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.