Breault heard the sigh, and grunted a reply,

“Hungry again, Peter?” he inquired casually.

He had saved for this moment a piece of cooked bacon held over from breakfast, and tearing this with his fingers he tossed the strips to Peter.  As he did this he was thinking to himself,

“Why am I doing this?  I don’t want the dog.  He will be a nuisance.  He will eat my grub.  But it’s fair.  I’m paying a debt.  He helped to save me up on the Barren.”

Thus did Breault, the man without mercy, the Nemesis, briefly analyze the matter.  And he cooked five pieces of bacon for Peter.

During the rest of that day Peter made no effort to keep himself in concealment as he followed Breault and his raft.  This afternoon Breault shot a fawn, and when he made camp that night both he and Peter feasted on fresh meat.  This broke down the last of Peter’s suspicion, and Breault laid a hand on his head.  He did not particularly like the feel of the hand, but he tolerated it, and Breault grunted aloud, with a note of commendation in his hard voice.

“A one-man dog—­never anything else.”

Half a dozen times during the day Peter had found the scent of Nada and Roger where they had come ashore, and from this night on he associated Breault as a necessary agent in his search for them.  And with Breault he went, instinctively guessing the truth.

The next day they found where Nada and McKay had abandoned the canoe, and had struck south through the wilderness.  This pleased Breault, who was tired of his poling.  This third night there was a new moon, and something about it stirred in Peter an impulse to run ahead and overtake those he was seeking.  But a still strong instinct held him to Breault.

Tonight Breault slept like a dead man on his cedar boughs.  He was up and had a fire built an hour before dawn, and with the first gray streaking of day was on the trail again.  He made no further effort to follow signs of the pursued, for that was a hopeless task.  But he knew how McKay was heading, and he traveled swiftly, figuring to cover twice the distance that Nada might travel in the same given time.  It was three o’clock in the afternoon when he came to a great ridge, and on its highest pinnacle he stopped.

Peter had grown restless again, and a little more suspicious of Breault.  He was not afraid of him, but all that day he had found no scent of Nada or Jolly Roger, and slowly the conviction was impinging itself upon him that he should seek for himself in the wilderness.

Breault saw this restlessness, and understood it.

“I’ll keep my eye on the dog,” he thought.  “He has a nose, and an uncanny sixth sense, and I haven’t either.  He will bear watching.  I believe McKay and the girl cannot be far away.  Possibly they have traveled more slowly than I thought, and haven’t passed this ridge; or it may be they are down there, in the plain.  If so I should catch sign of smoke or fire—­in time.”