And then, one day, Miki looked up from where he was lying beside the baby’s crib and he saw Nanette in his master’s arms, her face turned up to him, her eyes filled with the glory of the stars, and Challoner was saying something which transformed her face into the face of an angel.  Miki was puzzled.  And he was more puzzled when Challoner came from Nanette to the crib, and snuggled the baby up in his arms; and the woman—­looking at them both for a moment with that wonderful look in her eyes—­suddenly covered her face with her hands and sobbed.  Half a snarl rose in Miki’s throat, but in that moment Challoner had put his arm around Nanette too, and Nanette’s arms were about him and the baby, and she was sobbing something which for the life of him Miki could make neither head nor tail of.  And yet he knew that he must not snarl or spring.  He felt the wonder-thrill of the new thing that had come into the cabin; he gulped hard, and looked.  A moment or two later Nanette was on her knees beside him, and her arms were around him, just as they had been around the man.  And Challoner was dancing like a boy—­cooing to the baby in his arms.  Then he, too, dropped down beside Miki, and cried: 

“My Gawd!  Miki—­I’ve got A FAM’LY!”

And Miki tried to understand.

That night, after supper, he saw Challoner unbraid Nanette’s glorious hair, and brush it.  They laughed like two happy children.  Miki tried still harder to understand.

When Challoner went to go to his tent in the edge of the forest he took Nanette in his arms, and kissed her, and stroked her shining hair; and Nanette took his face between her hands and smiled and almost cried in her joy.

After that Miki did understand.  He knew that happiness had come to all who were in that cabin.

Now that his world was settled, Miki took once more to hunting.  The thrill of the trail came back to him, and wider and wider grew his range from the cabin.  Again he followed Le Beau’s old trapline.  But the traps were sprung now.  He had lost a great deal of his old caution.  He had grown fatter.  He no longer scented danger in every whiff of the wind.  It was in the third week of Challoner’s stay at the cabin, the day which marked the end of the cold spell and the beginning of warm weather, that Miki came upon an old dead-fall in a swamp a full ten miles from the clearing.  Le Beau had set it for lynx, but nothing had touched the bait, which was a chunk of caribou flesh, frozen solid as a rock.  Curiously Miki began smelling of it.  He no longer feared danger.  Menace had gone out of his world.  He nibbled.  He pulled—­and the log crashed down to break his back.  Only by a little did it fail.  For twenty-four hours it held him helpless and crippled.  Then, fighting through all those hours, he dragged himself out from under it.  With the rising temperature a soft snow had fallen, covering all tracks and trails.  Through this snow Miki dragged himself, leaving a path like that of an otter in the mud, for his hind quarters were helpless.  His back was not broken; it was temporarily paralyzed by the blow and the weight of the log.