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He had never before known a dog that he could not make love him. To-day he placed the tallow and bran before Kazan, and the smile in his face gave way to a look of perplexity. Kazan's lips had drawn suddenly back. A fierce snarl rolled deep in his throat. The hair along his spine stood up. His muscles twitched. Instinctively the professor turned. Sandy McTrigger had come up quietly behind him.
"It's eighty miles straight north to the Churchill and I pray to God we'll get there with the kids before my lungs give out." He rose to his feet, and staggered a little as he walked. There was a collar about Kazan's neck, and he chained him to the sledge. After that he dragged three or four small logs upon the fire, and went quietly into the tent where Joan and the baby were already asleep.
He looked at the crackling flames, at the fitful shadows which they set dancing and grimacing about him, and it seemed to him now that they were no longer friends, but were taunting him gloating in Kazan's death, and telling him that he was alone, alone, alone.
Three times he fell back before he could stand up. Sandy was squatted six feet from him, holding the end of the babiche, and grinning. Kazan's fangs gleamed back. He growled, and the crest along his spine rose menacingly. Sandy jumped to his feet. "Guess I know what you're figgering on," he said. "I've had your kind before.
The water had now been turned into the depression that encircled the windfall, and in another week or two, if the beavers continued their work, Kazan's and Gray Wolf's home would be nothing more than a small island in the center of a wide area of submerged swamp. Kazan hunted only for food now, and not for pleasure.
Then, still holding the babiche thong, she drew Kazan up close to her, so that he lay with his weight against her. The sun fell warmly on Kazan's back as they shoved off, and he closed his eyes, and rested his head on Joan's lap. Her hand fell softly on his shoulder.
Vainly she sought for one last scent of Kazan. The club was washed clean. Again the sand was white where Kazan's blood had reddened it. Even under the tree there was no sign of him left. Until now only the terror of being alone in the pit of darkness that enveloped her had oppressed Gray Wolf. With afternoon came hunger.
And when Kazan went away, leaving them alone in darkness, Baree whimpered for him to come back, just as he had cried for his mother when now and then she had left him in response to her mate's call. The sun was straight above the forest when, an hour or two after Kazan's visit, Gray Wolf slipped away.
Every instinct that was in her warned her that he was the most dangerous of all things, more to be feared than the strongest beasts, the storms, the floods, cold and starvation. And yet this man had not harmed her mate. She sniffed at Kazan's back and head, where the mittened hand had touched.
It became a curious habit of Kazan's always to look at Gray Wolf when they stopped to listen, or to scent the air. After the fight on the Sun Rock, Kazan had taken his blind mate to a thick clump of spruce and balsam in the river-bottom, where they remained until early summer. Every day for weeks Kazan went to the cabin where Joan and the baby and the man had been.
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