over one eye. He
looked longingly back over the "home" trail. Up there was Neewa. With
the lengthening shadows of the day's end a great loneliness crept upon
him and a desire to turn back to his comrade. But Oochak had gone that
way--and he did not want to meet Oochak again.

He wandered a little farther south and east, perhaps a quarter of a
mile, before the sun disappeared entirely. In the thickening gloom of
twilight he struck the Big Rock portage between the Beaver and the Loon.

It was not a trail. Only at rare intervals did wandering voyageurs
coming down from the north make use of it in their passage from one
waterway to the other. Three or four times a year at the most would a
wolf have caught the scent of man in it. It was there tonight, so fresh
that Miki stopped when he came to it as if another Oochak had risen
before him. For a space he was turned into the rigidity of rock by a
single overwhelming emotion. All other things were forgotten in the
fact that he had struck the trail of a man--AND, THEREFORE, THE TRAIL
OF CHALLONER, HIS MASTER. He began to follow it--slowly at first, as if
fearing that it might get away from him. Darkness came, and he was
still following it. In the light of the stars he persisted, all else
crowded from him but the homing instinct of the dog and the desire for
a master.

At last he came almost to the shore of the Loon, and there he saw the
campfire of Makoki and the white man.

He did not rush in. He did not bark or yelp; the hard schooling of the
wilderness had already set its mark upon him. He slunk in
cautiously--then stopped, flat on his belly, just outside the rim of
firelight. Then he saw that neither of the men was Challoner. But both
were smoking, as Challoner had smoked. He could hear their voices, and
they were like Challoner's voice. And the camp was the same--a fire, a
pot hanging over it, a tent, and in the air the odours of recently
cooked things.

Another moment or two and he would have gone into the firelight. But
the white man rose to his feet, stretched himself as he had often seen
Challoner stretch, and picked up a stick of wood as big as his arm. He
came within ten feet of Miki, and Miki wormed himself just a little
toward him, and stood up on his feet. It brought him into a half light.
His eyes were aglow with the reflection of the fire. And the man saw
him.

In a flash the club he held was over his head; it swung through the air
with the power of a gia