as
facing now. There was a third shot--the last. Wakayoo sank down in his
tracks. His big head dropped between his forepaws. A racking cough or
two came to Baree's ears. And then there was silence. It was
slaughter--but business.

A minute later, standing over Wakayoo, Pierrot said to Nepeese:

"Mon dieu, but it is a fine skin, Sakahet! It is worth twenty dollars
over at Lac Bain!"

He drew forth his knife and began whetting it on a stone which he
carried in his pocket. In these minutes Baree might have crawled out
from under his rock and escaped down the canyon; for a space he was
forgotten. Then Nepeese thought of him, and in that same strange,
wondering voice she spoke again the word "Baree." Pierrot, who was
kneeling, looked up at her.

"Oui, Sakahet. He was born of the wild. And now he is gone--"

The Willow shook her head.

"Non, he is not gone," she said, and her dark eyes searched the sunlit
meadow.

CHAPTER 8

As Nepeese gazed about the rock-walled end of the canyon, the prison
into which they had driven Wakayoo and Baree, Pierrot looked up again
from his skinning of the big black bear, and he muttered something that
no one but himself could have heard. "Non, it is not possible," he had
said a moment before; but to Nepeese it was possible--the thought that
was in her mind. It was a wonderful thought. It thrilled her to the
depth of her wild, young soul. It sent a glow into her eyes and a
deeper flush of excitement into her cheeks and lips.

As she searched the ragged edges of the little meadow for signs of the
dog pup, her thoughts flashed back swiftly. Two years ago they had
buried her princess mother under the tall spruce near their cabin. That
day Pierrot's sun had set for all time, and her own life became filled
with a vast loneliness. There had been three at the graveside that
afternoon as the sun went down--Pierrot, herself, and a dog, a great,
powerful husky with a white star on his breast and a white-tipped ear.
He had been her dead mother's pet from puppyhood--her bodyguard, with
her always, even with his head resting on the side of her bed as she
died. And that night, the night of the day they buried her, the dog had
disappeared. He had gone as quietly and as completely as her spirit. No
one ever saw him after that. It was strange, and to Pierrot it was a
miracle. Deep in his heart he was filled with the wonderful conviction
that the dog had gone with his beloved Wyola into heaven.