ght the dog's head in
his arms and hugged it. They lived in the cabin until May. The buds
were swelling then, and the smell of growing things had begun to rise
up out of the earth.

Then Carvel found the first of the early blue flowers.

That night he packed up.

"It's time to travel," he announced to Baree. "And I've sort of changed
my mind. We're going back--there." And he pointed south.

CHAPTER 30

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