Part 25 (1/2)
The hushed, dark, primal forest had a different appeal for him now. He loved it still, with the reverence and adoration of the forester he was, but no longer with that love a servant bears his master. He had distinctly escaped from its dominance. The pa.s.sion and mounting fire that it wakened at the fall of darkness could no longer take possession of him, as strong drink possesses the brain, bending his will, making of him simply a tool and a p.a.w.n to gratify its cruel desires and to achieve its mysterious ends. He had been, in spirit, a brother of the wolf, before: a runner in the packs. Such had been the outgrowth of innate traits; part of his strange destiny. Now, after these weeks in the cave, he was a man. It was hard for him to explain even to himself. It was as if in the escape from his own black pa.s.sions, he had also escaped the curious tyranny of the wild; not further subject to its cruel moods and whims, but rather one of a Dominant Breed, a being who could lift his head in defiance to the storm, obey his own will, go his own way. This was no little change. Perhaps, when all is said and done, it marks the difference between man and the lesser mammals, the thing that has evolved a certain species of the primates--simply woods creatures that trembled at the storm and cowered in the night--into the rulers and monarchs of the earth.
Ben had come out from the darkened forest trails where he made his lairs and had gone into a cave to live! He had found a permanent abode--a lasting, shelter from the cold and the storm. It suggested a curious allegory to him. Some time in the long-forgotten past, probably when the later glaciers brought their promise of cold, all his race left their leafy bowers and found cave homes in the cliffs. Before that time they were merely woods children, blind puppets of nature, sleeping where exhaustion found them; wandering without aim in the tree aisles; mating when they met the female of their species on the trails and venturing on again; knowing the ghastly, haunting fear of the night and the blind terror of the storm and elements: merely higher beasts in a world of beasts. But they came to the caves. They established permanent abodes.
They began to be men.
All that now stands as civilization, all the conquest of the earth and sea and air began from that moment. It was the Great Epoch,--and Ben had ill.u.s.trated it in his own life. The change had been infinitely slow, but certain as the movement of the planets in their spheres. Behind the sheltering walls they got away from fear,--that cruel bondage in which Nature holds all her wild creatures, the burden that makes them her slaves. Never to shudder with horror when the darkness fell in silence and mystery; never to have the heart freeze with terror when the thunder roared in the sky and the wind raged in the trees. The cave dwellers began to come into their own. Sheltered behind stone walls they could defy the elements that had enslaved them so long. This freedom gained they learned to strike the fire; they took one woman to keep the cave, instead of mating indiscriminately in the forest, thus marking the beginning of family life. Love instead of deathless hatred, gentleness rather than cruelty, peace in the place of pa.s.sion, mercy and tolerance and self-control: all these mighty bulwarks of man's dominance grew into strength behind the sheltering walls of home.
Thus in these few little weeks Ben Darby--a beast of the forest in his unbridled pa.s.sions--had in some measure imaged the life history of the race. He had lived again the momentous regeneration. The protecting walls, the hearth, particularly Beatrice's wholesome and healing influence, had tamed him. He was still a forester, bred in the bone--loving these forest depths with an ardor too deep for words--but the mark of the beast was gone from his flesh.
He could still deal justice to Ezram's murderers and thus keep faith with his dead partner; but the primal pa.s.sions could no longer dominate him. His pet, however, remained the wolf. The sheltering cavern walls were never for him. He loved Ben with an undying devotion, yet a barrier was rising between them. They could not go the same paths forever.
Matters reached a crisis between Fenris and himself one still, warm night in late July. The two were sitting side by side at the cavern maw, watching the slow enchantment of the forest under the spell of the rising moon; Beatrice had already gone to her hammock. As the last little blaze died in the fire, and it crackled at ever longer intervals, Ben suddenly made a moving discovery. The fringe of forest about him, usually so dreamlike and still, was simply breathing and throbbing with life.
Ben dropped his hand to the wolf's shoulders. ”The little folks are calling on us to-night,” he said quietly.
In all probability he spoke the truth. It was not an uncommon thing for the creatures of the wood--usually the lesser people such as rodents and the small hunters--to crowd close to the edge of the glade and try to puzzle out this ruddy mystery in its center. Unused to men they could never understand. Sometimes the lynx halted in his hunt to investigate, sometimes an old black bear--kindly, benevolent good-humored old bachelor that every naturalist loves--grunted and pondered at the edge of shadow, and sometimes even such lordly creatures as moose and caribou paused in their night journeys to see what was taking place.
Curiously, the wolf started violently at Ben's touch. The man suddenly regarded him with a gaze of deepest interest. The hair was erect on the powerful neck, the eyes swam in pale, blue fire, and he was staring away into the mysterious shadows.
”What do you see, old-timer?” Ben asked. ”I wish I could see too.”
He brought his senses to the finest focus, trying hard to understand. He was aware only of the strained silence at first. Then here and there, about the dimmining circle of firelight, he heard the soft rustle of little feet, the subdued crack of a twig or the scratch of a dead leaf.
The forest smells--of which there is no category in heaven or earth--reached him with incredible clarity. These were faint, vaguely exciting smells, some of them the exquisite fragrances of summer flowers, others beyond his ken. And presently two small, bright circles appeared in a distant covert, glowed once, and then went out.
By peering closely, with unwinking eyes, he began to see other twin-circles of green and yellow light. Yet they were furtive little radiances--vanis.h.i.+ng swiftly--and they were nothing of which to be afraid.
”They _are_ out to-night,” he murmured. ”No wonder you're excited, Fenris. What is it--some celebration in the forest?”
There was no possible explanation. Foresters know that on certain nights the wilderness seems simply to teem with life--scratchings and rustlings in every covert--and on other nights it is still and lifeless as a desert. The wild folk were abroad to-night and were simply paying casual, curious visits to Ben's fire.
Once more Ben glanced at the wolf. The animal no longer crouched. Rather he was standing rigid, his head half-turned and lifted, gazing away toward a distant ridge behind the lake. A wilderness message had reached him, clear as a voice.
But presently Ben understood. Throbbing through the night he heard a weird, far-carrying call--a long-drawn note, broken by half-sobs--the mysterious, plaintive utterance of the wild itself. Yet it was not an inanimate voice. He recognized it at once as the howl of a wolf, one of Fenris' wild brethren.
The creature at his feet started as if from a blow. Then he stood motionless, listening, and the cry came the second time. He took two leaps into the darkness.
Deeply moved, Ben watched him. The wolf halted, then stole back to his master's side. He licked the man's hand with his warm tongue, whining softly.
”What is it, boy?” Ben asked. ”What do you want me to do?”
The wolf whined louder, his eyes luminous with ineffable appeal. Once more he leaped into the shadows, pausing as if to see if Ben would follow him.
The man shook his head, rather soberly. A curious, excited light was in his eyes. ”I can't go, old boy,” he said. ”This is my place--here.
Fenris, I can't leave the cave.”
For a moment they looked eyes into eyes--in the glory of that moon as strange a picture as the wood G.o.ds ever beheld. Once more the wolf call sounded. Fenris whimpered softly.
”Go ahead if you like,” Ben told him. ”G.o.d knows it's your destiny.”
The wolf seemed to understand. With a glad bark he sped away and almost instantly vanished into the gloom.