It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The caribou were roasting brown.
In two more hours the feast would begin. The hour of the fight was at
hand.
In the centre of the clearing three hundred men, women, and children
were gathered in a close circle about a sapling cage ten feet square.
Close to this cage, one at each side, were drawn the two smaller cages.
Beside one of these cages stood Henri Durant; beside the other, Grouse
Piet. They were not bantering now. Their faces were hard and set. And
three hundred pairs of eyes were staring at them, and three hundred
pairs of ears waiting for the thrilling signal.
It came--from Grouse Piet.
With a swift movement Durant pulled up the door of Miki's cage. Then,
suddenly, he prodded him from behind with a crotched stick, and with a
single leap Miki was in the big cage. Almost at the same instant the
wolf-dog leapt from Grouse Piet's cage, and the two faced each other in
the arena.
With the next breath he drew Durant could have groaned. What happened
in the following half minute was a matter of environment with Miki. In
the forest the wolf-dog would have interested him to the exclusion of
everything else, and he would have looked upon him as another Netah or
a wild wolf. But in his present surroundings the idea of fighting was
the last to possess him. He was fascinated by that grim and waiting
circle of faces closing in the big cage; he scrutinized it, turning his
head sharply from point to point, as if hoping to see Nanette and the
baby, or even Challoner his first master. To the wolf-dog Grouse Piet
had given the name of Taao, because of the extraordinary length of his
fangs; and of Taao, to Durant's growing horror, Miki was utterly
oblivious after that first head-on glance. He trotted to the edge of
the cage and thrust his nose between the bars, and a taunting laugh
rose out of Grouse Piet's throat. Then he began making a circle of the
cage, his sharp eyes on the silent ring of faces. Taao stood in the
centre of the cage, and not once did his reddish eyes leave Miki. What
was outside of the cage held small interest for him. He understood his
business, and murder was bred in his heart. For a space during which
Durant's heart beat like a hammer Taao turned, as if on a pivot,
following Miki's movement, and the crest on his spine stood up like
bristles.
Then Miki stopped, and in that moment Durant saw the end of all his
hopes. Without a sound the wolf-dog was at his opponent. A bellow rose
from Grouse Piet's lips. A deep breath passed through the circle of
spectators, and Durant felt a cold chill run up his back to the roots
of his hair. What happened in the next instant made men's hearts stand
still. In that first rush Miki should have died. Grouse Piet expected
him to die, and Durant expected him to die. But in the last fractional
bit of the second in which the wolf-dog's jaws closed, Miki was
transformed into a thing of living lightning. No man had ever seen a
movement swifter than that with which he turned on Taao. Their jaws
clashed. There was a sickening grinding of bone, and in another moment
they were rolling and twisting together on the earth floor. Neither
Grouse Piet nor Durant could see what was happening. They forgot even
their own bets in the horror of that fight. Never had there been such a
fight at Fort O' God.
The sound of it reached to the Company's store. In the door, looking
toward the big cage, stood the young white man. He heard the snarling,
the clashing of teeth, and his jaws set heavily and a dull flame burned
in his eyes. His breath came in a sudden gasp.
"DAMN!" he cried, softly.
His hands clenched, and he stepped slowly down from the door and went
toward the cage. It was over when he made his way through the ring of
spectators. The fight had ended as suddenly as it had begun, and Grouse
Piet's wolf-dog lay in the centre of the cage with a severed jugular.
Miki looked as though he might be dying. Durant had opened the door and
had slipped a rope over his head, and outside the cage Miki stood
swaying on his feet, red with blood, and half blind. His flesh was red
and bleeding in a dozen places, and a stream of blood trickled from his
mouth. A cry of horror rose to the young white man's lips as he looked
down at him.
And then, almost in the same breath, there came a still stranger cry.
"Good God! Miki--Miki--Miki--"
Beating upon his brain as if from a vast distance, coming to him
through the blindness of his wounds, Miki heard that voice.
The VOICE! THE voice that had lived with him in all his dreams, the
voice he had waited for, and searched for, and knew that some day he
would find. The voice of Challoner, his master!
He dropped on his belly, whining, trying to see through the film of
blood in his eyes; and lying there, wounded almost unto death, his tail
thumped the ground in recognition. And then, to the amazement of all
who beheld, Challoner was down upon his knees beside him, and his arms
were about him, and Miki's lacerated tongue was reaching for his hands,
his face, his clothes.
"Miki--Miki--Miki!"
Durant's hand fell heavily upon Challoner's shoulder.
It was like the touch of a red-hot iron to Challoner. In a flash he was
on his feet, facing him.
"He's mine," Challoner cried, trying to hold back his passion. "He's
mine you--you devil!"
And then, powerless to hold back his desire for vengeance, his clenched
fist swung like a rock to Durant's heavy jaw, and the Frenchman went to
the ground. For a moment Challoner stood over him, but he did not move.
Fiercely he turned upon Grouse Piet and the crowd. Miki was cringing at
his feet again. Pointing to him, Challoner cried loudly, so all could
hear.
"He's my dog. Where this beast got him I don't know. But he's mine.
Look for yourselves! See--see him lick my hand. Would he do that for
HIM? And look at that ear. There's no other ear in all the north cut
like that. I lost him almost a year ago, but I'd know him among ten
thousand by that ear. By God!--if I had known--"
He elbowed his way through the breeds and Indians, leading Miki by the
rope Durant had slipped over the dog's head. He went to MacDonnell, and
told him what had happened. He told of the preceding spring, and of the
accident in which Miki and the bear cub were lost from his canoe and
swept over the waterfall. After registering his claim against whatever
Durant might have to say he went to the shack in which he was staying
at Fort 0' God.
An hour later Challoner sat with Miki's big head between his two hands,
and talked to him. He had bathed and dressed his wounds, and Miki could
see. His eyes were on his master's face, and his hard tail thumped the
floor. Both were oblivious of the sounds of the revellers outside; the
cries of men, the shouting of boys, the laughter of women, and the
incessant barking of dogs. In Challoner's eyes there was a soft glow.
"Miki, old boy, you haven't forgotten a thing--not a dam' thing, have
you? You were nothing but an onery-legged pup then, but you didn't
forget! Remember what I told you, that I was going to take you and the
cub down to the Girl? Do you remember? The Girl I said was an angel,
and 'd love you to death, and all that? Well, I'm glad something
happened--and you didn't go. It wasn't the same when I got back, an'
SHE wasn't the same, Miki. Lord, she'd got married, AND HAD TWO KIDS!
Think of that, old scout--TWO! How the deuce could she have taken care
of you and the cub, eh? And nothing else was the same, Boy. Three years
in God's Country--up here where you burst your lungs just for the fun
of drinking in air--changed me a lot, I guess. Inside a week I wanted
to come back, Miki. Yessir, I was SICK to come back. So I came. And
we're going to stick now, Miki. You're going with me up to that new
Post the Company has given me. From now on we're pals. Understand, old
scout, we're PALS!"