said to her. "He is half wolf, and
the Call will come to him strong. He will go into the forests. He will
disappear at times. But we must not fasten him. He will come back. Ka,
he will come back!" And he rubbed his hands in the moonglow until his
knuckles cracked.

The Call came to Baree like a thief entering slowly and cautiously into
a forbidden place. He did not understand it at first. It made him
nervous and uneasy, so restless that Nepeese frequently heard him whine
softly in his sleep. He was waiting for something. What was it? Pierrot
knew, and smiled in his inscrutable way.

And then it came. It was night, a glorious night filled with moon and
stars, under which the earth was whitening with a film of frost, when
they heard the first hunt call of the wolves. Now and then during the
summer there had come the lone wolf howl, but this was the tonguing of
the pack; and as it floated through the vast silence and mystery of the
night, a song of savagery that had come with each Red Moon down through
unending ages, Pierrot knew that at last had come that for which Baree
had been waiting.

In an instant Baree had sensed it. His muscles grew taut as pieces of
stretched rope as he stood up in the moonlight, facing the direction
from which floated the mystery and thrill of the sound. They could hear
him whining softly; and Pierrot, bending down so that he caught the
light of the night properly, could see him trembling.

"It is Mee-Koo!" he said in a whisper to Nepeese.

That was it, the call of the blood that was running swift in Baree's
veins--not alone the call of his species, but the call of Kazan and
Gray Wolf and of his forbears for generations unnumbered. It was the
voice of his people. So Pierrot had whispered, and he was right. In the
golden night the Willow was waiting, for it was she who had gambled
most, and it was she who must lose or win. She uttered no sound,
replied not to the low voice of Pierrot, but held her breath and
watched Baree as he slowly faded away, step by step, into the shadows.
In a few moments more he was gone. It was then that she stood straight,
and flung back her head, with eyes that glowed in rivalry with the
stars.

"Baree!" she called. "Baree! Baree! Baree!"

He must have been near the edge of the forest, for she had drawn a
slow, waiting breath or two before he was and he whined up into her
face. Nepeese put her hands to his head.

"You are right, mon pere," she said. "He will