CHAPTER 26
By the middle of January the war between Baree and Bush McTaggart hadbecome more than an incident--more than a passing adventure to thebeast, and more than an irritating happening to the man. It was, forthe time, the elemental raison d'etre of their lives. Baree hung to thetrap line. He haunted it like a devastating specter, and each time thathe sniffed afresh the scent of the factor from Lac Bain he wasimpressed still more strongly with the instinct that he was avenginghimself upon a deadly enemy. Again and again he outwitted McTaggart. Hecontinued to strip his traps of their bait and the humor grew in himmore strongly to destroy the fur he came across. His greatest pleasurecame to be--not in eating--but in destroying.
The fires of his hatred burned fiercer as the weeks passed, until atlast he would snap and tear with his long fangs at the snow whereMcTaggart's feet had passed. And all of the time, away back of hismadness, there was a vision of Nepeese that continued to grow more andmore clearly in his brain. That first Great Loneliness--the lonelinessof the long days and longer nights of his waiting and seeking on theGray Loon, oppressed him again as it had oppressed him in the earlydays of her disappearance. On starry or moonlit nights he sent forthhis wailing cries for her again, and Bush McTaggart, listening to themin the middle of the night, felt strange shivers run up his spine. Theman's hatred was different than the beast's, but perhaps even moreimplacable. With McTaggart it was not hatred alone. There was mixedwith it an indefinable and superstitious fear, a thing he laughed at, athing he cursed at, but which clung to him as surely as the scent ofhis trail clung to Baree's nose. Baree no longer stood for the animalalone; HE STOOD FOR NEPEESE. That was the thought that insisted ingrowing in McTaggart's ugly mind. Never a day passed now that he didnot think of the Willow; never a night came and went without avisioning of her face.
He even fancied, on a certain night of storm, that he heard her voiceout in the wailing of the wind--and less than a minute later he heardfaintly a distant howl out in the forest. That night his heart wasfilled with a leaden dread. He shook himself. He smoked his pipe untilthe cabin was blue. He cursed Baree, and the storm--but there was nolonger in him the bullying courage of old. He had not ceased to hateBaree; he still hated him as he had never hated a man, but he had aneven greater reason now for wanting to kill him. It came to him firstin his sleep, in a restless dream, and after that it lived, andlived--THE THOUGHT THAT THE SPIRIT OF NEPEESE WAS GUIDING BAREE IN THERAVAGING OF HIS TRAP LINE!
After a time he ceased to talk at the Post about the Black Wolf thatwas robbing his line. The furs damaged by Baree's teeth he kept out ofsight, and to himself he kept his secret. He learned every trick andscheme of the hunters who killed foxes and wolves along the Barrens. Hetried three different poisons, one so powerful that a single drop of itmeant death. He tried strychnine in gelatin capsules, in deer fat,caribou fat, moose liver, and even in the flesh of porcupine. At last,in preparing his poisons, he dipped his hands in beaver oil before hehandled the venoms and flesh so that there could be no human smell.Foxes, wolves, and even the mink and ermine died of these baits, butBaree came always so near--and no nearer. In January McTaggart poisonedevery bait in his trap houses. This produced at least one good resultfor him. From that day Baree no longer touched his baits, but ate onlythe rabbits he killed in the traps.
It was in January that McTaggart caught his first glimpse of Baree. Hehad placed his rifle against a tree, and was a dozen feet away from itat the time. It was as if Baree knew, and had come to taunt him. Forwhen the factor suddenly looked up Baree was standing out clear fromthe dwarf spruce not twenty yards away from him, his white fangsgleaming and his eyes burning like coals. For a space McTaggart staredas if turned into stone. It was Baree. He recognized the white star,the white-tipped ear, and his heart thumped like a hammer in hisbreast. Very slowly he began to creep toward his rifle. His hand wasreaching for it when like a flash Baree was gone.
This gave McTaggart his new idea. He blazed himself a fresh trailthrough the forests parallel with his trap line but at least fivehundred yards distant from it. Wherever a trap or deadfall was set thisnew trail struck sharply in, like the point of a V, so that he couldapproach his line unobserved. By this strategy he believed that in timehe was sure of getting a shot at the dog.
Again it was the man who was reasoning, and again it was the man whowas defeated. The first day that McTaggart followed his new trail Bareealso struck that trail. For a little while it puzzled him. Three timeshe cut back and forth between the old and the new trail. Then there wasno doubt. The new trail was the FRESH trail, and he followed in thefootsteps of the factor from Lac Bain. McTaggart did not know what washappening until his return trip, when he saw the story told in thesnow. Baree had visited each trap, and without exception he hadapproached each time at the point of the inverted V. After a week offutile hunting, of lying in wait, of approaching at every point of thewind--a period during which McTaggart had twenty times cursed himselfinto fits of madness, another idea came to him. It was like aninspiration, and so simple that it seemed almost inconceivable that hehad not thought of it before.
He hurried back to Post Lac Bain.
The second day after he was on the trail at dawn. This time he carrieda pack in which there were a dozen strong wolf traps freshly dipped inbeaver oil, and a rabbit which he had snared the previous night. Nowand then he looked anxiously at the sky. It was clear until late in theafternoon, when banks of dark clouds began rolling up from the east.Half an hour later a few flakes of snow began falling. McTaggart letone of these drop on the back of his mittened hand, and examined itclosely. It was soft and downy, and he gave vent to his satisfaction.It was what he wanted. Before morning there would be six inches offreshly fallen snow covering the trails.
He stopped at the next trap house and quickly set to work. First hethrew away the poisoned bait in the "house" and replaced it with therabbit. Then he began setting his wolf traps. Three of these he placedclose to the "door" of the house, through which Baree would have toreach for the bait. The remaining nine he scattered at intervals of afoot or sixteen inches apart, so that when he was done a veritablecordon of traps guarded the house. He did not fasten the chains, butlet them lay loose in the snow. If Baree got into one trap he would getinto others and there would be no use of toggles. His work done,McTaggart hurried on through the thickening twilight of winter night tohis shack. He was highly elated. This time there could be no such thingas failure. He had sprung every trap on his way from Lac Bain. In noneof those traps would Baree find anything to eat until he came to the"nest" of twelve wolf traps.
Seven inches of snow fell that night, and the whole world seemed turnedinto a wonderful white robe. Like billows of feathers the snow clung tothe trees and shrubs. It gave tall white caps to the rocks, andunderfoot it was so light that a cartridge dropped from the hand sankout of sight. Baree was on the trap line early. He was more cautiousthis morning, for there was no longer the scent or snowshoe track ofMcTaggart to guide him. He struck the first trap about halfway betweenLac Bain and the shack in which the factor was waiting. It was sprung,and there was no bait. Trap after trap he visited, and all of them hefound sprung, and all without bait. He sniffed the air suspiciously,striving vainly to catch the tang of smoke, a whiff of the man smell.
Along toward noon he came to the "nest"--the twelve treacherous trapswaiting for him with gaping jaws half a foot under the blanket of snow.For a full minute he stood well outside the danger line, sniffing theair, and listening. He saw the rabbit, and his jaws closed with ahungry click. He moved a step nearer. Still he was suspicious--for somestrange and inexplicable reason he sensed danger. Anxiously he soughtfor it with his nose, his eyes, and his ears. And all about him therewas a great silence and a great peace. His jaws clicked again. Hewhined softly. What was it stirring him? Where was the danger he couldneither see nor smell? Slowly he circled about the trap house. Threetimes he circled round it, each circle drawing him a littlenearer--until at last his feet almost touched the outer co
rdon oftraps. Another minute he stood still; his ears flattened; in spite ofthe rich aroma of the rabbit in his nostrils SOMETHING WAS DRAWING HIMAWAY. In another moment he would have gone, but there camesuddenly--and from directly behind the trap house--a fierce littleratlike squeak, and the next instant Baree saw an ermine whiter thanthe snow tearing hungrily at the flesh of the rabbit. He forgot hisstrange premonition of danger. He growled fiercely, but his pluckylittle rival did not budge from his feast. And then he sprang straightinto the "nest" that Bush McTaggart had made for him.