long.  This freedom gained they learned to strike the fire; they took one woman to keep the cave, instead of mating indiscriminately in the forest, thus marking the beginning of family life.  Love instead of deathless hatred, gentleness rather than cruelty, peace in the place of passion, mercy and tolerance and self-control:  all these mighty bulwarks of man’s dominance grew into strength behind the sheltering walls of home.

Thus in these few little weeks Ben Darby—­a beast of the forest in his unbridled passions—­had in some measure imaged the life history of the race.  He had lived again the momentous regeneration.  The protecting walls, the hearth, particularly Beatrice’s wholesome and healing influence, had tamed him.  He was still a forester, bred in the bone—­loving these forest depths with an ardor too deep for words—­but the mark of the beast was gone from his flesh.

He could still deal justice to Ezram’s murderers and thus keep faith with his dead partner; but the primal passions could no longer dominate him.  His pet, however, remained the wolf.  The sheltering cavern walls were never for him.  He loved Ben with an undying devotion, yet a barrier was rising between them.  They could not go the same paths forever.

Matters reached a crisis between Fenris and himself one still, warm night in late July.  The two were sitting side by side at the cavern maw, watching the slow enchantment of the forest under the spell of the rising moon; Beatrice had already gone to her hammock.  As the last little blaze died in the fire, and it crackled at ever longer intervals, Ben suddenly made a moving discovery.  The fringe of forest about him, usually so dreamlike and still, was simply breathing and throbbing with life.

Ben dropped his hand to the wolf’s shoulders.  “The little folks are calling on us to-night,” he said quietly.

In all probability he spoke the truth.  It was not an uncommon thing for the creatures of the wood—­usually the lesser people such as rodents and the small hunters—­to crowd close to the edge of the glade and try to puzzle out this ruddy mystery in its center.  Unused to men they could never understand.  Sometimes the lynx halted in his hunt to investigate, sometimes an old black bear—­kindly, benevolent good-humored old bachelor that every naturalist loves—­grunted and pondered at the edge of shadow, and sometimes even such lordly creatures as moose and caribou paused in their night journeys to see what was taking place.

Curiously, the wolf started violently at Ben’s touch.  The man suddenly regarded him with a gaze of deepest interest.  The hair was erect on the powerful neck, the eyes swam in pale, blue fire, and he was staring away into the mysterious shadows.

“What do you see, old-timer?” Ben asked.  “I wish I could see too.”