He was hurt.  And Gray Wolf was hurt, but not so badly as Kazan.  He was torn and bleeding.  One of his legs was terribly bitten.  After a time he saw a fire in the edge of the forest.  The old call was strong upon him.  He wanted to crawl in to it, and feel the girl’s hand on his head, as he had felt that other hand in the world beyond the ridge.  He would have gone—­and would have urged Gray Wolf to go with him—­but the man was there.  He whined, and Gray Wolf thrust her warm muzzle against his neck.  Something told them both that they were outcasts, that the plains, and the moon, and the stars were against them now, and they slunk into the shelter and the gloom of the forest.

Kazan could not go far.  He could still smell the camp when he lay down.  Gray Wolf snuggled close to him.  Gently she soothed with her soft tongue Kazan’s bleeding wounds.  And Kazan, lifting his head, whined softly to the stars.

CHAPTER VI

JOAN

On the edge of the cedar and spruce forest old Pierre Radisson built the fire.  He was bleeding from a dozen wounds, where the fangs of the wolves had reached to his flesh, and he felt in his breast that old and terrible pain, of which no one knew the meaning but himself.  He dragged in log after log, piled them on the fire until the flames leaped tip to the crisping needles of the limbs above, and heaped a supply close at hand for use later in the night.

From the sledge Joan watched him, still wild-eyed and fearful, still trembling.  She was holding her baby close to her breast.  Her long heavy hair smothered her shoulders and arms in a dark lustrous veil that glistened and rippled in the firelight when she moved.  Her young face was scarcely a woman’s to-night, though she was a mother.  She looked like a child.

Old Pierre laughed as he threw down the last armful of fuel, and stood breathing hard.

“It was close, ma cheri” he panted through his white beard.  “We were nearer to death out there on the plain than we will ever be again, I hope.  But we are comfortable now, and warm.  Eh?  You are no longer afraid?”

He sat down beside his daughter, and gently pulled back the soft fur that enveloped the bundle she held in her arms.  He could see one pink cheek of baby Joan.  The eyes of Joan, the mother, were like stars.

“It was the baby who saved us,” she whispered.  “The dogs were being torn to pieces by the wolves, and I saw them leaping upon you, when one of them sprang to the sledge.  At first I thought it was one of the dogs.  But it was a wolf.  He tore once at us, and the bearskin saved us.  He was almost at my throat when baby cried, and then he stood there, his red eyes a foot from us, and I could have sworn again that he was a dog.  In an instant he turned, and was fighting the wolves.  I saw him leap upon one that was almost at your throat.”

“He was a dog,” said old Pierre, holding out his hands to the warmth.  “They often wander away from the posts, and join the wolves.  I have had dogs do that. Ma cheri, a dog is a dog all his life.  Kicks, abuse, even the wolves can not change him—­for long.  He was one of the pack.  He came with them—­to kill.  But when he found us—­”