Chapter SIX

A'tim slunk through the forest, his lean body filled with nothing but the rage of disappointed appetite. "I'm starving!" he gasped; "Starving! I must have something to eat. By the feast that is in a dead Buffalo! if that evil-minded Cow had also eaten of the Death Flower when her Bull did, as she says, I should now be closer friend than ever with old Shag--Shag, the Fool."

A large dead cottonwood, rotted to the heart till its flesh was like red earth mould, lay across his path like an unburied Redskin. "Should be Grub Worms here," muttered A'tim, sniffing at the moss shroud which clothed the tree corpse. In famine haste he tore with strong claws at the crumbling mass. One, two, three large Grubs, full of a white fat, twisted and squirmed at their rude awakening; the Dog-Wolf swallowed them greedily. "Eu-h-h! Hi, yi! Such a tiny morsel," he whined plaintively; "they but give life to the famine pains which were all but dead through starvation. Wait, you, fool Bull--I'll crack your ribs with my strong teeth yet! But small as the Grubs are there should be more."

With swift diligence A'tim excavated, grumblingly, until his gaunt form was half buried in the hole.

Three Gray Shadows were creeping in stealthy silence upon his flank; owing to his anxious work A'tim was oblivious to the approaching trouble.

"E-e-yah!" and quick as a slipping sound that fluttered his ear A'tim was up on the dead cottonwood, only to find himself peering into the lurid eyes of a huge Wolf.

Like war stars, four other balls of light gleamed at him from a close crescent. The Outcast was clever. Surely this was a case for diplomacy; he had no desire to feed three hungry Wolves with his thin carcass.

"You startled me, Brothers," he said, grinning nervously.

"I did not mean to," replied the Pack Leader; "my foot slipped on a wet leaf."

"Ye-e-s--just so," hesitated A'tim in deprecating voice; "so fortunate--I mean--Brothers, I'm sorry I can't offer you good eating--there were only three Grubs----"

"Oh, don't mention it!" exclaimed the Wolf; "no doubt we shall find something for dinner presently--don't you think so, children?" he asked, turning to the others.

"I was going to say," recommenced the Outcast, "that I could not ask you to eat just here, but I was actually on my way to invite you to a big feeding."

The Timber Wolf bared his fangs in a grin of derisive unbelief. His comrades blinked at one another solemnly. "Was there ever such a liar?"

A'tim coughed nervously and continued his politic address. "I heard your powerful bay, Pack Leader, hours ago, as I was attending to a little trailing matter I had on hand, and resolved to invite you to the Kill when I had located the trailed one."

"That's good news," answered the Wolf, "for we are wondrous hungry," and he edged closer to the Outcast.

A'tim shrank into a very small parcel on the log. "I, too, have been sick for the need of food. I have starved, actually starved, for a moon; why, I am nothing but skin and bone; the smallest creature, even a weasel, would find it difficult to fill his stomach from my lean ribs. Besides, I have eaten off a plague-stricken Rabbit but a day since, and my blood is on fire--though there's not much of it, to be sure. I'm filled with the accursed plague poison--I believe there's enough of it in my poor, thin body to bring to their death a whole Wolf Pack."

"That's serious!" exclaimed the Gray Wolf; "but you'd die anyway, so it doesn't matter--I mean, never mind about that just now. Gh-u-r-r-h! what of this great kill?"

"Well, Brother Wolves----"

"Brother _Wolves_?" questioned the other with a sneer-tinge in his gruff voice; "thou art overthick in the shoulder for a Wolf."

"I never saw ears like yours on a Wolf, Newcomer," said one of the youngsters; "they are short and round like those of the Huskie Dog we ate. Is not that so?" he asked, turning to the Leader.

"Yes, indeed; we ate him, I'm ashamed to say--for Dog meat is horrible--but what is one to do when there's naught else in the Boundaries?"

A'tim shuddered; their merciless eyes gleamed with the ferocity of famine. Neither his strength nor his speed, which had so often stood him in good stead, would avail him this time; nothing but his half-breed duplicity--Wolf cunning and Dog wisdom.

"But I _am_ a Wolf," he reiterated; "else why should I seek your company at my Kill?"

"We were easily found," sneered the Wolf; "we did not take much calling, did we? Knowing your desire for our fellowship, we kept you not waiting--E-a-ah, Lone Dog? But where hunts the Pack that carry their tails curled over their backs like Train Dogs?"

"It's because of my nervousness--you startled me," pleaded A'tim; "also my seat is narrow."

"And the big, round feet, Lone Dog? They leave not a Wolf track. And you're broad in the loin, and heavy in the jowl, and short in the leg--a Dog, a Hermit Dog, by the knowledge that has come to me of age."

"I'm a Wolf from the Southland," maintained A'tim. "We shape different there. Our meat is the flesh of Buffalo, and our Kill is because of strength, and not speed--therefore we are of a strong build. You are of the Northland; swift as the wind, and long running, Great Wolf--you and your beautiful Sons--yet was I eager for your company at this Kill, which has taken me days to arrange."

"Buh-h, buh-ha! his great Kill! and here is the killer slaying fierce, white Wood Grubs--but never mind; what of the Kill, Lone Dog?"

"What say you to a Buffalo--a fat, young Bull?" asked A'tim, heaving a sigh of relief; "would not that be a dinner fit for a great Pack Leader, like yourself?"

"A Buffalo?" queried the Wolf incredulously. "I have heard of such in these forests, but I come from the North, and have never seen them--have we, Sons?"

"Never," they answered, closing in on A'tim.

"Even to-day I trailed one, and was on my way to ask you to the Kill, as is the way of the Wolf kind. I am no Dog, to kill and eat in secret."

"It's truly noble to feed your friends," declared the Wolf. He snapped viciously at A'tim's throat with fang-lined jaws. The Dog-Wolf jumped back nervously.

"Wait, Brothers," he pleaded; "you do not believe me, I see--let us go together, and if I do not show you this Buffalo, waiting for the Kill, then--"

"Yes, then--" sneered the Wolf; "if you fail to show us this Buffalo, then--" He grinned diabolically in A'tim's face.

"E-e-u-h, I know," exclaimed the Dog-Wolf, stepping down gingerly from the log. "You may keep close; I will show you that I have spoken no lie."

Together, one Wolf on either side of A'tim and one behind, they glided along his back trail till they came to the scene of his caustic farewell to Shag. Suddenly the Pack Leader stopped, buried his nose in a hoof hole and sniffed with discriminating intentness.

"If-if-if-fh-h! By my scent, 'tis not Mooswa--nor Caribou. What say you, sons? Perhaps it is the Buffalo of which the Lone Dog speaks. Phew-yi, hi! Another trail call. Here are two of these big-footed creatures, be they Buffalo, or what--you spoke of but one, Lone Dog; Wolves do not tackle a Herd."

"Only a silly Cow," answered A'tim. "She will flee at the first blood cry."

The big Wolf softened a trifle. Surely here was prospect of a mighty Kill. There would be much flesh feeding and blood drinking till they were gorged. And the Lone Dog would keep. When the Buffalo were eaten, then--He look grimly at A'tim's attenuated form. "Not much to tempt one after the sweet meat of a Grass Feeder," he muttered disconsolately. "How shall we make the Kill, Lone Dog?" he asked.

"When we have trailed them down watch till they feed apart and stampede the Cow with a fierce rush full of much cry; then all on the Bull--two in front, to put them at bay, and two behind with sharp teeth for the hamstring. That will lay him helpless as a new Calf."

"Thou art a Leader of Sorts, Lone Dog; but why not the Cow first? It's an easier task, and better eating."

"Ah, my Brothers, I see you have never run the Kings of the Prairie. While you were busy with the Cow, what think you the Bull would be doing--brushing his mane with a wet tongue? His strong horns, stronger than Wolf tusks, would be ripping your ribs, and the weight of his huge forehead would be breaking your backs--flat as a fallen leaf he would crush you. No, no; by my knowledge of these things, first the Bull--after, the Cow will be easy."

All this logic, sound though it seemed, was born of A'tim's desire for revenge upon old Shag for refusing to be murdered.

"Well, it is your Run and your Kill, and to the Trailer the say of the Kill is our Law," answered the Wolf; "lead us to the eating, and make haste lest we get too hungry."

But A'tim had started ere the Wolf had finished his implied threat. Nose to ground, and tail almost as straight as a true Wolf's, he raced through the ghost forms of silent poplars, sheared by the autumn winds of their gold-leaf mantle. Over wooded upland, and through lowland cradling the treacherous muskeg, spruce-shielded and moss-bedded, he followed the trail of old Shag and his Cow mate. Ever at his flank, one on either side, sped the young Wolves, and, lapping their quarters, loped in easy stride their giant Sire. In the Dog-Wolf's heart were revenge and the prospect of much eating, and the diplomacy that was to save his life.

"This strange Run is surely from the hand of Wie-sah-ke-chack," muttered the Pack Leader; "and of the end I have no knowledge, but, by the memory of my long fast, there will be food at the end of it for me and the Pups."

Through a black cemetery of fire-killed trees, the charred limbs cracking harshly under their eager feet, they swept. Suddenly the trail kinked sharply to the right, and the Dog-Wolf, swift-rushing, overshot it. "E-u-h! at fault," he muttered. "Some trick of the fool Cow's." Back and forth, back and forth like Setters the four Killers scurried.

"H-o-o-oh! here away!" cried A'tim, picking it up; and on again galloped the Gray Hunters.

At Towatano Creek the trail went into the air; at least it was no longer of the earth. Straight to the south bank it had led, but on the north there was nothing; nothing but the hoot of a frightened Arctic Owl that swirled off into the forest because of their impetuous blood cry.

"They are not wet to their death," cried the Wolf, "for here is little water."

It was as though the Bisons had crawled into a cave, only there was no burrow in sight--nothing. A'tim was confused.

"Surely thou art a Dog," cried the Wolf disdainfully; "they have gone up the water, or they have gone down the water. This is no young Bull we follow, for he has the wisdom which comes with age; that, or this Cow has the duplicity of a Mother guarding her Calf."

"I will search up, and do you seek down," said A'tim.

"Not so," replied the Wolf; "we will stay here together while my Pups pick up the trail, be it up or down."

Very close to A'tim the huge Wolf sat while his two Sons searched the opposite bank for the coming out of Shag. Soon a "Hi, yi--he, he, he-voh-ooh!" came floating dismally up the tortuous stretch of winding stream. "Come; they have found it," said the Wolf.

On again, faster and faster, flitted the Gray Shadows in the waning of the day. All vain had been the precautions of the Cow; the twisting and doubling, and walking in the water to kill the scent--all in vain. Nothing would turn these blood-thirsters from the trail.

"Hurry a little," panted the Wolf from behind. "Gallop, Lone Dog; gallop, brave Pups; the scent grows strong, and we need light for our work."

A'tim stretched his thin limbs in eager chase; at his shoulder now raced the Wolf Pups; the blood fever crept stronger and stronger into the hot hearts of the Gray Runners. Short yelps of hungry exultation broke from their dry throats; it was like the tolling of a death bell; first one and then the other, "Oo-oo-ooh-ooh!" The dry leaves scurried under their feet, swirled up by the wind from their rushing bodies. Poplar bluff, and jack-pine knoll, and spruce thicket, and open patch of rosebush-matted plain flitted by like the tide of a landscape through which an express speeds.

Why had this silly Cow and effete old Bull traveled so far? A'tim wondered. Would they never overtake them?

Suddenly a vibrating bellow echoed through the forest and halted the Wolf Runners.

"It's the Bull!" cried A'tim triumphantly. "Now, Brothers, we shall feast. Have I not spoken the truth?"

On again sped the four Killers--the four that were eager of blood; on through the thicket, and with suddenness out upon a plain that had been fire-swept years before--a plain wide, and void of poplar, or spruce, or cottonwood. Only the grass plain, and on the plain seven Buffalo; a waiting crescent of seven huge heads lined in symmetrical defense; a little in front old Shag, and behind, shoulder to shoulder, the others. With a cry of dismay, A'tim stopped.

"A trick--a trap!" yelped the Wolf.

"I did not know of these," whined A'tim; "but it is nothing. If we charge boldly they will stampede."

"They will fight," answered the Wolf. "No charge will break a Wolf Pack, and it will be that way with these, I think."

"The Buffalo are different," lied A'tim. He knew better, but it was his only hope. Well he knew that if there were no attack his New Comrades would surely eat him. In the battle many things might come to pass, his Dog wisdom said; the Wolves might be killed, or prodded full of a sufficiency of fight; the Buffalo might stampede, being new to Shag's leadership; or, when the combat was heavy, he could steal away if he saw it going against them. Also his desire for revenge on Shag was a potent factor.

"They will surely break if we charge with strength," he declared: "they are Cows, having no Calves to guard, and each will think only of her own safety when she hears your fierce cry, Pack Leader. I, who have lived upon Buffalo in the South, know this. Why should I say this, being also in the fight, if it were not true. Come, Brothers, even now they are afraid."

The Buffalo Cows were stamping the young-turfed prairie with nervous feet. Shag was throwing clouds of dust over his lowered head, and kinking his tufted tail in battle anger.

"Yes, he will fight," declared A'tim, as Shag snorted and shook his head defiantly; "he will fight, but that will save much running, for we shall soon bring him down."

The Wolf Leader weighed the matter with a gravity born of his long fast. Certainly it appeared worth a battle. If they could but make one Kill, what a feast it would be! Never had he seen Grass Feeders of this bulk. Why should he and his Sons, who were strong fighters, full of the Wolf cunning, dread these Buffalo who had nothing but horns for defense! No fear of the fierce-cutting hoof thrust, such as Mooswa gave! And he was hungry. He looked at the Dog-Wolf with the eye of an epicure; what miserable eating his thin carcass would make. Much better this fight for a Buffalo.

"We will charge," he said. "All at the Bull!"

With short, gasping yelps the three Wolves and the Mongrel dashed at the Herd. The crescent of horned heads swayed a little irresolutely; but Shag, wise old Leader, Leader of mighty Herds, Patrician of a thousand kine, who had stood against the fierce blizzard, and the Foothill Wolves that came down in mighty Packs seeking the calves that were in his charge,--he who had fought the young Bulls growing into their strength, and kept them in subjection until his horns were worn to stubs and of no avail; whose heart, once aroused, was strong, and knew not of defeat until it came: this dauntless Monarch of the plain stood firm. What were four Wolves to him! Let them come.

"This is a Leader!" said the six Cows. "Surely here is no danger."

"No danger," repeated Shag, hearing their voices; "stand close and there is no danger."

"Oo-oo-oo-ah, wah, wah, wah!" howled the Wolves and barked the Dog-Wolf, as almost to the stockade of heavy heads they rushed.

"Circle, Brothers, circle," called the big Wolf, as he swerved to the right, seeking to turn the flank of the Cow line. Like trained soldiers the Buffalo crescent swung as the Wolves swung, Shag always a little in front. With an angry snarl the Leader dashed at the Buffalo; his two Sons were at his shoulder.

"The Bull! the Bull!" yelped A'tim, crouching to steal under the giant head, and lay him by the flank.

Famine-braved, the Wolves fought and snapped, and snarled the Kill cry. Crazed beyond cowardice by the smell of their own blood, the Cows fenced and thrust, and stood one against the other--the sharp horns ripped like skinning-knives.

"Ee-e-yah! if I could but do it!" snarled the great Wolf. Ah! he had her--by the nose! Down to her knees, dragged by the Wolf, came the Cow that had turned Shag from the Death Flower.

"Yah, yah, yah!" snarled the Wolf joyously through his set teeth, as the Cow bellowed loud in her agony of terror.

Then something like the falling of a great forest was heard, and the Buffalo Bull descended upon the Big Wolf and blotted him out from the light of the world. It was not a question of horns at all; it was simply a great weight like an avalanche of rock crushing him into the herbed plain. His grim jaws relaxed their hold; from ears and nostrils flowed his mighty strength in a red stream.

Even as Shag charged the Wolf, A'tim had reached for the Cow's flank! Ah! here was his chance. The Bull's fat throat beckoned to him from within easy reach. Wah, for his revenge! E-e-uh, for the throat grip--the throat-cutting hold!

Eagerly, wide-jawed he sprang at the Brother Outcast--and missed.

The carnage had sent Shag's life back a score of years; the battle heat warmed his old blood until it coursed with the fire of fighting youth; he was a young Bull again, full of the glorious supple strength that had been his as chief gladiator of all the prairie arena: that was why A'tim fell short as he reached for the death hold.

With a deft twist Shag had the Dog-Wolf pinned to the earth between the worn old horns.

"Now, traitor," he grunted.

"Spare me," pleaded A'tim; "I, who am not of your kind, slept by your side, and guided you to this land where you have a Herd. I was forced to this by the Wolves--they threatened to eat me. Spare me, Great Bull; I came to warn you, but the Wolves followed fast."

Shag hesitated. One crunch from his broad forehead, one little push--so, and the Dog-Wolf, who was A'tim, would--

"Spare me, Shag--let me go," pleaded the mongrel again; "I brought you to this Herd--to this Northland which is good. Were we not Outcast Brothers together?"

Again Shag hesitated. Why not? Was he not a Buffalo Bull, a Leader of Herds? Did his kind ever do aught for revenge--kill except in defense of their own lives? And was not this Dog-Wolf lying helpless between his horns beyond all chance of doing him injury--this Mongrel that had been as a Brother to him when they were Outcasts? Also the Wolves were dead--trampled into silence.

"Thou art a traitor, and a great liar, A'tim," said the Bull, rising, "but you may go because you are an Outcast, and because I also was one."

And that was the beginning of the Herd of the Wood Buffalo, that are big and strong and beautiful, in the spruce forests of the Athabasca Lake.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

The punctuation was standardized in the caption "One after another they hurtled into the slaughter-pen of the Blood Indians' corral."

The word "everyting" has been retained on page 82.

The punctuation and paragraphing were standardized on page 129.

The "oe" ligature in the word manoeuver is represented as [oe].