Chương Chương 2 · 第2章

THE SHE-WOLF

Breakfast eaten and the slim camp-outfit lashed to the sled, the men

turned their backs on the cheery fire and launched out into the

darkness. At once began to rise the cries that were fiercely sad—cries

that called through the darkness and cold to one another and answered

back. Conversation ceased. Daylight came at nine o’clock. At midday the

sky to the south warmed to rose-colour, and marked where the bulge of

the earth intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world.

But the rose-colour swiftly faded. The grey light of day that remained

lasted until three o’clock, when it, too, faded, and the pall of the

Arctic night descended upon the lone and silent land.

As darkness came on, the hunting-cries to right and left and rear drew

closer—so close that more than once they sent surges of fear through

the toiling dogs, throwing them into short-lived panics.

At the conclusion of one such panic, when he and Henry had got the dogs

back in the traces, Bill said:

“I wisht they’d strike game somewheres, an’ go away an’ leave us

alone.”

“They do get on the nerves horrible,” Henry sympathised.

They spoke no more until camp was made.

Henry was bending over and adding ice to the babbling pot of beans when

he was startled by the sound of a blow, an exclamation from Bill, and a

sharp snarling cry of pain from among the dogs. He straightened up in

time to see a dim form disappearing across the snow into the shelter of

the dark. Then he saw Bill, standing amid the dogs, half triumphant,

half crestfallen, in one hand a stout club, in the other the tail and

part of the body of a sun-cured salmon.

“It got half of it,” he announced; “but I got a whack at it jes’ the

same. D’ye hear it squeal?”

“What’d it look like?” Henry asked.

“Couldn’t see. But it had four legs an’ a mouth an’ hair an’ looked

like any dog.”

“Must be a tame wolf, I reckon.”

“It’s damned tame, whatever it is, comin’ in here at feedin’ time an’

gettin’ its whack of fish.”

That night, when supper was finished and they sat on the oblong box and

pulled at their pipes, the circle of gleaming eyes drew in even closer

than before.

“I wisht they’d spring up a bunch of moose or something, an’ go away

an’ leave us alone,” Bill said.

Henry grunted with an intonation that was not all sympathy, and for a

quarter of an hour they sat on in silence, Henry staring at the fire,

and Bill at the circle of eyes that burned in the darkness just beyond

the firelight.

“I wisht we was pullin’ into McGurry right now,” he began again.

“Shut up your wishin’ and your croakin’,” Henry burst out angrily.

“Your stomach’s sour. That’s what’s ailin’ you. Swallow a spoonful of

sody, an’ you’ll sweeten up wonderful an’ be more pleasant company.”

In the morning Henry was aroused by fervid blasphemy that proceeded

from the mouth of Bill. Henry propped himself up on an elbow and looked

to see his comrade standing among the dogs beside the replenished fire,

his arms raised in objurgation, his face distorted with passion.

“Hello!” Henry called. “What’s up now?”

“Frog’s gone,” came the answer.

“No.”

“I tell you yes.”

Henry leaped out of the blankets and to the dogs. He counted them with

care, and then joined his partner in cursing the power of the Wild that

had robbed them of another dog.

“Frog was the strongest dog of the bunch,” Bill pronounced finally.

“An’ he was no fool dog neither,” Henry added.

And so was recorded the second epitaph in two days.

A gloomy breakfast was eaten, and the four remaining dogs were

harnessed to the sled. The day was a repetition of the days that had

gone before. The men toiled without speech across the face of the

frozen world. The silence was unbroken save by the cries of their

pursuers, that, unseen, hung upon their rear. With the coming of night

in the mid-afternoon, the cries sounded closer as the pursuers drew in

according to their custom; and the dogs grew excited and frightened,

and were guilty of panics that tangled the traces and further depressed

the two men.

“There, that’ll fix you fool critters,” Bill said with satisfaction

that night, standing erect at completion of his task.

Henry left the cooking to come and see. Not only had his partner tied

the dogs up, but he had tied them, after the Indian fashion, with

sticks. About the neck of each dog he had fastened a leather thong. To

this, and so close to the neck that the dog could not get his teeth to

it, he had tied a stout stick four or five feet in length. The other

end of the stick, in turn, was made fast to a stake in the ground by

means of a leather thong. The dog was unable to gnaw through the

leather at his own end of the stick. The stick prevented him from

getting at the leather that fastened the other end.

Henry nodded his head approvingly.

“It’s the only contraption that’ll ever hold One Ear,” he said. “He can

gnaw through leather as clean as a knife an’ jes’ about half as quick.

They all’ll be here in the mornin’ hunkydory.”

“You jes’ bet they will,” Bill affirmed. “If one of em’ turns up

missin’, I’ll go without my coffee.”

“They jes’ know we ain’t loaded to kill,” Henry remarked at bed-time,

indicating the gleaming circle that hemmed them in. “If we could put a

couple of shots into ’em, they’d be more respectful. They come closer

every night. Get the firelight out of your eyes an’ look hard—there!

Did you see that one?”

For some time the two men amused themselves with watching the movement

of vague forms on the edge of the firelight. By looking closely and

steadily at where a pair of eyes burned in the darkness, the form of

the animal would slowly take shape. They could even see these forms

move at times.

A sound among the dogs attracted the men’s attention. One Ear was

uttering quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick toward

the darkness, and desisting now and again in order to make frantic

attacks on the stick with his teeth.

“Look at that, Bill,” Henry whispered.

Full into the firelight, with a stealthy, sidelong movement, glided a

doglike animal. It moved with commingled mistrust and daring,

cautiously observing the men, its attention fixed on the dogs. One Ear

strained the full length of the stick toward the intruder and whined

with eagerness.

“That fool One Ear don’t seem scairt much,” Bill said in a low tone.

“It’s a she-wolf,” Henry whispered back, “an’ that accounts for Fatty

an’ Frog. She’s the decoy for the pack. She draws out the dog an’ then

all the rest pitches in an’ eats ’m up.”

The fire crackled. A log fell apart with a loud spluttering noise. At

the sound of it the strange animal leaped back into the darkness.

“Henry, I’m a-thinkin’,” Bill announced.

“Thinkin’ what?”

“I’m a-thinkin’ that was the one I lambasted with the club.”

“Ain’t the slightest doubt in the world,” was Henry’s response.

“An’ right here I want to remark,” Bill went on, “that that animal’s

familyarity with campfires is suspicious an’ immoral.”

“It knows for certain more’n a self-respectin’ wolf ought to know,”

Henry agreed. “A wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs at

feedin’ time has had experiences.”

“Ol’ Villan had a dog once that run away with the wolves,” Bill

cogitates aloud. “I ought to know. I shot it out of the pack in a moose

pasture over ‘on Little Stick. An’ Ol’ Villan cried like a baby. Hadn’t

seen it for three years, he said. Ben with the wolves all that time.”

“I reckon you’ve called the turn, Bill. That wolf’s a dog, an’ it’s

eaten fish many’s the time from the hand of man.”

“An if I get a chance at it, that wolf that’s a dog’ll be jes’ meat,”

Bill declared. “We can’t afford to lose no more animals.”

“But you’ve only got three cartridges,” Henry objected.

“I’ll wait for a dead sure shot,” was the reply.

In the morning Henry renewed the fire and cooked breakfast to the

accompaniment of his partner’s snoring.

“You was sleepin’ jes’ too comfortable for anything,” Henry told him,

as he routed him out for breakfast. “I hadn’t the heart to rouse you.”

Bill began to eat sleepily. He noticed that his cup was empty and

started to reach for the pot. But the pot was beyond arm’s length and

beside Henry.

“Say, Henry,” he chided gently, “ain’t you forgot somethin’?”

Henry looked about with great carefulness and shook his head. Bill held

up the empty cup.

“You don’t get no coffee,” Henry announced.

“Ain’t run out?” Bill asked anxiously.

“Nope.”

“Ain’t thinkin’ it’ll hurt my digestion?”

“Nope.”

A flush of angry blood pervaded Bill’s face.

“Then it’s jes’ warm an’ anxious I am to be hearin’ you explain

yourself,” he said.

“Spanker’s gone,” Henry answered.

Without haste, with the air of one resigned to misfortune Bill turned

his head, and from where he sat counted the dogs.

“How’d it happen?” he asked apathetically.

Henry shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know. Unless One Ear gnawed ’m

loose. He couldn’t a-done it himself, that’s sure.”

“The darned cuss.” Bill spoke gravely and slowly, with no hint of the

anger that was raging within. “Jes’ because he couldn’t chew himself

loose, he chews Spanker loose.”

“Well, Spanker’s troubles is over anyway; I guess he’s digested by this

time an’ cavortin’ over the landscape in the bellies of twenty

different wolves,” was Henry’s epitaph on this, the latest lost dog.

“Have some coffee, Bill.”

But Bill shook his head.

“Go on,” Henry pleaded, elevating the pot.

Bill shoved his cup aside. “I’ll be ding-dong-danged if I do. I said I

wouldn’t if ary dog turned up missin’, an’ I won’t.”

“It’s darn good coffee,” Henry said enticingly.

But Bill was stubborn, and he ate a dry breakfast washed down with

mumbled curses at One Ear for the trick he had played.

“I’ll tie ’em up out of reach of each other to-night,” Bill said, as

they took the trail.

They had travelled little more than a hundred yards, when Henry, who

was in front, bent down and picked up something with which his snowshoe

had collided. It was dark, and he could not see it, but he recognised

it by the touch. He flung it back, so that it struck the sled and

bounced along until it fetched up on Bill’s snowshoes.

“Mebbe you’ll need that in your business,” Henry said.

Bill uttered an exclamation. It was all that was left of Spanker—the

stick with which he had been tied.

“They ate ’m hide an’ all,” Bill announced. “The stick’s as clean as a

whistle. They’ve ate the leather offen both ends. They’re damn hungry,

Henry, an’ they’ll have you an’ me guessin’ before this trip’s over.”

Henry laughed defiantly. “I ain’t been trailed this way by wolves

before, but I’ve gone through a whole lot worse an’ kept my health.

Takes more’n a handful of them pesky critters to do for yours truly,

Bill, my son.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Bill muttered ominously.

“Well, you’ll know all right when we pull into McGurry.”

“I ain’t feelin’ special enthusiastic,” Bill persisted.

“You’re off colour, that’s what’s the matter with you,” Henry

dogmatised. “What you need is quinine, an’ I’m goin’ to dose you up

stiff as soon as we make McGurry.”

Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis, and lapsed into

silence. The day was like all the days. Light came at nine o’clock. At

twelve o’clock the southern horizon was warmed by the unseen sun; and

then began the cold grey of afternoon that would merge, three hours

later, into night.

It was just after the sun’s futile effort to appear, that Bill slipped

the rifle from under the sled-lashings and said:

“You keep right on, Henry, I’m goin’ to see what I can see.”

“You’d better stick by the sled,” his partner protested. “You’ve only

got three cartridges, an’ there’s no tellin’ what might happen.”

“Who’s croaking now?” Bill demanded triumphantly.

Henry made no reply, and plodded on alone, though often he cast anxious

glances back into the grey solitude where his partner had disappeared.

An hour later, taking advantage of the cut-offs around which the sled

had to go, Bill arrived.

“They’re scattered an’ rangin’ along wide,” he said: “keeping up with

us an’ lookin’ for game at the same time. You see, they’re sure of us,

only they know they’ve got to wait to get us. In the meantime they’re

willin’ to pick up anything eatable that comes handy.”

“You mean they _think_ they’re sure of us,” Henry objected pointedly.

But Bill ignored him. “I seen some of them. They’re pretty thin. They

ain’t had a bite in weeks I reckon, outside of Fatty an’ Frog an’

Spanker; an’ there’s so many of ’em that that didn’t go far. They’re

remarkable thin. Their ribs is like wash-boards, an’ their stomachs is

right up against their backbones. They’re pretty desperate, I can tell

you. They’ll be goin’ mad, yet, an’ then watch out.”

A few minutes later, Henry, who was now travelling behind the sled,

emitted a low, warning whistle. Bill turned and looked, then quietly

stopped the dogs. To the rear, from around the last bend and plainly

into view, on the very trail they had just covered, trotted a furry,

slinking form. Its nose was to the trail, and it trotted with a

peculiar, sliding, effortless gait. When they halted, it halted,

throwing up its head and regarding them steadily with nostrils that

twitched as it caught and studied the scent of them.

“It’s the she-wolf,” Bill answered.

The dogs had lain down in the snow, and he walked past them to join his

partner in the sled. Together they watched the strange animal that had

pursued them for days and that had already accomplished the destruction

of half their dog-team.

After a searching scrutiny, the animal trotted forward a few steps.

This it repeated several times, till it was a short hundred yards away.

It paused, head up, close by a clump of spruce trees, and with sight

and scent studied the outfit of the watching men. It looked at them in

a strangely wistful way, after the manner of a dog; but in its

wistfulness there was none of the dog affection. It was a wistfulness

bred of hunger, as cruel as its own fangs, as merciless as the frost

itself.

It was large for a wolf, its gaunt frame advertising the lines of an

animal that was among the largest of its kind.

“Stands pretty close to two feet an’ a half at the shoulders,” Henry

commented. “An’ I’ll bet it ain’t far from five feet long.”

“Kind of strange colour for a wolf,” was Bill’s criticism. “I never

seen a red wolf before. Looks almost cinnamon to me.”

The animal was certainly not cinnamon-coloured. Its coat was the true

wolf-coat. The dominant colour was grey, and yet there was to it a

faint reddish hue—a hue that was baffling, that appeared and

disappeared, that was more like an illusion of the vision, now grey,

distinctly grey, and again giving hints and glints of a vague redness

of colour not classifiable in terms of ordinary experience.

“Looks for all the world like a big husky sled-dog,” Bill said. “I

wouldn’t be s’prised to see it wag its tail.”

“Hello, you husky!” he called. “Come here, you whatever-your-name-is.”

“Ain’t a bit scairt of you,” Henry laughed.

Bill waved his hand at it threateningly and shouted loudly; but the

animal betrayed no fear. The only change in it that they could notice

was an accession of alertness. It still regarded them with the

merciless wistfulness of hunger. They were meat, and it was hungry; and

it would like to go in and eat them if it dared.

“Look here, Henry,” Bill said, unconsciously lowering his voice to a

whisper because of what he imitated. “We’ve got three cartridges. But

it’s a dead shot. Couldn’t miss it. It’s got away with three of our

dogs, an’ we oughter put a stop to it. What d’ye say?”

Henry nodded his consent. Bill cautiously slipped the gun from under

the sled-lashing. The gun was on the way to his shoulder, but it never

got there. For in that instant the she-wolf leaped sidewise from the

trail into the clump of spruce trees and disappeared.

The two men looked at each other. Henry whistled long and

comprehendingly.

“I might have knowed it,” Bill chided himself aloud as he replaced the

gun. “Of course a wolf that knows enough to come in with the dogs at

feedin’ time, ’d know all about shooting-irons. I tell you right now,

Henry, that critter’s the cause of all our trouble. We’d have six dogs

at the present time, ’stead of three, if it wasn’t for her. An’ I tell

you right now, Henry, I’m goin’ to get her. She’s too smart to be shot

in the open. But I’m goin’ to lay for her. I’ll bushwhack her as sure

as my name is Bill.”

“You needn’t stray off too far in doin’ it,” his partner admonished.

“If that pack ever starts to jump you, them three cartridges’d be wuth

no more’n three whoops in hell. Them animals is damn hungry, an’ once

they start in, they’ll sure get you, Bill.”

They camped early that night. Three dogs could not drag the sled so

fast nor for so long hours as could six, and they were showing

unmistakable signs of playing out. And the men went early to bed, Bill

first seeing to it that the dogs were tied out of gnawing-reach of one

another.

But the wolves were growing bolder, and the men were aroused more than

once from their sleep. So near did the wolves approach, that the dogs

became frantic with terror, and it was necessary to replenish the fire

from time to time in order to keep the adventurous marauders at safer

distance.

“I’ve hearn sailors talk of sharks followin’ a ship,” Bill remarked, as

he crawled back into the blankets after one such replenishing of the

fire. “Well, them wolves is land sharks. They know their business

better’n we do, an’ they ain’t a-holdin’ our trail this way for their

health. They’re goin’ to get us. They’re sure goin’ to get us, Henry.”

“They’ve half got you a’ready, a-talkin’ like that,” Henry retorted

sharply. “A man’s half licked when he says he is. An’ you’re half eaten

from the way you’re goin’ on about it.”

“They’ve got away with better men than you an’ me,” Bill answered.

“Oh, shet up your croakin’. You make me all-fired tired.”

Henry rolled over angrily on his side, but was surprised that Bill made

no similar display of temper. This was not Bill’s way, for he was

easily angered by sharp words. Henry thought long over it before he

went to sleep, and as his eyelids fluttered down and he dozed off, the

thought in his mind was: “There’s no mistakin’ it, Bill’s almighty

blue. I’ll have to cheer him up to-morrow.”