er alive, and she full of fever
from a wound--no water for days. I'm just after the canteen, Nels."

Skag entered again. His movements were deliberate, but not stealthy.
He spoke softly to the creature on the floor--his voice lower than the
usual pitch, yet sinking often deeper still. The words were mere
nothings, but they carried the man's purpose of kindness--carried it
steadily, tirelessly. The great beast tried to rise as he stepped
closer. Skag waited, still talking. He had uncorked the canteen and
held it forward--his idea being not only that she would smell the water
but become accustomed to the thing in his hand. Each time he pressed a
bit nearer she struggled to rise toward him--Skag standing just out of
reach, tirelessly working with his mind and voice. He keenly
registered her pain and helplessness in his own consciousness and was
unwilling to prolong it, yet at the same time he had a very clear
understanding of the patience required to bring help to her.

It was fully a quarter of an hour before he bent close, without
starting a convulsion of fear and revolt in the huge fevered body upon
the rocky floor. Skag poured a gurgle of water upon the swollen
tongue, watching the single baleful tortured eye that held his face.
The water was not wasted, though not drunk, for it washed away some of
the poison formed of the fever and the thirst. Skag poured again and
for a second the great holding eye was lost to him and the tongue moved.

Thus he worked, permitting her fear and rage to rouse no answer in kind
from himself; talking to her softly, luring her out of fury into the
enveloping madness of her own great need.

He waited a moment and her tongue stretched thickly to draw to itself
the water on the rock; then he turned toward the cubs. They scurried
back deeper into the cave. He poured a gill or two of water into a
hollow of the rock and returned to the mother. Presently as he
moistened her tongue again, one of the little ones crept forward and
began to lap the puddle on the rock.

Skag smiled in the gloom. The others were presently beside the baby
leader. A few moments later Skag interrupted his ministrations to the
mother to fill the hollow for the kittens again. All this with less
than three pints of water--the work of a full half hour as he found
when he emerged to Nels and the light.

"It's only a beginning, old man. We've got to get more water. It's
five hours' march back to the pool