CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The next morning Miki set out again for the trapline of Jacques LeBeau. It was not the thought of food easily secured that tempted him.There would have been a greater thrill in killing for himself. It wasthe trail, with its smell of the man-beast, that drew him like amagnet. Where that smell was very strong he wanted to lie down, andwait. Yet with his desire there was also fear, and a steadily growingcaution. He did not tamper with the first KEKEK, nor with the second.At the third Le Beau had fumbled in the placing of his bait, and forthat reason the little ball of fat was strong with the scent of hishands. A fox would have turned away from it quickly. Miki, however,drew it from the peg and dropped it in the snow between his forefeet.Then he looked about him, and listened for a full minute. After that helicked the ball of fat with his tongue. The scent of Le Beau's handskept him from swallowing it as he had swallowed the caribou meat. Alittle suspiciously he crushed it slowly between his jaws. The fat wassweet. He was about to gulp it down when he detected another and lesspleasant taste, and what remained in his mouth he spat out upon thesnow. But the acrid bite of the poison remained upon his tongue and inhis throat. It crept deeper--and he caught up a mouthful of snow andswallowed it to put out the burning sensation that was crawling nearerto his vitals.
Had he devoured the ball of fat as he had eaten the other baits hewould have been dead within a quarter of an hour, and Le Beau would nothave gone far to find his body. As it was, he was beginning to turnsick at the end of the fifteen minutes. A premonition of the evil thatwas upon him drew him off the trail and in the direction of thewindfall. He had gone only a short distance when suddenly his legs gaveway under him, and he fell. He began to shiver. Every muscle in hisbody trembled. His teeth clicked. His eyes grew wide, and it wasimpossible for him to move. And then, like a hand throttling him, therecame a strange stiffness in the back of his neck, and his breath hissedchokingly out of his throat. The stiffness passed like a wave of firethrough his body. Where his muscles had trembled and shivered a momentbefore they now became rigid and lifeless. The throttling grip of thepoison at the base of his brain drew his head back until his muzzle waspointed straight up to the sky. Still he made no cry. For a space everynerve in his body was at the point of death.
Then came the change. As though a string had snapped, the horrible gripleft the back of his neck; the stiffness shot out of his body in aflood of shivering cold, and in another moment he was twisting andtearing up the snow in mad convulsions. The spasm lasted for perhaps aminute. When it was over Miki was panting. Streams of saliva drippedfrom his jaws into the snow. But he was alive. Death had missed him bya hair, and after a little he staggered to his feet and continued onhis way to the windfall.
Thereafter Jacques Le Beau might place a million poison capsules in hisway and he would not touch them. Never again would he steal the meatfrom a bait-peg.
Two days later Le Beau saw where Miki had fought his fight with deathin the snow and his heart was black with rage and disappointment. Hebegan to follow the footprints of the dog. It was noon when he came tothe windfall and saw the beaten path where Miki entered it. On hisknees he peered into the cavernous depths--and saw nothing. But Miki,lying watchfully, saw the man, and he was like the black, beardedmonster who had almost killed him with a club a long time ago. And inhis heart, too, there was disappointment, for away back in his memoryof things there was always the thought of Challoner--the master he hadlost; and it was never Challoner whom he found when he came upon theman smell.
Le Beau heard his growl, and the man's blood leapt excitedly as he roseto his feet. He could not go in after the wild dog, and he could notlure him out. But there was another way. He would drive him out withfire!
Deep back in his fortress, Miki heard the crunch of Le Beau's feet inthe snow. A few minutes later he saw the man-beast again peering intohis lair.
"BETE, BETE," he called half tauntingly, and again Miki growled.
Jacques was satisfied. The windfall was not more than thirty or fortyfeet in diameter, and about it the forest was open and clear ofundergrowth. It would be impossible for the wild dog to get away fromhis rifle.
A second time he went around the piled-up mass of fallen timber. Onthree sides it was completely smothered under the deep snow. Only whereMiki's trail entered was it open.
Getting the wind behind him Le Beau made his ISKOO of birch-bark anddry wood at the far end of the windfall. The seasoned logs andtree-tops caught the fire like tinder, and within a few minutes theflames began to crackle and roar in a manner that made Miki wonder whatwas happening. For a space the smoke did not reach him. Le Beau,watching, with his rifle in his bare hands, did not for an instant lethis eyes leave the spot where the wild dog must come out.
Suddenly a pungent whiff of smoke filled Miki's nostrils, and a thinwhite cloud crept in a ghostly veil between him and the opening. Acrawling, snake-like rope of it began to pour between two logs within ayard of him, and with it the strange roaring grew nearer and moremenacing. Then, for the first time, he saw lightning flashes of yellowflame through the tangled debris as the fire ate into the heart of amass of pitch-filled spruce. In another ten seconds the flames leapttwenty feet into the air, and Jacques Le Beau stood with his rifle halfto his shoulder, ready to kill.
Appalled by the danger that was upon him, Miki did not forget Le Beau.With an instinct sharpened to fox-like keenness his mind leaptinstantly to the truth of the matter. It was the man-beast who had setthis new enemy upon him; and out there, just beyond the opening, theman-beast was waiting. So, like the fox, he did what Le Beau leastexpected. He crawled back swiftly through the tangled tops until hecame to the wall of snow that shut the windfall in, and through this heburrowed his way almost as quickly as the fox himself would have doneit. With his jaws he tore through the half-inch outer crust, and amoment later stood in the open, with the fire between him and Le Beau.
The windfall was a blazing furnace, and suddenly Le Beau ran back adozen steps so that he could see on the farther side. A hundred yardsaway he saw Miki making for the deeper forest.
It was a clear shot. At that distance Le Beau would have staked hislife that it was impossible for him to miss. He did not hurry. Oneshot, and it would be over. He raised his rifle, and in that instant awisp of smoke came like the lash of a whip with the wind and caught himfairly in the eyes, and his bullet passed three inches over Miki'shead. The whining snarl of it was a new thing to Miki. But herecognized the thunder of the gun--and he knew what a gun could do. ToLe Beau, still firing at him through the merciful cloud of smoke, hewas like a gray streak flashing to the thick timber. Three times moreLe Beau fired. From the edge of a dense clump of spruce Miki flung backa defiant howl. He disappeared as Le Beau's last shot shovelled up thesnow at his heels.
The narrowness of his escape from the man-beast did not frighten Mikiout of the Jackson's Knee country. If anything, it held him moreclosely to it. It gave him something to think about besides Neewa andhis aloneness. As the fox returns to peer stealthily upon the deadfallthat has almost caught him, so the trapline was possessed now of a newthrill for Miki. Heretofore the man-smell had held for him only a vaguesignificance; now it marked the presence of a real and concrete danger.And he welcomed it. His wits were sharpened. The fascination of thetrapline was deadlier than before.
From the burned windfall he made a wide detour to a point where LeBeau's snowshoe trail entered the edge of the swamp; and here, hiddenin a thick clump of bushes, he watched him as he travelled homewardhalf an hour later.
From that day he hung like a grim, gray ghost to the trapline.Silent-footed, cautious, always on the alert for the danger whichthreatened him, he haunted Jacques Le Beau's thoughts and footstepswith the elusive persistence of a were-wolf--a loup-garou of the BlackForest. Twice in the next week Le Beau caught a flash of him. Threetimes he heard him howl. And twice he followed his trail until, indespair and exhaustion, he turned back. Never was Miki caught unaware.He ate no more baits in the trap-houses. Even when Le Bea
u lured himwith the whole carcass of a rabbit he would not touch it, nor would hetouch a rabbit frozen dead in a snare. From Le Beau's traps he tookonly the living things, chiefly birds and squirrels and the bigweb-footed snowshoe rabbits. And because a mink jumped at him once, andtore open his nose, he destroyed a number of minks so utterly thattheir pelts were spoiled. He found himself another windfall, butinstinct taught him now never to go to it directly, but to approach it,and leave it, in a roundabout way.
Day and night Le Beau, the man-brute, plotted against him. He set manypoison-baits. He killed a doe, and scattered strychnine in itsentrails. He built deadfalls, and baited them with meat soaked inboiling fat. He made himself a "blind" of spruce and cedar boughs, andsat for long hours, watching with his rifle. And still Miki was thevictor.
One day Miki found a huge fisher-cat in one of the traps. He had notforgotten the battle of long ago with Oochak, the other fisher-cat, orthe whipping he had received. But there was no thought of vengeance inhis heart on the early evening he became acquainted with Oochak theSecond. Usually he was in his windfall at dusk, but this afternoon agreat and devouring loneliness had held him on the trail. The spirit ofKuskayetum--the hand of the mating-god--was pressing heavily upon him;the consuming desire of flesh and blood for the companionship of otherflesh and blood. It burned in his veins like a fever. It took away fromhim all thought of hunger or of the hunt. In his soul was a vast,unfilled yearning.
It was then that he came upon Oochak. Perhaps it was the same Oochak ofmonths ago. If so, he had grown even as Miki had grown. He wassplendid, with his long silken fur and his sleek body, and he was notstruggling, but sat awaiting his fate without excitement. To Miki helooked warm and soft and comfortable. It made him think of Neewa, andthe hundred and one nights they had slept together. His desire leaptout to Oochak. He whined softly as he advanced. He would make friends.Even with Oochak, his old enemy, he would lie down in peace andhappiness, so great was the gnawing emptiness in his heart.
Oochak made no response, nor did he move, but sat furred up like a hugesoft ball, watching Miki as he crept nearer on his belly. Something ofthe old puppishness came back into the dog. He wriggled and thumped histail, and as he whined again he seemed to say.
"Let's forget the old trouble, Oochak. Let's be friends. I've got afine windfall--and I'll kill you a rabbit."
And still Oochak did not move or make a sound. At last Miki couldalmost reach out with his forepaws and touch him. He dragged himselfstill nearer, and his tail thumped harder.
"And I'll get you out of the trap," he may have been saying. "It's theman-beast's trap--and I hate him."
And then, so suddenly that Miki had no chance to guard himself, Oochaksprang the length of the trap-chain and was at him. With teeth andrazor-edged claws he tore deep gashes in Miki's nose. Even then theblood of battle rose slowly in him, and he might have retreated had notOochak's teeth got a hold in his shoulder. With a roar he tried toshake himself free, but Oochak held on. Then his jaws snapped at theback of the fisher-cat's neck. When he was done Oochak was dead.
He slunk away, but in him there was no more the thrill of the victor.He had killed, but in killing he had found no joy. Upon him--thefour-footed beast--had fallen at last the oppression of the thing thatdrives men mad. He stood in the heart of a vast world, and for him thatworld was empty. He was an outcast. His heart crying out forcomradeship, he found that all things feared him or hated him. He was apariah; a wanderer without a friend or a home. He did not reason thesethings but the gloom of them settled upon him like black night.
He did not return to his windfall. In a little open he sat on hishaunches, listening to the night sounds, and watching the stars as theycame out. There was an early moon, and as it came up over the forest, agreat throbbing red disc that seemed filled with life, he howledmournfully in the face of it. He wandered out into a big burn a littlelater, and there the night was like day, so clear that his shadowfollowed him and all other things about him cast shadows, And then, allat once, he caught in the night wind a sound which he had heard manytimes before.
It came from far away, and it was like a whisper at first, an echo ofstrange voices riding on the wind, A hundred times he had heard thatcry of the wolves. Since Maheegun, the she-wolf, had gashed hisshoulder so fiercely away back in the days of his puppyhood he hadevaded the path of that cry. He had learned, in a way, to hate it. Buthe could not wipe out entirely the thrill that came with that call ofthe blood. And to-night it rode over all his fear and hatred. Out therewas COMPANY. Whence the cry came the wild brethren were running two bytwo, and three by three, and there was COMRADESHIP. His body quivered.An answering cry rose in his throat, dying away in a whine, and for anhour after that he heard no more of the wolf-cry in the wind. The packhad swung to the west--so far away that their voices were lost. And itpassed--with the moon straight over them--close to the shack ofPierrot, the halfbreed.
In Pierrot's cabin was a white man, on his way to Fort O' God. He sawthat Pierrot crossed himself, and muttered.
"It is the mad pack," explained Pierrot then. "M'sieu, they have beenKESKWAO since the beginning of the new moon. In them are the spirits ofdevils."
He opened the cabin door a little, so that the mad cry of the beastscame to them plainly. When he closed it there was in his eyes a look ofstrange fear.
"Now and then wolves go like that--KESKWAO (stark mad)--in the dead ofwinter," he shuddered. "Three days ago there were twenty of them,m'sieu, for I saw them with my own eyes, and counted their tracks inthe snow. Since then they been murdered and torn into strings by theothers of the pack. Listen to them ravin'! Can you tell me why, m'sieu?Can you tell me why wolves sometimes go mad in the heart of winter whenthere is no heat or rotten meat to turn them sick? NON? But I can tellyou. They are the loups-garous; in their bodies ride the spirits ofdevils, and there they will ride until the bodies die. For the wolvesthat go mad in the deep snows always die, m'sieu. That is the strangepart of it. THEY DIE!"
And then it was, swinging eastward from the cabin of Pierrot, that themad wolves of Jackson's Knee came into the country of the big swampwherein trees bore the Double-X blaze of Jacques Le Beau's axe. Therewere fourteen of them running in the moonlight. What it is that now andthen drives a wolf-pack mad in the dead of winter no man yet has whollylearned. Possibly it begins with a "bad" wolf; just as a "bad"sledge-dog, nipping and biting his fellows, will spread his distemperamong them until the team becomes an ugly, quarrelsome horde. Such adog the wise driver kills--or turns loose.
The wolves that bore down upon Le Beau's country were red-eyed andthin. Their bodies were covered with gashes, and the mouths of somefrothed blood. They did not run as wolves run for meat. They were asinister and suspicious lot, with a sneaking droop to their haunches,and their cry was not the deep-throated cry of the hunt-pack but aravening clamour that seemed to have no leadership or cause. Scarcelywas the sound of their tongues gone beyond the hearing of Pierrot'sears than one of the thin gray beasts rubbed against the shoulder ofanother, and the second turned with the swiftness of a snake, like the"bad" dog of the traces, and struck his fangs deep into the firstwolf's flesh. Could Pierrot have seen, he would have understood thenhow the four he had found had come to their end.
Swift as the snap of a whip-lash the fight between the two was on. Theother twelve of the pack stopped. They came back, circling incautiously and grimly silent about their fighting comrades. They rangedthemselves in a ring, as men gather about a fistic battle; and therethey waited, their jaws drooling, their fangs clicking, a low and eagerwhining smothered in their throats. And then the thing happened. One ofthe fighting wolves went down. He was on his back--and the end came.The twelve wolves were upon him as one, and, like those Pierrot hadseen, he was torn to pieces, and his flesh devoured. After that thethirteen went on deeper into Le Beau's country.
Miki heard them again, after that hour's interval of silence. Fartherand farther he had wandered from the forest. He had crossed the "burn,"and was in the open plain,
with the rough ridges cutting through andthe big river at the edge of it. It was not so gloomy out here, and hisloneliness weighed upon him less heavily than in the deep timber.
And across this plain came the voice of the wolves.
He did not move away from it to-night. He waited, silhouetted againstthe vivid starlight at the crest of a rocky knoll, and the top of thisknoll was so small that another could not have stood beside him withouttheir shoulders touching. On all sides of him the plain swept away inthe white light of the stars and moon; never had the desire to respondto the wild brethren urged itself upon him more fiercely than now. Heflung back his head, until his black-tipped muzzle pointed up to thestars, and the voice rolled out of his throat. But it was only half ahowl. Even then, oppressed by his great loneliness, there gripped himthat something instinctive which warned him against betrayal. Afterthat he remained quiet, and as the wolves drew nearer his body grewtense, his muscles hardened, and in his throat there was the lowwhispering of a snarl instead of a howl. He sensed danger. He hadcaught, in the voice of the wolves, the ravening note that had madePierrot cross himself and mutter of the loups-garous, and he croucheddown on his belly at the top of the rocky mound.
Then he saw them. They were sweeping like dark and swiftly movingshadows between him and the forest. Suddenly they stopped, and for afew moments no sound came from them as they packed themselves closelyon the scent of his fresh trail in the snow. And then they surged inhis direction; this time there was a still fiercer madness in the wildcry that rose from their throats. In a dozen seconds they were at themound. They swept around it and past it, all save one--a huge graybrute who shot up the hillock straight at the prey the others had notyet seen. There was a snarl in Miki's throat as he came. Once more hewas facing the thrill of a great fight. Once more the blood ransuddenly hot in his veins, and fear was driven from him as the winddrives smoke from a fire. If Neewa were only there now, to fend at hisback while he fought in front! He stood up on his feet. He met theup-rushing pack-brute head to head. Their jaws clashed, and the wildwolf found jaws at last that crunched through his own as if they hadbeen whelp's bone, and he rolled and twisted back to the plain in adying agony. But not until another gray form had come to fill hisplace. Into the throat of this second Miki drove his fangs as the wolfcame over the crest. It was the slashing, sabre-like stroke of thenorth-dog, and the throat of the wolf was torn open and the bloodpoured out as if emptied by the blade of a knife. Down he plunged tojoin the first, and in that instant the pack swept up and over Miki,and he was smothered under the mass of their bodies. Had two or threeattacked him at once he would have died as quickly as the first two ofhis enemies had come to their end. Numbers saved him in the first rush.On the level of the plain he would have been torn into pieces like abit of cloth, but on the space at the top of the KOPJE, no larger thanthe top of a table, he was lost for a few seconds under the snarlingand rending horde of his enemies. Fangs intended for him sank intoother wolf-flesh; the madness of the pack became a blind rage, and theassault upon Miki turned into a slaughter of the wolves themselves. Onhis back, held down by the weight of bodies, Miki drove his fangs againand again into flesh. A pair of jaws seized him in the groin, and ashock of agony swept through him. It was a death-grip, sinking steadilyinto his vitals. Just in time another pair of jaws seized the wolf whoheld him, and the hold in his groin gave way. In that moment Miki felthimself plunging down the steep side of the knoll, and after him came ahalf of what was left alive of the pack.
The fighting devils in Miki's brain gave way all at once to thatcunning of the fox which had served him even more than claw and fang intimes of great danger. Scarcely had he reached the plain before he wason his feet, and no sooner had he touched his feet than he was off likethe wind in direction of the river. He had gained a fifty-yard startbefore the first of the wolves discovered his flight. There were onlyeight that followed him now. Of the thirteen mad beasts five were deador dying at the foot of the hillock. Of these Miki had slain two. Theothers had fallen at the fangs of their own brethren.
Half a mile away were the steep cliffs of the river, and at the edge ofthese cliffs was a great cairn of rocks in which for one night Miki hadsought shelter. He had not forgotten the tunnel into the tumbled massof rock debris, nor how easily it could be defended from within. Oncein that tunnel he would turn in the door of it and slaughter hisenemies one by one, for only one by one could they attack him. But hehad not reckoned with that huge gray form behind him that might havebeen named Lightning, the fiercest and swiftest of all the mad wolvesof the pack. He sped ahead of his slower-footed companions like astreak of light, and Miki had made but half the distance to the cairnwhen he heard the panting breath of Lightning behind him. Even Hela,his father, could not have run more swiftly than Miki, but great as wasMiki's speed, Lightning ran more swiftly. Two thirds of the distance tothe cliff and the huge wolf's muzzle was at Miki's flank. With a burstof speed Miki gained a little. Then steadily Lightning drew abreast ofhim, a grim and merciless shadow of doom.
A hundred yards farther on and a little to the right was the cairn. ButMiki could not run to the right without turning into Lightning's jaws,and he realized now that if he reached the cairn his enemy would beupon him before he could dive into the tunnel and face about. To stopand fight would be death, for behind he could hear the other wolves.Ten seconds more and the chasm of the river yawned ahead of them.
At its very brink Miki swung and struck at Lightning. He sensed deathnow, and in the face of death all his hatred turned upon the one beastthat had run at his side. In an instant they were down. Two yards fromthe edge of the cliff, and Miki's jaws were at Lightning's throat whenthe pack rushed upon them. They were swept onward. The earth flew outfrom under their feet, and they were in space. Grimly Miki held to thethroat of his foe. Over and over they twisted in mid-air, and then camea terrific shock. Lightning was under. Yet so great was the shock,that, even though the wolf's huge body was under him like a cushion,Miki was stunned and dazed. A minute passed before he staggered to hisfeet. Lightning lay still, the life smashed out of him. A little beyondhim lay the bodies of two other wolves that in their wild rush hadswept over the cliff.
Miki looked up. Between him and the stars he could see the top of thecliff, a vast distance above him. One after the other he smelled at thebodies of the three dead wolves. Then he limped slowly along the baseof the cliff until he came to a fissure between two huge rocks. Intothis he crept and lay down, licking his wounds. After all there wereworse things in the world than Le Beau's trapline. Perhaps there wereeven worse things than men.
After a time he stretched his great head out between his fore-paws, andslowly the starlight grew dimmer, and the snow less white, and he slept.