Another moment or two and he would have gone into the firelight.  But the white man rose to his feet, stretched himself as he had often seen Challoner stretch, and picked up a stick of wood as big as his arm.  He came within ten feet of Miki, and Miki wormed himself just a little toward him, and stood up on his feet.  It brought him into a half light.  His eyes were aglow with the reflection of the fire.  And the man saw him.

In a flash the club he held was over his head; it swung through the air with the power of a giant arm behind it and was launched straight at Miki.  Had it struck squarely it would have killed him.  The big end of it missed him; the smaller end landed against his neck and shoulder, driving him back into the gloom with such force and suddenness that the man thought he had done for him.  He called out loudly to Makoki that he had killed a young wolf or a fox, and dashed out into the darkness.

The club had knocked Miki fairly into the heart of a thick ground spruce.  There he lay, making no sound, with a terrible pain in his shoulder.  Between himself and the fire he saw the man bend over and pick up the club.  He saw Makoki hurrying toward him with another club, and under his shelter he made himself as small as he could.  He was filled with a great dread, for now he understood the truth.  These men were not Challoner.  They were hunting for him—­ with clubs in their hands.  He knew what the clubs meant.  His shoulder was almost broken.

He lay very still while the men searched about him.  The Indian even poked his stick into the thick ground spruce.  The white man kept saying that he was sure he had made a hit, and once he stood so near that Miki’s nose almost touched his boot.  He went back and added fresh birch to the fire, so that the light of it illumined a greater space about them.  Miki’s heart stood still.  But the men searched farther on, and at last went back to the fire.

For an hour Miki did not move.  The fire burned itself low.  The old Cree wrapped himself in a blanket, and the white man went into his tent.  Not until then did Miki dare to crawl out from under the spruce.  With his bruised shoulder making him limp at every step he hurried back over the trail which he had followed so hopefully a little while before.  The man-scent no longer made his heart beat swiftly with joy.  It was a menace now.  A warning.  A thing from which he wanted to get away.  He would sooner have faced Oochak again, or the owls, than the white man with his club.  With the owls he could fight, but in the club he sensed an overwhelming superiority.

The night was very still when he dragged himself back to the hollow log in which he had killed the rabbit.  He crawled into it, and nursed his wounds through all the rest of the hours of darkness.  In the early morning he came out and ate the rest of the rabbit.

After that he faced the north and west—­where Neewa was.  There was no hesitation now.  He wanted Neewa again.  He wanted to muzzle him with his nose and lick his face even though he did smell to heaven.  He wanted to hear him grunt and squeal in his funny, companionable way; he wanted to hunt with him again, and play with him, and lie down beside him in a sunny spot and sleep.  Neewa, at last, was a necessary part of his world.