"And I didn't use a club," he added.
Thoreau gasped "Mon Dieu!" and sat down on the birch log as though the strength had gone from his legs.
David rattled the chain and then re-fastened it about the spruce. Baree was still watching Thoreau, who sat staring at him as if the beast had suddenly changed his shape and species.
In David's breast there was the thrill of a new triumph. He had done it unconsciously, without fear, and without feeling that there had been any great danger. In those few minutes something of his old self had returned into him; he felt a new excitement pumping the blood through his heart, and he felt the warm glow of it in his body. Baree had awakened something within him—Baree and the club. He went to Thoreau, who had risen from the log. He laughed again, a bit exultantly.
"I am going north with Father Roland," he said. "Will you let me have the dog, Thoreau? It will save you the trouble of killing him."
Thoreau stared at him blankly for a moment before he answered.
"That dog? You? Into the North?" He shot a look full of hatred and disgust at Baree. "Would you risk it, m'sieu?"
"Yes. It is an adventure I would very much like to try. You may think it strange, Thoreau, but that dog—ugly and fierce as he is—has found a place with me. I like him. And I fancy he has begun to like me."
"But look at his eye, m'sieu——"
"Which eye?" demanded David. "The one you have shut with a club?"