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Page 20
Baree darted to one side and ran for the open meadow. Wakayoo did not
stir as Baree sped past him--no more than if he had been a bird or a
rabbit. Then came another breath of air, heavy with the scent of man.
This, at last, put life into him. He turned and began lumbering after
Baree into the meadow trap. Baree, looking back, saw him coming--and
thought it was pursuit. Nepeese and Pierrot came over the slope, and at
the same instant they saw both Wakayoo and Baree.
Where they entered into the grassy dip under the rock walls, Baree
turned sharply to the right. Here was a great boulder, one end of it
tilted up off the earth. It looked like a splendid hiding place, and
Baree crawled under it.
But Wakayoo kept straight ahead into the meadow.
From where he lay Baree could see what happened. Scarcely had he
crawled under the rock when Nepeese and Pierrot appeared through the
break in the dip, and stopped. The fact that they stopped thrilled
Baree. They were afraid of Wakayoo! The big bear was two thirds of the
way across the meadow. The sun fell on him, so that his coat shone like
black satin. Pierrot stared at him for a moment. Pierrot did not kill
for the love of killing. Necessity made him a conservationist. But he
saw that in spite of the lateness of the season, Wakayoo's coat was
splendid--and he raised his rifle.
Baree saw this action. He saw, a moment later, something spit from the
end of the gun, and then he heard that deafening crash that had come
with his own hurt, when the Willow's bullet had burned through his
flesh. He turned his eyes swiftly to Wakayoo. The big bear had
stumbled; he was on his knees. And then he struggled to his feet and
lumbered on.
The roar of the rifle came again, and a second time Wakayoo went down.
Pierrot could not miss at that distance. Wakayoo made a splendid mark.
It was slaughter. Yet for Pierrot and Nepeese it was business--the
business of life.
Baree was shivering. It was more from excitement than fear, for he had
lost his own fear in the tragedy of these moments. A low whine rose in
his throat as he looked at Wakayoo, who had risen again and faced his
enemies--his jaws gaping, his head swinging slowly, his legs weakening
under him as the blood poured through his torn lungs. Baree
whined--because Wakayoo had fished for him, because he had come to look
on him as a friend, and because he knew it was death that Wakayoo was
facing now. There was a third shot--the last. Wakayoo sank down in his
tracks. His big head dropped between his forepaws. A racking cough or
two came to Baree's ears. And then there was silence. It was
slaughter--but business.
A minute later, standing over Wakayoo, Pierrot said to Nepeese:
"Mon dieu, but it is a fine skin, Sakahet! It is worth twenty dollars
over at Lac Bain!"
He drew forth his knife and began whetting it on a stone which he
carried in his pocket. In these minutes Baree might have crawled out
from under his rock and escaped down the canyon; for a space he was
forgotten. Then Nepeese thought of him, and in that same strange,
wondering voice she spoke again the word "Baree." Pierrot, who was
kneeling, looked up at her.
"Oui, Sakahet. He was born of the wild. And now he is gone--"
The Willow shook her head.
"Non, he is not gone," she said, and her dark eyes searched the sunlit
meadow.
CHAPTER 8
As Nepeese gazed about the rock-walled end of the canyon, the prison
into which they had driven Wakayoo and Baree, Pierrot looked up again
from his skinning of the big black bear, and he muttered something that
no one but himself could have heard. "Non, it is not possible," he had
said a moment before; but to Nepeese it was possible--the thought that
was in her mind. It was a wonderful thought. It thrilled her to the
depth of her wild, young soul. It sent a glow into her eyes and a
deeper flush of excitement into her cheeks and lips.
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