A strange humor 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 a 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 midafternoon 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, traveling 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 humor 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 searched 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
pretend to hide 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. Today he
had found her. And in answer to his whine there came a sobbing cry
straight out of the heart 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.