Baree had found his place in the lower rim of the horseshoe, so that he was fairly well in the rear when the climax came.  The plain made a sudden dip.  Straight ahead was the gleam of water—­water shimmering softly in the starglow, and the sight of it sent a final great spurt of blood through the caribou’s bursting heart.  Forty seconds would tell the story—­forty seconds of a last spurt for life, of a final tremendous effort to escape death.  Baree felt the sudden thrill of these moments, and he forged ahead with the others in that lower rim of the horseshoe as one of the leading wolves made a lunge for the young bull’s hamstring.  It was a clean miss.  A second wolf darted in.  And this one also missed.

There was no time for others to take their place.  From the broken end of the horseshoe Baree heard the caribou’s heavy plunge into water.  When Baree joined the pack, a maddened, mouth-frothing, snarling horde, Napamoos, the young bull, was well out in the river and swimming steadily for the opposite shore.

It was then that Baree found himself at the side of Maheegun.  She was panting; her red tongue hung from her open jaws.  But at his presence she brought her fangs together with a snap and slunk from him into the heart of the wind-run and disappointed pack.  The wolves were in an ugly temper, but Baree did not sense the fact.  Nepeese had trained him to take to water like an otter, and he did not understand why this narrow river should stop them as it had.  He ran down to the water and stood belly deep in it, facing for an instant the horde of savage beasts above him, wondering why they did not follow.  And he was black—­black.  He came among them again, and for the first time they noticed him.

The restless movements of the waters ceased now.  A new and wondering interest held them rigid.  Fangs closed sharply.  A little in the open Baree saw Maheegun, with a big gray wolf standing near her.  He went to her again, and this time she remained with flattened ears until he was sniffing her neck.  And then, with a vicious snarl, she snapped at him.  Her teeth sank deep in the soft flesh of his shoulder, and at the unexpectedness and pain of her attack, he let out a yelp.  The next instant the big gray wolf was at him.

Again caught unexpectedly, Baree went down with the wolf’s fangs at his throat.  But in him was the blood of Kazan, the flesh and bone and sinew of Kazan, and for the first time in his life he fought as Kazan fought on that terrible day at the top of the Sun Rock.  He was young; he had yet to learn the cleverness and the strategy of the veteran.  But his jaws were like the iron clamps with which Pierrot set his bear traps, and in his heart was sudden and blinding rage, a desire to kill that rose above all sense of pain or fear.