White Fang
him to right the load, One Ear and the she-wolf were too close together
and the distance too great to risk a shot.
Too late One Ear learned his mistake. Before they saw the cause, the
two men saw him turn and start to run back toward them. Then,
approaching at right angles to the trail and cutting off his retreat
they saw a dozen wolves, lean and grey, bounding across the snow. On
the instant, the she-wolf’s coyness and playfulness disappeared. With a
snarl she sprang upon One Ear. He thrust her off with his shoulder,
and, his retreat cut off and still intent on regaining the sled, he
altered his course in an attempt to circle around to it. More wolves
were appearing every moment and joining in the chase. The she-wolf was
one leap behind One Ear and holding her own.
“Where are you goin’?” Henry suddenly demanded, laying his hand on his
partner’s arm.
Bill shook it off. “I won’t stand it,” he said. “They ain’t a-goin’ to
get any more of our dogs if I can help it.”
Gun in hand, he plunged into the underbrush that lined the side of the
trail. His intention was apparent enough. Taking the sled as the centre
of the circle that One Ear was making, Bill planned to tap that circle
at a point in advance of the pursuit. With his rifle, in the broad
daylight, it might be possible for him to awe the wolves and save the
dog.
“Say, Bill!” Henry called after him. “Be careful! Don’t take no
chances!”
Henry sat down on the sled and watched. There was nothing else for him
to do. Bill had already gone from sight; but now and again, appearing
and disappearing amongst the underbrush and the scattered clumps of
spruce, could be seen One Ear. Henry judged his case to be hopeless.
The dog was thoroughly alive to its danger, but it was running on the
outer circle while the wolf-pack was running on the inner and shorter
circle. It was vain to think of One Ear so outdistancing his pursuers
as to be able to cut across their circle in advance of them and to
regain the sled.
The different lines were rapidly approaching a point. Somewhere out
there in the snow, screened from his sight by trees and thickets, Henry
knew that the wolf-pack, One Ear, and Bill were coming together. All
too quickly, far more quickly than he had expected, it happened. He
heard a shot, then two shots, in rapid succession, and he knew that
Bill’s ammunition was gone. Then he heard a great outcry of snarls and
yelps. He recognised One Ear’s yell of pain and terror, and he heard a
wolf-cry that bespoke a stricken animal. And that was all. The snarls
ceased. The yelping died away. Silence settled down again over the
lonely land.
He sat for a long while upon the sled. There was no need for him to go
and see what had happened. He knew it as though it had taken place
before his eyes. Once, he roused with a start and hastily got the axe
out from underneath the lashings. But for some time longer he sat and
brooded, the two remaining dogs crouching and trembling at his feet.
At last he arose in a weary manner, as though all the resilience had
gone out of his body, and proceeded to fasten the dogs to the sled. He
passed a rope over his shoulder, a man-trace, and pulled with the dogs.
He did not go far. At the first hint of darkness he hastened to make a
camp, and he saw to it that he had a generous supply of firewood. He
fed the dogs, cooked and ate his supper, and made his bed close to the
fire.
But he was not destined to enjoy that bed. Before his eyes closed the
wolves had drawn too near for safety. It no longer required an effort
of the vision to see them. They were all about him and the fire, in a
narrow circle, and he could see them plainly in the firelight lying
down, sitting up, crawling forward on their bellies, or slinking back
and forth. They even slept. Here and there he could see one curled up
in the snow like a dog, taking the sleep that was now denied himself.
He kept the fire brightly blazing, for he knew that it alone intervened
between the flesh of his body and their hungry fangs. His two dogs
stayed close by him, one on either side, leaning against him for
protection, crying and whimpering, and at times snarling desperately
when a wolf approached a little closer than usual. At such moments,
when his dogs snarled, the whole circle would be agitated, the wolves
coming to their feet and pressing tentatively forward, a chorus of
snarls and eager yelps rising about him. Then the circle would lie down
again, and here and there a wolf would resume its broken nap.
But this circle had a continuous tendency to draw in upon him. Bit by
bit, an inch at a time, with here a wolf bellying forward, and there a
wolf bellying forward, the circle would narrow until the brutes were
almost within springing distance. Then he would seize brands from the
fire and hurl them into the pack. A hasty drawing back always resulted,
accompanied by angry yelps and frightened snarls when a well-aimed
brand struck and scorched a too daring animal.
Morning found the man haggard and worn, wide-eyed from want of sleep.
He cooked breakfast in the darkness, and at nine o’clock, when, with
the coming of daylight, the wolf-pack drew back, he set about the task
he had planned through the long hours of the night. Chopping down young
saplings, he made them cross-bars of a scaffold by lashing them high up
to the trunks of standing trees. Using the sled-lashing for a heaving
rope, and with the aid of the dogs, he hoisted the coffin to the top of
the scaffold.
“They got Bill, an’ they may get me, but they’ll sure never get you,
young man,” he said, addressing the dead body in its tree-sepulchre.
Then he took the trail, the lightened sled bounding along behind the
willing dogs; for they, too, knew that safety lay open in the gaining
of Fort McGurry. The wolves were now more open in their pursuit,
trotting sedately behind and ranging along on either side, their red
tongues lolling out, their lean sides showing the undulating ribs with
every movement. They were very lean, mere skin-bags stretched over bony
frames, with strings for muscles—so lean that Henry found it in his
mind to marvel that they still kept their feet and did not collapse
forthright in the snow.
He did not dare travel until dark. At midday, not only did the sun warm
the southern horizon, but it even thrust its upper rim, pale and
golden, above the sky-line. He received it as a sign. The days were
growing longer. The sun was returning. But scarcely had the cheer of
its light departed, than he went into camp. There were still several
hours of grey daylight and sombre twilight, and he utilised them in
chopping an enormous supply of fire-wood.
With night came horror. Not only were the starving wolves growing
bolder, but lack of sleep was telling upon Henry. He dozed despite
himself, crouching by the fire, the blankets about his shoulders, the
axe between his knees, and on either side a dog pressing close against
him. He awoke once and saw in front of him, not a dozen feet away, a
big grey wolf, one of the largest of the pack. And even as he looked,
the brute deliberately stretched himself after the manner of a lazy
dog, yawning full in his face and looking upon him with a possessive
eye, as if, in truth, he were merely a delayed meal that was soon to be
eaten.
This certitude was shown by the whole pack. Fully a score he could
count, staring hungrily at him or calmly sleeping in the snow. They
reminded him of children gathered about a spread table and awaiting
permission to begin to eat. And he was the food they were to eat! He
wondered how and when the meal would begin.
As he piled wood on the fire he discovered an appreciation of his own
body which he had never felt before. He watched his moving muscles and
was interested in the cunning mechanism of his fingers. By the light of
the fire he crooked his fingers slowly and repeatedly now one at a
time, now all together, spreading them wide or making quick gripping
movements. He studied the nail-formation, and prodded the finger-tips,
now sharply, and again softly, gauging the while the nerve-sensations
produced. It fascinated him, and he grew suddenly fond of this subtle
flesh of his that worked so beautifully and smoothly and delicately.
Then he would cast a glance of fear at the wolf-circle drawn
expectantly about him, and like a blow the realisation would strike him
that this wonderful body of his, this living flesh, was no more than so
much meat, a quest of ravenous animals, to be torn and slashed by their
hungry fangs, to be sustenance to them as the moose and the rabbit had
often been sustenance to him.
He came out of a doze that was half nightmare, to see the red-hued
she-wolf before him. She was not more than half a dozen feet away
sitting in the snow and wistfully regarding him. The two dogs were
whimpering and snarling at his feet, but she took no notice of them.
She was looking at the man, and for some time he returned her look.
There was nothing threatening about her. She looked at him merely with
a great wistfulness, but he knew it to be the wistfulness of an equally
great hunger. He was the food, and the sight of him excited in her the
gustatory sensations. Her mouth opened, the saliva drooled forth, and
she licked her chops with the pleasure of anticipation.
A spasm of fear went through him. He reached hastily for a brand to
throw at her. But even as he reached, and before his fingers had closed
on the missile, she sprang back into safety; and he knew that she was
used to having things thrown at her. She had snarled as she sprang
away, baring her white fangs to their roots, all her wistfulness
vanishing, being replaced by a carnivorous malignity that made him
shudder. He glanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the
cunning delicacy of the fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted
themselves to all the inequalities of the surface, curling over and
under and about the rough wood, and one little finger, too close to the
burning portion of the brand, sensitively and automatically writhing
back from the hurtful heat to a cooler gripping-place; and in the same
instant he seemed to see a vision of those same sensitive and delicate
fingers being crushed and torn by the white teeth of the she-wolf.
Never had he been so fond of this body of his as now when his tenure of
it was so precarious.
All night, with burning brands, he fought off the hungry pack. When he
dozed despite himself, the whimpering and snarling of the dogs aroused
him. Morning came, but for the first time the light of day failed to
scatter the wolves. The man waited in vain for them to go. They
remained in a circle about him and his fire, displaying an arrogance of
possession that shook his courage born of the morning light.
He made one desperate attempt to pull out on the trail. But the moment
he left the protection of the fire, the boldest wolf leaped for him,
but leaped short. He saved himself by springing back, the jaws snapping
together a scant six inches from his thigh. The rest of the pack was
now up and surging upon him, and a throwing of firebrands right and
left was necessary to drive them back to a respectful distance.
Even in the daylight he did not dare leave the fire to chop fresh wood.
Twenty feet away towered a huge dead spruce. He spent half the day
extending his campfire to the tree, at any moment a half dozen burning
faggots ready at hand to fling at his enemies. Once at the tree, he
studied the surrounding forest in order to fell the tree in the
direction of the most firewood.
The night was a repetition of the night before, save that the need for
sleep was becoming overpowering. The snarling of his dogs was losing
its efficacy. Besides, they were snarling all the time, and his