Nepeese was out of breath when she reached the cabin.  Baree, fastened to a table leg by a babiche thong, heard her pause for a moment at the door.  Then she entered and came straight to him.  During the half-hour of her absence Baree had scarcely moved.  That half-hour, and the few minutes that had preceded it, had made tremendous impressions upon him.  Nature, heredity, and instinct were at work, clashing and readjusting, impinging on him a new intelligence—­the beginning of a new understanding.  A swift and savage impulse had made him leap at Bush McTaggart when the factor put his hand on the Willow’s head.  It was not reason.  It was a hearkening back of the dog to that day long ago when Kazan, his father, had lulled the man-brute in the tent, the man-brute who had dared to molest Thorpe’s wife, whom Kazan worshiped.  Then it had been the dog—­and the woman.

And here again it was the woman.  She had appealed to the great hidden passion that was in Baree and that had come to him from Kazan.  Of all the living things in the world, he knew that he must not hurt this creature that appeared to him through the door.  He trembled as she knelt before him again, and up through the years came the wild and glorious surge of Kazan’s blood, overwhelming the wolf, submerging the savagery of his birth—­and with his head flat on the floor he whined softly, and wagged his tail.

Nepeese gave a cry of joy.

“Baree!” she whispered, taking his head in her hands.  “Baree!”

Her touch thrilled him.  It sent little throbs through his body, a tremulous quivering which she could feel and which deepened the glow in her eyes.  Gently her hand stroked his head and his back.  It seemed to Nepeese that he did not breathe.  Under the caress of her hand his eyes closed.  In another moment she was talking to him, and at the sound of her voice his eyes shot open.

“He will come here—­that beast—­and he will kill us,” she was saying.  “He will kill you because you bit him, Baree.  Ugh, I wish you were bigger, and stronger, so that you could take off his head for me!”

She was untying the babiche from about the table leg, and under her breath she laughed.  She was not frightened.  It was a tremendous adventure—­and she throbbed with exultation at the thought of having beaten the man-beast in her own way.  She could see him in the pool struggling and beating about like a great fish.  He was just about crawling out of the chasm now—­and she laughed again as she caught Baree up under her arm.

“Oh—­oopi-nao—­but you are heavy!” she gasped, “And yet I must carry you—­because I am going to run!”

She hurried outside.  Pierrot had not come, and she darted swiftly into the balsams back of the cabin, with Baree hung in the crook of her arm, like a sack filled at both ends and tied in the middle.  He felt like that, too.  But he still had no inclination to wriggle himself free.  Nepeese ran with him until her arm ached.  Then she stopped and put him down on his feet, holding to the end of the caribou-skin thong that was tied about his neck.  She was prepared for any lunge he might make to escape.  She expected that he would make an attempt, and for a few moments she watched him closely, while Baree, with his feet on earth once more, looked about him.  And then the Willow spoke to him softly.