She rose quietly, so that she would not waken the baby in the crib, and opened the door.  The moon was just rising over the forest and through the glow of it she went to the cage.  She heard the dog’s joyous whine, and then she felt the warm caress of his tongue upon her bare hands as she thrust them between the sapling bars.

“Non, Non; you are not a devil,” she cried softly, her voice filled with a strange tremble.  “O-o-ee, my SOKETAAO, I prayed, prayed—­and you came.  Yes, on my knees each night I prayed to Our Blessed Lady that she might have mercy on my baby, and make the sun in heaven shine for her through all time.  And you came!  And the dear God does not send devils in answer to prayer.  Non; never!”

And Miki, as though some spirit had given him the power to understand, rested the weight of his bruised and beaten head on her hands.

From the edge of the forest Durant was watching.  He had caught the flash of light from the door and had seen Nanette go to the cage, and his eyes did not leave her until she returned into the cabin.  He laughed as he went to his fire and finished making the WAHGUN he was fastening to the end of a long pole.  This WAHGUN and the pole added to his own cleverness were saving him twelve good fox skins, and he continued to chuckle there in the fireglow as he thought how easy it was to beat a woman’s wits.  Nanette was a fool to refuse the pelts, and Jacques was—­dead.  It was a most lucky combination of circumstances for him.  Fortune had surely come his way.  On Le Bete, as he called the wild dog, he would gamble all that he possessed in the big fight.  And he would win.

He waited until the light in the cabin went out before he approached the cage again.  Miki heard him coming.  At a considerable distance he saw him, for the moon was already turning the night into day.  Durant knew the ways of dogs.  With them he employed a superior reason where Le Beau had used the club and the rawhide.  So he came up openly and boldly, and, as if by accident, dropped the end of the pole between the bars.  With his hands against the cage, apparently unafraid, he began talking in a casual way.  He was different from Le Beau.  Miki watched him closely for a space and then let his eyes rest again on the darkened cabin window.  Stealthily Durant began to take advantage of his opportunity.  A little at a time he moved the end of the pole until it was over Miki’s head, with the deadly bowstring and its open noose hanging down.  He was an adept in the use of the WAHGUN.  Many foxes and wolves, and even a bear, he had caught that way.  Miki, numbed by the cold, scarcely felt the babiche noose as it settled softly about his neck.  He did not see Durant brace himself, with his feet against the running-log of the cage.