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!]