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Updated: May 4, 2025
With Umisk he would have played. With Oohoomisew he would have fought. At Bush McTaggart he would have bared his fangs, and buried them deep when the chance came. But the girl was different. Like the Kazan of old, he had begun to worship. If the Willow had freed Baree, he would not have run away. If she had left him, he would possibly have followed her at a distance.
They were distinctly puzzled. There were four enemies which they dreaded above all others: the otter, who destroyed their dams in the wintertime and brought death to them from cold and by lowering the water so they could not get to their food supplies; the lynx, who preyed on them all, young and old alike; and the fox and wolf, who would lie in ambush for hours in order to pounce on the very young, like Umisk and his playmates.
When he came out on the level strip of shore, Umisk was there alone, nibbling his supper from a long, freshly cut willow. The other little beavers had gone into a thick clump of young alders. This time Umisk did not run. He looked up from his stick. Baree squatted himself, wiggling in a most friendly and ingratiating manner. For a few seconds Umisk regarded him.
He still wanted mothering; he was still moved by the puppyish yearnings which he had not yet had the time to outgrow; and when night came to speak that yearning quite plainly he had the desire to go into the big beaver house with Umisk and his chums and sleep.
He wanted to tell them, if such a thing were possible, that he had lost his mother and his home, and that he had been having a mighty hard time of it, and that he would like to stay with them and their mothers and fathers if they didn't mind. In his throat there came the least bit of a whine. It was so low that Umisk and his playmates did not hear it. They were tremendously busy.
It is entirely probable that he did not associate the big black beast he saw now and then with the little Baree with whom he had smelled noses once upon a time, and it is quite likely that Baree did not recognize Umisk except as a part of the memories that had remained with him. All through the month of August Baree made the beaver pond his headquarters.
"But they are powerful dogs," objected the stranger. "My team needs them." The Cree had risen higher out of the crowd. One arm rose above his head. He was an Indian who had seen fifty years of the forests, and his face was the face of an Egyptian. "Nesi-tu-now Nesoo-sap umisk!" he proclaimed. Henri Paquette hopped excitedly, and faced the stranger. "Twenty-two beaver," he challenged. "Twenty-two "
He could understand nothing of the part that the wire and the sapling were playing in this curious game. All he could see was that Wapoos was hopping and dancing about on his hind legs in a most puzzling and unrabbitlike fashion. It may be that he thought it some sort of play. In this instance, however, he did not regard Wapoos as he had looked on Umisk the beaver.
On the other hand, Baree no longer felt the old puppyish desire to play with the baby beavers, so their aloofness did not trouble him as in those other days. Umisk was grown up, too, a fat and prosperous young buck who was just taking unto himself this year a wife, and who was at present very busy gathering his winter's rations.
It was the warning crack of a beaver tail that fully roused Baree; and then another and another, like pistol shots. He jumped up. Everywhere beavers were scurrying for the pond. Just then Umisk came out of the alders and hurried as fast as his short, fat legs would carry him toward the water.
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