Part 5 (2/2)

In Neewa the process of deduction was vastly different His breed was not the fighting breed, except as it fought a upon other beasts, and no other beast preyed upon it This was purely an accident of birth--the fact that no other creature in all his wide doroups, to defeat a grown black bear in open battle Therefore Neewa learned nothing of fighting in the tragedy of Maheegun and the owls His profit, if any, was in a greater caution And his chief interest was in the fact that Maheegun and the tls had not devoured the young bull His supper was still safe

With his little round eyes on the alert for fresh trouble he kept hi the scene of battle From the body of the owl Miki went to Ahtik, and froun had taken into the bush

In the edge of the cover he found Mispoon He did not go farther, but returned to Neeho by this time had made up his mind that he could safely come out into the open

Fifty ti-eyed, cluckingNext to theray-coated eret his fill of blood Miki was at him so fiercely that he did not return a third tiht of the carcass and were circling overhead, waiting for Neewa and Miki to disappear Later, they set up a raucous protest froe of the forest

That night the wolves did not return to the dip Meat was too plentiful, and those that were over their gorge were off on a fresh kill far to the west Once or twice Neewa and Miki heard their distant cry

Again through a star-filled radiant night they watched and listened, and slept at tiray dawn they went forth once more to their feast

And here is where Makoki, the old Cree runner, would have emphasized the presence of the Beneficent Spirit For day followed day, and night followed night, and Ahtik's flesh and blood put into Neewa and Miki a strength and growth that developed marvellously By the fourth day Neewa had beco as on the day he fell out of the canoe Miki had begun to fill out His ribs could no longer be counted fros were losing soular cluthened his jaws With his development he felt less and less the old puppyish desire to play--ht he heard again the wailing hunt-cry of the wolves, and it held a wild and thrilling note for hiood hu as the reat temptation for him beyond the dip and the slope Two or three ti and afternoon--especially about sunset--he had his fun rolling downhill In addition to this he began taking his afternoon naps in the crotch of a s As Miki could see neither sense nor sport in tobogganing, and as he could not cli up and down the foot of the ridge He wanted Neewa to go with him on these expeditions

He never set out until he had entreated Neewa to come down out of his tree, or until he had le trail he had made to the creek and back Neewa's obstinacy would never have brought about any real unpleasantness between theht too much of him for that; and if it had coht that Miki would not return, he would undoubtedly have followed hi than an ordinary quarrel that placed the first great barrier between them Now it happened that Miki was of the breed which preferred its ” And from the fourth day onward, as left of Ahtik's carcass was ripening On the fifth day Miki found the flesh difficult to eat; on the sixth, ily delectable as the flavour grew and the perfuht, he rolled in it That night, for the first tiht the climax Ahtik now fairly smelled to heaven

The odour of him drifted up and away on the soft June wind until all the crows in the country were gathering It drove Miki, slinking like a whipped cur, down into the creek botto feast Miki sniffed hiain As a matter of fact, there was small difference between Ahtik and Nee, except that one lay still and the other ”

Even the crows circled over Neeondering why it was that he walked about like a living thing

That night Miki slept alone under a clury and lonely, and for the first tiness and emptiness of the world He wanted Neewa He whined for hi hours between sunset and dawn

The sun ell up before Neewa came down the hill He had finished his breakfast and his ain Miki tried to coax hily fixed in his deter he was more than usually anxious to return to the dip All of yesterday he had found it necessary to frighten the croay from his meat, and to-day they were doubly persistent in their efforts to rob hirunt and a squeal to Miki he hustled back up the hill after he had taken his drink

His trail entered the dip through the pile of rocks froun and the tls, and as athese rocks tohe received a decided shock Ahtik's carcass was literally black with crows Kakakew and his Ethiopic horde of scavengers had descended in a cloud, and they were tearing and fighting and beating their wings about Ahtik as if all of the in air; every bush and near-by sapling was bending under the weight of thelistened as if they had just come out of the bath of a tinker's pot Neewa stood astounded He was not frightened; he had driven the cowardly robbers away many times But never had there been so round about it was black

He rushed out from the rocks with his lips drawn back, just as he had rushed a dozen or s

The air was darkened by the that followed could have been heard a hty crew did not fly back to the forest Their nue

The taste of Ahtik's flesh and the flavour of it in their nostrils intoxicated them, to the point of madness, with desire Neeas dazed Over him, behind hi and screa down to beat at hi cloud, and then suddenly it descended like an avalanche It covered Ahtik again In it Neeas fairly ss and bodies, and he began fighting, as he had fought the owls A score of pincer-like black beaks fought to get at his hair and hide; others stabbed at his eyes; he felt his ears being pulled from his head, and the end of his nose was a bloody cushi+on within a dozen seconds The breath was beaten out of him; he was blinded, and dazed, and every square inch of hiot Ahtik The one thing in the world he wantedall his strength into the effort he struggled to his feet and charged through the n of defeat many of the crows left him to join in the feast By the tione all but one had left him That one may have been Kakakew himself He had fastened himself like a rat-trap to Neewa's stubby tail, and there he hung on like grim death while Neewa ran He kept his hold until his victim ell into the cover Then he flopped himself into the air and rejoined his brethren at the putrified carcass of the bull

If ever Neewa had wanted Miki he wanted hied He was stabbed in a hundred places

He burned as if afire Even the bottoms of his feet hurt him when he stepped on the his wounds and sniffing the air for Miki

Then he went down the slope into the creek bottom, and hurried to the foot of the trail he had made to and frorunted and squealed, and tried to catch the scent of hiain Ahtik counted as nothing now

Miki was gone

CHAPTER TEN