"He deserved it," muttered Thoreau. "He snapped at my hand. But I mean the other eye, m'sieu—the one that is glaring at us now like a red bloodstone with the heart of a devil in it! I tell you he is a quarter wolf...."
"And the broken paw. I suppose that was done by a club, too?" interrupted David.
"It was broken like that when I traded for him a year ago, m'sieu. I have not maimed him. And ... yes, you may have the beast! May the saints preserve you!"
"And his name?"
"The Indian who owned him as a puppy five years ago called him Baree, which among the Dog Ribs means Wild Blood. He should have been called The Devil."
Thoreau shrugged his shoulders, as though the matter and its consequences were now off his hands, and turned in the direction of the cabin. As he followed the Frenchman, David looked back at Baree. The big husky had risen from the snow. He was standing at the full length of his chain, and as David disappeared among the spruce a low whine that was filled with a strange yearning followed him. He did not hear the whine, but there came to him distinctly a moment later the dog's racking cough, and he shivered, and his eyes burned into Thoreau's broad back as he thought of the fresh blood-clots that were staining the white snow.
CHAPTER VIII
Much to Thoreau's amazement Father Roland made no objection to David's ownership of Baree, and when the Frenchman described with many gesticulations of wonder what had happened between that devil-dog and the man, he was still more puzzled by the look of satisfaction in the Little Missioner's face. In David there had come the sudden awakening of something which had for a long time been dormant within him, and Father Roland saw this change, and felt it, even before David said, when Thoreau had turned away with a darkly suggestive shrug of his shoulders: