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Page 36
There came an interruption. It was the snapping of a dry stick. Through
the forest Pierrot had come with the stealth of a cat, and when they
looked up, he stood at the edge of the open. Baree knew that it was not
Bush McTaggart. But it was a man-beast! Instantly his body stiffened
under the Willow's hand. He drew back slowly and cautiously from her
lap, and as Pierrot advanced, Baree snarled. The next instant Nepeese
had risen and had run to Pierrot. The look in her father's face alarmed
her.
"What has happened, mon pere?" she cried.
Pierrot shrugged his shoulders.
"Nothing, ma Nepeese--except that you have roused a thousand devils in
the heart of the factor from Lac Barn, and that--"
He stopped as he saw Baree, and pointed at him.
"Last night when M'sieu the Factor caught him in a snare, he bit
m'sieu's hand. M'sieu's hand is swollen twice its size, and I can see
his blood turning black. It is pechipoo."
"Pechipoo!" gasped Nepeese.
She looked into Pierrot's eyes. They were dark, and filled with a
sinister gleam--a flash of exultation, she thought.
"Yes, it is the blood poison," said Pierrot. A gleam of cunning shot
into his eyes as he looked over his shoulder, and nodded. "I have
hidden the medicine--and told him there is no time to lose in getting
back to Lac Bain. And he is afraid--that devil! He is waiting. With
that blackening hand, he is afraid to start back alone--and so I go
with him. And--listen, ma Nepeese. We will be away by sundown, and
there is something you must know before I go."
Baree saw them there, close together in the shadows thrown by the tall
spruce trees. He heard the low murmur of their voices--chiefly of
Pierrot's, and at last he saw Nepeese put her two arms up around the
man-beast's neck, and then Pierrot went away again into the forest. He
thought that the Willow would never turn her face toward him after
that. For a long time she stood looking in the direction which Pierrot
had taken. And when after a time she turned and came back to Baree, she
did not look like the Nepeese who had been twining flowers in her hair.
The laughter was gone from her face and eyes. She knelt down beside him
and with sudden fierceness she cried:
"It is pechipoo, Baree! It was you--you--who put the poison in his
blood. And I hope he dies! For I am afraid--afraid!"
She shivered.
Perhaps it was in this moment that the Great Spirit of things meant
Baree to understand--that at last it was given him to comprehend that
his day had dawned, that the rising and the setting of his sun no
longer existed in the sky but in this girl whose hand rested on his
head. He whined softly, and inch by inch he dragged himself nearer to
her until again his head rested in the hollow of her lap.
CHAPTER 15
For a long time after Pierrot left them the Willow did not move from
the spot where she had seated herself beside Baree. It was at last the
deepening shadows and a low rumble in the sky that roused her from the
fear of the things Pierrot had told her. When she looked up, black
clouds were massing slowly over the open space above the spruce tops.
Darkness was falling. In the whisper of the wind and the dead stillness
of the thickening gloom there was the sullen brewing of storm. Tonight
there would be no glorious sunset. There would be no twilight hour in
which to follow the trail, no moon, no stars--and unless Pierrot and
the factor were already on their way, they would not start in the face
of the pitch blackness that would soon shroud the forest.
Nepeese shivered and rose to her feet. For the first time Baree got up,
and he stood close at her side. Above them a flash of lightning cut the
clouds like a knife of fire, followed in an instant by a terrific crash
of thunder. Baree shrank back as if struck a blow. He would have slunk
into the shelter of the brush wall of the wigwam, but there was
something about the Willow as he looked at her which gave him
confidence. The thunder crashed again. But he retreated no farther. His
eyes were fixed on Nepeese.
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