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Again Miki tried to coax him away but Neewa was disgustingly fixed in his determination to remain in his present glory. And this morning he was more than usually anxious to return to the dip. All of yesterday he had found it necessary to frighten the crows away from his meat, and to-day they were doubly persistent in their efforts to rob him.
In the bow of the canoe he made a soft nest of the skin taken from the cub's mother. Then he called Miki and tied the end of a worn rope around his neck, after which he fastened the other end of this rope around the neck of Neewa. Thus he had the cub and the pup on the same yard-long halter.
From the tip of his tail to the end of his nose Miki was an adventurer, and like the nomadic rovers of old he was happiest when on the move. The wilderness had claimed him now, body and soul, and it is probable that he would have shunned a human camp at this stage of his life, even as Neewa would have shunned it.
Miki followed a few moments later, and his master fastened the end of a worn tent-rope around his neck and tied the rope to a sapling. Another rope of similar length Challoner tied to the corners of a grub sack so that it could be carried over his shoulder like a game bag. With the first rose-flush of the sun he was ready for the trail of Neewa and his mother.
In that forgetfulness Nanette was a girl again, sweet and beautiful as in those days when old Jackpine, the Cree who was now dead had told her that she was born of the flowers. The wonderful dinner was ready at last, and to the baby's delight Nanette induced Miki to sit on a chair at the table.
If Miki was ignorant in the matter, HE at least understood the situation. Again it was the instinct born of countless generations. He knew that in the black pits about them hovered death and he ran as he had never run before in his life. As Miki followed, the shadows were beginning to float nearer again. Ahead of them they saw a glimmer of sunshine.
He felt the protecting nearness of an unconquerable and abiding force and in the first of the warm sunshine his back fluffed up, and he thrust his brown nose between his paws and into his mother's fur. Miki, as if vainly striving to solve the mystery of his new-found chum, was watching him closely from between his own fore-paws.
The instinct that had been fighting to rouse itself within him flared up like a powder-flash. Instantly he sensed the nearness of an unknown and appalling danger. There was sound about them now movement in the trees, ghostly tremours in the air, and the crackling, metallic SNAP SNAP SNAP over their heads. Again Miki saw the great shadow come and go.
Probably he joined the wolves, for The Killer was a quarter-strain wild. Le Beau got no more than a glimpse of him as he disappeared. His club-arm shot out again, a clean miss; and this time it was pure chance that saved him. The trap-chain caught, and Miki fell back when his hot breath was almost at The Brute's jugular. He fell upon his side.
Annoyance, the desire almost to sink his teeth in Neewa's ear, gave place slowly to another thing in Miki. The instinct that between beasts is like the spoken reason of men stirred in a strange and disquieting way within him. He became more and more uneasy. There was almost distress in his restlessness as he hovered about the mouth of the cavern.
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