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Baree did not add two and two together to make four. He did not go back step by step to prove to himself that the man to whom this trap line belonged was the cause of all hit, griefs and troubles but he DID find himself possessed of a deep and yearning hatred. McTaggart was the one creature except the wolves that he had ever hated.
They would be playing together again soon, as they had played yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and in his joy he barked up into Carvel's face, and urged him to greater speed. Then they came to the clearing, and once more Baree stood like a rock. Carvel saw the charred ruins of the burned cabin, and a moment later the two graves under the tall spruce.
Beside the smoldering coals of his fire he sat with his back to a tree, smoking his black pipe and dreaming covetously of Nepeese, while Baree continued his night wandering. Baree no longer had the desire to hunt. He was too full. But he nosed in and out of the starlit spaces, enjoying immensely the stillness and the golden glow of the night.
And Kazan, too, was curious. He sniffed. In the gloom his ears were alert. After a little Baree began to move. An inch at a time he dragged himself away from Gray Wolf's side. Every muscle in her lithe body tensed. Again her wolf blood was warning her. There was danger for Baree. Her lips drew back, baring her fangs. Her throat trembled, but the note in it never came.
And Oohoomisew, the old owl, might have said to Papayuchisew: "You little fool use your wings and fly!" They did neither and the fight began. Papayuchisew started it, and with a single wild yelp Baree went back in a heap, the owlet's beak fastened like a red-hot vise in the soft flesh at the end of his nose. That one yelp of surprise and pain was Baree's first and last cry in the fight.
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 came of a fighting family, this little Papayuchisew a savage, fearless, and killing family and even Kazan would have taken note of those ruffling feathers. With a space of two feet between them, the pup and the owlet eyed each other. In that moment, if Gray Wolf could have been there, she might have said to Baree: "Use your legs and run!"
Then he lumbered slowly away in the direction of the rumbling waterfall. Twenty seconds after the last of Wakayoo had disappeared in a turn of the creek, Baree was under the broken balsam. He dragged out a fish that was still alive. He ate the whole of it, and it tasted delicious.
In him a strange and growing force was struggling to solve a great mystery the reason for his desire to creep out from under his rock and approach that wonderful creature with the shining eyes and the beautiful hair. Baree wanted to approach. It was like an invisible string tugging at his very heart.
The owl's first rush keeled Baree over, and for a moment he was smothered under the huge, outspread wings, while Oohoomisew pinioning him down hopped for a claw hold with his one good foot, and struck fiercely with his beak.
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