there was a smoldering fire. At last Nepeese turned and came and sat
down beside him again, at his feet.

"He is coming tomorrow, ma cherie," he said. "What shall I tell him?"

The Willow's lips were red. Her eyes shone. But she did not look up at
her father.

"Nothing, Nootawe--except that you are to say to him that I am the one
to whom he must come--for what he seeks."

Pierrot bent over and caught her smiling. The sun went down. His heart
sank with it, like cold lead.

From Lac Bain to Pierrot's cabin the trail cut within half a mile of
the beaver pond, a dozen miles from where Pierrot lived. And it was
here, on a twist of the creek in which Wakayoo had caught fish for
Baree, that Bush McTaggart made his camp for the night. Only twenty
miles of the journey could be made by canoe, and as McTaggart was
traveling the last stretch afoot, his camp was a simple affair--a few
cut balsams, a light blanket, a small fire. Before he prepared his
supper, the factor drew a number of copper wire snares from his small
pack and spent half an hour in setting them in rabbit runways. This
method of securing meat was far less arduous than carrying a gun in hot
weather, and it was certain. Half a dozen snares were good for at least
three rabbits, and one of these three was sure to be young and tender
enough for the frying pan. After he had placed his snares McTaggart set
a skillet of bacon over the coals and boiled his coffee.

Of all the odors of a camp, the smell of bacon reaches farthest in the
forest. It needs no wind. It drifts on its own wings. On a still night
a fox will sniff it a mile away--twice that far if the air is moving in
the right direction. It was this smell of bacon that came to Baree
where he lay in his hollow on top of the beaver dam.

Since his experience in the canyon and the death of Wakayoo, he had not
fared particularly well. Caution had kept him near the pond, and he had
lived almost entirely on crayfish. This new aroma that came with the
night wind roused his hunger. But it was elusive: now he could smell
it--the next instant it was gone. He left the dam and began questing
for the source of it in the forest, until after a time he lost it
altogether. McTaggart had finished frying his bacon and was eating it.

It was a splendid night that followed. Perhaps Baree would have slept
through it in his nest on the top of the dam if the bacon smell had not
stirred the new hunger in him. Since his adventure