th her hand and said, smiling at him:

"I would have been like--THAT." And she held her thumb and forefinger
close together.

"But where did Baree go, mon pere?" Nepeese cried.

CHAPTER 9

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 canyon
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
Umlsk--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 seemed 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 w