hich made men stare as if they could not believe! Those
eyes--like pools filled with wonderful starlight! Her slimness, that
was like a flower! And McTaggart had said--

Floating back to him there came an excited cry.

"Hurry, Nootawe! He has turned into the blind canyon. He cannot escape
us now."

She was panting when he came up to her. The French blood in her glowed
a vivid crimson in her cheeks and lips. Her white teeth gleamed like
pearls.

"In there!" And she pointed.

They went in.

Ahead of them Baree was running for his life. He sensed instinctively
the fact that these wonderful two-legged beings he had looked upon were
all-powerful. And they were after him! He could hear them. Nepeese was
following almost as swiftly as he could run. Suddenly he turned into a
cleft between two great rocks. Twenty feet in, his way was barred, and
he ran back. When he darted out, straight up the canyon, Nepeese was
not a dozen yards behind him, and he saw Pierrot almost at her side.
The Willow gave a cry.

"Mana--mana--there he is!"

She caught her breath, and darted into a copse of young balsams where
Baree had disappeared. Like a great entangling web her loose hair
impeded her in the brush, and with an encouraging cry to Pierrot she
stopped to gather it over her shoulder as he ran past her. She lost
only a moment or two, and then once again was after him. Fifty yards
ahead of her Pierrot gave a warning shout. Baree had turned. Almost in
the same breath he was tearing over his back trail, directly toward the
Willow. He did not see her in time to stop or swerve aside, and Nepeese
flung herself down in his path. For an instant or two they were
together. Baree felt the smother of her hair, and the clutch of her
hands. Then he squirmed away and darted again toward the blind end of
the canyon.

Nepeese sprang to her feet. She was panting--and laughing. Pierrot came
back wildly, and the Willow pointed beyond him.

"I had him--and he didn't bite!" she said, breathing swiftly. She still
pointed to the end of the canyon, and she said again: "I had him--and
he didn't bite me, Nootawe!"

That was the wonder of it. She had been reckless--and Baree had not
bitten her! It was then, with her eyes shining at Pierrot, and the
smile fading slowly from her lips, that she spoke softly the word
"Baree," which in her tongue meant "the wild dog"--a little brother of
the wolf.

"Come," cried Pierrot, "or we will lose him!"

Pierrot wa