s. They were not of Challoner, or of Nanette and the
baby, nor were they of the fight and the unforgettable things he had
seen at the Post. His dreams were of a high and barren ridge smothered
in deep snow, and of a cavern that was dark and deep. Again he was with
his brother and comrade of days that were gone--Neewa the bear. He was
trying to waken him, and he could feel the warmth of his body and hear
his sleepy, protesting grunts. And then, later, he was fighting again
in the paradise of black currants, and with Neewa was running for his
life from the enraged she-bear who had invaded their coulee. When he
awoke suddenly from out of these dreams he was trembling and his
muscles were tense. He growled in the darkness. His eyes were round
balls of searching fire. He whined softly and yearningly in that pit of
gloom under the windfall, and for a moment or two he listened, for he
thought that Neewa might answer.

For a month after that night he remained near the cabin. At least once
each day, and sometimes at night, he would return to the clearing. And
more and more frequently he was thinking of Neewa. Early in March came
the Tiki-Swao--(the Big Thaw). For a week the sun shone without a cloud
in the sky. The air was warm. The snow turned soft underfoot and on the
sunny sides of slopes and ridges it melted away into trickling streams
or rolled down in "slides" that were miniature avalanches. The world
was vibrant with a new thrill. It pulsed with the growing heart-beat of
spring, and in Miki's soul there arose slowly a new hope, a new
impression a new inspiration that was the thrilling urge of a wonderful
instinct. NEEWA WOULD BE WAKING NOW!

It came to him at last like a voice which he could understand. The
trickling music of the growing streams sang it to him; he heard it in
the warm winds that were no longer filled with the blast of winter; he
caught it in the new odours that were rising out of the earth; he
smelled it in the dank, sweet perfume of the black woods-soil. The
thing thrilled him. It called him. And he KNEW!

NEEWA WOULD BE WAKING NOW!

He responded to the call. It was in the nature of things that no power
less than physical force could hold him back. And yet he did not travel
as he had travelled from Challoner's camp to the cabin of Nanette and
the baby. There had been a definite object there, something to achieve,
something to spur him on to an immediate fulfilment. Now the thing that
drew him, at fir