A laugh of joy—­new and strange even to herself—­came into the woman’s voice, and she ran to the crib and returned with the baby in her arms.  She knelt down beside him again, and the baby, at sight of this strange plaything on the floor, thrust out its little arms, and kicked its tiny moccasined feet, and cooed and laughed and squirmed until Miki strained at his thongs to get a little nearer that he might touch this wonderful creature with his nose.  He forgot his pain.  He no longer sensed the agony of his bruised and beaten jaws.  He did not feel the numbness of his tightly bound and frozen legs.  Every instinct in him was centred in these two.

And the woman, now, was beautiful.  She understood; and the gentle heart throbbed in her bosom, forgetful of The Brute.  Her eyes glowed with the soft radiance of stars.  Into her pale cheeks came a sweet flush.  She sat the baby down, and with the cloth and warm water continued to bathe Miki’s head.  Le Beau, had he been human, must have worshipped her then as she knelt there, all that was pure and beautiful in motherhood, an angel of mercy, radiant for a moment in her forgetfulness of him.  And Le Beau did enter—­and see her—­so quietly that for a space she did not realize his presence; and with him staring down on her she continued to talk and laugh and half sob, and the baby kicked and prattled and flung out its little arms wildly in the joy of these exciting moments.

Le Beau’s thick lips drew back in an ugly leer, and he gave a savage curse.  Nanette flinched as if struck a blow.

“Get up, you fool!” he snarled.

She obeyed, shrinking back with the baby in her arms.  Miki saw the change, and the greenish fire returned into his eyes when he caught sight of Le Beau.  A deep and wolfish snarl rose in his throat.

Le Beau turned on Nanette.  The glow and the flush had not quite gone from her eyes and cheeks as she stood with the baby hugged up to her breast, and her big shining braid had fallen over her shoulder, glistening with a velvety fire in the light that came through the western window.  But Le Beau saw nothing of this.

“If you make a POOS (a house-kitten) of that dog—­a thing like you made of Minoo, the breed-bitch, I will—­”

He did not finish, but his huge hands were clinched, and there was an ugly passion in his eyes.  Nanette needed no more than that.  She understood.  She had received many blows, but there was the memory of one that never left her, night or day.  Some day, if she could ever get to Post Fort O’ God, and had the courage, she would tell Le FACTEUR of that blow—­how Jacques Le Beau, her husband, struck it at the nursing time, and her bosom was so hurt that the baby of two years ago had died.  She would tell it, when she knew she and the baby would be safe from the vengeance of the Brute.  And only Le FACTEUR—­the Big Man at Post Fort O’ God a hundred miles away—­ was powerful enough to save her.