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Updated: May 11, 2025
He was of that sort that the average man would like at first glance; boyish, and yet a man; with clear eyes that looked out frankly from under the rim of his fur cap, a form lithe as an Indian's, and a face that did not bear the hard lines of the wilderness. Yet McTaggart knew before he had spoken that this man was of the wilderness, that he was heart and soul a part of it.
"Ah," he mumbled. "Is she not wonderful!" And behind McTaggart, coming faster and faster, was Baree. Again the Willow looked down. She was at the edge, for she had no fear in this hour. Many times she had clung to Pierrot's hand as she looked over. Down there no one could fall and live. Fifty feet below her the water which never froze was smashing itself into froth among the rocks.
'No. London certainly never gave me one. 'You see! Mrs. McTaggart lived the life of the Metropolis with such success that she passed an examination before she left. The subject was: "Incidents in the Life of Abraham." It says so on the certificate. She has it framed and hung in the parlour. He smiled. 'I admit few can point to such fruits of Metropolitan Ausbildung.
McTaggart took a vast amount of brutal satisfaction in anticipating what was about to happen, and he reveled in it to the full. There was no chance for disappointment. He was positive that Nepeese would not accompany her father to Lac Bain. She would be at the cabin on the Gray Loon alone. This aloneness to Nepeese was burdened with no thought of danger.
"He hates you hates you hates you " the Willow was repeating over and over again into McTaggart's startled face. Then suddenly she turned to her father. "No, he will not tear the life from me," she cried. "See! It is Baree. Did I not tell you that? It is Baree! Is it not proof that he defended me " "From me!" gasped McTaggart, his face darkening.
With her last strength she hurled it at McTaggart, and as it struck his head, he staggered back. But it did not make him loose his hold. Vainly she was fighting now, not to strike him or to escape, but to get her breath. She tried to cry out again, but this time no sound came from between her gasping lips. Again he laughed, and as he laughed, he heard the door open. Was it the wind?
From behind, McTaggart was watching the man with the eyes of a ferret. "Yes, a dog," he answered. "A wild dog, half wolf at least. He's robbed me of a thousand dollars' worth of fur this winter." The stranger squatted himself before Baree, with his mittened hands resting on his knees, and his white teeth gleaming in a half smile. "You poor devil!" he said sympathetically.
His work done, McTaggart hurried on through the thickening twilight of winter night to his shack. He was highly elated. This time there could be no such thing as failure. He had sprung every trap on his way from Lac Bain. In none of those traps would Baree find anything to eat until he came to the "nest" of twelve wolf traps.
This new aroma that came with the night wind roused his hunger. But it was elusive: now he could smell it the next instant it was gone. He left the dam and began questing for the source of it in the forest, until after a time he lost it altogether. McTaggart had finished frying his bacon and was eating it. It was a splendid night that followed.
Baree did not add two and two together to make four. He did not go back step by step to prove to himself that the man to whom this trap line belonged was the cause of all hit, griefs and troubles but he DID find himself possessed of a deep and yearning hatred. McTaggart was the one creature except the wolves that he had ever hated.
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