When he returned, months later, he was alone.

From his lonely hunting shack deep in the solitudes his comrade had disappeared, and had never returned.

This all happened before Mukoki met the pretty Indian girl who became his wife, and was afterward killed by the wolves, and he missed the dog as he would have missed a human brother.

The Indian's love, even for brutes, is some thing that lives, and more than twenty moons later--two years in the life of a man--he returned once again to the old shack, and there he found Wholdaia, the dog! The animal knew him, and bounded about on three legs for joy, and because of the missing leg Mukoki understood why he had not returned to him two years before.
Two years is a long time in the life of a dog, and the gray hairs of suffering and age were freely sprinkled in Wholdaia's muzzle and along his spine.
Mukoki was not thinking of Wholdaia without a reason.

He was thinking of Wabigoon's words--and the mad hunter.