"Aren"t we having the darndest luck getting you a cub for a house-pet, Nanette?" he asked. "I"d have sworn this mother and her cub would have been easily caught. A he-bear! We"ll have to let him loose, Mootag. His pelt is good for nothing. Do you want to go with us and see the fun, Nanette?"
She nodded, her little laugh filled with the joy of love and life.
"Oui. It will be such fun--to see him go!"
Challoner led the way, with an axe in his hand; and with him came Nanette, her hand in his. Mootag followed with his rifle, prepared for an emergency. From the thick screen of balsams Challoner peered forth, then made a hole through which Nanette might look at the cage and its prisoner. For a moment or two she held her breath as she watched Neewa pacing back and forth, very much excited now. Then she gave a little cry, and Challoner felt her fingers pinch his own sharply. Before he knew what she was about to do she had thrust herself through the screen of balsams.
Close to the log prison, faithful to his comrade in the hour of peril, lay Miki. He was exhausted from digging at the earth under the lower log, and he had not smelled or heard anything of the presence of others until he saw Nanette standing not twenty paces away. His heart leapt up into his panting throat. He swallowed, as though to get rid of a great lump; he stared. And then, with a sudden, yearning whine, he sprang toward her. With a yell Challoner leapt out of the balsams with uplifted axe. But before the axe could fall, Miki was in Nanette"s arms, and Challoner dropped his weapon with a gasp of amazement--and one word:
"MIKI!"
Mootag, looking on in stupid astonishment, saw both the man and the woman making a great fuss over a strange and wild-looking beast that looked as if it ought to be killed. They had forgotten the bear. And Miki, wildly joyous at finding his beloved master and mistress, had forgotten him also. It was a prodigious WHOOF from Neewa himself that brought their attention to him. Like a flash Miki was back at the pen smelling of Neewa"s snout between two of the logs, and with a great wagging of tail trying to make him understand what had happened.
Slowly, with a thought born in his head that made him oblivious of all else but the big black brute in the pen, Challoner approached the trap.
Was it possible that Miki could have made friends with any other bear than the cub of long ago? He drew in a deep breath as he looked at them. Neewa"s brown-tipped nose was thrust between two of the logs and MIKI WAS LICKING IT WITH HIS TONGUE! He held out a hand to Nanette, and when she came to him he pointed for a s.p.a.ce, without speaking.
Then he said:
"It is the cub, Nanette. You know--the cub I have told you about.
They"ve stuck together all this time--ever since I killed the cub"s mother a year and a half ago, and tied them together on a piece of rope. I understand now why Miki ran away from us when we were at the cabin. He went back--to the bear."
To-day if you strike northward from Le Pas and put your canoe in the Rat River or Gra.s.sberry waterways, and thence paddle and run with the current down the Reindeer River and along the east sh.o.r.e of Reindeer Lake you will ultimately come to the Cochrane--and Post Lac Bain. It is one of the most wonderful countries in all the northland. Three hundred Indians, breeds and French, come with their furs to Lac Bain. Not a soul among them--man, woman, or child--but knows the story of the "tame bear of Lac Bain"--the pet of l"ange, the white angel, the Factor"s wife.
The bear wears a shining collar and roams at will in the company of a great dog, but, having grown huge and fat now, never wanders far from the Post. And it is an unwritten law in all that country that the animal must not be harmed, and that no bear traps shall be set within five miles of the Company buildings. Beyond that limit the bear never roams; and when it comes cold, and he goes into his long sleep, he crawls into a deep warm cavern that has been dug for him under the Company storehouse. And with him, when the nights come, sleeps Miki the dog.
THE END