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Page 41
But at the cabin there was much to do, for Pierrot, like all his
Northern brotherhood, did not begin to prepare until the keen tang of
autumn was in the air. There were snowshoes to be rewebbed with new
babiche; there was wood to be cut in readiness for the winter storms.
The cabin had to be banked, a new harness made, skinning knives
sharpened and winter moccasins to be manufactured --a hundred and one
affairs to be attended to, even to the repairing of the meat rack at
the back of the cabin, where, from the beginning of cold weather until
the end, would hang the haunches of deer, caribou, and moose for the
family larder and, when fish were scarce, the dogs' rations.
In the bustle of all these preparations Nepeese was compelled to give
less attention to Baree than she had during the preceding weeks. They
did not play so much; they no longer swam, for with the mornings there
was deep frost on the ground, and the water was turning icy cold. They
no longer wandered deep in the forest after flowers and berries. For
hours at a time Baree would now lie at the Willow's feet, watching her
slender fingers as they weaved swiftly in and out with her snowshoe
babiche. And now and then Nepeese would pause to lean over and put her
hand on his head, and talk to him for a moment--sometimes in her soft
Cree, sometimes in English or her father's French.
It was the Willow's voice which Baree had learned to understand, and
the movement of her lips, her gestures, the poise of her body, the
changing moods which brought shadow or sunlight into her face. He knew
what it meant when she smiled. He would shake himself, and often jump
about her in sympathetic rejoicing, when she laughed. Her happiness was
such a part of him that a stern word from her was worse than a blow.
Twice Pierrot had struck him, and twice Baree had leaped back and faced
him with bared fangs and an angry snarl, the crest along his back
standing up like a brush. Had one of the other dogs done this, Pierrot
would have half-killed him. It would have been mutiny, and the man must
be master. But Baree was always safe. A touch of the Willow's hand, a
word from her lips, and the crest slowly settled and the snarl went out
of his throat.
Pierrot was not at all displeased.
"Dieu. I will never go so far as to try and whip that out of him," he
told himself. "He is a barbarian--a wild beast--and her slave. For her
he would kill!"
So it turned out, through Pierrot himself--and without telling his
reason for it--that Baree did not become a sledge dog. He was allowed
his freedom, and was never tied, like the others. Nepeese was glad, but
did not guess the thought that was in Pierrot's mind. To himself
Pierrot chuckled. She would never know why he kept Baree always
suspicious of him, even to the point of hating him.
It required considerable skill and cunning on his part. With himself he
reasoned:
"If I make him hate me, he will hate all men. Mey-oo! That is good."
So he looked into the future--for Nepeese.
Now the tonic-filled days and cold, frosty nights of the Red Moon
brought about the big change in Baree. It was inevitable. Pierrot knew
that it would come, and the first night that Baree settled back on his
haunches and howled up at the Red Moon, Pierrot prepared Nepeese for it.
"He is a wild dog, ma Nepeese," he said to her. "He is half wolf, and
the Call will come to him strong. He will go into the forests. He will
disappear at times. But we must not fasten him. He will come back. Ka,
he will come back!" And he rubbed his hands in the moonglow until his
knuckles cracked.
The Call came to Baree like a thief entering slowly and cautiously into
a forbidden place. He did not understand it at first. It made him
nervous and uneasy, so restless that Nepeese frequently heard him whine
softly in his sleep. He was waiting for something. What was it? Pierrot
knew, and smiled in his inscrutable way.
And then it came. It was night, a glorious night filled with moon and
stars, under which the earth was whitening with a film of frost, when
they heard the first hunt call of the wolves. Now and then during the
summer there had come the lone wolf howl, but this was the tonguing of
the pack; and as it floated through the vast silence and mystery of the
night, a song of savagery that had come with each Red Moon down through
unending ages, Pierrot knew that at last had come that for which Baree
had been waiting.
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