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And Pierre was glad that she was too tired to sit beside the fire and talk. And yet Kazan's alert eyes saw Pierre start suddenly. He rose from his seat on the sledge and went to the tent. He drew back the flap and thrust in his head and shoulders. "Asleep, Joan?" he asked. "Almost, father. Won't you please come soon?" "After I smoke," he said. "Are you comfortable?"
The big Dane he fastened to a sapling twenty yards from his small silk tent, but Kazan's chain he made fast to the butt of a stunted birch that held down the tent-flap. Before he went into the tent for the night McGill pulled out his automatic and examined it with care. For three days the journey continued without a mishap along the shore of Lake Athabasca.
Something rose up in Jan's throat and choked him, and he closed his eyes, with his fingers clutching Kazan's head. In spite of the battle that he had fought, his mind swept back back through the endless silent spaces, over mountains and through forests, swift, resistless, until once more the polar star flashed in all its glory over his head, and he was at Lac Bain.
Instinct told the fisher-cat what was coming, and it crouched low and flat; the porcupines, scolding like little children at the presence of enemies and the thickening clouds of smoke, thrust their quills still more erect. The lynx lay on its belly, like a cat, its hindquarters twitching, and gathered for the spring. Kazan's feet seemed scarcely to touch the sand as he circled lightly around it.
He became the pivot of Kazan's wider circle now, and he limped as he turned. His shoulder was broken. His ears were flattened as he watched Kazan. Kazan's ears were erect, and his feet touched the snow lightly. All his fighting cleverness and all his caution had returned to him. The blind rage of a few moments was gone and he fought now as he had fought his deadliest enemy, the long-clawed lynx.
Still more clearly came the wild voice of the carnival, and no longer to be held back by Kazan's leadership, the four huskies dropped their heads and slunk like shadows in its direction. Kazan hesitated, urging Gray Wolf. But not a muscle of Gray Wolf's body moved. She would have followed him in face of fire but not in face of man. Not a sound escaped her ears.
It was this miracle that he achieved, with Joan's arm resting on Kazan's shaggy neck as she held one end of the blanket. They laid him down close to the fire, and after a little it was the man again who brought warm water and washed away the blood from the torn leg, and then put something on it that was soft and warm and soothing, and finally bound a cloth about it.
Out of the darkness two yards away came a soft, puppyish whine, and the caressing sound of Kazan's tongue. Baree had felt the thrill of his first great adventure. He had discovered his father. This all happened in the third week of Baree's life. He was just eighteen days old when Gray Wolf allowed Kazan to make the acquaintance of his son.
In a gray streak that traveled with the speed of a bullet he was at the big husky's throat. When they pulled him off, the husky was dead. Joan thought of that now, as the baby kicked and tousled Kazan's head. "Good old Kazan," she cried softly, putting her face down close to him.
With a wolfish snarl the old one-eyed sledge-dog sprang upon Blake, and the three fell with a crash upon Pelliter's bunk. For an instant Kazan's attack drew one of Blake's powerful hands from Pelliter's throat, and as he turned to strike off the dog Pelliter's hand groped out under his flattened pillow.
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