The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1926-07-30

stores, and the stove which Pierrot
had improvised out of scraps of iron
and heavy tin. But Nepeese was not
there. And there was no sign of her
outside. The snow was unbroken ex-
cept by his own trail. 1t was dark
when he returned to the burned cabin.
All that night he hung about the de-
serted dog-corral, and all through the
night the snow fell steadily, so that
by dawn he sank into it to his Shout
ders when he moved out into the
clearing.
With day the sky had cleared. The
sun came up, and the world was al
most too dazzling for the eyes. 1t
warmed Baree's blood with new hope
and expectation. His brain struggled
even more eagerly than yesterday to
comprehend. Surely the Willow would
be returning soon! He would hear
her voice. She would appear suddenly
out Of the forest He would receive
some signal from her. One of these
things, or all of them, must happen.
He stopped sharply In his tracks at
every sound. and shifted the air from
every point of the wind. He was trav-
cling ceaselessly.
His body made deep trails In the
snow around and over the huge white
mound where the cabin had stood; his
tracks led from the corral to the tall
spruce, and they were as numerous as
the footprints Of n wolf-pack for half
mile up and down the chasm.
On the afternoon Of this day the
second big impulse came to him. 1t
was not reason, and neither was 1t in
stinct alone. 1t was the struggle half
way between, the brute mind fighting
at its best with the mystery Of an in
tangible something that could
not be seen by the eye or heard by the
ear. Nepeese was not in the cabin,
because there was no cabin. She was
not at the tepee. He could find no
trace of her in the chasm. She was
not with Pierrot under the big spruce.
Therefore, unreasoning but sure, he
began to follow the old trap-line into
the north and west.
No man has ever looked clearly into
the mystery Of death as 1t is impinged
upon the senses of the northern dog.
It comes to him, sometimes, with the
wind; most frequently it must come
with the wind, and yet there are ten
thousand masters in the northland
who will swear that their dogs have
given warning of death hours before
1t actually came; and there are many
of these thousands who know from ex-
perience that their teams will stop a
cabin in which there is unburied dead.
Yesterday Baree had smelled death,
and he knew without process of rea-
soning that the dead was Pierrot How
he knew this, and why he accepted the
fact as inevitable, is one of the mys-
teries which at times seems to give
the direct challenge to those who con-
cede nothing more than instinct to the
brute mind. He knew that Pierrot
was dead without exactly knowing
what death was. But of one thing he
was sure: he would never see Pierrot
again; he would never hear his voice
again; he would never hear again the
swish-swish-swish of his snowshoes in
the trail ahead, and so on the trap
line he did not look for Pierrot. Pier
rot was gone forever. But Baree had
not vet associated death with Nepeese.
He believed that Nepeese was alive,
and he was now just as sure that he
would overtake her on the trap-line
as he was positive yesterday that he
would find her at the birc,i-bark tepee.
Since yesterday mornings breakfast
with the Willow, Baree had gone with
out eating; to appease his hunger
meant, to hunt, and his mind was too
filled with his quest of Nepeese for
that. He would have gone hungry all
that day, but in the third mile from
the cabin he came to trap in which
there was a big snowshoe rabbit.
The rabbit was still alive, and he
killed it and ate his fill. Until dark
he did not miss a trap. In one OF
them there was lynx; in another
fsher-cat; out on the white surface
Of a lake he shifted at snowy mound
under which lay the body of red fox
killed by one of Pierrot's poison bats.
Both the lynx and the fisher-cat were
alive, and the steel chains of their
traps clanked sharply as they pre-
pared to give Baree battle. But BARGE
was uninterested. He hurried on, his
uneasiness growing as the day dark
ened and he found no sign of the VIII
low.
(To BE CoNTINUED)