Northern Trails Part 3

Ordinarily the wolf hates both fox and dog, and kills them whenever they cross his path; but to-night the foxes were yapping an answer all around them, and sometimes a few adventurous dogs would scale the mountains silently to sit on the rocks and join in the wild wolf chorus, and not a wolf stirred to molest them. All were more or less lunatic, and knew not what they were doing.

For hours the uncanny comedy would drag itself on into the tense midnight silence, the wailing cry growing more demented and heartrending as the spell of ancient days fell again upon the degenerate huskies. Up on the lonely mountain tops the moon looked down, still and cold, and saw upon every pinnacle a dog or a wolf, each with his head turned up at the sky, howling his heart out. Down in the hamlet, scattered for miles along Deep Arm and the harbor sh.o.r.e, sleepers stirred uneasily at the clamor, the women clutching their babies close, the men cursing the crazy brutes and vowing all sorts of vengeance on the morrow. Then the wolves would slip away like shadows into the vast upland barrens, and the dogs, restless as witches with some unknown excitement, would run back to whine and scratch at the doors of their masters' cabins.

Soon the big snowflakes were whirling in the air, busily weaving a soft white winding-sheet for the autumn which was pa.s.sing away. And truly it had been a good time for the wolf cubs, as for most wild animals; and they had grown large and strong with their fat feeding, and wise with their many experiences. The ducks and geese vanished, driving southward ahead of the fierce autumn gales, and only the late broods of hardy eiders were left for a little season. Herring and caplin had long since drifted away into unknown depths, where the tides flowed endlessly over them and brought never a one ash.o.r.e. Hares and ptarmigans turned white to hide on the snow, so that wolf and fox would pa.s.s close by without seeing them. Wood-mice pushed their winding tunnels and made their vaulted play rooms deep under the drifts, where none might molest nor make them afraid; and all game grew wary and wild, learning from experience, as it always does, that only the keen can survive the fall hunting. So the long winter, with its snow and ice and its bitter cold and its grim threat of famine, settled heavily over Harbor Weal and the Long Range where Wayeeses must find his living.

_The White Wolf's Hunting_

Threatening as the northern winter was, with its stern order to the birds to depart, and to the beasts to put on their thick furs, and to the little folk of the snow to hide themselves in white coats, and to all living things to watch well the ways that they took, it could bring no terror to Wayeeses and her powerful young cubs. The gladness of life was upon them, with none of its pains or anxieties or fears, as we know them; and they rolled and tumbled about in the first deep snow with the abandon of young foxes, filled with wonder at the strange blanket that covered the rough places of earth so softly and made their light footsteps more noiseless than before. For to be noiseless and inconspicuous, and so in harmony with his surroundings, is the first desire of every creature of the vast solitudes.

Meeting the wolves now, as they roamed wild and free over the great range, one would hardly have recognized the little brown creatures that he saw playing about the den where the trail began. The cubs were already n.o.ble-looking brutes, larger than the largest husky dog; and the parents were taller, with longer legs and more ma.s.sive heads and powerful jaws, than any great timber-wolf. A tremendous vitality thrilled in them from nose to paw tips. Their great bodies, as they lay quiet in the snow with heads raised and hind legs bent under them, were like powerful engines, tranquil under enormous pressure; and when they rose the movement was like the quick snap of a steel spring. Indeed, half the ordinary movements of Wayeeses are so quick that the eye cannot follow them. One instant a wolf would be lying flat on his side, his long legs outstretched on the moss, his eyes closed in the sleepy sunshine, his body limp as a hound's after a fox chase; the next instant, like the click and blink of a camera shutter, he would be standing alert on all four feet, questioning the pa.s.sing breeze or looking intently into your eyes; and you could not imagine, much less follow, the recoil of twenty big electric muscles that at some subtle warning had snapped him automatically from one position to the other.

They were all snow-white, with long thick hair and a heavy mane that added enormously to their imposing appearance; and they carried their bushy tails almost straight out as they trotted along, with a slight crook near the body,--the true wolf sign that still reappears in many collies to tell a degenerate race of a n.o.ble ancestry.

After the first deep snows the family separated, led by their growing hunger and by the difficulty of finding enough game in one cover to supply all their needs. The mother and the smallest cub remained together; the two larger cubs ranged on the other side of the mountain, beating the bush and hunting into each other's mouth, as they had been trained to do; while the big he-wolf hunted successfully by himself, as he had done for years. Scattered as they were, they still kept track of each other faithfully, and in a casual way looked after one another's needs. Wherever he was, a wolf seemed to know by instinct where his fellows were hunting many miles away. When in doubt he had only to mount the highest hill and give the rallying cry, which carried an enormous distance in the still cold air, to bring the pack swiftly and silently about him.

At times, when the cubs were hungry after a two-days fast, they would hear, faint and far away, the food cry, _yap-yap-yooo! yap-yap-yoooooo!_ quivering under the stars in the tense early-morning air, and would dart away to find game freshly killed by one of the old wolves awaiting them.

Again, at nightfall, a cub's hunting cry, _ooooo, ow-ow! ooooo, ow-ow!_ a deep, almost musical hoot with two short barks at the end, would come singing down from the uplands; and the wolves, leaving instantly the game they were following, would hasten up to find the two cubs herding a caribou in a cleft of the rocks,--a young caribou that had lost his mother at the hands of the hunters, and that did not know how to take care of himself. And one of the cubs would hold him there, sitting on his tail in front of the caribou to prevent his escape, while the other cub called the wolves away from their own hunting to come and join the feast.

Whether this were a conscious attempt to spare the game, or to alarm it as little as need be, it is impossible to say. Certainly the wolves know, better apparently than men, that persistent hunting destroys its own object, and that caribou especially, when much alarmed by dogs or wolves or men, will take the alarm quickly, and the scattered herds, moved by a common impulse of danger, will trail far away to other ranges. That is why the wolf, unlike the less intelligent dog, hunts always in a silent, stealthy, un.o.btrusive way; and why he stops hunting and goes away the instant his own hunger is satisfied or another wolf kills enough for all. And that is also the probable reason why he lets the deer alone as long as he can find any other game.

This same intelligent provision was shown in another curious way. When a wolf in his wide ranging found a good hunting-ground where small game was plentiful, he would snap up a rabbit silently in the twilight and then go far away, perhaps to join the other cubs in a gambol, or to follow them to the cliffs over a fishing village and set all the dogs to howling. By day he would lie close in some thick cover, miles away from his hunting-ground. At twilight he would steal back and hunt quietly, just long enough to get his game, and then trot away again, leaving the cover as unharried as if there were not a wolf in the whole neighborhood.

Such a good hunting-ground cannot long remain hidden from other prowlers in the wilderness; and Wayeeses, who was keeping his discovery to himself, would soon cross the trail of a certain old fox returning day after day to the same good covers. No two foxes, nor mice, nor men, nor any other two animals for that matter, ever leave the same scent,--any old hound, which will hold steadily to one fox though a dozen others cross or cover his trail, will show you that plainly in a day's hunting,--and the wolf would soon know surely that the same fox was poaching every night on his own preserves while he was away. To a casual, wandering hunter he paid no attention; but this cunning poacher must be laid by the heels, else there would not be a single rabbit left in the cover. So Wayeeses, instead of hunting himself at twilight when the rabbits are stirring, would wait till midday, when the sun is warm and foxes are sleepy, and then come back to find the poacher's trail and follow it to where Eleemos was resting for the day in a sunny opening in the scrub. There Wayeeses would steal upon him from behind and put an end to his poaching; or else, if the fox used the same nest daily, as is often the case when he is not disturbed, the wolf would circle the scrub warily to find the path by which Eleemos usually came out on his night's hunting. When he found that out Wayeeses would dart away in the long, rolling gallop that carries a wolf swiftly over the roughest country without fatigue. In an hour or two he would be back again with another wolf. Then Eleemos, dozing away in the winter sunshine, would hear an unusual racket in the scrub behind him,--some heavy animal brushing about heedlessly and sniffing loudly at a cold trail. No wolf certainly, for a wolf makes no noise. So Eleemos would get down from his warm rock and slip away, stopping to look back and listen jauntily to the clumsy brute behind him, till he ran plump into the jaws of the other wolf that was watching alert and silent beside the runway.

When the snows were deep and soft the wolves took to hunting the lynxes,--big, savage, long-clawed fighters that swarm in the interior of Newfoundland and play havoc with the small game. For a single lynx the wolves hunted in pairs, trailing the big prowler stealthily and rushing upon him from behind with a fierce uproar to startle the wits out of his stupid head and send him off headlong, as cats go, before he knew what was after him. Away he would go in mighty jumps, sinking shoulder deep, often indeed up to his tufted ears, at every plunge. After him raced the wolves, running lightly and taking advantage of the holes he had made in the soft snow, till a swift snap in his flank brought Upweekis up with a ferocious snarl to tear in pieces his pursuers.

Then began as savage a bit of fighting as the woods ever witness, teeth against talons, wolf cunning against cat ferocity. Crouched in the snow, spitting and snarling, his teeth bared and round eyes blazing and long claws aching to close in a death grip, Upweekis waited impatient as a fury for the rush. He is an ugly fighter; but he must always get close, gripping his enemy with teeth and fore claws while the hind claws get in their deadly work, kicking downward in powerful spasmodic blows and ripping everything before them. A dog would rush in now and be torn to pieces; but not so the wolves. Dancing lightly about the big lynx they would watch their chance to leap and snap, sometimes avoiding the blow of the swift paw with its terrible claws, and sometimes catching it on their heavy manes; but always a long red mark showed on the lynx's silver fur as the wolves' teeth clicked with the voice of a steel trap and they leaped aside without serious injury. As the big cat grew blind in his fury they would seize their chance like a flash and leap together; one pair of long jaws would close hard on the spine behind the tufted ears; another pair would grip a hind leg, while the wolves sprang apart and braced to hold. Then the fight was all over; and the moose birds, in pairs, came flitting in silently to see if there were not a few unconsidered trifles of the feast for them to dispose of.

Occasionally, at nightfall, the wolves' hunting cry would ring out of the woods as one of the cubs discovered three or four of the lynxes growling horribly over some game they had pulled down together. For Upweekis too, though generally a solitary fellow, often roams with a savage band of freebooters to hunt the larger animals in the bitter winter weather. No young wolf would ever run into one of these bands alone; but when the pack rolled in upon them like a tempest the lynxes would leap squalling away in a blind rush; and the two big wolves, cutting in from the ends of the charging line, would turn a lynx kit deftly aside for the cubs to hold. Then another for themselves, and the hunt was over,--all but the feast at the end of it.

When a big and cunning lynx took to a tree at the first alarm the wolves would go aside to leeward, where Upweekis could not see them, but where their noses told them perfectly all that he was doing. Then began the long game of patience, the wolves waiting for the game to come down, and the lynx waiting for the wolves to go away. Upweekis was at a disadvantage, for he could not see when he had won; and he generally came down in an hour or two, only to find the wolves hot on his trail before he had taken a dozen jumps. Whereupon he took to another tree and the game began again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The silent, appalling death-watch began."]

When the night was exceeding cold--and one who has not felt it can hardly imagine the bitter, killing intensity of a northern midnight in February--the wolves, instead of going away, would wait under the tree in which the lynx had taken refuge, and the silent, appalling death-watch began. A lynx, though heavily furred, cannot long remain exposed in the intense cold without moving. Moreover he must grip the branch on which he sits more or less firmly with his claws, to keep from falling; and the tense muscles, which flex the long claws to drive them into the wood, soon grow weary and numb in the bitter frost. The wolves meanwhile trot about to keep warm; while the stupid cat sits in one spot slowly perishing, and never thinks of running up and down the tree to keep himself alive. The feet grow benumbed at last, powerless to hold on any longer, and the lynx tumbles off into the wolves' jaws; or else, knowing the danger, he leaps for the nearest wolf and dies fighting.

Spite of the killing cold, the problem of keeping warm was to the wolves always a simple one. Moving along through the winter night, always on a swift, silent trot, they picked up what game came in their way, and scarcely felt the eager cold that nipped at their ears, or the wind, keen as an icicle, that strove to penetrate the s.h.a.ggy white coats that covered them. When their hunger was satisfied, or when the late day came and found them still hunting hopefully, they would push their way into the thick scrub from one of the numerous paths and lie down on a nest of leaves, which even in midwinter were dry as if no snow or rain had ever fallen. There, where no wind or gale however strong could penetrate, and with the snow filling the low branches overhead and piled over them in a soft, warm blanket three feet thick, they would push their sensitive noses into their own thick fur to keep them warm, and sleep comfortably till the early twilight came and called them out again to the hunting.

At times, when not near the scrub, they would burrow deep into a great drift of snow and sleep in the warmest kind of a nest,--a trick that the husky dogs, which are but wolves of yesterday, still remember. Like all wild animals, they felt the coming of a storm long before the first white flakes began to whirl in the air; and when a great storm threatened they would lie down to sleep in a cave, or a cranny of the rocks, and let the drifts pile soft and warm over them. However long the storm, they never stirred abroad; partly for their own comfort, partly because all game lies hid at such times and it is practically impossible, even for a wolf, to find it. When a wolf has fed full he can go a week without eating and suffer no great discomfort. So Wayeeses would lie close and warm while the snow piled deep around him and the gale raged over the sea and mountains, but pa.s.sed unfelt and unheeded over his head. Then, when the storm was over, he pawed his way up through the drift and came out in a new, bright world, where the game, with appet.i.tes sharpened by the long fast, was already stirring briskly in every covert.

When March came, the bitterest month of all for the Wood Folk, even Wayeeses was often hard pressed to find a living. Small game grew scarce and very wild; the caribou had wandered far away to other ranges; and the cubs would dig for hours after a mouse, or stalk a s...o...b..rd, or wait with endless patience for a red squirrel to stop his chatter and come down to search under the snow for a fir cone that he had hidden there in the good autumn days. And once, when the hunger within was more nipping than the eager cold without, one of the cubs found a bear sleeping in his winter den among the rocks. With a sharp hunting cry, that sang like a bullet over the frozen wastes, he called the whole pack about him.

While the rest lay in hiding the old he-wolf approached warily and scratched Mooween out of his den, and then ran away to entice the big brute into the open ground, where the pack rolled in upon him and killed him in a terrible fight before he had fairly shaken the sleep out of his eyes.

Old Tomah, the trapper, was abroad now, taking advantage of the spring hunger. The wolves often crossed his snow-shoe trail, or followed it swiftly to see whither it led. For a wolf, like a farm dog, is never satisfied till he knows the ways of every living thing that crosses his range. Following the broad trail Wayeeses would find here a trapped animal, struggling desperately with the clog and the cruel gripping teeth, there the flayed carca.s.s of a lynx or an otter, and yonder the leg of a dog or a piece of caribou meat hung by a cord over a runway, with the snow disturbed beneath it where the deadly trap was hidden. One glance, or a sniff at a distance, was enough for the wolf. Lynxes do not go about the range without their skins, and meat does not naturally hang on trees; so Wayeeses, knowing all the ways of the woods, would ignore these baits absolutely. Nevertheless he followed the snow-shoe trails until he knew where every unnatural thing lay hidden; and no matter how hungry he was, or how cunningly the old Indian hid his devices, or however deep the new snow covered all traces of man's work, Wayeeses pa.s.sed by on the other side and kept his dainty feet out of every snare and pitfall.

Once, when the two cubs that hunted together were hard pinched with hunger, they found Old Tomah in the twilight and followed him stealthily. The old Indian was swinging along, silent as a shadow of the woods, his gun on his shoulder and some skins on his back, heading swiftly for the little hut under the cliff, where he burrowed for the night as snug as a bear in his den. An old wolf would have known instantly the danger, for man alone bites at a distance; but the lop-eared cub, which was larger than his brother and therefore the leader, raised his head for the hunting cry. The first yap had hardly left his throat when the thunder roared, and something seared the wolf's side like a hot iron. The cubs vanished like the smoke from the old gun.

Then the Indian came swiftly back on the trail, peering about with hawk eyes to see the effect of his shot.

"By cosh! miss um dat time. Mus' be powder no good." Then, as he read the plain record in the snow, "One,--by cosh! two hwulf, lil fool hwulf, follow my footin'. Mus' be more, come soon pretty quick now; else he don' howl dat way. Guess mebbe ol' Injun better stay in house nights."

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 fishing 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 shiver, 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 crashing 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 shining sea and the slow fishing-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, shivering.

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."