Three times that winter Baree fought—once with a lynx that sprang down upon him from a windfall while he was eating a freshly killed rabbit, and twice with two lone wolves. The lynx tore him unmercifully before it fled into the windfall. The younger of the wolves he killed; the other fight was a draw. More and more he became an outcast, living alone with his dreams and his smoldering hopes.
And Baree did dream. Many times, as he lay in the tepee, he would hear the voice of Nepeese. He would hear her sweet voice calling, her laughter, the sound of his name, and often he would start up to his feet—the old Baree for a thrilling moment or two—only to lie down in his nest again with a low, grief-filled whine. And always when he heard the snap of a twig or some other sound in the forest, it was thought of Nepeese that flashed first into his brain. Some day she would return. That belief was a part of his existence as much as the sun and the moon and the stars.
The winter passed, and spring came, and still Baree continued to haunt his old trails, even going now and then over the old trap line as far as the first of the two cabins. The traps were rusted and sprung now; the thawing snow disclosed bones and feathers between their jaws. Under the deadfalls were remnants of fur, and out on the ice of the lakes were picked skeletons of foxes and wolves that had taken the poison baits. The last snow went. The swollen streams sang in the forests and canyons. The grass turned green, and the first flowers came.
Surely this was the time for Nepeese to come home! He watched for her 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 24
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.