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Bruce and Metoosin were away from camp all of that day, spying over the range to the westward, and Langdon was left to doctor a knee which he had battered against a rock the previous day. He spent most of his time in company with Muskwa.
Scarcely were the words out of Langdon's mouth when a sudden rattle of hobble-chains and the startled snort of a grazing horse out in the meadow brought them both to their feet. "Utim!" whispered Metoosin, his dark face aglow in the firelight. "You're right the dogs," said Bruce, and he whistled softly.
A moment later Philip knew that it was Adare who had passed his door. He dressed and shaved himself before he left his room. He found Adare in his study. Metoosin already had a fire burning, and Adare was standing before this alone, when Philip entered. Something was lacking in Adare's greeting this morning. There was an uneasy, searching look in his eyes as he looked at Philip.
This was just about his nursing hour before going to sleep for the night, for he was a March cub, and, according to the most approved mother-bear regulations, should have had milk for another month. He was what Metoosin, the Indian, would have called munookow that is, he was very soft. Being a bear, his birth had not been like that of other animals.
Once I was lost in a storm. Father turned the dogs loose. And they found me miles and miles away. When you hear the wonderful stories I have to tell about them you will love them. They will not harm you. They will harm nothing that I have touched. I have taught them that. I am going to unleash them now. Metoosin is coming along the trail with their frozen fish."
It was a long, low building of logs, and was always open with its accommodations to the Indians and half-breeds men, women, and children who came in from the forest trails. Renault and the Indian were helping Metoosin build fires when they entered. Philip thought that Renault's eyes rested upon him in a curious and searching glance even as Adare shook hands with him.
It was impossible to conceive of him walking into a trap. So he determined to wait, at least until that night. It was almost noon when Adare sent word by Metoosin asking Philip to rejoin him in the big room. A little later Josephine and her mother came in. Again Philip noticed that in the face of Adare's wife was that strange look which he had first observed in her room.
He tucked Josephine among the furs, cracked the long whip Metoosin had given him, and they were off, with Miriam and her husband waving their hands from the door of Adare House. They had scarcely passed out of view in the forest when with a sudden sharp command Josephine stopped the dogs. She sprang out of her furs and stood laughingly beside Philip. "Father always insists that I ride.
Metoosin, with that little treasure of food from the Post, did not know that he was poor, or that through many long years he had been slowly starving. He was rich! He was a great trapper!
They leaned forward, their ears turned to the south, and faintly there came to them the distant, thrilling tongue of the Airedales! Metoosin had come, and he was seeking them in the valley! Thor was on what the Indians call a pimootao.
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