orious. Youth had come back to her--freed from the yoke of
oppression. She was happy. Happy with her baby, with freedom, with the
sun and the stars shining for her again; and with new hope, the
greatest star of all. Again on the night of that first day of his
return Miki crept up to her when she was brushing her glorious hair. He
loved to put his muzzle in it; he loved the sweet scent of it; he loved
to put his head on her knees and feel it smothering him. And Nanette
hugged him tight, even as she hugged the baby, for it was Miki who had
brought her freedom, and hope, and life. What had passed was no longer
a tragedy. It was justice. God had sent Miki to do for her what a
father or a brother would have done.

And the second night after that, when Challoner came early in the
darkness, it happened that Nanette had her hair down in that same way;
and Challoner, seeing her thus, with the lampglow shining in her eyes,
felt that the world had taken a sudden swift turn under his feet--that
through all his years he had been working forward to this hour.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

With the coming of Challoner to the cabin of Nanette Le Beau there was
no longer a shadow of gloom in the world for Miki. He did not reason
out the wonder of it, nor did he have a foreboding for the future. It
was the present in which he lived--the precious hours in which all the
creatures he had ever loved were together. And yet, away back in his
memory of those things that had grown deep in his soul, was the picture
of Neewa, the bear; Neewa, his chum, his brother, his fighting comrade
of many battles, and he thought of the cold and snow-smothered cavern
at the top of the ridge in which Neewa had buried himself in that long
and mysterious sleep that was so much like death. But it was in the
present that he lived. The hours lengthened themselves out into days,
and still Challoner did not go, nor did Nanette leave with the Indian
for Fort O' God. The Indian returned with a note for MacDonnell in
which Challoner told the Factor that something was the matter with the
baby's lungs, and that she could not travel until the weather, which
was intensely cold, grew warmer. He asked that the Indian be sent back
with certain supplies.

In spite of the terrific cold which followed the birth of the new year
Challoner had put up his tent in the edge of the timber a hundred yards
from the cabin, and Miki divided his time between the cabin and the
tent. For h