Nomads of the North Part 6

A quarter of a mile away Miki had heard the clamour of the crows. But he was in no humour to turn back, even had he guessed that Neewa was in need of his help. He was hungry from long fasting and, for the present, his disposition had taken a decided turn. He was in a mood to tackle anything in the eating line, no matter how big, but he was a good mile from the dip in the side of the ridge before he found even a crawfish.

He crunched this down, sh.e.l.l and all. It helped to take the bad taste out of his mouth.

The day was destined to hold for him still another unforgettable event in his life. Now that he was alone the memory of his master was not so vague as it had been yesterday, and the days before. Brain-pictures came back to him more vividly as the morning lengthened into afternoon, bridging slowly but surely the gulf that Neewa's comradeship had wrought. For a time the exciting thrill of his adventure was gone. Half a dozen times he hesitated on the point of turning back to Neewa. It was hunger that always drove him on a little farther. He found two more crawfish. Then the creek deepened and its water ran slowly, and was darker. Twice he chased old rabbits, that got away from him easily.

Once he came within an ace of catching a young one. Frequently a partridge rose with a thunder of wings. He saw moose-birds, and jays, and many squirrels. All about him was meat which it was impossible for him to catch. Then fortune turned his way. Poking his head into the end of a hollow log he cornered a rabbit so completely that there was no escape. During the next few minutes he indulged in the first square meal he had eaten for three days.

So absorbed was he in his feast that he was unconscious of a new arrival on the scene. He did not hear the coming of Oochak, the fisher-cat; nor, for a few moments, did he smell him. It was not in Oochak's nature to make a disturbance. He was by birth and instinct a valiant hunter and a gentleman, and when he saw Miki (whom he took to be a young wolf) feeding on a fresh kill, he made no move to demand a share for himself. Nor did he run away. He would undoubtedly have continued on his way very soon if Miki had not finally sensed his presence, and faced him.

Oochak had come from the other side of the log, and stood not more than six feet distant. To one who knew as little of his history as Miki there was nothing at all ferocious about him. He was shaped like his cousins, the weazel, the mink, and the skunk. He was about half as high as Miki, and fully as long, so that his two pairs of short legs seemed somewhat out of place, as on a dachshund. He probably weighed between eight and ten pounds, had a bullet head, almost no ears, and atrocious whiskers. Also he had a bushy tail and snapping little eyes that seemed to bore clean through whatever he looked at. To Miki his accidental presence was a threat and a challenge. Besides, Oochak looked like an easy victim if it came to a fight. So he pulled back his lips and snarled.

Oochak accepted this as an invitation for him to move on, and being a gentleman who respected other people's preserves he made his apologies by beginning a velvet-footed exit. This was too much for Miki, who had yet to learn the etiquette of the forest trails. Oochak was afraid of him. He was running away! With a triumphant yelp Miki took after him.

After all, it was simply a mistake in judgment. (Many two-footed animals with bigger brains than Miki's had made similar mistakes.) For Oochak, attending always to his own business, was, for his size and weight, the greatest little fighter in North America.

Just what happened in the one minute that followed his a.s.sault Miki would never be able quite to understand. It was not in reality a fight; it was a one-sided immolation, a ma.s.sacre. His first impression was that he had tackled a dozen Oochaks instead of one. Beyond that first impression his mind did not work, nor did his eyes visualize. He was whipped as he would never be whipped again in his life. He was cut and bruised and bitten; he was strangled and stabbed; he was so utterly mauled that for a s.p.a.ce after Oochak had gone he continued to rake the air with his paws, unconscious of the fact that the affair was over.

When he opened his eyes, and found himself alone, he slunk into the hollow log where he had cornered the rabbit.

In there he lay a good half hour, trying hard to comprehend just what had happened. The sun was setting when he dragged himself out. He limped. His one good ear was bitten clean through. There were bare spots on his hide where Oochak had sc.r.a.ped the hair off. His bones ached, his throat was sore, and there was a lump over one eye. He looked longingly back over the "home" trail. Up there was Neewa. With the lengthening shadows of the day's end a great loneliness crept upon him and a desire to turn back to his comrade. But Oochak had gone that way--and he did not want to meet Oochak again.

He wandered a little farther south and east, perhaps a quarter of a mile, before the sun disappeared entirely. In the thickening gloom of twilight he struck the Big Rock portage between the Beaver and the Loon.

It was not a trail. Only at rare intervals did wandering voyageurs coming down from the north make use of it in their pa.s.sage from one waterway to the other. Three or four times a year at the most would a wolf have caught the scent of man in it. It was there tonight, so fresh that Miki stopped when he came to it as if another Oochak had risen before him. For a s.p.a.ce he was turned into the rigidity of rock by a single overwhelming emotion. All other things were forgotten in the fact that he had struck the trail of a man--AND, THEREFORE, THE TRAIL OF CHALLONER, HIS MASTER. He began to follow it--slowly at first, as if fearing that it might get away from him. Darkness came, and he was still following it. In the light of the stars he persisted, all else crowded from him but the homing instinct of the dog and the desire for a master.

At last he came almost to the sh.o.r.e of the Loon, and there he saw the campfire of Makoki and the white man.

He did not rush in. He did not bark or yelp; the hard schooling of the wilderness had already set its mark upon him. He slunk in cautiously--then stopped, flat on his belly, just outside the rim of firelight. Then he saw that neither of the men was Challoner. But both were smoking, as Challoner had smoked. He could hear their voices, and they were like Challoner's voice. And the camp was the same--a fire, a pot hanging over it, a tent, and in the air the odours of recently cooked things.

Another moment or two and he would have gone into the firelight. But the white man rose to his feet, stretched himself as he had often seen Challoner stretch, and picked up a stick of wood as big as his arm. He came within ten feet of Miki, and Miki wormed himself just a little toward him, and stood up on his feet. It brought him into a half light.

His eyes were aglow with the reflection of the fire. And the man saw him.

In a flash the club he held was over his head; it swung through the air with the power of a giant arm behind it and was launched straight at Miki. Had it struck squarely it would have killed him. The big end of it missed him; the smaller end landed against his neck and shoulder, driving him back into the gloom with such force and suddenness that the man thought he had done for him. He called out loudly to Makoki that he had killed a young wolf or a fox, and dashed out into the darkness.

The club had knocked Miki fairly into the heart of a thick ground spruce. There he lay, making no sound, with a terrible pain in his shoulder. Between himself and the fire he saw the man bend over and pick up the club. He saw Makoki hurrying toward him with ANOTHER club, and under his shelter he made himself as small as he could. He was filled with a great dread, for now he understood the truth. THESE men were not Challoner. They were hunting for him--with clubs in their hands. He knew what the clubs meant. His shoulder was almost broken.

He lay very still while the men searched about him. The Indian even poked his stick into the thick ground spruce. The white man kept saying that he was sure he had made a hit, and once he stood so near that Miki's nose almost touched his boot. He went back and added fresh birch to the fire, so that the light of it illumined a greater s.p.a.ce about them. Miki's heart stood still. But the men searched farther on, and at last went back to the fire.

For an hour Miki did not move. The fire burned itself low. The old Cree wrapped himself in a blanket, and the white man went into his tent. Not until then did Miki dare to crawl out from under the spruce. With his bruised shoulder making him limp at every step he hurried back over the trail which he had followed so hopefully a little while before. The man-scent no longer made his heart beat swiftly with joy. It was a menace now. A warning. A thing from which he wanted to get away. He would sooner have faced Oochak again, or the owls, than the white man with his club. With the owls he could fight, but in the club he sensed an overwhelming superiority.

The night was very still when he dragged himself back to the hollow log in which he had killed the rabbit. He crawled into it, and nursed his wounds through all the rest of the hours of darkness. In the early morning he came out and ate the rest of the rabbit.

After that he faced the north and west--where Neewa was. There was no hesitation now. He wanted Neewa again. He wanted to muzzle him with his nose and lick his face even though he did smell to heaven. He wanted to hear him grunt and squeal in his funny, companionable way; he wanted to hunt with him again, and play with him, and lie down beside him in a sunny spot and sleep. Neewa, at last, was a necessary part of his world.

He set out.

And Neewa, far up the creek, still followed hopefully and yearningly over the trail of Miki.

Half way to the dip, in a small open meadow that was a glory of sun, they met. There was no very great demonstration. They stopped and looked at each other for a moment, as if to make sure that there was no mistake. Neewa grunted. Miki wagged his tail. They smelled noses. Neewa responded with a little squeal, and Miki whined. It was as if they had said,

"h.e.l.lo, Miki!"

"h.e.l.lo, Neewa!"

And then Neewa lay down in the sun and Miki sprawled himself out beside him. After all, it was a funny world. It went to pieces now and then, but it always came together again. And to-day their world had thoroughly adjusted itself. Once more they were chums--and they were happy.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was the Flying-Up Moon--deep and slumbering midsummer--in all the land of Keewatin. From Hudson Bay to the Athabasca and from the Hight of Land to the edge of the Great Barrens, forest, plain, and swamp lay in peace and forgetfulness under the sun-glowing days and the star-filled nights of the August MUKOO-SAWIN. It was the breeding moon, the growing moon, the moon when all wild life came into its own once more. For the trails of this wilderness world--so vast that it reached a thousand miles east and west and as far north and south--were empty of human life. At the Hudson Bay Company's posts--scattered here and there over the illimitable domain of fang and claw--had gathered the thousands of hunters and trappers, with their wives and children, to sleep and gossip and play through the few weeks of warmth and plenty until the strife and tragedy of another winter began. For these people of the forests it was MUKOO-SAWIN--the great Play Day of the year; the weeks in which they ran up new debts and established new credits at the Posts; the weeks in which they foregathered at every Post as at a great fair--playing, and making love, and marrying, and fattening up for the many days of hunger and gloom to come.

It was because of this that the wild things had come fully into the possession of their world for a s.p.a.ce. There was no longer the scent of man in all the wilderness. They were not hunted. There were no traps laid for their feet, no poison-baits placed temptingly where they might pa.s.s. In the fens and on the lakes the wildfowl squawked and honked unfearing to their young, just learning the power of wing; the lynx played with her kittens without sniffing the air for the menace of man; the cow moose went openly into the cool water of the lakes with their calves; the wolverine and the marten ran playfully over the roofs of deserted shacks and cabins; the beaver and the otter tumbled and frolicked in their dark pools; the birds sang, and through all the wilderness there was the drone and song of Nature as some Great Power must at first have meant that Nature should be. A new generation of wild things had been born. It was a season of Youth, with tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of little children of the wild playing their first play, learning their first lessons, growing up swiftly to face the menace and doom of their first winter. And the Beneficent Spirit of the forests, antic.i.p.ating what was to come, had prepared well for them. Everywhere there was plenty. The blueberries, the blackberries, the mountain-ash and the saskatoons were ripe; tree and vine were bent low with their burden of fruit. The gra.s.s was green and tender from the summer rains. Bulbous roots were fairly popping out of the earth; the fens and the edges of the lakes were rich with things to eat, overhead and underfoot the horn of plenty was emptying itself without stint.

In this world Neewa and Miki found a vast and unending contentment.

They lay, on this August afternoon, on a sun-bathed shelf of rock that overlooked a wonderful valley. Neewa, stuffed with luscious blueberries, was asleep. Miki's eyes were only partly closed as he looked down into the soft haze of the valley. Up to him came the rippling music of the stream running between the rocks and over the pebbly bars below, and with it the soft and languorous drone of the valley itself. He napped uneasily for half an hour, and then his eyes opened and he was wide awake. He took a sharp look over the valley.

Then he looked at Neewa, who, fat and lazy, would have slept until dark. It was always Miki who kept him on the move. And now Miki barked at him gruffly two or three times, and nipped at one of his ears.

"Wake up!" he might have said. "What's the sense of sleeping on a day like this? Let's go down along the creek and hunt something."

Neewa roused himself, stretched his fat body, and yawned. Sleepily his little eyes took in the valley. Miki got up and gave the low and anxious whine which always told his companion that he wanted to be on the move. Neewa responded, and they began making their way down the green slope into the rich bottom between the two ridges.

They were now almost six months of age, and in the matter of size had nearly ceased to be a cub and a pup. They were almost a dog and a bear.

Miki's angular legs were getting their shape; his chest had filled out; his neck had grown until it no longer seemed too small for his big head and jaws, and his body had increased in girth and length until he was twice as big as most ordinary dogs of his age.

Neewa had lost his round, ball-like cubbishness, though he still betrayed far more than Miki the fact that he was not many months lost from his mother. But he was no longer filled with that wholesome love of peace that had filled his earlier cubhood. The blood of Soominitik was at last beginning to a.s.sert itself, and he no longer sought a place of safety in time of battle--unless the grimness of utter necessity made it unavoidable. In fact, unlike most bears, he loved a fight. If there were a stronger term at hand it might be applied to Miki, the true son of Hela. Youthful as they were, they were already covered with scars that would have made a veteran proud. Crows and owls, wolf-fang and fisher-claw had all left their marks, and on Miki's side was a bare s.p.a.ce eight inches long left as a souvenir by a wolverine.

In Neewa's funny round head there had grown, during the course of events, an ambition to have it out some day with a citizen of his own kind; but the two opportunities that had come his way were spoiled by the fact that the other cubs' mothers were with them. So now, when Miki led off on his trips of adventure, Neewa always followed with another thrill than that of getting something to eat, which so long had been his one ambition. Which is not to say that Neewa had lost his appet.i.te.

He could eat more in one day than Miki could eat in three, mainly because Miki was satisfied with two or three meals a day while Neewa preferred one--a continuous one lasting from dawn until dark. On the trail he was always eating something.

A quarter of a mile along the foot of the ridge, in a stony coulee down which a tiny rivulet trickled, there grew the finest wild currants in all the Shamattawa country. Big as cherries, black as ink, and swelling almost to the bursting point with luscious juice, they hung in cl.u.s.ters so thick that Neewa could gather them by the mouthful. Nothing in all the wilderness is quite so good as one of these dead-ripe black currants, and this coulee wherein they grew so richly Neewa had preempted as his own personal property. Miki, too, had learned to eat the currants; so to the coulee they went this afternoon, for such currants as these one can eat even when one is already full. Besides, the coulee was fruitful for Miki in other ways. There were many young partridges and rabbits in it--"fool hens" of tender flesh and delicious flavour which he caught quite easily, and any number of gophers and squirrels.

To-day they had scarcely taken their first mouthful of the big juicy currants when an unmistakable sound came to them. Unmistakable because each recognized instantly what it meant. It was the tearing down of currant bushes twenty or thirty yards higher up the coulee. Some robber had invaded their treasure-house, and instantly Miki bared his fangs while Neewa wrinkled up his nose in an ominous snarl. Soft-footed they advanced toward the sound until they came to the edge of a small open s.p.a.ce which was as flat as a table. In the centre of this s.p.a.ce was a clump of currant bushes not more than a yard in girth, and black with fruit; and squatted on his haunches there, gathering the laden bushes in his arms, was a young black bear about four sizes larger than Neewa.

In that moment of consternation and rage Neewa did not take size into consideration. He was much in the frame of mind of a man returning home to discover his domicile, and all it contained, in full possession of another. At the same time here was his ambition easily to be achieved--his ambition to lick the daylight out of a member of his own kind. Miki seemed to sense this fact. Under ordinary conditions he would have led in the fray, and before Neewa had fairly got started, would have been at the impudent interloper's throat. But now something held him back, and it was Neewa who first shot out--like a black bolt--landing squarely in the ribs of his unsuspecting enemy.

(Old Makoki, the Cree runner, had he seen that attack, would instantly have found a name for the other bear--"Petoot-a-wapis-k.u.m," which means, literally: "Kicked-off-his-Feet." Perhaps he would have called him "Pete" for short. For the Cree believes in fitting names to fact, and Petoot-a-wapis-k.u.m certainly fitted the unknown bear like a glove.)

Taken utterly by surprise, with his mouth full of berries, he was bowled over like an overfilled bag under the force of Neewa's charge.

So complete was his discomfiture for the moment that Miki, watching the affair with a yearning interest, could not keep back an excited yap of approbation. Before Pete could understand what had happened, and while the berries were still oozing from his mouth, Neewa was at his throat--and the fun began.

Now bears, and especially young bears, have a way of fighting that is all their own. It reminds one of a hair-pulling contest between two well-matched ladies. There are no rules to the game--absolutely none.

As Pete and Neewa clinched, their hind legs began to do the fighting, and the fur began to fly. Pete, being already on his back--a first-cla.s.s battling position for a bear--would have possessed an advantage had it not been for Neewa's ferocious hold at his throat. As it was, Neewa sank his fangs in to their full length, and scrubbed away for dear life with his sharp hind claws. Miki drew nearer at sight of the flying fur, his soul filled with joy. Then Pete got one leg into action, and then the other, and Miki's jaws came together with a sudden click. Over and over the two fighters rolled, Neewa holding to his throat-grip, and not a squeal or a grunt came from either of them.

Pebbles and dirt flew along with hair and fur. Stones rolled with a clatter down the coulee. The very air trembled with the thrill of combat. In Miki's att.i.tude of tense waiting there was something now of suspicious anxiety. With eight furry legs scratching and tearing furiously, and the two fighters rolling and twisting and contorting themselves like a pair of windmills gone mad, it was almost impossible for Miki to tell who was getting the worst of it--Neewa or Pete; at least he was in doubt for a matter of three or four minutes.

Then he recognized Neewa's voice. It was very faint, but for all that it was an unmistakable bawl of pain.

Smothered under Pete's heavier body Neewa began to realize, at the end of those three or four minutes, that he had tackled more than was good for him. It was altogether Pete's size and not his fighting qualities, for Neewa had him outpointed there. But he fought on, hoping for some good turn of luck, until at last Pete got him just where he wanted him and began raking him up and down his sides until in another three minutes he would have been half skinned if Miki hadn't judged the moment ripe for intervention. Even then Neewa was taking his punishment without a howl.

In another instant Miki had Pete by the ear. It was a grim and terrible hold. Old Soominitik himself would have bawled l.u.s.tily in the circ.u.mstances. Pete raised his voice in a howl of agony. He forgot everything else but the terror and the pain of this new SOMETHING that had him by the ear, and he rent the air with his outcry. His lamentation poured in an unbroken spasm of sound from his throat. Neewa knew that Miki was in action.