Read The Infant's Skull; Or, The End of the World. A Tale of the Millennium Page 10

  CHAPTER III.

  ON THE BUCK'S TRACK.

  Thirty-six hours of fast had followed upon the meal of clay in Yvon'shut. Hunger gnawed again at the family's entrails.

  During these thirty-six hours a heavy snow had fallen. Yvon went out.His family was starving within. He had death on his soul. He wenttowards the nets that he had spread in the hope of snaring some bird ofpassage during the snow storm. His expectations were deceived. A littledistance from the nets lay the Fountain of the Hinds, now frozen hard.Snow covered its borders. Yvon perceived the imprint of a buck's feet.The size of the imprint on the snow announced the animal's bulk. Yvonestimated its weight by the cracks in the ice on the stream that it hadjust crossed, the ice being otherwise thick enough to support Yvonhimself. This was the first time in many months that the forester hadrun across a buck's track. Could the animal, perhaps, have escaped thegeneral mortality of its kind? Did it come from some distant forest?Yvon knew not, but he followed the fresh track with avidity. Yvon hadwith him his bow and arrows. To reach the animal, kill it and smoke itsflesh meant the saving of the lives of his family, now on the verge ofstarvation. It meant their life for at least a month. Hope revivifiedthe forester's energies; he pursued the buck; the regular impress of itssteps showed that the animal was quietly following one of the beatenpaths of the forest; moreover its track lay so clearly upon the snowthat he could not have crossed the stream more than an hour before, elsethe edges of the imprint that he left behind him would have been lesssharp and would have been rounded by the temperature of the air.Following its tracks, Yvon confidently expected to catch sight of thebuck within an hour and bring the animal down. In the ardor of thechase, the forester forgot his hunger. He had been on the march aboutan hour when suddenly in the midst of the profound silence that reignedin the forest, the wind brought a confused noise to his ears. It soundedlike the distant bellowing of a stag. The circumstance wasextraordinary. As a rule the beasts of the woods do not cry out exceptat night. Thinking he might have been mistaken, Yvon put his ear to theground.... There was no more room for doubt. The buck was bellowing atabout a thousand yards from where Yvon stood. Fortunately a turn of thepath concealed the hunter from the game. These wild animals frequentlyturn back to see behind them and listen. Instead of following the pathbeyond the turning that concealed him, Yvon entered the copse expectingto make a short cut, head off the buck, whose gait was slow, hide behindthe bushes that bordered the path, and shoot the animal when it hove insight.

  The sky was overcast; the wind was rising; with deep concern Yvonnoticed several snow flakes floating down. Should the snow fall heavilybefore the buck was shot, the animal's tracks would be covered, and ifopportunity failed to dart an arrow at it from the forester's ambuscade,he could not then expect to be able to trace the buck any further.Yvon's fears proved correct. The wind soon changed into a howling stormsurcharged with thick snow. The forester quitted the thicket and struckfor the path beyond the turning and at about a hundred paces from theclearing. The buck was nowhere to be seen. The animal had probablycaught wind of its pursuer and jumped for safety into the thicket thatbordered the path. It was impossible to determine the direction that ithad taken. Its tracks vanished under the falling snow, that lay in everthicker layers.

  A prey to insane rage, Yvon threw himself upon the ground and rolled inthe snow uttering furious cries. His hunger, recently forgotten in theardor of the hunt, tore at his entrails. He bit one of his arms and thepain thus felt recalled him to his senses. Almost delirious, he rosewith the fixed intent of retracing the buck, killing the animal,spreading himself beside its carcass, devouring it raw, and not risingagain so long as a shred of meat remained on its bones. At that moment,Yvon would have defended his prey with his knife against even his ownson. Possessed by the fixed and delirious idea of retracing the buck,Yvon went hither and thither at hap-hazard, not knowing in whatdirection he walked. He beat about a long time, and night began toapproach, when a strange incident came to his aid and dissipated hismental aberration.