James Oliver Curwood – The Complete Collection

Chapter 9

"Mana--mana--there he is!"

She caught her breath, and darted into a copse of young balsams where Baree had disappeared. Like a great entangling web her loose hair impeded her in the brush, and with an encouraging cry to Pierrot she stopped to gather it over her shoulder as he ran past her. She lost only a moment or two, and then once again was after him. Fifty yards ahead of her Pierrot gave a warning shout. Baree had turned. Almost in the same breath he was tearing over his back trail, directly toward the Willow. He did not see her in time to stop or swerve aside, and Nepeese flung herself down in his path. For an instant or two they were together. Baree felt the smother of her hair, and the clutch of her hands. Then he squirmed away and darted again toward the blind end of the canyon.

Nepeese sprang to her feet. She was panting--and laughing. Pierrot came back wildly, and the Willow pointed beyond him.

"I had him--and he didn't bite!" she said, breathing swiftly. She still pointed to the end of the canyon, and she said again: "I had him--and he didn't bite me, Nootawe!"

That was the wonder of it. She had been reckless--and Baree had not bitten her! It was then, with her eyes shining at Pierrot, and the smile fading slowly from her lips, that she spoke softly the word "Baree," which in her tongue meant "the wild dog"--a little brother of the wolf.

"Come," cried Pierrot, "or we will lose him!"

Pierrot was confident. The canyon had narrowed. Baree could not get past them unseen. Three minutes later Baree came to the blind end of the canyon--a wall of rock that rose straight up like the curve of a dish. Feasting on fish and long hours of sleep had fattened him, and he was half winded as he sought vainly for an exit. He was at the far end of the dishlike curve of rock, without a bush or a clump of grass to hide him, when Pierrot and Nepeese saw him again. 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. It was a beautiful spot. On all sides but that leading into the coulee it was shut in by walls of rock. At the far end a waterfall broke down in a series of rippling cascades. The grass was thick underfoot and strewn with flowers. In this trap Pierrot had got more than one fine haunch of venison. From it there was no escape, except in the face of his rifle. He called to Nepeese as he saw Baree entering it, and together they climbed the slope.

Baree had almost reached the edge of the little prison meadow when suddenly he stopped himself so quickly that he fell back on his haunches and his heart jumped up into his throat.

Full in his path stood Wakayoo, the huge black bear!

For perhaps a half-minute Baree hesitated between the two perils. He heard the voices of Nepeese and Pierrot. He caught the rattle of stones under their feet. And he was filled with a great dread. Then he looked at Wakayoo. The big bear had not moved an inch. He, too, was listening. But to him there was a thing more disturbing than the sounds he heard. It was the scent which he caught in the air--the man scent.

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. Now there was something about the bear that took away his fear and gave him in its place a new and thrilling confidence. Wakayoo, big and powerful as he was, would not run from the two-legged creatures who pursued him! If Baree could only get past Wakayoo he was safe!

Baree darted to one side and ran for the open meadow. Wakayoo did not stir as Baree sped past him--no more than if he had been a bird or a rabbit. Then came another breath of air, heavy with the scent of man. This, at last, put life into him. He turned and began lumbering after Baree into the meadow trap. Baree, looking back, saw him coming--and thought it was pursuit. Nepeese and Pierrot came over the slope, and at the same instant they saw both Wakayoo and Baree.

Where they entered into the grassy dip under the rock walls, Baree turned sharply to the right. Here was a great boulder, one end of it tilted up off the earth. It looked like a splendid hiding place, and Baree crawled under it.

But Wakayoo kept straight ahead into the meadow.

From where he lay Baree could see what happened. Scarcely had he crawled under the rock when Nepeese and Pierrot appeared through the break in the dip, and stopped. The fact that they stopped thrilled Baree. They were afraid of Wakayoo! The big bear was two thirds of the way across the meadow. The sun fell on him, so that his coat shone like black satin. Pierrot stared at him for a moment. 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. He saw, a moment later, something spit from the end of the gun, and then he heard that deafening crash that had come with his own hurt, when the Willow's bullet had burned through his flesh. He turned his eyes swiftly to Wakayoo. The big bear had stumbled; he was on his knees. And then he struggled to his feet and lumbered on.

The roar of the rifle came again, and a second time Wakayoo went down. Pierrot could not miss at that distance. Wakayoo made a splendid mark. It was slaughter. Yet for Pierrot and Nepeese it was business--the business of life.

Baree was shivering. It was more from excitement than fear, for he had lost his own fear in the tragedy of these moments. A low whine rose in his throat as he looked at Wakayoo, who had risen again and faced his enemies--his jaws gaping, his head swinging slowly, his legs weakening under him as the blood poured through his torn lungs. Baree whined--because Wakayoo had fished for him, because he had come to look on him as a friend, and because he knew it was death that Wakayoo was facing now. There was a third shot--the last. Wakayoo sank down in his tracks. His big head dropped between his forepaws. A racking cough or two came to Baree's ears. And then there was silence. It was slaughter--but business.

A minute later, standing over Wakayoo, Pierrot said to Nepeese:

"Mon dieu, but it is a fine skin, Sakahet! It is worth twenty dollars over at Lac Bain!"

He drew forth his knife and began whetting it on a stone which he carried in his pocket. In these minutes Baree might have crawled out from under his rock and escaped down the canyon; for a space he was forgotten. Then Nepeese thought of him, and in that same strange, wondering voice she spoke again the word "Baree." Pierrot, who was kneeling, looked up at her.

"Oui, Sakahet. He was born of the wild. And now he is gone--"

The Willow shook her head.

"Non, he is not gone," she said, and her dark eyes searched the sunlit meadow.

CHAPTER 8

As Nepeese gazed about the rock-walled end of the canyon, the prison into which they had driven Wakayoo and Baree, Pierrot looked up again from his skinning of the big black bear, and he muttered something that no one but himself could have heard. "Non, it is not possible," he had said a moment before; but to Nepeese it was possible--the thought that was in her mind. It was a wonderful thought. It thrilled her to the depth of her wild, young soul. It sent a glow into her eyes and a deeper flush of excitement into her cheeks and lips.

As she searched the ragged edges of the little meadow for signs of the dog pup, her thoughts flashed back swiftly. Two years ago they had buried her princess mother under the tall spruce near their cabin. That day Pierrot's sun had set for all time, and her own life became filled with a vast loneliness. There had been three at the graveside that afternoon as the sun went down--Pierrot, herself, and a dog, a great, powerful husky with a white star on his breast and a white-tipped ear. He had been her dead mother's pet from puppyhood--her bodyguard, with her always, even with his head resting on the side of her bed as she died. And that night, the night of the day they buried her, the dog had disappeared. He had gone as quietly and as completely as her spirit. No one ever saw him after that. It was strange, and to Pierrot it was a miracle. Deep in his heart he was filled with the wonderful conviction that the dog had gone with his beloved Wyola into heaven.

But Nepeese had spent three winters at the missioner's school at Nelson House. She had learned a great deal about white people and the real God, and she knew that Pierrot's idea was impossible. She believed that her mother's husky was either dead or had joined the wolves. Probably he had gone to the wolves. So--was it not possible that this youngster she and her father had pursued was of the flesh and blood of her mother's pet? It was more than possible. The white star on his breast, the white-tipped ear--the fact that he had not bitten her when he might easily have buried his fangs in the soft flesh of her arms! She was convinced. While Pierrot skinned the bear, she began hunting for Baree.

Baree had not moved an inch from under his rock. He lay like a thing stunned, his eyes fixed steadily on the scene of the tragedy out in the meadow. He had seen something that he would never forget--even as he would never quite forget his mother and Kazan and the old windfall. He had witnessed the death of the creature he had thought all-powerful. Wakayoo, the big bear, had not even put up a fight. Pierrot and Nepeese had killed him WITHOUT TOUCHING HIM. Now Pierrot was cutting him with a knife which shot silvery flashes in the sun; and Wakayoo made no movement. It made Baree shiver, and he drew himself an inch farther back under the rock, where he was already wedged as if he had been shoved there by a strong hand.

He could see Nepeese. She came straight back to the break through which his flight had taken him, and stood at last not more than twenty feet from where he was hidden. Now that she stood where he could not escape, she began weaving her shining hair into two thick braids. Baree had taken his eyes from Pierrot, and he watched her curiously. He was not afraid now. His nerves tingled. In him a strange and growing force was struggling to solve a great mystery--the reason for his desire to creep out from under his rock and approach that wonderful creature with the shining eyes and the beautiful hair.