Part 2 (1/2)

Knowledge of the wild told hi into the trees and the near-by thickets

In the shelter of his crotch, screened by the thick branches, Neewathe search At the end of half an hour Challoner disappointedly gave up his quest, and went back to the creek for a drink before setting hione than Neewa's little head shot up alertly For a few moments he watched, and then slipped backward down the trunk of the cedar to the ground He gave his squealing call, but his mother did not move He went to her and stood beside herthe man-tainted air Then he muzzled her jowl, butted his nose under her neck, and at last nipped her ear--always his last resort in the awakening process He was puzzled He whined softly, and cli, soft back, and sat there Into his whine there cae note, and then out of his throat there rose a whi cry that was like the cry of a child

Challoner heard that cry as he carip hold of his heart suddenly, and choke hi like that; and it was theup behind a dwarf spruce he looked where Noozak lay dead, and saa perched on his s in his time, for it was his business to kill, and to barter in the pelts of creatures that others killed But he had seen nothing like this before, and he felt all at once as if he had done murder

”I'm sorry,” he breathed softly, ”you poor little devil; I'iveness Yet there was but one thing to do now So quietly that Neewa failed to hear him he crept around with the wind and stole up behind He ithin a dozen feet of Neewa before the cub suspected danger Then it was too late In a swift rush Challoner was upon him and, before Neewa could leave the back of his rub sack

In all his life Challoner had never experienced a livelier five rief and his fear there rose the savage fighting blood of old Soominitik, his father He clawed and bit and kicked and snarled In those five minutes he was five little devils all rolled into one, and by the time Challoner had the rope fastened about Neewa's neck, and his fat body chucked into the sack, his hands were scratched and lacerated in a score of places

In the sack Neewa continued to fight until he was exhausted, while Challoner skinned Noozak and cut from her the meat and fats which he wanted The beauty of Noozak's pelt brought a glow into his eyes In it he rolled thebound the whole into a pack around which he belted the dunnage ends of his shoulder straps Weighted under the burden of sixty pounds of pelt and meat he picked up his rifle--and Neewa It had been early afternoon when he left It was almost sunset when he reached camp Every foot of the way, until the last half ht like a Spartan

Now he lay limp and almost lifeless in his sack, and when Miki came up to smell suspiciously of his prison he made no movement of protest All smells were alike to him now, and of sounds he made no distinction

Challoner was nearly done for Every muscle and bone in his body had its ache Yet in his face, sweaty and gririn of pride

”You plucky little devil,” he said, conte the limp sack as he loaded his pipe for the first time that afternoon ”You--you plucky little devil!”

He tied the end of Neewa's rope halter to a sapling, and began cautiously to open the grub sack Then he rolled Neewa out on the ground, and stepped back In that hour Neeilling to accept a truce so far as Challoner was concerned But it was not Challoner that his half-blinded eyes saw first as he rolled froling with the excite of hilared Was that ill-jointed lop-eared offspring of theconvolutions of this new creature's body and the club-like swing of his tail an invitation to fight? He judged so Anyway, here was so of his size, and like a flash he was at the end of his rope and on the pup Miki, a ood cheer, was on his back in an instant, his grotesque legs paddling the air and his yelping cries for help rising in a wild cla with an unutterable woe

Challoner stood dumbfounded In another hters, but so squarely over Miki, with Miki's four over-gros held aloft as if signalling an unqualified surrender, slowly drew his teeth froain he saw the , held him for a few moments without ed his paws; he whined softly; his hard tail thuround as he pleaded for le, as if to tell Neewa that he had no intention at all to do hi Challoner, snarled defiantly He drew himself slowly from over Miki And Miki, afraid to move, still lay on his back with his paws in the air

Very slowly, a look of wonder in his face, Challoner drew back into the tent and peered through a rent in the canvas

The snarl left Neewa's face He looked at the pup Perhaps away back in so him of what he had lost because of brothers and sisters unborn--the comradeshi+p of babyhood, the play of children And Miki e in the furry little black creature who a o was his ene out his front paard Neewa Then, a little fearful of what ht happen, he rolled on his side Still Neewa did notthrough the slit in the canvas, Challoner saw the noses

CHAPTER FOUR

That night ca rain from out of the north and the east In the wet dawn Challoner came out to start a fire, and in a hollow under a spruce root he found Miki and Neewa cuddled together, sound asleep

It was the cub who first saw the man-beast, and for a brief space before the pup roused hie eneed his world for hi hours of that first night of captivity, and in sleep he had forgotten ed deeper into his shelter under the root, and so softly that only Miki heard him he whimpered for his mother

It was the whiled himself fro and overgrown legs, and yawned so loudly that the sound reached Challoner's ears The man turned and sao pairs of eyes fixed upon hiood ear and the other that was half gone stood up alertly, as he greeted his ood cheer of an irrepressible coray skies and bronzed by the wind and storhted up with a responsive grin, and Miki wriggled forth weaving and twisting hirotesque contortions expressive of happiness at being thus directly smiled at by his master

With all the room under the root left to him Neewa pulled hi, and frolared forth at his edy of yesterday was before hiain--the warm, sun-filled creek botto a breakfast of crawfish when the ht into the timber, and the end of it all when his mother turned to confront their enemy And yet it was not the death of hisIt was the ht with the whitedepths of the bag in which Challoner had brought hi at the scratches on his hands He advanced a few steps, and grinned down at Neewa, just as he had grinned good-huular pup

Neewa's little eyes blazed

”I told you last night that I was sorry,” said Challoner, speaking as if to one of his own kind

In several ways Challoner was unusual, an out-of-the-ordinary type in the northland He believed, for instance, in a certain specific psychology of the animal mind, and had proven to his own satisfaction that animals treated and conversed with in awhich he, in his unscientific way, called reason