The Collected Works of James Oliver Curwood (Illustrated Edition). James Oliver Curwood

expectantly. He went still more frequently to their swimming pool in the forest, and he hung closely to the burned cabin and the dog corral. Twice he sprang into the pool and whined as he swam about, as though she surely must join him in their old water frolic. And now, as the spring passed and summer came, there settled upon him slowly the gloom and misery of utter hopelessness. The flowers were all out now, and even the bakneesh vines glowed like red fire in the woods. Patches of green were beginning to hide the charred heap where the cabin had stood, and the blue-flower vines that covered the princess mother's grave were reaching out toward Pierrot's, as if the princess mother herself were the spirit of them.

      All these things were happening, and the birds had mated and nested, and still Nepeese did not come! And at last something broke inside of Baree, his last hope, perhaps, his last dream; and one day he bade good-bye to the Gray Loon.

      No one can say what it cost him to go. No one can say how he fought against the things that were holding him to the tepee, the old swimming pool, the familiar paths in the forest, and the two graves that were not so lonely now under the tall spruce. He went. He had no reason—simply went. It may be that there is a Master whose hand guides the beast as well as the man, and that we know just enough of this guidance to call it instinct. For, in dragging himself away, Baree faced the Great Adventure.

      It was there, in the north, waiting for him—and into the north he went.

CHAPTER XXIV

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      It was early in August when Baree left the Gray Loon. He had no objective in view. But there was still left upon his mind, like the delicate impression of light and shadow on a negative, the memories of his earlier days. Things and happenings that he had almost forgotten recurred to him now, as his trail led him farther and farther away from the Gray Loon. And his earlier experiences became real again, pictures thrown out afresh in his mind by the breaking of the last ties that held him to the home of the Willow. Involuntarily he followed the trail of these impressions—of these past happenings, and slowly they helped to build up new interests for him.

      A year in his life was a long time—a decade of man's experience. It was more than a year ago that he had left Kazan and Gray Wolf and the old windfall, and yet now there came back to him indistinct memories of those days of his earliest puppyhood, of the stream into which he had fallen, and of his fierce battle with Papayuchisew. It was his later experiences that roused the older memories. He came to the blind canyon up which Nepeese and Pierrot had chased him. 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.

      A day and night he spent in the little meadow before he went back out of the canyon and into his old haunts along the creek, where Wakayoo had fished for him. There was another bear here now, and he also was fishing. Perhaps he was a son or a grandson of Wakayoo. Baree smelled where he had made his fish caches, and for three days he lived on fish before he struck out for the North.

      And now, for the first time in many weeks, a bit of the old-time eagerness put speed into Baree's feet. Memories that had been hazy and indistinct through forgetfulness were becoming realities again, and as he would have returned to the Gray Loon had Nepeese been there so now, with something of the feeling of a wanderer going home, he returned to the old beaver pond.

      It was that most glorious hour of a summer's day—sunset—when he reached it. He stopped a hundred yards away, with the pond still hidden from his sight, and sniffed the air, and listened. The POND was there. He caught the cool, honey smell of it. But Umisk, and Beaver Tooth, and all the others? Would he find them? He strained his ears to catch a familiar sound, and after a moment or two it came—a hollow splash in the water.

      He went quietly through the alders and stood at last close to the spot where he had first made the acquaintance of Umisk. The surface of the pond was undulating slightly, two or three heads popped up. He saw the torpedolike wake of an old beaver towing a stick close to the opposite shore. He looked toward the dam, and it was as he had left it almost a year ago. He did not show himself for a time, but stood concealed in the young alders. He felt growing in him more and more a feeling of restfulness, a relaxation from the long strain of the lonely months during which he had waited for Nepeese.

      With a long breath he lay down among the alders, with his head just enough exposed to give him a clear view. As the sun settled lower the pond became alive. Out on the shore where he had saved Umisk from the fox came another generation of young beavers—three of them, fat and waddling. Very softly Baree whined.

      All that night he lay in the alders. The beaver pond became his home again. Conditions were changed, of course, and as days grew into weeks the inhabitants of Beaver Tooth's colony showed no signs of accepting the grown-up Baree as they had accepted the baby Baree of long ago. He was big, black, and wolfish now—a long-fanged and formidable-looking creature, and though he offered no violence he was regarded by the beavers with a deep-seated feeling of fear and suspicion.

      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 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. At times his excursions kept him away for two or three days at a time. These journeys were always into the north, sometimes a little east and sometimes a little west, but never again into the south. And at last, early in September, he left the beaver pond for good.

      For many days his wanderings carried him in no one particular direction. He followed the hunting, living chiefly on rabbits and that simple-minded species of partridge known as the "fool hen." This diet, of course, was given variety by other things as they happened to come his way. Wild currants and raspberries were ripening, and Baree was fond of these. He also liked the bitter berries of the mountain ash, which, along with the soft balsam and spruce pitch which he licked with his tongue now and then, were good medicine for him. In shallow water he occasionally caught a fish. Now and then he hazarded a cautious battle with a porcupine, and if he was successful he feasted on the tenderest and most luscious of all the flesh that made up his menu.

      Twice in September he killed young deer. The big "burns" that he occasionally came to no longer held terrors for him; in the midst of plenty he forgot the days in which he had gone hungry. In October he wandered as far west as the Geikie River, and then northward to Wollaston Lake, which was a good hundred miles north of the Gray Loon. The first week in November he turned south again, following the Canoe River for a distance, and then swinging westward along a twisting creek called The Little Black Bear with No Tail.

      More than once during these weeks Baree came into touch with man, but, with the exception of the Cree hunter at the upper end of Wollaston Lake, no man had seen him. Three times in following the Geikie he lay crouched in the brush while canoes passed. Half a dozen times, in the stillness of night, he nosed about cabins and tepees in which there was life, and once he came so near to the Hudson's Bay Company post at Wollaston that he could hear the barking of dogs and the shouting of their masters.

      And always he was seeking—questing for the thing that had gone out of his life. At the thresholds of the cabins he sniffed; outside of the tepees he circled close, gathering the wind. The canoes he watched with eyes in which there was a hopeful gleam. Once he thought the wind brought him the scent of Nepeese, and all at once his legs grew weak under his body and his heart seemed to stop beating. It was only for a moment or two. She came out of the tepee—an Indian girl with her hands full of willow work—and Baree slunk away unseen.

      It