He had gone a hundred yards or more into the forest, and in a little open space, lighted up like a tiny amphitheatre in the glow of the moon, he stopped.  Suddenly there came to him, thrilling in its promise, a key to the situation.  He would wait until they reached Tavish’s.  And then, in the presence of the Missioner, he would suddenly show Tavish the picture.  His heart throbbed uneasily as he anticipated the possible tragedy—­the sudden betrayal—­of that moment, for Father Roland had said, like one who had glimpsed beyond the ken of human eyes, that Tavish was haunted by a vision of the dead.  The dead!  Could it be that she, the girl in the picture....?  He shook himself, set his lips tight to get the thought away from him.  And the woman—­the woman in the coach, the woman who had left in her seat this picture that was growing in his heart like a living thing—­who was she?  Was her quest one of vengeance—­of retribution?  Was Tavish the man she was seeking?  Up in that mountain valley—­where the girl had stood on that rock—­had his name been Michael O’Doone?

He was trembling when he went on, deeper into the forest.  But of his determination there was no longer a doubt.  He would say nothing to Father Roland until Tavish had seen the picture.

Until now he had forgotten Baree.  In the disquieting fear with which his thoughts were weighted he had lost hold of the fact that in his hand he still carried the slightly curved and solidly frozen substance of a fish.  The movement of a body near him, so unexpected and alarmingly close that a cry broke from his lips as he leaped to one side, roused him with a sudden mental shock.  The beast, whatever it was, had passed within six feet of him, and now, twice that distance away, stood like a statue hewn out of stone levelling at him the fiery gleam of a solitary eye.  Until he saw that one eye, and not two, David did not breathe.  Then he gasped.  The fish had fallen from his fingers.  He stooped, picked it up, and called softly: 

“Baree!”

The dog was waiting for his voice.  His one eye shifted, slanting like a searchlight in the direction of the cabin, and turned swiftly back to David.  He whined, and David spoke to him again, calling his name, and holding out the fish.  For several moments Baree did not move, but eyed him with the immobility of a half-blinded sphinx.  Then, suddenly, he dropped on his belly and began crawling toward him.

A spatter of moonlight fell upon them as David, crouching on his heels, gave Baree the fish, holding for a moment to the tail of it while the hungry beast seized its head between his powerful jaws with a grinding crunch.  The power of those jaws sent a little shiver through the man so close to them.  They were terrible—­and splendid.  A man’s leg-bone would have cracked between them like a pipe stem.  And Baree, with that power of death in his jaws, had a second time crept to him on his belly—­not fearingly,