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Updated: April 30, 2025
And now, for the first time in many weeks, a bit of the old-time eagerness put speed into Baree's feet. Memories that had been hazy and indistinct through forgetfulness were becoming realities again, and as he would have returned to the Gray Loon had Nepeese been there so now, with something of the feeling of a wanderer going home, he returned to the old beaver pond.
He saw how utterly the other was at his mercy, and with an exultant laugh he leaned his rifle against a tree, pulled oft his mittens, and began loading his pipe. This was the triumph he had looked forward to, the torture he had waited for. In his soul there was a hatred as deadly as Baree's, the hatred that a man might have for a man. He had expected to send a bullet through the dog.
At this critical point, when the understanding of defeat was forming itself swiftly in Baree's mind, chance saved him. His fangs closed on one of the owlet's tender feet. Papayuchisew gave a sudden squeak. The ear was free at last and with a snarl of triumph Baree gave a vicious tug at Papayuchisew's leg.
It was a comparatively fresh "burn" of last autumn, and the ash was still soft under Baree's feet. Straight through this black region ran the creek, and over it hung a blue sky in which the sun was shining. It was quite inviting to Baree. The fox, the wolf, the moose, and the caribou would have turned back from the edge of this dead country.
He would have staked his very soul wagered his hopes of paradise against a babiche thread that what he saw could never have happened between Baree and man. In utter amazement he lowered his gun. David, looking down, was smiling into that one, wide-open, bloodshot eye of Baree's, his hand reaching out.
The last of the sun faded out of the sky as he stood there. Darker shadows crept over the pond. He looked into the forest, where night was gathering and with another whining cry he slunk back into it. He had not found friendship. He had not found comradeship. And his heart was very sad. For two or three days Baree's excursions after food took him farther and farther away from the pond.
Those eyes full of dancing witches! How he would take pleasure in taming them very soon now! He followed Pierrot outside. In his exultation he no longer felt the smart of Baree's teeth. "I will show you my new cariole that I have made for winter, m'sieu," said Pierrot as the door closed behind them. Half an hour later Nepeese came out of the cabin.
Perhaps it was a harkening back to the days of long ago when Gray Wolf, in her first motherhood, sought refuge at the summit of the Sun Rock which towered high above the forest world of which she and Kazan were a part, and where later she was blinded in her battle with the lynx. Baree's rock, instead of rising for a hundred feet or more straight up, was possibly as high as a man's head.
Today he had found her. And in answer to his whine there came a sobbing cry straight out of the heart of the Willow. Carvel found them there a few minutes later, the dog's head hugged close up against the Willow's breast, and the Willow was crying crying like a little child, her face hidden from him on Baree's neck.
To have a fat partridge stolen from him like this was an imposition he had never suffered before. He wanted to dart in and fasten his teeth in Baree's jugular. But he was too good a general to make the attempt, too good a Napoleon to jump deliberately to his Waterloo. An owl he would have fought. He might even have given battle to his big brother and his deadliest enemy the mink.
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