CHAPTER 24
It was early in August when Baree left the Gray Loon. He had noobjective in view. But there was still left upon his mind, like thedelicate impression of light and shadow on a negative, the memories ofhis earlier days. Things and happenings that he had almost forgottenrecurred to him now, as his trail led him farther and farther away fromthe Gray Loon. And his earlier experiences became real again, picturesthrown out afresh in his mind by the breaking of the last ties thatheld him to the home of the Willow. Involuntarily he followed the trailof these impressions--of these past happenings, and slowly they helpedto build up new interests for him.
A year in his life was a long time--a decade of man's experience. Itwas more than a year ago that he had left Kazan and Gray Wolf and theold windfall, and yet now there came back to him indistinct memories ofthose days of his earliest puppyhood, of the stream into which he hadfallen, and of his fierce battle with Papayuchisew. It was his laterexperiences that roused the older memories. He came to the blind canyonup which Nepeese and Pierrot had chased him. That seemed but yesterday.He entered the little meadow, and stood beside the great rock that hadalmost crushed the life out of the Willow's body; and then heremembered where Wakayoo, his big bear friend, had died under Pierrot'srifle--and he smelled of Wakayoo's whitened bones where they layscattered in the green grass, with flowers growing up among them.
A day and night he spent in the little meadow before he went back outof the canyon and into his old haunts along the creek, where Wakayoohad fished for him. There was another bear here now, and he also wasfishing. Perhaps he was a son or a grandson of Wakayoo. Baree smelledwhere he had made his fish caches, and for three days he lived on fishbefore he struck out for the North.
And now, for the first time in many weeks, a bit of the old-timeeagerness put speed into Baree's feet. Memories that had been hazy andindistinct through forgetfulness were becoming realities again, and ashe would have returned to the Gray Loon had Nepeese been there so now,with something of the feeling of a wanderer going home, he returned tothe old beaver pond.
It was that most glorious hour of a summer's day--sunset--when hereached it. He stopped a hundred yards away, with the pond still hiddenfrom his sight, and sniffed the air, and listened. The POND was there.He caught the cool, honey smell of it. But Umisk, and Beaver Tooth, andall the others? Would he find them? He strained his ears to catch afamiliar sound, and after a moment or two it came--a hollow splash inthe water.
He went quietly through the alders and stood at last close to the spotwhere he had first made the acquaintance of Umisk. The surface of thepond was undulating slightly, two or three heads popped up. He saw thetorpedolike wake of an old beaver towing a stick close to the oppositeshore. He looked toward the dam, and it was as he had left it almost ayear ago. He did not show himself for a time, but stood concealed inthe young alders. He felt growing in him more and more a feeling ofrestfulness, a relaxation from the long strain of the lonely monthsduring which he had waited for Nepeese.
With a long breath he lay down among the alders, with his head justenough exposed to give him a clear view. As the sun settled lower thepond became alive. Out on the shore where he had saved Umisk from thefox came another generation of young beavers--three of them, fat andwaddling. Very softly Baree whined.
All that night he lay in the alders. The beaver pond became his homeagain. Conditions were changed, of course, and as days grew into weeksthe inhabitants of Beaver Tooth's colony showed no signs of acceptingthe grown-up Baree as they had accepted the baby Baree of long ago. Hewas big, black, and wolfish now--a long-fanged and formidable-lookingcreature, and though he offered no violence he was regarded by thebeavers with a deep-seated feeling of fear and suspicion.
On the other hand, Baree no longer felt the old puppyish desire to playwith the baby beavers, so their aloofness did not trouble him as inthose other days. Umisk was grown up, too, a fat and prosperous youngbuck who was just taking unto himself this year a wife, and who was atpresent very busy gathering his winter's rations. It is entirelyprobable that he did not associate the big black beast he saw now andthen with the little Baree with whom he had smelled noses once upon atime, and it is quite likely that Baree did not recognize Umisk exceptas a part of the memories that had remained with him.
All through the month of August Baree made the beaver pond hisheadquarters. At times his excursions kept him away for two or threedays at a time. These journeys were always into the north, sometimes alittle east and sometimes a little west, but never again into thesouth. And at last, early in September, he left the beaver pond forgood.
For many days his wanderings carried him in no one particulardirection. He followed the hunting, living chiefly on rabbits and thatsimple-minded species of partridge known as the "fool hen." This diet,of course, was given variety by other things as they happened to comehis way. Wild currants and raspberries were ripening, and Baree wasfond of these. He also liked the bitter berries of the mountain ash,which, along with the soft balsam and spruce pitch which he licked withhis tongue now and then, were good medicine for him. In shallow waterhe occasionally caught a fish. Now and then he hazarded a cautiousbattle with a porcupine, and if he was successful he feasted on thetenderest and most luscious of all the flesh that made up his menu.
Twice in September he killed young deer. The big "burns" that heoccasionally came to no longer held terrors for him; in the midst ofplenty he forgot the days in which he had gone hungry. In October hewandered as far west as the Geikie River, and then northward toWollaston Lake, which was a good hundred miles north of the Gray Loon.The first week in November he turned south again, following the CanoeRiver for a distance, and then swinging westward along a twisting creekcalled The Little Black Bear with No Tail.
More than once during these weeks Baree came into touch with man, but,with the exception of the Cree hunter at the upper end of WollastonLake, no man had seen him. Three times in following the Geikie he laycrouched in the brush while canoes passed. Half a dozen times, in thestillness of night, he nosed about cabins and tepees in which there waslife, and once he came so near to the Hudson's Bay Company post atWollaston that he could hear the barking of dogs and the shouting oftheir masters.
And always he was seeking--questing for the thing that had gone out ofhis life. At the thresholds of the cabins he sniffed; outside of thetepees he circled close, gathering the wind. The canoes he watched witheyes in which there was a hopeful gleam. Once he thought the windbrought him the scent of Nepeese, and all at once his legs grew weakunder his body and his heart seemed to stop beating. It was only for amoment or two. She came out of the tepee--an Indian girl with her handsfull of willow work--and Baree slunk away unseen.
It was almost December when Lerue, a half-breed from Lac Bain, sawBaree's footprints in freshly fallen snow, and a little later caught aflash of him in the bush.
"Mon Dieu, I tell you his feet are as big as my hand, and he is asblack as a raven's wing with the sun on it!" he exclaimed in thecompany's store at Lac Bain. "A fox? Non! He is half as big as a bear.A wolf--oui! And black as the devil, m'sieus."
McTaggart was one of those who heard. He was putting his signature inink to a letter he had written to the company when Lerue's words cameto him. His hand stopped so suddenly that a drop of ink spattered onthe letter. Through him there ran a curious shiver as he looked over atthe half-breed. Just then Marie came in. McTaggart had brought her backfrom her tribe. Her big, dark eyes had a sick look in them, and some ofher wild beauty had gone since a year ago.
"He was gone like--that!" Lerue was saying, with a snap of his fingers.He saw Marie, and stopped.
"Black, you say?" McTaggart said carelessly, without lifting his eyesfrom his writing. "Did he not bear some dog mark?"
Lerue shrugged his shoulders.
"He was gone like the wind, m'sieu. But he was a wolf."
With scarcely a sound that the others could hear Marie had whisperedinto the factor's ear, and folding his letter McTaggart rose quickl
yand left the store. He was gone an hour. Lerue and the others werepuzzled. It was not often that Marie came into the store. It was notoften that they saw her at all. She remained hidden in the factor's loghouse, and each time that he saw her Lerue thought that her face was alittle thinner than the last, and her eyes bigger and hungrier looking.In his own heart there was a great yearning.
Many a night he passed the little window beyond which he knew that shewas sleeping. Often he looked to catch a glimpse of her pale face, andhe lived in the one happiness of knowing that Marie understood, andthat into her eyes there came for an instant a different light whentheir glances met. No one else knew. The secret lay between them--andpatiently Lerue waited and watched. "Some day," he kept saying tohimself--"Some day"--and that was all. The one word carried a world ofmeaning and of hope. When that day came he would take Marie straight tothe missioner over at Fort Churchill, and they would be married. It wasa dream--a dream that made the long days and the longer nights on thetrap line patiently endured. Now they were both slaves to theenvironing Power. But--some day--
Lerue was thinking of this when McTaggart returned at the end of thehour. The factor came straight up to where the half dozen of them wereseated about the big box stove, and with a grunt of satisfaction shookthe freshly fallen snow from his shoulders.
"Pierre Eustach has accepted the Government's offer and is going toguide that map-making party up into the Barrens this winter," heannounced. "You know, Lerue--he has a hundred and fifty traps anddeadfalls set, and a big poison-bait country. A good line, eh? And Ihave leased it of him for the season. It will give me the outdoor workI need--three days on the trail, three days here. Eh, what do you sayto the bargain?"
"It is good," said Lerue.
"Yes, it is good," said Roget.
"A wide fox country," said Mons Roule.
"And easy to travel," murmured Valence in a voice that was almost likea woman's.