"Do," cried Carcajou; "we sha'n't mind. I suppose that's what The Boy calls his Tongue Trap--he knew whom to set it for, too."
"Come and trample him with your sharp hoofs, dear Mooswa," pleaded Whisky-Jack, the lack of sympathy and the chaff making him furious.
"Oh, sit still, if you're going to ride on my horns," exclaimed the Bull. "You're jigging about--"
"As though he had corns," interrupted Carcajou.
"It was so nice of you, Whisky-Jack," said Lynx, in an oily tone, "to take care of us all while we were there--wasn't it? Some of us might have burned our tongues but for you destroying the hot Bait."
When the animals got back to their meeting-place, which was known as the Boundary Centre, they stopped for a time to compare notes.
"Comrades," said Mooswa, "little have I claimed from you. I kill not anything; neither the Fox Cubs, nor the Sons of Umisk, nor the red-tailed Birds that beat their wings like drums, nor anything. But this new law I ask of you all in the face of the King; for the Boy that was my Man-brother, the safeguard of the Boundaries."
"You have not had the hot-meat thrust in your throat, friend of the rascally Cub," objected Jack, angrily.
"Hush, Chatterer!" growled Bear; "let Mooswa speak."
"The horn-crowned Lord of the Forest gives expression to a noble sentiment," declared Pisew. "By all means let the Kit-Man grow free of the Boundary Fear, until his claws are long and his bone-cracking teeth are strong."