ir enemy. And yet it was not the
death of his mother that remained with him most poignantly this
morning. It was the memory of his own terrific fight with the white
man, and his struggle afterward in the black and suffocating depths of
the bag in which Challoner had brought him to his camp. Even now
Challoner was looking at the scratches on his hands. He advanced a few
steps, and grinned down at Neewa, just as he had grinned
good-humouredly at Miki, the angular 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 a matter-of-fact human way
frequently developed an understanding which he, in his unscientific
way, called reason.

"I told you I was sorry," he repeated, squatting on his heels within a
yard of the root from under which Neewa's eyes were glaring at him,
"and I am. I'm sorry I killed your mother. But we had to have meat and
fat. Besides, Miki and I are going to make it up to you. We're going to
take you along with us down to the Girl, and if you don't learn to love
her you're the meanest, lowest-down little cuss in all creation and
don't deserve a mother. You and Miki are going to be brothers. His
mother is dead, too--plum starved to death, which is worse than dying
with a bullet in your lung. And I found Miki just as I found you,
hugging up close to her an' crying as if there wasn't any world left
for him. So cheer up, and give us your paw. Let's shake!"

Challoner held out his hand. Neewa was as motionless as a stone. A few
moments before he would have snarled and bared his teeth. But now he
was dead still. This was by all odds the strangest beast he had ever
seen. Yesterday it had not harmed him, except to put him into the bag.
And now it did not offer to harm him. More than that, the talk it made
was not unpleasant, or threatening. His eyes took in Miki. The pup had
squeezed himself squarely between Challoner's knees and was looking at
him in a puzzled, questioning sort of way, as if to ask: "Why don't you
come out from under that root and help get breakfast?"

Challoner's hand came nearer, and Neewa crowded himself back until
there was not another inch of room for him to fill. T