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Page 35
The babiche string tightened about Baree's neck as she urged him to
follow. It was like another rabbit snare, and he braced his forefeet
and bared his fangs just a little. The Willow did not pull. Fearlessly
she put her hand on his head again. From the direction of the cabin
came a shout, and at the sound of it she took Baree up under her arm
once more.
"Bete noir--bete noir!" she called back tauntingly, but only loud
enough to be heard a few yards away. "Go back to Lac Bain--owases--you
wild beast!"
Nepeese began to make her way swiftly through the forest. It grew
deeper and darker, and there were no trails. Three times in the next
half-hour she stopped to put Baree down and rest her arm. Each time she
pleaded with him coaxingly to follow her. The second and third times
Baree wriggled and wagged his tail, but beyond those demonstrations of
his satisfaction with the turn his affairs had taken he would not go.
When the string tightened around his neck, he braced himself; once he
growled--again he snapped viciously at the babiche. So Nepeese
continued to carry him.
They came at last into a clearing. It was a tiny meadow in the heart of
the forest, not more than three or four times as big as the cabin.
Underfoot the grass was soft and green, and thickly strewn with
flowers. Straight through the heart of this little oasis trickled a
streamlet across which the Willow jumped with Baree under her arm, and
on the edge of the rill was a small wigwam made of freshly cut spruce
and balsam boughs. Into her diminutive mekewap the Willow thrust her
head to see that things were as she had left them yesterday. Then, with
a long breath of relief, she put down her four-legged burden and
fastened the end of the babiche to one of the cut spruce limbs.
Baree burrowed himself back into the wall of the wigwam, and with head
alert--and eyes wide open--watched his companion attentively. Not a
movement of the Willow escaped him. She was radiant--and happy. Her
laugh, sweet and wild as a bird's trill, set Baree's heart throbbing
with a desire to jump about with her among the flowers.
For a time Nepeese seemed to forget Baree. Her wild blood raced with
the joy of her triumph over the factor from Lac Bain. She saw him
again, floundering about in the pool--pictured him at the cabin now,
soaked and angry, demanding of mon pere where she had gone. And mon
pere, with a shrug of his shoulders, was telling him that he didn't
know--that probably she had run off into the forest. It did not enter
into her head that in tricking Bush McTaggart in that way she was
playing with dynamite. She did not foresee the peril that in an instant
would have stamped the wild flush from her face and curdled the blood
in her veins--she did not guess that McTaggart had become for her a
deadlier menace than ever.
Nepeese knew that he must be angry. But what had she to fear? Mon pere
would be angry, too, if she told him what had happened at the edge of
the chasm. But she would not tell him. He might kill the man from Lac
Bain. A factor was great. But Pierrot, her father, was greater. It was
an unlimited faith in her, born of her mother. Perhaps even now Pierrot
was sending him back to Lac Bain, telling him that his business was
there. But she would not return to the cabin to see. She would wait
here. Mon pere would understand--and he knew where to find her when the
man was gone. But it would have been such fun to throw sticks at him as
he went!
After a little Nepeese returned to Baree. She brought him water and
gave him a piece of raw fish. For hours they were alone, and with each
hour there grew stronger in Baree the desire to follow the girl in
every movement she made, to crawl close to her when she sat down, to
feel the touch of her dress, of her hand--and to hear her voice. But he
did not show this desire. He was still a little savage of the
forests--a four-footed barbarian born half of a wolf and half of a dog;
and he lay still. With Umisk he would have played. With Oohoomisew he
would have fought. At Bush McTaggart he would have bared his fangs, and
buried them deep when the chance came. But the girl was different. Like
the Kazan of old, he had begun to worship. If the Willow had freed
Baree, he would not have run away. If she had left him, he would
possibly have followed her--at a distance. His eyes were never away
from her. He watched her build a small fire and cook a piece of the
fish. He watched her eat her dinner.
It was quite late in the afternoon when she came and sat down close to
him, with her lap full of flowers which she twined in the long, shining
braids of her hair. Then, playfully, she began beating Baree with the
end of one of these braids. He shrank under the soft blows, and with
that low, birdlike laughter in her throat, Nepeese drew his head into
her lap where the scatter of flowers lay. She talked to him. Her hand
stroked his head. Then it remained still, so near that he wanted to
thrust out his warm red tongue and caress it. He breathed in the
flower-scented perfume of it--and lay as if dead. It was a glorious
moment. Nepeese, looking down on him, could not see that he was
breathing.
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