So it came that one night, having hunted far, Miki remained away from the den for the first time, and slept under a deep windfall.  After that it was still harder for him to resist the call.  A second and a third night he went away; and then came the time—­ inevitable as the coming and going of the moon and stars—­when understanding at last broke its way through his hope and his fear, and something told him that Neewa would never again travel with him as through those glorious days of old, when shoulder to shoulder they had faced together the comedies and tragedies of life in a world that was no longer soft and green and warm with a golden sun, but white, and still, and filled with death.

Neewa did not know when Miki went away from the den for the last time.  And yet it may be that even in his slumber the Beneficent Spirit may have whispered that Miki was going, for there were restlessness and disquiet in Neewa’s dreamland for many days thereafter.

“Be quiet—­and sleep!” the Spirit may have whispered.  “The Winter is long.  The rivers are black and chill, the lakes are covered with floors of ice, and the waterfalls are frozen like great white giants.  Sleep!  For Miki must go his way, just as the waters of the streams must go their way to the sea.  For he is Dog.  And you are Bear.  Sleep!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

In many years there had not been such a storm in all the Northland as that which followed swiftly in the trail of the first snows that had driven Neewa into his den—­the late November storm of that year which will long be remembered as KUSKETA PIPPOON (the Black Year), the year of great and sudden cold, of starvation and of death.

It came a week after Miki had left the cavern wherein Neewa was sleeping so soundly.  Preceding that, when all the forest world lay under its mantle of white, the sun shone day after day, and the moon and stars were as clear as golden fires in the night skies.  The wind was out of the west.  The rabbits were so numerous they made hard floors of the snow in thicket and swamp.  Caribou and moose were plentiful, and the early cry of wolves on the hunt was like music in the ears of a thousand trappers in shack and teepee.

With appalling suddenness came the unexpected.  There was no warning.  The day had dawned with a clear sky, and a bright sun followed the dawn.  Then the world darkened so swiftly that men on their traplines paused in amazement.  With the deepening gloom came a strange moaning, and there was something in that sound that seemed like the rolling of a great drum—­the knell of an impending doom.  It was thunder.  The warning was too late.  Before men could turn back to safety, or build themselves shelters, the Big Storm was upon them.  For three days and three nights it raged like a mad bull from out of the north.  In the open barrens no living creature could stand upon its feet.  The forests were broken, and all the earth was smothered.  All things that breathed buried themselves—­ or died; for the snow that piled itself up in windrows and mountains was round and hard as leaden shot, and with it came an intense cold.