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Updated: April 30, 2025
Baree now found that Wakayoo had solved the food problem for him, and this day he did not return to the beaver pond, nor the next. The big bear was incessantly fishing up and down the creek, and day after day Baree continued his feasts. It was not difficult for him to find Wakayoo's caches. All he had to do was to follow along the shore of the stream, sniffing carefully.
Wakayoo stood knee-deep in a pool that had formed behind a sand bar, and he was having tremendously good luck. Even as Baree shrank back, his eyes popping at sight of this monster he had seen but once before, in the gloom of night, one of Wakayoo's big paws sent a great splash of water high in the air, and a fish landed on the pebbly shore.
And Baree carried the wolf scent. It grew stronger in Wakayoo's nose; and just then, as if to increase whatever nervousness was growing in him, there came from out of the forest behind him a long and wailing howl. With an audible grunt, Wakayoo moved on. Wolves were pests, he argued. They wouldn't stand up and fight.
A little while before, the suckers had run up the creek in thousands to spawn, and the rapid lowering of the water had caught many of them in these prison pools. Wakayoo's fat, sleek body was evidence of the prosperity this circumstance had brought him. Although it was a little past the "prime" season for bearskins, Wakayoo's coat was splendidly thick and black.
That seemed but yesterday. He entered the little meadow, and stood beside the great rock that had almost crushed the life out of the Willow's body; and then he remembered where Wakayoo, his big bear friend, had died under Pierrot's rifle and he smelled of Wakayoo's whitened bones where they lay scattered in the green grass, with flowers growing up among them.
Baree, watching him, saw his head swing slowly even as the footsteps of Nepeese and Pierrot became more and more distinct. It was the first time Baree had ever stood face to face with the big bear. He had watched him fish; he had fattened on Wakayoo's prowess; he had held him in splendid awe.
Pierrot did not kill for the love of killing. Necessity made him a conservationist. But he saw that in spite of the lateness of the season, Wakayoo's coat was splendid and he raised his rifle. Baree saw this action.
But he heard her voice! It was the same voice that had come to him that day he had felt the sting of the bullet, the voice that had pleaded with him under the rock! The voice of the Willow thrilled Baree. It seemed to stir the sluggish blood in his veins, and he opened his eyes wider and saw again the wonderful stars that had glowed at him so softly the day of Wakayoo's death.
With her it was not experience, but instinct telling her of the age-old feud between the gray wolf and the black bear. And Baree's coat, in the moonlight and the snow, was blacker than Wakayoo's had ever been in the fish-fattening days of May.
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