CHAPTER THREE
As they stood in the warm sunshine of this first day of June, watchingthe last of Makoos as he fled across the creek bottom, Neewa felt verymuch like an old and seasoned warrior instead of a pot-bellied,round-faced cub of four months who weighed nine pounds and not fourhundred.
It was many minutes after Neewa had sunk his ferocious little teethdeep into the tenderest part of the old he-bear's toe before Noozakcould get her wind sufficiently to grunt. Her sides were pumping like apair of bellows, and after Makoos had disappeared beyond the creekNeewa sat down on his chubby bottom, perked his funny ears forward, andeyed his mother with round and glistening eyes that were filled withuneasy speculation. With a wheezing groan Noozak turned and made herway slowly toward the big rock alongside which she had been sleepingwhen Neewa's fearful cries for help had awakened her. Every bone in heraged body seemed broken or dislocated. She limped and sagged and moanedas she walked, and behind her were left little red trails of blood inthe green grass. Makoos had given her a fine pummeling.
She lay down, gave a final groan, and looked at Neewa, as if to say:
"If you hadn't gone off on some deviltry and upset that old viper'stemper this wouldn't have happened. And now--look at ME!"
A young bear would have rallied quickly from the effects of the battle,but Noozak lay without moving all the rest of that afternoon, and thenight that followed. And that night was by all odds the finest thatNeewa had ever seen. Now that the nights were warm, he had come to lovethe moon even more than the sun, for by birth and instinct he was morea prowler in darkness than a hunter of the day. The moon rose out ofthe east in a glory of golden fire. The spruce and balsam forests stoodout like islands in a yellow sea of light, and the creek shimmered andquivered like a living thing as it wound its way through the glowingvalley. But Neewa had learned his lesson, and though the moon and thestars called to him he hung close to his mother, listening to thecarnival of night sound that came to him, but never moving away fromher side.
With the morning Noozak rose to her feet, and with a grunting commandfor Neewa to follow she slowly climbed the sun-capped ridge. She was inno mood for travel, but away back in her head was an unexpressed fearthat villainous old Makoos might return, and she knew that anotherfight would do her up entirely, in which event Makoos would make abreakfast of Neewa. So she urged herself down the other side of theridge, across a new valley, and through a cut that opened like a widedoor into a rolling plain that was made up of meadows and lakes andgreat sweeps of spruce and cedar forest. For a week Noozak had beenmaking for a certain creek in this plain, and now that the presence ofMakoos threatened behind she kept at her journeying until Neewa'sshort, fat legs could scarcely hold up his body.
It was mid-afternoon when they reached the creek, and Neewa was soexhausted that he had difficulty in climbing the spruce up which hismother sent him to take a nap. Finding a comfortable crotch he quicklyfell asleep--while Noozak went fishing.
The creek was alive with suckers, trapped in the shallow pools afterspawning, and within an hour she had the shore strewn with them. WhenNeewa came down out of his cradle, just at the edge of dusk, it was toa feast at which Noozak had already stuffed herself until she lookedlike a barrel. This was his first meal of fish, and for a weekthereafter he lived in a paradise of fish. He ate them morning, noon,and night, and when he was too full to eat he rolled in them. AndNoozak stuffed herself until it seemed her hide would burst. Whereverthey moved they carried with them a fishy smell that grew older day byday, and the older it became the more delicious it was to Neewa and hismother. And Neewa grew like a swelling pod. In that week he gainedthree pounds. He had given up nursing entirely now, for Noozak--beingan old bear--had dried up to a point where she was hopelesslydisappointing.
It was early in the evening of the eighth day that Neewa and his motherlay down in the edge of a grassy knoll to sleep after their day'sfeasting. Noozak was by all odds the happiest old bear in all that partof the northland. Food was no longer a problem for her. In the creek,penned up in the pools, were unlimited quantities of it, and she hadencountered no other bear to challenge her possession of it. She lookedahead to uninterrupted bliss in their happy hunting grounds untilmidsummer storms emptied the pools, or the berries ripened. And Neewa,a happy little gourmand, dreamed with her.
It was this day, just as the sun was setting, that a man on his handsand knees was examining a damp patch of sand five or six miles down thecreek. His sleeves were rolled up, baring his brown arms halfway to theshoulders and he wore no hat, so that the evening breeze ruffled aragged head of blond hair that for a matter of eight or nine months hadbeen cut with a hunting knife.
Close on one side of this individual was a tin pail, and on the other,eying him with the keenest interest, one of the homeliest and yet oneof the most companionable-looking dog pups ever born of a Mackenziehound father and a mother half Airedale and half Spitz.
With this tragedy of blood in his veins nothing in the world could havemade the pup anything more than "just dog." His tail,--stretched outstraight on the sand, was long and lean, with a knot at every joint;his paws, like an overgrown boy's feet, looked like smallboxing-gloves; his head was three sizes too big for his body, andaccident had assisted Nature in the perfection of her masterpiece byrobbing him of a half of one of his ears. As he watched his master thishalf of an ear stood up like a galvanized stub, while the other--twiceas long--was perked forward in the deepest and most interested enquiry.Head, feet, and tail were Mackenzie hound, but the ears and his lank,skinny body was a battle royal between Spitz and Airedale. At hispresent inharmonious stage of development he was the doggiest dog-pupoutside the alleys of a big city.
For the first time in several minutes his master spoke, and Mikiwiggled from stem to stern in appreciation of the fact that it wasdirectly to him the words were uttered.
"It's a mother and a cub, as sure as you're a week old, Miki," he said."And if I know anything about bears they were here some time to-day!"
He rose to his feet, made note of the deepening shadows in the edge ofthe timber, and filled his pail with water. For a few moments the lastrays of the sun lit up his face. It was a strong, hopeful face. In itwas the joy of life. And now it was lighted up with a suddeninspiration, and a glow that was not of the forest alone came into hiseyes, as he added:
"Miki, I'm lugging your homely carcass down to the Girl because you'rean unpolished gem of good nature and beauty--and for those two things Iknow she'll love you. She is my sister, you know. Now, if I could onlytake that cub along with you----"
He began to whistle as he turned with his pail of water in thedirection of a thin fringe of balsams a hundred yards away.
Close at his heels followed Miki.
Challoner, who was a newly appointed factor of the Great Hudson's BayCompany, had pitched his camp at tie edge of the lake dose to the mouthof the creek. There was not much to it--a battered tent, a still morebattered canoe, and a small pile of dunnage. But in the last glow ofthe sunset it would have spoken volumes to a man with an eye trained tothe wear and the turmoil of the forests. It was the outfit of a man whohad gone unfearing to the rough edge of the world. And now what wasleft of it was returning with him. To Challoner there was something ofhuman comradeship in these remnants of things that had gone through thegreater part of a year's fight with him. The canoe was warped andbattered and patched; smoke and storm had blackened his tent until itwas the colour of rusty char, and his grub sacks were next to empty.
Over a small fire title contents of a pan and a pot were brewing whenhe returned with Miki at his heels, and close to the heat was abattered and mended reflector in which a bannock of flour and water wasbeginning to brown. In one of the pots was coffee, in the other aboiling fish.
Miki sat down on his angular haunches so that the odour of the fishfilled his nostrils. This, he had discovered, was the next thing toeating. His eyes, as they followed Challoner's final preparatorymovements, were as bright as garnets, and every third
or fourth breathhe licked his chops, and swallowed hungrily. That, in fact, was whyMiki had got his name. He was always hungry, and apparently alwaysempty, no matter how much he ate. Therefore his name, Miki, "The drum."
It was not until they had eaten the fish and the bannock, and Challonerhad lighted his pipe, that he spoke what was in his mind.
"To-morrow I'm going after that bear," he said.
Miki, curled up near the dying embers, gave his tail a club-like thumpin evidence of the fact that he was listening.
"I'm going to pair you up with the cub, and tickle the Girl to death."
Miki thumped his tail harder than before.
"Fine," he seemed to say.
"Just think of it," said Challoner, looking over Miki's head a thousandmiles away, "Fourteen months--and at last we're going home. I'm goingto train you and the cub for that sister of mine. Eh, won't you likethat? You don't know what she's like, you homely little devil, or youwouldn't sit there staring at me like a totem-pole pup! And it isn't inyour stupid head to imagine how pretty she is. You saw that sunsetto-night? Well, she's prettier than THAT if she is my sister. Gotanything to add to that, Miki? If not, let's say our prayers and go tobed!"
Challoner rose and stretched himself. His muscles cracked. He felt lifesurging like a giant within him.
And Miki, thumping his tail until this moment, rose on his overgrownlegs and followed his master into their shelter.
It was in the gray light of the early summer dawn when Challoner cameforth again, and rekindled the fire. Miki followed a few moments later,and his master fastened the end of a worn tent-rope around his neck andtied the rope to a sapling. Another rope of similar length Challonertied to the corners of a grub sack so that it could be carried over hisshoulder like a game bag. With the first rose-flush of the sun he wasready for the trail of Neewa and his mother. Miki set up a melancholywailing when he found himself left behind, and when Challoner lookedback the pup was tugging and somersaulting at the end of his rope likea jumping-jack. For a quarter of a mile up the creek he could hearMiki's entreating protest.
To Challoner the business of the day was not a matter of personalpleasure, nor was it inspired alone by his desire to possess a cubalong with Miki. He needed meat, and bear pork thus early in the seasonwould be exceedingly good; and above all else he needed a supply offat. If he bagged this bear, time would be saved all the rest of theway down to civilization.
It was eight o'clock when he struck the first unmistakably fresh signsof Noozak and Neewa. It was at the point where Noozak had fished fouror five days previously, and where they had returned yesterday to feaston the "ripened" catch. Challoner was elated. He was sure that he wouldfind the pair along the creek, and not far distant. The wind was in hisfavour, and he began to advance with greater caution, his rifle readyfor the anticipated moment. For an hour he travelled steadily andquietly, marking every sound and movement ahead of him, and wetting hisfinger now and then to see if the wind had shifted. After all, it wasnot so much a matter of human cunning. Everything was in Challoner'sfavour.
In a wide, flat part of the valley where the creek split itself into adozen little channels, and the water rippled between sandy bars andover pebbly shallows, Neewa and his mother were nosing about lazily fora breakfast of crawfish. The world had never looked more beautiful toNeewa. The sun made the soft hair on his back fluff up like that of apurring cat. He liked the plash of wet sand under his feet and thesinging gush of water against his legs. He liked the sound that was allabout him, the breath of the wind, the whispers that came out of thespruce-tops and the cedars, the murmur of water, the TWIT-TWIT of therock rabbits, the call of birds; and more than all else the low,grunting talk of his mother.
It was in this sun-bathed sweep of the valley that Noozak caught thefirst whiff of danger. It came to her in a sudden twist of thewind--the smell of man!
Instantly she was turned into rock. There was still the deep scar inher shoulder which had come, years before, with that same smell of theone enemy she feared. For three summers she had not caught the taint inher nostrils and she had almost forgotten its existence. Now, sosuddenly that it paralyzed her, it was warm and terrible in the breathof the wind.
In this moment, too, Neewa seemed to sense the nearness of an appallingdanger. Two hundred yards from Challoner he stood a motionless blotchof jet against the white of the sand about him, his eyes on his mother,and his sensitive little nose trying to catch the meaning of the menacein the air.
Then came a thing he had never heard before--a splitting, crackingroar--something that was almost like thunder and yet unlike it; and hesaw his mother lurch where she stood and crumple down all at once onher fore legs.
The next moment she was up, with a wild WHOOF in her voice that was newto him--a warning for him to fly for his life.
Like all mothers who have known the comradeship and love of a child,Noozak's first thought was of him. Reaching out a paw she gave him asudden shove, and Neewa legged it wildly for the near-by shelter of thetimber. Noozak followed. A second shot came, and close over her headthere sped a purring, terrible sound. But Noozak did not hurry. Shekept behind Neewa, urging him on even as that pain of a red-hot iron inher groin filled her with agony. They came to the edge of the timber asChalloner's third shot bit under Noozak's feet.
A moment more and they were within the barricade of the timber.Instinct guided Neewa into the thickest part of it, and close behindhim Noozak fought with the last of her dying strength to urge him on.In her old brain there was growing a deep and appalling shadow,something that was beginning to cloud her vision so that she could notsee, and she knew that at last she had come to the uttermost end of hertrail. With twenty years of life behind her, she struggled now for alast few seconds. She stopped Neewa close to a thick cedar, and as shehad done many times before she commanded him to climb it. Just once herhot tongue touched his face in a final caress. Then she turned to fighther last great fight.
Straight into the face of Challoner she dragged herself, and fifty feetfrom the spruce she stopped and waited for him, her head droopedbetween her shoulders, her sides heaving, her eyes dimming more andmore, until at last she sank down with a great sigh, barring the trailof their enemy. For a space, it may be, she saw once more the goldenmoons and the blazing suns of those twenty years that were gone; it maybe that the soft, sweet music of spring came to her again, filled withthe old, old song of life, and that Something gracious and painlessdescended upon her as a final reward for a glorious motherhood on earth.
When Challoner came up she was dead.
From his hiding place in a crotch of the spruce Neewa looked down onthe first great tragedy of his life, and the advent of man. Thetwo-legged beast made him cringe deeper into his refuge, and his littleheart was near breaking with the terror that had seized upon him. Hedid not reason. It was by no miracle of mental process that he knewsomething terrible had happened, and that this tall, two-leggedcreature was the cause of it. His little eyes were blazing, just overthe level of the crotch. He wondered why his mother did not get up andfight when this new enemy came. Frightened as he was he was ready tosnarl if she would only wake up--ready to hurry down the tree and helpher as he had helped her in the defeat of Makoos, the old he-bear. Butnot a muscle of Noozak's huge body moved as Challoner bent over her.She was stone dead.
Challoner's face was flushed with exultation. Necessity had made of hima killer. He saw in Noozak a splendid pelt, and a provision of meatthat would carry him all the rest of the way to the southland. Heleaned his rifle against a tree and began looking about for the cub.Knowledge of the wild told him it would not be far from its mother, andhe began looking into the trees and the near-by thickets.
In the shelter of his crotch, screened by the thick branches, Neewamade himself as small as possible during the search. At the end of halfan hour Challoner disappointedly gave up his quest, and went back tothe creek for a drink before setting himself to the task of skinningNoozak.
No sooner was he gone th
an Neewa's little head shot up alertly. For afew moments he watched, and then slipped backward down the trunk of thecedar to the ground. He gave his squealing call, but his mother did notmove. He went to her and stood beside her motionless head, sniffing theman-tainted air. Then he muzzled her jowl, butted his nose under herneck, and at last nipped her ear--always his last resort in theawakening process. He was puzzled. He whined softly, and climbed uponhis mother's big, soft back, and sat there. Into his whine there came astrange note, and then out of his throat there rose a whimpering crythat was like the cry of a child.
Challoner heard that cry as he came back, and something seemed to griphold of his heart suddenly, and choke him. He had heard children cryinglike that; and it was the motherless cub!
Creeping up behind a dwarf spruce he looked where Noozak lay dead, andsaw Neewa perched on his mother's back. He had killed many things inhis time, for it was his business to kill, and to barter in the peltsof creatures that others killed. But he had seen nothing like thisbefore, and he felt all at once as if he had done murder.
"I'm sorry," he breathed softly, "you poor little devil; I'm sorry!"
It was almost a prayer--for forgiveness. Yet there was but one thing todo now. So quietly that Neewa failed to hear him he crept around withthe wind and stole up behind. He was within a dozen feet of Neewabefore the cub suspected danger. Then it was too late. In a swift rushChalloner was upon him and, before Neewa could leave the back of hismother, had smothered him in the folds of the grub sack.
In all his life Challoner had never experienced a livelier five minutesthan the five that followed. Above Neewa's grief and his fear thererose the savage fighting blood of old Soominitik, his father. He clawedand bit and kicked and snarled. In those five minutes he was fivelittle devils all rolled into one, and by the time Challoner had therope fastened about Neewa's neck, and his fat body chucked into thesack, his hands were scratched and lacerated in a score of places.
In the sack Neewa continued to fight until he was exhausted, whileChalloner skinned Noozak and cut from her the meat and fats which hewanted. The beauty of Noozak's pelt brought a glow into his eyes. In ithe rolled the meat and fats, and with babiche thong bound the wholeinto a pack around which he belted the dunnage ends of his shoulderstraps. Weighted under the burden of sixty pounds of pelt and meat hepicked up his rifle--and Neewa. It had been early afternoon when heleft. It was almost sunset when he reached camp. Every foot of the way,until the last half mile, Neewa fought like a Spartan.
Now he lay limp and almost lifeless in his sack, and when Miki came upto smell suspiciously of his prison he made no movement of protest. Allsmells were alike to him now, and of sounds he made no distinction.Challoner was nearly done for. Every muscle and bone in his body hadits ache. Yet in his face, sweaty and grimed, was a grin of pride.
"You plucky little devil," he said, contemplating the limp sack as heloaded his pipe for the first time that afternoon. "You--you pluckylittle devil!"
He tied the end of Neewa's rope halter to a sapling, and begancautiously to open the grub sack. Then he rolled Neewa out on theground, and stepped back. In that hour Neewa was willing to accept atruce so far as Challoner was concerned. But it was not Challoner thathis half-blinded eyes saw first as he rolled from his bag. It was Miki!And Miki, his awkward body wriggling with the excitement of hiscuriosity, was almost on the point of smelling of him!
Neewa's little eyes glared. Was that ill-jointed lop-eared offspring ofthe man-beast an enemy, too? Were those twisting convolutions of thisnew creature's body and the club-like swing of his tail an invitationto fight? He judged so. Anyway, here was something of his size, andlike a flash he was at the end of his rope and on the pup. Miki, amoment before bubbling over with friendship and good cheer, was on hisback in an instant, his grotesque legs paddling the air and his yelpingcries for help rising in a wild clamour that filled the goldenstillness of the evening with an unutterable woe.
Challoner stood dumbfounded. In another moment he would have separatedthe little fighters, but something happened that stopped him. Neewa,standing squarely over Miki, with Miki's four over-grown paws heldaloft as if signalling an unqualified surrender, slowly drew his teethfrom the pup's loose hide. Again he saw the man-beast. Instinct, keenerthan a clumsy reasoning, held him for a few moments without movement,his beady eyes on Challoner. In midair Miki wagged his paws; he whinedsoftly; his hard tail thumped the ground as he pleaded for mercy, andhe licked his chops and tried to wriggle, as if to tell Neewa that hehad no intention at all to do him harm. Neewa, facing Challoner,snarled defiantly. He drew himself slowly from over Miki. And Miki,afraid to move, still lay on his back with his paws in the air.
Very slowly, a look of wonder in his face, Challoner drew back into thetent and peered through a rent in the canvas.
The snarl left Neewa's face. He looked at the pup. Perhaps away back insome corner of his brain the heritage of instinct was telling him ofwhat he had lost because of brothers and sisters unborn--thecomradeship of babyhood, the play of children. And Miki must havesensed the change in the furry little black creature who a moment agowas his enemy. His tail thumped almost frantically, and he swung outhis front paws toward Neewa. Then, a little fearful of what mighthappen, he rolled on his side. Still Neewa did not move. Joyously Mikiwriggled.
A moment later, looking through the slit in the canvas, Challoner sawthem cautiously smelling noses.