Ben quartered the animal, and again he saw fit to save the hide.  It is the best material of all for the parka, the long, full winter garment of the North.

Ben carried the meat in four trips back to the camp.  By the time this work was done, and one of the quarters was drying over a fire of quivering aspen chips, the day was done.  Again they saw the twilight shadows grow, and the first sable cloak of night was drawn over the shoulders of the forest.  Beatrice prepared a wonderful roast of caribou for their evening meal; and thereafter they sat a short time at the mouth of the cavern, looking quietly into the red coals of the dying fire.  Again Ben knew the beneficence and peace of the sheltering walls of home.  Again he felt a sweet security,—­a taming, gentling influence through the innermost fiber of his being.

But Fenris the wolf gazed only into the darkened woods, and the hair stood stiff at his shoulders, and his eyes glowed and shone with the ancient hunting madness induced by the rising moon.

XXX

June passed away in the wilds of Back There, leaving warmer, longer days, a more potent sun, and a greener, fresher loveliness to the land.  The spring calves no longer tottered on wabbly legs, but could follow their swift mothers over the most steep and difficult trails.  Fledglings learned to fly, the wolf cubs had their first lessons in hunting on the ridges.  The wild Yuga had fallen to such an extent that navigation—­down to the Indian villages on the lower waters—­was wholly impossible.

The days passed quickly for Ben and Beatrice.  They found plenty of work and even of play to pass the time.  Partly to fill her lonely moments, but more because it was an instinct with her, Beatrice took an ever-increasing interest in her cave home.  She kept it clean and cooked the meals, performing her tasks with goodwill, even at times a gaiety that was as incomprehensible to herself as to Ben.

Their diet was not so simple now.  Of course their flour and sugar and rice, and the meat that they took in the chase furnished the body of their meals, and without these things they could not live; but Beatrice was a woods child, and she knew how to find manna in the wilderness.  Almost every morning she ventured out into the still, dew-wet forest, and nearly always she came in with some dainty for their table.  She gathered watercress in the still pools and she knew a dozen ways to serve it.  Sometimes she made a dressing out of animal oil, beaten to a cream; and it was better than lettuce salad.  Other tender plant tops were used as a garnish and as greens, and many and varied were the edible roots that supplied their increasing desire for fresh vegetables.

Sometimes she found wocus in the marsh—­the plant formerly in such demand by the Indians—­and by patient experiment she learned how to prepare it for the table.  Washing the plant carefully she would pound it into paste that could be used as the base for a nutty and delicious bread.  Other roots were baked in ashes or served fried in animal fat, and once or twice she found patches of wild strawberries, ripening on the slopes.