An hour later Challoner sat with Miki's big head between his two hands, and talked to him. He had bathed and dressed his wounds, and Miki could see. His eyes were on his master's face, and his hard tail thumped the floor. Both were oblivious of the sounds of the revellers outside; the cries of men, the shouting of boys, the laughter of women, and the incessant barking of dogs. In Challoner's eyes there was a soft glow.
"Miki, old boy, you haven't forgotten a thing—not a dam' thing, have you? You were nothing but an onery-legged pup then, but you didn't forget! Remember what I told you, that I was going to take you and the cub down to the Girl? Do you remember? The Girl I said was an angel, and 'd love you to death, and all that? Well, I'm glad something happened—and you didn't go. It wasn't the same when I got back, an' SHE wasn't the same, Miki. Lord, she'd got married, AND HAD TWO KIDS! Think of that, old scout—TWO! How the deuce could she have taken care of you and the cub, eh? And nothing else was the same, Boy. Three years in God's Country—up here where you burst your lungs just for the fun of drinking in air—changed me a lot, I guess. Inside a week I wanted to come back, Miki. Yessir, I was SICK to come back. So I came. And we're going to stick now, Miki. You're going with me up to that new Post the Company has given me. From now on we're pals. Understand, old scout, we're PALS!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was late the night of the big feast at Post Fort O' God that MacDonnell, the factor, sent for Challoner. Challoner was preparing for bed when an Indian boy pounded on the door of his shack and a moment later gave him the message. He looked at his watch. It was eleven o'clock. What could the Factor want of him at that hour, he wondered? Flat on his belly near the warm box stove Miki watched his new-found master speculatively as he pulled on his boots. His eyes were wide open now. Challoner had washed from him the blood of the terrific fight of that afternoon.
"Something to do with that devil of a Durant," growled Challoner, looking at the battle-scarred dog. "Well, if he hopes to get YOU again, Miki, he's barking up the wrong tree. You're MINE!"
Miki thumped his hard tail on the floor and wriggled toward his master in mute adoration. Together they went out into the night.
It was a night of white moonlight and a multitude of stars. The four great fires over which the caribou had roasted for the savage barbecue that day were still burning brightly. In the edge of the forest that ringed in the Post were the smouldering embers of a score of smaller fires. Back of these fires were faintly outlined the gray shadows of teepees and tents. In these shelters the three hundred halfbreeds and Indians who had come in from the forest trails to the New Year carnival at the Post were sleeping. Only here and there was there a movement of life. Even the dogs were quiet after the earlier hours of excitement and gluttony.
Past the big fires, with their huge spits still standing, Challoner passed toward the Factor's quarters. Miki sniffed at the freshly picked bones. Beyond these bones there was no sign of the two thousand pounds of flesh that had roasted that day on the spits. Men, women, children, and dogs had stuffed themselves until there was nothing left. It was the silence of Mutai—the "belly god"—the god who eats himself to sleep each night—that hovered strangely over this Post of Fort O' God, three hundred miles from civilization.
There was a light in the Factor's room, and Challoner entered with Miki at his heels. MacDonnell, the Scotchman, was puffing moodily on his pipe. There was a worried look in his ruddy face as the younger man seated himself, and his eyes were on Miki.