This act puzzled Muskwa more than ever.  The man had saved him.  He had beaten the monster with the red mouth and the white fangs, and all of those monsters were now being taken away at the end of ropes.

When Langdon returned he stopped close to Muskwa’s tree and talked to him.  Muskwa allowed Langdon’s hand to approach within six inches of him, and did not snap at it.  Then a strange and sudden thrill shot through him.  While his head was turned a little Langdon had boldly put his hand on his furry back.  And in the touch there was not hurt!  His mother had never put her paw on him as gently as that!

Half a dozen times in the next ten minutes Langdon touched him.  For the first three or four times Muskwa bared his two rows of shining teeth, but he made no sound.  Gradually he ceased even to bare his teeth.

Langdon left him then, and in a few moments he returned with a chunk of raw caribou meat.  He held this close to Muskwa’s nose.  Muskwa could smell it, but he backed away from it, and at last Langdon placed it beside the basin at the foot of the tree and returned to where Bruce was smoking.

“Inside of two days he’ll be eating out of my hand,” he said.

It was not long before the camp became very quiet.  Langdon, Bruce, and the Indian rolled themselves in their blankets and were soon asleep.  The fire burned lower and lower.  Soon there was only a single smouldering log.  An owl hooted a little deeper in the timber.  The drone of the valley and the mountains filled the peaceful night.  The stars grew brighter.  Far away Muskwa heard the rumbling of a boulder rolling down the side of a mountain.

There was nothing to fear now.  Everything was still and asleep but himself, and very cautiously he began to back down the tree.  He reached the foot of it, loosed his hold, and half fell into the basin of condensed milk, a part of it slopping up over his face.  Involuntarily he shot out his tongue and licked his chops, and the sweet, sticky stuff that it gathered filled him with a sudden and entirely unexpected pleasure.  For a quarter of an hour he licked himself.  And then, as if the secret of this delightful ambrosia had just dawned upon him, his bright little eyes fixed themselves covetously upon the tin basin.  He approached it with commendable strategy and caution, circling first on one side of it and then on the other, every muscle in his body prepared for a quick spring backward if it should make a jump for him.  At last his nose touched the thick, luscious feast in the basin, and he did not raise his head again until the last drop of it was gone.

The condensed milk was the one biggest factor in the civilizing of Muskwa.  It was the missing link that connected certain things in his lively little mind.  He knew that the same hand that had touched him so gently had also placed this strange and wonderful feast at the foot of his tree, and that same hand had also offered him meat.  He did not eat the meat, but he licked the interior of the basin until it shone like a mirror in the starlight.