ong the rocks
and hiding herself in the white froth and wondering why he didn't come.
But he hesitated--hesitated with his head and neck over the abyss, and
his forefeet giving way a little in the snow. With an effort he dragged
himself back and whined. He caught the fresh scent of McTaggart's
moccasins in the snow, and the whine changed slowly into a long snarl.
He looked over again. Still he could not see her. He barked--the short,
sharp signal with which he always called her. There was no answer.
Again and again he barked, and always there was nothing but the roar of
the water that came back to him. Then for a few moments he stood back,
silent and listening, his body shivering with the strange dread that
was possessing him.

The snow was falling now, and McTaggart had returned to the cabin.
After a little Baree followed in the trail he had made along the edge
of the chasm, and wherever McTaggart had stopped to peer over, Baree
paused also. For a space his hatred of the man was lost in his desire
to join the Willow, and he continued along the gorge until, a quarter
of a mile beyond where the factor had last looked into it, he came to
the narrow trail down which he and Nepeese had many time adventured in
quest of rock violets. The twisting path that led down the face of the
cliff was filled with snow now, but Baree made his way through it until
at last he stood at the edge of the unfrozen torrent. Nepeese was not
here. He whined, and barked again, but this time there was in his
signal to her an uneasy repression, a whimpering note which told that
he did not expect a reply. For five minutes after that he sat on his
haunches in the snow, stolid as a rock. What it was that came down out
of the dark mystery and tumult of the chasm to him, what spirit
whispers of nature that told him the truth, it is beyond the power of
reason to explain. But he listened, and he looked; and his muscles
twitched as the truth grew in him. And at last he raised his head
slowly until his black muzzle pointed to the white storm in the sky,
and out of his throat there went forth the quavering, long-drawn howl
of the husky who mourns outside the tepee of a master who is newly dead.

On the trail, heading for Lac Bain, Bush McTaggart heard that cry and
shivered.

It was the smell of smoke, thickening in the air until it stung his
nostrils, that drew Baree at last away from the chasm and back to the
cabin. There was not much left when he came to