For a long time after they left him where he was lying on the rug, Kazan’s eyes did not leave the girl.  He watched and listened—­and all the time there grew more and more in him the craving to creep up to them and touch the girl’s hand, or her dress, or her foot.  After a time his master said something, and with a little laugh the girl jumped up and ran to a big, square, shining thing that stood crosswise in a corner, and which had a row of white teeth longer than his own body.  He had wondered what those teeth were for.  The girl’s fingers touched them now, and all the whispering of winds that he had ever heard, all the music of the waterfalls and the rapids and the trilling of birds in spring-time, could not equal the sounds they made.  It was his first music.  For a moment it startled and frightened him, and then he felt the fright pass away and a strange tingling in his body.  He wanted to sit back on his haunches and howl, as he had howled at the billion stars in the skies on cold winter nights.  But something kept him from doing that.  It was the girl.  Slowly he began slinking toward her.  He felt the eyes of the man upon him, and stopped.  Then a little more—­inches at a time, with his throat and jaw straight out along the floor!  He was half-way to her—­half-way across the room—­when the wonderful sounds grew very soft and very low.

“Go on!” he heard the man urge in a low quick voice.  “Go on!  Don’t stop!”

The girl turned her head, saw Kazan cringing there on the floor, and continued to play.  The man was still looking, but his eyes could not keep Kazan back now.  He went nearer, still nearer, until at last his outreaching muzzle touched her dress where it lay piled on the floor.  And then—­he lay trembling, for she had begun to sing.  He had heard a Cree woman crooning in front of her tepee; he had heard the wild chant of the caribou song—­but he had never heard anything like this wonderful sweetness that fell from the lips of the girl.  He forgot his master’s presence now.  Quietly, cringingly, so that she would not know, he lifted his head.  He saw her looking at him; there was something in her wonderful eyes that gave him confidence, and he laid his head in her lap.  For the second time he felt the touch of a woman’s hand, and he closed his eyes with a long sighing breath.  The music stopped.  There came a little fluttering sound above him, like a laugh and a sob in one.  He heard his master cough.

“I’ve always loved the old rascal—­but I never thought he’d do that,” he said; and his voice sounded queer to Kazan.

CHAPTER II

INTO THE NORTH