Part 3 (2/2)
And he trailed warily back to hide himself behind a rock and watch till dark in front of his little _commoosie_.
Old Tomah's sleep was sound as usual that night; so he could not see the five shadows that stole out of the woods, nor hear the light footfalls that circled his camp, nor feel the breath, soft as an eddy of wind in a spruce top, that whiffed at the crack under his door and drifted away again. Next morning he saw the tracks and understood them; and as he trailed away through the still woods he was wondering, in his silent Indian way, why an old wolf should always bring Malsunsis, the cub, for a good look and a sniff at anything that he is to avoid ever after.
When all else fails follow the caribou,--that is the law which governs the wolf in the hungry days; but before they crossed the mountains and followed the long valleys to the far southern ranges the wolves went back to the hills, where the trail began, for a more exciting and dangerous kind of hunting. The pack had held closer together of late; for the old wolves must often share even a scant fox or rabbit with the hungry and inexperienced youngsters. Now, when famine drove them to the very doors of the one enemy to be feared, only the wisest and wariest old wolf was fit to lead the foray.
The little fis.h.i.+ng village was buried under drifts and almost deserted.
A few men lingered to watch the boats and houses; but the families had all gone inland to the winter tilts for wood and shelter. By night the wolves would come stealthily to prowl among the deserted lanes; and the fishermen, asleep in their clothes under caribou skins, or sitting close by the stove behind barred doors, would know nothing of the huge, gaunt forms that flitted noiselessly past the frosted windows. If a pig were left in his pen a sudden terrible squealing would break out on the still night; and when the fisherman rushed out the pen would be empty, with nothing whatever to account for piggie's disappearance. For to their untrained eyes even the tracks of the wolves were covered up by those of the numerous big huskies. If a cat prowled abroad, or an uneasy dog scratched to be let out, there would be a squall, a yelp,--and the cat would not come back, and the dog would never scratch at the door to be let in again.
Only when nothing stirred in the village, when the dogs and cats had been spirited away, and when not even a rat stole from under the houses to gnaw at a fishbone, would the fishermen know of their big silent visitors. Then the wolves would gather on a snow-drift just outside the village and raise a howl, a frightful wail of famine and disappointment, that made the air shudder. From within the houses the dogs answered with mad clamor. A door would open to show first a long seal gun, then a fisherman, then a fool dog that darted between the fisherman's legs and capered away, ki-yi-ing a challenge to the universe. A silence, tense as a bowstring; a sudden yelp--_Hui-hui_, as the fisherman whistled to the dog that was being whisked away over the snow with a grip on his throat that prevented any answer; then the fisherman would wait and call in vain, and s.h.i.+ver, and go back to the fire again.
Almost every pleasant day a train of dogs would leave the village and go far back on the hills to haul fire-wood, or poles for the new fish-flakes. The wolves, watching from their old den, would follow at a distance to pick up a careless dog that ventured away from the fire to hunt rabbits when his harness was taken off. Occasionally a solitary wood-chopper would start with sudden alarm as a big white form glided into sight, and the alarm would be followed by genuine terror as he found himself surrounded by five huge wolves that sat on their tails watching him curiously. Gripping his ax he would hurry back to call his companions and harness the dogs and hurry back to the village before the early darkness should fall upon them. As the komatik went careering over the snow, the dogs yelping and straining at the harness, the men running alongside shouting _Hi-hi_ and cracking their whips, they could still see, over their shoulders, the wolves following lightly close behind; but when they rushed breathless into their houses, and grabbed their guns, and ran back on the trail, there was nothing to be seen. For the wolves, quick as light to feel the presence of danger, were already far away, trotting swiftly up the frozen arm of the harbor, following another sledge trail which came down that morning from the wilderness.
That same night the wolves appeared silently in the little lodge, far up the Southeast Brook, where in a sheltered hollow of the hills the fishermen's families were sleeping away the bitter winter. Here for one long night they watched and waited in vain; for every living thing was safe in the tilts behind barred doors. In the morning little Noel's eyes kindled as he saw the wolves' tracks; and when they came back again the tilts were watching. As the lop-eared cub darted after a cat that shot like a ray of moonlight under a cabin, a window opened noiselessly, and _zing!_ a bowstring tw.a.n.ged its sharp warning in the tense silence. With a yelp the wolf tore the arrow from his shoulder. The warm blood followed the barb, and he lapped it eagerly in his hunger. Then, as the danger swept over him, he gave the trail cry and darted away. Doors banged open here and there; dogs barked to crack their throats; seal guns roared out and sent their heavy echoes cras.h.i.+ng like thunder among the hills. Silence fell again over the lodge; and there were left only a few frightened dogs whose noses had already told them everything, a few fishermen who watched and listened, and one Indian boy with a long bow in his hand and an arrow ready on the string, who trailed away with a little girl at his side trying to puzzle out the track of one wolf that left a drop of blood here and there on the snow in the scant moonlight.
Far up on the hillside in a little opening of the woods the scattered pack came together again. At the first uproar, so unbearable to a silence-loving animal, they had vanished in five different directions; yet so subtle, so perfect is the instinct which holds a wolf family together that the old mother had scarcely entered the glade alone and sat down to wait and listen when the other wolves joined her silently.
Malsunsis, the big cub, scarcely felt his wound at first, for the arrow had but glanced through the thick skin and flesh, and he had torn it out without difficulty; but the old he-wolf limped painfully and held up one fore leg, pierced by a seal shot, as he loped away over the snow.
It was their first rough experience with men, and probably the one feeling in every s.h.a.ggy head was of puzzled wonder as to how and why it had all happened. Hitherto they had avoided men with a certain awe, or watched them curiously at a distance, trying to understand their superior ways; and never a hostile feeling for the masters of the woods had found place in a wolf's breast. Now man had spoken at last; his voice was a brutal command to be gone, and curiously enough these powerful big brutes, any one of which could have pulled down a man more easily than a caribou, never thought of questioning the order.
It was certainly time to follow the caribou--that was probably the one definite purpose that came upon the wolves, sitting in a silent, questioning circle in the moonlight, with only the deep snows and the empty woods around them. For a week they had not touched food; for thrice that time they had not fed full, and a few days more would leave them unable to cope with the big caribou, which are always full fed and strong, thanks to nature's abundance of deer moss on the barrens. So they started as by a single impulse, and the mother wolf led them swiftly southward, hour after hour at a tireless pace, till the great he-wolf weakened and turned aside to nurse his wounded fore leg. The lop-eared cub drew out of the race at the same time. His own wound now required the soft ma.s.sage of his tongue to allay the fever; and besides, the fear that was born in him, one night long ago, and that had slept ever since, was now awake again, and for the first time he was afraid to face the famine and the wilderness alone. So the pack swept on, as if their feet would never tire, and the two wounded wolves crept into the scrub and lay down together.
A strange, terrible feeling stole swiftly over the covert, which had always. .h.i.therto been a place of rest and quiet content. The cub was licking his wound softly when he looked up in sudden alarm, and there was the great he-wolf looking at him hungrily, with a frightful flare in his green eyes. The cub moved away startled and tried to soothe his wound again; but the uncanny feeling was strong upon him still, and when he turned his head there was the big wolf, which had crept forward till he could see the cub behind a twisted spruce root, watching him steadily with the same horrible stare in his unblinking eyes. The hackles rose up on the cub's neck and a growl rumbled in his deep chest, for he knew now what it all meant. The smell of blood was in the air, and the old he-wolf, that had so often shared his kill to save the cubs, was now going crazy in his awful hunger. Another moment and there would have been a terrible duel in the scrub; but as the wolves sprang to their feet and faced each other some deep, unknown feeling stirred within them and they turned aside. The old wolf threw himself down heavily, facing away from the temptation, and the cub slipped aside to find another den, out of sight and smell of the huge leader, lest the scent of blood should overcome them again and cause them to fly at each other's throats in uncontrollable fury.
Next morning a queer thing happened, but not uncommon under the circ.u.mstances among wolves and huskies. The cub was lying motionless, his head on his paws, his eyes wide open, when something stirred near him. A red squirrel came scampering through the scrub branches just under the thick coating of snow that filled all their tops. Slowly, carefully the young wolf gathered his feet under him, tense as a bowstring. As the squirrel whisked overhead the wolf leaped like a flash, caught him, and crushed him with a single grip. Then with the squirrel in his mouth he made his way back to where the big leader was lying, his head on his paws, his eyes turned aside. Slowly, warily the cub approached, with a friendly twist of his ears and head, till he laid the squirrel at the big wolf's very nose, then drew back a step and lay with paws extended and tail thumping the leaves, watching till the tidbit was seized ravenously and crushed and bolted in a single mouthful. Next instant both wolves sprang to their feet and made their way out of the scrub together.
They took up the trail of the pack where they had left it, and followed it ten hours, the cub at a swift trot, the old wolf loping along on three legs. Then a rest, and forward again, slower and slower, night after day in ever-failing strength, till on the edge of a great barren they stopped as if struck, trembling all over as the reek of game poured into their starving nostrils.
Too weak now to kill or to follow the fleet caribou, they lay down in the snow waiting, their ears c.o.c.ked, their noses questioning every breeze for its good news. Left to themselves the trail must end here, for they could go no farther; but somewhere ahead in the vast silent barren the cubs were trailing, and somewhere beyond them the old mother wolf was laying her ambush.--Hark! from a spur of the valley, far below on their left, rang out the food cry, singing its way in the frosty air over woods and plains, and hurrying back over the trail to tell those who had fallen by the way that they were not forgotten. And when they leaped up, as at an electric shock, and raced for the cry, there were the cubs and the mother wolf, their hunger already satisfied, and there in the snow a young bull caribou to save them.
So the long, hard winter pa.s.sed away, and spring came again with its abundance. Grouse drummed a welcome in the woods; the _honk_ of wild geese filled the air with a joyous clangor, and in every open pool the ducks were quacking. No need now to cling like shadows to the herds of caribou, and no further need for the pack to hold together. The ties that held them melted like snows in the sunny hollows. First the old wolves, then the cubs, one by one drifted away whither the game or their new mates were calling them. When the summer came there was another den on the high hill overlooking the harbor, where the little brown cubs could look down with wonder at the s.h.i.+ning sea and the slow fis.h.i.+ng-boats and the children playing on the sh.o.r.e; but the wolves whose trail began there were far away over the mountains, following their own ways, waiting for the crisp hunting cry that should bring them again together.
_Trails that Cross in the Snow_
”Are we lost, little brother?” said Mooka, s.h.i.+vering.
No need of the question, startling and terrible as it was from the lips of a child astray in the vast solitudes; for a great gale had swooped down from the Arctic, blotting out in clouds of whirling snow the world of plain and mountain and forest that, a moment before, had stretched wide and still before the little hunters' eyes.
For an hour or more, running like startled deer, they had tried to follow their own snow-shoe trail back over the wide barrens into the friendly woods; but already the snow had filled it brim full, and whatever faint trace was left of the long raquettes was caught up by the gale and whirled away with a howl of exultation. Before them as they ran every trail of wolf and caribou and snow-shoe, and every distant landmark, had vanished; the world was but a chaos of mad rolling snow clouds; and behind them--Their stout little hearts trembled as they saw not a vestige of the trail they had just made. With the great world itself, their own little tracks, as fast as they made them, were swept and blotted out of existence. Like two sparrows that had dropped blinded and bewildered on the vast plain out of the snow cloud, they huddled together without one friendly sign to tell them whence they had come or whither they were going. Worst of all, the instinct of direction, which often guides an Indian through the still fog or the darkest night, seemed benumbed by the cold and the tumult; and not even Old Tomah himself could have told north or south in the blinding storm.
Still they ran on bravely, bending to the fierce blasts, heading the wind as best they could, till Mooka, tripping a second time in a little hollow where a brook ran deep under the snow, and knowing now that they were but wandering in an endless circle, seized Noel's arm and repeated her question:
”Are we lost, little brother?”
And Noel, lost and bewildered, but gripping his bow in his fur mitten and peering here and there, like an old hunter, through the whirling flakes and rolling gusts to catch some landmark, some lofty crag or low tree-line that held steady in the mad dance of the world, still made confident Indian answer:
”Noel not lost; Noel right here. Camp lost, little sister.”
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