In the bustle of all these preparations Nepeese was compelled to give less attention to Baree than she had during the preceding weeks.  They did not play so much; they no longer swam, for with the mornings there was deep frost on the ground, and the water was turning icy cold.  They no longer wandered deep in the forest after flowers and berries.  For hours at a time Baree would now lie at the Willow’s feet, watching her slender fingers as they weaved swiftly in and out with her snowshoe babiche.  And now and then Nepeese would pause to lean over and put her hand on his head, and talk to him for a moment—­sometimes in her soft Cree, sometimes in English or her father’s French.

It was the Willow’s voice which Baree had learned to understand, and the movement of her lips, her gestures, the poise of her body, the changing moods which brought shadow or sunlight into her face.  He knew what it meant when she smiled.  He would shake himself, and often jump about her in sympathetic rejoicing, when she laughed.  Her happiness was such a part of him that a stern word from her was worse than a blow.  Twice Pierrot had struck him, and twice Baree had leaped back and faced him with bared fangs and an angry snarl, the crest along his back standing up like a brush.  Had one of the other dogs done this, Pierrot would have half-killed him.  It would have been mutiny, and the man must be master.  But Baree was always safe.  A touch of the Willow’s hand, a word from her lips, and the crest slowly settled and the snarl went out of his throat.

Pierrot was not at all displeased.

“Dieu.  I will never go so far as to try and whip that out of him,” he told himself.  “He is a barbarian—­a wild beast—­and her slave.  For her he would kill!”

So it turned out, through Pierrot himself—­and without telling his reason for it—­that Baree did not become a sledge dog.  He was allowed his freedom, and was never tied, like the others.  Nepeese was glad, but did not guess the thought that was in Pierrot’s mind.  To himself Pierrot chuckled.  She would never know why he kept Baree always suspicious of him, even to the point of hating him.

It required considerable skill and cunning on his part.  With himself he reasoned: 

“If I make him hate me, he will hate all men.  Mey-oo!  That is good.”

So he looked into the future—­for Nepeese.

Now the tonic-filled days and cold, frosty nights of the Red Moon brought about the big change in Baree.  It was inevitable.  Pierrot knew that it would come, and the first night that Baree settled back on his haunches and howled up at the Red Moon, Pierrot prepared Nepeese for it.

“He is a wild dog, ma Nepeese,” he said to her.  “He is half wolf, and the Call will come to him strong.  He will go into the forests.  He will disappear at times.  But we must not fasten him.  He will come back.  Ka, he will come back!” And he rubbed his hands in the moonglow until his knuckles cracked.