|
And
through another winter they wandered on the obliterated trails
of men who had gone before. Once,
they came upon a path blazed through
the forest, an ancient path, and the Lost Cabin seemed
very near. But the path
began nowhere and ended nowhere, and it
remained mystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made it
remained mystery. Another time they chanced upon the time-graven
wreckage of a hunting lodge, and amid the shreds of rotted
blankets John Thornton found a long-barrelled flint-lock.
He knew it for a Hudson
Bay Company gun of the young days in the
Northwest, when such a gun was worth its height in beaver skins packed flat, And that was all--no hint as to the man who in
an early day had reared the
lodge and left the gun among the blankets.
Spring
came on once more, and at the end of all their wandering
they found, not the Lost Cabin, but a shallow placer in a broad valley where the gold showed like yellow butter across the
bottom of the washing-pan.
They sought no farther. Each
day they worked earned them
thousands of dollars in clean dust and nuggets, and
they worked every day. The
gold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty
pounds to the bag, and piled like so much firewood outside
the spruce-bough lodge. Like
giants they toiled, days flashing on the
heels of days like dreams as they heaped the treasure up.
There
was nothing for the dogs to do, save the hauling in of meat
now and again that Thornton killed, and Buck spent long hours musing by the fire. The
vision of the short-legged hairy man came
to him more frequently, now that there was little work to be done;
and often, blinking by the fire, Buck wandered with him in that
other world which he remembered.
The
salient thing of this other world seemed fear.
When he watched the
hairy man sleeping by the fire, head between his knees
and hands clasped above, Buck saw that he slept restlessly, with
many starts and awakenings, at which times he would peer fearfully
into the darkness and fling more wood upon the fire.
Did they walk by the
beach of a sea, where the hairy man gathered shell- fish and ate them as he
gathered, it was with eyes that roved everywhere
for hidden danger and with legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance. Through the forest they
crept noiselessly, Buck at the
hairy man's heels; and they were alert
and vigilant, the pair of them, ears twitching and moving and
nostrils quivering, for the man heard and smelled as keenly as
Buck. The hairy man
could spring up into the trees and travel
ahead as fast as on the ground, swinging by the arms from limb to
limb, sometimes a dozen feet apart, letting go and catching, never falling, never missing his grip.
In fact, he seemed as much at home
among the trees as on the ground; and Buck had memories of
nights of vigil spent beneath trees wherein the hairy man roosted,
holding on tightly as he slept.
And
closely akin to the visions of the hairy man was the call
still sounding in the depths of the forest.
It filled him with a great
unrest and strange desires. It
caused him to feel a vague, sweet
gladness, and he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings
for he knew not what. Sometimes
he pursued the call into the forest,
looking for it as though it were a tangible thing, barking
softly or defiantly, as the mood might dictate.
He would thrust his nose into the cool wood moss, or into the black soil
where long grasses grew, and
snort with joy at the fat earth smells; or
he would crouch for hours, as if in concealment, behind fungus-
covered trunks of fallen trees, wide-eyed and wide-eared to all
that moved and sounded about him.
It might be, lying thus, that he
hoped to surprise this call he could not understand. But he did not
know why he did these various things. He
was impelled to do them, and
did not reason about them at all.
Irresistible
impulses seized him. He would
be lying in camp, dozing lazily
in the heat of the day, when suddenly his head would
lift and his ears cock up, intent and listening, and he would spring to his feet and dash away, and on and on, for hours,
through the forest aisles and across the open spaces where the
niggerheads bunched. He
loved to run down dry watercourses, and
to creep and spy upon the bird life in the woods.
For a day at a time he
would lie in the underbrush where he could watch the
partridges drumming and strutting up and down. But especially he loved
to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest,
reading signs and sounds as man
may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious
something that called--called, waking or sleeping, at
all times, for him to come.
One
night he sprang from sleep with a start, eager-eyed, nostrils
quivering and scenting, his mane bristling in recurrent waves. From the forest came the call (or one note of it, for
the call was many noted),
distinct and definite as never before,--a long-drawn
howl, like, yet unlike, any noise made by husky dog.
And he knew it, in the
old familiar way, as a sound heard before.
He sprang through the
sleeping camp and in swift silence dashed through the
woods. As he drew closer
to the cry he went more slowly, with caution
in every movement, till he came to an open place among the
trees, and looking out saw, erect on haunches, with nose pointed
to the sky, a long, lean, timber wolf.
He
had made no noise, yet it ceased from its howling and tried to
sense his presence. Buck
stalked into the open, half crouching,
body gathered compactly together, tail straight and stiff, feet
falling with unwonted care. Every
movement advertised commingled threatening
and overture of friendliness. It was the menacing truce
that marks the meeting of wild beasts that prey. But the wolf
fled at sight of him. He
followed, with wild leapings, in a frenzy
to overtake. He ran him into a
blind channel, in the bed of
the creek where a timber jam barred the way.
The wolf whirled about,
pivoting on his hind legs after the fashion of Joe and of
all cornered husky dogs, snarling and bristling, clipping his
teeth together in a continuous and rapid succession of snaps.
Buck
did not attack, but circled him about and hedged him in with
friendly advances. The
wolf was suspicious and afraid; for Buck
made three of him in weight, while his head barely reached Buck's
shoulder. Watching his
chance, he darted away, and the chase was
resumed. Time and again
he was cornered, and the thing repeated,
though he was in poor condition, or Buck could not so easily have
overtaken him. He would
run till Buck's head was even with his
flank, when he would whirl around at bay, only to dash away again
at the first opportunity.
But
in the end Buck's pertinacity was rewarded; for the wolf,
finding that no harm was intended, finally sniffed noses with him. Then they became friendly, and played about in the
nervous, half- coy way with which fierce beasts belie their fierceness.
After some time of this
the wolf started off at an easy lope in a manner
that plainly showed he was going somewhere.
He made it clear to Buck
that he was to come, and they ran side by side through the
sombre twilight, straight up the creek bed, into the gorge from
which it issued, and across the bleak divide where it took its
rise.
On
the opposite slope of the watershed they came down into a level
country where were great stretches of forest and many streams, and
through these great stretches they ran steadily, hour after hour,
the sun rising higher and the day growing warmer.
Buck was wildly glad. He knew he was at last answering the call, running by the
side of his wood brother toward the place from where the call
surely came. Old
memories were coming upon him fast, and he was
stirring to them as of old he stirred to the realities of which
they were the shadows. He
had done this thing before, somewhere in
that other and dimly remembered world, and he was doing it again, now, running free in the open, the unpacked earth
underfoot, the wide sky overhead.
They
stopped by a running stream to drink, and, stopping, Buck
remembered John Thornton. He
sat down. The wolf started on
toward the place from where the call surely came, then returned to
him, sniffing noses and making actions as though to encourage him. But Buck turned about and started slowly on the back
track. For
the better part of an hour the wild brother ran by his side,
whining softly. Then he sat down, pointed his nose upward, and
howled. It was a
mournful howl, and as Buck held steadily on his
way he heard it grow faint and fainter until it was lost in the
distance.
John
Thornton was eating dinner when Buck dashed into camp and
sprang upon him in a frenzy of affection, overturning him,
scrambling upon him, licking his face, biting his hand--"playing
the general tom-fool," as John Thornton characterized it, the
while he shook Buck back and forth and cursed him lovingly.
For
two days and nights Buck never left camp, never let Thornton
out of his sight. He
followed him about at his work, watched him
while he ate, saw him into his blankets at night and out of them
in the morning. But
after two days the call in the forest began
to sound more imperiously than ever. Buck's restlessness came back
on him, and he was haunted by recollections of the wild brother,
and of the smiling land beyond the divide and the run side by side through the wide forest stretches. Once again he took to wandering
in the woods, but the wild brother came no more; and
though he listened through long vigils, the mournful howl was
never raised.
He
began to sleep out at night, staying away from camp for days at
a time; and once he crossed the divide at the head of the creek and went down into the land of timber and streams.
There he wandered for a
week, seeking vainly for fresh sign of the wild
brother, killing his meat as he travelled and travelling with the
long, easy lope that seems never to tire.
He fished for salmon in a
broad stream that emptied somewhere into the sea, and by this
stream he killed a large black bear, blinded by the mosquitoes
while likewise fishing, and raging through the forest helpless and
terrible. Even so, it
was a hard fight, and it aroused the last
latent remnants of Buck's ferocity.
And two days later, when he returned
to his kill and found a dozen wolverenes quarrelling over
the spoil, he scattered them like chaff; and those that fled left
two behind who would quarrel no more.
The
blood-longing became stronger than ever before.
He was a killer, a thing
that preyed, living on the things that lived,
unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess,
surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the
strong survived. Because of all this he became possessed of a
great pride in himself, which communicated itself like a contagion
to his physical being. It
advertised itself in all his movements,
was apparent in the play of every muscle, spoke plainly as speech
in the way he carried himself, and made his glorious furry coat if
anything more glorious. But
for the stray brown on his muzzle and above
his eyes, and for the splash of white hair that ran midmost
down his chest, he might well have been mistaken for a gigantic
wolf, larger than the largest of the breed.
From his St. Bernard
father he had inherited size and weight, but it was his shepherd
mother who had given shape to that size and weight.
His muzzle was the long
wolf muzzle, save that was larger than the muzzle of
any wolf; and his head, somewhat broader, was the wolf head on a massive scale.
His
cunning was wolf cunning, and wild cunning; his intelligence,
shepherd intelligence and St. Bernard
intelligence; and all this, plus
an experience gained in the fiercest of schools, made him as
formidable a creature as any that intelligence roamed the wild.
A carnivorous animal
living on a straight meat diet, he was in full
flower, at the high tide of his life, overspilling with vigor and virility. When
Thornton passed a caressing hand along his back, a
snapping and crackling followed the hand, each hair discharing its
pent magnetism at the contact. Every
part, brain and body, nerve tissue
and fibre, was keyed to the most exquisite pitch; and
between all the parts there was a perfect equilibrium or
adjustment. To sights
and sounds and events which required action,
he responded with lightning-like rapidity.
Quickly as a husky dog
could leap to defend from attack or to attack, he could leap twice as quickly. He
saw the movement, or heard sound, and responded
in less time than another dog required to compass the
mere seeing or hearing. He
perceived and determined and responded
in the same instant. In
point of fact the three actions of perceiving,
determining, and responding were sequential; but so
infinitesimal were the intervals of time between them that they
appeared simultaneous. His
muscles were surcharged with vitality,
and snapped into play sharply, like steel springs.
Life streamed through him in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until it
seemed that it would burst him
asunder in sheer ecstasy and pour forth
generously over the world.
"Never
was there such a dog," said John Thornton one day, as the
partners watched Buck marching out of camp.
"When
he was made, the mould was broke,"
said Pete.
"Py
jingo! I t'ink so mineself," Hans affirmed.
They
saw him marching out of camp, but they did not see the
instant and terrible transformation which took place as soon as he
was within the secrecy of the forest.
He no longer marched. At
once he became a thing of the wild, stealing along softly, cat-
footed, a passing shadow that appeared and disappeared among the
shadows. He knew how to
take advantage of every cover, to crawl
on his belly like a snake, and like a snake to leap and strike.
He could take a ptarmigan from its nest, kill a rabbit as it
slept, and snap in mid air the little chipmunks fleeing a second
too late for the trees. Fish,
in open pools, were not too quick for
him; nor were beaver, mending their dams, too wary.
He killed to eat, not
from wantonness; but he preferred to eat what he
killed himself. So a lurking humor ran through his deeds, and it
was his delight to steal upon the squirrels, and, when he all but
had them, to let them go, chattering in mortal fear to the
treetops.
As
the fall of the year came on, the moose appeared in greater
abundance, moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lower and less rigorous valleys. Buck
had already dragged down a stray part-grown
calf; but he wished strongly for larger and more
formidable quarry, and he came upon it one day on the divide at
the head of the creek. A
band of twenty moose had crossed over from
the land of streams and timber, and chief among them was a
great bull. He was in a
savage temper, and, standing over six feet
from the ground, was as formidable an antagonist as even Buck
could desire. Back and forth the bull tossed his great palmated
antlers, branching to fourteen points and embracing seven feet
within the tips. His
small eyes burned with a vicious and bitter
light, while he roared with fury at sight of Buck.
From
the bull's side, just forward of the flank, protruded a
feathered arrow-end, which accounted for his savageness. Guided by
that instinct which came from the old hunting days of the
primordial world, Buck proceeded to cut the bull out from the
herd. It was no slight
task. He would bark and dance
about in front of the bull,
just out of reach of the great antlers and of
the terrible splay hoofs which could have stamped his life out
with a single blow. Unable
to turn his back on the fanged danger and
go on, the bull would be driven into paroxysms of rage.
At such moments he
charged Buck, who retreated craftily, luring him
on by a simulated inability to escape.
But when he was thus separated
from his fellows, two or three of the younger bulls
would charge back upon Buck and enable the wounded bull to rejoin the herd.
There
is a patience of the wild--dogged, tireless, persistent as
life itself--that holds motionless for endless hours the spider in
its web, the snake in its coils, the panther in its ambuscade;
this patience belongs peculiarly to life when it hunts its living
food; and it belonged to Buck as he clung to the flank of the
herd, retarding its march, irritating the young bulls, worrying
the cows with their half-grown calves, and driving the wounded bull mad with helpless rage.
For half a day this continued. Buck
multiplied himself, attacking from all sides, enveloping the herd
in a whirlwind of menace, cutting out his victim as fast as it
could rejoin its mates, wearing out the patience of creatures
preyed upon, which is a lesser patience than that of creatures preying.
As
the day wore along and the sun dropped to its bed in the
northwest (the darkness had come back and the fall nights were six hours long), the young bulls retraced their steps more and
more reluctantly to the aid of
their beset leader. The down-coming winter
was harrying them on to the lower levels, and it seemed
they could never shake off this tireless creature that held them
back. Besides, it was
not the life of the herd, or of the young
bulls, that was threatened. The
life of only one member was demanded,
which was a remoter interest than their lives, and in
the end they were content to pay the toll.
As
twilight fell the old bull stood with lowered head, watching
his mates--the cows he had known, the calves he had fathered, the bulls he had mastered--as they shambled on at a rapid pace
through the fading light.
He could not follow, for before his nose leaped
the merciless fanged terror that would not let him go.
Three hundredweight more
than half a ton he weighed; he had lived a
long, strong life, full of fight and struggle, and at the end he faced death at the teeth of a creature whose head did not
reach beyond his great knuckled
knees.
From
then on, night and day, Buck never left his prey, never gave
it a moment's rest, never permitted it to browse the leaves of trees or the shoots of young birch and willow. Nor did he
give the wounded bull
opportunity to slake his burning thirst in the
slender trickling streams they crossed. Often, in desperation, he
burst into long stretches of flight. At such times Buck did not
attempt to stay him, but loped easily at his heels, satisfied with
the way the game was played, lying down when the moose stood
still, attacking him fiercely when he strove to eat or drink.
The
great head drooped more and more under its tree of horns, and
the shambling trot grew weak and weaker.
He took to standing for long
periods, with nose to the ground and dejected ears dropped
limply; and Buck found more time in which to get water for himself
and in which to rest. At
such moments, panting with red lolling
tongue and with eyes fixed upon the big bull, it appeared to Buck
that a change was coming over the face of things.
He could feel a new stir
in the land. As the moose were
coming into the land, other
kinds of life were coming in. Forest
and stream and air seemed
palpitant with their presence. The
news of it was borne in upon
him, not by sight, or sound, or smell, but by some other and
subtler sense. He heard
nothing, saw nothing, yet knew that the
land was somehow different; that through it strange things were
afoot and ranging; and he resolved to investigate after he had
finished the business in hand.
At
last, at the end of the fourth day, he pulled the great moose
down. For a day and a
night he remained by the kill, eating and
sleeping, turn and turn about. Then,
rested, refreshed and strong,
he turned his face toward camp and John Thornton.
He broke into the long
easy lope, and went on, hour after hour, never
at loss for the tangled way, heading straight home through strange country with a certitude of direction that put man and his
magnetic needle to shame.
As
he held on he became more and more conscious of the new stir in
the land. There was life
abroad in it different from the life which
had been there throughout the summer. No
longer was this fact borne in
upon him in some subtle, mysterious way.
The birds talked of it,
the squirrels chattered about it, the very breeze
whispered of it. Several
times he stopped and drew in the fresh
morning air in great sniffs, reading a message which made him leap
on with greater speed. He
was oppressed with a sense of calamity
happening, if it were not calamity already happened; and as he
crossed the last watershed and dropped down into the valley toward
camp, he proceeded with greater caution.
Three
miles away he came upon a fresh trail that sent his neck
hair rippling and bristling, It led straight toward camp and John Thornton. Buck
hurried on, swiftly and stealthily, every nerve
straining and tense, alert to the multitudinous details which told
a story--all but the end. His
nose gave him a varying description of
the passage of the life on the heels of which he was
travelling. He remarked
die pregnant silence of the forest. The bird life had flitted. The
squirrels were in hiding. One
only he saw,--a sleek gray
fellow, flattened against a gray dead limb so
that he seemed a part of it, a woody excrescence upon the wood
itself.
As
Buck slid along with the obscureness of a gliding shadow, his
nose was jerked suddenly to the side as though a positive force had gripped and pulled it.
He followed the new scent into a
thicket and found Nig. He
was lying on his side, dead where he had
dragged himself, an arrow protruding, head and feathers, from
either side of his body.
A
hundred yards farther on, Buck came upon one of the sled-dogs
Thornton had bought in Dawson. This
dog was thrashing about in a death-struggle,
directly on the trail, and Buck passed around him without stopping. From
the camp came the faint sound of many voices,
rising and falling in a sing-song chant.
Bellying forward to the edge of the clearing, he found Hans, lying on his
face, feathered with arrows
like a porcupine. At the same
instant Buck peered out where
the spruce-bough lodge had been and saw what made
his hair leap straight up on his neck and shoulders. A gust of overpowering
rage swept over him. He did not
know that he growled, but he
growled aloud with a terrible ferocity.
For the last time in his
life he allowed passion to usurp cunning and
reason, and it was because of his great love for John Thornton
that he lost his head.
The
Yeehats were dancing about the wreckage of the spruce-bough
lodge when they heard a fearful roaring and saw rushing upon them
an animal the like of which they had never seen before.
It was Buck, a live
hurricane of fury, hurling himself upon them in a
frenzy to destroy. He
sprang at the foremost man (it was the
chief of the Yeehats), ripping the throat wide open till the rent
jugular spouted a fountain of blood.
He did not pause to worry the
victim, but ripped in passing, with the next bound tearing
wide the throat of a second man.
There was no withstanding him.
He plunged about in their very midst, tearing, rending,
destroying, in constant and terrific motion which defied the
arrows they discharged at him. In
fact, so inconceivably rapid were
his movements, and so closely were the Indians tangled
together, that they shot one another with the arrows; and one
young hunter, hurling a spear at Buck in mid air, drove it through the chest of another hunter with such force that the point
broke through the skin of the
back and stood out beyond. Then a panic
seized the Yeehats, and they fled in terror to the woods, proclaiming as they fled the advent of the Evil Spirit.
And
truly Buck was the Fiend incarnate, raging at their heels and
dragging them down like deer as they raced through the trees. It was a fateful
day for the Yeehats. They
scattered far and wide over the
country, and it was not till a week later that the last
of the survivors gathered together in a lower valley and counted
their losses. As for Buck, wearying of the pursuit, he returned
to the desolated camp. He
found Pete where he had been killed in
his blankets in the first moment of surprise.
Thornton's desperate
struggle was fresh-written on the earth, and Buck
scented every detail of it down to the edge of a deep pool.
By the edge, head and
fore feet in the water, lay Skeet, faithful to
the last. The pool
itself, muddy and discolored from the sluice
boxes, effectually hid what it contained, and it contained John
Thornton; for Buck followed his trace into the water, from which
no trace led away.
All
day Buck brooded by the pool or roamed restlessly about the
camp. Death, as a
cessation of movement, as a passing out and
away from the lives of the living, he knew, and he knew John
Thornton was dead. It
left a great void in him, somewhat akin to
hunger, but a void which ached and ached, and which food could not
fill, At times, when he paused to contemplate the carcasses of the
Yeehats, he forgot the pain of it; and at such times he was aware
of a great pride in himself,--a pride greater than any he had yet
experienced. He had
killed man, the noblest game of all, and he
had killed in the face of the law of club and fang. He sniffed the
bodies curiously. They had died
so easily. It was harder to kill a husky dog than them.
They were no match at all, were it
not for their arrows and spears and clubs. Thenceforward he would be
unafraid of them except when they bore in their hands their
arrows, spears, and clubs.
Night
came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into the
sky, lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day. And with the coming of the night, brooding and mourning by the pool,
Buck became alive to a stirring
of the new life in the forest other than
that which the Yeehats had made, He stood up, listening and
scenting. From far away
drifted a faint, sharp yelp, followed by
a chorus of similar sharp yelps. As the moments passed the yelps
grew closer and louder. Again Buck knew them as things heard in that other world which persisted in his memory.
He walked to the centre of the open space and listened. It was the call, the many- noted call, sounding more luringly
and compellingly than ever before.
And as never before, he was ready to obey.
John Thornton was dead.
The last tie was broken. Man
and the claims of man no longer
bound him.
Hunting
their living meat, as the Yeehats were hunting it, on the
flanks of the migrating moose, the wolf pack had at last crossed over from the land of streams and timber and invaded Buck's
valley. Into the
clearing where the moonlight streamed, they poured
in a silvery flood; and in the centre of the clearing stood
Buck, motionless as a statue, waiting their coming.
They were awed, so still
and large he stood, and a moment's pause fell, till
the boldest one leaped straight for him.
Like a flash Buck struck,
breaking the neck. Then he
stood, without movement, as before,
the stricken wolf rolling in agony behind him.
Three others tried it in
sharp succession; and one after the other they
drew back, streaming blood from slashed throats or shoulders.
This
was sufficient to fling the whole pack forward, pell-mell,
crowded together, blocked and confused by its eagerness to pull
down the prey. Buck's marvellous quickness and agility stood him
in good stead. Pivoting on his hind legs, and snapping and
gashing, he was everywhere at once, presenting a front which was
apparently unbroken so swiftly did he whirl and guard from side to
side. But to prevent
them from getting behind him, he was forced
back, down past the pool and into the creek bed, till he brought
up against a high gravel bank. He
worked along to a right angle in
the bank which the men had made in the course of mining, and in
this angle he came to bay, protected on three sides and with
nothing to do but face the front.
And
so well did he face it, that at the end of half an hour the
wolves drew back discomfited. The
tongues of all were out and lolling,
the white fangs showing cruelly white in the moonlight.
Some were lying down with heads raised and ears pricked forward;
others stood on their feet, watching him; and still others were
lapping water from the pool. One
wolf, long and lean and gray, advanced
cautiously, in a friendly manner, and Buck recognized the
wild brother with whom he had run for a night and a day.
He was whining softly,
and, as Buck whined, they touched noses.
Then
an old wolf, gaunt and battle-scarred, came forward. Buck
writhed his lips into the preliminary of a snarl, but sniffed
noses with him, Whereupon the old wolf sat down, pointed nose at
the moon, and broke out the long wolf howl. The others sat down and howled. And
now the call came to Buck in unmistakable
accents. He, too, sat
down and howled. This over, he came out of
his angle and the pack crowded around him, sniffing in half-
friendly, half-savage manner. The
leaders lifted the yelp of the pack
and sprang away into the woods. The
wolves swung in behind, yelping
in chorus. And Buck ran with them, side by side with the
wild brother, yelping as he ran.
* * *
And
here may well end the story of Buck. The
years were not many when the
Yeehats noted a change in the breed of timber wolves; for
some were seen with splashes of brown on head and muzzle, and with a rift of white centring down the chest.
But more remarkable than this,
the Yeehats tell of a Ghost Dog that runs at the head of the
pack. They are afraid of
this Ghost Dog, for it has cunning greater
than they, stealing from their camps in fierce winters,
robbing their traps, slaying their dogs, and defying their bravest
hunters.
Nay,
the tale grows worse. Hunters
there are who fail to return to
the camp, and hunters there have been whom their tribesmen
found with throats slashed cruelly open and with wolf prints about them in the snow greater than the prints of any wolf.
Each fall, when the
Yeehats follow the movement of the moose, there is a
certain valley which they never enter. And women there are who
become sad when the word goes over the fire of how the Evil Spirit
came to select that valley for an abiding-place.
In
the summers there is one visitor, however, to that valley, of
which the Yeehats do not know. It
is a great, gloriously coated wolf,
like, and yet unlike, all other wolves.
He crosses alone from
the smiling timber land and comes down into an open space
among the trees. Here a
yellow stream flows from rotted moose- hide sacks and sinks into the ground,
with long grasses growing through
it and vegetable mould overrunning it and hiding its
yellow from the sun; and here he muses for a time, howling once,
long and mournfully, ere he departs.
But
he is not always alone. When
the long winter nights come on and
the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be
seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his
great throat a-bellow as he
sings a song of the younger world, which is
the song of the pack.
The End
|
Table of Contents
