, her lips parted, and her eyes -glowing with an almost eager anticipation—a sculptured goddess welcoming -with bated breath the onrushing forces of the heavens. Perhaps it was -because she was born on a night of storm. Many times Pierrot and the -dead princess mother had told her that—how on the night she had come -into the world the crash of thunder and the flare of lightning had made -the hours an inferno, how the streams had burst over their banks and the -stems of ten thousand forest trees had snapped in its fury—and the beat -of the deluge on their cabin roof had drowned the sound of her mother’s -pain, and of her own first babyish cries. - -On that night, it may be, the Spirit of Storm was born in Nepeese. She -loved to face it, as she was facing it now. It made her forget all -things but the splendid might of nature; her half-wild soul thrilled to -the crash and fire of it; often she had reached up her bare arms and -laughed with joy as the deluge burst about her. Even now she might have -stood there in the little open until the rain fell, if a whine from -Baree had not turned her. As the first big drops struck with the dull -thud of leaden bullets about them, she went with him into the balsam -shelter. - -Once before Baree had passed through a night of terrible storm—the night -he had hidden himself under a root and saw the tree riven by lightning; -but now he had company, and the warmth and soft pressure of the Willow’s -hand on his head and neck filled him with a strange courage. He growled -softly at the crashing thunder. He wanted to snap at the -lightning-flashes. Under her hand Nepeese felt the stiffening of his -body, and in a moment of uncanny stillness she heard the sharp, uneasy -click of his teeth. Then the rain fell. - -It was not like other rains Baree had known. It was an inundation -sweeping down out of the blackness of the skies. Within five minutes the -interior of the balsam shelter was a shower-bath—half an hour of that -torrential downpour, and Nepeese was soaked to the skin. The water ran -in little rivulets down her back and breast; it trickled in tiny streams -from her drenched braids and dropped from her long lashes, and the -blanket under her was wet as a mop. To Baree it was almost as bad as his -near-drowning in the stream after his fight with Papayuchisew, and he -snuggled closer and closer under the sheltering arm of the Willow. It -seemed an interminable time before the thunder rolled far to the east, -and the lightning died away into distant and intermittent flashings. -Even after that the rain fell for another hour. Then it stopped as -suddenly as it had begun. - -With a laughing gasp Nepeese rose to her feet. The water gurgled in her -moccasins as she walked out into the open. She paid no attention to -Baree—and he followed her. Across the open in the treetops the last of -the storm-clouds were drifting away. A star shone—then another; and the -Willow stood watching them as they appeared until there were so many she -could not count. It was no longer black. A wonderful starlight flooded -the open after the inky gloom of the storm. - -Nepeese looked down and saw Baree. He was standing clear and unleashed, -with freedom on all sides of him. Yet he did not run. He was waiting, -wet as a water-rat, with his eyes on her expectantly. Nepeese made a -movement toward him, and hesitated. - -“No, you will not run away, Baree. I will leave you free. And now we -must have a fire!” - -A fire! Any one but Pierrot might have said that she was crazy. Not a -stem or twig in the forest that was not dripping! They could hear the -trickle of running water all about them. - -“A fire,” she said again. “Let us hunt for the _wuskwi_, Baree.” - -With her wet clothes clinging to her tightly, she was like a slim shadow -as she crossed the soggy open and buried herself among the forest trees. -Baree still followed. She went straight to a birch-tree that she had -located that day and began tearing off the loose bark. An armful of this -bark she carried close to the wigwam, and on it she heaped load after -load of wet wood until she had a great pile. From a bottle in the wigwam -she secured a dry match, and at the first touch of its tiny flame the -birch-bark flared up like paper soaked in oil. Half an hour later the -Willow’s fire—if there had been no forest walls to hide it—could have -been seen at the cabin a mile away. Not until it was blazing a dozen -feet into the air did she cease putting wood on it. Then she drove -sticks into the soft ground and over these sticks stretched the blanket -out to dry. After that she began to undress. - -The rain had cooled the air, and the tonic of it—laden with the breath -of the balsam and spruce—set the Willow’s blood dancing in her veins. -She forgot the discomfort of the deluge. She forgot the Factor from Lac -Bain, and what Pierrot had told her. After all, she was a bird of the -forests, wild with the sweet wildness of the flowers under her bare -feet—and in the glory of these wonderful hours that had followed the -storm she could see nothing and think of nothing that might harm her. -She danced about Baree, tossing her sea of hair about her, her naked -body shimmering in and out of it, her eyes aglow, her lips laughing in -her unreasoning happiness—the happiness of being alive, of drinking into -her lungs the perfumed air of the forest, of seeing the stars and the -wonderful sky above her. She stopped before Baree, and cried laughingly -at him, holding out her arms: - -“_Ahe_, Baree—if you could only throw off your skin as easily as I have -thrown off my clothes!” - -She drew a deep breath, and her eyes shone with a sudden inspiration. -Slowly her mouth formed into a round red O, and leaning still nearer to -Baree, she whispered: - -“It will be deep—and sweet to-night. _Ninga_—yes—we will go!” - -She called to him softly as she slipped on her wet moccasins and -followed the creek into the forest. A hundred yards from the open she -came to the edge of a pool. It was deep and full to-night, three times -as big as it had been before the storm. She could hear the gurgle and -inrush of water. On its ruffled surface the stars shone. For a moment or -two she stood poised on a rock with the cool depths half a dozen feet -below her. Then she flung back her hair and shot like a slim white arrow -through the starlight. - -Baree saw her go. He heard the plunge of her body. For half an hour he -lay flat and still, close to the edge of the pool, and watched her. -Sometimes she was just under him, floating silently, her hair forming a -cloud darker than the water about her; again she was cutting over the -surface almost as swiftly as the otters he had seen—and then with a -sudden plunge she would disappear, and Baree’s heart would quicken its -pulse as he waited for her. Once she was gone a long time. He whined. He -knew she was not like the beaver and the otter, and he was filled with -an immense relief when she came up. - -So their first night passed—storm, the cool, deep pool, the big fire; -and later, when the Willow’s clothes and the blanket had dried, a few -hours’ sleep. At dawn they returned to the cabin. It was a cautious -approach. There was no smoke coming from the chimney. The door was -closed. Pierrot and Bush McTaggart were gone. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - -It was the beginning of August—the Flying-up Moon—when Pierrot returned -from Lac Bain, and in three days more it would be the Willow’s -seventeenth birthday. He brought back with him many things for -Nepeese—ribbons for her hair, real shoes, which she wore at times like -the two Englishwomen at Nelson House, and chief glory of all, some -wonderful red cloth for a dress. In the three winters she had spent at -the Mission these women had made much of Nepeese. They had taught her to -sew as well as to spell and read and pray, and at times there came to -the Willow a compelling desire to do as they did. - -So for three days Nepeese worked hard on her new dress and on her -birthday she stood before Pierrot in a fashion that took his breath -away. She had piled her hair in great glowing masses and coils on the -crown of her head, as Yvonne, the younger of the Englishwomen, had -taught her, and in the rich jet of it had half buried a vivid sprig of -the crimson fire-flower. Under this, and the glow in her eyes, and the -red flush of her lips and cheeks came the wonderful red dress, fitted to -the slim and sinuous beauty of her form—as the style had been two -winters ago at Nelson House. And under the dress, which reached just -below the knees—Nepeese had quite forgotten the proper length, or else -her material had run out—came the _coup de maître_ of her toilet, real -stockings and the wonderful shoes with high heels! She was a vision -before which the gods of the forests might have felt their hearts stop -beating. Pierrot turned her round and round without a word, but smiling; -but when she left him, followed by Baree, and limping a little in the -tightness of her shoes, the smile faded from his face, leaving it cold -and staring. - -“_Mon Dieu_,” he whispered to himself in French, with a thought that was -like a sharp stab at his heart, “she is not of her mother’s blood—_non_. -It is French. She is—yes—like an angel.” - -There was a change in Pierrot. During the three days of her dressmaking -Nepeese had been quite too excited to notice this change, and Pierrot -had tried to keep it from her. He had been away ten days on the trip to -Lac Bain, and he brought back to Nepeese the joyous news that M’sieu -McTaggart was very sick with _pechipoo_—the blood-poison—news that made -the Willow clap her hands and laugh happily. But he knew that the Factor -would get well, and that he would come again to their cabin on the Gray -Loon. And when next time he came—— - -It was when he was thinking of this that his face grew cold and hard, -and his eyes burned. And he was thinking of it on this her birthday, -even as her laughter floated to him like a song. _Dieu_, in spite of her -seventeen years, she was nothing but a child—a baby! She could not guess -his horrible visions. And the dread of awakening her for all time from -that beautiful childhood kept him from telling her the whole truth so -that she might have understood fully and completely. _Non_, it should -not be that. His soul beat with a great and gentle love. He, Pierrot Du -Quesne, would do the watching. And she should laugh and sing and -play—and have no share in the black forebodings that had come to spoil -his life. - -On this day there came up from the south MacDonald, the government -map-maker. He was gray and grizzled, with a great, free laugh and a -clean heart. Two days he remained with Pierrot. He told Nepeese of his -daughters at home, of their mother, whom he worshipped more than -anything else on earth—and before he went on in his quest of the last -timber-line of Banksian pine, he took pictures of the Willow as he had -first seen her on her birthday: her hair piled in glossy coils and -masses, her red dress, the high-heeled shoes. He carried the negatives -on with him, promising Pierrot that he would get a picture back in some -way. Thus fate works in its strange and apparently innocent ways as it -spins its webs of tragedy. - - * * * * * - -For many weeks after this there followed tranquil days on the Gray Loon. -They were wonderful days for Baree. At first he was suspicious of -Pierrot. After a little he tolerated him, and at last accepted him as a -part of the cabin—and Nepeese. It was the Willow whose shadow he became. -Pierrot noted the attachment with the deepest satisfaction. - -“Ah, in a few months more, if he should leap at the throat of M’sieu the -Factor,” he said to himself one day. - -In September, when he was six months old, Baree was almost as large as -Gray Wolf—big-boned, long-fanged, with a deep chest, and jaws that could -already crack a bone as if it were a stick. He was with Nepeese whenever -and wherever she moved. They swam together in the two pools—the pool in -the forest and the pool between the chasm walls. At first it alarmed -Baree to see Nepeese dive from the rock wall over which she had pushed -McTaggart, but at the end of a month she had taught him to plunge after -her through that twenty feet of space. - -It was late in August when Baree saw the first of his kind outside of -Kazan and Gray Wolf. During the summer Pierrot allowed his dogs to run -at large on a small island in the centre of a lake two or three miles -away, and twice a week he netted fish for them. On one of these trips -Nepeese accompanied him and took Baree with her. Pierrot carried his -long caribou-gut whip. He expected a fight. But there was none. Baree -joined the pack in their rush for fish, and ate with them. This pleased -Pierrot more than ever. - -“He will make a great sledge-dog,” he chuckled. “It is best to leave him -for a week with the pack, _ma Nepeese_.” - -Reluctantly Nepeese gave her consent. While the dogs were still at their -fish, they started homeward. Their canoe had stolen well out before -Baree discovered the trick they had played on him. Instantly he leaped -into the water and swam after them—and the Willow helped him into the -canoe. - -Early in September a passing Indian brought Pierrot word of Bush -McTaggart. The Factor had been very sick. He had almost died from the -blood-poison, but he was well now. With the first exhilarating tang of -autumn in the air a new dread oppressed Pierrot. But at present he said -nothing of what was in his mind to Nepeese. The Willow had almost -forgotten the Factor from Lac Bain, for the glory and thrill of -wilderness autumn was in her blood. She went on long trips with Pierrot, -helping him to blaze out the new trap-lines that would be used when the -first snows came, and on these journeys she was always accompanied by -Baree. - -Most of Nepeese’s spare hours she spent in training him for the sledge. -She began with a _babiche_ string and a stick. It was a whole day before -she could induce Baree to drag this stick without turning at every other -step to snap and growl at it. Then she fastened another length of -_babiche_ to him, and made him drag two sticks. Thus little by little -she trained him to the sledge-harness, until at the end of a fortnight -he was tugging heroically at anything she had a mind to fasten him to. -Pierrot brought home two of the dogs from the island, and Baree was put -into training with these, and helped to drag the empty sledge. Nepeese -was delighted. On the day the first light snow fell she clapped her -hands and cried to Pierrot: - -“By mid-winter I will have him the finest dog in the pack, _mon père_!” - -This was the time for Pierrot to say what was in his mind. He smiled. -_Diantre_—would not that beast the Factor fall into the very devil of a -rage when he found how he had been cheated! And yet—— - -He tried to make his voice quiet and commonplace. - -“I am going to send you down to the school at Nelson House again this -winter, _ma chérie_,” he said. “Baree will help draw you down on the -first good snow.” - -The Willow was tying a knot in Baree’s _babiche_, and she rose slowly to -her feet and looked at Pierrot. Her eyes were big and dark and steady. - -“I am not going, _mon père_!” - -[Illustration: The Willow rose slowly to her feet and looked at Pierrot. -Her eyes were big and dark and steady. “I am not going, _mon père_!”] - -It was the first time Nepeese had ever said that to Pierrot—in just that -way. It thrilled him. And he could scarcely face the look in her eyes. -He was not good at bluffing. She saw what was in his face; it seemed to -him that she was reading what was in his mind, and that she grew a -little taller as she stood there. Certainly her breath came quicker, and -he could see the throb of her breast. Nepeese did not wait for him to -gather speech. - -“I am not going!” she repeated with even greater finality, and bent -again over Baree. - -With a shrug of his shoulders Pierrot watched her. After all, was he not -glad? Would his heart not have turned sick if she had been happy at the -thought of leaving him? He moved to her side and with great gentleness -laid a hand on her glossy head. Up from under it the Willow smiled at -him. Between them they heard the click of Baree’s jaws as he rested his -muzzle on the Willow’s arm. For the first time in weeks the world seemed -suddenly filled with sunshine for Pierrot. When he went back to the -cabin he held his head higher. Nepeese would not leave him! He laughed -softly. He rubbed his hands together. His fear of the Factor from Lac -Bain was gone. From the cabin door he looked back at Nepeese and Baree. - -“The Saints be blessed!” he murmured. “Now—now—it is Pierrot Du Quesne -who knows what to do!” - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - -Back to Lac Bain, late in September, came MacDonald the map-maker. For -ten days Gregson, the investigating agent, had been Bush McTaggart’s -guest at the post, and twice in that time it had come into Marie’s mind -to creep upon him while he slept and kill him. The Factor himself paid -little attention to her now, a fact which would have made her happy if -it had not been for Gregson. He was enraptured with the wild, sinuous -beauty of the Cree girl, and McTaggart, without jealousy, encouraged -him. He was tired of Marie. - -McTaggart told Gregson this. He wanted to get rid of her, and if -he—Gregson—could possibly take her on with him it would be a great -favour. He explained why. A little later, when the deep snows came, he -was going to bring the daughter of Pierrot Du Quesne to the Post. In the -rottenness of their brotherhood he told of his visit, of the manner of -his reception, and of the incident at the chasm. In spite of all this, -he assured Gregson. Pierrot’s girl would soon be at Lac Bain. - -It was at this time that MacDonald came. He remained only one night, and -without knowing that he was adding fuel to a fire already dangerously -blazing, he gave the photograph he had taken of Nepeese to the Factor. -It was a splendid picture. - -“If you can get it down to that girl some day I’ll be mightily obliged,” -he said to McTaggart. “I promised her one. Her father’s name is Du -Quesne—Pierrot Du Quesne. You probably know them. And the girl——” - -His blood warmed as he described to McTaggart how beautiful she was that -day in her red dress, which had taken black in the photograph. He did -not guess how near the boiling point McTaggart’s blood was. - -The next day MacDonald started for Norway House. McTaggart did not show -Gregson the picture. He kept it to himself, and at night, under the glow -of his lamp, he looked at it with thoughts that filled him with a -growing resolution. There was but one way. The scheme had been in his -mind for weeks—and the picture determined him. He dared not whisper his -secret even to Gregson. But it was the one way. It would give him -Nepeese. Only—he must wait for the deep snows, the mid-winter snows. -They buried their tragedies deepest. - -McTaggart was glad when Gregson followed the map-maker to Norway House. -Out of courtesy he accompanied him a day’s journey on his way. When he -returned to the Post, Marie was gone. He was glad. He sent off a runner -with a load of presents for her people, and the message: “Don’t beat -her. Keep her. She is free.” - -Along with the bustle and stir of the beginning of the trapping season -McTaggart began to prepare his house for the coming of Nepeese. He knew -what she liked in the way of cleanliness and a few other things. He had -the log walls painted white with the lead and oil that were intended for -his York boats. Certain partitions were torn down, and new ones were -built; the Indian wife of his chief runner made curtains for the -windows, and he confiscated a small phonograph that should have gone on -to Lac la Biche. He had no doubts, and he counted the days as they -passed. - -Down on the Gray Loon Pierrot and Nepeese were busy at many things, so -busy that at times Pierrot’s fears of the Factor at Lac Bain were -forgotten, and they went out of the Willow’s mind entirely. It was the -Red Moon, and it thrilled with the anticipation and excitement of the -winter hunt. Nepeese carefully dipped a hundred traps in boiling -caribou-fat mixed with beaver-grease, while Pierrot made fresh deadfalls -ready for setting on his trails. When he was gone more than a day from -the cabin, she was always with him. - -But at the cabin there was much to do, for Pierrot, like all his -Northern brotherhood, did not begin to prepare until the keen tang of -autumn was in the air. There were snowshoes to be rewebbed with new -_babiche_, there was wood to be cut in readiness for the winter storms; -the cabin had to be banked, a new harness made, skinning-knives -sharpened and winter moccasins to be manufactured—a hundred and one -affairs to be attended to, even to the repairing of the meat rack at the -back of the cabin, where, from the beginning of cold weather until the -end, would hang the haunches of deer, caribou, and moose for the family -larder and, when fish were scarce, the dogs’ rations. - -In the bustle of all this Nepeese was compelled to give less attention -to Baree than during the preceding weeks. They did not play so much; -they no longer swam, for with the mornings there was deep frost on the -ground, and the water was turning icy cold: they no longer wandered deep -in the forest after flowers and berries. For hours at a time Baree would -now lie at the Willow’s feet, watching her slender fingers as they -weaved swiftly in and out with her snowshoe _babiche_; and now and then -Nepeese would pause to lean over and put her hand on his head, and talk -to him for a moment—sometimes in her soft Cree, sometimes in English or -her father’s French. - -It was the Willow’s voice which Baree had learned to understand, and the -movement of her lips, her gesture, the poise of her body, the changing -moods which brought shadow or sunlight into her face. He knew what it -meant when she smiled; he shook himself, and often jumped about her in -sympathetic rejoicing, when she laughed; her happiness was a part of -him, a stern word from her was worse than a blow. Twice Pierrot had -struck him, and twice Baree had sprang back and faced him with bared -fangs and an angry snarl, the crest along his back standing up like a -brush. Had one of the other dogs done this, Pierrot would have half -killed him. It would have been mutiny, and the man must be master. But -Baree was always safe. A touch of the Willow’s hand, a word from her -lips, and the crest slowly settled and the snarl went out of his throat. - -Pierrot was not at all displeased. - -“_Dieu._ I will never go so far as to try and whip that out of him,” he -told himself. “He is a barbarian—a wild beast—and her slave. For her he -would kill!” - -So it came, through Pierrot himself—and without telling his reason for -it—that Baree did not become a sledge-dog. He was allowed his freedom, -and was never tied, like the others. Nepeese was glad, but did not guess -the thought that was in Pierrot’s mind. To himself Pierrot chuckled. She -would never know why he kept Baree always suspicious of him, even to the -point of hating him. It required considerable skill and cunning on his -part. With himself he reasoned: “If I make him hate me, he will hate all -men. Mey-oo! That is good.” - -So he looked into the future—for Nepeese. - -Now the tonic-filled days and cold, frosty nights of the Red Moon -brought about the big change in Baree. It was inevitable. Pierrot knew -that it would come, and the first night that Baree settled back on his -haunches and howled up at the Red Moon, Pierrot prepared Nepeese for it. - -“He is a wild dog, _Ma Nepeese_,” he said to her. “He is half wolf, and -the Call will come to him strong. He will go into the forests. He will -disappear at times. But we must not fasten him. He will come back. _Ka_, -he will come back!” And he rubbed his hands in the moon-glow until his -knuckles cracked. - -The Call came to Baree like a thief entering slowly and cautiously into -a forbidden place. He did not understand it at first. It made him -nervous and uneasy, so restless that Nepeese frequently heard him whine -softly in his sleep. He was waiting for something. What was it? Pierrot -knew, and smiled in his inscrutable way. - -And then it came. It was night, a glorious night filled with moon and -stars, under which the earth was whitening with a film of frost, when -they heard the first hunt-call of the wolves. Now and then during the -summer there had come the lone wolf-howl, but this was the tonguing of -the pack; and as it floated through the vast silence and mystery of the -night, a song of savagery that had come with each Red Moon down through -unending ages, Pierrot knew that at last had come that for which Baree -had been waiting. - -In an instant Baree had sensed it. His muscles grew taut as pieces of -stretched rope as he stood up in the moonlight, facing the direction -from which floated the mystery and thrill of the sound. They could hear -him whining softly; and Pierrot, bending down so that he caught the -light of the night properly, could see him trembling. - -“It is _Mee-Koo_!” he said in a whisper to Nepeese. - -That was it, the call of the blood that was running swift in Baree’s -veins—not alone the call of his species, but the call of Kazan and Gray -Wolf and of his forbears for generations unnumbered. It was the voice of -his people. So Pierrot had whispered, and he was right. In the golden -night the Willow was waiting, for it was she who had gambled most, and -it was she who must lose or win. She uttered no sound, replied not to -the low voice of Pierrot, but held her breath and watched Baree as he -slowly faded away, step by step, in the shadows. In a few moments more -he was gone. It was then that she stood straight, and flung back her -head, with eyes that glowed in rivalry with the stars. - -“Baree!” she called. “Baree! Baree! Baree!” - -He must have been near the edge of the forest, for she had drawn a slow, -waiting breath or two before he was back at her side. But he had come, -straight as an arrow, and he whined up into her face. Nepeese put her -hands to his head. - -“You are right, _mon père_,” she said. “He will go to the wolves, but he -will come back. He will never leave me for long.” With one hand still on -Baree’s head, she pointed with the other into the pitlike blackness of -the forest. “Go to them, Baree!” she whispered. “But you must come back. -You must. _Cheamao!_” - -With Pierrot she went into the cabin; the door closed behind them, and -Baree was alone. There was a long silence. In it he could hear the soft -night sounds: the clinking of the chains to which the dogs were -fastened, the restless movement of their bodies, the throbbing whir of a -pair of wings, the breath of the night itself. For to him this night, -even in its stillness, seemed alive. Again he went into it, and close to -the forest once more he stopped to listen. The wind had turned, and on -it rode the wailing, blood-thrilling cry of the pack. Far off to the -west a lone wolf turned his muzzle to the sky and answered that -gathering-call of his clan; and then out of the east came a voice, so -far beyond the cabin that it was like an echo dying away in the vastness -of the night. - -A choking note gathered in Baree’s throat. He threw up his head. -Straight above him was the Red Moon, inviting him to the thrill and -mystery of the open world. The sound grew in his throat, and slowly it -rose in volume until his answer was rising to the stars. In their cabin -Pierrot and the Willow heard it. Pierrot shrugged his shoulders. - -“He is gone,” he said. - -“_Oui_, he is gone, _mon père_,” replied Nepeese, peering through the -window. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - -No longer, as in the days of old, did the darkness of the forests hold a -fear for Baree. This night his hunt-cry had risen to the stars and the -moon, and in that cry he had, for the first time, sent forth his -defiance of night and space, his warning to all the wild, and his -acceptance of the Brotherhood. In that cry, and the answers that came -back to him, he sensed a new power—the final triumph of nature in -impinging on him the fact that the forests and the creatures they held -were no longer to be feared, but that all things feared him. Off there, -beyond the pale of the cabin and the influence of Nepeese, were all the -things that the wolf-blood in him found now most desirable: -companionship of his kind, the lure of adventure, the red, sweet blood -of the chase—and matehood. This last, after all, was the dominant -mystery that was urging him, and yet least of all did he understand it. - -He ran straight into the darkness to the north and west, slinking low -under the bushes, his tail drooping, his ears aslant—the wolf as the -wolf runs on the night trail. The pack had swung due north, and was -travelling faster than he, so that at the end of half an hour he could -no longer hear it. But the lone wolf-howl to the west was nearer, and -three times Baree gave answer to it. - -At the end of an hour he heard the pack again, swinging southward. -Pierrot would easily have understood. Their quarry had found safety -beyond water, or in a lake, and the _muhekuns_ were on a fresh trail. By -this time not more than a quarter of a mile of the forest separated -Baree from the lone wolf, but the lone wolf was also an old wolf, and -with the directness and precision of long experience, he swerved in the -direction of the hunters, compassing his trail so that he was heading -for a point half or three quarters of a mile in advance of the pack. - -This was a trick of the Brotherhood which Baree had yet to learn; and -the result of his ignorance, and lack of skill, was that twice within -the next half-hour he found himself near to the pack without being able -to join it. Then came a long and final silence. The pack had pulled down -its kill, and in their feasting they made no sound. - -The rest of the night Baree wandered alone, or at least until the moon -was well on the wane. He was a long way from the cabin, and his trail -had been an uncertain and twisting one, but he was no longer possessed -with the discomforting sensation of being lost. The last two or three -months had been developing strongly in him the sense of orientation, -that “sixth sense” which guides the pigeon unerringly on its way and -takes a bear straight as a bird might fly to its last year’s -denning-place. - -Baree had not forgotten Nepeese. A dozen times he turned his head back -and whined, and always he picked out accurately the direction in which -the cabin lay. But he did not turn back. As the night lengthened, his -search for that mysterious something which he had not found continued. -His hunger, even with the fading-out of the moon and the coming of the -gray dawn, was not sufficiently keen to make him hunt for food. - -It was cold, and it seemed colder when the glow of the moon and stars -died out. Under his padded feet, especially in the open spaces, was a -thick white frost in which he left clearly at times the imprint of his -toes and claws. He had travelled steadily for hours, a great many miles -in all, and he was tired when the first light of the day came. And then -there came the time when, with a sudden sharp click of his jaws, he -stopped like a shot in his tracks. - -At last it had come—the meeting with that for which he had been seeking. -It was in an open, lighted by the cold dawn—a tiny amphitheatre that lay -on the side of a ridge, facing the east. With her head toward him, and -waiting for him as he came out of the shadows, his scent strong in her -keen nose, stood Maheegun, the young wolf. Baree had not smelled her, -but he saw her directly he came out of the rim of young balsams that -fringed the open. It was then that he stopped, and for a full minute -neither of them moved a muscle or seemed to breathe. - -There was not a fortnight’s difference in their age and yet Maheegun was -much the smaller of the two; her body was as long, but she was slimmer; -she stood on slender legs that were almost like the legs of a fox, and -the curve of her back was that of a slightly bent bow, a sign of -swiftness almost equal to the wind. She stood poised for flight even as -Baree advanced his first step toward her, and then very slowly her body -relaxed, and in a direct ratio as he drew nearer her ears lost their -alertness and dropped aslant. - -Baree whined. His own ears were up, his head alert, his tail aloft and -bushy. Cleverness, if not strategy, had already become a part of his -masculine superiority, and he did not immediately press the affair. He -was within five feet of Maheegun when he casually turned away from her -and faced the east, where a faint pencilling of red and gold was -heralding the day. For a few moments he sniffed and looked around and -pointed the wind with much seriousness, as though impressing on his fair -acquaintance—as many a two-legged animal has done before him—his -tremendous importance in the world at large. - -And Maheegun was properly impressed. Baree’s bluff worked as beautifully -as the bluffs of the two-legged animals. He sniffed the air with such -thrilling and suspicious zeal that Maheegun’s ears sprang alert, and she -sniffed it with him; he turned his head from point to point so sharply -and alertly that her feminine curiosity, if not anxiety, made her turn -her own head in questioning conjunction; and when he whined, as though -in the air he had caught a mystery which she could not possibly -understand, a responsive note gathered in her throat, but smothered and -low as a woman’s exclamation when she is not quite sure whether she -should interrupt her lord or not. At this sound, which Baree’s sharp -ears caught, he swung up to her with a light and mincing step, and in -another moment they were smelling noses. - -When the sun rose, half an hour later, it found them still in the small -open on the side of the ridge, with a deep fringe of forest under them, -and beyond that a wide, timbered plain which looked like a ghostly -shroud in its mantle of frost. Up over this came the first red glow of -the day, filling the open with a warmth that grew more and more -comfortable as the sun crept higher. - -Neither Baree nor Maheegun were inclined to move for a while, and for an -hour or two they lay basking in a cup of the slope, looking down with -questing and wide-awake eyes upon the wooded plain that stretched away -under them like a great sea. - -Maheegun, too, had sought the hunt-pack, and like Baree had failed to -catch it. They were tired, a little discouraged for the time, and -hungry—but still alive with the fine thrill of anticipation, and -restlessly sensitive to the new and mysterious consciousness of -companionship. Half a dozen times Baree got up and nosed about Maheegun -as she lay in the sun, whining to her softly and touching her soft coat -with his muzzle, but for a long time she paid little attention to him. -At last she followed him. All that day they wandered and rested -together. Once more the night came. - -It was without moon or stars. Gray masses of clouds swept slowly down -out of the north and east, and in the treetops there was scarcely a -whisper of wind as night gathered in. The snow began to fall at dusk, -thickly, heavily, without a breath of sound. It was not cold, but it was -still—so still that Baree and Maheegun travelled only a few yards at a -time, and then stopped to listen. In this way all the night-prowlers of -the forest were travelling, if they were moving at all. It was the first -of the Big Snow. - -To the flesh-eating wild things of the forests, clawed and winged, the -Big Snow was the beginning of the winter carnival of slaughter and -feasting, of wild adventure in the long nights, of merciless warfare on -the frozen trails. The days of breeding, of motherhood—the peace of -spring and summer—were over; out of the sky came the wakening of the -Northland, the call of all flesh-eating creatures to the long hunt, and -in the first thrill of it living things were moving but little this -night, and that watchfully and with suspicion. Youth made it all new to -Baree and Maheegun; their blood ran swiftly; their feet fell softly; -their ears were attuned to catch the slightest sounds. - -In this first of the Big Snow they felt the exciting pulse of a new -life. It lured them on. It invited them to adventure into the white -mystery of the silent storm; and inspired by that restlessness of youth -and its desires, they went on. - -The snow grew deeper under their feet. In the open spaces they waded -through it to their knees, and it continued to fall in a vast white -cloud that descended steadily out of the sky. It was near midnight when -it stopped. The clouds drifted away from under the stars and the moon, -and for a long time Baree and Maheegun stood without moving, looking -down from the bald crest of a ridge upon a wonderful world. - -Never had they seen so far, except in the light of day. Under them was a -plain. They could see its forests, lone trees that stood up like shadows -out of the snow, a stream—still unfrozen—shimmering like glass with the -flicker of firelight on it. Toward this stream Baree led the way. He no -longer thought of Nepeese, and he whined with pent-up happiness as he -stopped halfway down and turned to muzzle Maheegun. He wanted to roll in -the snow and frisk about with his companion; he wanted to bark, to put -up his head and howl as he had howled at the Red Moon back at the cabin. - -Something held him from doing these things. Perhaps it was Maheegun’s -demeanour. She accepted his attentions rigidly. Once or twice she had -seemed almost frightened; twice Baree had heard the sharp clicking of -her teeth. The previous night, and all through to-night’s storm, their -companionship had grown more intimate, but now there was taking its -place a mysterious aloofness on the part of Maheegun. Pierrot could have -explained. With the white snow under and about him, and the luminous -moon and stars above him, Baree, like the night, had undergone a -transformation which even the sunlight of day had not made in him -before. His coat was like polished jet. Every hair in his body glistened -black. _Black!_ That was it. And Nature was trying to tell Maheegun that -of all the creatures hated by her kind, the creature which they feared -and hated most was black. With her it was not experience, but -instinct—telling her of the age-old feud between the gray wolf and the -black bear. And Baree’s coat, in the moonlight and the snow, was blacker -than Wakayoo’s had ever been in the fish-fattening days of May. Until -they struck the broad openings of the plain, the young she-wolf had -followed Baree without hesitation; now there was a gathering strangeness -and indecision in her manner, and twice she stopped and would have let -Baree go on without her. - -An hour after they entered the plain there came suddenly out of the west -the tonguing of the wolf-pack. It was not far distant, probably not more -than a mile along the foot of the ridge, and the sharp, quick yapping -that followed the first outburst was evidence that the long-fanged -hunters had put up sudden game, a caribou or young moose, and were close -at its heels. At the voice of her own people Maheegun laid her ears -close to her head and was off like an arrow from a bow. - -The unexpectedness of her movement and the swiftness of her flight put -Baree well behind her in the race over the plain. She was running -blindly, favoured by luck. For an interval of perhaps five minutes the -pack were so near to their game that they made no sound, and the chase -swung full into the face of Maheegun and Baree. The latter was not half -a dozen lengths behind the young wolf when a crashing in the brush -directly ahead stopped them so sharply that they tore up the snow with -their braced forefeet and squat haunches. Ten seconds later a caribou -burst through and flashed across an open not more than twenty yards from -where they stood. They could hear its swift panting as it disappeared. -And then came the pack. - -At sight of those swiftly moving gray bodies Baree’s heart leaped for an -instant into his throat. He forgot Maheegun, and that she had run away -from him. The moon and the stars went out of existence for him. He no -longer sensed the chill of the snow under his feet. He was wolf—all -wolf. With the warm scent of the caribou in his nostrils, and the -passion to kill sweeping through him like fire, he darted after the -pack. - -Even at that, Maheegun was a bit ahead of him. He did not miss her; in -the excitement of his first chase he no longer felt the desire to have -her at his side. Very soon he found himself close to the flanks of one -of the gray monsters of the pack; half a minute later a new hunter swept -in from the bush behind him, and then a second, and after that a third. -At times he was running shoulder to shoulder with his new companions; he -heard the whining excitement in their throats; the snap of their jaws as -they ran—and in the golden moonlight ahead of him the smash of the -caribou as it plunged through thickets and over windfalls in its race -for life. - -It was as if Baree had belonged to the pack always. He had joined it -naturally, as other stray wolves had joined it from out of the bush; -there had been no ostentation, no welcome such as Maheegun had given him -in the open, and no hostility. He belonged with these slim, swift-footed -outlaws of the old forests, and his own jaws snapped and his blood ran -hot as the smell of the caribou grew heavier, and the sound of its -crashing body nearer. - -It seemed to him they were almost at its heel when they swept into an -open plain, a stretch of barren without a tree or a shrub, brilliant in -the light of the stars and moon. Across its unbroken carpet of snow sped -the caribou a spare hundred yards ahead of the pack. Now the two leading -hunters no longer followed directly in the trail, but shot out at an -angle, one to the right and the other to the left of the pursued, and -like well-trained soldiers the pack split in halves and spread out -fan-shape in the final charge. - -The two ends of the fan forged ahead and closed in, until the leaders -were running almost abreast of the caribou, with fifty or sixty feet -separating them from the pursued. Thus, adroitly and swiftly, with -deadly precision, the pack had formed a horseshoe cordon of fangs from -which there was but one course of flight—straight ahead. For the caribou -to swerve half a degree to the right or left meant death. It was the -duty of the leaders to draw in the ends of the Horseshoe now, until one -or both of them could make the fatal lunge for the ham-strings. After -that it would be a simple matter. The pack would close in over the -caribou like an inundation. - -Baree had found his place in the lower rim of the horseshoe, so that he -was fairly well in the rear when the climax came. The plain made a -sudden dip. Straight ahead was the gleam of water—water shimmering -softly in the starglow, and the sight of it sent a final great spurt of -blood through the caribou’s bursting heart. Forty seconds would tell the -story—forty seconds of a last spurt for life, of a final tremendous -effort to escape death. Baree felt the sudden thrill of these moments, -and he forged ahead with the others in that lower rim of the horseshoe -as one of the leading wolves made a lunge for the young bull’s -ham-string. It was a clean miss. A second wolf darted in. And this one -also missed. - -There was no time for others to take their place. From the broken end of -the horseshoe Baree heard the caribou’s heavy plunge into water. When -Baree joined the pack, a maddened, mouth-frothing, snarling horde, -Napamoos, the young bull, was well out in the river and swimming -steadily for the opposite shore. - -[Illustration: When Baree joined the pack, a maddened, mouth-frothing, -snarling horde, Napamoos, the young caribou bull, was well out in the -river and swimming steadily for the opposite shore.] - -It was then that Baree found himself at the side of Maheegun. She was -panting; her red tongue hung from her open jaws; but at his presence she -brought her fangs together with a snap and slunk from him into the heart -of the wind-run and disappointed pack. The wolves were in an ugly -temper, but Baree did not sense the fact. Nepeese had trained him to -take to water like an otter, and he did not understand why this narrow -river should stop them as it had. He ran down to the water and stood -belly deep in it, facing for an instant the horde of savage beasts above -him, wondering why they did not follow. And he was black—_black_. He -came among them again, and for the first time they noticed him. - -The restless movements of the waters ceased now. A new and wondering -interest held them rigid. Fangs closed sharply. A little in the open -Baree saw Maheegun, with a big gray wolf standing near her. He went to -her again, and this time she remained with flattened ears until he was -sniffing her neck. And then, with a vicious snarl, she snapped at him. -Her teeth sank deep in the soft flesh of his shoulder, and at the -unexpectedness and pain of her attack, he let out a yelp. The next -instant the big gray wolf was at him. - -Again caught unexpectedly, Baree went down with the wolf’s fangs at his -throat. But in him was the blood of Kazan, the flesh and bone and sinew -of Kazan, and for the first time in his life he fought as Kazan fought -on that terrible day at the top of the Sun Rock. He was young; he had -yet to learn the cleverness and the strategy of the veteran; but his -jaws were like the iron clamps with which Pierrot set his bear traps, -and in his heart was sudden and blinding rage, a desire to kill that -rose above all sense of pain or fear. - -That fight, if it had been fair, would have been a victory for Baree, -even in his youth and inexperience. In fairness the pack should have -waited; it was a law of the pack to wait—until one was done for. But -Baree was black; he was a stranger, an interloper, a creature whom they -noticed now in a moment when their blood was hot with the rage and -disappointment of killers who had missed their prey. A second wolf -sprang in, striking Baree treacherously from the flank; and while he was -in the snow, his jaws crushing the fore-leg of his first foe, the pack -was on him _en masse_. - -Such an attack on the young caribou bull would have meant death in less -than a minute. Every fang would have found its hold. Baree, by the -fortunate circumstance that he was under his first two assailants and -protected by their bodies, was saved from being torn instantly into -pieces. He knew that he was fighting for his life. Over him the horde of -beasts rolled and twisted and snarled; he felt the burning pain of teeth -sinking into his flesh; he was smothered; a hundred knives seemed -cutting him into pieces; yet no sound—not a whimper or a cry—came from -him now in the horror and hopelessness of it all. - -It would have ended in another half-minute had the struggle not been at -the very edge of the bank. Undermined by the erosion of the spring -floods, a section of this bank suddenly gave way, and with it went Baree -and half the pack. In a flash Baree thought of the water and the -escaping caribou. For a bare instant the cave-in had sent him free of -the pack, and in that space he gave a single leap over the gray backs of -his enemies into the deep water of the stream. Close behind him half a -dozen jaws snapped shut on empty air. As it had saved the caribou, so -this strip of water shimmering in the glow of the moon and stars had -saved Baree. - -The stream was not more than a hundred feet in width, but it cost Baree -close to a losing struggle to get across it. Until he dragged himself -out on the opposite shore, the extent of his injuries was not impressed -upon him fully. One hind leg, for the time, was useless; his forward -left shoulder was laid open to the bone; his head and body were torn and -cut; and as he dragged himself slowly away from the stream, the trail he -left in the snow was a red path of blood. It trickled from his panting -jaws, between which his tongue was bleeding; it ran down his legs and -flanks and belly, and it dripped from his ears, one of which was slit -clean for two inches as though cut with a knife. His instincts were -dazed, his perception of things clouded as if by a veil drawn close over -his eyes. He did not hear, a few minutes later, the howling of the -disappointed wolf-horde on the other side of the river, and he no longer -sensed the existence of moon or stars. Half dead, he dragged himself on -until by chance he came to a clump of dwarf spruce. Into this he -struggled, and then he dropped exhausted. - -All that night and until noon the next day Baree lay without moving. The -fever burned in his blood; it flamed high and swift toward death; then -it ebbed slowly, and life conquered. At noon he came forth. He was weak, -and he wobbled on his legs. His hind leg still dragged, and he was -racked with pain. But it was a splendid day. The sun was warm; the snow -was thawing; the sky was like a great blue sea; and the floods of life -coursed warmly again through Baree’s veins. But now, for all time, his -desires were changed, and his great quest at an end. - -A red ferocity grew in Baree’s eyes as he snarled in the direction of -last night’s fight with the wolves. They were no longer his people. They -were no longer of his blood. Never again could the hunt-call lure him or -the voice of the pack rouse the old longing. In him there was a thing -new-born, an undying hatred for the wolf, a hatred that was to grow in -him until it became like a disease in his vitals, a thing ever present -and insistent, demanding vengeance on their kind. Last night he had gone -to them a comrade. To-day he was an outcast. Cut and maimed, bearing -with him scars for all time, he had learned his lesson of the -wilderness. To-morrow, and the next day, and for days after that without -number, he would remember the lesson well. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - -At the cabin on the Gray Loon, on the fourth night of Baree’s absence, -Pierrot was smoking his pipe after a great supper of caribou tenderloin -he had brought in from the trail, and Nepeese was listening to his tale -of the remarkable shot he had made, when a sound at the door interrupted -them. Nepeese opened it, and Baree came in. The cry of welcome that was -on the girl’s lips died there instantly, and Pierrot stared as if he -could not quite believe this creature that had returned was the -wolf-dog. Three days and nights of hunger in which he could not hunt -because of the leg that dragged had put on him the marks of starvation. -Battle-scarred and covered with dried blood-clots that still clung -tenaciously to his long hair, he was a sight that drew at last a long -breath from Nepeese. A queer smile was growing in Pierrot’s face as he -leaned forward in his chair; and then slowly rising to his feet, and -looking closer, he said to Nepeese: - -“_Ventre Saint Gris! Oui_, he has been to the pack, Nepeese, and the -pack turned on him. It was not a two-wolf fight—_non!_ It was the pack. -He is cut and torn in fifty places. And—_mon Dieu_, he is alive!” - -In Pierrot’s voice there was growing wonder and amazement. He was -incredulous, and yet he could not disbelieve what his eyes told him. -What had happened was nothing short of a miracle, and for a time he -uttered not a word more but remained staring in silence while Nepeese -woke from her astonishment to give Baree doctoring and food. After he -had eaten ravenously of cold boiled mush she began bathing his wounds in -warm water, and after that she soothed them with bear-grease, talking to -him all the time in her soft Cree. After the pain and hunger and -treachery of his adventure, it was a wonderful homecoming for Baree. He -slept that night at the foot of the Willow’s bed. The next morning it -was the cool caress of his tongue on her hand that awakened her. - -With this day they resumed the comradeship interrupted by Baree’s -temporary desertion. The attachment was greater than ever on Baree’s -part. It was he who had run away from the Willow, who had deserted her -at the call of the pack, and it seemed at times as though he sensed the -depths of his perfidy and was striving to make amends. There was -indubitably a very great change in him. He hung to Nepeese like a -shadow. Instead of sleeping at night in the spruce shelter Pierrot made -for him, he made himself a little hollow in the earth close to the cabin -door. Pierrot thought that he understood, and Nepeese thought that she -understood still more; but in reality the key to the mystery remained -with Baree himself. He no longer played as he had played before he went -off alone into the forest. He did not chase sticks, or run until he was -winded, for the pure joy of running. His puppyishness was gone. In its -place was a great worship and a rankling bitterness, a love for the girl -and a hatred for the pack and all that it stood for. Whenever he heard -the wolf-howl, it brought an angry snarl into his throat, and he would -bare his fangs until even Pierrot would draw a little away from him. But -a touch of the girl’s hand would quiet him. - -In a week or two the heavier snows came, and Pierrot began making his -trips over the trap-lines. Nepeese had entered into a thrilling bargain -with him this winter. Pierrot had taken her into partnership. Every -fifth trap, every fifth deadfall, and every fifth poison-bait was to be -her own, and what they caught or killed was to bring a bit nearer to -realization a wonderful dream that was growing in the Willow’s soul. -Pierrot had promised. If they had great luck that winter, they would go -down together on the last snows to Nelson House and buy the little old -organ that was for sale there; and if the organ was sold, they would -work another winter, and get a new one. - -This plan gave Nepeese an enthusiastic and tireless interest in the -trap-line. With Pierrot it was more or less a fine bit of strategy. He -would have sold his hand to give Nepeese the organ; he was determined -that she should have it, whether the fifth traps and the fifth deadfalls -and the fifth poison-baits caught the fur or not. The partnership meant -nothing so far as that was concerned. But in another way it meant to -Nepeese a business interest, the thrill of personal achievement. Pierrot -impressed on her that it made a comrade and co-worker of her on the -trail. That was his scheme: to keep her with him when he was away from -the cabin. He knew that Bush McTaggart would come again to the Gray -Loon, probably more than once during the winter. He had swift dogs, and -it was a short journey. And when McTaggart came, Nepeese must not be at -the cabin—alone. - -Pierrot’s trap-line swung into the north and west, covering in all a -matter of fifty miles, with an average of two traps, one deadfall, and a -poison-bait to each mile. It was a twisting line blazed along streams -for mink, otter, and marten, piercing the deepest forests for fisher-cat -and lynx and crossing lakes and storm-swept strips of barrens where -poison-baits could be set for fox and wolf. Halfway over this line -Pierrot had built a small log cabin, and at the end of it another, so -that a day’s work meant twenty-five miles. This was easy for Pierrot, -and not hard on Nepeese after the first few days. - -All through October and November they made the trips regularly, making -the round every six days, which gave one day of rest at the cabin on the -Gray Loon and another day in the cabin at the end of the trail. To -Pierrot the winter’s work was business, the labour of his people for -many generations back; to Nepeese and Baree it was a wild and joyous -adventure that never for a day grew tiresome. Even Pierrot could not -quite immunize himself against their enthusiasm. It was infectious, and -he was happier than he had been since his sun had set that evening the -princess mother died. - -They were splendid months. Fur was thick, and it was steadily cold -without bad storm. Nepeese not only carried a small pack on her -shoulders in order that Pierrot’s load might be lighter, but she trained -Baree to bear tiny shoulder-panniers which she manufactured. In these -panniers Baree carried the bait. In at least a third of the total number -of traps set there was always what Pierrot called trash—rabbits, owls, -whisky-jacks, jays, and squirrels. These, with the skin or feathers -stripped off, made up the bulk of the bait for the traps ahead. - -One afternoon early in December, as they were returning to the Gray -Loon, Pierrot stopped suddenly a dozen paces ahead of Nepeese and stared -at the snow. A strange snowshoe trail had joined their own and was -heading toward the cabin. For half a minute Pierrot was silent and -scarcely moved a muscle as he stared. The trail came straight out of the -north—and off there was Lac Bain. Also they were the marks of large -snowshoes, and the stride indicated was that of a tall man. Before -Pierrot had spoken, Nepeese had guessed what they meant. - -“M’sieu the Factor from Lac Bain!” she said. - -Baree was sniffing suspiciously at the strange trail. They heard the low -growl in his throat, and Pierrot’s shoulders stiffened. - -“Yes, the M’sieu,” he said. - -The Willow’s heart beat more swiftly as they went on. She was not afraid -of McTaggart, not physically afraid; and yet something rose up in her -breast and choked her at thought of his presence on the Gray Loon. Why -was he there? It was not necessary for Pierrot to answer the question, -even had she given voice to it. She knew. The Factor from Lac Bain had -no business there—except to see her. The blood burned red in her cheeks -as she thought again of that minute on the edge of the chasm when he had -almost crushed her in his arms. Would he try _that_ again? - -Pierrot, deep in his own sombre thoughts, scarcely heard the strange -laugh that came suddenly from her lips. Nepeese was listening to the -growl that was again in Baree’s throat. It was a low but terrible sound. -When half a mile from the cabin, she unslung the panniers from his -shoulders and carried them herself. Ten minutes later they saw a man -advancing to meet them. - -It was not McTaggart. Pierrot recognized him, and with an audible breath -of relief waved his hand. It was DeBar, who trapped in the Barren -Country north of Lac Bain. Pierrot knew him well. They had exchanged -fox-poison. They were friends, and there was pleasure in the grip of -their hands. DeBar stared then at Nepeese. - -“Tonnerre, she has grown into a woman!” he cried, and like a woman -Nepeese looked at him straight with the colour deepening in her cheeks, -as he bowed low with a courtesy that dated back a couple of centuries -beyond the trap-line. - -DeBar lost no time in explaining his mission, and before they reached -the cabin Pierrot and Nepeese knew why he had come. M’sieu, the Factor -at Lac Bain, was leaving on a journey in five days, and he had sent -DeBar as a special messenger to request Pierrot to come up to assist the -clerk and the halfbreed storekeeper in his absence. Pierrot made no -comment at first. But he was thinking. Why had Bush McTaggart sent for -_him_? Why had he not chosen some one nearer? Not until a fire was -crackling in the sheet-iron stove in the cabin, and Nepeese was busily -engaged getting supper, did he voice these questions to the fox-hunter. - -DeBar shrugged his shoulders. - -“He asked me, at first, if I could stay. But I have a wife with a bad -lung, Pierrot. It was caught by frost last winter, and I dare not leave -her long alone. He has great faith in you. Besides, you know all the -trappers on the Company’s books at Lac Bain. So he sent for you, and -begs you not to worry about your fur-lines, as he will pay you double -what you would catch in the time you are at the Post.” - -“And—Nepeese?” said Pierrot. “M’sieu expects me to bring her?” - -From the stove the Willow bent her head to listen, and her heart leaped -free again at DeBar’s answer. - -“He said nothing about that. But surely—it will be a great change for -li’le m’selle.” - -Pierrot nodded. - -“Possibly, _Netootam_.” - -They discussed the matter no more that night. But for hours Pierrot was -still, thinking, and a hundred times he asked himself that same -question: Why had McTaggart sent for _him_? He was not the only man well -known to the trappers on the Company’s books. There was Wassoon, for -instance, the halfbreed Scandinavian whose cabin was less than four -hours’ journey from the post—or Baroche, the white-bearded old Frenchman -who lived yet nearer and whose word was as good as the Bible. It must -be, he told himself finally, that M’sieu had sent for _him_ because he -wanted to win over the father of Nepeese and gain the friendship of -Nepeese herself. For this was undoubtedly a very great honour that the -Factor was conferring on him. And yet, deep down in his heart, he was -filled with suspicion. - -When DeBar was about to leave the next morning, Pierrot said: - -“Tell M’sieu that I will leave for Lac Bain the day after to-morrow.” - -After DeBar had gone, he said to Nepeese: - -“And you shall remain here, _ma chérie_. I will not take you to Lac -Bain. I have had a dream that M’sieu will not go on a journey, but that -he has lied, and that he will be sick when I arrive at the post. And -yet, if it should happen that you care to go——” - -Nepeese straightened suddenly, like a reed that has been caught by the -wind. - -“_Non!_” she cried, so fiercely that Pierrot laughed, and rubbed his -hands. - -So it happened that on the second day after the fox-hunter’s visit -Pierrot left for Lac Bain, with Nepeese in the door waving him good-bye -until he was out of sight. - - * * * * * - -On the morning of this same day Bush McTaggart rose from his bed while -it was still dark. The time had come. He had hesitated at murder—at the -killing of Pierrot; and in his hesitation he had found a better way. -There could be no escape for Nepeese. - -It was a wonderful scheme, so easy of accomplishment, so inevitable in -its outcome. And all the time Pierrot would think he was away to the -east on a mission! - -He ate his breakfast before dawn, and was on the trail before it was yet -light. Purposely he struck due east, so that in coming up from the south -and west Pierrot would not strike his sledge tracks. For he had made up -his mind now that Pierrot must never know and must never have a -suspicion, even though it cost him so many more miles to travel that he -would not reach the Gray Loon until the second day. It was better to be -a day late, after all, as it was possible that something might have -delayed Pierrot. So he made no effort to travel fast. - -There was a vast amount of brutal satisfaction to McTaggart in -anticipating what was about to happen, and he revelled in it to the -full. There was no chance for disappointment. He was positive that -Nepeese would not accompany her father to Lac Bain. She would be at the -cabin on the Gray Loon—alone. - -This aloneness was to Nepeese burdened with no thought of danger. There -were times, now, when the thought of being alone was pleasant to her, -when she wanted to dream by herself, when she visioned things into the -mysteries of which she would not admit even Pierrot. She was growing -into womanhood—just the sweet, closed bud of womanhood as yet—still a -girl with the soft velvet of girlhood in her eyes, yet with the mystery -of woman stirring gently in her soul, as if the Great Hand were -hesitating between awakening her and letting her sleep a little longer. -At these times, when the opportunity came to steal hours by herself, she -would put on the red dress and do up her wonderful hair as she saw it in -the pictures of the magazines Pierrot had sent up twice a year from -Nelson House. - -On the second day of Pierrot’s absence Nepeese dressed herself like -this, but to-day she let her hair cascade in a shining glory about her, -and about her forehead bound a circlet of red ribbon. She was not yet -done. To-day she had marvellous designs. On the wall close to her mirror -she had tacked a large page from a woman’s magazine, and on this page -was a lovely vision of curls. Fifteen hundred miles north of the sunny -California studio in which the picture had been taken, Nepeese, with -pouted red lips and puckered forehead, was fighting to master the -mystery of the other girl’s curls! - -She was looking into her mirror, her face flushed and her eyes aglow in -the excitement of the struggle to fashion one of the coveted ringlets -from a tress that fell away below her hips, when the door opened behind -her, and Bush McTaggart walked in. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - -The Willow’s back was toward the door when the Factor from Lac Bain -entered the cabin, and for a few startled seconds she did not turn. Her -first thought was of Pierrot—for some reason he had returned. But even -as this thought came to her, she heard in Baree’s throat a snarl that -brought her suddenly to her feet, facing the door. - -McTaggart had not entered unprepared. He had left his pack, his gun, and -his heavy coat outside. He was standing with his back against the door; -and at Nepeese—in her wonderful dress and flowing hair—he was staring as -if stunned for a space at what he saw. Fate, or accident, was playing -against the Willow now. If there had been a spark of slumbering -chivalry, of mercy, even, in Bush McTaggart’s soul, it was extinguished -by what he saw. Never had Nepeese looked more beautiful, not even on -that day when MacDonald the map-maker had taken her picture. The sun, -flooding through the window, lighted up her marvellous hair; her flushed -face was framed in its lustrous darkness like a tinted cameo. He had -dreamed, but he had pictured nothing like this woman who stood before -him now, her eyes widening with fear and the flush leaving her face even -as he looked at her. - -It was not a long interval in which their eyes met in that terrible -silence—terrible to the girl. Words were unnecessary. At last she -understood—understood what her peril had been that day at the edge of -the chasm and in the forest, when fearlessly she had played with the -menace that was confronting her now. - -A breath that was like a sob broke from her lips. - -“M’sieu!” she tried to say. But it was only a gasp—an effort. She seemed -choking. - -Plainly she heard the click of the iron bolt as it locked the door. -McTaggart advanced a step. - -Only a single step McTaggart advanced. On the floor Baree had remained -like a carven thing. He had not moved. He had not made a sound but that -one warning snarl—until McTaggart took the step. And then, like a flash, -he was up and in front of Nepeese, every hair of his body on end; and at -the fury in his growl McTaggart lunged back against the barred door. A -word from Nepeese in that moment, and it would have been over. But an -instant was lost—an instant before her cry came. In that moment man’s -hand and brain worked swifter than brute understanding; and as Baree -launched himself at the Factor’s throat, there came a flash and a -deafening explosion almost in the Willow’s eyes. - -It was a chance shot, a shot from the hip with McTaggart’s automatic. -Baree fell short. He struck the floor with a thud and rolled against the -log wall. There was not a kick or a quiver left in his body. McTaggart -laughed nervously as he shoved his pistol back in its holster. He knew -that only a brain shot could have done that. - -With her back against the farther wall, Nepeese was waiting. McTaggart -could hear her panting breath. He advanced halfway to her. - -“Nepeese, I have come to make you my wife,” he said. - -She did not answer. He could see that her breath was choking her. She -raised a hand to her throat. He took two more steps, and stopped. He had -never seen such eyes. - -“I have come to make you my wife, Nepeese. To-morrow you will go on to -Nelson House with me and then back to Lac Bain—forever.” He added the -last word as an afterthought. “Forever,” he repeated. - -He did not mince words. His courage and his determination rose as he saw -her body droop a little against the wall. She was powerless. There was -no escape. Pierrot was gone. Baree was dead. - -He had thought that no living creature could move as swiftly as the -Willow when his arms reached out for her. She made no sound as she -darted under one of his outstretched arms. He made a lunge, a brutal -grab, and his fingers caught a bit of hair. He heard the snap of it as -she tore herself free and flew to the door. She had thrown back the bolt -when he caught her and his arms closed about her. He dragged her back, -and now she cried out—cried out in her despair for Pierrot, for Baree, -for some miracle of God that might save her. - -And Nepeese fought. She twisted in his arms until she was facing him. -She could no longer see. She was smothered in her hair. It covered her -face and breast and body, suffocating her, entangling her hands and -arms—and still she fought. In the struggle McTaggart stumbled over the -body of Baree, and they went down. Nepeese was up fully five seconds -ahead of the man. She could have reached the door. But again it was her -hair. She paused to fling back the thick masses of it so that she could -see, and McTaggart was at the door ahead of her. - -He did not lock it again, but stood facing her. His face was scratched -and bleeding. He was no longer a man but a devil. Nepeese was broken, -panting—a low sobbing came with her breath. She bent down, and picked up -a piece of firewood. McTaggart could see that her strength was almost -gone. - -She clutched the stick as he approached her again. But McTaggart had -lost all thought of fear or caution. He sprang upon her like an animal. -The stick of firewood fell. And again fate played against the girl. In -her terror and hopelessness she had caught up the first stick her hand -had touched—a light one. With her last strength she struck at McTaggart -with it, and as it fell on his head, he staggered back. But it did not -make him lose his hold. - -Vainly she was fighting now, not to strike him or to escape, but to get -her breath. She tried to cry out again, but this time no sound came from -between her gasping lips. - -Again he laughed, and as he laughed, he heard the door open. Was it the -wind? He turned, still holding her in his arms. - -In the open door stood Pierrot. - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - -During that terrible space which followed an eternity of time rolled -slowly through the little cabin on the Gray Loon—that eternity which -lies somewhere between life and death and which is sometimes meted out -to a human life in seconds instead of eons. - -In those seconds Pierrot did not move from where he stood in the -doorway. McTaggart, huddled over with the weight in his arms, and -staring at Pierrot, did not move. But the Willow’s eyes were opening. -And a convulsive quiver ran through the body of Baree, where he lay near -the wall. There was not the sound of a breath. And then, in that -silence, a great gasping sob came from Nepeese. - -Then Pierrot stirred to life. Like McTaggart, he had left his coat and -mittens outside. He spoke, and his voice was not like Pierrot’s. It was -a strange voice. - -“The great God has sent me back in time, m’sieu,” he said. “I, too, -travelled by way of the east, and saw your trail where it turned this -way.” - -No, that was not like Pierrot’s voice! A chill ran through McTaggart -now, and slowly he let go of Nepeese. She fell to the floor. Slowly he -straightened. - -“Is it not true, m’sieu?” said Pierrot again. “I have come in time?” - -What power was it—what great fear, perhaps, that made McTaggart nod his -head, that made his thick lips form huskily the words, “Yes—in time.” -And yet it was not fear. It was something greater, something more -all-powerful than that. And Pierrot said, in that same strange voice: - -“I thank the great God!” - -The eyes of madman met the eyes of madman now. Between them was death. -Both saw it. Both thought that they saw the direction in which its bony -finger pointed. Both were certain. McTaggart’s hand did not go to the -pistol in his holster, and Pierrot did not touch the knife in his belt. -When they came together, it was throat to throat—two beasts now, instead -of one, for Pierrot had in him the fury and strength of the wolf, the -cat, and the panther. - -McTaggart was the bigger and heavier man, a giant in strength; yet in -the face of Pierrot’s fury he lurched back over the table and went down -with a crash. Many times in his life he had fought, but he had never -felt a grip at his throat like the grip of Pierrot’s hands. They almost -crushed the life from him at once. His neck snapped—a little more, and -it would have broken. He struck out blindly from his back, and twisted -himself to throw off the weight of the halfbreed’s body. But Pierrot was -fastened there, as Sekoosew the ermine had fastened itself at the -jugular of the partridge, and Bush McTaggart’s jaws slowly swung open, -and his face began to turn from red to purple. - -Cold air rushing through the door, Pierrot’s voice and the sound of -battle roused Nepeese quickly to consciousness and the power to raise -herself from the floor. She had fallen near Baree, and as she lifted her -head, her eyes rested for a moment on the dog before they went to the -fighting men. Baree was alive! His body was twitching; his eyes were -open; he made an effort to raise his head as she was looking at him. - -Then she dragged herself to her knees and turned to the men, and -Pierrot, even in the blood-red fury of his desire to kill, must have -heard the sharp cry of joy that came from her when she saw that it was -the Factor from Lac Bain who was underneath. With a tremendous effort -she staggered to her feet, and for a few moments she stood swaying -unsteadily as her brain and her body readjusted themselves. Even as she -looked down upon the blackening face from which Pierrot’s fingers were -choking the life, Bush McTaggart’s hand was groping blindly for his -pistol. He found it. Unseen by Pierrot, he dragged it from its holster. -It was one of the black devils of chance that favoured him again, for in -his excitement he had not snapped the safety shut after shooting Baree. -Now he had only strength left to pull the trigger. Twice his forefinger -closed. Twice there came deadened explosion close to Pierrot’s body. - -In Pierrot’s face Nepeese saw what had happened. Her heart died in her -breast as she looked upon the swift and terrible change wrought by -sudden death. Slowly Pierrot straightened. His eyes were wide for a -moment—wide and staring. He made no sound. She could not see his lips -move. And then he fell toward her, so that McTaggart’s body was free. -Blindly and with an agony that gave no evidence in cry or word she flung -herself down beside him. He was dead. - -How long Nepeese lay there, how long she waited for Pierrot to move, to -open his eyes, to breathe, she would never know. In that time McTaggart -rose to his feet and stood leaning against the wall, the pistol in his -hand, his brain clearing itself as he saw his final triumph. His work -did not frighten him. Even in that tragic moment as he stood against the -wall, his defense—if it ever came to a defense—framed itself in his -mind. Pierrot had murderously assaulted him—without cause. In -self-defense he had killed him. Was he not the Factor of Lac Bain? Would -not the Company and the law believe his word before that of this girl? -His brain leaped with the old exultation. It would never come to that—to -a betrayal of this struggle and death in the cabin—after he had finished -with her! She would not be known for all time as _La Bête Noir_. No, -they would bury Pierrot, and she would return to Lac Bain with him. If -she had been helpless before, she was ten times more helpless now. She -would never tell of what had happened in the cabin. - -He forgot the presence of death as he looked at her, bowed over her -father so that her hair covered him like a silken shroud. He replaced -the pistol in its holster and drew a deep breath into his lungs. He was -still a little unsteady on his feet, but his face was again the face of -a devil. He took a step, and it was then there came a sound to rouse the -girl. In the shadow of the farther wall Baree had struggled to his -haunches, and now he growled. - -Slowly Nepeese lifted her head. A power which she could not resist drew -her eyes up until she was looking into the face of Bush McTaggart. She -had almost lost consciousness of his presence; her senses were cold and -deadened—it was as if her own heart had stopped beating along with -Pierrot’s. What she saw in the Factor’s face dragged her out of the -numbness of her grief back to the abyss of her own peril. He was -standing over her. In his face there was no pity, nothing of horror at -what he had done—only an insane exultation as he looked—not at Pierrot’s -dead body, but at her. He put out a hand, and it rested on her head. She -felt his thick fingers crumpling her hair, and his eyes blazed like -embers of fire behind watery films. She struggled to rise, but with his -hands at her hair he held her down. - -“Great God!” she breathed. - -She uttered no other words, no plea for mercy, no other sound but a dry, -hopeless sob. In that moment neither of them heard or saw Baree. Twice -in crossing the cabin his hind-quarters had sagged to the floor. Now he -was close to McTaggart. He wanted to give a single lunge to the -man-brute’s back and snap his thick neck as he would have broken a -caribou-bone. But he had no strength. He was still partially paralyzed -from his fore-shoulder back. But his jaws were like iron, and they -closed savagely on McTaggart’s leg. - -With a yell of pain the Factor released his hold on the Willow, and she -staggered to her feet. For a precious half-minute she was free, and as -the Factor kicked and struck to loose Baree’s hold, she ran to the cabin -door and out into the day. The cold air struck her face; it filled her -lungs with new strength; and without thought of where hope might lie she -ran through the snow into the forest. - -McTaggart appeared at the door just in time to see her disappear. His -leg was torn where Baree had fastened his fangs, but he felt no pain as -he ran in pursuit of the girl. She could not go far. An exultant cry, -inhuman as the cry of a beast, came in a great breath from his gaping -mouth as he saw that she was staggering weakly as she fled. He was -halfway to the edge of the forest when Baree dragged himself over the -threshold. His jaws were bleeding where McTaggart had kicked him again -and again before his fangs gave way. Halfway between his ears was a -seared spot, as if a red-hot poker had been laid there for an instant. -This was where McTaggart’s bullet had gone. A quarter of an inch deeper, -and it would have meant death. As it was, it had been like the blow of a -heavy club, paralyzing his senses and sending him limp and unconscious -against the wall. He could move on his feet now without falling, and -slowly he followed in the tracks of the man and the girl. - -As she ran, Nepeese’s mind became all at once clear and reasoning. She -turned into the narrow trail over which McTaggart had followed her once -before, but just before reaching the chasm, she swung sharply to the -right. She could see McTaggart. He was not running fast, but was gaining -steadily, as if enjoying the sight of her helplessness, as he had -enjoyed it in another way on that other day. Two hundred yards below the -deep pool into which she had pushed the Factor—just beyond the shallows -out of which he had dragged himself to safety—was the beginning of Blue -Feather’s Gorge. An appalling thing was shaping itself in her mind as -she ran to it—a thing that with each gasping breath she drew became more -and more a great and glorious hope. At last she reached it and looked -down. And as she looked, there whispered up out of her soul and trembled -on her lips the swan-song of her mother’s people. - - Our fathers—come! - Come from out of the valley. - Guide us—for to-day we die, - And the winds whisper of death! - -She had raised her arms. Against the white wilderness beyond the chasm -she stood tall and slim. Fifty yards behind her the Factor from Lac Bain -stopped suddenly in his tracks. “Ah,” he mumbled. “Is she not -wonderful!” And behind McTaggart, coming faster and faster, was Baree. - -Again the Willow looked down. She was at the edge, for she had no fear -in this hour. Many times she had clung to Pierrot’s hand as she looked -over. Down there no one could fall and live. Fifty feet below her the -water which never froze was smashing itself into froth among the rocks. -It was deep and black and terrible, for between the narrow rock walls -the sun did not reach it. The roar of it filled the Willow’s ears. - -She turned and faced McTaggart. - -Even then he did not guess, but came toward her again, his arms -stretched out ahead of him. Fifty yards! It was not much, and shortening -swiftly. - -Once more the Willow’s lips moved. After all, it is the mother soul that -gives us faith to meet eternity—and it was to the spirit of her mother -that the Willow called in the hour of death. With the call on her lips -she plunged into the abyss, her wind-whipped hair clinging to her in a -glistening shroud. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - -A moment later the Factor from Lac Bain stood at the edge of the chasm. -His voice had called out in a hoarse bellow—a wild cry of disbelief and -horror that had formed the Willow’s name as she disappeared. He looked -down, clutching his huge red hands and staring in ghastly suspense at -the boiling water and black rocks far below. There was nothing there -now—no sign of her, no last flash of her pale face and streaming hair in -the white foam. And she had done _that_—to save herself from him! - -The soul of the man-beast turned sick within him, so sick that he -staggered back, his vision blinded and his legs tottering under him. He -had killed Pierrot, and it had been a triumph; all his life he had -played the part of the brute with a stoicism and cruelty that had known -no shock—nothing like this that overwhelmed him now, numbing him to the -marrow of his bones until he stood like one paralyzed. He did not see -Baree. He did not hear the dog’s whining cries at the edge of the chasm. -For a few moments the world turned black for him; and then, dragging -himself out of his stupor, he ran frantically along the edge of the -gorge, looking down wherever his eyes could reach the water, striving -for a glimpse of her. At last it grew too deep. There was no hope. She -was gone—and she had faced _that_ to escape him! - -He mumbled that fact over and over again, stupidly, thickly, as though -his brain could grasp nothing beyond it. She was dead. And Pierrot was -dead. And he, in a few minutes, had accomplished it all. - -He turned back toward the cabin—not by the trail over which he had -pursued Nepeese, but straight through the thick bush. Great flakes of -snow had begun to fall. He looked at the sky, where banks of dark clouds -were rolling up from the south and east. The sun went out. Soon there -would be a storm—a heavy snowstorm. The big flakes falling on his naked -hands and face set his mind to work. It was lucky for him, this storm. -It would cover everything—the fresh trails, even the grave he would dig -for Pierrot. - -It does not take such a man as the Factor long to recover from a moral -concussion. By the time he came in sight of the cabin his mind was again -at work on physical things—on the necessities of the situation. The -appalling thing, after all, was not that both Pierrot and Nepeese were -dead, but that his dream was shattered. It was not that Nepeese was -dead, but that he had lost her. This was his vital disappointment. The -other thing—his crime—it was easy to cover. - -It was not sentiment that made him dig Pierrot’s grave close to the -princess mother’s under the tall spruce. It was not sentiment that made -him dig the grave at all, but caution. He buried Pierrot decently. Then -he poured Pierrot’s stock of kerosene where it would be most effective -and touched a match to it. He stood in the edge of the forest until the -cabin was a mass of flames. The snow was falling thickly. The freshly -made grave was a white mound, and the trails were filling. For the -physical things he had done there was no fear in Bush McTaggart’s heart -as he turned back toward Lac Bain. No one would ever look into the grave -of Pierrot du Quesne. And there was no one to betray him if such a -miracle happened. But of one thing his black soul would never be able to -free itself. Always he would see the pale, triumphant face of the Willow -as she stood facing him in that moment of her glory when, even as she -was choosing death rather than him, he had cried to himself: “Ah! Is she -not wonderful!” - -As Bush McTaggart had forgotten Baree, so Baree had forgotten the Factor -from Lac Bain. When McTaggart had run along the edge of the chasm, Baree -had squatted himself in the foot-beaten plot of snow where Nepeese had -last stood, his body stiffened and his forefeet braced as he looked -down. He had seen her take the leap. Many times that summer he had -followed her in her daring dives into the deep, quiet water of the pool. -But this was a tremendous distance. She had never dived into a place -like that. He could see the black heads of the rocks, appearing and -disappearing in the whirling foam like the heads of monsters at play; -the roar of the water filled him with dread; his eyes caught the swift -rush of crumbled ice between the rock walls. And she had gone down -there! - -He had a great desire to follow her, to jump in, as he had always jumped -in after her. She was surely down there, even though he could not see -her. Probably she was playing among the rocks and hiding herself in the -white froth and wondering why he didn’t come. But he hesitated—hesitated -with his head and neck over the abyss, and his forefeet giving way a -little in the snow. With an effort he dragged himself back and whined. -He caught the fresh scent of McTaggart’s moccasins in the snow, and the -whine changed slowly into a long snarl. He looked over again. Still he -could not see her. He barked—the short, sharp signal with which he -always called her. There was no answer. Again and again he barked, and -always there was nothing but the roar of the water that came back to -him. Then for a few moments he stood back, silent and listening, his -body shivering with the strange dread that was possessing him. - -The snow was falling now, and McTaggart had returned to the cabin. After -a little Baree followed in the trail he had made along the edge of the -chasm, and wherever McTaggart had stopped to peer over, Baree paused -also. For a space his hatred of the man was burned up in his desire to -join the Willow, and he continued along the gorge until, a quarter of a -mile beyond where the Factor had last looked into it, he came to the -narrow trail down which he and Nepeese had many time adventured in quest -of rock-violets. The twisting path that led down the face of the cliff -was filled with snow now, but Baree cleared his way through it until at -last he stood at the edge of the unfrozen torrent. Nepeese was not here. -He whined, and barked again, but this time there was in his signal to -her an uneasy repression, a whimpering note which told that he did not -expect a reply. For five minutes after that he sat on his haunches in -the snow, stolid as a rock. What it was that came down out of the dark -mystery and tumult of the chasm to him, what spirit-whispers of nature -that told him the truth, it is beyond the power of reason to explain. -But he listened, and he looked; and his muscles twitched as the truth -grew in him; and at last he raised his head slowly until his black -muzzle pointed to the white storm in the sky, and out of his throat -there went forth the quavering, long-drawn howl of the husky who mourns -outside the tepee of a master who is newly dead. - -On the trail, heading for Lac Bain, Bush McTaggart heard that cry and -shivered. - -It was the smell of smoke, thickening in the air until it stung his -nostrils, that drew Baree at last away from the chasm and back to the -cabin. There was not much left when he came to the clearing. Where the -cabin had been was a red-hot, smouldering mass. For a long time he sat -watching it, still waiting and still listening. He no longer felt the -effect of the bullet that had stunned him, but his senses were -undergoing another change now, as strange and unreal as their struggle -against that darkness of near-death in the cabin. In a space that had -not covered more than an hour the world had twisted itself grotesquely -for Baree. That long ago the Willow was sitting before her little mirror -in the cabin, talking to him and laughing in her happiness, while he lay -in vast contentment on the floor. And now there was no cabin, no -Nepeese, no Pierrot. Quietly he struggled to comprehend. It was some -time before he moved from under the thick balsams, for already a deep -and growing suspicion began to guide his movements. He did not go nearer -to the smouldering mass of the cabin, but slinking low, made his way -about the circle of the open to the dog-corral. This took him under the -tall spruce. For a full minute he paused here, sniffing at the freshly -made mound under its white mantle of snow. When he went on, he slunk -still lower, and his ears were flat against his head. - -The dog-corral was open and empty. McTaggart had seen to that. Again -Baree squatted back on his haunches and sent forth the death-howl. This -time it was for Pierrot. In it there was a different note from that of -the howl he had sent forth from the chasm: it was positive, certain. In -the chasm his cry had been tempered with doubt—a questioning hope, -something that was so almost human that McTaggart had shivered on the -trail. But Baree knew what lay in that freshly dug snow-covered grave. A -scant three feet of earth could not hide its secret from him. There was -death—definite and unequivocal. But for Nepeese he was still hoping and -seeking. - -Until noon he did not go far from the cabin, but only once did he -actually approach and sniff about the black pile of steaming timbers. -Again and again he circled the edge of the clearing, keeping just within -the bush and timber, sniffing the air and listening. Twice he went back -to the chasm. Late in the afternoon there came to him a sudden impulse -that carried him swiftly through the forest. He did not run openly now; -caution, suspicion, and fear had roused in him afresh the instincts of -the wolf. With his ears flattened against the side of his head, his tail -drooping until the tip of it dragged the snow and his back sagging in -the curious, evasive gait of the wolf, he scarcely made himself -distinguishable from the shadows of the spruce and balsams. - -There was no faltering in the trail Baree made; it was straight as a -rope might have been drawn through the forest, and it brought him, early -in the dusk, to the open spot where Nepeese had fled with him that day -she had pushed McTaggart over the edge of the precipice into the pool. -In the place of the balsam shelter of that day there was now a -water-tight birch-bark tepee which Pierrot had helped the Willow to make -during the summer. Baree went straight to it and thrust in his head with -a low and expectant whine. - -There was no answer. It was dark and cold in the tepee. He could make -out indistinctly the two blankets that were always in it, the row of big -tin boxes in which Nepeese kept their stores, and the stove which -Pierrot had improvised out of scraps of iron and heavy tin. But Nepeese -was not there. And there was no sign of her outside. The snow was -unbroken except by his own trail. It was dark when he returned to the -burned cabin. All that night he hung about the deserted dog-corral, and -all through the night the snow fell steadily, so that by dawn he sank -into it to his shoulders when he moved out into the clearing. - -But with day the sky had cleared. The sun came up, and the world was -almost too dazzling for the eyes. It warmed Baree’s blood with new hope -and expectation. His brain struggled even more eagerly than yesterday to -comprehend. Surely the Willow would be returning soon! He would hear her -voice. She would appear suddenly out of the forest. He would receive -some signal from her. One of these things, or all of them, must happen. -He stopped sharply in his tracks at every sound, and sniffed the air -from every point of the wind. He was travelling ceaselessly. His body -made deep trails in the snow around and over the huge white mound where -the cabin had stood; his tracks led from the corral to the tall spruce, -and they were as numerous as the footprints of a wolf-pack for half a -mile up and down the chasm. - -On the afternoon of this day the second big impulse came to him. It was -not reason, and neither was it instinct alone. It was the struggle -halfway between, the brute mind fighting at its best with the mystery of -an intangible thing—something that could not be seen by the eye or heard -by the ear. Nepeese was not in the cabin, because there was no cabin. -She was not at the tepee. He could find no trace of her in the chasm. -She was not with Pierrot under the big spruce. - -Therefore, unreasoning but sure, he began to follow the old trap-line -into the north and west. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - - -No man has ever looked clearly into the mystery of death as it is -impinged upon the senses of the northern dog. It comes to him, -sometimes, with the wind; most frequently it must come with the wind, -and yet there are ten thousand masters in the northland who will swear -that their dogs have given warning of death hours before it actually -came; and there are many of these thousands who know from experience -that their teams will stop a quarter or half a mile from a stranger -cabin in which there is unburied dead. - -Yesterday Baree had smelled death, and he knew without process of -reasoning that the dead was Pierrot. How he knew this, and why he -accepted the fact as inevitable, is one of the mysteries which at times -seems to give the direct challenge to those who concede nothing more -than instinct to the brute mind. He knew that Pierrot was dead without -exactly knowing what death was. But of one thing he was sure: he would -never see Pierrot again; he would never hear his voice again; he would -never hear again the _swish-swish-swish_ of his snowshoes in the trail -ahead, and so on the trap-line he did not look for Pierrot. Pierrot was -gone forever. But Baree had not yet associated death with Nepeese. He -was filled with a great uneasiness; what came to him from out of the -chasm had made him tremble with fear and suspense; he sensed the thrill -of something strange, of something impending, and yet even as he had -given the death-howl in the chasm, it must have been for Pierrot. For he -believed that Nepeese was alive, and he was now just as sure that he -would overtake her on the trap-line as he was positive yesterday that he -would find her at the birch-bark tepee. - -Since yesterday morning’s breakfast with the Willow, Baree had gone -without eating; to appease his hunger meant to hunt, and his mind was -too filled with his quest of Nepeese for that. He would have gone hungry -all that day, but in the third mile from the cabin he came to a trap in -which there was a big snowshoe rabbit. The rabbit was still alive, and -he killed it and ate his fill. Until dark he did not miss a trap. In one -of them there was a lynx; in another a fisher-cat; out on the white -surface of a lake he sniffed at a snowy mound under which lay the body -of a red fox killed by one of Pierrot’s poison baits. Both the lynx and -the fisher-cat were alive, and the steel chains of their traps clanked -sharply as they prepared to give Baree battle. But Baree was -uninterested. He hurried on, his uneasiness growing as the day darkened -and he found no sign of the Willow. - -It was a wonderfully clear night after the storm—cold and brilliant, -with the shadows standing out as clearly as living things. The third -idea came to Baree now. He was, like all animals, largely of one idea at -a time—a creature with whom all lesser impulses were governed by a -single leading impulse. And this impulse, in the glow of the starlit -night, was to reach as quickly as possible the first of Pierrot’s two -cabins on the trap-line. There he would find Nepeese! - -We won’t call the process by which Baree came to this conclusion a -process of reasoning; instinct or reasoning, whatever it was, a fixed -and positive faith came to Baree just the same. He began to miss the -traps in his haste to cover distance—to reach the cabin. It was -twenty-five miles from Pierrot’s burned home to the first trap-cabin, -and Baree had made ten of these by nightfall. The remaining fifteen were -the most difficult. In the open spaces the snow was belly-deep and soft; -frequently lie plunged through drifts in which for a few moments he was -buried. Three times during the early part of the night Baree heard the -savage dirge of the wolves. Once it was a wild pæan of triumph as the -hunters pulled down their kill less than half a mile away in the deep -forest. But the voice no longer called to him. It was repellent—a voice -of hatred and of treachery. Each time that he heard it he stopped in his -tracks and snarled, while his spine stiffened. - -At midnight Baree came to the tiny amphitheatre in the forest where -Pierrot had cut the logs for the first of his trap-line cabins. For at -least a minute Baree stood at the edge of the clearing, his ears very -alert, his eyes bright with hope and expectation, while he sniffed the -air. There was no smoke, no sound, no light in the one window of the log -shack. His disappointment fell on him even as he stood there; again he -sensed the fact of his aloneness, of the barrenness of his quest. There -was a disheartened slouch to his body as he made his way through the -snow to the cabin door. He had travelled twenty-five miles, and he was -tired. - -The snow was drifted deep at the doorway, and here Baree sat down and -whined. It was no longer the anxious, questing whine of a few hours ago. -Now it voiced hopelessness and a deep despair. For half an hour he sat -shivering with his back to the door and his face to the starlit -wilderness, as if there still remained the fleeting hope that Nepeese -might follow after him over the trail. Then he burrowed himself a hole -deep in the snowdrift and passed the remainder of the night in uneasy -slumber. - -With the first light of day Baree resumed the trail. He was not so alert -this morning. There was the disconsolate droop to his tail which the -Indians call the _Akoosewin_—the sign of the sick dog. And Baree was -sick—not of body but of soul. The keenness of his hope had died, and he -no longer expected to find the Willow. The second cabin at the far end -of the trap-line drew him on, but it inspired in him none of the -enthusiasm with which he had hurried to the first. He travelled slowly -and spasmodically, his suspicions of the forests again replacing the -excitement of his quest. He approached each of Pierrot’s traps and -deadfalls cautiously, and twice he showed his fangs—once at a marten -that snapped at him from under a root where it had dragged the trap in -which it was caught, and the second time at a big snowy owl that had -come to steal bait and was now a prisoner at the end of a steel chain. -It may be that Baree thought it was Oohoomisew and that he still -remembered vividly the treacherous assault and fierce battle of that -night when, as a puppy, he was dragging his sore and wounded body -through the mystery and fear of the big timber. For he did more than to -show his fangs. He tore the owl into pieces. - -There were plenty of rabbits in Pierrot’s traps, and Baree did not go -hungry. He reached the second trap-line cabin late in the afternoon, -after ten hours of travelling. He met with no very great disappointment -here, for he had not anticipated very much. The snow had banked this -cabin even higher than the other. It lay three feet deep against the -door, and the window was white with a thick coating of frost. At this -place, which was close to the edge of a big barren, and unsheltered by -the thick forests farther back, Pierrot had built a shelter for his -firewood, and in this shelter Baree made his temporary home. All the -next day he remained somewhere near the end of the trap-line, skirting -the edge of the barren and investigating the short side line of a dozen -traps which Pierrot and Nepeese had strung through a swamp in which -there had been many signs of lynx. It was the third day before he set -out on his return to the Gray Loon. - -He did not travel very fast, spending two days in covering the -twenty-five miles between the first and the second trap-line cabins. At -the second cabin he remained for three days, and it was on the ninth day -that he reached the Gray Loon. There was no change. There were no tracks -in the snow but his own, made nine days ago. - -Baree’s quest for Nepeese became now more or less involuntary, a sort of -daily routine. For a week he made his burrow in the dog-corral, and at -least twice between dawn and darkness he would go to the birch-bark -tepee and the chasm. His trail, soon beaten hard in the snow, became as -fixed as Pierrot’s trap-line. It cut straight through the forest to the -tepee, swinging slightly to the east so that it crossed the frozen -surface of the Willow’s swimming-pool. From the tepee it swung in a -circle through a part of the forest where Nepeese had frequently -gathered armfuls of crimson fire-flowers, and then to the chasm. Up and -down the edge of the gorge it went, down into the little cup at the -bottom of the chasm, and thence straight back to the dog-corral. - -And then, of a sudden, Baree made a change. He spent a night in the -tepee. After that, whenever he was at the Gray Loon, during the day he -always slept in the tepee. The two blankets were his bed—and they were a -part of Nepeese. And there, all through the long winter, he waited. - -If Nepeese had returned in February and could have taken him unaware, -she would have found a changed Baree. He was more than ever like a wolf; -yet he never gave the wolf-howl now, and always he snarled deep in his -throat when he heard the cry of the pack. For several weeks the old -trap-line had supplied him with meat, but now he hunted. The tepee, in -and out, was scattered with fur and bones. Once—alone—he caught a young -deer in deep snow and killed it. Again, in the heart of a fierce -February storm, he pursued a bull caribou so closely that it plunged -over a cliff and broke its neck. He lived well, and in size and strength -he was growing swiftly into a giant of his kind. In another six months -he would be as large as Kazan, and his jaws were almost as powerful, -even now. - -Three times that winter Baree fought—once with a lynx that sprang down -upon him from a windfall while he was eating a freshly killed rabbit, -and twice with two lone wolves. The lynx tore him unmercifully before it -fled into the windfall. The younger of the wolves he killed; the other -fight was a draw. More and more he became an outcast, living alone with -his dreams and his smouldering hopes. - -And Baree did dream. Many times, as he lay in the tepee, he would hear -the voice of Nepeese. He would hear her sweet calling, her laughter, the -sound of his name, and often he would start up to his feet—the old Baree -for a thrilling moment or two—only to lie down in his nest again with a -low, grief-filled whine. And always when he heard the snap of a twig or -some other sound in the forest, it was thought of Nepeese that flashed -first into his brain. Some day she would return. That belief was a part -of his existence as much as the sun and the moon and the stars. - -The winter passed, and spring came, and still Baree continued to haunt -his old trails, even going now and then over the old trap-line as far as -the first of the two cabins. The traps were rusted and sprung now; the -thawing snow disclosed bones and feathers between their jaws; under the -deadfalls were remnants of fur, and out on the ice of the lakes were -picked skeletons of foxes and wolves that had taken the poison-baits. -The last snow went. The swollen streams sang in the forests and cañons. -The grass turned green, and the first flowers came. - -Surely this was the time for Nepeese to come home! He watched for her -expectantly. He went still more frequently to their swimming-pool in the -forest, and he hung closely to the burned cabin and the dog-corral. -Twice he sprang into the pool and whined as he swam about, as though she -surely must join him in their old water frolic. And now, as the spring -passed and summer came, there settled upon him slowly the gloom and -misery of utter hopelessness. The flowers were all out now, and even the -bakneesh vines glowed like red fire in the woods. Patches of green were -beginning to hide the charred heap where the cabin had stood, and the -blue-flower vines that covered the princess mother’s grave were reaching -out toward Pierrot’s, as if the princess mother herself were the spirit -of them. - -All these things were happening, and the birds had mated and nested, and -still Nepeese did not come! And at last something broke inside of Baree, -his last hope, perhaps, his last dream; and one day he bade good-bye to -the Gray Loon. - -No one can say what it cost him to go; no one can say how he fought -against the things that were holding him to the tepee, the old -swimming-pool, the familiar paths in the forest, and the two graves that -were not so lonely now under the tall spruce. He went. He had no -reason—simply went. It may be that there is a Master whose hand guides -the beast as well as the man, and that we know just enough of this -guidance to call it instinct. For, in dragging himself away, Baree faced -the Great Adventure. - -It was there, in the north, waiting for him—and into the north he went. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV - - -It was early in August when Baree left the Gray Loon. He had no -objective in view. But there was still left upon his mind, like the -delicate impression of light and shadow on a negative, the memories of -his earlier days. Things and happenings that he had almost forgotten -recurred to him now, as his trail led him farther and farther away from -the Gray Loon; and his earlier experiences became real again, pictures -thrown out afresh in his mind by the breaking of the last ties that held -him to the home of the Willow. Involuntarily he followed the trail of -these impressions—of these past happenings, and slowly they helped to -build up new interests for him. A year in his life was a long time—a -decade of man’s experience. It was more than a year ago that he had left -Kazan and Gray Wolf and the old windfall, and yet now there came back to -him indistinct memories of those days of his earliest puppyhood, of the -stream into which he had fallen, and of his fierce battle with -Papayuchisew. It was his later experiences that roused the older -memories. He came to the blind cañon up which Nepeese and Pierrot had -chased him. That seemed but yesterday. He entered the little meadow, and -stood beside the great rock that had almost crushed the life out of the -Willow’s body; and then he remembered where Wakayoo, his big bear -friend, had died under Pierrot’s rifle—and he smelled of Wakayoo’s -whitened bones where they lay scattered in the green grass, with flowers -growing up among them. A day and night he spent in the little meadow -before he went back out of the cañon and into his old haunts along the -creek, where Wakayoo had fished for him. There was another bear here -now, and he also was fishing. Perhaps he was a son or a grandson of -Wakayoo. Baree smelled where he had made his fish caches, and for three -days he lived on fish before he struck into the North. - -And now, for the first time in many weeks, a bit of the old-time -eagerness put speed into Baree’s feet. Memories that had been hazy and -indistinct through forgetfulness were becoming realities again, and as -he would have returned to the Gray Loon had Nepeese been there so now, -with something of the feeling of a wanderer going home, he returned to -the old beaver-pond. - -It was that most glorious hour of a summer’s day—sunset—when he reached -it. He stopped a hundred yards away, with the pond still hidden from his -sight, and sniffed the air, and listened. The pond was there. He caught -the cool, honey smell of it. But Umisk, and Beaver-tooth, and all the -others? Would he find them? He strained his ears to catch a familiar -sound, and after a moment or two it came—a hollow splash in the water. -He went quietly through the alders and stood at last close to the spot -where he had first made the acquaintance of Umisk. The surface of the -pond was undulating slightly; two or three heads popped up; he saw the -torpedo-like wake of an old beaver towing a stick close to the opposite -shore—he looked toward the dam, and it was as he had left it almost a -year ago. He did not show himself for a time, but stood concealed in the -young alders. He felt growing in him more and more a feeling of -restfulness, a relaxation from the long strain of the lonely months -during which he had waited for Nepeese. With a long breath he lay down -among the alders, with his head just enough exposed to give him a clear -view. As the sun settled lower the pond became alive. Out on the shore -where he had saved Umisk from the fox came another generation of young -beavers—three of them, fat and waddling. Very softly Baree whined. - -All that night he lay in the alders. The beaver-pond became his home -again. Conditions were changed, of course, and as days grew into weeks -the inhabitants of Beaver-tooth’s colony showed no signs of accepting -the grown-up Baree as they had accepted the baby Baree of long ago. He -_was_ big, black, and wolfish now—a long-fanged and formidable looking -creature, and though he offered no violence he was regarded by the -beavers with a deep-seated feeling of fear and suspicion. On the other -hand, Baree no longer felt the old puppyish desire to play with the baby -beavers, so their aloofness did not trouble him as in those other days. -Umisk was grown up, too, a fat and prosperous young buck who was just -taking unto himself this year a wife, and who was at present very busy -gathering his winter’s rations. It is entirely probable that he did not -associate the big black beast he saw now and then with the little Baree -with whom he had smelled noses once upon a time, and it is quite likely -that Baree did not recognize Umisk except as a _part_ of the memories -that had remained with him. - -All through the month of August Baree made the beaver-pond his -headquarters. At times his excursions kept him away for two or three -days at a time. These journeys were always into the north, sometimes a -little east and sometimes a little west, but never again into the south. -And at last, early in September, he left the beaver-pond for good. - -For many days his wanderings carried him in no one particular direction. -He followed the hunting, living chiefly on rabbits and that -simple-minded species of partridge known as the “fool hen.” This diet, -of course, was given variety by other things as they happened to come -his way. Wild currants and raspberries were ripening, and Baree was fond -of these. He also liked the bitter berries of the mountain ash, which, -along with the soft balsam and spruce pitch which he licked with his -tongue now and then, were good medicine for him. In shallow water he -occasionally caught a fish; now and then he hazarded a cautious battle -with a porcupine, and if he was successful he feasted on the tenderest -and most luscious of all the flesh that made up his menu. Twice in -September he killed young deer. The big “burns” that he occasionally -came to no longer held terrors for him; in the midst of plenty he forgot -the days in which he had gone hungry. In October he wandered as far west -as the Geikie River, and then northward to Wollaston Lake, which was a -good hundred miles north of the Gray Loon. The first week in November he -turned south again, following the Canoe River for a distance, and then -swinging westward along a twisting creek called The Little Black Bear -With No Tail. More than once during these weeks Baree came into touch -with man, but, with the exception of the Cree hunter at the upper end of -Wollaston Lake, no man had seen him. Three times in following the Geikie -he lay crouched in the brush while canoes passed; half a dozen times, in -the stillness of night, he nosed about cabins and tepees in which there -was life, and once he came so near to the Hudson’s Bay Company post at -Wollaston that he could hear the barking of dogs and the shouting of -their masters. And always he was seeking—questing for the thing that had -gone out of his life. At the thresholds of the cabins he sniffed; -outside of the tepees he circled close, gathering the wind; the canoes -he watched with eyes in which there was a hopeful gleam. Once he thought -the wind brought him the scent of Nepeese, and all at once his legs grew -weak under his body and his heart seemed to stop beating. It was only -for a moment or two. She came out of the tepee—an Indian girl with her -hands full of willow-work—and Baree slunk away unseen. - -It was almost December when Lerue, a halfbreed from Lac Bain, saw -Baree’s footprints in freshly fallen snow, and a little later caught a -flash of him in the bush. - -“Mon Dieu, I tell you his feet are as big as my hand, and he is as black -as a raven’s wing with the sun on it!” he exclaimed in the Company’s -store at Lac Bain. “A fox? _Non!_ He is half as big as a bear. A -wolf—_oui_! And black as the devil, M’sieus.” - -McTaggart was one of those who heard. He was putting his signature in -ink to a letter he had written to the Company when Lerue’s words came to -him. His hand stopped so suddenly that a drop of ink spattered on the -letter. Through him there ran a curious shiver as he looked over at the -halfbreed. Just then Marie came in. McTaggart had brought her back from -her tribe. Her big, dark eyes had a sick look in them, and some of her -wild beauty had gone since a year ago. - -“He was gone like—that!” Lerue was saying, with a snap of his fingers. -He saw Marie, and stopped. - -“Black, you say?” McTaggart said carelessly, without lifting his eyes -from his writing. “Did he not bear some dog mark?” - -Lerue shrugged his shoulders. - -“He was gone like the wind, M’sieu. But he was a wolf.” - -With scarcely a sound that the others could hear Marie had whispered -into the Factor’s ear, and folding his letter McTaggart rose quickly and -left the store. He was gone an hour. Lerue and the others were puzzled. -It was not often that Marie came into the store; it was not often that -they saw her at all. She remained hidden in the Factor’s log house, and -each time that he saw her Lerue thought that her face was a little -thinner than the last, and her eyes bigger and hungrier looking. In his -own heart there was a great yearning. Many a night he passed the little -window beyond which he knew that she was sleeping; often he looked to -catch a glimpse of her pale face, and he lived in the one happiness of -knowing that Marie understood, and that into her eyes there came for an -instant a different light when their glances met. No one else knew. The -secret lay between them—and patiently Lerue waited and watched. -“Someday,” he kept saying to himself—“Someday”—and that was all. The one -word carried a world of meaning and of hope. When that day came he would -take Marie straight to the Missioner over at Fort Churchill, and they -would be married. It was a dream—a dream that made the long days and the -longer nights on the trap-line patiently endured. Now they were both -slaves to the environing Power. But—someday—— - -Lerue was thinking of this when McTaggart returned at the end of the -hour. The Factor came straight up to where the half dozen of them were -seated about the big box stove, and with a grunt of satisfaction shook -the freshly fallen snow from his shoulders. - -“Pierre Eustach has accepted the Government’s offer, and is going to -guide that map-making party up into the Barrens this winter,” he -announced. “You know, Lerue—he has a hundred and fifty traps and -deadfalls set, and a big poison-bait country. A good line, eh? And I -have leased it of him for the season. It will give me the outdoor work I -need—three days on the trail, three days here. Eh, what do you say to -the bargain?” - -“It is good,” said Lerue. - -“Yes, it is good,” said Roget. - -“A wide fox country,” said Mons Roule. - -“And easy to travel,” murmured Valence in a voice that was almost like a -woman’s. - - - - - CHAPTER XXV - - -The trap-line of Pierre Eustach ran thirty miles straight west of Lac -Bain. It was not as long a line as Pierrot’s had been, but it was like a -main artery running through the heart of a rich fur country. It had -belonged to Pierre Eustach’s father, and his grandfather, and his -great-grandfather, and beyond that it reached, Pierre averred, back to -the very pulse of the finest blood in France. The books at McTaggart’s -post went back only as far as the great-grandfather end of it, the older -evidence of ownership being at Churchill. It was the finest game country -between Reindeer Lake and the Barren Lands. It was in December that -Baree came to it. - -Again he was travelling southward in a slow and wandering fashion, -seeking food in the deep snows. The _Kistisew Kestin_, or Great Storm, -had come earlier than usual this winter, and for a week after it -scarcely a hoof or claw was moving. Baree, unlike the other creatures, -did not bury himself in the snow and wait for the skies to clear and -crust to form. He was big, and powerful, and restless. Less than two -years old, he weighed a good eighty pounds. His pads were broad and -wolfish. His chest and shoulders were like a Malemute’s, heavy and yet -muscled for speed. He was wider between the eyes than the wolf-breed -husky, and his eyes were larger, and entirely clear of the _Wuttooi_, or -blood-film, that marks the wolf and also to an extent the husky. His -jaws were like Kazan’s, perhaps even more powerful. Through all that -week of the Big Storm he travelled without food. There were four days of -snow, with driving blizzards and fierce winds, and after that three days -of intense cold in which every living creature kept to their warm -dugouts in the snow. Even the birds had burrowed themselves in. One -might have walked on the backs of caribou and moose and not have guessed -it. Baree sheltered himself during the worst of the storm but did not -allow the snow to gather over him. - -Every trapper from Hudson’s Bay to the country of the Athabasca knew -that after the Big Storm the famished fur animals would be seeking food, -and that traps and deadfalls properly set and baited stood the biggest -chance of the year of being filled. Some of them set out over their -trap-lines on the sixth day; some on the seventh, and others on the -eighth. It was on the seventh day that Bush McTaggart started over -Pierre Eustach’s line, which was now his own for the season. It took him -two days to uncover the traps, dig the snow from them, rebuild the -fallen “trap-houses,” and rearrange the baits. On the third day he was -back at Lac Bain. - -It was on this day that Baree came to the cabin at the far end of -McTaggart’s line. McTaggart’s trail was fresh in the snow about the -cabin, and the instant Baree sniffed of it every drop of blood in his -body seemed to leap suddenly with a strange excitement. It took perhaps -half a minute for the scent that filled his nostrils to associate itself -with what had gone before, and at the end of that half-minute there -rumbled in Baree’s chest a deep and sullen growl. For many minutes after -that he stood like a black rock in the snow, watching the cabin. Then -slowly he began circling about it, drawing nearer and nearer, until at -last he was sniffing at the threshold. No sound or smell of life came -from inside, but he could smell the _old_ smell of McTaggart. Then he -faced the wilderness—the direction in which the trap-line ran back to -Lac Bain. He was trembling. His muscles twitched. He whined. Pictures -were assembling more and more vividly in his mind—the fight in the -cabin, Nepeese, the wild chase through the snow to the chasm’s edge—even -the memory of that age-old struggle when McTaggart had caught him in the -rabbit snare. In his whine there was a great yearning, almost -expectation. Then it died slowly away. After all, the scent in the snow -was of a thing that he had hated and wanted to kill, and not of anything -that he had loved. For an instant nature had impressed on him the -significance of associations—a brief space only, and then it was gone. -The whine died away, but in its place came again that ominous growl. - -Slowly he followed the trail and a quarter of a mile from the cabin -struck the first trap on the line. Hunger had caved in his sides until -he was like a starved wolf. In the first trap-house McTaggart had placed -as bait the hind-quarter of a snowshoe rabbit. Baree reached in -cautiously. He had learned many things on Pierrot’s line: he had learned -what the snap of a trap meant; he had felt the cruel pain of steel jaws; -he knew better than the shrewdest fox what a deadfall would do when the -trigger was sprung—and Nepeese herself had taught him that he was never -to touch a poison-bait. So he closed his teeth gently in the rabbit -flesh and drew it forth as cleverly as McTaggart himself could have -done. He visited five traps before dark, and ate the five baits without -springing a pan. The sixth was a deadfall. He circled about this until -he had beaten a path in the snow. Then he went on into a warm balsam -swamp and found himself a bed for the night. - -The next day saw the beginning of the struggle that was to follow -between the wits of man and beast. To Baree the encroachment of Bush -McTaggart’s trap-line was not war; it was existence. It was to furnish -him food, as Pierrot’s line had furnished him food for many weeks. But -he sensed the fact that in this instance he was law-breaker and had an -enemy to outwit. Had it been good hunting weather he might have gone on, -for the unseen hand that was guiding his wanderings was drawing him -slowly but surely back to the old beaver pond and the Gray Loon. As it -was, with the snow deep and soft under him—so deep that in places he -plunged into it over his ears—McTaggart’s trap-line was like a trail of -manna made for his special use. He followed in the factor’s snowshoe -tracks, and in the third trap killed a rabbit. When he had finished with -it nothing but the hair and crimson patches of blood lay upon the snow. -Starved for many days, he was filled with a wolfish hunger, and before -the day was over he robbed the bait from a full dozen of McTaggart’s -traps. Three times he struck poison-baits—venison or caribou fat in the -heart of which was a dose of strychnine, and each time his keen nostrils -detected the danger. Pierrot had more than once noted the amazing fact -that Baree could sense the presence of poison even when it was most -skillfully injected into the frozen carcass of a deer. Foxes and wolves -ate of flesh from which his super-sensitive power of detecting the -presence of deadly danger turned him away. So he passed Bush McTaggart’s -poisoned tidbits, sniffing them on the way, and leaving the story of his -suspicion in the manner of his footprints in the snow. Where McTaggart -had halted at midday to cook his dinner Baree made these same cautious -circles with his feet. - -The second day, being less hungry and more keenly alive to the hated -smell of his enemy, Baree ate less but was more destructive. McTaggart -was not as skillful as Pierre Eustach in keeping the scent of his hands -from the traps and “houses,” and every now and then the smell of him was -strong in Baree’s nose. This wrought in Baree a swift and definite -antagonism, a steadily increasing hatred where a few days before hatred -was almost forgotten. There is, perhaps, in the animal mind a process of -simple computation which does not quite achieve the distinction of -reason, and which is not altogether instinct, but which produces results -that might be ascribed to either. Baree did not add two and two together -to make four; he did not go back step by step to prove to himself that -the man to whom this trap-line belonged was the cause of all his griefs -and troubles—but he _did_ find himself possessed of a deep and yearning -hatred. McTaggart was the one creature except the wolves that he had -ever hated; it was McTaggart who had hurt him, McTaggart who had hurt -Pierrot, McTaggart who had made him lose his beloved Nepeese—_and -McTaggart was here on this trap-line_! If he had been wandering before, -without object or destiny, he was given a mission now. It was to keep to -the traps. To feed himself. And to vent his hatred and his vengeance as -he lived. - -The second day, in the centre of a lake, he came upon the body of a wolf -that had died of one of the poison-baits. For a half-hour he mauled the -dead beast until its skin was torn into ribbons. He did not taste the -flesh. It was repugnant to him. It was his vengeance on the wolf breed. -He stopped when he was half a dozen miles from Lac Bain, and turned -back. At this particular point the line crossed a frozen stream beyond -which was an open plain, and over that plain came—when the wind was -right—the smoke and smell of the Post. The second night Baree lay with a -full stomach in a thicket of banksian pine; the third day he was -travelling westward over the trap-line again. - -Early on this morning Bush McTaggart started out to gather his catch, -and where he crossed the stream six miles from Lac Bain he first saw -Baree’s tracks. He stopped to examine them with sudden and unusual -interest, falling at last on his knees, whipping off the glove from his -right hand, and picking up a single hair. - -“The black wolf!” - -He uttered the words in an odd, hard voice, and involuntarily his eyes -turned straight in the direction of the Gray Loon. After that, even more -carefully than before, he examined one of the clearly impressed tracks -in the snow. When he rose to his feet there was in his face the look of -one who had made an unpleasant discovery. - -“A black wolf!” he repeated, and shrugged his shoulders. “Bah! Lerue is -a fool. It is a dog.” And then, after a moment, he muttered in a voice -scarcely louder than a whisper, “_her dog_.” - -He went on, travelling in the trail of the dog. A new excitement -possessed him that was more thrilling than the excitement of the hunt. -Being human, it was his privilege to add two and two together, and out -of two and two he made—Baree. There was little doubt in his mind. The -thought had flashed on him first when Lerue had mentioned the black -wolf. He was convinced after his examination of the tracks. They were -the tracks of a dog, and the dog was black. Then he came to the first -trap that had been robbed of its bait. - -Under his breath he cursed. The bait was gone, and the trap was -unsprung. The sharpened stick that had transfixed the bait was pulled -out clean. - -All that day Bush McTaggart followed a trail where Baree had left traces -of his presence. Trap after trap he found robbed. On the lake he came -upon the mangled wolf. From the first disturbing excitement of his -discovery of Baree’s presence his humour changed slowly to one of rage, -and his rage increased as the day dragged out. He was not unacquainted -with four-footed robbers of the trap-line, but usually a wolf or a fox -or a dog who had grown adept in thievery troubled only a few traps. But -in this case Baree was travelling straight from trap to trap, and his -footprints in the snow showed that he stopped at each. There was, to -McTaggart, almost a human devilishness to his work. He evaded the -poisons. Not once did he stretch his head or paw within the danger zone -of a deadfall. For apparently no reason whatever he had destroyed a -splendid mink, whose glossy fur lay scattered in worthless bits over the -snow. Toward the end of the day McTaggart came to a deadfall in which a -lynx had died. Baree had torn the silvery flank of the animal until the -skin was of less than half value. McTaggart cursed aloud, and his breath -came hot. - -At dusk he reached the shack Pierre Eustach had built midway of his -line, and took inventory of his fur. It was not more than a third of a -catch; the lynx was half ruined, a mink was torn completely in two. The -second day he found still greater ruin, still more barren traps. He was -like a madman. When he arrived at the second cabin, late in the -afternoon, Baree’s tracks were not an hour old in the snow. Three times -during the night he heard the dog howling. - -The third day McTaggart did not return to Lac Bain, but began a cautious -hunt for Baree. An inch or two of fresh snow had fallen, and as if to -take even greater measure of vengeance from his man-enemy Baree had left -his footprints freely within a radius of a hundred yards of the cabin. -It was half an hour before McTaggart could pick out the straight trail, -and he followed this for two hours into a thick banksian swamp. Baree -kept with the wind. Now and then he caught the scent of his pursuer; a -dozen times he waited until the other was so close he could hear the -snap of brush, or the metallic click of twigs against his rifle barrel. -And then, with a sudden inspiration that brought the curses afresh to -McTaggart’s lips, he swung in a wide circle and cut straight back for -the trap-line. When the Factor reached the line, along toward noon, -Baree had already begun his work. He had killed and eaten a rabbit; he -had robbed three traps in the distance of a mile, and he was headed -again straight over the trap-line for Post Lac Bain. - -It was the fifth day that Bush McTaggart returned to his post. He was in -an ugly mood. Only Valence of the four Frenchmen was there, and it was -Valence who heard his story, and afterward heard him cursing Marie. She -came into the store a little later, big-eyed and frightened, one of her -cheeks flaming red where McTaggart had struck her. While the storekeeper -was getting her the canned salmon McTaggart wanted for his dinner -Valence found the opportunity to whisper softly in her ear: - -“M’sieu Lerue has trapped a silver fox,” he said with low triumph. “He -loves you, _Mon ami_, and he will have a splendid catch by spring—and -sends you this message from his cabin up on The Little Black Bear With -No Tail: _Be ready to fly when the soft snows come!_” - -Marie did not look at him, but she heard, and her eyes shone so like -stars when the young storekeeper gave her the salmon that he said to -Valence, when she had gone: - -“Blue Death, but she is still beautiful at times. Valence!” - -To which Valence nodded with an odd smile. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI - - -By the middle of January the war between Baree and Bush McTaggart had -become more than an incident—more than a passing adventure to the beast, -and more than an irritating happening to the man. It was, for the time, -the elemental _raison d’etre_ of their lives. Baree hung to the -trap-line. He haunted it like a devastating spectre, and each time that -he sniffed afresh the scent of the Factor from Lac Bain he was impressed -still more strongly with the instinct that he was avenging himself upon -a deadly enemy. Again and again he outwitted McTaggart; he continued to -strip his traps of their bait; the humour grew in him more strongly to -destroy the fur he came across; his greatest pleasure came to be—not in -eating—but in destroying. The fires of his hatred burned fiercer as the -weeks passed, until at last he would snap and tear with his long fangs -at the snow where McTaggart’s feet had passed. And all of the time, away -back of his madness, there was a vision of Nepeese that continued to -grow more and more clearly in his brain. That first Great Loneliness—the -loneliness of the long days and longer nights of his waiting and seeking -on the Gray Loon, oppressed him again as it had oppressed him in the -early days of her loss. On starry or moonlit nights he sent forth his -wailing cries for her again, and Bush McTaggart, listening to them in -the middle of the night, felt strange shivers run up his spine. - -The man’s hatred was different than the beast’s, but perhaps even more -implacable. With McTaggart it was not hatred alone. There was mixed with -it an indefinable and superstitious fear, a thing he laughed at, a thing -he cursed at, but which clung to him as surely as the scent of his trail -clung to Baree’s nose. Baree no longer stood for the animal alone; _he -stood for Nepeese_. That was the thought that insisted in growing in -McTaggart’s ugly mind. Never a day passed now that he did not think of -the Willow; never a night came and went without a visioning of her face. -He even fancied, on a certain night of storm, that he heard her voice -out in the wailing of the wind—and less than a minute later he heard -faintly a distant howl out in the forest. That night his heart was -filled with a leaden dread. He shook himself. He smoked his pipe until -the cabin was blue. He cursed Baree, and the storm—but there was no -longer in him the bullying courage of old. He had not ceased to hate -Baree; he still hated him as he had never hated a man, but he had an -even greater reason now for wanting to kill him. It came to him first in -his sleep, in a restless dream, and after that it lived, and lived—_the -thought that the spirit of Nepeese was guiding Baree in the ravaging of -his trap-line_! - -After a time he ceased to talk at the Post about the Black Wolf that was -robbing his line. The furs damaged by Baree’s teeth he kept out of -sight, and to himself he kept his secret. He learned every trick and -scheme of the hunters who killed foxes and wolves along the Barrens. He -tried three different poisons, one so powerful that a single drop of it -meant death; he tried strychnine in gelatin capsules, in deer fat, -caribou fat, moose liver, and even in the flesh of porcupine. At last, -in preparing his poisons, he dipped his hands in beaver oil before he -handled the venoms and flesh so that there could be no human smell. -Foxes, wolves, and even the mink and ermine died of these baits, but -Baree came always so near—and no nearer. In January McTaggart poisoned -every bait in his trap-houses. This produced at least one good result -for him. From that day Baree no longer touched his baits, but ate only -the rabbits he killed in the traps. - -It was in January that McTaggart caught his first glimpse of Baree. He -had placed his rifle against a tree, and was a dozen feet away from it -at the time. It was as if Baree knew, and had come to taunt him; for -when the Factor suddenly looked up Baree was standing out clear from the -dwarf spruce not twenty yards away from him, his white fangs gleaming -and his eyes burning like coals. For a space McTaggart stared as if -turned into stone. It was Baree. He recognized the white star, the -white-tipped ear, and his heart thumped like a hammer in his breast. -Very slowly he began to creep toward his rifle. His hand was reaching -for it when like a flash Baree was gone. - -This gave McTaggart his new idea. He blazed himself a fresh trail -through the forests parallel with his trap-line but at least five -hundred yards distant from it. Wherever a trap or deadfall was set this -new trail struck sharply in, like the point of a V, so that he could -approach his line unobserved. By this strategy he believed that in time -he was sure of getting a shot at the dog. Again it was the man who was -reasoning, and again it was the man who was defeated. The first day that -McTaggart followed his new trail Baree also struck that trail. For a -little while it puzzled him. Three times he cut back and forth between -the old and the new trail. Then there was no doubt. The new trail was -the _fresh_ trail, and he followed in the footsteps of the Factor from -Lac Bain. McTaggart did not know what was happening until his return -trip, when he saw the story told in the snow. Baree had visited each -trap, and without exception he had approached each time at the point of -the inverted V. After a week of futile hunting, of lying in wait, of -approaching at every point of the wind—a period during which McTaggart -had twenty times cursed himself into fits of madness, another idea came -to him. It was like an inspiration, and so simple that it seemed almost -inconceivable that he had not thought of it before. - -He hurried back to Post Lac Bain. - -The second day after he was on the trail at dawn. This time he carried a -pack in which there were a dozen strong wolf traps freshly dipped in -beaver oil, and a rabbit which he had snared the previous night. Now and -then he looked anxiously at the sky. It was clear until late in the -afternoon, when banks of dark clouds began rolling up from the east. -Half an hour later a few flakes of snow began falling. McTaggart let one -of these drop on the back of his mittened hand, and examined it closely. -It was soft and downy, and he gave vent to his satisfaction. It was what -he wanted. Before morning there would be six inches of freshly fallen -snow covering the trails. - -He stopped at the next trap-house and quickly set to work. First he -threw away the poisoned bait in the “house” and replaced it with the -rabbit. Then he began setting his wolf traps. Three of these he placed -close to the “door” of the house, through which Baree would have to -reach for the bait. The remaining nine he scattered at intervals of a -foot or sixteen inches apart, so that when he was done a veritable -cordon of traps guarded the house. He did not fasten the chains, but let -them lay loose in the snow. If Baree got into one trap he would get into -others and there would be no use of toggles. His work done, McTaggart -hurried on through the thickening twilight of winter night to his shack. -He was highly elated. This time there could be no such thing as failure. -He had sprung every trap on his way from Lac Bain. In none of those -traps would Baree find anything to eat until he came to the “nest” of -twelve wolf traps. - -Seven inches of snow fell that night, and the whole world seemed turned -into a wonderful white robe. Like billows of feathers the snow hung to -the trees and shrubs; it gave tall white caps to the rocks, and -underfoot it was so light that a cartridge dropped from the hand sank to -the bottom of it. Baree was on the trap-line early. He was more cautious -this morning, for there was no longer the scent or snowshoe track of -McTaggart to guide him. He struck the first trap about halfway between -Lac Bain and the shack in which the Factor was waiting. It was sprung, -and there was no bait. Trap after trap he visited, and all of them he -found sprung, and all without bait. He sniffed the air suspiciously, -striving vainly to catch the tang of smoke, a whiff of the man-smell. -Along toward noon he came to the “nest”—the twelve treacherous traps -waiting for him with gaping jaws half a foot under the blanket of snow. -For a full minute he stood well outside the danger line, sniffing the -air, and listening. He saw the rabbit, and his jaws closed with a hungry -click. He moved a step nearer. Still he was suspicious—for some strange -and inexplicable reason he sensed danger. Anxiously he sought for it -with his nose, his eyes, and his ears. And all about him there was a -great silence and a great peace. His jaws clicked again. He whined -softly. What was it stirring him? Where was the danger he could neither -see nor smell? Slowly he circled about the trap-house; three times he -circled round it, each circle drawing him a little nearer—until at last -his feet almost touched the outer cordon of traps. Another minute he -stood still; his ears flattened; in spite of the rich aroma of the -rabbit in his nostrils _something was drawing him away_. In another -moment he would have gone, but there came suddenly—and from directly -behind the trap-house—a fierce little rat-like squeak, and the next -instant Baree saw an ermine whiter than the snow tearing hungrily at the -flesh of the rabbit. He forgot his strange premonition of danger. He -growled fiercely, but his plucky little rival did not budge from his -feast. - -And then he sprang straight into the “nest” that Bush McTaggart had made -for him. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVII - - -The next morning Bush McTaggart heard the clanking of a chain when he -was still a good quarter of a mile from the “nest.” Was it a lynx? Was -it a fisher-cat? Was it a wolf or a fox? _Or was it Baree?_ He half ran -the rest of the distance, and at last he came to where he could see, and -his heart leaped into his throat when he saw that he had caught his -enemy. He approached, holding his rifle ready to fire if by any chance -the dog should free himself. - -Baree lay on his side, panting from exhaustion and quivering with pain. -A hoarse cry of exultation burst from McTaggart’s lips as he drew nearer -and looked at the snow. It was packed hard for many feet about the -trap-house, where Baree had struggled, and it was red with blood. The -blood had come mostly from Baree’s jaws. They were dripping now as he -glared at his enemy. The steel jaws hidden under the snow had done their -merciless work well. One of his forefeet was caught well up toward the -first joint; both hind feet were caught; a fourth trap had closed on his -flank, and in tearing the jaws loose he had pulled off a patch of skin -half as big as McTaggart’s hand. The snow told the story of his -desperate fight all through the night; his bleeding jaws showed how -vainly he had tried to break the imprisoning steel with his teeth. He -was panting. His eyes were bloodshot. But even now, after all his hours -of agony, neither his spirit nor his courage were broken. When he saw -McTaggart he made a lunge to his feet, almost instantly crumpling down -into the snow again. But his forefeet were braced. His head and chest -remained up, and the snarl that came from his throat was tigerish in its -ferocity. Here, at last—not more than a dozen feet from him—was the one -thing in all the world that he hated more than he hated the wolf breed. -And again he was helpless, as he had been helpless that other time in -the rabbit snare. - -The fierceness of his snarl did not disturb Bush McTaggart now. He saw -how utterly the other was at his mercy, and with an exultant laugh he -leaned his rifle against a tree, pulled off his mittens, and began -loading his pipe. This was the triumph he had looked forward to, the -torture he had waited for. In his soul there was a hatred as deadly as -Baree’s, the hatred that a man might have for a man. He had expected to -send a bullet through the dog. But this was better—to watch him dying by -inches, to taunt him as he would have taunted a human, to walk about him -so that he could hear the clank of the traps and see the fresh blood -drip as Baree twisted his tortured legs and body to keep facing him. It -was a splendid vengeance. He was so engrossed in it that he did not hear -the approach of snowshoes behind him. It was a voice—a man’s voice—that -turned him round suddenly. - -The man was a stranger, and he was younger than McTaggart by ten years. -At least he looked no more than thirty-five or six, even with the short -growth of blonde beard he wore. He was of that sort that the average man -would like at a glance; boyish, and yet a man; with clear eyes that -looked out frankly from under the rim of his fur cap, a form lithe as an -Indian’s, and a face altogether that did not bear the hard lines of the -wilderness. Yet McTaggart knew before he had spoken that this man _was_ -of the wilderness, that he was heart and soul a part of it. His cap was -of fisher-skin. He wore a windproof coat of softly tanned caribou skin, -belted at the waist with a long sash, and Indian fringed. The inside of -the coat was furred. He was travelling on the long, slender bush-country -snowshoe; his pack, strapped over the shoulders, was small and compact; -he was carrying his rifle in a cloth jacket. And from cap to snowshoes -he was _travel-worn_. McTaggart, at a guess, would have said that he had -travelled a thousand miles in the last few weeks. It was not this -thought that sent the strange and chilling thrill up his back; but the -sudden fear that in some strange way a whisper of the truth might have -found its way down into the south—the truth of what had happened on the -Gray Loon—and that this travel-worn stranger wore under his caribou-skin -coat the badge of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. For that instant -it was almost a terror that possessed him, and he stood mute. - -The stranger had uttered only an amazed exclamation before. Now he said, -with his eyes on Baree: - -“God save us, but you’ve got the poor devil in a right proper mess, -haven’t you?” - -There was something in the voice that reassured McTaggart. It was not a -suspicious voice, and he saw that the stranger was more interested in -the captured animal than in himself. He drew a deep breath. - -“A trap robber,” he said. - -The stranger was staring still more closely at Baree. He thrust his gun -stock downward in the snow and drew nearer to him. - -“God save us again—a dog!” he exclaimed. - -From behind, McTaggart was watching the man with the eyes of a ferret. - -“Yes, a dog,” he answered. “A wild dog, half wolf at least. He’s robbed -me of a thousand dollars’ worth of fur this winter.” - -The stranger squatted himself before Baree, with his mittened hands -resting on his knees, and his white teeth gleaming in a half smile. - -“You poor devil!” he said sympathetically. “So you’re a trap robber, eh? -An outlaw? And—the Police have got you! And—God save us once more—they -haven’t played you a very square game!” - -He rose and faced McTaggart. - -“I had to set a lot of traps like that,” the Factor apologized, his face -reddening slightly under the steady gaze of the stranger’s blue eyes. -Suddenly his animus rose. “And he’s going to die there, inch by inch. -I’m going to let him starve, and rot in the traps, to pay for all he’s -done.” He picked up his gun, and added, with his eyes on the stranger -and his finger ready at the trigger, “I’m Bush McTaggart, the Factor at -Lac Bain. Are you bound that way, M’sieu?” - -“A few miles. I’m bound up-country—beyond the Barrens.” - -McTaggart felt again the strange thrill. - -“Government?” he asked. - -The stranger nodded. - -“The—Police, perhaps,” persisted McTaggart. - -“Why, yes—of course—the Police,” said the stranger, looking straight -into the Factor’s eyes. “And now, M’sieu, as a very great courtesy to -the Law I’m going to ask you to send a bullet through that beast’s head -before we go on. Will you? Or shall I?” - -“It’s the law of the line,” said McTaggart, “to let a trap robber rot in -the traps. And that beast was a devil. Listen——” - -Swiftly, and yet leaving out none of the fine detail, he told of the -weeks and months of strife between himself and Baree; of the maddening -futility of all his tricks and schemes and the still more maddening -cleverness of the beast he had at last succeeded in trapping. - -“He was a devil—that clever,” he cried fiercely when he had finished. -“And now—would you shoot him, or let him lie there and die by inches, as -the devil should?” - -The stranger was looking at Baree. His face was turned away from -McTaggart. He said: - -“I guess you are right. Let the devil rot. If you’re heading for Lac -Bain, M’sieu, I’ll travel a short distance with you now. It will take a -couple of miles to straighten out the line of my compass.” - -He picked up his gun. McTaggart led the way. At the end of half an hour -the stranger stopped, and pointed north. - -“Straight up there—a good five hundred miles,” he said, speaking as -lightly as though he would reach home that night. “I’ll leave you here.” - -He made no offer to shake hands. But in going, he said, - -“You might report that John Madison has passed this way.” - -After that he travelled straight northward for half a mile through the -deep forest. Then he swung westward for two miles, turned at a sharp -angle into the south, and an hour after he had left McTaggart he was -once more squatted on his heels almost within arms’ reach of Baree. - -And he was saying, as though speaking to a human companion: - -“So that’s what you’ve been, old boy. A trap robber, eh? An _outlaw_? -And you beat him at the game for two months! And for that, because -you’re a better beast than he is, he wants to let you die here as slow -as you can. An _outlaw_!” His voice broke into a pleasant laugh, the -sort of laugh that warms one, even a beast. “That’s funny. We ought to -shake hands. Boy, by George, we had! You’re a wild one, he says. Well, -so am I. Told him my name was John Madison. It ain’t. I’m Jim Carvel. -And, oh Lord!—all I said was ‘Police.’ And that was right. It ain’t a -lie. I’m wanted by the whole corporation—by every danged policeman -between Hudson’s Bay and the Mackenzie River. Shake, old man. We’re in -the same boat, an’ I’m glad to meet you!” - - - - - CHAPTER XXVIII - - -Jim Carvel held out his hand, and the snarl that was in Baree’s throat -died away. The man rose to his feet. He stood there, looking in the -direction taken by Bush McTaggart, and chuckled in a curious, exultant -sort of way. There was friendliness even in that chuckle. There was -friendliness in his eyes and in the shine of his teeth as he looked -again at Baree. About him there was something that seemed to make the -gray day brighter, that seemed to warm the chill air—a strange something -that radiated cheer and hope and comradeship just as a hot stove sends -out the glow of heat. Baree felt it. For the first time since the two -men had come his trap-torn body lost its tenseness; his back sagged; his -teeth clicked as he shivered in his agony. To _this_ man he betrayed his -weakness. In his bloodshot eyes there was a hungering look as he watched -Carvel—the self-confessed outlaw. And Jim Carvel again held out his -hand—much nearer this time. - -“You poor devil,” he said, the smile going out of his face. “You poor -devil!” - -The words were like a caress to Baree—the first he had known since the -loss of Nepeese and Pierrot. He dropped his head until his jaw lay flat -in the snow. Carvel could see the blood dripping slowly from it. - -“You poor devil!” he repeated. - -There was no fear in the way he put forth his hand. It was the -confidence of a great sincerity and a great compassion. It touched -Baree’s head and patted it in a brotherly fashion, and then—slowly and -with a bit more caution—it went to the trap fastened to Baree’s forepaw. -In his half-crazed brain Baree was fighting to understand things, and -the truth came finally when he felt the steel jaws of the trap open, and -he drew forth his maimed foot. He did then what he had done to no other -creature but Nepeese. Just once his hot tongue shot out and licked -Carvel’s hand. The man laughed. With his powerful hands he opened the -other traps, and Baree was free. - -For a few moments he lay without moving, his eyes fixed on the man. -Carvel had seated himself on the snow-covered end of a birch log and was -filling his pipe. Baree watched him light it; he noted with new interest -the first purplish cloud of smoke that left Carvel’s mouth. The man was -not more than the length of two trap-chains away—and he grinned at -Baree. - -“Screw up your nerve, old chap,” he encouraged. “No bones broke. Just a -little stiff. Mebby we’d better—get out.” - -He turned his face in the direction of Lac Bain. The suspicion was in -his mind that McTaggart might turn back. Perhaps that same suspicion was -impressed upon Baree, for when Carvel looked at him again he was on his -feet, staggering a bit as he gained his equilibrium. In another moment -the outlaw had swung the pack-sack from his shoulders and was opening -it. He thrust in his hand and drew out a chunk of raw, red meat. - -“Killed it this morning,” he explained to Baree. “Yearling bull, tender -as partridge—and that’s as fine a sweetbread as ever came out from under -a backbone. Try it!” - -He tossed the flesh to Baree. There was no equivocation in the manner of -its acceptance. Baree was famished—and the meat was flung to him by a -friend. He buried his teeth in it. His jaws crunched it. New fire leapt -into his blood as he feasted, but not for an instant did his reddened -eyes leave the other’s face. Carvel replaced his pack. He rose to his -feet, took up his rifle, slipped on his snowshoes, and fronted the -north. - -“Come on, Boy,” he said. “We’ve got to travel.” - -It was a matter-of-fact invitation, as though the two had been -travelling companions for a long time. It was, perhaps, not only an -invitation but partly a command. It puzzled Baree. For a full half -minute he stood motionless in his tracks gazing at Carvel as he strode -into the north. A sudden convulsive twitching shot through Baree; he -swung his head toward Lac Bain; he looked again at Carvel, and a whine -that was scarcely more than a breath came out of his throat. The man was -just about to disappear into the thick spruce. He paused, and looked -back. - -“Coming, Boy?” - -Even at that distance Baree could see him grinning affably; he saw the -outstretched hand, and the voice stirred new sensations in him. It was -not like Pierrot’s voice. He had never loved Pierrot. Neither was it -soft and sweet like the Willow’s. He had known only a few men, and all -of them he had regarded with distrust. But this was a voice that -disarmed him. It was lureful in its appeal. He wanted to answer it. He -was filled with a desire, all at once, to follow close at the heels of -this stranger. For the first time in his life a craving for the -friendship of man possessed him. He did not move until Jim Carvel -entered the spruce. Then he followed. - -That night they were camped in a dense growth of cedars and balsams ten -miles north of Bush McTaggart’s trap-line. For two hours it had snowed, -and their trail was covered. It was still snowing, but not a flake of -the white deluge sifted down through the thick canopy of boughs. Carvel -had put up his small silk tent, and had built a fire; their supper was -over, and Baree lay on his belly facing the outlaw, almost within reach -of his hand. With his back to a tree Carvel was smoking luxuriously. He -had thrown off his cap and his coat, and in the warm fireglow he looked -almost boyishly young. But even in that glow his jaws lost none of their -squareness, nor his eyes their clear alertness. - -“Seems good to have some one to talk to,” he was saying to Baree. “Some -one who can understand, an’ keep his mouth shut. Did you ever want to -howl, an’ didn’t dare? Well, that’s me. Sometimes I’ve been on the point -of bustin’ because I wanted to talk to some one, an’ couldn’t.” - -He rubbed his hands together, and held them out toward the fire. Baree -watched his movements and listened intently to every sound that escaped -his lips. His eyes had in them now a dumb sort of worship, a look that -warmed Carvel’s heart and did away with the vast loneliness and -emptiness of the night. Baree had dragged himself nearer to the man’s -feet, and suddenly Carvel leaned over and patted his head. - -“I’m a bad one, old chap,” he chuckled. “You haven’t got it on me—not a -bit. Want to know what happened?” He waited a moment, and Baree looked -at him steadily. Then Carvel went on, as if speaking to a human, “Let’s -see—it was five years ago, five years this December, just before -Christmas time. Had a Dad. Fine old chap, my Dad was. No Mother—just the -Dad, an’ when you added us up we made just One. Understand? And along -came a white-striped skunk named Hardy and shot him one day because Dad -had worked against him in politics. Out an’ out murder. An’ they didn’t -hang that skunk! No, sir, they didn’t hang him. He had too much money, -an’ too many friends in politics, an’ they let ’im off with two years in -the penitentiary. But he didn’t get there. No—s’elp me God, he didn’t -get there!” - -Carvel was twisting his hands until his knuckles cracked. An exultant -smile lighted up his face, and his eyes flashed back the firelight. -Baree drew a deep breath—a mere coincidence; but it was a tense moment -for all that. - -“No, he didn’t get to the penitentiary,” went on Carvel, looking -straight at Baree again. “Yours truly knew what that meant, old chap. -He’d have been pardoned inside a year. An’ there was my Dad, the biggest -half of me, in his grave. So I just went up to that white-striped skunk -right there before the Judge’s eyes, an’ the lawyers’ eyes, an’ the eyes -of all his dear relatives an’ friends—_and I killed him_! And I got -away. Was out through a window before they woke up, hit for the bush -country, and have been eating up the trails ever since. An’ I guess God -was with me, Boy. For He did a queer thing to help me out summer before -last, just when the Mounties were after me hardest an’ it looked pretty -black. Man was found drowned down in the Reindeer Country, right where -they thought I was cornered; an’ the good Lord made that man look so -much like me that he was buried under my name. So I’m officially dead, -old chap. I don’t need to be afraid any more so long as I don’t get too -familiar with people for a year or so longer, and ’way down inside me -I’ve liked to believe God fixed it up in that way to help me out of a -bad hole. What’s _your_ opinion? Eh?” - -He leaned forward for an answer. Baree had listened. Perhaps, in a way, -he had understood. But it was another sound than Carvel’s voice that -came to his ears now. With his head close to the ground he heard it -quite distinctly. He whined, and the whine ended in a snarl so low that -Carvel just caught the warning note in it. He straightened. He stood up -then, and faced the south. Baree stood beside him, his legs tense and -his spine bristling. - -After a moment Carvel said: - -“Relatives of yours, old chap. Wolves.” - -He went into the tent for his rifle and cartridges. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIX - - -Baree was on his feet, rigid as hewn rock, when Carvel came out of the -tent, and for a few moments Carvel stood in silence, watching him -closely. Would the dog respond to the call of the pack? Did he belong to -them? Would he go—now? The wolves were drawing nearer. They were not -circling, as a caribou or a deer would have circled, but were travelling -straight—dead straight for their camp. The significance of this fact was -easily understood by Carvel. All that afternoon Baree’s feet had left a -blood-smell in their trail, and the wolves had struck the trail in the -deep forest, where the falling snow had not covered it. Carvel was not -alarmed. More than once in his five years of wandering between the -Arctic and the Height of Land he had played the game with the wolves. -Once he had almost lost, but that was out in the open Barren. To-night -he had a fire, and in the event of his firewood running out he had trees -he could climb. His anxiety just now was centred in Baree. So he said, -making his voice quite casual, - -“You aren’t going, are you, old chap?” - -If Baree heard him he gave no evidence of it. But Carvel, still watching -him closely, saw that the hair along his spine had risen like a brush, -and then he heard—growing slowly in Baree’s throat—a snarl of ferocious -hatred. It was the sort of snarl that had held back the Factor from Lac -Bain, and Carvel, opening the breech of his gun to see that all was -right, chuckled happily. Baree may have heard the chuckle. Perhaps it -meant something to him, for he turned his head suddenly and with -flattened ears looked at his companion. - -The wolves were silent now. Carvel knew what that meant, and he was -tensely alert. In the stillness the click of the safety on his rifle -sounded with metallic sharpness. For many minutes they heard nothing but -the crack of the fire. Suddenly Baree’s muscles seemed to snap. He -sprang back, and faced the quarter behind Carvel, his head level with -his shoulders, his inch-long fangs gleaming as he snarled into the black -caverns of the forest beyond the rim of firelight. Carvel had turned -like a shot. It was almost frightening—what he saw. A pair of eyes -burning with greenish fire, and then another pair, and after that so -many of them that he could not have counted them. He gave a sudden gasp. -They were like cat-eyes, only much larger. Some of them, catching the -firelight fully, were red as coals, others flashed blue and green—living -things without bodies. With a swift glance he took in the black circle -of the forest. They were out there, too; they were on all sides of them, -but where he had seen them first they were thickest. In these first few -seconds he had forgotten Baree, awed almost to stupefaction by that -monster-eyed cordon of death that hemmed them in. There were -fifty—perhaps a hundred wolves out there, afraid of nothing in all this -savage world but fire. They had come up without the sound of a padded -foot or a broken twig. If it had been later, and they had been asleep, -and the fire out—— - -He shuddered, and for a moment the thought got the better of his nerves. -He had not intended to shoot except from necessity, but all at once his -rifle came to his shoulder and he sent a stream of fire out where the -eyes were thickest. Baree knew what the shots meant, and filled with the -mad desire to get at the throat of one of his enemies he dashed in their -direction. Carvel gave a startled yell as he went. He saw the flash of -Baree’s body, saw it swallowed up in the gloom, and in that same instant -heard the deadly clash of fangs and the impact of bodies. A wild thrill -shot through him. The dog had charged alone—and the wolves had waited. -There could be but one end. His four-footed comrade had gone straight -into the jaws of death! - -He could hear the ravening snap of those jaws out in the darkness. It -was sickening. His hand went to the Colt .45 at his belt, and he thrust -his empty rifle butt downward into the snow. With the big automatic -before his eyes he plunged out into the darkness, and from his lips -there issued a wild yelling that could have been heard a mile away. With -the yelling a steady stream of fire spat from the Colt into the mass of -fighting beasts. There were eight shots in the automatic, and not until -the plunger clicked with metallic emptiness did Carvel cease his yelling -and retreat into the firelight. He listened, breathing deeply. He no -longer saw eyes in the darkness, nor did he hear the movement of bodies. -The suddenness and ferocity of his attack had driven back the -wolf-horde. But the dog! He caught his breath, and strained his eyes. A -shadow was dragging itself into the circle of light. It was Baree. -Carvel ran to him, put his arms under his shoulders, and brought him to -the fire. - -For a long time after that there was a questioning light in Carvel’s -eyes. He reloaded his guns, put fresh fuel on the fire, and from his -pack dug out strips of cloth with which he bandaged three or four of the -deepest cuts in Baree’s legs. And a dozen times he asked, in a wondering -sort of way, - -“Now what the deuce made you do that, old chap? What have _you_ got -against the wolves?” - -All that night he did not sleep, but watched. - - * * * * * - -Their experience with the wolves broke down the last bit of uncertainty -that might have existed between the man and the dog. For days after -that, as they travelled slowly north and west, Carvel nursed Baree as he -might have cared for a sick child. Because of the dog’s hurts, he made -only a few miles a day. Baree understood, and in him there grew stronger -and stronger a great love for the man whose hands were as gentle as the -Willow’s and whose voice warmed him with the thrill of an immeasurable -comradeship. He no longer feared him or had a suspicion of him. And -Carvel, on his part, was observing things. The vast emptiness of the -world about them, and their aloneness, gave him the opportunity of -pondering over unimportant details, and he found himself each day -watching Baree a little more closely. He made at last a discovery which -interested him deeply. Always, when they halted on the trail, Baree -would turn his face to the south; when they were in camp it was from the -south that he nosed the wind most frequently. This was quite natural. -Carvel thought, for his old hunting-grounds were back there. But as the -days passed he began to notice other things. Now and then, looking off -into the far country from which they had come, Baree would whine softly, -and on that day he would be filled with a great restlessness. He gave no -evidence of wanting to leave Carvel, but more and more Carvel came to -understand that some mysterious call was coming to him from out of the -south. - -It was the wanderer’s intention to swing over into the country of the -Great Slave, a good eight hundred miles to the north and west, before -the mush-snows came. From there, when the waters opened in springtime, -he planned to travel by canoe westward to the Mackenzie and ultimately -to the mountains of British Columbia. These plans were changed in -February. They were caught in a great storm in the Wholdaia Lake -country, and when their fortunes looked darkest Carvel stumbled on a -cabin in the heart of a deep spruce forest, and in this cabin there was -a dead man. He had been dead for many days, and was frozen stiff. Carvel -chopped a hole in the earth and buried him. - -The cabin was a treasure trove to Carvel and Baree, and especially to -the man. It evidently possessed no other owner than the one who had -died; it was comfortable and stocked with provisions; and more than -that, its owner had made a splendid catch of fur before the frost bit -his lungs, and he died. Carvel went over them carefully and joyously. -They were worth a thousand dollars at any post, and he could see no -reason why they did not belong to him now. Within a week he had blazed -out the dead man’s snow-covered trap-line and was trapping on his own -account. - -This was two hundred miles north and west of the Gray Loon, and soon -Carvel observed that Baree did not face directly south in those moments -when the strange call came to him, but south and east. And now, with -each day that passed, the sun rose higher in the sky; it grew warmer; -the snow softened underfoot, and in the air was the tremulous and -growing throb of spring. With these things came the old yearning to -Baree; the heart-thrilling call of the lonely graves back on the Gray -Loon, of the burned cabin, the abandoned tepee beyond the pool—and of -Nepeese. In his sleep he saw visions of things. He heard again the low, -sweet voice of the Willow, felt the touch of her hand, was at play with -her once more in the dark shades of the forest—and Carvel would sit and -watch him as he dreamed, trying to read the meaning of what he saw and -heard. - -In April Carvel shouldered his furs up to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s -post at Lac la Biche, which was still farther north. Baree accompanied -him halfway, and then—at sundown Carvel returned to the cabin and found -him there. He was so overjoyed that he caught the dog’s head in his arms -and hugged it. They lived in the cabin until May. The buds were swelling -then, and the smell of growing things had begun to rise up out of the -earth. - -Then Carvel found the first of the early Blue Flowers. - -That night he packed up. - -“It’s time to travel,” he announced to Baree. “And I’ve sort of changed -my mind. We’re going back—there.” - -And he pointed south. - - - - - CHAPTER XXX - - -A strange humour possessed Carvel as he began the southward journey. He -did not believe in omens, good or bad. Superstition had played a small -part in his life, but he possessed both curiosity and a love for -adventure, and his years of lonely wandering had developed in him a -wonderfully clear mental vision of things, which in other words might be -called singularly active imagination. He knew that some irresistible -force was drawing Baree back into the south—that it was pulling him not -only along a given line of the compass, but to an exact point in that -line. For no reason in particular the situation began to interest him -more and more, and as his time was valueless, and he had no fixed -destination in view, he began to experiment. For the first two days he -marked the dog’s course by compass. It was due southeast. On the third -morning Carvel purposely struck a course straight west. He noted quickly -the change in Baree—his restlessness at first, and after that the -dejected manner in which he followed at his heels. Toward noon Carvel -swung sharply to the south and east again, and almost immediately Baree -regained his old eagerness, and ran ahead of his master. - -After this, for many days, Carvel followed the trail of the dog. - -“Mebby I’m an idiot, old chap,” he apologized one evening. “But it’s a -bit of fun, after all—an’ I’ve got to hit the line of rail before I can -get over to the mountains, so what’s the difference? I’m game—so long as -you don’t take me back to that chap at Lac Bain. Now—what the devil! Are -you hitting for his trap-line, to get even? If that’s the case——” - -He blew out a cloud of smoke from his pipe as he eyed Baree, and Baree, -with his head between his forepaws, eyed him back. - -A week later Baree answered Carvel’s question by swinging westward to -give a wide berth to Post Lac Bain. It was mid-afternoon when they -crossed the trail along which Bush McTaggart’s traps and deadfalls had -been set. Baree did not even pause. He headed due south, travelling so -fast that at times he was lost to Carvel’s sight. A suppressed but -intense excitement possessed him, and he whined whenever Carvel stopped -to rest—always with his nose sniffing the wind out of the south. -Springtime, the flowers, the earth turning green, the singing of birds, -and the sweet breaths in the air were bringing him back to that great -Yesterday when he had belonged to Nepeese. In his unreasoning mind there -existed no longer a winter. The long months of cold and hunger were -gone; in the new visionings that filled his brain they were forgotten. -The birds and flowers and the blue skies had come back, and with them -the Willow must surely have returned, and she was waiting for him now, -just over there beyond that rim of green forest. - -Something greater than mere curiosity began to take possession of -Carvel. A whimsical humour became a fixed and deeper thought, an -unreasoning anticipation that was accompanied by a certain thrill of -subdued excitement. By the time they reached the old beaver-pond the -mystery of the strange adventure had a firm hold on him. From -Beaver-tooth’s colony Baree led him to the creek along which Wakayoo, -the black bear, had fished, and thence straight to the Gray Loon. - -It was early afternoon of a wonderful day. It was so still that the -rippling waters of spring, singing in a thousand rills and streamlets, -filled the forests with a droning music. In the warm sun the crimson -bakneesh glowed like blood. In the open spaces the air was scented with -the perfume of Blue Flowers. In the trees and bushes mated birds were -building their nests. After the long sleep of winter Nature was at work -in all her glory. It was _Unekepesim_, the Mating Moon, the Home -Building Moon—and Baree was going home. Not to matehood—but to Nepeese. -He knew that she was there now, perhaps at the very edge of the chasm -where he had seen her last. They would be playing together again soon, -as they had played yesterday, and the day before, and the day before -that, and in his joy he barked up into Carvel’s face, and urged him to -greater speed. Then they came to the clearing, and once more Baree stood -like a rock. Carvel saw the charred ruins of the burned cabin, and a -moment later the two graves under the tall spruce. He began to -understand as his eyes returned slowly to the waiting, listening dog. A -great swelling rose in his throat, and after a moment or two he said -softly, and with an effort, - -“Boy, I guess you’re home.” - -Baree did not hear. With his head up and his nose tilted to the blue sky -he was sniffing the air. What was it that came to him with the perfumes -of the forests and the green meadow? Why was it that he trembled now as -he stood there? What was there in the air? Carvel asked himself, and his -questing eyes tried to answer the questions. Nothing. There was death -here—death and desertion, that was all. And then, all at once, there -came from Baree a strange cry—almost a human cry—and he was gone like -the wind. - -Carvel had thrown off his pack. He dropped his rifle beside it now, and -followed Baree. He ran swiftly, straight across the open, into the dwarf -balsams, and into a grass-grown path that had once been worn by the -travel of feet. He ran until he was panting for breath, and then -stopped, and listened. He could hear nothing of Baree. But that old worn -trail led on under the forest trees, and he followed it. - -Close to the deep, dark pool in which he and the Willow had disported so -often Baree, too, had stopped. He could hear the rippling of water, and -his eyes shone with a gleaming fire as he quested for Nepeese. He -expected to see her there, her slim white body shimmering in some dark -shadow of overhanging spruce, or gleaming suddenly white as snow in one -of the warm plashes of sunlight. His eyes sought out their old -hiding-places; the great split rock on the other side, the shelving -banks under which they used to dive like otter, the spruce boughs that -dipped down to the surface, and in the midst of which the Willow loved -to screen her naked body while he searched the pool for her. And at last -the realization was borne upon him that she was not there, that he had -still farther to go. - -He went on to the tepee. The little open space in which they had built -their hidden wigwam was flooded with sunshine that came through a break -in the forest to the west. The tepee was still there. It did not seem -very much changed to Baree. And rising from the ground in front of the -tepee was what had come to him faintly on the still air—the smoke of a -small fire. Over that fire was bending a person, and it did not strike -Baree as amazing, or at all unexpected, that this person should have two -great shining braids down her back. He whined, and at his whine the -Person grew a little rigid, and turned slowly. - -Even then it seemed quite the most natural thing in the world that it -should be Nepeese, and none other. He had lost her yesterday. To-day he -had found her. And in answer to his whine there came a sobbing cry -straight out of the soul of the Willow. - - * * * * * - -Carvel found them there a few minutes later, the dog’s head hugged close -up against the Willow’s breast, and the Willow was crying—crying like a -little child, her face hidden from him on Baree’s neck. He did not -interrupt them, but waited; and as he waited something in the sobbing -voice and the stillness of the forest seemed to whisper to him a bit of -the story of the burned cabin and the two graves, and the meaning of the -Call that had come to Baree from out of the south. - - - - - CHAPTER XXXI - - -That night there was a new campfire in the open. It was not a small -fire, built with the fear that other eyes might see it, but a fire that -sent its flames high. In the glow of it stood Carvel. And as the fire -had changed from that small smouldering heap over which the Willow had -cooked her dinner, so Carvel, the officially dead outlaw, had changed. -The beard was gone from his face; he had thrown off his caribou-skin -coat; his sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and there was a wild -flush in his face that was not altogether the tanning of wind and sun -and storm, and a glow in his eyes that had not been there for five -years, perhaps never before. His eyes were on Nepeese. She sat in the -firelight, leaning a little toward the blaze, her wonderful hair glowing -warmly in the flash of it. Carvel did not move while she was in that -attitude. He seemed scarcely to breathe. The glow in his eyes grew -deeper—the worship of a man for a woman. Suddenly Nepeese turned and -caught him before he could turn his gaze. There was nothing to hide in -her own eyes. Like her face, they were flushed with a new hope and a new -gladness. Carvel sat down beside her on the birch log, and in his hand -he took one of her thick braids and crumpled it as he talked. At their -feet, watching them, lay Baree. - -“To-morrow or the next day I am going to Lac Bain,” he said, a hard and -bitter note back of the gentle worship in his voice. “I will not come -back until I have—killed him.” - -The Willow looked straight into the fire. For a time there was a silence -broken only by the crackling of the flames, and in that silence Carvel’s -fingers weaved in and out of the silken strands of the Willow’s hair. -His thoughts flashed back. What a chance he had missed that day on Bush -McTaggart’s trap-line—if he had only known! His jaws set hard as he saw -in the red-hot heart of the fire the mental pictures of the day when the -Factor from Lac Bain had killed Pierrot. She had told him the whole -story. Her flight. Her plunge to what she had thought was certain death -in the icy torrent of the chasm. Her miraculous escape from the -waters—and how she was discovered, nearly dead, by Tuboa, the toothless -old Cree whom Pierrot out of pity had allowed to hunt in part of his -domain. He felt within himself the tragedy and the horror of the one -terrible hour in which the sun had gone out of the world for the Willow, -and in the flames he could see faithful old Tuboa as he called on his -last strength to bear Nepeese over the long miles that lay between the -chasm and his cabin; he caught shifting visions of the weeks that -followed in that cabin, weeks of hunger and of intense cold in which the -Willow’s life hung by a single thread. And at last, when the snows were -deepest, Tuboa had died. Carvel’s fingers clenched in the strands of the -Willow’s braid. A deep breath rose out of his chest, and he said, -staring deep into the fire, - -“To-morrow I will go to Lac Bain.” - -For a moment Nepeese did not answer. She, too, was looking into the -fire. Then she said: - -“Tuboa meant to kill him when the spring came, and he could travel. When -Tuboa died I knew that it was I who must kill him. So I came, with -Tuboa’s gun. It was fresh loaded—yesterday. And—M’sieu _Jeem_”—she -looked up at him, a triumphant glow in her eyes as she added, almost in -a whisper—“You will not go to Lac Bain. _I have sent a messenger._” - -“A messenger?” - -“Yes, Ookimow Jeem—a messenger. Two days ago. I sent word that I had not -died, but was here—waiting for him—and that I would be _Iskwao_ now, his -wife. Oo-oo, he will come, Ookimow Jeem—he will come fast. And you shall -not kill him. _Non!_” She smiled into his face, and the throb of -Carvel’s heart was like a drum. “The gun is loaded,” she said softly. “I -will shoot.” - -“Two days ago,” said Carvel. “And from Lac Bain it is——” - -“He will be here to-morrow,” Nepeese answered him. “To-morrow, as the -sun goes down, he will enter the clearing. I know. My blood has been -singing it all day. To-morrow—to-morrow—for he will travel fast, Ookimow -Jeem. Yes, he will come fast.” - -Carvel had bent his head. The soft tresses gripped in his fingers were -crushed to his lips. The Willow, looking again into the fire, did not -see. But she _felt_—and her soul was beating like the wings of a bird. - -“Ookimow Jeem,” she whispered—a breath, a flutter of the lips so soft -that Carvel heard no sound. - -If old Tuboa had been there that night it is possible he would have read -strange warnings in the winds that whispered now and then softly in the -treetops. It was such a night; a night when the Red Gods whisper low -among themselves, a carnival of glory in which even the dipping shadows -and the high stars seemed to quiver with the life of a potent language. -It is barely possible that old Tuboa, with his ninety years behind him, -would have learned something, or that at least he would have _suspected_ -a thing which Carvel in his youth and confidence did not see. -To-morrow—he will come to-morrow! The Willow, exultant, had said that. -But to old Tuboa the trees might have whispered, _why not to-night_? - -It was midnight when the big moon stood full above the little open in -the forest. In the tepee the Willow was sleeping. In a balsam shadow -back from the fire slept Baree, and still farther back in the edge of a -spruce thicket slept Carvel. Dog and man were tired. They had travelled -far and fast that day, and they heard no sound. - -But they had travelled neither so far nor so fast as Bush McTaggart. -Between sunrise and midnight he had come forty miles when he strode out -into the clearing where Pierrot’s cabin had stood. Twice from the edge -of the forest he had called; and now, when he found no answer, he stood -under the light of the moon and listened. Nepeese was to be -here—waiting. He was tired, but exhaustion could not still the fire that -burned in his blood. It had been blazing all day, and now—so near its -realization and its triumph—the old passion was like a drunkening wine -in his veins. Somewhere, near where he stood, Nepeese was waiting for -him, _waiting for him_. Once again he called, his heart beating in a -fierce anticipation as he listened. There was no answer. And then for a -thrilling instant his breath stopped. He sniffed the air—and there came -to him faintly the smell of smoke. - -With the first instinct of the forest man he fronted the wind that was -but a faint breath under the starlit skies. He did not call again, but -hastened across the clearing. Nepeese was off there—somewhere—sleeping -beside her fire, and out of him there rose a low cry of exultation. He -came to the edge of the forest; chance directed his steps to the -overgrown trail; he followed it, and the smoke smell came stronger to -his nostrils. - -It was the forest man’s instinct, too, that added the element of caution -to his advance. That, and the utter stillness of the night. He broke no -sticks under his feet. He disturbed the brush so quietly that it made no -sound. When he came at last to the little open where Carvel’s fire was -still sending a spiral of spruce-scented smoke up into the air it was -with a stealth that failed even to rouse Baree. Perhaps, deep down in -him, there smouldered an old suspicion; perhaps it was because he wanted -to come to her while she was sleeping. The sight of the tepee made his -heart throb faster. It was light as day where it stood in the moonlight, -and he saw hanging outside it a few bits of woman’s apparel. He advanced -soft-footed as a fox and stood a moment later with his hand on the cloth -flap at the wigwam door, his head bent forward to catch the merest -breath of sound. He could hear her breathing. For an instant his face -turned so that the moonlight struck his eyes. They were aflame with a -mad fire. Then, still very quietly, he drew aside the flap at the door. - -It could not have been sound that roused Baree, hidden in the black -balsam shadow a dozen paces away. Perhaps it was scent. His nostrils -twitched first; then he awoke. For a few seconds his eyes glared at the -bent figure in the tepee door. He knew that it was not Carvel. The old -smell—the man-beast’s smell, filled his nostrils like a hated poison. He -sprang to his feet and stood with his lips snarling back slowly from his -long fangs. McTaggart had disappeared. From inside the tepee there came -a sound; a sudden movement of bodies, a startled ejaculation of one -awakening from sleep—and then a cry, a low, half-smothered, frightened -cry, and in response to that cry Baree shot out from under the balsam -with a sound in his throat that had in it the note of death. - - * * * * * - -In the edge of the spruce thicket Carvel rolled uneasily. Strange sounds -were rousing him, cries that in his exhaustion came to him as if in a -dream. At last he sat up, and then in sudden horror leaped to his feet -and rushed toward the tepee. Nepeese was in the open, crying the name -she had given him—“_Ookimow Jeem—Ookimow—Jeem—Ookimow Jeem_——” She was -standing there white and slim, her eyes with the blaze of the stars in -them, and when she saw Carvel she flung out her arms to him, still -crying: - -“Ookimow Jeem—Oo-oo, Ookimow Jeem——” - -In the tepee he heard the rage of a beast, the moaning cries of a man. -He forgot that it was only last night he had come, and with a cry he -swept the Willow to his breast, and the Willow’s arms tightened round -his neck as she moaned: - -“Ookimow Jeem—it is the man-beast—in there! It is the man-beast from Lac -Bain—and Baree——” - -Truth flashed upon Carvel, and he caught Nepeese up in his arms and ran -away with her from the sounds that had grown sickening and horrible. In -the spruce thicket he put her feet once more to the ground. Her arms -were still tight around his neck; he felt the wild terror of her body as -it throbbed against him; her breath was sobbing, and her eyes were on -his face. He drew her closer, and suddenly he crushed his face down -close against hers and felt for an instant the warm thrill of her lips -against his own. And he heard the whisper, soft and trembling. - -“Ooo-oo, _Ookimow Jeem_——” - -When Carvel returned to the fire, alone, his Colt in his hand, Baree was -in front of the tepee waiting for him. Carvel picked up a burning brand -and entered the wigwam. When he came out his face was white. He tossed -the brand in the fire, and went back to Nepeese. He had wrapped her in -his blankets, and now he knelt down beside her and put his arms about -her. - -“He is dead, Nepeese.” - -“Dead, Ookimow Jeem?” - -“Yes. Baree killed him.” - -She did not seem to breathe. Gently, with his lips in her hair, Carvel -whispered his plans for their paradise. - -“No one will know, my sweetheart. To-night I will bury him and burn the -tepee. To-morrow we will start for Nelson House, where there is a -Missioner. And after that—we will come back—and I will build a new cabin -where the old one burned. _Do you love me, ka sakahet?_” - -“Oui—yes—Ookimow Jeem—I love you——” - -Suddenly there came an interruption. Baree at last was giving his cry of -triumph. It rose to the stars; it wailed over the roofs of the forests -and filled the quiet skies—a wolfish howl of exultation, of achievement, -of vengeance fulfilled. Its echoes died slowly away, and silence came -again. A great peace whispered in the soft breath of the treetops. Out -of the north came the mating call of a loon. About Carvel’s shoulders -the Willow’s arms crept closer. And Carvel, out of his heart, thanked -God. - - - THE END - - - - - THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS - GARDEN CITY, N. 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