Pierrot's
arms. She was panting and laughing when for a moment she stopped.

"I have given him the answer, Nootawe! He is in the pool!"

Into the balsams she disappeared like a bird. Pierrot made no effort to
stop her or to follow.

"Tonnerre de Dieu," he chuckled--and cut straight across for the other
trail.

Nepeese was out of breath when she reached the cabin. Baree, fastened
to a table leg by a babiche thong, heard her pause for a moment at the
door. Then she entered and came straight to him. During the half-hour
of her absence Baree had scarcely moved. That half-hour, and the few
minutes that had preceded it, had made tremendous impressions upon him.
Nature, heredity, and instinct were at work, clashing and readjusting,
impinging on him a new intelligence--the beginning of a new
understanding. A swift and savage impulse had made him leap at Bush
McTaggart when the factor put his hand on the Willow's head. It was not
reason. It was a hearkening back of the dog to that day long ago when
Kazan, his father, had lulled the man-brute in the tent, the man-brute
who had dared to molest Thorpe's wife, whom Kazan worshiped. Then it
had been the dog--and the woman.

And here again it was the woman. She had appealed to the great hidden
passion that was in Baree and that had come to him from Kazan. Of all
the living things in the world, he knew that he must not hurt this
creature that appeared to him through the door. He trembled as she
knelt before him again, and up through the years came the wild and
glorious surge of Kazan's blood, overwhelming the wolf, submerging the
savagery of his birth--and with his head flat on the floor he whined
softly, and WAGGED HIS TAIL.

Nepeese gave a cry of joy.

"Baree!" she whispered, taking his head in her hands. "Baree!"

Her touch thrilled him. It sent little throbs through his body, a
tremulous quivering which she could feel and which deepened the glow in
her eyes. Gently her hand stroked his head and his back. It seemed to
Nepeese that he did not breathe. Under the caress of her hand his eyes
closed. In another moment she was talking to him, and at the sound of
her voice his eyes shot open.

"He will come here--that beast--and he will kill us," she was saying.
"He will kill you because you bit him, Baree. Ugh, I wish you were
bigger, and stronger, so that you could take off his head for me!"

She was untying the babiche from about the table leg, and under her
breath she l