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Page 10
Where she fell was not ten feet from Baree. For a few moments he looked
at the struggling mass of feathers in a daze, not quite comprehending
that at last food was almost within his reach. Napanao was dying, but
she still struggled convulsively with her wings. Baree rose stealthily,
and after a moment in which he gathered all his remaining strength, he
made a rush for her. His teeth sank into her breast--and not until then
did he see Sekoosew. The ermine had raised his head from the death grip
at the partridge's throat, and his savage little red eyes glared for a
single instant into Baree's. Here was something too big to kill, and
with an angry squeak the ermine was gone. Napanao's wings relaxed, and
the throb went out of her body. She was dead. Baree hung on until he
was sure. Then he began his feast.
With murder in his heart, Sekoosew hovered near, whisking here and
there but never coming nearer than half a dozen feet from Baree. His
eyes were redder than ever. Now and then he emitted a sharp little
squeak of rage. Never had he been so angry in all his life! To have a
fat partridge stolen from him like this was an imposition he had never
suffered before. He wanted to dart in and fasten his teeth in Baree's
jugular. But he was too good a general to make the attempt, too good a
Napoleon to jump deliberately to his Waterloo. An owl he would have
fought. He might even have given battle to his big brother--and his
deadliest enemy--the mink. But in Baree he recognized the wolf breed,
and he vented his spite at a distance. After a time his good sense
returned, and he went off on another hunt.
Baree ate a third of the partridge, and the remaining two thirds he
cached very carefully at the foot of the big spruce. Then he hurried
down to the creek for a drink. The world looked very different to him
now. After all, one's capacity for happiness depends largely on how
deeply one has suffered. One's hard luck and misfortune form the
measuring stick for future good luck and fortune. So it was with Baree.
Forty-eight hours ago a full stomach would not have made him a tenth
part as happy as he was now. Then his greatest longing was for his
mother. Since then a still greater yearning had come into his life--for
food. In a way it was fortunate for him that he had almost died of
exhaustion and starvation, for his experience had helped to make a man
of him--or a wolf dog, just as you are of a mind to put it. He would
miss his mother for a long time. But he would never miss her again as
he had missed her yesterday and the day before.
That afternoon Baree took a long nap close to his cache. Then he
uncovered the partridge and ate his supper. When his fourth night alone
came, he did not hide himself as he had done on the three preceding
nights. He was strangely and curiously alert. Under the moon and the
stars he prowled in the edge of the forest and out on the burn. He
listened with a new kind of thrill to the faraway cry of a wolf pack on
the hunt. He listened to the ghostly whoo-whoo-whoo of the owls without
shivering. Sounds and silences were beginning to hold a new and
significant note for him.
For another day and night Baree remained in the vicinity of his cache.
When the last bone was picked, he moved on. He now entered a country
where subsistence was no longer a perilous problem for him. It was a
lynx country, and where there are lynx, there are also a great many
rabbits. When the rabbits thin out, the lynx emigrate to better hunting
grounds. As the snowshoe rabbit breeds all the summer through, Baree
found himself in a land of plenty. It was not difficult for him to
catch and kill the young rabbits. For a week he prospered and grew
bigger and stronger each day. But all the time, stirred by that
seeking, wanderlust spirit--still hoping to find the old home and his
mother--he traveled into the north and east.
And this was straight into the trapping country of Pierrot, the
half-breed.
Pierrot, until two years ago, had believed himself to be one of the
most fortunate men in the big wilderness. That was before La Mort
Rouge--the Red Death--came. He was half French, and he had married a
Cree chief's daughter, and in their log cabin on the Gray Loon they had
lived for many years in great prosperity and happiness. Pierrot was
proud of three things in this wild world of his. He was immensely proud
of Wyola, his royal-blooded wife. He was proud of his daughter; and he
was proud of his reputation as a hunter. Until the Red Death came, life
was quite complete for him. It was then--two years ago--that the
smallpox killed his princess wife. He still lived in the little cabin
on the Gray Loon, but he was a different Pierrot. The heart was sick in
him. It would have died, had it not been for Nepeese, his daughter. His
wife had named her Nepeese, which means the Willow.
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