Chapter II

When the lopsided moon, now hung high over a low, desolate shore of blanched rampikes, was fading to a papery whiteness against a sky of dawn, the roar of the river grew louder, and the islet, no longer slowly revolving, plunged forward, through a succession of wallowing waves, over a wild half-mile of ledges, and joined itself to a wider and mightier stream. The wolf, drenched, shivering, and appalled by the tumult, clung to his refuge by tooth and claw; and the islet, being well compacted, held together through the wrenching plunges, and carried its burden safely forth upon the quiet current.

For a day and a night and a day the starving wolf voyaged down the flood, till his gaunt sides clung together, and a fierce ache gnawed at his vitals. But with the fasting and the ceaseless soothing of his tongue his wound rapidly healed; and when, after sunset of his second evening on the river, the islet grounded in an eddy under the bank, he sprang ashore with speed little impaired. Only a limp and an ache remained to remind him of the hurt which had so nearly cost him his life and had exiled him to untried hunting-grounds.

His feet once more on firm ground, the wolf halted warily. The air that came down the bank carried a strange and warning scent. Noiselessly he crept up the steep, went through a few yards of shrubbery like a ghost, and peered forth upon a rough back-settlement road. At one side he saw a cabin, with a barn near it, and two long-horned steers (he had seen steers at a lumber camp in his own wild land), thrusting their muzzles over the fence. Down the road toward the cabin came a man, in gray homespun and cowhide larrigans, with an axe over his shoulder. It was the man-smell which had made the wolf so cautious.

With savage but curious eyes he watched the man, with no thought of attacking alone so redoubtable a foe. Presently the latter began to whistle, and at the incomprehensible sound the wolf shrank back, fear mingled with his curiosity. But when the man was well past, there came a new scent upon the air, a scent quite unknown to him; and then a small black and white cur trotted into view, nosing along the roadside in quest of chipmunks. The jaws of the starving wolf dripped water at the sight. He gathered himself for a rush. He saw that the man had disappeared. The dog ran across the road, sniffing a new chipmunk trail, and halted, in sudden apprehension, not five feet from the hidden wolf. There was a rustle, a leap, a sharp yelp; and the wolf was back into cover with his prey.

Emboldened by the success of this, his first hunting in the unknown land, the wolf slept for a few hours in his bushy retreat, and then, when the misshapen moon was up, went prowling cautiously around the outskirts of the scattered little settlement. Everywhere the man-smell kept him on his guard. Once he was careless enough to get between the wind and a farmyard, whereupon a watchful cur started a barking, which was taken up and kept up for an hour by all the dogs of the village. At this the wolf, with snarling, contemptuous jaws apart, withdrew to a knoll, sat quietly erect upon his haunches, and waited for the din to subside. He noted carefully the fact that one or two men were aroused by the alarm, and came out to see what was the matter. When all was quiet again he sought the house of the nearest yelper, took him by surprise, and killed him in sheer rage, leaving his torn body beside the very door-step, instead of dragging it away for a later meal. This was a mistake in hunting craft. Had he been more familiar with the man-folk, his wide-skulled intelligence would have taught him better than to leave a clue behind him in this careless fashion.

From the farmyard he wandered back toward the hills, and came upon a lonely sheep pasture. Here he found killing so easy that he slew in wantonness; and then, about daybreak, gorged and triumphant, withdrew to a rocky hillside, where he found a lair to his taste.

Later in the day, however, he realized his mistake. He had called down upon himself the wrath of the man-folk. A din of dogs aroused him, and, mounting a rock, he saw a motley crowd of curs upon his trail, with half a dozen men following far behind them. He bared his fangs disdainfully, then turned and sought the forest at a long gallop, which, for all his limp and his twinge, soon carried him beyond ear-shot of his pursuers.

For hours he pressed on ever eastward, with a little trend to the south, crossing many a trail of deer, caribou, and moose, passing here and there a beaver village, and realizing that he had come to wonderful hunting-grounds. But when he came to the outskirts of another settlement, he halted. His jaws ran water at the thought of finding another sheep pasture, and he decided to range for awhile in this neighbourhood. He was quick to realize the disadvantage of man's proximity, but he would dare it for a little before retiring into the untainted wilderness. He had learned his lesson quickly, however. That night he refrained from stirring up the dogs of the settlement; and he killed but one sheep, in a secluded corner of the pasture.

Now, by singular chance, it happened that at this particular settlement there was already a sheep-killer harrying the thick-wooled flocks. A wandering peddler, smitten with a fever while visiting the settlement, had died, and left to pay for his board and burial only his pack and his dog. The dog, so fiercely devoted to him as to have made the funeral difficult, was a long-legged, long-haired, long-jawed bitch, apparently a cross between a collie and a Scotch deerhound. So unusual a beast, making all the other dogs of the settlement look contemptible, was in demand; but she was deaf, for a time, to all overtures. For a week she pined for the dead peddler; and then, with an air of scornful tolerance, consented to take up her abode with the village shopkeeper. Her choice was made not for any distinction in the man, but for a certain association, apparently, with the smell of the contents of her late master's pack. For months she sulked and was admired, making friends with neither man, woman, nor child, and keeping all the village curs at a respectful distance.

A few days, however, before the arrival of the journeying wolf, a new interest had entered into the life of the long-jawed bitch. Her eyes resumed their old bright alertness, and she grew perceptibly less ungracious to the loafers gathered around the stove in the back store. She had entered upon a career which would have ended right speedily with a bullet in her reckless brain, but for an utterly unlooked-for freak of fate. She had discovered that, if every night she could hunt, run down, and kill one sheep, life might again become worth living, and the coarse-clodded grave in the little lonely cemetery might be forgotten. It was not the killing, but the chase, that she craved. The killing was, of course, merely the ecstatic culmination. So she went about the sport with artistic cunning. To disguise her trail she came upon the flocks from the side of the forest, as any wild beast would. Then she would segregate her victim with a skill born of her collie ancestry, set it running, madden it to the topmost delirium of fear and flight, and almost let it escape before darting at its throat and ending the game with the gush of warm blood between her jaws.

Such had been her adventures for three nights: and already the settlement was concerned, and already glances of half-formed suspicion had been cast upon the long-legged bitch so innocently asleep by the stove, when the wandering wolf arrived upon the outskirts of the settlement. The newcomer was quick to note and examine the tracks of a peculiarly large dog--a foeman, perhaps, to prove not unworthy of his fangs. And he conducted his reconnoitring with more care. Then he came upon the carcass of a sheep, torn and partly eaten. It was almost like a wolf's work--though less cleanly done--and the smell of the cold trail was unmistakably dog. The black-backed wolf was puzzled. He had a vague notion that dogs were the protectors, not the hunters, of all the four-legged kindred belonging to men. The problem seemed to him an important one. He crouched in ambush near the carcass to consider it for a time, before setting out upon his own sheep-hunting.

As he crouched, watching, he saw the killer approach. He saw a tall, lean bitch come up, tear carelessly at the dead sheep for a moment or two, in a manner of ownership, and turn to leave. She was as long in leg and flank as himself, and possessed of the like punishing jaws; but she was not so massive in the shoulder. The wolf felt that he could master her in combat; but he felt no disposition for the fight. The dog-smell that came to his nostrils did not excite the usual hot aversion. On the contrary, it made him desire to know more of the sheep-killing stranger.

But acquaintance is not made lightly among the wild kindred, who are quick to resent a presumption. The wolf slipped noiselessly back into his covert, emerged upon the farther side of the thicket, and at a distance of some twenty paces stood forth in the glimmering light. To attract the tall bitch's attention he made a soft, whining sound.

At the unexpected noise behind her the bitch wheeled like lightning. At sight of the big wolf the hair rose along her back, her fangs bared themselves dangerously, and she growled a deep note of challenge. For some seconds the wolf thought she would fly at him,; but he stood motionless, tail drooping humbly, tongue hanging a little way from his lips, a soft light in his eyes. Then he sat back upon his haunches, let his tongue hang out still farther, and drooped his head a little to one side--the picture of conciliation and deference.

The long-jawed bitch had never before seen a wolf, but she recognized him at once as a natural enemy. There was something in his attitude of unoffending confidence, however, which made her hesitate to attack, although he was plainly a trespasser. As she eyed him, she felt her anger melting away. How like he was to certain big, strong dogs which she had seen once or twice in her wanderings with the peddler! and how unlike to the diminutive, yelping curs of the settlement! Her bristling hairs smoothed themselves, the skin of her jaws relaxed and set itself about her teeth in a totally different expression; her growling ceased, and she gave an amicable whine. Diffidently the two approached each other, and in a few minutes a perfect understanding was established.

That night they hunted sheep together. In the joy of comradeship and emulation, prudence was scattered to the winds, and they held a riot of slaughter. When day broke a dozen or more sheep lay dead about the pastures. And the wolf, knowing that men and dogs would soon be noisy on their trail, led his new-found mate far back into the wilderness.