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Updated: May 10, 2025
He could make out indistinctly the two blankets that were always in it, the row of big tin boxes in which Nepeese kept their stores, and the stove which Pierrot had improvised out of scraps of iron and heavy tin. But Nepeese was not there. And there was no sign of her outside. The snow was unbroken except by his own trail. It was dark when he returned to the burned cabin.
Blindly and with an agony that gave no evidence in cry or word she flung herself down beside her father. He was dead. How long Nepeese lay there, how long she waited for Pierrot to move, to open his eyes, to breathe, she would never know. In that time McTaggart rose to his feet and stood leaning against the wall, the pistol in his hand, his brain clearing itself as he saw his final triumph.
In September, when he was six months old, Baree was almost as large as Gray Wolf big-boned, long-fanged, with a deep chest, and jaws that could already crack a bone as if it were a stick. He was with Nepeese whenever and wherever she moved. They swam together in the two pools the pool in the forest and the pool between the chasm walls.
When the string tightened around his neck, he braced himself; once he growled again he snapped viciously at the babiche. So Nepeese continued to carry him. They came at last into a clearing. It was a tiny meadow in the heart of the forest, not more than three or four times as big as the cabin. Underfoot the grass was soft and green, and thickly strewn with flowers.
Over that fire was bending a person, and it did not strike Baree as amazing, or at all unexpected, that this person should have two great shining braids down her back. He whined, and at his whine the person grew a little rigid, and turned slowly. Even then it seemed quite the most natural thing in the world that it should be Nepeese, and none other. He had lost her yesterday.
All the next day he remained somewhere near the end of the trap line, skirting the edge of the barren and investigating the short side line of a dozen traps which Pierrot and Nepeese had strung through a swamp in which there had been many signs of lynx. It was the third day before he set out on his return to the Gray Loon.
Pierrot recognized him, and with an audible breath of relief waved his hand. It was DeBar, who trapped in the Barren Country north of Lac Bain. Pierrot knew him well. They had exchanged fox poison. They were friends, and there was pleasure in the grip of their hands. DeBar stared then at Nepeese.
Fifteen hundred miles north of the sunny California studio in which the picture had been taken, Nepeese, with pouted red lips and puckered forehead, was struggling to master the mystery of the other girl's curls!
Nepeese made straight toward him. Pierrot, foreseeing what Baree would do, hurried to the left, at right angles to the end of the canyon. In and out among the rocks Baree sought swiftly for a way of escape. In a moment more he had come to the "box," or cup of the canyon. This was a break in the wall, fifty or sixty feet wide, which opened into a natural prison about an acre in extent.
He was tired, but exhaustion could not still the fire that burned in his blood. It had been blazing all day, and now so near its realization and its triumph the old passion was like a rich wine in his veins. Somewhere, near where he stood, Nepeese was waiting for him, WAITING FOR HIM. Once again he called, his heart beating in a fierce anticipation as he listened. There was no answer.
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