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He was not interested in the bear, and Baree was not interested in the Indian boy; so when they came to the sand one followed the moccasin tracks and the other the claw tracks. They were not at any time more than ten feet apart. And then, all at once, they came together, and David saw that the bear had crossed the sand last and that his huge paws had obliterated a part of the moccasin trail.
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.
He also remembered the open clamshell he had found, and the lusciousness of the tender morsel inside it. A new excitement began to possess him. He became, all at once, a hunter. With the thinning out of the forest the creek grew more shallow. It ran again over bars of sand and stones, and Baree began to nose along the edge of the shallows. For a long time he had no success.
For the first two days he marked the dog's course by compass. It was due southeast. On the third morning Carvel purposely struck a course straight west. He noted quickly the change in Baree his restlessness at first, and after that the dejected manner in which he followed at his heels.
Nepeese gave a cry of joy. "Baree!" she whispered, taking his head in her hands. "Baree!" Her touch thrilled him. It sent little throbs through his body, a tremulous quivering which she could feel and which deepened the glow in her eyes. Gently her hand stroked his head and his back. It seemed to Nepeese that he did not breathe. Under the caress of her hand his eyes closed.
It fell unflinchingly on Baree's head, and in an instant the crunching of the dog's jaw had ceased, and he lay as if dead. David bent nearer. With the thumb and forefinger of his other hand he gently lifted the swollen lid. It caused a hurt. Baree whined softly. His great body trembled. His ivory fangs clicked like the teeth of a man with ague.
When he had done this several times, he cut straight up the pond to the largest of the three houses and disappeared. Five minutes after Beaver Tooth's exploit word was passing quickly among the colony. The stranger Baree was not a lynx. He was not a fox. He was not a wolf. Moreover, he was very young and harmless. Work could be resumed. Play could be resumed. There was no danger.
The old owl had no other claw to sink into him, and it was impossible caught as he was for him to tear at Baree with his beak. So he continued to beat that thunder of blows with his four-foot wings. The wings made a great tumult about Baree, but they did not hurt him. He buried his fangs deeper.
If Baree had been any one of these four, wily Beaver Tooth and his people would have known what to do. But Baree was surely not an otter, and if he was a fox or a wolf or a lynx, his actions were very strange, to say the least. Half a dozen times he had had the opportunity to pounce on his prey, if he had been seeking prey. But at no time had he shown the least desire to harm them.
Kazan had never brought in anything like this, and for a full half-minute he remained very quiet, eying it speculatively. Papayuchisew did not move a feather. But as Baree advanced, a cautious step at a time, the bird's eyes grew bigger and the feathers about his head ruffled up as if stirred by a puff of wind.
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