But the call of the wild was struggling against odds. For in him
was the dog, with its generations of subdued and sleeping
instincts--and all that night the dog in him kept Baree to the top of
his rock.

Next morning Baree found many crayfish along the creek, and he feasted
on their succulent flesh until he felt that he would never be hungry
again. Nothing had tasted quite so good since he had eaten the
partridge of which he had robbed Sekoosew the ermine.

In the middle of the afternoon Baree came into a part of the forest
that was very quiet and very peaceful. The creek had deepened. In
places its banks swept out until they formed small ponds. Twice he made
considerable detours to get around these ponds. He traveled very
quietly, listening and watching. Not since the ill-fated day he had
left the old windfall had he felt quite so much at home as now. It
seemed to him that at last he was treading country which he knew, and
where he would find friends. Perhaps this was another miracle mystery
of instinct--of nature. For he was in old Beaver Tooth's domain. It was
here that his father and mother had hunted in the days before he was
born. It was not far from here that Kazan and Beaver Tooth had fought
that mighty duel under water, from which Kazan had escaped with his
life without another breath to lose.

Baree would never know these things. He would never know that he was
traveling over old trails. But something deep in him gripped him
strangely. He sniffed the air, as if in it he found the scent of
familiar things. It was only a faint breath--an indefinable promise
that brought him to the point of a mysterious anticipation.

The forest grew deeper. It was wonderful virgin forest. There was no
undergrowth, and traveling under the trees was like being in a vast,
mystery-filled cavern through the roof of which the light of day broke
softly, brightened here and there by golden splashes of the sun. For a
mile Baree made his way quietly through this forest. He saw nothing but
a few winged flirtings of birds; there was almost no sound. Then he
came to a still larger pond. Around this pond there was a thick growth
of alders and willows where the larger trees had thinned out. He saw
the glimmer of afternoon sunlight on the water--and then, all at once,
he heard life.

There had been few changes in Beaver Tooth's colony since the days of
his feud with Kazan and the otters. Old Beaver Tooth was somewhat
older. He was fatter