The great wolf started at the voice, then stood beside the fallen, gazing at Ben with fierce, luminous eyes.  “Down, down, boy,” Ben cautioned, in a softer voice.  “There, old fellow—­down—­down.”

Then Fenris whined in answer, and Ben knew that he was no longer to be feared.  The three lesser wolves seemed startled, standing in a nervous group, yet growling savagely and eyeing him across the dying fire.  For a moment Fenris’s fury had passed to them, but now that his rage was dead, all they had left was an inborn fear of such a breed as this,—­these tall forms that died so easily in their fangs.  Fenris trotted slowly toward Ben, but with the true instincts of the wild his followers knew that this was no affair of fangs and death.  He came in love, in a remembered comradeship, just as often he had led them to the mouth of the cavern, and they did not understand.  They slowly backed away into the shadows, fading like ghosts.

Ben’s arms, in unspeakable gratitude, went about the shoulders of the wolf.  Beatrice, sobbing uncontrollably yet swept with that infinite thankfulness of the redeemed, crept to his side.  Fenris whined and shivered in the arms of his god.

Quietude came at last to that camp beside the lake, in the far, hidden heart of Back There.  Once more the blood moved with sweet, normal tranquillity in the veins, the thrill and stir died in the air, and the moonlight was beautiful on the spruce.

The wolves had gone.  Fenris’s three brethren had slipped away, perhaps wholly mystified and deeply awed by their madness of a moment before; and from the ridge top they had called for their leader to join them.  He had done his work, he had avenged the base blow that had seemed to strike at his own wild heart, he had received the caress he had craved,—­and there was no law for him to stay.  The female called enticingly; the wild game was running for his pleasure on the trails.

Ben had watched the struggle in his fierce breast, and Beatrice’s eyes were soft and wonderfully lustrous in the subdued light as she gave the wolf a parting caress.  But he could not stay with them.  The primal laws of his being bade otherwise.  His was the way of the open trails, the nights of madness and the rapture of hunting—­and these were folk of the caves!  They were not his people, although his love for them burned like fire in his heart.

He could not deny the call of his followers on the ridge.  It was like a chain, drawing him remorselessly to them.  Whining, he had sped away into the darkness.

The fire had been built up, Beatrice had rallied her spent strength by full feeding of the rich, dried meat, and had done what she could for Neilson’s injury.  Ben, exhausted, had lain down in some of the blankets of his enemy’s outfit.  Neilson was not, however, mortally hurt.  The bullet had coursed through the region of his shoulder, missing his heart and lungs, and although he was all but unconscious, they had every reason to believe that a few weeks of rest would see him well again.