[Illustration: He heard Joan's voice]

KAZAN

BY JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD

Author ofThe Danger Trail, Etc. 

Illustrated byGayle Hoskins and Frank Hoffman

1914

CONTENTS

 I. THE MIRACLE

 II. INTO THE NORTH

 III. McCREADY PAYS THE DEBT

 IV. FREE FROM BONDS

 V. THE FIGHT IN THE SNOW

 VI. JOAN

 VII. OUT OF THE BLIZZARD

 VIII. THE GREAT CHANGE

 IX. THE TRAGEDY ON SUN ROCK

 X. THE DAYS OF FIRE

 XI. ALWAYS TWO BY TWO

 XII. THE RED DEATH

 XIII. THE TRAIL OF HUNGER

 XIV. THE RIGHT OF FANG

 XV. A FIGHT UNDER THE STARS

 XVI. THE CALL

 XVII. HIS SON

XVIII. THE EDUCATION OF BA-REE

 XIX. THE USURPERS

 XX. A FEUD IN THE WILDERNESS

 XXI. A SHOT ON THE SAND-BAR

 XXII. SANDY'S METHOD

XXIII. PROFESSOR McGILL

 XXIV. ALONE IN DARKNESS

 XXV. THE LAST OF McTRIGGER

 XXVI. AN EMPTY WORLD

XXVII. THE CALL OF SUN ROCK

CHAPTER I

THE MIRACLE

Kazan lay mute and motionless, his gray nose between his forepaws, hiseyes half closed. A rock could have appeared scarcely less lifeless thanhe; not a muscle twitched; not a hair moved; not an eyelid quivered. Yetevery drop of the wild blood in his splendid body was racing in aferment of excitement that Kazan had never before experienced; everynerve and fiber of his wonderful muscles was tense as steel wire. Quarter-strain wolf, three-quarters "husky, " he had lived the four yearsof his life in the wilderness. He had felt the pangs of starvation. Heknew what it meant to freeze. He had listened to the wailing winds ofthe long Arctic night over the barrens. He had heard the thunder of thetorrent and the cataract, and had cowered under the mighty crash of thestorm. His throat and sides were scarred by battle, and his eyes werered with the blister of the snows. He was called Kazan, the Wild Dog, because he was a giant among his kind and as fearless, even, as the menwho drove him through the perils of a frozen world. 

He had never known fear--until now. He had never felt in him before thedesire to _run_--not even on that terrible day in the forest when he hadfought and killed the big gray lynx. He did not know what it was thatfrightened him, but he knew that he was in another world, and that manythings in it startled and alarmed him. It was his first glimpse ofcivilization. He wished that his master would come back into the strangeroom where he had left him. It was a room filled with hideous things. There were great human faces on the wall, but they did not move orspeak, but stared at him in a way he had never seen people look before. He remembered having looked on a master who lay very quiet and very coldin the snow, and he had sat back on his haunches and wailed forth thedeath song; but these people on the walls looked alive, and yet seemeddead. 

Suddenly Kazan lifted his ears a little. He heard steps, then lowvoices. One of them was his master's voice. But the other--it sent alittle tremor through him! Once, so long ago that it must have been inhis puppyhood days, he seemed to have had a dream of a laugh that waslike the girl's laugh--a laugh that was all at once filled with awonderful happiness, the thrill of a wonderful love, and a sweetnessthat made Kazan lift his head as they came in. He looked straight atthem, his red eyes gleaming. At once he knew that she must be dear tohis master, for his master's arm was about her. In the glow of the lighthe saw that her hair was very bright, and that there was the color ofthe crimson _bakneesh_ vine in her face and the blue of the _bakneesh_flower in her shining eyes. Suddenly she saw him, and with a little crydarted toward him. 

"Stop!" shouted the man. "He's dangerous! Kazan--"

She was on her knees beside him, all fluffy and sweet and beautiful, hereyes shining wonderfully, her hands about to touch him. Should he cringeback? Should he snap? Was she one of the things on the wall, and hisenemy? Should he leap at her white throat? He saw the man runningforward, pale as death. Then her hand fell upon his head and the touchsent a thrill through him that quivered in every nerve of his body. Withboth hands she turned up his head. Her face was very close, and he heardher say, almost sobbingly:

"And you are Kazan--dear old Kazan, my Kazan, my hero dog--who broughthim home to me when all the others had died! My Kazan--my hero!"

And then, miracle of miracles, her face was crushed down against him, and he felt her sweet warm touch. 

In those moments Kazan did not move. He scarcely breathed. It seemed along time before the girl lifted her face from him. And when she did, there were tears in her blue eyes, and the man was standing above them, his hands gripped tight, his jaws set. 

"I never knew him to let any one touch him--with their naked hand, " hesaid in a tense wondering voice. "Move back quietly, Isobel. Goodheaven--look at that!"

Kazan whined softly, his bloodshot eyes on the girl's face. He wanted tofeel her hand again; he wanted to touch her face. Would they beat himwith a club, he wondered, if he _dared_! He meant no harm now. He wouldkill for her. He cringed toward her, inch by inch, his eyes neverfaltering. He heard what the man said--"Good heaven! Look at that!"--andhe shuddered. But no blow fell to drive him back. His cold muzzletouched her filmy dress, and she looked at him, without moving, her weteyes blazing like stars. 

"See!" she whispered. "See!"

Half an inch more--an inch, two inches, and he gave his big gray body ahunch toward her. Now his muzzle traveled slowly upward--over her foot, to her lap, and at last touched the warm little hand that lay there. Hiseyes were still on her face: he saw a queer throbbing in her bare whitethroat, and then a trembling of her lips as she looked up at the manwith a wonderful look. He, too, knelt down beside them, and put his armabout the girl again, and patted the dog on his head. Kazan did not likethe man's touch. He mistrusted it, as nature had taught him to mistrustthe touch of all men's hands, but he permitted it because he saw that itin some way pleased the girl. 

"Kazan, old boy, you wouldn't hurt her, would you?" said his mastersoftly. "We both love her, don't we, boy? Can't help it, can we? Andshe's ours, Kazan, all _ours_! She belongs to you and to me, and we'regoing to take care of her all our lives, and if we ever have to we'llfight for her like hell--won't we? Eh, Kazan, old boy?"

For a long time after they left him where he was lying on the rug, Kazan's eyes did not leave the girl. He watched and listened--and allthe time there grew more and more in him the craving to creep up to themand touch the girl's hand, or her dress, or her foot. After a time hismaster said something, and with a little laugh the girl jumped up andran to a big, square, shining thing that stood crosswise in a corner, and which had a row of white teeth longer than his own body. He hadwondered what those teeth were for. The girl's fingers touched them now, and all the whispering of winds that he had ever heard, all the music ofthe waterfalls and the rapids and the trilling of birds in spring-time, could not equal the sounds they made. It was his first music. For amoment it startled and frightened him, and then he felt the fright passaway and a strange tingling in his body. He wanted to sit back on hishaunches and howl, as he had howled at the billion stars in the skies oncold winter nights. But something kept him from doing that. It was thegirl. Slowly he began slinking toward her. He felt the eyes of the manupon him, and stopped. Then a little more--inches at a time, with histhroat and jaw straight out along the floor! He was half-way toher--half-way across the room--when the wonderful sounds grew very softand very low. 

"Go on!" he heard the man urge in a low quick voice. "Go on! Don'tstop!"

The girl turned her head, saw Kazan cringing there on the floor, andcontinued to play. The man was still looking, but his eyes could notkeep Kazan back now. He went nearer, still nearer, until at last hisoutreaching muzzle touched her dress where it lay piled on the floor. And then--he lay trembling, for she had begun to sing. He had heard aCree woman crooning in front of her tepee; he had heard the wild chantof the caribou song--but he had never heard anything like thiswonderful sweetness that fell from the lips of the girl. He forgot hismaster's presence now. Quietly, cringingly, so that she would not know, he lifted his head. He saw her looking at him; there was something inher wonderful eyes that gave him confidence, and he laid his head in herlap. For the second time he felt the touch of a woman's hand, and heclosed his eyes with a long sighing breath. The music stopped. Therecame a little fluttering sound above him, like a laugh and a sob in one. He heard his master cough. 

"I've always loved the old rascal--but I never thought he'd do that, " hesaid; and his voice sounded queer to Kazan. 

CHAPTER II

INTO THE NORTH

Wonderful days followed for Kazan. He missed the forests and deep snows. He missed the daily strife of keeping his team-mates in trace, theyapping at his heels, the straight long pull over the open spaces andthe barrens. He missed the "Koosh--koosh--Hoo-yah!" of the driver, thespiteful snap of his twenty-foot caribou-gut whip, and that yelping andstraining behind him that told him he had his followers in line. Butsomething had come to take the place of that which he missed. It was inthe room, in the air all about him, even when the girl or his master wasnot near. Wherever she had been, he found the presence of that strangething that took away his loneliness. It was the woman scent, andsometimes it made him whine softly when the girl herself was actuallywith him. He was not lonely, nights, when he should have been outhowling at the stars. He was not lonely, because one night he prowledabout until he found a certain door, and when the girl opened that doorin the morning she found him curled up tight against it. She had reacheddown and hugged him, the thick smother of her long hair falling all overhim in a delightful perfume; thereafter she placed a rug before the doorfor him to sleep on. All through the long nights he knew that she wasjust beyond the door, and he was content. Each day he thought less andless of the wild places, and more of her. 

Then there came the beginning of the change. There was a strange hurryand excitement around him, and the girl paid less attention to him. Hegrew uneasy. He sniffed the change in the air, and he began to study hismaster's face. Then there came the morning, very early, when the babichecollar and the iron chain were fastened to him again. Not until he hadfollowed his master out through the door and into the street did hebegin to understand. They were sending him away! He sat suddenly back onhis haunches and refused to budge. 

"Come, Kazan, " coaxed the man. "Come on, boy. "

He hung back and showed his white fangs. He expected the lash of a whipor the blow of a club, but neither came. His master laughed and took himback to the house. When they left it again, the girl was with them andwalked with her hand touching his head. It was she who persuaded him toleap up through a big dark hole into the still darker interior of a car, and it was she who lured him to the darkest corner of all, where hismaster fastened his chain. Then they went out, laughing like twochildren. For hours after that, Kazan lay still and tense, listening tothe queer rumble of wheels under him. Several times those wheelsstopped, and he heard voices outside. At last he was sure that he hearda familiar voice, and he strained at his chain and whined. The closeddoor slid back. A man with a lantern climbed in, followed by his master. He paid no attention to them, but glared out through the opening intothe gloom of night. He almost broke loose when he leaped down upon thewhite snow, but when he saw no one there, he stood rigid, sniffing theair. Over him were the stars he had howled at all his life, and abouthim were the forests, black and silent, shutting them in like a wall. Vainly he sought for that one scent that was missing, and Thorpe heardthe low note of grief in his shaggy throat. He took the lantern and heldit above his head, at the same time loosening his hold on the leash. Atthat signal there came a voice from out of the night. It came frombehind them, and Kazan whirled so suddenly that the loosely held chainslipped from the man's hand. He saw the glow of other lanterns. Andthen, once more, the voice--

"Kaa-aa-zan!"

He was off like a bolt. Thorpe laughed to himself as he followed. 

"The old pirate!" he chuckled. 

When he came to the lantern-lighted space back of the caboose, Thorpefound Kazan crouching down at a woman's feet. It was Thorpe's wife. Shesmiled triumphantly at him as he came up out of the gloom. 

"You've won!" he laughed, not unhappily. "I'd have wagered my lastdollar he wouldn't do that for any voice on earth. You've won! Kazan, you brute, I've lost you!"

His face suddenly sobered as Isobel stooped to pick up the end of thechain. 

"He's yours, Issy, " he added quickly, "but you must let me care for himuntil--we _know_. Give me the chain. I won't trust him even now. He's awolf. I've seen him take an Indian's hand off at a single snap. I'veseen him tear out another dog's jugular in one leap. He's an outlaw--abad dog--in spite of the fact that he hung to me like a hero and broughtme out alive. I can't trust him. Give me the chain--"

He did not finish. With the snarl of a wild beast Kazan had leaped tohis feet. His lips drew up and bared his long fangs. His spinestiffened, and with a sudden cry of warning, Thorpe dropped a hand tothe revolver at his belt. 

Kazan paid no attention to him. Another form had approached out of thenight, and stood now in the circle of illumination made by the lanterns. It was McCready, who was to accompany Thorpe and his young wife back tothe Red River camp, where Thorpe was in charge of the building of thenew Trans-continental. The man was straight, powerfully built and cleanshaven. His jaw was so square that it was brutal, and there was a glowin his eyes that was almost like the passion in Kazan's as he looked atIsobel. 

Her red and white stocking-cap had slipped free of her head and washanging over her shoulder. The dull blaze of the lanterns shone in thewarm glow of her hair. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes, suddenlyturned to him, were as blue as the bluest _bakneesh_ flower and glowedlike diamonds. McCready shifted his gaze, and instantly her hand fell onKazan's head. For the first time the dog did not seem to feel her touch. He still snarled at McCready, the rumbling menace in his throat growingdeeper. Thorpe's wife tugged at the chain. 

"Down, Kazan--down!" she commanded. 

At the sound of her voice he relaxed. 

"Down!" she repeated, and her free hand fell on his head again. He slunkto her feet. But his lips were still drawn back. Thorpe was watchinghim. He wondered at the deadly venom that shot from the wolfish eyes, and looked at McCready. The big guide had uncoiled his long dog-whip. Astrange look had come into his face. He was staring hard at Kazan. Suddenly he leaned forward, with both hands on his knees, and for atense moment or two he seemed to forget that Isobel Thorpe's wonderfulblue eyes were looking at him. 

"Hoo-koosh, Pedro--_charge_!"

That one word--_charge_--was taught only to the dogs in the service ofthe Northwest Mounted Police. Kazan did not move. McCready straightened, and quick as a shot sent the long lash of his whip curling out into thenight with a crack like a pistol report. 

"Charge, Pedro--_charge_!"

The rumble in Kazan's throat deepened to a snarling growl, but not amuscle of his body moved. McCready turned to Thorpe. 

"I could have sworn that I knew that dog, " he said. "If it's Pedro, he's_bad_!"

Thorpe was taking the chain. Only the girl saw the look that came for aninstant into McCready's face. It made her shiver. A few minutes before, when the train had first stopped at Les Pas, she had offered her handto this man and she had seen the same thing then. But even as sheshuddered she recalled the many things her husband had told her of theforest people. She had grown to love them, to admire their big roughmanhood and loyal hearts, before he had brought her among them; andsuddenly she smiled at McCready, struggling to overcome that thrill offear and dislike. 

"He doesn't like you, " she laughed at him softly. "Won't you makefriends with him?"

She drew Kazan toward him, with Thorpe holding the end of the chain. McCready came to her side as she bent over the dog. His back was toThorpe as he hunched down. Isobel's bowed head was within a foot of hisface. He could see the glow in her cheek and the pouting curve of hermouth as she quieted the low rumbling in Kazan's throat. Thorpe stoodready to pull back on the chain, but for a moment McCready was betweenhim and his wife, and he could not see McCready's face. The man's eyeswere not on Kazan. He was staring at the girl. 

"You're brave, " he said. "I don't dare do that. He would take off myhand!"

He took the lantern from Thorpe and led the way to a narrow snow-pathbranching off, from the track. Hidden back in the thick spruce was thecamp that Thorpe had left a fortnight before. There were two tents therenow in place of the one that he and his guide had used. A big fire wasburning in front of them. Close to the fire was a long sledge, andfastened to trees just within the outer circle of firelight Kazan sawthe shadowy forms and gleaming eyes of his team-mates. He stood stiffand motionless while Thorpe fastened him to a sledge. Once more he wasback in his forests--and in command. His mistress was laughing andclapping her hands delightedly in the excitement of the strange andwonderful life of which she had now become a part. Thorpe had thrownback the flap of their tent, and she was entering ahead of him. She didnot look back. She spoke no word to him. He whined, and turned his redeyes on McCready. 

In the tent Thorpe was saying:

"I'm sorry old Jackpine wouldn't go back with us, Issy. He drove medown, but for love or money I couldn't get him to return. He's a MissionIndian, and I'd give a month's salary to have you see him handle thedogs. I'm not sure about this man McCready. He's a queer chap, theCompany's agent here tells me, and knows the woods like a book. But dogsdon't like a stranger. Kazan isn't going to take to him worth a cent!"

Kazan heard the girl's voice, and stood rigid and motionless listeningto it. He did not hear or see McCready when he came up stealthily behindhim. The man's voice came as suddenly as a shot at his heels. 

"_Pedro_!"

In an instant Kazan cringed as if touched by a lash. 

"Got you that time--didn't I, you old devil!" whispered McCready, hisface strangely pale in the firelight. "Changed your name, eh? But I_got_ you--didn't I?"

CHAPTER III

McCREADY PAYS THE DEBT

For a long time after he had uttered those words McCready sat in silencebeside the fire. Only for a moment or two at a time did his eyes leaveKazan. After a little, when he was sure that Thorpe and Isobel hadretired for the night, he went into his own tent and returned with aflask of whisky. During the next half-hour he drank frequently. Then hewent over and sat on the end of the sledge, just beyond the reach ofKazan's chain. 

"Got you, didn't I?" he repeated, the effect of the liquor beginning toshow in the glitter of his eyes. "Wonder who changed your name, Pedro. And how the devil did _he_ come by you? Ho, ho, if you could onlytalk--"

They heard Thorpe's voice inside the tent. It was followed by a lowgirlish peal of laughter, and McCready jerked himself erect. His faceblazed suddenly red, and he rose to his feet, dropping the flask in hiscoat pocket. Walking around the fire, he tiptoed cautiously to theshadow of a tree close to the tent and stood there for many minuteslistening. His eyes burned with a fiery madness when he returned to thesledge and Kazan. It was midnight before he went into his own tent. 

In the warmth of the fire, Kazan's eyes slowly closed. He slumbereduneasily, and his brain was filled with troubled pictures. At times hewas fighting, and his jaws snapped. At others he was straining at theend of his chain, with McCready or his mistress just out of reach. Hefelt the gentle touch of the girl's hand again and heard the wonderfulsweetness of her voice as she sang to him and his master, and his bodytrembled and twitched with the thrills that had filled him that night. And then the picture changed. He was running at the head of a splendidteam--six dogs of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police--and his master wascalling him Pedro! The scene shifted. They were in camp. His master wasyoung and smooth-faced and he helped from the sledge another man whosehands were fastened in front of him by curious black rings. Again it waslater--and he was lying before a great fire. His master was sittingopposite him, with his back to a tent, and as he looked, there came outof the tent the man with the black rings--only now the rings were goneand his hands were free, and in one of them he carried a heavy club. Heheard the terrible blow of the club as it fell on his master's head--andthe sound of it aroused him from his restless sleep. 

He sprang to his feet, his spine stiffening and a snarl in his throat. The fire had died down and the camp was in the darker gloom thatprecedes dawn. Through that gloom Kazan saw McCready. Again he wasstanding close to the tent of his mistress, and he knew now that thiswas the man who had worn the black iron rings, and that it was he whohad beaten him with whip and club for many long days after he had killedhis master. McCready heard the menace in his throat and came backquickly to the fire. He began to whistle and draw the half-burned logstogether, and as the fire blazed up afresh he shouted to awaken Thorpand Isobel. In a few minutes Thorpe appeared at the tent-flap and hiswife followed him out. Her loose hair rippled in billows of gold abouther shoulders and she sat down on the sledge, close to Kazan, and beganbrushing it. McCready came up behind her and fumbled among the packageson the sledge. As if by accident one of his hands buried itself for aninstant in the rich tresses that flowed down her back. She did not atfirst feel the caressing touch of his fingers, and Thorpe's back wastoward them. 

Only Kazan saw the stealthy movement of the hand, the fondling clutch ofthe fingers in her hair, and the mad passion burning in the eyes of theman. Quicker than a lynx, the dog had leaped the length of his chainacross the sledge. McCready sprang back just in time, and as Kazanreached the end of his chain he was jerked back so that his body strucksidewise against the girl. Thorpe had turned in time to see the end ofthe leap. He believed that Kazan had sprung at Isobel, and in his horrorno word or cry escaped his lips as he dragged her from where she hadhalf fallen over the sledge. He saw that she was not hurt, and hereached for his revolver. It was in his holster in the tent. At his feetwas McCready's whip, and in the passion of the moment he seized it andsprang upon Kazan. The dog crouched in the snow. He made no move toescape or to attack. Only once in his life could he remember havingreceived a beating like that which Thorpe inflicted upon him now. Butnot a whimper or a growl escaped him. 

[Illustration: "Not another blow!"]

And then, suddenly, his mistress ran forward and caught the whip poisedabove Thorpe's head. 

"Not another blow!" she cried, and something in her voice held him fromstriking. McCready did not hear what she said then, but a strange lookcame into Thorpe's eyes, and without a word he followed his wife intotheir tent. 

"Kazan did not leap at me, " she whispered, and she was trembling with asudden excitement. Her face was deathly white. "That man was behind me, "she went on, clutching her husband by the arm. "I felt him touch me--andthen Kazan sprang. He wouldn't bite _me_. It's the _man_! There'ssomething--wrong--"

She was almost sobbing, and Thorpe drew her close in his arms. 

"I hadn't thought before--but it's strange, " he said. "Didn't McCreadysay something about knowing the dog? It's possible. Perhaps he's hadKazan before and abused him in a way that the dog has not forgotten. To-morrow I'll find out. But until I know--will you promise to keep awayfrom Kazan?"

Isobel gave the promise. When they came out from the tent Kazan liftedhis great head. The stinging lash had closed one of his eyes and hismouth was dripping blood. Isobel gave a low sob, but did not go nearhim. Half blinded, he knew that his mistress had stopped his punishment, and he whined softly, and wagged his thick tail in the snow. 

Never had he felt so miserable as through the long hard hours of the daythat followed, when he broke the trail for his team-mates into theNorth. One of his eyes was closed and filled with stinging fire, and hisbody was sore from the blows of the caribou lash. But it was notphysical pain that gave the sullen droop to his head and robbed his bodyof that keen quick alertness of the lead-dog--the commander of hismates. It was his spirit. For the first time in his life, it was broken. McCready had beaten him--long ago; his master had beaten him; andduring all this day their voices were fierce and vengeful in his ears. But it was his mistress who hurt him most. She held aloof from him, always beyond they reach of his leash; and when they stopped to rest, and again in camp, she looked at him with strange and wondering eyes, and did not speak. She, too, was ready to beat him. He believed that, and so slunk away from her and crouched on his belly in the snow. Withhim, a broken spirit meant a broken heart, and that night he lurked inone of the deepest shadows about the camp-fire and grieved alone. Noneknew that it was grief--unless it was the girl. She did not move towardhim. She did not speak to him. But she watched him closely--and studiedhim hardest when he was looking at McCready. 

Later, after Thorpe and his wife had gone into their tent, it began tosnow, and the effect of the snow upon McCready puzzled Kazan. The manwas restless, and he drank frequently from the flask that he had usedthe night before. In the firelight his face grew redder and redder, andKazan could see the strange gleam of his teeth as he gazed at the tentin which his mistress was sleeping. Again and again he went close tothat tent, and listened. Twice he heard movement. The last time, it wasthe sound of Thorpe's deep breathing. McCready hurried back to the fireand turned his face straight up to the sky. The snow was falling sothickly that when he lowered his face he blinked and wiped his eyes. Then he went out into the gloom and bent low over the trail they hadmade a few hours before. It was almost obliterated by the falling snow. Another hour and there would be no trail--nothing the next day to tellwhoever might pass that they had come this way. By morning it wouldcover everything, even the fire, if he allowed it to die down. McCreadydrank again, out in the darkness. Low words of an insane joy burst fromhis lips. His head was hot with a drunken fire. His heart beat madly, but scarcely more furiously than did Kazan's when the dog saw thatMcCready was returning _with a club_! The club he placed on end againsta tree. Then he took a lantern from the sledge and lighted it. Heapproached Thorpe's tent-flap, the lantern in his hand. 

"Ho, Thorpe--Thorpe!" he called. 

There was no answer. He could hear Thorpe breathing. He drew the flapaside a little, and raised his voice. 

"Thorpe!"

Still there was no movement inside, and he untied the flap strings andthrust in his lantern. The light flashed on Isobel's golden head, andMcCready stared at it, his eyes burning like red coals, until he sawthat Thorpe was awakening. Quickly he dropped the flap and rustled itfrom the outside. 

"Ho, Thorpe!--Thorpe!" he called again. 

This time Thorpe replied. 

"Hello, McCready--is that you?"

McCready drew the flap back a little, and spoke in a low voice. 

"Yes. Can you come out a minute? Something's happening out in the woods. Don't wake up your wife!"

He drew back and waited. A minute later Thorpe came quietly out of thetent. McCready pointed into the thick spruce. 

"I'll swear there's some one nosing around the camp, " he said. "I'mcertain that I saw a man out there a few minutes ago, when I went for alog. It's a good night for stealing dogs. Here--you take the lantern! IfI wasn't clean fooled, we'll find a trail in the snow. "

He gave Thorpe the lantern and picked up the heavy club. A growl rose inKazan's throat, but he choked it back. He wanted to snarl forth hiswarning, to leap at the end of his leash, but he knew that if he didthat, they would return and beat him. So he lay still, trembling andshivering, and whining softly. He watched them until theydisappeared--and then waited--listened. At last he heard the crunch ofsnow. He was not surprised to see McCready come back alone. He hadexpected him to return alone. For he knew what a club meant!

McCready's face was terrible now. It was like a beast's. He was hatless. Kazan slunk deeper in his shadow at the low horrible laugh that fellfrom his lips--for the man still held the club. In a moment he droppedthat, and approached the tent. He drew back the flap and peered in. Thorpe's wife was sleeping, and as quietly as a cat he entered and hungthe lantern on a nail in the tent-pole. His movement did not awaken her, and for a few moments he stood there, staring--staring. 

Outside, crouching in the deep shadow, Kazan tried to fathom the meaningof these strange things that were happening. Why had his master andMcCready gone out into the forest? Why had not his master returned? Itwas his master, and not McCready, who belonged in that tent. Then whywas McCready there? He watched McCready as he entered, and suddenly thedog was on his feet, his back tense and bristling, his limbs rigid. Hesaw McCready's huge shadow on the canvas, and a moment later there camea strange piercing cry. In the wild terror of that cry he recognized_her_ voice--and he leaped toward the tent. The leash stopped him, choking the snarl in his throat. He saw the shadows struggling now, andthere came cry after cry. She was calling to his master, and with hismaster's name she was calling _him_!

"_Kazan_--_Kazan_--"

He leaped again, and was thrown upon his back. A second and a thirdtime he sprang the length of the leash into the night, and the babichecord about his neck cut into his flesh like a knife. He stopped for aninstant, gasping for breath. The shadows were still fighting. Now theywere upright! Now they were crumpling down! With a fierce snarl he flunghis whole weight once more at the end of the chain. There was a snap, asthe thong about his neck gave way. 

In half a dozen bounds Kazan made the tent and rushed under the flap. With a snarl he was at McCready's throat. The first snap of his powerfuljaws was death, but he did not know that. He knew only that his mistresswas there, and that he was fighting for her. There came one chokinggasping cry that ended with a terrible sob; it was McCready. The mansank from his knees upon his back, and Kazan thrust his fangs deeperinto his enemy's throat; he felt the warm blood. 

The dog's mistress was calling to him now. She was pulling at his shaggyneck. But he would not loose his hold--not for a long time. When he did, his mistress looked down once upon the man and covered her face withher hands. Then she sank down upon the blankets. She was very still. Herface and hands were cold, and Kazan muzzled them tenderly. Her eyes wereclosed. He snuggled up close against her, with his ready jaws turnedtoward the dead man. Why was she so still, he wondered?

A long time passed, and then she moved. Her eyes opened. Her handtouched him. 

Then he heard a step outside. 

It was his master, and with that old thrill of fear--fear of theclub--he went swiftly to the door. Yes, there was his master in thefirelight--and in his hand he held the club. He was coming slowly, almost falling at each step, and his face was red with blood. But he had_the club_! He would beat him again--beat him terribly for hurtingMcCready; so Kazan slipped quietly under the tent-flap and stole offinto the shadows. From out the gloom of the thick spruce he looked back, and a low whine of love and grief rose and died softly in his throat. They would beat him always now--after _that_. Even _she_ would beat him. They would hunt him down, and beat him when they found him. 

From out of the glow of the fire he turned his wolfish head to thedepths of the forest. There were no clubs or stinging lashes out in thatgloom. They would never find him there. 

For another moment he wavered. And then, as silently as one of the wildcreatures whose blood was partly his, he stole away into the blacknessof the night. 

CHAPTER IV

FREE FROM BONDS

There was a low moaning of the wind in the spruce-tops as Kazan slunkoff into the blackness and mystery of the forest. For hours he lay nearthe camp, his red and blistered eyes gazing steadily at the tent whereinthe terrible thing had happened a little while before. 

He knew now what death was. He could tell it farther than man. He couldsmell it in the air. And he knew that there was death all about him, andthat he was the cause of it. He lay on his belly in the deep snow andshivered, and the three-quarters of him that was dog whined in agrief-stricken way, while the quarter that was wolf still revealeditself menacingly in his fangs, and in the vengeful glare of his eyes. 

Three times the man--his master--came out of the tent, and shoutedloudly, "Kazan--Kazan--Kazan!"

Three times the woman came with him. In the firelight Kazan could seeher shining hair streaming about her, as he had seen it in the tent, when he had leaped up and killed the other man. In her blue eyes therewas the same wild terror, and her face was white as the snow. And thesecond and third time, she too called, "Kazan--Kazan--Kazan!"--and allthat part of him that was dog, and not wolf, trembled joyously at thesound of her voice, and he almost crept in to take his beating. But fearof the club was the greater, and he held back, hour after hour, untilnow it was silent again in the tent, and he could no longer see theirshadows, and the fire was dying down. 

Cautiously he crept out from the thick gloom, working his way on hisbelly toward the packed sledge, and what remained of the burned logs. Beyond that sledge, hidden in the darkness of the trees, was the body ofthe man he had killed, covered with a blanket. Thorpe, his master, haddragged it there. 

He lay down, with his nose to the warm coals and his eyes leveledbetween his forepaws, straight at the closed tent-flap. He meant tokeep awake, to watch, to be ready to slink off into the forest at thefirst movement there. But a warmth was rising from out of the gray ashof the fire-bed, and his eyes closed. Twice--three times--he foughthimself back into watchfulness; but the last time his eyes came onlyhalf open, and closed heavily again. 

And now, in his sleep, he whined softly, and the splendid muscles of hislegs and shoulders twitched, and sudden shuddering ripples ran along histawny spine. Thorpe, who was in the tent, if he had seen him, would haveknown that he was dreaming. And Thorpe's wife, whose golden head layclose against his breast, and who shuddered and trembled now and theneven as Kazan was doing, would have known what he was dreaming about. 

In his sleep he was leaping again at the end of his chain. His jawssnapped like castanets of steel, --and the sound awakened him, and hesprang to his feet, his spine as stiff as a brush, and his snarlingfangs bared like ivory knives. He had awakened just in time. There wasmovement in the tent. His master was awake, and if he did not escape--

He sped swiftly into the thick spruce, and paused, flat and hidden, withonly his head showing from behind a tree. He knew that his master wouldnot spare him. Three times Thorpe had beaten him for snapping atMcCready. The last time he would have shot him if the girl had not savedhim. And now he had torn McCready's throat. He had taken the life fromhim, and his master would not spare him. Even the woman could not savehim. 

Kazan was sorry that his master had returned, dazed and bleeding, afterhe had torn McCready's jugular. Then he would have had her always. Shewould have loved him. She did love him. And he would have followed her, and fought for her always, and died for her when the time came. ButThorpe had come in from the forest again, and Kazan had slunk awayquickly--for Thorpe meant to him what all men meant to him now: theclub, the whip and the strange things that spat fire and death. Andnow--

Thorpe had come out from the tent. It was approaching dawn, and in hishand he held a rifle. A moment later the girl came out, and her handcaught the man's arm. They looked toward the thing covered by theblanket. Then she spoke to Thorpe and he suddenly straightened andthrew back his head. 

"H-o-o-o-o--Kazan--Kazan--Kazan!" he called. 

A shiver ran through Kazan. The man was trying to inveigle him back. Hehad in his hand the thing that killed. 

"Kazan--Kazan--Ka-a-a-a-zan!" he shouted again. 

Kazan sneaked cautiously back from the tree. He knew that distance meantnothing to the cold thing of death that Thorpe held in his hand. Heturned his head once, and whined softly, and for an instant a greatlonging filled his reddened eyes as he saw the last of the girl. 

He knew, now, that he was leaving her forever, and there was an ache inhis heart that had never been there before, a pain that was not of theclub or whip, of cold or hunger, but which was greater than them all, and which filled him with a desire to throw back his head and cry outhis loneliness to the gray emptiness of the sky. 

Back in the camp the girl's voice quivered. 

"He is gone. "

The man's strong voice choked a little. 

"Yes, he is gone. _He knew_--and I didn't. I'd give--a year of mylife--if I hadn't whipped him yesterday and last night. He won't comeback. "

Isobel Thorpe's hand tightened on his arm. 

"He will!" she cried. "He won't leave me. He loved me, if he was savageand terrible. And he knows that I love him. He'll come back--"

"Listen!"

From deep in the forest there came a long wailing howl, filled with aplaintive sadness. It was Kazan's farewell to the woman. 

After that cry Kazan sat for a long time on his haunches, sniffing thenew freedom of the air, and watching the deep black pits in the forestabout him, as they faded away before dawn. 'Now and then, since the daythe traders had first bought him and put him into sledge-traces awayover on the Mackenzie, he had often thought of this freedom longingly, the wolf blood in him urging him to take it. But he had never quitedared. It thrilled him now. There were no clubs here, no whips, none ofthe man-beasts whom he had first learned to distrust, and then to hate. It was his misfortune--that quarter-strain of wolf; and the clubs, instead of subduing him, had added to the savagery that was born in him. Men had been his worst enemies. They had beaten him time and again untilhe was almost dead. They called him "bad, " and stepped wide of him, andnever missed the chance to snap a whip over his back. His body wascovered with scars they had given him. 

He had never felt kindness, or love, until the first night the woman hadput her warm little hand on his head, and had snuggled her face closedown to his, while Thorpe--her husband--had cried out in horror. He hadalmost buried his fangs in her white flesh, but in an instant her gentletouch, and her sweet voice, had sent through him that wonderful thrillthat was his first knowledge of love. And now it was a man who wasdriving him from her, away from the hand that had never held a club or awhip, and he growled as he trotted deeper into the forest. 

He came to the edge of a swamp as day broke. For a time he had beenfilled with a strange uneasiness, and light did not quite dispel it. Atlast he was free of men. He could detect nothing that reminded him oftheir hated presence in the air. But neither could he smell the presenceof other dogs, of the sledge, the fire, of companionship and food, andso far back as he could remember they had always been a part of hislife. 

Here it was very quiet. The swamp lay in a hollow between tworidge-mountains, and the spruce and cedar grew low and thick--so thickthat there was almost no snow under them, and day was like twilight. Twothings he began to miss more than all others--food and company. Both thewolf and the dog that was in him demanded the first, and that part ofhim that was dog longed for the latter. To both desires the wolf bloodthat was strong in him rose responsively. It told him that somewhere inthis silent world between the two ridges there was companionship, andthat all he had to do to find it was to sit back on his haunches, andcry out his loneliness. More than once something trembled in his deepchest, rose in his throat, and ended there in a whine. It was the wolfhowl, not yet quite born. 

Food came more easily than voice. Toward midday he cornered a big whiterabbit under a log, and killed it. The warm flesh and blood was betterthan frozen fish, or tallow and bran, and the feast he had gave himconfidence. That afternoon he chased many rabbits, and killed two more. Until now, he had never known the delight of pursuing and killing atwill, even though he did not eat all he killed. 

But there was no fight in the rabbits. They died too easily. They werevery sweet and tender to eat, when he was hungry, but the first thrillof killing them passed away after a time. He wanted something bigger. Heno longer slunk along as if he were afraid, or as if he wanted to remainhidden. He held his head up. His back bristled. His tail swung free andbushy, like a wolf's. Every hair in his body quivered with the electricenergy of life and action. He traveled north and west. It was the callof early days--the days away up on the Mackenzie. The Mackenzie was athousand miles away. 

He came upon many trails in the snow that day, and sniffed the scentsleft by the hoofs of moose and caribou, and the fur-padded feet of alynx. He followed a fox, and the trail led him to a place shut in bytall spruce, where the snow was beaten down and reddened with blood. There was an owl's head, feathers, wings and entrails lying here, and heknew that there were other hunters abroad besides himself. 

Toward evening he came upon tracks in the snow that were very much likehis own. They were quite fresh, and there was a warm scent about themthat made him whine, and filled him again with that desire to fall backupon his haunches and send forth the wolf-cry. This desire grew strongerin him as the shadows of night deepened in the forest. He had traveledall day, but he was not tired. There was something about night, now thatthere were no men near, that exhilarated him strangely. The wolf bloodin him ran swifter and swifter. To-night it was clear. The sky wasfilled with stars. The moon rose. And at last he settled back in thesnow and turned his head straight up to the spruce-tops, and the wolfcame out of him in a long mournful cry which quivered through the stillnight for miles. 

For a long time he sat and listened after that howl. He had foundvoice--a voice with a strange new note in it, and it gave him stillgreater confidence. He had expected an answer, but none came. He hadtraveled in the face of the wind, and as he howled, a bull moose crashedthrough the scrub timber ahead of him, his horns rattling against thetrees like the tattoo of a clear birch club as he put distance betweenhimself and that cry. 

Twice Kazan howled before he went on, and he found joy in the practiseof that new note. He came then to the foot of a rough ridge, and turnedup out of the swamp to the top of it. The stars and the moon were nearerto him there, and on the other side of the ridge he looked down upon agreat sweeping plain, with a frozen lake glistening in the moonlight, and a white river leading from it off into timber that was neither sothick nor so black as that in the swamp. 

And then every muscle in his body grew tense, and his blood leaped. Fromfar off in the plain there came a cry. It was _his_ cry--the wolf-cry. His jaws snapped. His white fangs gleamed, and he growled deep in histhroat. He wanted to reply, but some strange instinct urged him not to. That instinct of the wild was already becoming master of him. In theair, in the whispering of the spruce-tops, in the moon and the starsthemselves, there breathed a spirit which told him that what he hadheard was the wolf-cry, but that it was not the wolf _call_. 

The other came an hour later, clear and distinct, that same wailing howlat the beginning--but ending in a staccato of quick sharp yelps thatstirred his blood at once into a fiery excitement that it had neverknown before. The same instinct told him that this was the call--thehunt-cry. It urged him to come quickly. A few moments later it cameagain, and this time there was a reply from close down along the foot ofthe ridge, and another from so far away that Kazan could scarcely hearit. The hunt-pack was gathering for the night chase; but Kazan sat quietand trembling. 

He was not afraid, but he was not ready to go. The ridge seemed to splitthe world for him. Down there it was new, and strange, and without men. From the other side something seemed pulling him back, and suddenly heturned his head and gazed back through the moonlit space behind him, andwhined. It was the dog-whine now. The woman was back there. He couldhear her voice. He could feel the touch of her soft hand. He could seethe laughter in her face and eyes, the laughter that had made him warmand happy. She was calling to him through the forests, and he was tornbetween desire to answer that call, and desire to go down into theplain. For he could also see many men waiting for him with clubs, and hecould hear the cracking of whips, and feel the sting of their lashes. 

For a long time he remained on the top of the ridge that divided hisworld. And then, at last, he turned and went down into the plain. 

All that night he kept close to the hunt-pack, but never quiteapproached it. This was fortunate for him. He still bore the scent oftraces, and of man. The pack would have torn him into pieces. The firstinstinct of the wild is that of self-preservation. It may have beenthis, a whisper back through the years of savage forebears, that madeKazan roll in the snow now and then where the feet of the pack had trodthe thickest. 

That night the pack killed a caribou on the edge of the lake, andfeasted until nearly dawn. Kazan hung in the face of the wind. The smellof blood and of warm flesh tickled his nostrils, and his sharp earscould catch the cracking of bones. But the instinct was stronger thanthe temptation. 

Not until broad day, when the pack had scattered far and wide over theplain, did he go boldly to the scene of the kill. He found nothing butan area of blood-reddened snow, covered with bones, entrails and tornbits of tough hide. But it was enough, and he rolled in it, and buriedhis nose in what was left, and remained all that day close to it, saturating himself with the scent of it. 

That night, when the moon and the stars came out again, he sat back withfear and hesitation no longer in him, and announced himself to his newcomrades of the great plain. 

The pack hunted again that night, or else it was a new pack that startedmiles to the south, and came up with a doe caribou to the big frozenlake. The night was almost as clear as day, and from the edge of theforest Kazan first saw the caribou run out on the lake a third of a mileaway. The pack was about a dozen strong, and had already split into thefatal horseshoe formation, the two leaders running almost abreast of thekill, and slowly closing in. 

With a sharp yelp Kazan darted out into the moonlight. He was directlyin the path of the fleeing doe, and bore down upon her with lightningspeed. Two hundred yards away the doe saw him, and swerved to the right, and the leader on that side met her with open jaws. Kazan was in withthe second leader, and leaped at the doe's soft throat. In a snarlingmass the pack closed in from behind, and the doe went down, with Kazanhalf under her body, his fangs sunk deep in her jugular. She lay heavilyon him, but he did not lose his hold. It was his first big kill. Hisblood ran like fire. He snarled between his clamped teeth. 

Not until the last quiver had left the body over him did he pull himselfout from under her chest and forelegs. He had killed a rabbit that dayand was not hungry. So he sat back in the snow and waited, while theravenous pack tore at the dead doe. After a little he came nearer, nosedin between two of them, and was nipped for his intrusion. 

As Kazan drew back, still hesitating to mix with his wild brothers, abig gray form leaped out of the pack and drove straight for his throat. He had just time to throw his shoulder to the attack, and for a momentthe two rolled over and over in the snow. They were up before theexcitement of sudden battle had drawn the pack from the feast. Slowlythey circled about each other, their white fangs bare, their yellowishbacks bristling like brushes. The fatal ring of wolves drew about thefighters. 

It was not new to Kazan. A dozen times he had sat in rings like this, waiting for the final moment. More than once he had fought for his lifewithin the circle. It was the sledge-dog way of fighting. Unless maninterrupted with a club or a whip it always ended in death. Only onefighter could come out alive. Sometimes both died. And there was no manhere--only that fatal cordon of waiting white-fanged demons, ready toleap upon and tear to pieces the first of the fighters who was thrownupon his side or back. Kazan was a stranger, but he did not fear thosethat hemmed him in. The one great law of the pack would compel them tobe fair. 

He kept his eyes only on the big gray leader who had challenged him. Shoulder to shoulder they continued to circle. Where a few momentsbefore there had been the snapping of jaws and the rending of fleshthere was now silence. Soft-footed and soft-throated mongrel dogs fromthe South would have snarled and growled, but Kazan and the wolf werestill, their ears laid forward instead of back, their tails free andbushy. 

Suddenly the wolf struck in with the swiftness of lightning, and hisjaws came together with the sharpness of steel striking steel. Theymissed by an inch. In that same instant Kazan darted in to the side, andlike knives his teeth gashed the wolf's flank. 

They circled again, their eyes growing redder, their lips drawn backuntil they seemed to have disappeared. And then Kazan leaped for thatdeath-grip at the throat--and missed. It was only by an inch again, andthe wolf came back, as he had done, and laid open Kazan's flank so thatthe blood ran down his leg and reddened the snow. The burn of thatflank-wound told Kazan that his enemy was old in the game of fighting. He crouched low, his head straight out, and his throat close to thesnow. It was a trick Kazan had learned in puppyhood--to shield histhroat, and wait. 

Twice the wolf circled about him, and Kazan pivoted slowly, his eyeshalf closed. A second time the wolf leaped, and Kazan threw up histerrible jaws, sure of that fatal grip just in front of the forelegs. His teeth snapped on empty air. With the nimbleness of a cat the wolfhad gone completely over his back. 

The trick had failed, and with a rumble of the dog-snarl in his throat, Kazan reached the wolf in a single bound. They met breast to breast. Their fangs clashed and with the whole weight of his body, Kazan flunghimself against the wolf's shoulders, cleared his jaws, and struck againfor the throat hold. It was another miss--by a hair's breadth--andbefore he could recover, the wolf's teeth were buried in the back ofhis neck. 

For the first time in his life Kazan felt the terror and the pain of thedeath-grip, and with a mighty effort he flung his head a little forwardand snapped blindly. His powerful jaws closed on the wolf's foreleg, close to the body. There was a cracking of bone and a crunching offlesh, and the circle of waiting wolves grew tense and alert. One or theother of the fighters was sure to go down before the holds were broken, and they but awaited that fatal fall as a signal to leap in to thedeath. 

Only the thickness of hair and hide on the back of Kazan's neck, and thetoughness of his muscles, saved him from that terrible fate of thevanquished. The wolf's teeth sank deep, but not deep enough to reach thevital spot, and suddenly Kazan put every ounce of strength in his limbsto the effort, and flung himself up bodily from under his antagonist. The grip on his neck relaxed, and with another rearing leap he torehimself free. 

As swift as a whip-lash he whirled on the broken-legged leader of thepack and with the full rush and weight of his shoulders struck himfairly in the side. More deadly than the throat-grip had Kazan sometimesfound the lunge when delivered at the right moment. It was deadly now. The big gray wolf lost his feet, rolled upon his back for an instant, and the pack rushed in, eager to rend the last of life from the leaderwhose power had ceased to exist. 

From out of that gray, snarling, bloody-lipped mass, Kazan drew back, panting and bleeding. He was weak. There was a curious sickness in hishead. He wanted to lie down in the snow. But the old and infallibleinstinct warned him not to betray that weakness. From out of the pack aslim, lithe, gray she-wolf came up to him, and lay down in the snowbefore him, and then rose swiftly and sniffed at his wounds. 

She was young and strong and beautiful, but Kazan did not look at her. Where the fight had been he was looking, at what little remained of theold leader. The pack had returned to the feast. He heard again thecracking of bones and the rending of flesh, and something told him thathereafter all the wilderness would hear and recognize his voice, andthat when he sat back on his haunches and called to the moon and thestars, those swift-footed hunters of the big plain would respond to it. He circled twice about the caribou and the pack, and then trotted off tothe edge of the black spruce forest. 

When he reached the shadows he looked back. Gray Wolf was following him. She was only a few yards behind. And now she came up to him, a littletimidly, and she, too, looked back to the dark blotch of life out on thelake. And as she stood there close beside him, Kazan sniffed atsomething in the air that was not the scent of blood, nor the perfume ofthe balsam and spruce. It was a thing that seemed to come to him fromthe clear stars, the cloudless moon, the strange and beautiful quiet ofthe night itself. And its presence seemed to be a part of Gray Wolf. 

He looked at her, and he found Gray Wolf's eyes alert and questioning. She was young--so young that she seemed scarcely to have passed out ofpuppyhood. Her body was strong and slim and beautifully shaped. In themoonlight the hair under her throat and along her back shone sleek andsoft. She whined at the red staring light in Kazan's eyes, and it wasnot a puppy's whimper. Kazan moved toward her, and stood with his headover her back, facing the pack. He felt her trembling against his chest. He looked at the moon and the stars again, the mystery of Gray Wolf andof the night throbbing in his blood. 

Not much of his life had been spent at the posts. Most of it had been onthe trail--in the traces--and the spirit of the mating season had onlystirred him from afar. But it was very near now. Gray Wolf lifted herhead. Her soft muzzle touched the wound on his neck, and in thegentleness of that touch, in the low sound in her throat, Kazan felt andheard again that wonderful something that had come with the caress ofthe woman's hand and the sound of her voice. 

He turned, whining, his back bristling, his head high and defiant of thewilderness which he faced. Gray Wolf trotted close at his side as theyentered into the gloom of the forest. 

CHAPTER V

THE FIGHT IN THE SNOW

They found shelter that night under thick balsam, and when they lay downon the soft carpet of needles which the snow had not covered, Gray Wolfsnuggled her warm body close to Kazan and licked his wounds. The daybroke with a velvety fall of snow, so white and thick that they couldnot see a dozen leaps ahead of them in the open. It was quite warm, andso still that the whole world seemed filled with only the flutter andwhisper of the snowflakes. Through this day Kazan and Gray Wolf traveledside by side. Time and again he turned his head back to the ridge overwhich he had come, and Gray Wolf could not understand the strange notethat trembled in his throat. 

In the afternoon they returned to what was left of the caribou doe onthe lake. In the edge of the forest Gray Wolf hung back. She did not yetknow the meaning of poison-baits, deadfalls and traps, but the instinctof numberless generations was in her veins, and it told her there wasdanger in visiting a second time a thing that had grown cold in death. 

Kazan had seen masters work about carcasses that the wolves had left. Hehad seen them conceal traps cleverly, and roll little capsules ofstrychnine in the fat of the entrails, and once he had put a foreleg ina trap, and had experienced its sting and pain and deadly grip. But hedid not have Gray Wolf's fear. He urged her to accompany him to thewhite hummocks on the ice, and at last she went with him and sank backrestlessly on her haunches, while he dug out the bones and pieces offlesh that the snow had kept from freezing. But she would not eat, andat last Kazan went and sat on his haunches at her side, and with herlooked at what he had dug out from under the snow. He sniffed the air. He could not smell danger, but Gray Wolf told him that it might bethere. 

She told him many other things in the days and nights that followed. Thethird night Kazan himself gathered the hunt-pack and led in the chase. Three times that month, before the moon left the skies, he led thechase, and each time there was a kill. But as the snows began to growsofter under his feet he found a greater and greater companionship inGray Wolf, and they hunted alone, living on the big white rabbits. Inall the world he had loved but two things, the girl with the shininghair and the hands that had caressed him--and Gray Wolf. 

He did not leave the big plain, and often He took his mate to the top ofthe ridge, and he would try to tell her what he had left back there. With the dark nights the call of the woman became so strong upon himthat he was filled with a longing to go back, and take Gray Wolf withhim. 

Something happened very soon after that. They were crossing the openplain one day when up on the face of the ridge Kazan saw something thatmade his heart stand still. A man, with a dog-sledge and team, wascoming down into their world. The wind had not warned them, and suddenlyKazan saw something glisten in the man's hands. He knew what it was. Itwas the thing that spat fire and thunder, and killed. 

He gave his warning to Gray Wolf, and they were off like the wind, sideby side. And then came the _sound_--and Kazan's hatred of men burstforth in a snarl as he leaped. There was a queer humming over theirheads. The sound from behind came again, and this time Gray Wolf gave ayelp of pain, and rolled over and over in the snow. She was on her feetagain in an instant, and Kazan dropped behind her, and ran there untilthey reached the shelter of the timber. Gray Wolf lay down, and beganlicking the wound in her shoulder. Kazan faced the ridge. The man wastaking up their trail. He stopped where Gray Wolf had fallen, andexamined the snow. Then he came on. 

Kazan urged Gray Wolf to her feet, and they made for the thick swampclose to the lake. All that day they kept in the face of the wind, andwhen Gray Wolf lay down Kazan stole back over their trail, watching andsniffing the air. 

For days after that Gray Wolf ran lame, and when once they came upon theremains of an old camp, Kazan's teeth were bared in snarling hatred ofthe man-scent that had been left behind. Growing in him there was adesire for vengeance--vengeance for his own hurts, and for Gray Wolf's. He tried to nose out the man-trail under the cover of fresh snow, andGray Wolf circled around him anxiously, and tried to lure him deeperinto the forest. At last he followed her sullenly. There was a savageredness in his eyes. 

Three days later the new moon came. And on the fifth night Kazan strucka trail. It was fresh--so fresh that he stopped as suddenly as thoughstruck by a bullet when he ran upon it, and stood with every muscle inhis body quivering, and his hair on end. It was a man-trail. There werethe marks of the sledge, the dogs' feet, and the snow-shoeprints of hisenemy. 

Then he threw up his head to the stars, and from his throat there rolledout over the wide plains the hunt-cry--the wild and savage call for thepack. Never had he put the savagery in it that was there to-night. Againand again he sent forth that call, and then there came an answer andanother and still another, until Gray Wolf herself sat back on herhaunches and added her voice to Kazan's, and far out on the plain awhite and haggard-faced man halted his exhausted dogs to listen, while avoice said faintly from the sledge:

"The wolves, father. Are they coming--after us?"

The man was silent. He was not young. The moon shone in his long whitebeard, and added grotesquely to the height of his tall gaunt figure. Agirl had raised her head from a bearskin pillow on the sleigh. Her darkeyes were filled beautifully with the starlight. She was pale. Her hairfell in a thick shining braid over her shoulder, and she was huggingsomething tightly to her breast. 

"They're on the trail of something--probably a deer, " said the man, looking at the breech of his rifle. "Don't worry, Jo. We'll stop at thenext bit of scrub and see if we can't find enough dry stuff for afire. --Wee-ah-h-h-h, boys! Koosh--koosh--" and he snapped his whip overthe backs of his team. 

From the bundle at the girl's breast there came a small wailing cry. Andfar back in the plain there answered it the scattered voice of the pack. 

At last Kazan was on the trail of vengeance. He ran slowly at first, with Gray Wolf close beside him, pausing every three or four hundredyards to send forth the cry. A gray leaping form joined them frombehind. Another followed. Two came in from the side, and Kazan'ssolitary howl gave place to the wild tongue of the pack. Numbersgrew, and with increasing number the pace became swifter. Four--six--seven--ten--fourteen, by the time the more open andwind-swept part of the plain was reached. 

It was a strong pack, filled with old and fearless hunters. Gray Wolfwas the youngest, and she kept close to Kazan's shoulders. She could seenothing of his red-shot eyes and dripping jaws, and would not haveunderstood if she had seen. But she could _feel_ and she was thrilled bythe spirit of that strange and mysterious savagery that had made Kazanforget all things but hurt and death. 

The pack made no sound. There was only the panting of breath and thesoft fall of many feet. They ran swiftly and close. And always Kazan wasa leap ahead, with Gray Wolf nosing his shoulder. 

Never had he wanted to kill as he felt the desire in him to kill now. For the first time he had no fear of man, no fear of the club, of thewhip, or of the thing that blazed forth fire and death. He ran moreswiftly, in order to overtake them and give them battle sooner. All ofthe pent-up madness of four years of slavery and abuse at the hands ofmen broke loose in thin red streams of fire in his veins, and when atlast he saw a moving blotch far out on the plain ahead of him, the crythat came out of his throat was one that Gray Wolf did not understand. 

Three hundred yards beyond that moving blotch was the thin line oftimber, and Kazan and his followers bore down swiftly. Half-way to thetimber they were almost upon it, and suddenly it stopped and became ablack and motionless shadow on the snow. From out of it there leapedthat lightning tongue of flame that Kazan had always dreaded, and heheard the hissing song of the death-bee over his head. He did not mindit now. He yelped sharply, and the wolves raced in until four of themwere neck-and-neck with him. 

A second flash--and the death-bee drove from breast to tail of a hugegray fighter close to Gray Wolf. A third--a fourth--a fifth spurt ofthat fire from the black shadow, and Kazan himself felt a sudden swiftpassing of a red-hot thing along his shoulder, where the man's lastbullet shaved off the hair and stung his flesh. 

Three of the pack had gone down under the fire of the rifle, and half ofthe others were swinging to the right and the left. But Kazan drovestraight ahead. Faithfully Gray Wolf followed him. 

The sledge-dogs had been freed from their traces, and before he couldreach the man, whom he saw with his rifle held like a club in his hands, Kazan was met by the fighting mass of them. He fought like a fiend, andthere was the strength and the fierceness of two mates in the madgnashing of Gray Wolf's fangs. Two of the wolves rushed in, and Kazanheard the terrific, back-breaking thud of the rifle. To him it was the_club_. He wanted to reach it. He wanted to reach the man who held it, and he freed himself from the fighting mass of the dogs and sprang tothe sledge. For the first time he saw that there was something human onthe sledge, and in an instant he was upon it. He buried his jaws deep. They sank in something soft and hairy, and he opened them for anotherlunge. And then he heard the voice! It was _her voice_! Every muscle inhis body stood still. He became suddenly like flesh turned to lifelessstone. 

_Her voice_! The bear rug was thrown back and what had been hidden underit he saw clearly now in the light of the moon and the stars. In himinstinct worked more swiftly than human brain could have given birth toreason. It was not _she_. But the voice was the same, and the whitegirlish face so close to his own blood-reddened eyes held in it thatsame mystery that he had learned to love. And he saw now that which shewas clutching to her breast, and there came from it a strange thrillingcry--and he knew that here on the sledge he had found not enmity anddeath, but that from which he had been driven away in the other worldbeyond the ridge. 

In a flash he turned. He snapped at Gray Wolf's flank, and she droppedaway with a startled yelp. It had all happened in a moment, but the manwas almost down. Kazan leaped under his clubbed rifle and drove into theface of what was left of the pack. His fangs cut like knives. If he hadfought like a demon against the dogs, he fought like ten demons now, andthe man--bleeding and ready to fall--staggered back to the sledge, marveling at what was happening. For in Gray Wolf there was now theinstinct of matehood, and seeing Kazan tearing and righting the pack shejoined him in the struggle which she could not understand. 

When it was over, Kazan and Gray Wolf were alone out on the plain. Thepack had slunk away into the night, and the same moon and stars that hadgiven to Kazan the first knowledge of his birthright told him now thatno longer would those wild brothers of the plains respond to his callwhen he howled into the sky. 

He was hurt. And Gray Wolf was hurt, but not so badly as Kazan. He wastorn and bleeding. One of his legs was terribly bitten. After a time hesaw a fire in the edge of the forest. The old call was strong upon him. He wanted to crawl in to it, and feel the girl's hand on his head, ashe had felt that other hand in the world beyond the ridge. He would havegone--and would have urged Gray Wolf to go with him--but the man wasthere. He whined, and Gray Wolf thrust her warm muzzle against his neck. Something told them both that they were outcasts, that the plains, andthe moon, and the stars were against them now, and they slunk into theshelter and the gloom of the forest. 

Kazan could not go far. He could still smell the camp when he lay down. Gray Wolf snuggled close to him. Gently she soothed with her soft tongueKazan's bleeding wounds. And Kazan, lifting his head, whined softly tothe stars. 

CHAPTER VI

JOAN

On the edge of the cedar and spruce forest old Pierre Radisson built thefire. He was bleeding from a dozen wounds, where the fangs of the wolveshad reached to his flesh, and he felt in his breast that old andterrible pain, of which no one knew the meaning but himself. He draggedin log after log, piled them on the fire until the flames leaped tip tothe crisping needles of the limbs above, and heaped a supply close athand for use later in the night. 

From the sledge Joan watched him, still wild-eyed and fearful, stilltrembling. She was holding her baby close to her breast. Her long heavyhair smothered her shoulders and arms in a dark lustrous veil thatglistened and rippled in the firelight when she moved. Her young facewas scarcely a woman's to-night, though she was a mother. She lookedlike a child. 

Old Pierre laughed as he threw down the last armful of fuel, and stoodbreathing hard. 

"It was close, _ma cheri_" he panted through his white beard. "We werenearer to death out there on the plain than we will ever be again, Ihope. But we are comfortable now, and warm. Eh? You are no longerafraid?"

He sat down beside his daughter, and gently pulled back the soft furthat enveloped the bundle she held in her arms. He could see one pinkcheek of baby Joan. The eyes of Joan, the mother, were like stars. 

"It was the baby who saved us, " she whispered. "The dogs were being tornto pieces by the wolves, and I saw them leaping upon you, when one ofthem sprang to the sledge. At first I thought it was one of the dogs. But it was a wolf. He tore once at us, and the bearskin saved us. He wasalmost at my throat when baby cried, and then he stood there, his redeyes a foot from us, and I could have sworn again that he was a dog. Inan instant he turned, and was fighting the wolves. I saw him leap uponone that was almost at your throat. "

"He _was_ a dog, " said old Pierre, holding out his hands to the warmth. "They often wander away from the posts, and join the wolves. I have haddogs do that. _Ma cheri_, a dog is a dog all his life. Kicks, abuse, even the wolves can not change him--for long. He was one of the pack. Hecame with them--to kill. But when he found _us_--"

"He fought for us, " breathed the girl. She gave him the bundle, andstood up, straight and tall and slim in the firelight. "He fought forus--and he was terribly hurt, " she said. "I saw him drag himself away. Father, if he is out there--dying--"

Pierre Radisson stood up. He coughed in a shuddering way, trying tostifle the sound under his beard. The fleck of crimson that came to hislips with the cough Joan did not see. She had seen nothing of it duringthe six days they had been traveling up from the edge of civilization. Because of that cough, and the stain that came with it, Pierre had mademore than ordinary haste. 

"I have been thinking of that, " he said. "He was badly hurt, and I donot think he went far. Here--take little Joan and sit close to the fireuntil I come back. "

The moon and the stars were brilliant in the sky when he went out in theplain. A short distance from the edge of the timber-line he stood for amoment upon the spot where the wolves had overtaken them an hour before. Not one of his four dogs had lived. The snow was red with their blood, and their bodies lay stiff where they had fallen under the pack. Pierreshuddered as he looked at them. If the wolves had not turned their firstmad attack upon the dogs, what would have become of himself, Joan andthe baby? He turned away, with another of those hollow coughs thatbrought the blood to his lips. 

A few yards to one side he found in the snow the trail of the strangedog that had come with the wolves, and had turned against them in thatmoment when all seemed lost. It was not a clean running trail. It wasmore of a furrow in the snow, and Pierre Radisson followed it, expectingto find the dog dead at the end of it. 

In the sheltered spot to which he had dragged himself in the edge of theforest Kazan lay for a long time after the fight, alert and watchful. He felt no very great pain. But he had lost the power to stand upon hislegs. His flanks seemed paralyzed. Gray Wolf crouched close at his side, sniffing the air. They could smell the camp, and Kazan could detect thetwo things that were there--_man_ and _woman_. He knew that the girl wasthere, where he could see the glow of the firelight through the spruceand the cedars. He wanted to go to her. He wanted to drag himself closein to the fire, and take Gray Wolf with him, and listen to her voice, and feel the touch of her hand. But the man was there, and to him manhad always meant the club, the whip, pain, death. 

Gray Wolf crouched close to his side, and whined softly as she urgedKazan to flee deeper with her into the forest. At last she understoodthat he could not move, and she ran nervously out into the plain, andback again, until her footprints were thick in the trail she made. Theinstincts of matehood were strong in her. It was she who first sawPierre Radisson coming over their trail, and she ran swiftly back toKazan and gave the warning. 

Then Kazan caught the scent, and he saw the shadowy figure comingthrough the starlight. He tried to drag himself back, but he could moveonly by inches. The man came rapidly nearer. Kazan caught the glisten ofthe rifle in his hand. He heard his hollow cough, and the tread of hisfeet in the snow. Gray Wolf crouched shoulder to shoulder with him, trembling and showing her teeth. When Pierre had approached within fiftyfeet of them she slunk back into the deeper shadows of the spruce. 

Kazan's fangs were bared menacingly when Pierre stopped and looked downat him. With an effort he dragged himself to his feet, but fell backinto the snow again. The man leaned his rifle against a sapling and bentover him fearlessly. With a fierce growl Kazan snapped at his extendedhands. To his surprise the man did not pick up a stick or a club. Heheld out his hand again--cautiously--and spoke in a voice new to Kazan. The dog snapped again, and growled. 

The man persisted, talking to him all the time, and once his mittenedhand touched Kazan's head, and escaped before the jaws could reach it. Again and again the man reached out his hand, and three times Kazan feltthe touch of it, and there was neither threat nor hurt in it. At lastPierre turned away and went back over the trail. 

When he was out of sight and hearing, Kazan whined, and the crest alonghis spine flattened. He looked wistfully toward the glow of the fire. The man had not hurt him, and the three-quarters of him that was dogwanted to follow. 

Gray Wolf came back, and stood with stiffly planted forefeet at hisside. She had never been this near to man before, except when the packhad overtaken the sledge out on the plain. She could not understand. Every instinct that was in her warned her that he was the most dangerousof all things, more to be feared than the strongest beasts, the storms, the floods, cold and starvation. And yet this man had not harmed hermate. She sniffed at Kazan's back and head, where the mittened hand hadtouched. Then she trotted back into the darkness again, for beyond theedge of the forest she once more saw moving life. 

The man was returning, and with him was the girl. Her voice was softand sweet, and there was about her the breath and sweetness of woman. The man stood prepared, but not threatening. 

"Be careful, Joan, " he warned. 

She dropped on her knees in the snow, just out of reach. 

"Come, boy--come!" she said gently. She held out her hand. Kazan'smuscles twitched. He moved an inch--two inches toward her. There was theold light in her eyes and face now, the love and gentleness he had knownonce before, when another woman with shining hair and eyes had come intohis life. "Come!" she whispered as she saw him move, and she bent alittle, reached a little farther with her hand, and at last touched hishead. 

Pierre knelt beside her. He was proffering something, and Kazan smelledmeat. But it was the girl's hand that made him tremble and shiver, andwhen she drew back, urging him to follow her, he dragged himselfpainfully a foot or two through the snow. Not until then did the girlsee his mangled leg. In an instant she had forgotten all caution, andwas down close at his side. 

"He can't walk, " she cried, a sudden tremble in her voice. "Look, _monpère!_ Here is a terrible cut. We must carry him. "

"I guessed that much, " replied Radisson. "For that reason I brought theblanket. _Mon Dieu_, listen to that!"

From the darkness of the forest there came a low wailing cry. 

Kazan lifted his head and a trembling whine answered in his throat. Itwas Gray Wolf calling to him. 

It was a miracle that Pierre Radisson should put the blanket aboutKazan, and carry him in to the camp, without scratch or bite. It wasthis miracle that he achieved, with Joan's arm resting on Kazan's shaggyneck as she held one end of the blanket. They laid him down close to thefire, and after a little it was the man again who brought warm water andwashed away the blood from the torn leg, and then put something on itthat was soft and warm and soothing, and finally bound a cloth about it. 

All this Was strange and new to Kazan. Pierre's hand, as well as thegirl's, stroked his head. It was the man who brought him a gruel of mealand tallow, and urged him to eat, while Joan sat with her chin in hertwo hands, looking at the dog, and talking to him. After this, when hewas quite comfortable, and no longer afraid, he heard a strange smallcry from the furry bundle on the sledge that brought his head up with ajerk. 

Joan saw the movement, and heard the low answering whimper in histhroat. She turned quickly to the bundle, talking and cooing to it asshe took it in her arms, and then she pulled back the bearskin so thatKazan could see. He had never seen a baby before, and Joan held it outbefore him, so that he could look straight at it and see what awonderful creature it was. Its little pink face stared steadily atKazan. Its tiny fists reached out, and it made queer little sounds athim, and then suddenly it kicked and screamed with delight and laughed. At those sounds Kazan's whole body relaxed, and he dragged himself tothe girl's feet. 

"See, he likes the baby!" she cried. "_Mon père_, we must give him aname. What shall it be?"

"Wait till morning for that, " replied the father. "It is late, Joan. Gointo the tent, and sleep. We have no dogs now, and will travel slowly. So we must start early. "

With her hand on the tent-flap, Joan, turned. 

"He came with the wolves, " she said. "Let us call him Wolf. " With onearm she was holding the little Joan. The other she stretched out toKazan. "Wolf! Wolf!" she called softly. 

Kazan's eyes were on her. He knew that she was speaking to him, and hedrew himself a foot toward her. 

"He knows it already!" she cried. "Good night, _mon père_. "

For a long time after she had gone into the tent, old Pierre Radissonsat on the edge of the sledge, facing the fire, with Kazan at his feet. Suddenly the silence was broken again by Gray Wolf's lonely howl deep inthe forest. Kazan lifted his head and whined. 

"She's calling for you, boy, " said Pierre understandingly. 

He coughed, and clutched a hand to his breast, where the pain seemedrending him. 

"Frost-bitten lung, " he said, speaking straight at Kazan. "Got it earlyin the winter, up at Fond du Lac. Hope we'll get home--in time--with thekids. "

In the loneliness and emptiness of the big northern wilderness one fallsinto the habit of talking to one's self. But Kazan's head was alert, andhis eyes watchful, so Pierre spoke to him. 

"We've got to get them home, and there's only you and me to do it, " hesaid, twisting his beard. Suddenly he clenched his fists. 

His hollow racking cough convulsed him again. 

"Home!" he panted, clutching his chest. "It's eighty miles straightnorth--to the Churchill--and I pray to God we'll get there--with thekids--before my lungs give out. "

He rose to his feet, and staggered a little as he walked. There was acollar about Kazan's neck, and he chained him to the sledge. After thathe dragged three or four small logs upon the fire, and went quietly intothe tent where Joan and the baby were already asleep. Several timesthat night Kazan heard the distant voice of Gray Wolf calling for him, but something told him that he must not answer it now. Toward dawn GrayWolf came close in to the camp, and for the first time Kazan replied toher. 

His howl awakened the man. He came out of the tent, peered for a fewmoments up at the sky, built up the fire, and began to preparebreakfast. He patted Kazan on the head, and gave him a chunk of meat. Joan came out a few moments later, leaving the baby asleep in the tent. She ran up and kissed Pierre, and then dropped down on her knees besideKazan, and talked to him almost as he had heard her talk to the baby. When she jumped up to help her father, Kazan followed her, and when Joansaw him standing firmly upon his legs she gave a cry of pleasure. 

It was a strange journey that began into the North that day. PierreRadisson emptied the sledge of everything but the tent, blankets, foodand the furry nest for baby Joan. Then he harnessed himself in thetraces and dragged the sledge over the snow. He coughed incessantly. 

"It's a cough I've had half the winter, " lied Pierre, careful that Joansaw no sign of blood on his lips or beard. "I'll keep in the cabin for aweek when we get home. "

Even Kazan, with that strange beast knowledge which man, unable toexplain, calls instinct, knew that what he said was not the truth. Perhaps it was largely because he had heard other men cough like this, and that for generations his sledge-dog ancestors had heard men cough asRadisson coughed--and had learned what followed it. 

More than once he had scented death in tepees and cabins, which he hadnot entered, and more than once he had sniffed at the mystery of deaththat was not quite present, but near--just as he had caught at adistance the subtle warning of storm and of fire. And that strange thingseemed to be very near to him now, as he followed at the end of hischain behind the sledge. It made him restless, and half a dozen times, when the sledge stopped, he sniffed at the bit of humanity buried in thebearskin. Each time that he did this Joan was quickly at his side, andtwice she patted his scarred and grizzled head until every drop ofblood in his body leaped riotously with a joy which his body did notreveal. 

This day the chief thing that he came to understand was that the littlecreature on the sledge was very precious to the girl who stroked hishead and talked to him, and that it was very helpless. He learned, too, that Joan was most delighted, and that her voice was softer and thrilledhim more deeply, when he paid attention to that little, warm, livingthing in the bearskin. 

For a long time after they made camp Pierre Radisson sat beside thefire. To-night he did not smoke. He stared straight into the flames. When at last he rose to go into the tent with the girl and the baby, hebent over Kazan and examined his hurt. 

"You've got to work in the traces to-morrow, boy, " he said. "We mustmake the river by to-morrow night. If we don't--"

He did not finish. He was choking back one of those tearing coughs whenthe tent-flap dropped behind him. Kazan lay stiff and alert, his eyesfilled with a strange anxiety. He did not like to see Radisson enter thetent, for stronger than ever there hung that oppressive mystery in theair about him, and it seemed to be a part of Pierre. 

Three times that night he heard faithful Gray Wolf calling for him deepin the forest, and each time he answered her. Toward dawn she came inclose to camp. Once he caught the scent of her when she circled aroundin the wind, and he tugged and whined at the end of his chain, hopingthat she would come in and lie down at his side. But no sooner hadRadisson moved in the tent than Gray Wolf was gone. The man's face wasthinner, and his eyes were redder this morning. His cough was not soloud or so rending. It was like a wheeze, as if something had given wayinside, and before the girl came out he clutched his hands often at histhroat. Joan's face whitened when she saw him. Anxiety gave way to fearin her eyes. Pierre Radisson laughed when she flung her arms about him, and coughed to prove that what he said was true. 

"You see the cough is not so bad, my Joan, " he said. "It is breaking up. You can not have forgotten, _ma cheri_? It always leaves one red-eyedand weak. "

It was a cold bleak dark day that followed, and through it Kazan andthe man tugged at the fore of the sledge, with Joan following in thetrail behind. Kazan's wound no longer hurt him. He pulled steadily withall his splendid strength, and the man never lashed him once, but pattedhim with his mittened hand on head and back. The day grew steadilydarker and in the tops of the trees there was the low moaning of astorm. 

Darkness and the coming of the storm did not drive Pierre Radisson intocamp. "We must reach the river, " he said to himself over and over again. "We must reach the river--we must reach the river--" And he steadilyurged Kazan on to greater effort, while his own strength at the end ofthe traces grew less. 

It had begun to storm when Pierre stopped to build a fire at noon. Thesnow fell straight down in a white deluge so thick that it hid the treetrunks fifty yards away. Pierre laughed when Joan shivered and snuggledclose up to him with the baby in her arms. He waited only an hour, andthen fastened Kazan in the traces again, and buckled the straps oncemore about his own waist. In the silent gloom that was almost nightPierre carried his compass in his hand, and at last, late in theafternoon, they came to a break in the timber-line, and ahead of themlay a plain, across which Radisson pointed an exultant hand. 

"There's the river, Joan, " he said, his voice faint and husky. "We cancamp here now and wait for the storm to pass. "

Under a thick clump of spruce he put up the tent, and then begangathering fire-wood. Joan helped him. As soon as they had boiled coffeeand eaten a supper of meat and toasted biscuits, Joan went into the tentand dropped exhausted on her thick bed of balsam boughs, wrappingherself and the baby up close in the skins and blankets. To-night shehad no word for Kazan. And Pierre was glad that she was too tired to sitbeside the fire and talk. And yet--

Kazan's alert eyes saw Pierre start suddenly. He rose from his seat onthe sledge and went to the tent. He drew back the flap and thrust in hishead and shoulders. 

"Asleep, Joan?" he asked. 

"Almost, father. Won't you please come--soon?"

"After I smoke, " he said. "Are you comfortable?"

"Yes, I'm so tired--and--sleepy--"

Pierre laughed softly. In the darkness he was gripping at his throat. 

"We're almost home, Joan. That is our river out there--the LittleBeaver. If I should run away and leave you to-night you could follow itright to our cabin. It's only forty miles. Do you hear?"

"Yes--I know--"

"Forty miles--straight down the river. You couldn't lose yourself, Joan. Only you'd have to be careful of air-holes in the ice. "

"Won't you come to bed, father? You're tired--and almost sick. "

"Yes--after I smoke, " he repeated. "Joan, will you keep reminding meto-morrow of the air-holes? I might forget. You can always tell them, for the snow and the crust over them are whiter than that on the rest ofthe ice, and like a sponge. Will you remember--the airholes--"

"Yes-s-s-s--"

Pierre dropped the tent-flap and returned to the fire. He staggered ashe walked. 

"Good night, boy, " he said. "Guess I'd better go in with the kids. Twodays more--forty miles--two days--"

Kazan watched him as he entered the tent. He laid his weight against theend of his chain until the collar shut off his wind. His legs and backtwitched. In that tent where Radisson had gone were Joan and the baby. He knew that Pierre would not hurt them, but he knew also that withPierre Radisson something terrible and impending was hovering very nearto them. He wanted the man outside--by the fire--where he could liestill, and watch him. 

In the tent there was silence. Nearer to him than before came GrayWolf's cry. Each night she was calling earlier, and coming closer to thecamp. He wanted her very near to him to-night, but he did not even whinein response. He dared not break that strange silence in the tent. He laystill for a long time, tired and lame from the day's journey, butsleepless. The fire burned lower; the wind in the tree-tops died away;and the thick gray clouds rolled like a massive curtain from under theskies. The stars began to glow white and metallic, and from far in theNorth there came faintly a crisping moaning sound, like steelsleigh-runners running over frosty snow--the mysterious monotone of theNorthern Lights. After that it grew steadily and swiftly colder. 

To-night Gray Wolf did not compass herself by the direction of the wind. She followed like a sneaking shadow over the trail Pierre Radisson hadmade, and when Kazan heard her again, long after midnight, he lay with, his head erect, and his body rigid, save for a curious twitching of hismuscles. There was a new note in Gray Wolf's voice, a wailing note inwhich there was more than the mate-call. It was The Message. And at thesound of it Kazan rose from out of his silence and his fear, and withhis head turned straight up to the sky he howled as the wild dogs of theNorth howl before the tepees of masters who are newly dead. 

Pierre Radisson was dead. 

CHAPTER VII

OUT OF THE BLIZZARD

It was dawn when the baby snuggled close to Joan's warm breast andawakened her with its cry of hunger. She opened her eyes, brushed backthe thick hair from her face, and could see where the shadowy form ofher father was lying at the other side of the tent. He was very quiet, and she was pleased that he was still sleeping. She knew that the daybefore he had been very near to exhaustion, and so for half an hourlonger she lay quiet, cooing softly to the baby Joan. Then she arosecautiously, tucked the baby in the warm blankets and furs, put on herheavier garments, and went outside. 

By this time it was broad day, and she breathed a sigh of relief whenshe saw that the storm had passed. It was bitterly cold. It seemed toher that she had never known it to be so cold in all her life. The firewas completely out. Kazan was huddled in a round ball, his nose tuckedunder his body. He raised his head, shivering, as Joan came out. Withher heavily moccasined foot Joan scattered the ashes and charred stickswhere the fire had been. There was not a spark left. In returning to thetent she stopped for a moment beside Kazan, and patted his shaggy head. 

"Poor Wolf!" she said. "I wish I had given you one of the bearskins!"

She threw back the tent-flap and entered. For the first time she saw herfather's face in the light--and outside, Kazan heard the terriblemoaning cry that broke from her lips. No one could have looked at PierreRadisson's face once--and not have understood. 

After that one agonizing cry, Joan flung herself upon her father'sbreast, sobbing so softly that even Kazan's sharp ears heard no sound. She remained there in her grief until every vital energy of womanhoodand motherhood in her girlish body was roused to action by the wailingcry of baby Joan. Then she sprang to her feet and ran out through thetent opening. Kazan tugged at the end of his chain to meet her, but shesaw nothing of him now. The terror of the wilderness is greater thanthat of death, and in an instant it had fallen upon Joan. It was notbecause of fear for herself. It was the baby. The wailing cries from thetent pierced her like knife-thrusts. 

And then, all at once, there came to her what old Pierre had said thenight before--his words about the river, the air-holes, the home fortymiles away. "_You couldn't lose yourself, Joan_" He had guessed whatmight happen. 

She bundled the baby deep in the furs and returned to the fire-bed. Herone thought now was that they must have fire. She made a little pile ofbirch-bark, covered it with half-burned bits of wood, and went into thetent for the matches. Pierre Radisson carried them in a water-proof boxin a pocket of his bearskin coat. She sobbed as she kneeled beside himagain, and obtained the box. As the fire flared up she added other bitsof wood, and then some of the larger pieces that Pierre had dragged intocamp. The fire gave her courage. Forty miles--and the river led to theirhome! She must make that, with the baby and Wolf. For the first timeshe turned to him, and spoke his name as she put her hand on his head. After that she gave him a chunk of meat which she thawed out over thefire, and melted the snow for tea. She was not hungry, but she recalledhow her father had made her eat four or five times a day, so she forcedherself to make a breakfast of a biscuit, a shred of meat and as muchhot tea as she could drink. 

The terrible hour she dreaded followed that. She wrapped blanketsclosely about her father's body, and tied them with babiche cord. Afterthat she piled all the furs and blankets that remained on the sledgeclose to the fire, and snuggled baby Joan deep down in them. Pullingdown the tent was a task. The ropes were stiff and frozen, and when shehad finished, one of her hands was bleeding. She piled the tent on thesledge, and then, half, covering her face, turned and looked back. 

Pierre Radisson lay on his balsam bed, with nothing over him now but thegray sky and the spruce-tops. Kazan stood stiff-legged and sniffed theair. His spine bristled when Joan went back slowly and kneeled besidethe blanket-wrapped object. When she returned to him her face was whiteand tense, and now there was a strange and terrible look in her eyes asshe stared out across the barren. She put him in the traces, andfastened about her slender waist the strap that Pierre had used. Thusthey struck out for the river, floundering knee-deep in the freshlyfallen and drifted snow. Half-way Joan stumbled in a drift and fell, herloose hair flying in a shimmering veil over the snow. With a mighty pullKazan was at her side, and his cold muzzle touched her face as she drewherself to her feet. For a moment Joan took his shaggy head between hertwo hands. 

"Wolf!" she moaned. "Oh, Wolf!"

She went on, her breath coming pantingly now, even from her briefexertion. The snow was not so deep on the ice of the river. But a windwas rising. It came from the north and east, straight in her face, andJoan bowed her head as she pulled with Kazan. Half a mile down the rivershe stopped, and no longer could she repress the hopelessness that roseto her lips in a sobbing choking cry. Forty miles! She clutched herhands at her breast, and stood breathing like one who had been beaten, her back to the wind. The baby was quiet. Joan went back and peered downunder the furs, and what she saw there spurred her on again almostfiercely. Twice she stumbled to her knees in the drifts during the nextquarter of a mile. 

After that there was a stretch of wind-swept ice, and Kazan pulled thesledge alone. Joan walked at his side. There was a pain in her chest. Athousand needles seemed pricking her face, and suddenly she rememberedthe thermometer. She exposed it for a time on the top of the tent. Whenshe looked at it a few minutes later it was thirty degrees below zero. Forty miles! And her father had told her that she could make it--andcould not lose herself! But she did not know that even her father wouldhave been afraid to face the north that day, with the temperature atthirty below, and a moaning wind bringing the first warning of ablizzard. 

The timber was far behind her now. Ahead there was nothing but thepitiless barren, and the timber beyond that was hidden by the gray gloomof the day. If there had been trees, Joan's heart would not have chokedso with terror. But there was nothing--nothing but that gray ghostlygloom, with the rim of the sky touching the earth a mile away. 

The snow grew heavy under her feet again. Always she was watching forthose treacherous, frost-coated traps in the ice her father had spokenof. But she found now that all the ice and snow looked alike to her, andthat there was a growing pain back of her eyes. It was the intense cold. 

The river widened into a small lake, and here the wind struck her in theface with such force that her weight was taken from the strap, and Kazandragged the sledge alone. A few inches of snow impeded her as much as afoot had done before. Little by little she dropped back. Kazan forged toher side, every ounce of his magnificent strength in the traces. By thetime they were on the river channel again, Joan was at the back of thesledge, following in the trail made by Kazan. She was powerless to helphim. She felt more and more the leaden weight of her legs. There was butone hope--and that was the forest. If they did not reach it soon, withinhalf an hour, she would be able to go no farther. Over and over againshe moaned a prayer for her baby as she struggled on. She fell in thesnow-drifts. Kazan and the sledge became only a dark blotch to her. Andthen, all at once, she saw that they were leaving her. They were notmore than twenty feet ahead of her--but the blotch seemed to be a vastdistance away. Every bit of life and strength in her body was now bentupon reaching the sledge--and baby Joan. 

It seemed an interminable time before she gained. With the sledge onlysix feet ahead of her she struggled for what seemed to her to be an hourbefore she could reach out and touch it. With a moan she flung herselfforward, and fell upon it. She no longer heard the wailing of the storm. She no longer felt discomfort. With her face in the furs under whichbaby Joan was buried, there came to her with swiftness and joy a visionof warmth and home. And then the vision faded away, and was followed bydeep night. 

Kazan stopped in the trail. He came back then and sat down upon hishaunches beside her, waiting for her to move and speak. But she wasvery still. He thrust his nose into her loose hair. A whine rose in histhroat, and suddenly he raised his head and sniffed in the face of thewind. Something came to him with that wind. He muzzled Joan again, hutshe did not stir. Then he went forward, and stood in his traces, readyfor the pull, and looked hack at her. Still she did not move or speak, and Kazan's whine gave place to a sharp excited bark. 

The strange thing in the wind came to him stronger for a moment. Hebegan to pull. The sledge-runners had frozen to the snow, and it tookevery ounce of his strength to free them. Twice during the next fiveminutes he stopped and sniffed the air. The third time that he halted, in a drift of snow, he returned to Joan's side again, and whined toawaken her. Then he tugged again at the end of his traces, and foot byfoot he dragged the sledge through the drift. Beyond the drift there wasa stretch of clear ice, and here Kazan rested. During a lull in the windthe scent came to him stronger than before. 

At the end of the clear ice was a narrow break in the shore, where acreek ran into the main stream. If Joan had been conscious she wouldhave urged him straight ahead. But Kazan turned into the break, and forten minutes he struggled through the snow without a rest, whining moreand more frequently, until at last the whine broke into a joyous bark. Ahead of him, close to the creek, was a small cabin. Smoke was risingout of the chimney. It was the scent of smoke that had come to him inthe wind. A hard level slope reached to the cabin door, and with thelast strength that was in him Kazan dragged his burden up that. Then hesettled himself back beside Joan, lifted his shaggy head to the dark skyand howled. 

A moment later the door opened. A man came out. Kazan's reddened, snow-shot eyes followed him watchfully as he ran to the sledge. He heardhis startled exclamation as he bent over Joan. In another lull of thewind there came from out of the mass of furs on the sledge the wailing, half-smothered voice of baby Joan. 

A deep sigh of relief heaved up from Kazan's chest. He was exhausted. His strength was gone. His feet were torn and bleeding. But the voiceof baby Joan filled him with a strange happiness, and he lay down in histraces, while the man carried Joan and the baby into the life and warmthof the cabin. 

A few minutes later the man reappeared. He was not old, like PierreRadisson. He came close to Kazan, and looked down at him. 

"My God, " he said. "And you did that--_alone!_"

He bent down fearlessly, unfastened him from the traces, and led himtoward the cabin door. Kazan hesitated but once--almost on thethreshold. He turned his head, swift and alert. From out of the moaningand wailing of the storm it seemed to him that for a moment he had heardthe voice of Gray Wolf. 

Then the cabin door closed behind him. 

Back in a shadowy corner of the cabin he lay, while the man preparedsomething over a hot stove for Joan. It was a long time before Joan rosefrom the cot on which the man had placed her. After that Kazan heard hersobbing; and then the man made her eat, and for a time they talked. Thenthe stranger hung up a big blanket in front of the bunk, and sat downclose to the stove. Quietly Kazan slipped along the wall, and creptunder the bunk. For a long time he could hear the sobbing breath of thegirl. Then all was still. 

The next morning he slipped out through the door when the man opened it, and sped swiftly into the forest. Half a mile away he found the trail ofGray Wolf, and called to her. From the frozen river came her reply, andhe went to her. 

Vainly Gray Wolf tried to lure him back into their old haunts--away fromthe cabin and the scent of man. Late that morning the man harnessed hisdogs, and from the fringe of the forest Kazan saw him tuck Joan and thebaby among the furs on the sledge, as old Pierre had done. All that dayhe followed in the trail of the team, with Gray Wolf slinking behindhim. They traveled until dark; and then, under the stars and the moonthat had followed the storm, the man still urged on his team. It wasdeep in the night when they came to another cabin, and the man beat uponthe door. A light, the opening of the door, the joyous welcome of aman's voice, Joan's sobbing cry--Kazan heard these from the shadows inwhich he was hidden, and then slipped back to Gray Wolf. 

In the days and weeks that followed Joan's home-coming the lure of thecabin and of the woman's hand held Kazan. As he had tolerated Pierre, sonow he tolerated the younger man who lived with Joan and the baby. Heknew that the man was very dear to Joan, and that the baby was very dearto him, as it was to the girl. It was not until the third day that Joansucceeded in coaxing him into the cabin--and that was the day on whichthe man returned with the dead and frozen body of Pierre. It was Joan'shusband who first found the name on the collar he wore, and they begancalling him Kazan. 

Half a mile away, at the summit of a huge mass of rock which the Indianscalled the Sun Rock, he and Gray Wolf had found a home; and from herethey went down to their hunts on the plain, and often the girl's voicereached up to them, calling, "_Kazan! Kazan! Kazan_!"

Through all the long winter Kazan hovered thus between the lure of Joanand the cabin--and Gray Wolf. 

Then came Spring--and the Great Change. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE GREAT CHANGE

The rocks, the ridges and the valleys were taking on a warmer glow. Thepoplar buds were ready to burst. The scent of balsam and of spruce grewheavier in the air each day, and all through the wilderness, in plainand forest, there was the rippling murmur of the spring floods findingtheir way to Hudson's Bay. In that great bay there was the rumble andcrash of the ice fields thundering down in the early break-up throughthe Roes Welcome--the doorway to the Arctic, and for that reason therestill came with the April wind an occasional sharp breath of winter. 

Kazan had sheltered himself against that wind. Not a breath of airstirred in the sunny spot the wolf-dog had chosen for himself. He wasmore comfortable than he had been at any time during the six months ofterrible winter--and as he slept he dreamed. 

Gray Wolf, his wild mate, lay near him, flat on her belly, her forepawsreaching out, her eyes and nostrils as keen and alert as the smell ofman could make them. For there was that smell of man, as well as ofbalsam and spruce, in the warm spring air. She gazed anxiously andsometimes steadily, at Kazan as he slept. Her own gray spine stiffenedwhen she saw the tawny hair along Kazan's back bristle at some dreamvision. She whined softly as his upper lip snarled back, showing hislong white fangs. But for the most part Kazan lay quiet, save for themuscular twitchings of legs, shoulders and muzzle, which always tellwhen a dog is dreaming; and as he dreamed there came to the door of thecabin out on the plain a blue-eyed girl-woman, with a big brown braidover her shoulder, who called through the cup of her hands, "Kazan, Kazan, Kazan!"

The voice reached faintly to the top of the Sun Rock, and Gray Wolfflattened her ears. Kazan stirred, and in another instant he was awakeand on his feet. He leaped to an outcropping ledge, sniffing the air andlooking far out over the plain that lay below them. 

Over the plain the woman's voice came to them again, and Kazan ran tothe edge of the rock and whined. Gray Wolf stepped softly to his sideand laid her muzzle on his shoulder. She had grown to know what theVoice meant. Day and night she feared it, more than she feared the scentor sound of man. 

Since she had given up the pack and her old life for Kazan, the Voicehad become Gray Wolf's greatest enemy, and she hated it. It took Kazanfrom her. And wherever it went, Kazan followed. 

Night after night it robbed her of her mate, and left her to wanderalone under the stars and the moon, keeping faithfully to herloneliness, and never once responding with her own tongue to thehunt-calls of her wild brothers and sisters in the forests and out onthe plains. Usually she would snarl at the Voice, and sometimes nipKazan lightly to show her displeasure. But to-day, as the Voice came athird time, she slunk back into the darkness of a fissure between tworocks, and Kazan saw only the fiery glow of her eyes. 

Kazan ran nervously to the trail their feet had worn up to the top ofthe Sun Rock, and stood undecided. All day, and yesterday, he had beenuneasy and disturbed. Whatever it was that stirred him seemed to be inthe air, for he could not see it or hear it or scent it. But he could_feel_ it. He went to the fissure and sniffed at Gray Wolf. Usually shewhined coaxingly. But her response to-day was to draw back her lipsuntil he could see her white fangs. 

A fourth tune the Voice came to them faintly, and she snapped fiercelyat some unseen thing in the darkness between the two rocks. Kazan wentagain to the trail, still hesitating. Then he began to go down. It was anarrow winding trail, worn only by the pads and claws of animals, forthe Sun Rock was a huge crag that rose almost sheer up for a hundredfeet above the tops of the spruce and balsam, its bald crest catchingthe first gleams of the sun in the morning and the last glow of it inthe evening. Gray Wolf had first led Kazan to the security of theretreat at the top of the rock. 

When he reached the bottom he no longer hesitated, but darted swiftly inthe direction of the cabin. Because of that instinct of the wild thatwas still in him, he always approached the cabin with caution. He nevergave warning, and for a moment Joan was startled when she looked up fromher baby and saw Kazan's shaggy head and shoulders in the open door. Thebaby struggled and kicked in her delight, and held out her two handswith cooing cries to Kazan. Joan, too, held out a hand. 

"Kazan!" she cried softly. "Come in, Kazan!"

Slowly the wild red light in Kazan's eyes softened. He put a forefoot onthe sill, and stood there, while the girl urged him again. Suddenly hislegs seemed to sink a little under him, his tail drooped and he slunk inwith that doggish air of having committed a crime. The creatures heloved were in the cabin, but the cabin itself he hated. He hated allcabins, for they all breathed of the club and the whip and bondage. Likeall sledge-dogs he preferred the open snow for a bed, and thespruce-tops for shelter. 

Joan dropped her hand to his head, and at its touch there thrilledthrough him that strange joy that was his reward for leaving Gray Wolfand the wild. Slowly he raised his head until his black muzzle rested onher lap, and he closed his eyes while that wonderful little creaturethat mystified him so--the baby--prodded him with her tiny feet, andpulled his tawny hair. He loved these baby-maulings even more than thetouch of Joan's hand. 

Motionless, sphinx-like, undemonstrative in every muscle of his body, Kazan stood, scarcely breathing. More than once this lack ofdemonstration had urged Joan's husband to warn her. But the wolf thatwas in Kazan, his wild aloofness, even his mating with Gray Wolf hadmade her love him more. She understood, and had faith in him. 

In the days of the last snow Kazan had proved himself. A neighboringtrapper had run over with his team, and the baby Joan had toddled up toone of the big huskies. There was a fierce snap of jaws, a scream ofhorror from Joan, a shout from the men as they leaped toward the pack. But Kazan was ahead of them all. In a gray streak that traveled with thespeed of a bullet he was at the big husky's throat. When they pulled himoff, the husky was dead. Joan thought of that now, as the baby kickedand tousled Kazan's head. 

"Good old Kazan, " she cried softly, putting her face down close to him. "We're glad you came, Kazan, for we're going to be alone to-night--babyand I. Daddy's gone to the post, and you must care for us while he'saway. "

She tickled his nose with the end of her long shining braid. This alwaysdelighted the baby, for in spite of his stoicism Kazan had to sniff andsometimes to sneeze, and twig his ears. And it pleased him, too. Heloved the sweet scent of Joan's hair. 

"And you'd fight for us, if you had to, wouldn't you?" she went on. Thenshe rose quietly. "I must close the door, " she said. "I don't want youto go away again to-day, Kazan. You must stay with us. "

Kazan went off to his corner, and lay down. Just as there had been somestrange thing at the top of the Sun Rock to disturb him that day, so nowthere was a mystery that disturbed him in the cabin. He sniffed the air, trying to fathom its secret. Whatever it was, it seemed to make hismistress different, too. And she was digging out all sorts of odds andends of things about the cabin, and doing them up in packages. Late thatnight, before she went to bed, Joan came and snuggled her hand closedown beside him for a few moments. 

"We're going away, " she whispered, and there was a curious tremble thatwas almost a sob in her voice. "We're going home, Kazan. We're goingaway down where his people live--where they have churches, and cities, and music, and all the beautiful things in the world. And we're going totake _you_, Kazan!"

Kazan didn't understand. But he was happy at having the woman so near tohim, and talking to him. At these times he forgot Gray Wolf. The dogthat was in him surged over his quarter-strain of wildness, and thewoman and the baby alone filled his world. But after Joan had gone toher bed, and all was quiet in the cabin, his old uneasiness returned. Herose to his feet and moved stealthily about the cabin, sniffing at thewalls, the door and the things his mistress had done into packages. Alow whine rose in his throat. Joan, half asleep, heard it, and murmured:"Be quiet, Kazan. Go to sleep--go to sleep--"

Long after that, Kazan stood rigid in the center of the room, listening, trembling. And faintly he heard, far away, the wailing cry of, GrayWolf. But to-night it was not the cry of loneliness. It sent a thrillthrough him. He ran to the door, and whined, but Joan was deep inslumber and did not hear him. Once more he heard the cry, and only once. Then the night grew still. He crouched down near the door. 

Joan found him there, still watchful, still listening, when she awoke inthe early morning. She came to open the door for him, and in a moment hewas gone. His feet seemed scarcely to touch the earth as he sped in thedirection of the Sun Rock. Across the plain he could see the cap of italready painted with a golden glow. 

He came to the narrow winding trail, and wormed his way up it swiftly. 

Gray Wolf was not at the top to greet him. But he could smell her, andthe scent of that other thing was strong in the air. His musclestightened; his legs grew tense. Deep down in his chest there began thelow rumble of a growl. He knew now what that strange thing was that hadhaunted him, and made him uneasy. It was _life_. Something that livedand breathed had invaded the home which he and Gray Wolf had chosen. Hebared his long fangs, and a snarl of defiance drew back his lips. Stiff-legged, prepared to spring, his neck and head reaching out, heapproached the two rocks between which Gray Wolf had crept the nightbefore. She was still there. And with her was _something else_. After amoment the tenseness left Kazan's body. His bristling crest droopeduntil it lay flat. His ears shot forward, and he put his head andshoulders between the two rocks, and whined softly. And Gray Wolfwhined. Slowly Kazan backed out, and faced the rising sun. Then he laydown, so that his body shielded I the entrance to the chamber betweenthe rocks. 

Gray Wolf was a mother. 

CHAPTER IX

THE TRAGEDY ON SUN ROCK

All that day Kazan guarded the top of the Sun Rock. Fate, and the fearand brutality of masters, had heretofore kept him from fatherhood, andhe was puzzled. Something told him now that he belonged to the Sun Rock, and not to the cabin. The call that came to him from over the plain wasnot so strong. At dusk Gray Wolf came out from her retreat, and slunk tohis side, whimpering, and nipped gently at his shaggy neck. It was theold instinct of his fathers that made him respond by caressing GrayWolf's face with his tongue. Then Gray Wolf's jaws opened, and shelaughed in short panting breaths, as if she had been hard run. She washappy, and as they heard a little snuffling sound from between therocks, Kazan wagged his tail, and Gray Wolf darted back to her young. 

The babyish cry and its effect upon Gray Wolf taught Kazan his firstlesson in fatherhood. Instinct again told him that Gray Wolf could notgo down to the hunt with him now--that she must stay at the top of theSun Rock. So when the moon rose he went down alone, and toward dawnreturned with a big white rabbit between his jaws. It was the wild inhim that made him do this, and Gray Wolf ate ravenously. Then he knewthat each night hereafter he must hunt for Gray Wolf--and the littlewhimpering creatures hidden between the two rocks. 

The next day, and still the next, he did not go to the cabin, though heheard the voices of both the man and the woman calling him. On the fifthhe went down, and Joan and the baby were so glad that the woman huggedhim, and the baby kicked and laughed and screamed at him, while the manstood by cautiously, watching their demonstrations with a gleam ofdisapprobation in his eyes. 

"I'm afraid of him, " he told Joan for the hundredth time. "That's thewolf-gleam in his eyes. He's of a treacherous breed. Sometimes I wishwe'd never brought him home. "

"If we hadn't--where would the baby--have gone?" Joan reminded him, alittle catch in her voice. 

"I had almost forgotten that, " said her husband. "Kazan, you old devil, I guess I love you, too. " He laid his hand caressingly on Kazan's head. "Wonder how he'll take to life down there?" he asked. "He has alwaysbeen used to the forests. It'll seem mighty strange. "

"And so--have I--always been used to the forests, " whispered Joan. "Iguess that's why I love Kazan--next to you and the baby. Kazan--dear oldKazan!"

This time Kazan felt and scented more of that mysterious change in thecabin. Joan and her husband talked incessantly of their plans when theywere together; and when the man was away Joan talked to the baby, and tohim. And each time that he came down to the cabin during the week thatfollowed, he grew more and more restless, until at last the man noticedthe change in him. 

"I believe he knows, " he said to Joan one evening. "I believe he knowswe're preparing to leave. " Then he added: "The river was rising againto-day. It will be another week before we can start, perhaps longer. "

That same night the moon flooded the top of the Sun Rock with a goldenlight, and out into the glow of it came Gray Wolf, with her three littlewhelps toddling behind her. There was much about these soft little ballsthat tumbled about him and snuggled in his tawny coat that remindedKazan of the baby. At times they made the same queer, soft littlesounds, and they staggered about on their four little legs just ashelplessly as baby Joan made her way about on two. He did not fondlethem, as Gray Wolf did, but the touch of them, and their babyishwhimperings, filled him with a kind of pleasure that he had neverexperienced before. 

The moon was straight above them, and the night was almost as bright asday, when he went down again to hunt for Gray Wolf. At the foot of therock a big white rabbit popped up ahead of him, and he gave chase. Forhalf a mile he pursued, until the wolf instinct in him rose over thedog, and he gave up the futile race. A deer he might have overtaken, butsmall game the wolf must hunt as the fox hunts it, and he began to slipthrough the thickets slowly and as quietly as a shadow. He was a milefrom the Sun Rock when two quick leaps put Gray Wolf's supper betweenhis jaws. He trotted back slowly, dropping the big seven-pound snow-shoehare now and then to rest. 

When he came to the narrow trail that led to the top of the Sun Rock hestopped. In that trail was the warm scent of strange feet. The rabbitfell from his jaws. Every hair in his body was suddenly electrified intolife. What he scented was not the scent of a rabbit, a marten or aporcupine. Fang and claw had climbed the path ahead of him. And then, coming faintly to him from the top of the rock, he heard sounds whichsent him up with a terrible whining cry. When he reached the summit hesaw in the white moonlight a scene that stopped him for a single moment. Close to the edge of the sheer fall to the rocks, fifty feet below, GrayWolf was engaged in a death-struggle with a huge gray lynx. She wasdown--and under, and from her there came a sudden sharp terrible cry ofpain. 

Kazan flew across the rock. His attack was the swift silent assault ofthe wolf, combined with the greater courage, the fury and the strategyof the husky. Another husky would have died in that first attack. Butthe lynx was not a dog or a wolf. It was "Mow-lee, the swift, " as theSarcees had named it--the quickest creature in the wilderness. Kazan'sinch-long fangs should have sunk deep in its jugular. But in afractional part of a second the lynx had thrown itself back like a hugesoft ball, and Kazan's teeth buried themselves in the flesh of its neckinstead of the jugular. And Kazan was not now fighting the fangs of awolf in the pack, or of another husky. He was fighting claws--claws thatripped like twenty razor-edged knives, and which even a jugular holdcould not stop. 

Once he had fought a lynx in a trap, and he had not forgotten the lessonthe battle had taught him. He fought to pull the lynx _down_, instead offorcing it on its back, as he would have done with another dog or awolf. He knew that when on its back the fierce cat was most dangerous. One rip of its powerful hindfeet could disembowel him. 

Behind him he heard Gray Wolf sobbing and crying, and he knew that shewas terribly hurt. He was filled with the rage and strength of two dogs, and his teeth met through the flesh and hide of the cat's throat. Butthe big lynx escaped death by half an inch. It would take a fresh gripto reach the jugular, and suddenly Kazan made the deadly lunge. Therewas an instant's freedom for the lynx, and in that moment it flungitself back, and Kazan gripped at its throat--_on top_. 

The cat's claws ripped through his flesh, cutting open his side--alittle too high to kill. Another stroke and they would have cut to hisvitals. But they had struggled close to the edge of the rock wall, andsuddenly, without a snarl or a cry, they rolled over. It was fifty orsixty feet to the rocks of the ledge below, and even as they pitchedover and over in the fall, Kazan's teeth sank deeper. They struck withterrific force, Kazan uppermost. The shock sent him half a dozen feetfrom his enemy. He was up like a flash, dizzy, snarling, on thedefensive. The lynx lay limp and motionless where it had fallen. Kazancame nearer, still prepared, and sniffed cautiously. Something told himthat the fight was over. He turned and dragged himself slowly along theledge to the trail, and returned to Gray Wolf. 

Gray Wolf was no longer in the moonlight. Close to the two rocks lay thelimp and lifeless little bodies of the three pups. The lynx had tornthem to pieces. With a whine of grief Kazan approached the two bouldersand thrust his head between them. Gray Wolf was there, crying to herselfin that terrible sobbing way. He went in, and began to lick her bleedingshoulders and head. All the rest of that night she whimpered with pain. With dawn she dragged herself out to the lifeless little bodies on therock. 

And then Kazan saw the terrible work of the lynx. For Gray Wolf wasblind--not for a day or a night, but blind for all time. A gloom that nosun could break had become her shroud. And perhaps again it was thatinstinct of animal creation, which often is more wonderful than man'sreason, that told Kazan what had happened. For he knew now that she washelpless--more helpless than the little creatures that had gamboled inthe moonlight a few hours before. He remained close beside her allthat day. 

[Illustration: Kazan gripped at its throat]

Vainly that day did Joan call for Kazan. Her voice rose to the Sun Rock, and Gray Wolf's head snuggled closer to Kazan, and Kazan's ears droppedback, and he licked her wounds. Late in the afternoon Kazan left GrayWolf long enough to run to the bottom of the trail and bring up thesnow-shoe rabbit. Gray Wolf muzzled the fur and flesh, but would noteat. Still a little later Kazan urged her to follow him to the trail. Heno longer wanted to stay at the top of the Sun Rock, and he no longerwanted Gray Wolf to stay there. Step by step he drew her down thewinding path away from her dead puppies. She would move only when he wasvery near her--so near that she could touch his scarred flank with hernose. 

They came at last to the point in the trail where they had to leap downa distance of three or four feet from the edge of a rock, and here Kazansaw how utterly helpless Gray Wolf had become. She whined, and crouchedtwenty times before she dared make the spring, and then she jumpedstiff-legged, and fell in a heap at Kazan's feet. After this Kazan didnot have to urge her so hard, for the fall impinged on her the fact thatshe was safe only when her muzzle touched her mate's flank. She followedhim obediently when they reached the plain, trotting with herforeshoulder to his hip. 

Kazan was heading for a thicket in the creek bottom half a mile away, and a dozen times in that short distance Gray Wolf stumbled and fell. And each time that she fell Kazan learned a little more of thelimitations of blindness. Once he sprang off in pursuit of a rabbit, buthe had not taken twenty leaps when he stopped and looked back. Gray Wolfhad not moved an inch. She stood motionless, sniffing the air--waitingfor him! For a full minute Kazan stood, also waiting. Then he returnedto her. Ever after this he returned to the point where he had left GrayWolf, knowing that he would find her there. 

All that day they remained in the thicket. In the afternoon he visitedthe cabin. Joan and her husband were there, and both saw at onceKazan's torn side and his lacerated head and shoulders. 

"Pretty near a finish fight for him, " said the man, after he hadexamined him. "It was either a lynx or a bear. Another wolf could not dothat. "

For half an hour Joan worked over him, talking to him all the time, andfondling him with her soft hands. She bathed his wounds in warm water, and then covered them with a healing salve, and Kazan was filled againwith that old restful desire to remain with her always, and never to goback into the forests. For an hour she let him lie on the edge of herdress, with his nose touching her foot, while she worked on baby things. Then she rose to prepare supper, and Kazan got up--a little wearily--andwent to the door. Gray Wolf and the gloom of the night were calling him, and he answered that call with a slouch of his shoulders and a droopinghead. Its old thrill was gone. He watched his chance, and went outthrough the door. The moon had risen when he rejoined Gray Wolf. Shegreeted his return with a low whine of joy, and muzzled him with herblind face. In her helplessness she looked happier than Kazan in all hisstrength. 

From now on, during the days that followed, it was a last great fightbetween blind and faithful Gray Wolf and the woman. If Joan had known ofwhat lay in the thicket, if she could once have seen the poor creatureto whom Kazan was now all life--the sun, the stars, the moon, andfood--she would have helped Gray Wolf. But as it was she tried to lureKazan more and more to the cabin, and slowly she won. 

At last the great day came, eight days after the fight on the Sun Rock. Kazan had taken Gray Wolf to a wooded point on the river two daysbefore, and there he had left her the preceding night when he went tothe cabin. This time a stout babiche thong was tied to the collar roundhis neck, and he was fastened to a staple in the log wall. Joan and herhusband were up before it was light next day. The sun was just risingwhen they all went out, the man carrying the baby, and Joan leading him. Joan turned and locked the cabin door, and Kazan heard a sob in herthroat as they followed the man down to the river. The big canoe waspacked and waiting. Joan got in first, with the baby. Then, stillholding the babiche thong, she drew Kazan up close to her, so that helay with his weight against her. 

The sun fell warmly on Kazan's back as they shoved off, and he closedhis eyes, and rested his head on Joan's lap. Her hand fell softly on hisshoulder. He heard again that sound which the man could not hear, thebroken sob in her throat, as the canoe moved slowly down to the woodedpoint. 

Joan waved her hand back at the cabin, just disappearing behind thetrees. 

"Good-by!" she cried sadly. "Good-by--" And then she buried her faceclose down to Kazan and the baby, and sobbed. 

The man stopped paddling. 

"You're not sorry--Joan?" he asked. 

They were drifting past the point now, and the scent of Gray Wolf cameto Kazan's nostrils, rousing him, and bringing a low whine from histhroat. 

"You're not sorry--we're going?" Joan shook her head. 

"No, " she replied. "Only I've--always lived here--in the forests--andthey're--home!"

The point with its white finger of sand, was behind them now. And Kazanwas standing rigid, facing it. The man called to him, and Joan liftedher head. She, too, saw the point, and suddenly the babiche leashslipped from her fingers, and a strange light leaped into her blue eyesas she saw what stood at the end of that white tip of sand. It was GrayWolf. Her blind eyes were turned toward Kazan. At last Gray Wolf, thefaithful, understood. Scent told her what her eyes could not see. Kazanand the man-smell were together. And they were going--going--going--

"Look!" whispered Joan. 

The man turned. Gray Wolf's forefeet were in the water. And now, as thecanoe drifted farther and farther away, she settled back on herhaunches, raised her head to the sun which she could not see and gaveher last long wailing cry for Kazan. 

The canoe lurched. A tawny body shot through the air--and Kazan wasgone. 

The man reached forward for his rifle. Joan's hand stopped him. Herface was white. 

"Let him go back to her! Let him go--let him go!" she cried. "It is hisplace--with her. "

And Kazan reaching the shore, shook the water from his shaggy hair, andlooked for the last time toward the woman. The canoe was drifting slowlyaround the first bend. A moment more and it had disappeared. Gray Wolfhad won. 

CHAPTER X

THE DAYS OF FIRE

From the night of the terrible fight with the big gray lynx on the topof the Sun Rock, Kazan remembered less and less vividly the old dayswhen he had been a sledge-dog, and the leader of a pack. He would neverquite forget them, and always there would stand out certain memoriesfrom among the rest, like fires cutting the blackness of night. But asman dates events from his birth, his marriage, his freedom from abondage, or some foundation-step in his career, so all things seemed toKazan to begin with two tragedies which had followed one fast upon theother after the birth of Gray Wolf's pups. 

The first was the fight on the Sun Rock, when the big gray lynx hadblinded his beautiful wolf mate for all time, and had torn her pups intopieces. He in turn had killed the lynx. But Gray Wolf was still blind. Vengeance had not been able to give her sight. She could no longer huntwith him, as they had hunted with the wild wolf-packs out on the plain, and in the dark forests. So at thought of that night he always snarled, and his lips curled back to reveal his inch-long fangs. 

The other tragedy was the going of Joan, her baby and her husband. Something more infallible than reason told Kazan that they would notcome back. Brightest of all the pictures that remained with him was thatof the sunny morning when the woman and the baby he loved, and the manhe endured because of them, had gone away in the canoe, and often hewould go to the point, and gaze longingly down-stream, where he hadleaped from the canoe to return to his blind mate. 

So Kazan's life seemed now to be made up chiefly of three things: hishatred of everything that bore the scent or mark of the lynx, hisgrieving for Joan and the baby, and Gray Wolf. It was natural that thestrongest passion in him should be his hatred of the lynx, for not onlyGray Wolf's blindness and the death of the pups, but even the loss ofthe woman and the baby he laid to that fatal struggle on the Sun Rock. From that hour he became the deadliest enemy of the lynx tribe. Whereverhe struck the scent of the big gray cat he was turned into a snarlingdemon, and his hatred grew day by day, as he became more completely apart of the wild. 

He found that Gray Wolf was more necessary to him now than she had everbeen since the day she had left the wolf-pack for him. He wasthree-quarters dog, and the dog-part of him demanded companionship. There was only Gray Wolf to give him that now. They were alone. Civilization was four hundred miles south of them. The nearest Hudson'sBay post was sixty miles to the west. Often, in the days of the womanand the baby, Gray Wolf had spent her nights alone out in the forest, waiting and calling for Kazan. Now it was Kazan who was lonely anduneasy when he was away from her side. 

In her blindness Gray Wolf could no longer hunt with her mate. Butgradually a new code of understanding grew up between them, and throughher blindness they learned many things that they had not known before. By early summer Gray Wolf could travel with Kazan, if he did not movetoo swiftly. She ran at his flank, with her shoulder or muzzle touchinghim, and Kazan learned not to leap, but to trot. Very quickly he foundthat he must choose the easiest trails for Gray Wolf's feet. When theycame to a space to be bridged by a leap, he would muzzle Gray Wolf andwhine, and she would stand with ears alert--listening. Then Kazan wouldtake the leap, and she understood the distance she had to cover. Shealways over-leaped, which was a good fault. 

In another way, and one that was destined to serve them many times inthe future, she became of greater help than ever to Kazan. Scent andhearing entirely took the place of sight. Each day developed thesesenses more and more, and at the same time there developed between themthe dumb language whereby she could impress upon Kazan what she haddiscovered by scent or sound. It became a curious habit of Kazan'salways to look at Gray Wolf when they stopped to listen, or to scent theair. 

After the fight on the Sun Rock, Kazan had taken his blind mate to athick clump of spruce and balsam in the river-bottom, where theyremained until early summer. Every day for weeks Kazan went to the cabinwhere Joan and the baby--and the man--had been. For a long time he wenthopefully, looking each day or night to see some sign of life there. Butthe door was never open. The boards and saplings at the windows alwaysremained. Never a spiral of smoke rose from the clay chimney. Grass andvines began to grow in the path. And fainter and fainter grew that scentwhich Kazan could still find about it--the scent of man, of the woman, the baby. 

One day he found a little baby moccasin under one of the closed windows. It was old, and worn out, and blackened by snow and rain, but he laydown beside it, and remained there for a long time, while the babyJoan--a thousand miles away--was playing with the strange toys ofcivilization. Then he returned to Gray Wolf among the spruce and balsam. 

The cabin was the one place to which Gray Wolf would not follow him. Atall other times she was at his side. Now that she had become accustomedto blindness, she even accompanied him on his hunts, until he struckgame, and began the chase. Then she would wait for him. Kazan usuallyhunted the big snow-shoe rabbits. But one night he ran down and killed ayoung doe. The kill was too heavy to drag to Gray Wolf, so he returnedto where she was waiting for him and guided her to the feast. In manyways they became more and more inseparable as the summer lengthened, until at last, through all the wilderness, their footprints were alwaystwo by two and never one by one. 

Then came the great fire. 

Gray Wolf caught the scent of it when it was still two days to the west. The sun that night went down in a lurid cloud. The moon, drifting intothe west, became blood red. When it dropped behind the wilderness inthis manner, the Indians called it the Bleeding Moon, and the air wasfilled with omens. 

All the next day Gray Wolf was nervous, and toward noon Kazan caught inthe air the warning that she had sensed many hours ahead of him. Steadily the scent grew stronger, and by the middle of the afternoon thesun was veiled by a film of smoke. 

The flight of the wild things from the triangle of forest between thejunctions of the Pipestone and Cree Rivers would have begun then, butthe wind shifted. It was a fatal shift. The fire was raging from thewest and south. Then the wind swept straight eastward, carrying thesmoke with it, and during this breathing spell all the wild creatures inthe triangle between the two rivers waited. This gave the fire time tosweep completely, across the base of the forest triangle, cutting offthe last trails of escape. 

Then the wind shifted again, and the fire swept north. The head of thetriangle became a death-trap. All through the night the southern sky wasfilled with a lurid glow, and by morning the heat and smoke and ash weresuffocating. 

Panic-striken, Kazan searched vainly for a means of escape. Not for aninstant did he leave Gray Wolf. It would have been easy for him to swimacross either of the two streams, for he was three-quarters dog. But atthe first touch of water on her paws, Gray Wolf drew back, shrinking. Like all her breed, she would face fire and death before water. Kazanurged. A dozen times he leaped in, and swam out into the stream. ButGray Wolf would come no farther than she could wade. 

They could hear the distant murmuring roar of the fire now. Ahead of itcame the wild things. Moose, caribou and deer plunged into the water ofthe streams and swam to the safety of the opposite side. Out upon awhite finger of sand lumbered a big black bear with two cubs, and eventhe cubs took to the water, and swam across easily. Kazan watched them, and whined to Gray Wolf. 

And then out upon that white finger of sand came other things thatdreaded the water as Gray Wolf dreaded it: a big fat porcupine, a sleeklittle marten, a fisher-cat that sniffed the air and wailed like achild. Those things that could not or would not swim outnumbered theothers three to one. Hundreds of little ermine scurried along the shorelike rats, their squeaking little voices sounding incessantly; foxes ranswiftly along the banks, seeking a tree or a windfall that might bridgethe water for them; the lynx snarled and faced the fire; and GrayWolf's own tribe--the wolves--dared take no deeper step than she. 

Dripping and panting, and half choked by heat and smoke, Kazan came toGray Wolf's side. There was but one refuge left near them, and that wasthe sand-bar. It reached out for fifty feet into the stream. Quickly heled his blind mate toward it. As they came through the low bush to theriver-bed, something stopped them both. To their nostrils had come thescent of a deadlier enemy than fire. A lynx had taken possession of thesand-bar, and was crouching at the end of it. Three porcupines haddragged themselves into the edge of the water, and lay there like balls, their quills alert and quivering. A fisher-cat was snarling at the lynx. And the lynx, with ears laid back, watched Kazan and Gray Wolf as theybegan the invasion of the sand-bar. 

Faithful Gray Wolf was full of fight, and she sprang shoulder toshoulder with Kazan, her fangs bared. With an angry snap, Kazan droveher back, and she stood quivering and whining while he advanced. Light-footed, his pointed ears forward, no menace or threat in hisattitude, he advanced. It was the deadly advance of the husky trainedin battle, skilled in the art of killing. A man from civilization wouldhave said that the dog was approaching the lynx with friendlyintentions. But the lynx understood. It was the old feud of manygenerations--made deadlier now by Kazan's memory of that night at thetop of the Sun Rock. 

Instinct told the fisher-cat what was coming, and it crouched low andflat; the porcupines, scolding like little children at the presence ofenemies and the thickening clouds of smoke, thrust their quills stillmore erect. The lynx lay on its belly, like a cat, its hindquarterstwitching, and gathered for the spring. Kazan's feet seemed scarcely totouch the sand as he circled lightly around it. The lynx pivoted as hecircled, and then it shot in a round snarling ball over the eight feetof space that separated them. 

Kazan did not leap aside. He made no effort to escape the attack, butmet it fairly with the full force of his shoulders, as sledge-dog meetssledge-dog. He was ten pounds heavier than the lynx, and for a momentthe big loose-jointed cat with its twenty knife-like claws was thrownon its side. Like a flash Kazan took advantage of the moment, and drovefor the back of the cat's neck. 

In that same moment blind Gray Wolf leaped in with a snarling cry, andfighting under Kazan's belly, she fastened her jaws in one of the cat'shindlegs. The bone snapped. The lynx, twice outweighed, leaped backward, dragging both Kazan and Gray Wolf. It fell back down on one of theporcupines, and a hundred quills drove into its body. Another leap andit was free--fleeing into the face of the smoke. Kazan did not pursue. Gray Wolf came to his side and licked his neck, where fresh blood wascrimsoning his tawny hide. The fisher-cat lay as if dead, watching themwith fierce little black eyes. The porcupines continued to chatter, asif begging for mercy. And then a thick black suffocating pall of smokedrove low over the sand-bar and with it came air that was furnace-hot. 

At the uttermost end of the sand-bar Kazan and Gray Wolf rolledthemselves into balls and thrust their heads under their bodies. Thefire was very near now. The roar of it was like that of a greatcataract, with now and then a louder crash of falling trees. The airwas filled with ash and burning sparks, and twice Kazan drew forth hishead to snap at blazing embers that fell upon and seared him like hotirons. 

Close along the edge of the stream grew thick green bush, and when thefire reached this, it burned more slowly, and the heat grew less. Still, it was a long time before Kazan and Gray Wolf could draw forth theirheads and breathe more freely. Then they found that the finger of sandreaching out into the river had saved them. Everywhere in that trianglebetween the two rivers the world had turned black, and was hotunderfoot. 

The smoke cleared away. The wind changed again, and swung down cool andfresh from the west and north. The fisher-cat was the first to movecautiously back to the forests that had been, but the porcupines werestill rolled into balls when Gray Wolf and Kazan left the sand-bar. Theybegan to travel up-stream, and before night came, their feet were sorefrom hot ash and burning embers. 

The moon was strange and foreboding that night, like a spatter of bloodin the sky, and through the long silent hours there was not even thehoot of an owl to give a sign that life still existed where yesterdayhad been a paradise of wild things. Kazan knew that there was nothing tohunt, and they continued to travel all that night. With dawn they strucka narrow swamp along the edge of the stream. Here beavers had built adam, and they were able to cross over into the green country on theopposite side. For another day and another night they traveled westward, and this brought them into the thick country of swamp and timber alongthe Waterfound. 

And as Kazan and Gray Wolf came from the west, there came from theHudson's Bay post to the east a slim dark-faced French half-breed by thename of Henri Loti, the most famous lynx hunter in all the Hudson's Baycountry. He was prospecting for "signs, " and he found them in abundancealong the Waterfound. It was a game paradise, and the snow-shoe rabbitabounded in thousands. As a consequence, the lynxes were thick, andHenri built his trapping shack, and then returned to the post to waituntil the first snows fell, when he would come back with his team, supplies and traps. 

And up from the south, at this same time, there was slowly working hisway by canoe and trail a young university zoologist who was gatheringmaterial for a book on _The Reasoning of the Wild_. His name was PaulWeyman, and he had made arrangements to spend a part of the winter withHenri Loti, the half-breed. He brought with him plenty of paper, acamera and the photograph of a girl. His only weapon was a pocket-knife. 

And meanwhile Kazan and Gray Wolf found the home they were seeking in athick swamp five or six miles from the cabin that Henri Loti had built. 

CHAPTER XI

ALWAYS TWO BY TWO

It was January when a guide from the post brought Paul Weyman to HenriLoti's cabin on the Waterfound. He was a man of thirty-two or three, full of the red-blooded life that made Henri like him at once. If thishad not been the case, the first few days in the cabin might have beenunpleasant, for Henri was in bad humor. He told Weyman about it theirfirst night, as they were smoking pipes alongside the redly glowing boxstove. 

"It is damn strange, " said Henri. "I have lost seven lynx in the traps, torn to pieces like they were no more than rabbits that the foxes hadkilled. No thing--not even bear--have ever tackled lynx in a trapbefore. It is the first time I ever see it. And they are torn up so badthey are not worth one half dollar at the post. Seven!--that is over twohundred dollar I have lost! There are two wolves who do it. Two--I knowit by the tracks--always two--an'--never one. They follow my trap-linean' eat the rabbits I catch. They leave the fisher-cat, an' the mink, an' the ermine, an' the marten; but the lynx--_sacré_ an' damn!--theyjump on him an' pull the fur from him like you pull the wild cottonballs from the burn-bush! I have tried strychnine in deer fat, an' Ihave set traps and deadfalls, but I can not catch them. They will driveme out unless I get them, for I have taken only five good lynx, an' theyhave destroyed seven. "

This roused Weyman. He was one of that growing number of thoughtful menwho believe that man's egoism, as a race, blinds him to many of the morewonderful facts of creation. He had thrown down the gantlet, and with alogic that had gained him a nation-wide hearing, to those who believedthat man was the only living creature who could reason, and that commonsense and cleverness when displayed by any other breathing thing weremerely instinct. The facts behind Henri's tale of woe struck him asimportant, and until midnight they talked about the two strange wolves. 

"There is one big wolf an' one smaller, " said Henri. "An' it is alwaysthe big wolf who goes in an' fights the lynx. I see that by the snow. While he's fighting, the smaller wolf makes many tracks in the snow justout of reach, an' then when the lynx is down, or dead, it jumps in an'helps tear it into pieces. All that I know by the snow. Only once have Iseen where the smaller one went in an' fought with the other, an' thenthere was blood all about that was not lynx blood; I trailed the devilsa mile by the dripping. "

During the two weeks that followed, Weyman found much to add to thematerial of his book. Not a day passed that somewhere along Henri'strap-line they did not see the trails of the two wolves, and Weymanobserved that--as Henri had told him--the footprints were always two bytwo, and never one by one. On the third day they came to a trap that hadheld a lynx, and at sight of what remained Henri cursed in both Frenchand English until he was purple in the face. The lynx had been tornuntil its pelt was practically worthless. 

Weyman saw where the smaller wolf had waited on its haunches, while itscompanion had killed the lynx. He did not tell Henri all he thought. Butthe days that followed convinced him more and more that he had found themost dramatic exemplification of his theory. Back of this mysterioustragedy of the trap-line there was a _reason_. 

Why did the two wolves not destroy the fisher-cat, the ermine and themarten? Why was their feud with the lynx alone?

Weyman was strangely thrilled. He was a lover of wild things, and forthat reason he never carried a gun. And when he saw Henri placingpoison-baits for the two marauders, he shuddered, and when, day afterday, he saw that these poison-baits were untouched, he rejoiced. Something in his own nature went out in sympathy to the heroic outlaw ofthe trap-line who never failed to give battle to the lynx. Nights in thecabin he wrote down his thoughts and discoveries of the day. One nighthe turned suddenly on Henri. 

"Henri, doesn't it ever make you sorry to kill so many wild things?" heasked. 

Henri stared and shook his head. 

"I kill t'ousand an' t'ousand, " he said. "I kill t'ousand more. "

"And there are twenty thousand others just like you in this northernquarter of the continent--all killing, killing for hundreds of yearsback, and yet you can't kill out wild life. The war of Man and theBeast, you might call it. And, if you could return five hundred yearsfrom now, Henri, you'd still find wild life here. Nearly all the rest ofthe world is changing, but you can't change these almost impenetrablethousands of square miles of ridges and swamps and forests. Therailroads won't come here, and I, for one, thank God for that. Take allthe great prairies to the west, for instance. Why, the old buffalotrails are still there, plain as day--and yet, towns and cities aregrowing up everywhere. Did you ever hear of North Battleford?"

"Is she near Montreal or Quebec?" Henri asked. 

Weyman smiled, and drew a photograph from his pocket. It was the pictureof a girl. 

"No. It's far to the west, in Saskatchewan. Seven years ago I used togo up there every year, to shoot prairie chickens, coyotes and elk. There wasn't any North Battleford then--just the glorious prairie, hundreds and hundreds of square miles of it. There was a single shack onthe Saskatchewan River, where North Battleford now stands, and I used tostay there. In that shack there was a little girl, twelve years old. Weused to go out hunting together--for I used to kill things in thosedays. And the little girl would cry sometimes when I killed, and I'dlaugh at her. 

"Then a railroad came, and then another, and they joined near the shack, and all at once a town sprang up. Seven years ago there was only theshack there, Henri. Two years ago there were eighteen hundred people. This year, when I came through, there were five thousand, and two yearsfrom now there'll be ten thousand. 

"On the ground where that shack stood are three banks, with a capital offorty million dollars; you can see the glow of the electric lights ofthe city twenty miles away. It has a hundred-thousand dollar college, ahigh school, the provincial asylum, a fire department, two clubs, aboard of trade, and it's going to have a street-car line within twoyears. Think of that--all where the coyotes howled a few years ago!

"People are coming in so fast that they can't keep a census. Five yearsfrom now there'll be a city of twenty thousand where the old shackstood. And the little girl in that shack, Henri--she's a young lady now, and her people are--well, rich. I don't care about that. The chief thingis that she is going to marry me in the spring. Because of her I stoppedkilling things when she was only sixteen. The last thing I killed was aprairie wolf, and it had young. Eileen kept the little puppy. She's gotit now--tamed. That's why above all other wild things I love the wolves. And I hope these two leave your trap-line safe. "

Henri was staring at him. Weyman gave him the picture. It was of asweet-faced girl, with deep pure eyes, and there came a twitch at thecorners of Henri's mouth as he looked at it. 

"My Iowaka died t'ree year ago, " he said. "She too loved the wildthing. But them wolf--damn! They drive me out if I can not kill them!"He put fresh fuel into the stove, and prepared for bed. 

One day the big idea came to Henri. 

Weyman was with him when they struck fresh signs of lynx. There was agreat windfall ten or fifteen feet high, and in one place the logs hadformed a sort of cavern, with almost solid walls on three sides. Thesnow was beaten down by tracks, and the fur of rabbit was scatteredabout. Henri was jubilant. 

"We got heem--sure!" he said. 

He built the bait-house, set a trap and looked about him shrewdly. Thenhe explained his scheme to Weyman. If the lynx was caught, and the twowolves came to destroy it, the fight would take place in that shelterunder the windfall, and the marauders would have to pass through theopening. So Henri set five smaller traps, concealing them skilfullyunder leaves and moss and snow, and all were far enough away from thebait-house so that the trapped lynx could not spring them in hisstruggles. 

"When they fight, wolf jump this way an' that--an' sure get in, " saidHenri. "He miss one, two, t'ree--but he sure get in trap somewhere. "

That same morning a light snow fell, making the work more complete, forit covered up all footprints and buried the telltale scent of man. Thatnight Kazan and Gray Wolf passed within a hundred feet of the windfall, and Gray Wolf's keen scent detected something strange and disquieting inthe air. She informed Kazan by pressing her shoulder against his, andthey swung off at right angles, keeping to windward of the trap-line. 

For two days and three cold starlit nights nothing happened at thewindfall. Henri understood, and explained to Weyman. The lynx was ahunter, like himself, and also had its hunt-line, which it covered aboutonce a week. On the fifth night the lynx returned, went to the windfall, was lured straight to the bait, and the sharp-toothed steel trap closedrelentlessly over its right hindfoot. Kazan and Gray Wolf were travelinga quarter of a mile deeper in the forest when they heard the clanking ofthe steel chain as the lynx fought; to free itself. Ten minutes laterthey stood in the door of the windfall cavern. 

It was a white clear night, so filled with brilliant stars that Henrihimself could have hunted by the light of them. The lynx had exhausteditself, and lay crouching on its belly as Kazan and Gray Wolf appeared. As usual, Gray Wolf held back while Kazan began the battle. In the firstor second of these fights on the trap-line, Kazan would probably havebeen disemboweled or had his jugular vein cut open, had the fierce catsbeen free. They were more than his match in open fight, though thebiggest of them fell ten pounds under his weight. Chance had saved himon the Sun Rock. Gray Wolf and the porcupine had both added to thedefeat of the lynx on the sand-bar. And along Henri's hunting line itwas the trap that was his ally. Even with his enemy thus shackled hetook big chances. And he took bigger chances than ever with the lynxunder the windfall. 

The cat was an old warrior, six or seven years old. His claws were aninch and a quarter long, and curved like simitars. His forefeet and hisleft hindfoot were free, and as Kazan advanced, he drew back, so thatthe trap-chain was slack under his body. Here Kazan could not follow hisold tactics of circling about his trapped foe, until it had becometangled in the chain, or had so shortened and twisted it that there wasno chance for a leap. He had to attack face to face, and suddenly helunged in. They met shoulder to shoulder. Kazan's fangs snapped at theother's throat, and missed. Before he could strike again, the lynx flungout its free hindfoot, and even Gray Wolf heard the ripping sound thatit made. With a snarl Kazan was flung back, his shoulder torn to thebone. 

Then it was that one of Henri's hidden traps saved him from a secondattack--and death. Steel jaws snapped over one of his forefeet, and whenhe leaped, the chain stopped him. Once or twice before, blind Gray Wolfhad leaped in, when she knew that Kazan was in great danger. For aninstant she forgot her caution now, and as she heard Kazan's snarl ofpain, she sprang in under the windfall. Five traps Henri had hidden inthe space in front of the bait-house, and Gray Wolf's feet found two ofthese. She fell on her side, snapping and snarling. In his strugglesKazan sprung the remaining two traps. One of them missed. The fifth, andlast, caught him by a hindfoot. 

This was a little past midnight. From then until morning the earth andsnow under the windfall were torn up by the struggles of the wolf, thedog and the lynx to regain their freedom. And when morning came, allthree were exhausted, and lay on their sides, panting and with bleedingjaws, waiting for the coming of man--and death. 

Henri and Weyman were out early. When they struck off the main linetoward the windfall, Henri pointed to the tracks of Kazan and Gray Wolf, and his dark face lighted up with pleasure and excitement. When theyreached the shelter under the mass of fallen timber, both stoodspeechless for a moment, astounded by what they saw. Even Henri had seennothing like this before--two wolves and a lynx, all in traps, andalmost within reach of one another's fangs. But surprise could not longdelay the business of Henri's hunter's instinct. The wolves lay first inhis path, and he was raising his rifle to put a steel-capped bulletthrough the base of Kazan's brain, when Weyman caught him eagerly by thearm. Weyman was staring. His fingers dug into Henri's flesh. His eyeshad caught a glimpse of the steel-studded collar about Kazan's neck. 

"Wait!" he cried. "It's not a wolf. It's a dog!"

Henri lowered his rifle, staring at the collar. Weyman's eyes shot toGray Wolf. She was facing them, snarling, her white fangs bared to thefoes she could not see. Her blind eyes were closed. Where there shouldhave been eyes there was only hair, and an exclamation broke fromWeyman's lips. 

"Look!" he commanded of Henri. "What in the name of heaven--"

"One is dog--wild dog that has run to the wolves, " said Henri. "And theother is--wolf. "

"And _blind_!" gasped Weyman. 

"_Oui_, blind, m'sieur, " added Henri, falling partly into French in hisamazement. He was raising his rifle again. Weyman seized it firmly. 

[Illustration: "Wait! it's not a wolf!"]

"Don't kill them, Henri, " he said. "Give them to me--alive. Figure upthe value of the lynx they have destroyed, and add to that the wolfbounty, and I will pay. Alive, they are worth to me a great deal. MyGod, a dog--and a blind wolf--_mates_!"

He still held Henri's rifle, and Henri was staring at him, as if he didnot yet quite understand. 

Weyman continued speaking, his eyes and face blazing. 

"A dog--and a blind wolf--_mates_!" he repeated. "It is wonderful, Henri. Down there, they will say I have gone beyond _reason_, when mybook comes out. But I shall have proof. I shall take twenty photographshere, before you kill the lynx. I shall keep the dog and the wolf alive. And I shall pay you, Henri, a hundred dollars apiece for the two. May Ihave them?"

Henri nodded. He held his rifle in readiness, while Weyman unpacked hiscamera and got to work. Snarling fangs greeted the click of thecamera-shutter--the fangs of wolf and lynx. But Kazan lay cringing, notthrough fear, but because he still recognized the mastery of man. Andwhen he had finished with his pictures, Weyman approached almost withinreach of him, and spoke even more kindly to him than the man who hadlived back in the deserted cabin. 

Henri shot the lynx, and when Kazan understood this, he tore at the endof his trap-chains and snarled at the writhing body of his forest enemy. By means of a pole and a babiche noose, Kazan was brought out from underthe windfall and taken to Henri's cabin. The two men then returned witha thick sack and more babiche, and blind Gray Wolf, still fettered bythe traps, was made prisoner. All the rest of that day Weyman and Henriworked to build a stout cage of saplings, and when it was finished, thetwo prisoners were placed in it. 

Before the dog was put in with Gray Wolf, Weyman closely examined theworn and tooth-marked collar about his neck. 

On the brass plate he found engraved the one word, "Kazan, " and with astrange thrill made note of it in his diary. 

After this Weyman often remained at the cabin when Henri went out on thetrap-line. After the second day he dared to put his hand between thesapling bars and touch Kazan, and the next day Kazan accepted a piece ofraw moose meat from his hand. But at his approach, Gray Wolf wouldalways hide under the pile of balsam in the corner of their prison. Theinstinct of generations and perhaps of centuries had taught her that manwas her deadliest enemy. And yet, this man did not hurt her, and Kazanwas not afraid of him. She was frightened at first; then puzzled, and agrowing curiosity followed that. Occasionally, after the third day, shewould thrust her blind face out of the balsam and sniff the air whenWeyman was at the cage, making friends with Kazan. But she would noteat. Weyman noted that, and each day he tempted her with the choicestmorsels of deer and moose fat. Five days--six--seven passed, and she hadnot taken a mouthful. Weyman could count her ribs. 

"She die, " Henri told him on the seventh night. "She starve before sheeat in that cage. She want the forest, the wild kill, the fresh blood. She two--t'ree year old--too old to make civilize. "

Henri went to bed at the usual hour, but Weyman was troubled, and satup late. He wrote a long letter to the sweet-faced girl at NorthBattleford, and then he turned out the light, and painted visions of herin the red glow of the fire. He saw her again for that first time whenhe camped in the little shack where the fifth city of Saskatchewan nowstood--with her blue eyes, the big shining braid, and the fresh glow ofthe prairies in her cheeks. She had hated him--yes, actually hated him, because he loved to kill. He laughed softly as he thought of that. Shehad changed him--wonderfully. 

He rose, opened the door, softly, and went out. Instinctively his eyesturned westward. The sky was a blaze of stars. In their light he couldsee the cage, and he stood, watching and listening. A sound came to him. It was Gray Wolf gnawing at the sapling bars of her prison. A momentlater there came a low sobbing whine, and he knew that it was Kazancrying for his freedom. 

Leaning against the side of the cabin was an ax. Weyman seized it, andhis lips smiled silently. He was thrilled by a strange happiness, and athousand miles away in that city on the Saskatchewan he could feelanother spirit rejoicing with him. He moved toward the cage. A dozenblows, and two of the sapling bars were knocked out. Then Weyman drewback. Gray Wolf found the opening first, and she slipped out into thestarlight like a shadow. But she did not flee. Out in the open space shewaited for Kazan, and for a moment the two stood there, looking at thecabin. Then they set off into freedom, Gray Wolf's shoulder at Kazan'sflank. 

Weyman breathed deeply. 

"Two by two--always two by two, until death finds one of them, " hewhispered. 

CHAPTER XII

THE RED DEATH

Kazan and Gray Wolf wandered northward into the Fond du Lac country, andwere there when Jacques, a Hudson Bay Company's runner, came up to thepost from the south with the first authentic news of the dreadplague--the smallpox. For weeks there had been rumors on all sides. Andrumor grew into rumor. From the east, the south and the west theymultiplied, until on all sides the Paul Reveres of the wilderness werecarrying word that _La Mort Rouge_--the Red Death--was at their heels, and the chill of a great fear swept like a shivering wind from the edgeof civilization to the bay. Nineteen years before these same rumors hadcome up from the south, and the Red Terror had followed. The horror ofit still remained with the forest people, for a thousand unmarkedgraves, shunned like a pestilence, and scattered from the lower watersof James Bay to the lake country of the Athabasca, gave evidence of thetoll it demanded. 

Now and then in their wanderings Kazan and Gray Wolf had come upon thelittle mounds that covered the dead. Instinct--something that wasinfinitely beyond the comprehension of man--made them _feel_ thepresence of death about them, perhaps smell it in the air. Gray Wolf'swild blood and her blindness gave her an immense advantage over Kazanwhen it came to detecting those mysteries of the air and the earth whichthe eyes were not made to see. Each day that had followed that terriblemoonlit night on the Sun Rock, when the lynx had blinded her, had addedto the infallibility of her two chief senses--hearing and scent. And itwas she who discovered the presence of the plague first, just as she hadscented the great forest fire hours before Kazan had found it in theair. 

Kazan had lured her back to a trap-line. The trail they found was old. It had not been traveled for many days. In a trap they found a rabbit, but it had been dead a long time. In another there was the carcass of afox, torn into bits by the owls. Most of the traps were sprung. Otherswere covered with snow. Kazan, with his three-quarters strain of dog, ran over the trail from trap to trap, intent only on somethingalive--meat to devour. Gray Wolf, in her blindness, scented _death_. Itshivered in the tree-tops above her. She found it in every trap-housethey came to--death--_man death_. It grew stronger and stronger, andshe whined, and nipped Kazan's flank. And Kazan went on. Gray Wolffollowed him to the edge of the clearing in which Loti's cabin stood, and then she sat back on her haunches, raised her blind face to the graysky, and gave a long and wailing cry. In that moment the bristles beganto stand up along Kazan's spine. Once, long ago, he had howled beforethe tepee of a master who was newly dead, and he settled back on hishaunches, and gave the death-cry with Gray Wolf. He, too, scented itnow. Death was in the cabin, and over the cabin there stood a saplingpole, and at the end of the pole there fluttered a strip of red cottonrag--the warning flag of the plague from Athabasca to the bay. This man, like a hundred other heroes of the North, had run up the warning beforehe laid himself down to die. And that same night, in the cold light ofthe moon, Kazan and Gray Wolf swung northward into the country of theFond du Lac. 

There preceded them a messenger from the post on Reindeer Lake, who waspassing up the warning that had come from Nelson House and the countryto the southeast. 

"There's smallpox on the Nelson, " the messenger informed Williams, atFond du Lac, "and it has struck the Crees on Wollaston Lake. God onlyknows what it is doing to the Bay Indians, but we hear it is wiping outthe Chippewas between the Albany and the Churchill. " He left the sameday with his winded dogs. "I'm off to carry word to the Reveillon peopleto the west, " he explained. 

Three days later, word came from Churchill that all of the company'sservants and his majesty's subjects west of the bay should preparethemselves for the coming of the Red Terror. Williams' thin face turnedas white as the paper he held, as he read the words of the Churchillfactor. 

"It means dig graves, " he said. "That's the only preparation we canmake. "

He read the paper aloud to the men at Fond du Lac, and every availableman was detailed to spread the warning throughout the post's territory. There was a quick harnessing of dogs, and on each sledge that went outwas a roll of red cotton cloth--rolls that were ominous of death, luridsignals of pestilence and horror, whose touch sent shuddering chillsthrough the men who were about to scatter them among the forest people. Kazan and Gray Wolf struck the trail of one of these sledges on the GrayBeaver, and followed it for half a mile. The next day, farther to thewest, they struck another, and on the fourth day still a third. The lasttrail was fresh, and Gray Wolf drew back from it as if stung, her fangssnarling. On the wind there came to them the pungent odor of smoke. Theycut at right angles to the trail, Gray Wolf leaping clear of the marksin the snow, and climbed to the cap of a ridge. To windward of them, anddown in the plain, a cabin was burning. A team of huskies and a man weredisappearing in the spruce forest. Deep down in his throat Kazan gave arumbling whine. Gray Wolf stood as rigid as a rock. In the cabin aplague-dead man was burning. It was the law of the North. And themystery of the funeral pyre came again to Kazan and Gray Wolf. This timethey did not howl, but slunk down into the farther plain, and did notstop that day until they had buried themselves deep in a dry andsheltered swamp ten miles to the north. 

After this they followed the days and weeks which marked the winter ofnineteen hundred and ten as one of the most terrible in all the historyof the Northland--a single month in which wild life as well as humanhung in the balance, and when cold, starvation and plague wrote achapter in the lives of the forest people which will not be forgottenfor generations to come. 

In the swamp Kazan and Gray Wolf found a home under a windfall. It was asmall comfortable nest, shut in entirely from the snow and wind. GrayWolf took possession of it immediately. She flattened herself out on herbelly, and panted to show Kazan her contentment and satisfaction. Natureagain kept Kazan close at her side. A vision came to him, unreal anddream-like, of that wonderful night under the stars--ages and ages ago, it seemed--when he had fought the leader of the wolf-pack, and youngGray Wolf had crept to his side after his victory and had given herselfto him for mate. But this mating season there was no running after thedoe or the caribou, or mingling with the wild pack. They lived chieflyon rabbit and spruce partridge, because of Gray Wolf's blindness. Kazancould hunt those alone. The hair had now grown over Gray Wolf'ssightless eyes. She had ceased to grieve, to rub her eyes with her paws, to whine for the sunlight, the golden moon and the stars. Slowly shebegan to forget that she had ever seen those things. She could now runmore swiftly at Kazan's flank. Scent and hearing had become wonderfullykeen. She could wind a caribou two miles distant, and the presence ofman she could pick up at an even greater distance. On a still night shehad heard the splash of a trout half a mile away. And as these twothings--scent and hearing--became more and more developed in her, thosesame senses became less active in Kazan. 

He began to depend upon Gray Wolf. She would point out the hiding-placeof a partridge fifty yards from their trail. In their hunts she becamethe leader--until game was found. And as Kazan learned to trust to herin the hunt, so he began just as instinctively to heed her warnings. IfGray Wolf reasoned, it was to the effect that without Kazan she woulddie. She had tried hard now and then to catch a partridge, or a rabbit, but she had always failed. Kazan meant life to her. And--if shereasoned--it was to make herself indispensable to her mate. Blindnesshad made her different than she would otherwise have been. Again naturepromised motherhood to her. But she did not--as she would have done inthe open, and with sight--hold more and more aloof from Kazan as thedays passed. It was her habit, spring, summer and winter, to snuggleclose to Kazan and lie with her beautiful head resting on his neck orback. If Kazan snarled at her she did not snap back, but slunk down asthough struck a blow. With her warm tongue she would lick away the icethat froze to the long hair between Kazan's toes. For days after he hadrun a sliver in his paw she nursed his foot. Blindness had made Kazanabsolutely necessary to her existence--and now, in a different way, shebecame more and more necessary to Kazan. They were happy in their swamphome. There was plenty of small game about them, and it was warm underthe windfall. Rarely did they go beyond the limits of the swamp to hunt. Out on the more distant plains and the barren ridges they occasionallyheard the cry of the wolf-pack on the trail of meat, but it no longerthrilled them with a desire to join in the chase. 

One day they struck farther than usual to the west. They left the swamp, crossed a plain over which a fire had swept the preceding year, climbeda ridge, and descended into a second plain. At the bottom Gray Wolfstopped and sniffed the air. At these times Kazan always watched her, waiting eagerly and nervously if the scent was too faint for him tocatch. But to-day he caught the edge of it, and he knew why Gray Wolf'sears flattened, and her hindquarters drooped. The scent of game wouldhave made her rigid and alert. But it was not the game smell. It washuman, and Gray Wolf slunk behind Kazan and whined. For several minutesthey stood without moving or making a sound, and then Kazan led the wayon. Less than three hundred yards away they came to a thick clump ofscrub spruce, and almost ran into a snow-smothered tepee. It wasabandoned. Life and fire had not been there for a long time. But fromthe tepee had come the man-smell. With legs rigid and his spinequivering Kazan approached the opening to the tepee. He looked in. Inthe middle of the tepee, lying on the charred embers of a fire, lay aragged blanket--and in the blanket was wrapped the body of a littleIndian child. Kazan could see the tiny moccasined feet. But so long haddeath been there that he could scarcely smell the presence of it. Hedrew back, and saw Gray Wolf cautiously nosing about a long andpeculiarly shaped hummock in the snow. She had traveled about it threetimes, but never approaching nearer than a man could have reached with arifle barrel. At the end of her third circle she sat down on herhaunches, and Kazan went close to the hummock and sniffed. Under thatbulge in the snow, as well as in the tepee, there was death. They slunkaway, their ears flattened and their tails drooping until they trailedthe snow, and did not stop until they reached their swamp home. Eventhere Gray Wolf still sniffed the horror of the plague, and her musclestwitched and shivered as she lay close at Kazan's side. 

That night the big white moon had around its edge a crimson rim. Itmeant cold--intense cold. Always the plague came in the days of greatestcold--the lower the temperature the more terrible its havoc. It grewsteadily colder that night, and the increased chill penetrated to theheart of the windfall, and drew Kazan and Gray Wolf closer together. With dawn, which came at about eight o'clock, Kazan and his blind matesallied forth into the day. It was fifty degrees below zero. About themthe trees cracked with reports like pistol-shots. In the thickest sprucethe partridges were humped into round balls of feathers. The snow-shoerabbits had burrowed deep under the snow or to the heart of the heaviestwindfalls. Kazan and Gray Wolf found few fresh trails, and after anhour of fruitless hunting they returned to their lair. Kazan, dog-like, had buried the half of a rabbit two or three days before, and they dugthis out of the snow and ate the frozen flesh. 

All that day it grew colder--steadily colder. The night that followedwas cloudless, with a white moon and brilliant stars. The temperaturehad fallen another ten degrees, and nothing was moving. Traps were neversprung on such nights, for even the furred things--the mink, and theermine, and the lynx--lay snug in the holes and the nests they had foundfor themselves. An increasing hunger was not strong enough to driveKazan and Gray Wolf from their windfall. The next day there was no breakin the terrible cold, and toward noon Kazan set out on a hunt for meat, leaving Gray Wolf in the windfall. Being three-quarters dog, food wasmore necessary to Kazan than to his mate. Nature has fitted thewolf-breed for famine, and in ordinary temperature Gray Wolf could havelived for a fortnight without food. At sixty degrees below zero shecould exist a week, perhaps ten days. Only thirty hours had passedsinee they had devoured the last of the frozen rabbit, and she was quitesatisfied to remain in their snug retreat. 

But Kazan was hungry. He began to hunt in the face of the wind, traveling toward the burned plain. He nosed about every windfall that hecame to, and investigated the thickets. A thin shot-like snow hadfallen, and in this--from the windfall to the burn--he found but asingle trail, and that was the trail of an ermine. Under a windfall hecaught the warm scent of a rabbit, but the rabbit was as safe from himthere as were the partridges in the trees, and after an hour of futiledigging and gnawing he gave up his effort to reach it. For three hourshe had hunted when he returned to Gray Wolf. He was exhausted. WhileGray Wolf, with the instinct of the wild, had saved her own strength andenergy, Kazan had been burning up his reserve forces, and was hungrierthan ever. 

The moon rose clear and brilliant in the sky again that night, and Kazanset out once more on the hunt. He urged Gray Wolf to accompany him, whining for her outside the windfall--returning for her twice--butGray Wolf laid her ears aslant and refused to move. The temperature hadnow fallen to sixty-five or seventy degrees below zero, and with itthere came from the north an increasing wind, making the night one inwhich human life could not have existed for an hour. By midnight Kazanwas back under the windfall. The wind grew stronger. It began to wail inmournful dirges over the swamp, and then it burst in fierce shriekingvolleys, with intervals of quiet between. These were the first warningsfrom the great barrens that lay between the last lines of timber and theArctic. With morning the storm burst in all its fury from out of thenorth, and Gray Wolf and Kazan lay close together and shivered as theylistened to the roar of it over the windfall. Once Kazan thrust his headand shoulders out from the shelter of the fallen trees, but the stormdrove him back. Everything that possessed life had sought shelter, according to its way and instinct. The furred creatures like the minkand the ermine were safest, for during the warmer hunting days they wereof the kind that cached meat. The wolves and the foxes had sought outthe windfalls, and the rocks. Winged things, with the exception of theowls, who were a tenth part body and nine-tenths feathers, burrowedunder snow-drifts or found shelter in thick spruce. To the hoofed andhorned animals the storm meant greatest havoc. The deer, the caribou andthe moose could not crawl under windfalls or creep between rocks. Thebest they could do was to lie down in the lee of a drift, and allowthemselves to be covered deep with the protecting snow. Even then theycould not keep their shelter long, for they had to _eat_. For eighteenhours out of the twenty-four the moose had to feed to keep himself aliveduring the winter. His big stomach demanded quantity, and it took himmost of his time to nibble from the tops of bushes the two or threebushels he needed a day. The caribou required almost as much--the deerleast of the three. 

And the storm kept up that day, and the next, and still a third--threedays and three nights--and the third day and night there came with it astinging, shot-like snow that fell two feet deep on the level, and indrifts of eight and ten. It was the "heavy snow" of the Indians--thesnow that lay like lead on the earth, and under which partridges andrabbits were smothered in thousands. 

On the fourth day after the beginning of the storm Kazan and Gray Wolfissued forth from the windfall. There was no longer a wind--no morefalling snow. The whole world lay under a blanket of unbroken white, andit was intensely cold. 

The plague had worked its havoc with men. Now had come the days offamine and death for the wild things. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE TRAIL OF HUNGER

Kazan and Gray Wolf had been a hundred and forty hours without food. ToGray Wolf this meant acute discomfort, a growing weakness. To Kazan itwas starvation. Six days and six nights of fasting had drawn in theirribs and put deep hollows in front of their hindquarters. Kazan's eyeswere red, and they narrowed to slits as he looked forth into the day. Gray Wolf followed him this time when he went out on the hard snow. Eagerly and hopefully they began the hunt in the bitter cold. They swungaround the edge of the windfall, where there had always been rabbits. There were no tracks now, and no scent. They continued in a horseshoecircle through the swamp, and the only scent they caught was that of asnow-owl perched up in a spruce. They came to the burn and turned back, hunting the opposite side of the swamp. On this side there was a ridge. They climbed the ridge, and from the cap of it looked out over a worldthat was barren of life. Ceaselessly Gray Wolf sniffed the air, but shegave no signal to Kazan. On the top of the ridge Kazan stood panting. His endurance was gone. On their return through the swamp he stumbledover an obstacle which he tried to clear with a jump. Hungrier andweaker, they returned to the windfall. The night that followed wasclear, and brilliant with stars. They hunted the swamp again. Nothingwas moving--save one other creature, and that was a fox. Instinct toldthem that it was futile to follow him. 

It was then that the old thought of the cabin returned to Kazan. Twothings the cabin had always meant to him--warmth and food. And farbeyond the ridge was the cabin, where he and Gray Wolf had howled at thescent of death. He did not think of man--or of that mystery which he hadhowled at. He thought only of the cabin, and the cabin had always meantfood. He set off in a straight line for the ridge, and Gray Wolffollowed. They crossed the ridge and the burn beyond, and entered theedge of a second swamp. Kazan was hunting listlessly now. His head hunglow. His bushy tail dragged in the snow. He was intent on thecabin--only the cabin. It was his last hope. But Gray Wolf was stillalert, taking in the wind, and lifting her head whenever Kazan stoppedto snuffle his chilled nose in the snow. At last it came--the scent!Kazan had moved on, but he stopped when he found that Gray Wolf was notfollowing. All the strength that was in his starved body revealed itselfin a sudden rigid tenseness as he looked at his mate. Her forefeet wereplanted firmly to the east; her slim gray head was reaching out for thescent; her body trembled. 

Then--suddenly--they heard a sound, and with a whining cry Kazan set outin its direction, with Gray Wolf at his flank. The scent grew strongerand stronger in Gray Wolf's nostrils, and soon it came to Kazan. It wasnot the scent of a rabbit or a partridge. It was big game. Theyapproached cautiously, keeping full in the wind. The swamp grewthicker, the spruce more dense, and now--from a hundred yards ahead ofthem--there came a crashing of locked and battling horns. Ten secondsmore they climbed over a snowdrift, and Kazan stopped and dropped flaton his belly. Gray Wolf crouched close at his side, her blind eyesturned to what she could smell but could not see. 

Fifty yards from them a number of moose had gathered for shelter in thethick spruce. They had eaten clear a space an acre in extent. The treeswere cropped bare as high as they could reach, and the snow was beatenhard under their feet. There were six animals in the acre, two of thembulls--and these bulls were fighting, while three cows and a yearlingwere huddled in a group watching the mighty duel. Just before the storma young bull, sleek, three-quarters grown, and with the small compactantlers of a four-year-old, had led the three cows and the yearling tothis sheltered spot among the spruce. Until last night he had beenmaster of the herd. During the night the older bull had invaded hisdominion. The invader was four times as old as the young bull. He washalf again as heavy. His huge palmate horns, knotted and irregular--butmassive--spoke of age. A warrior of a hundred fights, he had nothesitated to give battle in his effort to rob the younger bull of hishome and family. Three times they had fought since dawn, and thehard-trodden snow was red with blood. The smell of it came to Kazan'sand Gray Wolf's nostrils. Kazan sniffed hungrily. Queer sounds rolled upand down in Gray Wolf's throat, and she licked her jaws. 

For a moment the two fighters drew a few yards apart, and stood withlowered heads. The old bull had not yet won victory. The younger bullrepresented youth and endurance; in the older bull those things werepitted against craft, greater weight, maturer strength--and a head andhorns that were like a battering ram. But in that great hulk of theolder bull there was one other thing--age. His huge sides were panting. His nostrils were as wide as bells. Then, as if some invisible spirit ofthe arena had given the signal, the animals came together again. Thecrash of their horns could have been heard half a mile away, and undertwelve hundred pounds of flesh and bone the younger hull went plungingback upon his haunches. Then was when youth displayed itself. In aninstant he was up, and locking horns with his adversary. Twenty times hehad done this, and each attack had seemed filled with increasingstrength. And now, as if realizing that the last moments of the lastfight had come, he twisted the old bull's neck and fought as he hadnever fought before. Kazan and Gray Wolf both heard the sharp crack thatfollowed--as if a dry stick had been stepped upon and broken. It wasFebruary, and the hoofed animals were already beginning to shed theirhorns--especially the older bulls, whose palmate growths drop first. This fact gave victory to the younger bull in the blood-stained arena afew yards from Gray Wolf and Kazan. From its socket in the old bull'sskull one of his huge antlers broke with that sharp snapping sound, andin another moment four inches of stiletto-like horn buried itself backof his foreleg. In an instant all hope and courage left him, and heswung backward yard by yard, with the younger bull prodding his neck andshoulders until blood dripped from him in little streams. At the edgeof the clearing he flung himself free and crashed off into the forest. 

The younger bull did not pursue. He tossed his head, and stood for a fewmoments with heaving sides and dilated nostrils, facing in the directionhis vanquished foe had taken. Then he turned, and trotted back to thestill motionless cows and yearling. 

Kazan and Gray Wolf were quivering. Gray Wolf slunk back from the edgeof the clearing, and Kazan followed. No longer were they interested inthe cows and the young bull. From that clearing they had seen meatdriven forth--meat that was beaten in fight, and bleeding. Everyinstinct of the wild pack returned to Gray Wolf now--and in Kazan themad desire to taste the blood he smelled. Swiftly they turned toward theblood-stained trail of the old bull, and when they came to it they foundit spattered red. Kazan's jaws dripped as the hot scent drove the bloodlike veins of fire through his weakened body. His eyes were reddened bystarvation, and in them there was a light now that they had never knowneven in the days of the wolf-pack. 

He set off swiftly, almost forgetful of Gray Wolf. But his mate nolonger required his flank for guidance. With her nose close to the trailshe ran--ran as she had run in the long and thrilling hunts beforeblindness came. Half a mile from the spruce thicket they came upon theold bull. He had sought shelter behind a clump of balsam, and he stoodover a growing pool of blood in the snow. He was still breathing hard. His massive head, grotesque now with its one antler, was drooping. Flecks of blood dropped from his distended nostrils. Even then, with theold bull weakened by starvation, exhaustion and loss of blood, awolf-pack would have hung back before attacking. Where they would havehesitated, Kazan leaped in with a snarling cry. For an instant his fangssunk into the thick hide of the bull's throat. Then he was flungback--twenty feet. Hunger gnawing at his vitals robbed him of allcaution, and he sprang to the attack again--full at the bull'sfront--while Gray Wolf crept up unseen behind, seeking in her blindnessthe vulnerable part which nature had not taught Kazan to find. 

This time Kazan was caught fairly on the broad palmate leaf of thebull's antler, and he was flung back again, half stunned. In that samemoment Gray Wolf's long white teeth cut like knives through one of thebull's rope-like hamstrings. For thirty seconds she kept the hold, whilethe bull plunged wildly in his efforts to trample her underfoot. Kazanwas quick to learn, still quicker to be guided by Gray Wolf, and heleaped in again, snapping for a hold on the bulging cord just above theknee. He missed, and as he lunged forward on his shoulders Gray Wolf wasflung off. But she had accomplished her purpose. Beaten in open battlewith one of his kind, and now attacked by a still deadlier foe, the oldbull began to retreat. As he went, one hip sank under him at every step. The tendon of his left leg was bitten half through. 

Without being able to see, Gray Wolf seemed to realize what hadhappened. Again she was the pack-wolf--with all the old wolf strategy. Twice flung back by the old bull's horn, Kazan knew better than toattack openly again. Gray Wolf trotted after the bull, but he remainedbehind for a moment to lick up hungrily mouthfuls of the blood-soakedsnow. Then he followed, and ran close against Gray Wolf's side, fiftyyards behind the bull. There was more blood in the trail now--a thin redribbon of it. Fifteen minutes later the bull stopped again, and facedabout, his great head lowered. His eyes were red. There was a droop tohis neck and shoulders that spoke no longer of the unconquerablefighting spirit that had been a part of him for nearly a score of years. No longer was he lord of the wilderness about him; no longer was theredefiance in the poise of his splendid head, or the flash of eager firein his bloodshot eyes. His breath came with a gasping sound that wasgrowing more and more distinct. A hunter would have known what it meant. The stiletto-point of the younger bull's antler had gone home, and theold bull's lungs were failing him. More than once Gray Wolf had heardthat sound in the early days of her hunting with the pack, and sheunderstood. Slowly she began to circle about the wounded monarch at adistance of about twenty yards. Kazan kept at her side. 

Once--twice--twenty times they made that slow circle, and with each turnthey made the old bull turned, and his breath grew heavier and his headdrooped lower. Noon came, and was followed by the more intense cold ofthe last half of the day. Twenty circles became a hundred--twohundred--and more. Under Gray Wolf's and Kazan's feet the snow grew hardin the path they made. Under the old bull's widespread hoofs the snowwas no longer white--but red. A thousand times before this unseentragedy of the wilderness had been enacted. It was an epoch of that lifewhere life itself means the survival of the fittest, where to live meansto kill, and to die means to perpetuate life. At last, in that steadyand deadly circling of Gray Wolf and Kazan, there came a time when theold bull did not turn--then a second, a third and a fourth time, andGray Wolf seemed to know. With Kazan she drew back from the hard-beatentrail, and they flattened themselves on their bellies under a dwarfspruce--and waited. For many minutes the bull stood motionless, hishamstrung quarter sinking lower and lower. And then with a deepblood-choked gasp he sank down. 

For a long time Kazan and Gray Wolf did not move, and when at last theyreturned to the beaten trail the bull's heavy head was resting on thesnow. Again they began to circle, and now the circle narrowed foot byfoot, until only ten yards--then nine--then eight--separated them fromtheir prey. The bull attempted to rise, and failed. Gray Wolf heard theeffort. She heard him sink back and suddenly she leaped in swiftly andsilently from behind. Her sharp fangs buried themselves in the bull'snostrils, and with the first instinct of the husky, Kazan sprang for athroat hold. This time he was not flung off. It was Gray Wolf's terriblehold that gave him time to tear through the half-inch hide, and to buryhis teeth deeper and deeper, until at last they reached the jugular. Agush of warm blood spurted into his face. But he did not let go. Just ashe had held to the jugular of his first buck on that moonlight night along time ago, so he held to the old bull now. It was Gray Wolf whounclamped his jaws. She drew back, sniffing the air, listening. Then, slowly, she raised her head, and through the frozen and starvingwilderness there went her wailing triumphant cry--the call to meat. 

For them the days of famine had passed. 

CHAPTER XIV

THE RIGHT OF FANG

After the fight Kazan lay down exhausted in the blood-stained snow, while faithful Gray Wolf, still filled with the endurance of her wildwolf breed, tore fiercely at the thick skin on the bull's neck to layopen the red flesh. When she had done this she did not eat, but ran toKazan's side and whined softly as she muzzled him with her nose. Afterthat they feasted, crouching side by side at the bull's neck and tearingat the warm sweet flesh. 

The last pale light of the northern day was fading swiftly into nightwhen they drew back, gorged until there were no longer hollows in theirsides. The faint wind died away. The clouds that had hung in the skyduring the day drifted eastward, and the moon shone brilliant and clear. For an hour the night continued to grow lighter. To the brilliance ofthe moon and the stars there was added now the pale fires of the auroraborealis, shivering and flashing over the Pole. 

Its hissing crackling monotone, like the creaking of steelsledge-runners on frost-filled snow, came faintly to the ears of Kazanand Gray Wolf. 

As yet they had not gone a hundred yards from the dead bull, and at thefirst sound of that strange mystery in the northern skies they stoppedand listened to it, alert and suspicious. Then they laid their earsaslant and trotted slowly back to the meat they had killed. Instincttold them that it was theirs only by right of fang. They had fought tokill it. And it was in the law of the wild that they would have to fightto keep it. In good hunting days they would have gone on and wanderedunder the moon and the stars. But long days and nights of starvation hadtaught them something different now. 

On that clear and stormless night following the days of plague andfamine, a hundred thousand hungry creatures came out from their retreatsto hunt for food. For eighteen hundred miles east and west and athousand miles north and south, slim gaunt-bellied creatures huntedunder the moon and the stars. Something told Kazan and Gray Wolf thatthis hunt was on, and never for an instant did they cease theirvigilance. At last they lay down at the edge of the spruce thicket, andwaited. Gray Wolf muzzled Kazan gently with her blind face. The uneasywhine in her throat was a warning to him. Then she sniffed the air, andlistened--sniffed and listened. 

Suddenly every muscle in their bodies grew rigid. Something living hadpassed near them, something that they could not see or hear, andscarcely scent. It came again, as mysterious as a shadow, and then outof the air there floated down as silently as a huge snowflake a greatwhite owl. Kazan saw the hungry winged creature settle on the bull'sshoulder. Like a flash he was out from his cover, Gray Wolf a yardbehind him. With an angry snarl he lunged at the white robber, and hisjaws snapped on empty air. His leap carried him clean over the bull. Heturned, but the owl was gone. 

Nearly all of his old strength had returned to him now. He trotted aboutthe bull, the hair along his spine bristling like a brush, his eyeswide and menacing. He snarled at the still air. His jaws clicked, and hesat back on his haunches and faced the blood-stained trail that themoose had left before he died. Again that instinct as infallible asreason told him that danger would come from there. 

Like a red ribbon the trail ran back through the wilderness. The littleswift-moving ermine were everywhere this night, looking like white ratsas they dodged about in the moonlight. They were first to find thetrail, and with all the ferocity of their blood-eating nature followedit with quick exciting leaps. A fox caught the scent of it a quarter ofa mile to windward, and came nearer. From out of a deep windfall abeady-eyed, thin-bellied fisher-cat came forth, and stopped with hisfeet in the crimson ribbon. 

It was the fisher-cat that brought Kazan out; from under his cover ofspruce again. In the moonlight there was a sharp quick fight, a snarlingand scratching, a cat-like yowl of pain, and the fisher forgot hishunger in flight. Kazan returned to Gray Wolf with a lacerated andbleeding nose. Gray Wolf licked it sympathetically, while Kazan stoodrigid and listening. 

The fox swung swiftly away with the wind, warned by the sounds ofconflict. He was not a fighter, but a murderer who killed from behind, and a little later he leaped upon an owl and tore it into bits for thehalf-pound of flesh within the mass of feathers. 

But nothing could drive back those little white outlaws of thewilderness--the ermine. They would have stolen between the feet of manto get at the warm flesh and blood of the freshly killed bull. Kazanhunted them savagely. They were too quick for him, more like elusiveflashes in the moonlight than things of life. They burrowed under theold bull's body and fed while he raved and filled his mouth with snow. Gray Wolf sat placidly on her haunches. The little ermine did nottrouble her, and after a time Kazan realized this, and flung himselfdown beside her, panting and exhausted. 

For a long time after that the night was almost unbroken by sound. Oncein the far distance there came the cry of a wolf, and now and then, topunctuate the deathly silence, the snow owl hooted in blood-curdlingprotest from his home in the spruce-tops. The moon was straight abovethe old bull when Gray Wolf scented the first real danger. Instantly shegave the warning to Kazan and faced the bloody trail, her lithe bodyquivering, her fangs gleaming in the starlight, a snarling whine in herthroat. Only in the face of their deadliest enemy, the lynx--theterrible fighter who had blinded her long ago in that battle on the SunRock!--did she give such warning as this to Kazan. He sprang ahead ofher, ready for battle even before he caught the scent of the graybeautiful creature of death stealing over the trail. 

Then came the interruption. From a mile away there burst forth a singlefierce long-drawn howl. 

After all, that was the cry of the true master of the wilderness--thewolf. It was the cry of hunger. It was the cry that sent men's bloodrunning more swiftly through their veins, that brought the moose and thedeer to their feet shivering in every limb--the cry that wailed like anote of death through swamp and forest and over the snow-smotheredridges until its faintest echoes reached for miles into the starlitnight. 

There was silence, and in that awesome stillness Kazan and Gray Wolfstood shoulder to shoulder facing the cry, and in response to that crythere worked within them a strange and mystic change, for what they hadheard was not a warning or a menace but the call of Brotherhood. Awayoff there--beyond the lynx and the fox and the fisher-cat, were thecreatures of their kind, the wild-wolf pack, to which the right to allflesh and blood was common--in which existed that savage socialism ofthe wilderness, the Brotherhood of the Wolf. And Gray Wolf, setting backon her haunches, sent forth the response to that cry--a wailingtriumphant note that told her hungry brethren there was feasting at theend of the trail. 

And the lynx, between those two cries, sneaked off into the wide andmoonlit spaces of the forest. 

CHAPTER XV

A FIGHT UNDER THE STARS

On their haunches Kazan and Gray Wolf waited. Five minutes passed, ten--fifteen--and Gray Wolf became uneasy. No response had followed hercall. Again she howled, with Kazan quivering and listening beside her, and again there followed that dead stillness of the night. This was notthe way of the pack. She knew that it had not gone beyond the reach ofher voice and its silence puzzled her. And then in a flash it came tothem both that the pack, or the single wolf whose cry they had heard, was very near them. The scent was warm. A few moments later Kazan saw amoving object in the moonlight. It was followed by another, and stillanother, until there were five slouching in a half-circle about them, seventy yards away. Then they laid themselves flat in the snow and weremotionless. 

A snarl turned Kazan's eyes to Gray Wolf. His blind mate had drawnback. Her white fangs gleamed menacingly in the starlight. Her ears wereflat. Kazan was puzzled. Why was she signaling danger to him when it wasthe wolf, and not the lynx, out there in the snow? And why did thewolves not come in and feast? Slowly he moved toward them, and Gray Wolfcalled to him with her whine. He paid no attention to her, but went on, stepping lightly, his head high in the air, his spine bristling. 

In the scent of the strangers, Kazan was catching something now that wasstrangely familiar. It drew him toward them more swiftly and when atlast he stopped twenty yards from where the little group lay flattenedin the snow, his thick brush waved slightly. One of the animals sprangup and approached. The others followed and in another moment Kazan wasin the midst of them, smelling and smelled, and wagging his tail. Theywere dogs, and not wolves. 

In some lonely cabin in the wilderness their master had died, and theyhad taken to the forests. They still bore signs of the sledge-traces. About their necks were moose-hide collars. The hair was worn short attheir flanks, and one still dragged after him three feet of cordedbabiche trace. Their eyes gleamed red and hungry in the glow of the moonand the stars. They were thin, and gaunt and starved, and Kazan suddenlyturned and trotted ahead of them to the side of the dead bull. Then hefell back and sat proudly on his haunches beside Gray Wolf, listening tothe snapping of jaws and the rending of flesh as the starved packfeasted. 

Gray Wolf slunk closer to Kazan. She muzzled his neck and Kazan gave hera swift dog-like caress of his tongue, assuring her that all was well. She flattened herself in the snow when the dogs had finished and came upin their dog way to sniff at her, and make closer acquaintance withKazan. Kazan towered over her, guarding her. One huge red-eyed dog whostill dragged the bit of babiche trace muzzled Gray Wolf's soft neck fora fraction of a second too long, and Kazan uttered a savage snarl ofwarning. The dog drew back, and for a moment their fangs gleamed overGray Wolf's blind face. It was the Challenge of the Breed. 

The big husky was the leader of the pack, and if one of the other dogshad snarled at him, as Kazan snarled he would have leaped at his throat. But in Kazan, standing fierce and half wild over Gray Wolf, herecognized none of the serfdom of the sledge-dogs. It was master facingmaster; in Kazan it was more than that for he was Gray Wolf's mate. Inan instant more he would have leaped over her body to have fought forher, more than for the right of leadership. But the big husky turnedaway sullenly, growling, still snarling, and vented his rage by nippingfiercely at the flank of one of his sledge-mates. 

Gray Wolf understood what had happened, though she could not see. Sheshrank closer to Kazan. She knew that the moon and the stars had lookeddown on that thing that always meant death--the challenge to the rightof mate. With her luring coyness, whining and softly muzzling hisshoulder and neck, she tried to draw Kazan away from the pad-beatencircle in which the bull lay. Kazan's answer was an ominous rolling ofsmothered thunder deep down in his throat. He lay down beside her, licked her blind face swiftly, and faced the stranger dogs. 

The moon sank lower and lower and at last dropped behind the westernforests. The stars grew paler. One by one they faded from the sky andafter a time there followed the cold gray dawn of the North. In thatdawn the big husky leader rose from the hole he had made in the snow andreturned to the bull. Kazan, alert, was on his feet in an instant andstood also close to the bull. The two circled ominously, their headslowered, their crests bristling. The husky drew away, and Kazan crouchedat the bull's neck and began tearing at the frozen flesh. He was nothungry. But in this way he showed his right to the flesh, his defianceof the right of the big husky. 

For a few seconds he forgot Gray Wolf. The husky had slipped back like ashadow and now he stood again over Gray Wolf, sniffing her neck andbody. Then he whined. In that whine were the passion, the invitation, the demand of the Wild. So quickly that the eye could scarcely followher movement faithful Gray Wolf sank her gleaming fangs in the husky'sshoulder. 

A gray streak--nothing more tangible than a streak of gray, silent andterrible, shot through the dawn-gloom. It was Kazan. He came without asnarl, without a cry, and in a moment he and the husky were in thethroes of terrific battle. 

The four other huskies ran in quickly and stood waiting a dozen pacesfrom the combatants. Gray Wolf lay crouched on her belly. The gianthusky and the quarter-strain wolf-dog were not fighting like sledge-dogor wolf. For a few moments rage and hatred made them fight likemongrels. Both had holds. Now one was down, and now the other, and soswiftly did they change their positions that the four waitingsledge-dogs were puzzled and stood motionless. Under other conditionsthey would have leaped upon the first of the fighters to be thrown uponhis back and torn him to pieces. That was the way of the wolf and thewolf-dog. But now they stood back, hesitating and fearful. 

The big husky had never been beaten in battle. Great Dane ancestors hadgiven him a huge bulk and a jaw that could crush an ordinary dog's head. But in Kazan he was meeting not only the dog and the wolf, but all thatwas best in the two. And Kazan had the advantage of a few hours of restand a full stomach. More than that, he was fighting for Gray Wolf. Hisfangs had sunk deep in the husky's shoulder, and the husky's long teethmet through the hide and flesh of his neck. An inch deeper, and theywould have pierced his jugular. Kazan knew this, as he crunched hisenemy's shoulder-bone, and every instant--even in their fierceststruggling--he was guarding against a second and more successful lungeof those powerful jaws. 

At last the lunge came, and quicker than the wolf itself Kazan freedhimself and leaped back. His chest dripped blood, but he did not feelthe hurt. They began slowly to circle, and now the watching sledge-dogsdrew a step or two nearer, and their jaws drooled nervously and theirred eyes glared as they waited for the fatal moment. Their eyes were onthe big husky. He became the pivot of Kazan's wider circle now, and helimped as he turned. His shoulder was broken. His ears were flattenedas he watched Kazan. 

Kazan's ears were erect, and his feet touched the snow lightly. All hisfighting cleverness and all his caution had returned to him. The blindrage of a few moments was gone and he fought now as he had fought hisdeadliest enemy, the long-clawed lynx. Five times he circled around thehusky, and then like a shot he was in, sending his whole weight againstthe husky's shoulder, with the momentum of a ten-foot leap behind it. This time he did not try for a hold, but slashed at the husky's jaws. Itwas the deadliest of all attacks when that merciless tribunal of deathstood waiting for the first fall of the vanquished. The huge dog wasthrown from his feet. For a fatal moment he rolled upon his side and inthe moment his four sledge-mates were upon him. All of their hatred ofthe weeks and months in which the long-fanged leader had bullied them inthe traces was concentrated upon him now and he was literally torn intopieces. 

Kazan pranced to Gray Wolf's side and with a joyful whine she laid herhead over his neck. Twice he had fought the Fight of Death for her. Twice he had won. And in her blindness Gray Wolf's soul--if soul shehad--rose in exultation to the cold gray sky, and her breast pantedagainst Kazan's shoulder as she listened to the crunching of fangs inthe flesh and bone of the foe her lord and master had overthrown. 

CHAPTER XVI

THE CALL

Followed days of feasting on the frozen flesh of the old bull. In vainGray Wolf tried to lure Kazan off into the forests and the swamps. Dayby day the temperature rose. There was hunting now. And Gray Wolf wantedto be alone--with Kazan. But with Kazan, as with most men, leadershipand power roused new sensations. And he was the leader of the dog-pack, as he had once been a leader among the wolves. Not only Gray Wolffollowed at his flank now, but the four huskies trailed behind him. Oncemore he was experiencing that triumph and strange thrill that he hadalmost forgotten and only Gray Wolf, in that eternal night of herblindness, felt with dread foreboding the danger into which his newlyachieved czarship might lead him. 

For three days and three nights they remained in the neighborhood of thedead moose, ready to defend it against others, and yet each day andeach night growing less vigilant in their guard. Then came the fourthnight, on which they killed a young doe. Kazan led in that chase and forthe first time, in the excitement of having the pack at his back, heleft his blind mate behind. When they came to the kill he was the firstto leap at its soft throat. And not until he had begun to tear at thedoe's flesh did the others dare to eat. He was master. He could sendthem back with a snarl. At the gleam of his fangs they crouchedquivering on their bellies in the snow. 

Kazan's blood was fomented with brute exultation, and the excitement andfascination that came in the possession of new power took the place ofGray Wolf each day a little more. She came in half an hour after thekill, and there was no longer the lithesome alertness to her slenderlegs, or gladness in the tilt of her ears or the poise of her head. Shedid not eat much of the doe. Her blind face was turned always in Kazan'sdirection. Wherever he moved she followed with her unseeing eyes, as ifexpecting each moment his old signal to her--that low throat-note thathad called to her so often when they were alone in the wilderness. 

In Kazan, as leader of the pack, there was working a curious change. Ifhis mates had been wolves it would not have been difficult for Gray Wolfto have lured him away. But Kazan was among his own kind. He was a dog. And they were dogs. Fires that had burned down and ceased to warm himflamed up in him anew. In his life with Gray Wolf one thing hadoppressed him as it could not oppress her, and that thing wasloneliness. Nature had created him of that kind which requirescompanionship--not of one but of many. It had given him birth that hemight listen to and obey the commands of the voice of man. He had grownto hate men, but of the dogs--his kind--he was a part. He had been happywith Gray Wolf, happier than he had ever been in the companionship ofmen and his blood-brothers. But he had been a long time separated fromthe life that had once been his and the call of blood made him for atime forget. And only Gray Wolf, with that wonderful super-instinctwhich nature was giving her in place of her lost sight, foresaw the endto which it was leading him. 

Each day the temperature continued to rise until when the sun waswarmest the snow began to thaw a little. This was two weeks after thefight near the bull. Gradually the pack had swung eastward, until it wasnow fifty miles east and twenty miles south of the old home under thewindfall. More than ever Gray Wolf began to long for their old nestunder the fallen trees. Again with those first promises of spring insunshine and air, there was coming also for the second time in her lifethe promise of approaching motherhood. 

But her efforts to draw Kazan back were unavailing, and in spite of herprotest he wandered each day a little farther east and south at the headof his pack. 

Instinct impelled the four huskies to move in that direction. They hadnot yet been long enough a part of the wild to forget the necessity ofman and in that direction there was man. In that direction, and not farfrom them now, was the Hudson Bay Company's post to which they and theirdead master owed their allegiance. Kazan did not know this, but one daysomething happened to bring back visions and desires that widened stillmore the gulf between him and Gray Wolf. 

They had come to the cap of a ridge when something stopped them. It wasa man's voice crying shrilly that word of long ago that had so oftenstirred the blood in Kazan's own veins--"_m'hoosh! m'hoosh!m'hoosh!"_--and from the ridge they looked down upon the open space ofthe plain, where a team of six dogs was trotting ahead of a sledge, witha man running behind them, urging them on at every other step with thatcry of "_m'hoosh! m'hoosh! m'hoosh!"_

Trembling and undecided, the four huskies and the wolf-dog stood on theridge with Gray Wolf cringing behind them. Not until man and dogs andsledge had disappeared did they move, and then they trotted down to thetrail and sniffed at it whiningly and excitedly. For a mile or two theyfollowed it, Kazan and his mates going fearlessly in the trail. GrayWolf hung back, traveling twenty yards to the right of them, with thehot man-scent driving the blood feverishly through her brain. Only herlove for Kazan--and the faith she still had in him--kept her that near. 

At the edge of a swamp Kazan halted and turned away from the trail. Withthe desire that was growing in him there was still that old suspicionwhich nothing could quite wipe out--the suspicion that was aninheritance of his quarter-strain of wolf. Gray Wolf whined joyfullywhen he turned into the forest, and drew so close to him that hershoulder rubbed against Kazan's as they traveled side by side. 

The "slush" snows followed fast after this. And the "slush" snows meantspring--and the emptying of the wilderness of human life. Kazan and hismates soon began to scent the presence and the movement of this life. They were now within thirty miles of the post. For a hundred miles onall sides of them the trappers were moving in with their late winter'scatch of furs. From east and west, south and north, all trails led tothe post. The pack was caught in the mesh of them. For a week not a daypassed that they did not cross a fresh trail, and sometimes two orthree. 

Gray Wolf was haunted by constant fear. In her blindness she knew thatthey were surrounded by the menace of men. To Kazan what was coming topass had more and more ceased to fill him with fear and caution. Threetimes that week he heard the shouts of men--and once he heard a whiteman's laughter and the barking of dogs as their master tossed them theirdaily feed of fish. In the air he caught the pungent scent of camp-firesand one night, in the far distance, he heard a wild snatch of song, followed by the yelping and barking of a dog-pack. 

Slowly and surely the lure of man drew him nearer to the post--a mileto-night, two miles to-morrow, but always nearer. And Gray Wolf, fighting her losing fight to the end, sensed in the danger-filled airthe nearness of that hour when he would respond to the final call andshe would be left alone. 

These were days of activity and excitement at the fur company's post, the days of accounting, of profit and of pleasure;--the days when thewilderness poured in its treasure of fur, to be sent a little later toLondon and Paris and the capitals of Europe. And this year there wasmore than the usual interest in the foregathering of the forest people. The plague had wrought its terrible havoc, and not until the fur-huntershad come to answer to the spring roll-call would it be known accuratelywho had lived and who had died. 

The Chippewans and half-breeds from the south began to arrive first, with their teams of mongrel curs, picked up along the borders ofcivilization. Close after them came the hunters from the western barrenlands, bringing with them loads of white fox and caribou skins, and anarmy of big-footed, long-legged Mackenzie hounds that pulled like horsesand wailed like whipped puppies when the huskies and Eskimo dogs setupon them. Packs of fierce Labrador dogs, never vanquished except bydeath, came from close to Hudson's Bay. Team after team of little yellowand gray Eskimo dogs, as quick with their fangs as were their black andswift-running masters with their hands and feet, met the much larger anddark-colored Malemutes from the Athabasca. Enemies of all these packs offierce huskies trailed in from all sides, fighting, snapping andsnarling, with the lust of killing deep born in them from their wolfprogenitors. 

There was no cessation in the battle of the fangs. It began with thefirst brute arrivals. It continued from dawn through the day and aroundthe camp-fires at night. There was never an end to the strife betweenthe dogs, and between the men and the dogs. The snow was trailed andstained with blood and the scent of it added greater fierceness to thewolf-breeds. 

Half a dozen battles were fought to the death each day and night. Thosethat died were chiefly the south-bred curs--mixtures of mastiff, GreatDane, and sheep-dog--and the fatally slow Mackenzie hounds. About thepost rose the smoke of a hundred camp-fires, and about these firesgathered the women and the children of the hunters. When the snow was nolonger fit for sledging, Williams, the factor, noted that there weremany who had not come, and the accounts of these he later scratched outof his ledgers knowing that they were victims of the plague. 

At last came the night of the Big Carnival, For weeks and months womenand children and men had been looking forward to this. In scores offorest cabins, in smoke-blackened tepees, and even in the frozen homesof the little Eskimos, anticipation of this wild night of pleasure hadgiven an added zest to life. It was the Big Circus--the good time giventwice each year by the company to its people. 

This year, to offset the memory of plague and death, the factor had putforth unusual exertions. His hunters had killed four fat caribou. In theclearing there were great piles of dry logs, and in the center of allthere rose eight ten-foot tree-butts crotched at the top; and fromcrotch to crotch there rested a stout sapling stripped of bark, and oneach sapling was spitted the carcass of a caribou, to be roasted wholeby the heat of the fire beneath. The fires were lighted at dusk, andWilliams himself started the first of those wild songs of theNorthland--the song of the caribou, as the flames leaped up into thedark night. 

 "Oh, ze cariboo-oo-oo, ze cariboo-oo-oo, He roas' on high, Jes' under ze sky. Air-holes beeg white cariboo-oo-oo!"

"Now!" he yelled. "Now--all together!" And carried away by hisenthusiasm, the forest people awakened from their silence of months, and the song burst forth in a savage frenzy that reached to the skies. 

 * * * * *

Two miles to the south and west that first thunder of human voicereached the ears of Kazan and Gray Wolf and the masterless huskies. Andwith the voices of men they heard now the excited howlings of dogs. Thehuskies faced the direction of the sounds, moving restlessly andwhining. For a few moments Kazan stood as though carven of rock. Then heturned his head, and his first look was to Gray Wolf. She had slunk backa dozen feet and lay crouched under the thick cover of a balsam shrub. Her body, legs and neck were flattened in the snow. She made no sound, but her lips were drawn back and her teeth shone white. 

Kazan trotted back to her, sniffed at her blind face and whined. GrayWolf still did not move. He returned to the dogs and his jaws opened andclosed with a snap. Still more clearly came the wild voice of thecarnival, and no longer to be held back by Kazan's leadership, the fourhuskies dropped their heads and slunk like shadows in its direction. Kazan hesitated, urging Gray Wolf. But not a muscle of Gray Wolf's bodymoved. She would have followed him in face of fire but not in face ofman. Not a sound escaped her ears. She heard the quick fall of Kazan'sfeet as he left her. In another moment she knew that he was gone. Then--and not until then--did she lift her head, and from her softthroat there broke a whimpering cry. 

It was her last call to Kazan. But stronger than that there was runningthrough Kazan's excited blood the call of man and of dog. The huskieswere far in advance of him now and for a few moments he raced madly toovertake them. Then he slowed down until he was trotting, and a hundredyards farther on he stopped. Less than a mile away he could see wherethe flames of the great fires were reddening the sky. He gazed back tosee if Gray Wolf was following and then went on until he struck an openand hard traveled trail. It was beaten with the footprints of men anddogs, and over it two of the caribou had been dragged a day or twobefore. 

At last he came to the thinned out strip of timber that surrounded theclearing and the flare of the flames was in his eyes. The bedlam ofsound that came to him now was like fire in his brain. He heard the songand the laughter of men, the shrill cries of women and children, thebarking and snarling and fighting of a hundred dogs. He wanted to rushout and join them, to become again a part of what he had once been. Yardby yard he sneaked through the thin timber until he reached the edge ofthe clearing. There he stood in the shadow of a spruce and looked outupon life as he had once lived it, trembling, wistful and yet hesitatingin that final moment. 

A hundred yards away was the savage circle of men and dogs and fire. Hisnostrils were filled with the rich aroma of the roasting caribou, and ashe crouched down, still with that wolfish caution that Gray Wolf hadtaught him, men with long poles brought the huge carcasses crashing downupon the melting snow about the fires. In one great rush the horde ofwild revelers crowded in with bared knives, and a snarling mass of dogsclosed in behind them. In another moment he had forgotten Gray Wolf, hadforgotten all that man and the wild had taught him, and like a graystreak was across the open. 

The dogs were surging back when he reached them, with half a dozen ofthe factor's men lashing them in the faces with long caribou-gut whips. The sting of a lash fell in a fierce cut over an Eskimo dog's shoulder, and in snapping at the lash his fangs struck Kazan's rump. Withlightning swiftness Kazan returned the cut, and in an instant the jawsof the dogs had met. In another instant they were down and Kazan had theEskimo dog by the throat. 

With shouts the men rushed in. Again and again their whips cut likeknives through the air. Their blows fell on Kazan, who was uppermost, and as he felt the burning pain of the scourging whips there floodedthrough him all at once the fierce memory of the days of old--the daysof the Club and the Lash. He snarled. Slowly he loosened his hold of theEskimo dog's throat. And then, out of the mêlée of dogs and men, theresprang another man--_with a club_! It fell on Kazan's back and the forceof it sent him flat into the snow. It was raised again. Behind the clubthere was a face--a brutal, fire-reddened face. It was such a face thathad driven Kazan into the wild, and as the club fell again he evaded thefull weight of its blow and his fangs gleamed like ivory knives. A thirdtime the club was raised, and this time Kazan met it in mid-air, and histeeth ripped the length of the man's forearm. 

"Good God!" shrieked the man in pain, and Kazan caught the gleam of arifle barrel as he sped toward the forest. A shot followed. Somethinglike a red-hot coal ran the length of Kazan's hip, and deep in theforest he stopped to lick at the burning furrow where the bullet hadgone just deep enough to take the skin and hair from his flesh. 

 * * * * *

Gray Wolf was still waiting under the balsam shrub when Kazan returnedto her. Joyously she sprang forth to meet him. Once more the man hadsent back the old Kazan to her. He muzzled her neck and face, and stoodfor a few moments with his head resting across her back, listening tothe distant sound. 

Then, with ears laid flat, he set out straight into the north and west. And now Gray Wolf ran shoulder to shoulder with him like the Gray Wolfof the days before the dog-pack came; for that wonderful thing that laybeyond the realm of reason told her that once more she was comrade andmate, and that their trail that night was leading to their old homeunder the windfall. 

CHAPTER XVII

HIS SON

It happened that Kazan was to remember three things above all others. Hecould never quite forget his old days in the traces, though they weregrowing more shadowy and indistinct in his memory as the summers and thewinters passed. Like a dream there came to him a memory of the time hehad gone down to Civilization. Like dreams were the visions that rosebefore him now and then of the face of the First Woman, and of the facesof masters who--to him--had lived ages ago. And never would he quiteforget the Fire, and his fights with man and beast, and his long chasesin the moonlight. But two things were always with him as if they hadbeen but yesterday, rising clear and unforgetable above all others, likethe two stars in the North that never lost their brilliance. One wasWoman. The other was the terrible fight of that night on the top of theSun Rock, when the lynx had blinded forever his wild mate, Gray Wolf. Certain events remain indelibly fixed in the minds of men; and so, in anot very different way, they remain in the minds of beasts. It takesneither brain nor reason to measure the depths of sorrow or ofhappiness. And Kazan in his unreasoning way knew that contentment andpeace, a full stomach, and caresses and kind words instead of blows hadcome to him through Woman, and that comradeship in the wilderness--faith, loyalty and devotion--were a part of Gray Wolf. The third unforgetablething was about to occur in the home they had found for themselves underthe swamp windfall during the days of cold and famine. 

They had left the swamp over a month before when it was smothered deepin snow. On the day they returned to it the sun was shining warmly inthe first glorious days of spring warmth. Everywhere, big and small, there were the rushing torrents of melting snows and the crackle ofcrumbling ice, the dying cries of thawing rock and earth and tree, andeach night for many nights past the cold pale glow of the auroraborealis had crept farther and farther toward the Pole in fading glory. So early as this the poplar buds had begun to swell and the air wasfilled with the sweet odor of balsam, spruce and cedar. Where there hadbeen famine and death and stillness six weeks before, Kazan and GrayWolf now stood at the edge of the swamp and breathed the earthy smellsof spring, and listened to the sounds of life. Over their heads a pairof newly-mated moose-birds fluttered and scolded at them. A big jay satpluming himself in the sunshine. Farther in they heard the crack of astick broken under a heavy hoof. From the ridge behind them they caughtthe raw scent of a mother bear, busy pulling down the tender poplar budsfor her six-weeks-old cubs, born while she was still deep in her wintersleep. 

In the warmth of the sun and the sweetness of the air there breathed toGray Wolf the mystery of matehood and of motherhood. She whined softlyand rubbed her blind face against Kazan. For days, in her way, she triedto tell him. More than ever she wanted to curl herself up in that warmdry nest under the windfall. She had no desire to hunt. The crack ofthe dry stick under a cloven hoof and the warm scent of the she-bear andher cubs roused none of the old instincts in her. She wanted to curlherself up in the old windfall--and wait. And she tried hard to makeKazan understand her desire. 

Now that the snow was gone they found that a narrow creek lay betweenthem and the knoll on which the windfall was situated. Gray Wolf pickedup her ears at the tumult of the little torrent. Since the day of theFire, when Kazan and she had saved themselves on the sand-bar, she hadceased to have the inherent wolf horror of water. She followedfearlessly, even eagerly, behind Kazan as he sought a place where theycould ford the rushing little stream. On the other side Kazan could seethe big windfall. Gray Wolf could _smell_ it and she whined joyously, with her blind face turned toward it. A hundred yards up the stream abig cedar had fallen over it and Kazan began to cross. For a moment GrayWolf hesitated, and then followed. Side by side they trotted to thewindfall. With their heads and shoulders in the dark opening to theirnest they scented the air long and cautiously. Then they entered. Kazanheard Gray Wolf as she flung herself down on the dry floor of the snugcavern. She was panting, not from exhaustion, but because she was filledwith a sensation of contentment and happiness. In the darkness Kazan'sown jaws fell apart. He, too, was glad to get back to their old home. Hewent to Gray Wolf and, panting still harder, she licked his face. It hadbut one meaning. And Kazan understood. 

For a moment he lay down beside her, listening, and eyeing the openingto their nest. Then he began to sniff about the log walls. He was closeto the opening when a sudden fresh scent came to him, and he grew rigid, and his bristles stood up. The scent was followed by a whimpering, babyish chatter. A porcupine entered the opening and proceeded toadvance in its foolish fashion, still chattering in that babyish waythat has made its life inviolable at the hands of man. Kazan had heardthat sound before, and like all other beasts had learned to ignore thepresence of the innocuous creature that made it. But just now he did notstop to consider that what he saw was a porcupine and that at his firstsnarl the good-humored little creature would waddle away as fast as itcould, still chattering baby talk to itself. His first reasoning wasthat it was a live thing invading the home to which Gray Wolf and he hadjust returned. A day later, or perhaps an hour later, he would havedriven it back with a growl. Now he leaped upon it. 

A wild chattering, intermingled with pig-like squeaks, and then a risingstaccato of howls followed the attack. Gray Wolf sprang to the opening. The porcupine was rolled up in a thousand-spiked ball a dozen feet away, and she could hear Kazan tearing about in the throes of the direst agonythat can befall a beast of the forests. His face and nose were a mat ofquills. For a few moments he rolled and dug in the wet mold and earth, pawing madly at the things that pierced his flesh. Then he set off likeall dogs will who have come into contact with the friendly porcupine, and raced again and again around the windfall, howling at every jump. Gray Wolf took the matter coolly. It is possible that at times there aremoments of humor in the lives of animals. If so, she saw this one. Shescented the porcupine and she knew that Kazan was full of quills. Asthere was nothing to do and nothing to fight she sat back on herhaunches and waited, pricking up her ears every time Kazan passed her inhis mad circuit around the windfall. At his fourth or fifth heat theporcupine smoothed itself down a little, and continuing the interruptedthread of its chatter waddled to a near-by poplar, climbed it and beganto gnaw the tender bark from a limb. 

At last Kazan halted before Gray Wolf. The first agony of a hundredlittle needles piercing his flesh had deadened into a steady burningpain. Gray Wolf went over to him and investigated him cautiously. Withher teeth she seized the ends of two or three of the quills and pulledthem out. Kazan was very much dog now. He gave a yelp, and whimpered asGray Wolf jerked out a second bunch of quills. Then he flattened himselfon his belly, stretched out his forelegs, closed his eyes, and withoutany other sound except an occasional yelp of pain allowed Gray Wolf togo on with the operation. Fortunately he had escaped getting any of thequills in his mouth and tongue. But his nose and jaws were soon redwith blood. For an hour Gray Wolf kept faithfully at her task and by theend of that time had succeeded in pulling out most of the quills. A fewstill remained, too short and too deeply inbedded for her to extractwith her teeth. 

After this Kazan went down to the creek and buried his burning muzzle inthe cold water. This gave him some relief, but only for a short time. The quills that remained worked their way deeper and deeper into hisflesh, like living things. Nose and lips began to swell. Blood andsaliva dripped from his mouth and his eyes grew red. Two hours afterGray Wolf had retired to her nest under the windfall a quill hadcompletely pierced his lip and began to prick his tongue. In desperationKazan chewed viciously upon a piece of wood. This broke and crumpled thequill, and destroyed its power to do further harm. Nature had told himthe one thing to do to save himself. Most of that day he spent ingnawing at wood and crunching mouthfuls of earth and mold between hisjaws. In this way the barb-toothed points of the quills were dulled andbroken as they came through. At dusk he crawled under the windfall, andGray Wolf gently licked his muzzle with her soft cool tongue. Frequentlyduring the night Kazan went to the creek and found relief in itsice-cold water. 

The next day he had what the forest people call "porcupine mumps. " Hisface was swollen until Gray Wolf would have laughed if she had beenhuman, and not blind. His chops bulged like cushions. His eyes were mereslits. When he went out into the day he blinked, for he could seescarcely better than his sightless mate. But the pain was mostly gone. The night that followed he began to think of hunting, and the nextmorning before it was yet dawn he brought a rabbit into their den. A fewhours later he would have brought a spruce partridge to Gray Wolf, butjust as he was about to spring upon his feathered prey the soft chatterof a porcupine a few yards away brought him to a sudden stop. Few thingscould make Kazan drop his tail. But that inane and incoherent prattle ofthe little spiked beast sent him off at double-quick with his tailbetween his legs. As man abhors and evades the creeping serpent, soKazan would hereafter evade this little creature of the forests thatnever in animal history has been known to lose its good-humor or pick aquarrel. 

Two weeks of lengthening days, of increasing warmth, of sunshine andhunting, followed Kazan's adventure with the porcupine. The last of thesnow went rapidly. Out of the earth began to spring tips of green. The_bakneesh_ vine glistened redder each day, the poplar buds began tosplit, and in the sunniest spots, between the rocks of the ridges thelittle white snow-flowers began to give a final proof that spring hadcome. For the first of those two weeks Gray Wolf hunted frequently withKazan. They did not go far. The swamp was alive with small game and eachday or night they killed fresh meat. After the first week Gray Wolfhunted less. Then came the soft and balmy night, glorious in theradiance of a full spring moon when she refused to leave the windfall. Kazan did not urge her. Instinct made him understand, and he did not gofar from the windfall that night in his hunt. When he returned hebrought a rabbit. 

Came then the night when from the darkest corner of the windfall GrayWolf warned him back with a low snarl. He stood in the opening, a rabbitbetween his jaws. He took no offense at the snarl, but stood for amoment, gazing into the gloom where Gray Wolf had hidden herself. Thenhe dropped the rabbit and lay down squarely in the opening. After alittle he rose restlessly and went outside. But he did not leave thewindfall. It was day when he reentered. He sniffed, as he had sniffedonce before a long time ago, between the boulders at the top of the SunRock. That which was in the air was no longer a mystery to him. He camenearer and Gray Wolf did not snarl. She whined coaxingly as he touchedher. Then his muzzle found something else. It was soft and warm and madea queer little sniffling sound. There was a responsive whine in histhroat, and in the darkness came the quick soft caress of Gray Wolf'stongue. Kazan returned to the sunshine and stretched himself out beforethe door of the windfall. His jaws dropped open, for he was filled witha strange contentment. 

CHAPTER XVIII

THE EDUCATION OF BA-REE

Robbed once of the joys of parenthood by the murder on the Sun Rock, both Gray Wolf and Kazan were different from what they would have beenhad the big gray lynx not come into their lives at that time. As if itwere but yesterday they remembered the moonlit night when the lynxbrought blindness to Gray Wolf and destroyed her young, and when Kazanhad avenged himself and his mate in his terrible fight to the death withtheir enemy. And now, with that soft little handful of life snugglingclose up against her, Gray Wolf saw through her blind eyes the tragicpicture of that night more vividly than ever and she quivered at everysound, ready to leap in the face of an unseen foe, to rend all fleshthat was not the flesh of Kazan. And ceaselessly, the slightest soundbringing him to his feet, Kazan watched and guarded. He mistrusted themoving shadows. The snapping of a twig drew back his upper lip. Hisfangs gleamed menacingly when the soft air brought a strange scent. Inhim, too, the memory of the Sun Rock, the death of their first young andthe blinding of Gray Wolf, had given birth to a new instinct. Not for aninstant was he off his guard. As surely as one expects the sun to riseso did he expect that sooner or later their deadly enemy would creep onthem from out of the forest. In another hour such as this the lynx hadbrought death. The lynx had brought blindness. And so day and night hewaited and watched for the lynx to come again. And woe unto any othercreature of flesh and blood that dared approach the windfall in thesefirst days of Gray Wolf's motherhood!

But peace had spread its wings of sunshine and plenty over the swamp. There were no intruders, unless the noisy whisky-jacks, the big-eyedmoose-birds, the chattering bush sparrows, and the wood-mice and erminecould be called such. After the first day or two Kazan went morefrequently into the windfall, and though more than once he nosedsearchingly about Gray Wolf he could find only the one little pup. Alittle farther west the Dog-Ribs would have called the pup Ba-ree fortwo reasons--because he had no brothers or sisters, and because he was amixture of dog and wolf. He was a sleek and lively little fellow fromthe beginning, for there was no division of mother strength andattention. He developed with the true swiftness of the wolf-whelp, andnot with the slowness of the dog-pup. 

For three days he was satisfied to cuddle close against his mother, feeding when he was hungry, sleeping a great deal and preened andlaundered almost constantly by Gray Wolf's affectionate tongue. From thefourth day he grew busier and more inquisitive with every hour. He foundhis mother's blind face, with tremendous effort he tumbled over herpaws, and once he lost himself completely and sniffled for help when herolled fifteen or eighteen inches away from her. It was not long afterthis that he began to recognize Kazan as a part of his mother, and hewas scarcely more than a week old when he rolled himself up contentedlybetween Kazan's forelegs and went to sleep. Kazan was puzzled. Thenwith a deep sigh Gray Wolf laid her head across one of her mate'sforelegs, with her nose touching her runaway baby, and seemed vastlycontented. For half an hour Kazan did not move. 

When he was ten days old Ba-ree discovered there was great sport intussling with a bit of rabbit fur. It was a little later when he madehis second exciting discovery--light and sunshine. The sun had nowreached a point where in the middle of the afternoon a bright gleam ofit found its way through an overhead opening in the windfall. At firstBa-ree would only stare at the golden streak. Then came the time when hetried to play with it as he played with the rabbit fur. Each daythereafter he went a little nearer the opening through which Kazanpassed from the windfall into the big world outside. Finally came thetime when he reached the opening and crouched there, blinking andfrightened at what he saw, and now Gray Wolf no longer tried to hold himback but went out into the sunshine and tried to call him to her. It wasthree days before his weak eyes had grown strong enough to permit hisfollowing her, and very quickly after that Ba-ree learned to love thesun, the warm air, and the sweetness of life, and to dread the darknessof the closed-in den where he had been born. 

That this world was not altogether so nice as it at first appeared hewas very soon to learn. At the darkening signs of an approaching stormone day Gray Wolf tried to lure him back under the windfall. It was herfirst warning to Ba-ree and he did not understand. Where Gray Wolffailed, nature came to teach a first lesson. Ba-ree was caught in asudden deluge of rain. It flattened him out in pure terror and he wasdrenched and half drowned before Gray Wolf caught him between her jawsand carried him into shelter. One by one after this the first strangeexperiences of life came to him, and one by one his instincts receivedtheir birth. Greatest for him of the days to follow was that on whichhis inquisitive nose touched the raw flesh of a freshly killed andbleeding rabbit. It was his first taste of blood. It was sweet. Itfilled him with a strange excitement and thereafter he knew what itmeant when Kazan brought in something between his jaws. He soon beganto battle with sticks in place of the soft fur and his teeth grew ashard and as sharp as little needles. 

The Great Mystery was bared to him at last when Kazan brought in betweenhis jaws, a big rabbit that was still alive but so badly crushed that itcould not run when dropped to the ground. Ba-ree had learned to knowwhat rabbits and partridges meant--the sweet warm blood that he lovedbetter even than he had ever loved his mother's milk. But they had cometo him dead. He had never seen one of the monsters alive. And now therabbit that Kazan dropped to the ground, kicking and struggling with abroken back, sent Ba-ree back appalled. For a few moments he wonderinglywatched the dying throes of Kazan's prey. Both Kazan and Gray Wolfseemed to understand that this was to be Ba-ree's first lesson in hiseducation as a slaying and flesh-eating creature, and they stood closeover the rabbit, making no effort to end its struggles. Half a dozentimes Gray Wolf sniffed at the rabbit and then turned her blind facetoward Ba-ree. After the third or fourth time Kazan stretched himselfout on his belly a few feet away and watched the proceedingsattentively. Each time that Gray Wolf lowered her head to muzzle therabbit Ba-ree's little ears shot up expectantly. When he saw thatnothing happened and that his mother was not hurt he came a littlenearer. Soon he could reach out, stiff-legged and cautious, and touchthe furry thing that was not yet dead. 

In a last spasmodic convulsion the big rabbit doubled up its rear legsand gave a kick that sent Ba-ree sprawling back, yelping in terror. Heregained his feet and then, for the first time, anger and the desire toretaliate took possession of him. The kick had completed his firsteducation. He came back with less caution, but stiffer-legged, and amoment later had dug his tiny teeth in the rabbit's neck. He could feelthe throb of life in the soft body, the muscles of the dying rabbittwitched convulsively under him, and he hung with his teeth until therewas no longer a tremor of life in his first kill. Gray Wolf wasdelighted. She caressed Ba-ree with her tongue, and even Kazancondescended to sniff approvingly of his son when he returned to therabbit. And never before had warm sweet blood tasted so good to Ba-reeas it did to-day. 

Swiftly Ba-ree developed from a blood-tasting into a flesh-eatinganimal. One by one the mysteries of life were unfolded to him--themating-night chortle of the gray owl, the crash of a falling tree, theroll of thunder, the rush of running water, the scream of a fisher-cat, the mooing of the cow moose, and the distant call of his tribe. Butchief of all these mysteries that were already becoming a part of hisinstinct was the mystery of scent. One day he wandered fifty yards awayfrom the windfall and his little nose touched the warm scent of arabbit. Instantly, without reasoning or further process of education, heknew that to get at the sweet flesh and blood which he loved he mustfollow the scent. He wriggled slowly along the trail until he came to abig log, over which the rabbit had vaulted in a long leap, and from thislog he turned back. Each day after this he went on adventures of hisown. At first he was like an explorer without a compass in a vast andunknown world. Each day he encountered something new, always wonderful, frequently terrifying. But his terrors grew less and less and hisconfidence correspondingly greater. As he found that none of the thingshe feared did him any harm he became more and more bold in hisinvestigations. And his appearance was changing, as well as his view ofthings. His round roly-poly body was taking a different form. He becamelithe and quick. The yellow of his coat darkened, and there was awhitish-gray streak along his back like that along Kazan's. He had hismother's under-throat and her beautiful grace of head. Otherwise he wasa true son of Kazan. His limbs gave signs of future strength andmassiveness. He was broad across the chest. His eyes were wide apart, with a little red in the lower corners. The forest people know what toexpect of husky pups who early develop that drop of red. It is a warningthat they are born of the wild and that their mothers, or fathers, areof the savage hunt-packs. In Ba-ree that tinge of red was so pronouncedthat it could mean but one thing. While he was almost half dog, the wildhad claimed him forever. 

Not until the day of his first real battle with a living creature didBa-ree come fully into his inheritance. He had gone farther than usualfrom the windfall--fully a hundred yards. Here he found a new wonder. Itwas the creek. He had heard it before and he had looked down on it fromafar--from a distance of fifty yards at least. But to-day he venturedgoing to the edge of it, and there he stood for a long time, with thewater rippling and singing at his feet, gazing across it into the newworld that he saw. Then he moved cautiously along the stream. He had notgone a dozen steps when there was a furious fluttering close to him, andone of the fierce big-eyed jays of the Northland was directly in hispath. It could not fly. One of its wings dragged, probably broken in astruggle with some one of the smaller preying beasts. But for an instantit was a most startling and defiant bit of life to Ba-ree. 

Then the grayish crest along his back stiffened and he advanced. Thewounded jay remained motionless until Ba-ree was within three feet ofit. In short quick hops it began to retreat. Instantly Ba-ree'sindecision had flown to the four winds. With one sharp excited yelp heflew at the defiant bird. For a few moments there was a thrilling race, and Ba-ree's sharp little teeth buried themselves in the jay's feathers. Swift as a flash the bird's beak began to strike. The jay was the kingof the smaller birds. In nesting season it killed the brush sparrows, the mild-eyed moose-birds, and the tree-sappers. Again and again itstruck Ba-ree with its powerful beak, but the son of Kazan had nowreached the age of battle and the pain of the blows only made his ownteeth sink deeper. At last he found the flesh; and a puppyish snarl rosein his throat. Fortunately he had gained a hold under the wing and afterthe first dozen blows the jay's resistance grew weaker. Five minuteslater Ba-ree loosened his teeth and drew back a step to look at thecrumpled and motionless creature before him. The jay was dead. He hadwon his first battle. And with victory came the wonderful dawning ofthat greatest instinct of all, which told him that no longer was he adrone in the marvelous mechanism of wilderness life--but a part of itfrom this time forth. _For he had killed_. 

Half an hour later Gray Wolf came down over his trail. The jay was torninto bits. Its feathers were scattered about and Ba-ree's little nosewas bloody. Ba-ree was lying in triumph beside his victim. Swiftly GrayWolf understood and caressed him joyously. When they returned to thewindfall Ba-ree carried in his jaws what was left of the jay. 

From that hour of his first kill hunting became the chief passion ofBa-ree's life. When he was not sleeping in the sun, or under thewindfall at night, he was seeking life that he could destroy. Heslaughtered an entire family of wood-mice. Moose-birds were at first theeasiest for him to stalk, and he killed three. Then he encountered anermine and the fierce little white outlaw of the forests gave him hisfirst defeat. Defeat cooled his ardor for a few days, but taught him thegreat lesson that there were other fanged and flesh-eating animalsbesides himself and that nature had so schemed things that fang must notprey upon fang--_for food_. Many things had been born in him. Instinctively he shunned the porcupine without experiencing the tortureof its quills. He came face to face with a fisher-cat one day, afortnight after his fight with the ermine. Both were seeking food, andas there was no food between them to fight over, each went his own way. 

Farther and farther Ba-ree ventured from the windfall, always followingthe creek. Sometimes he was gone for hours. At first Gray Wolf wasrestless when he was away, but she seldom went with him and after a timeher restlessness left her. Nature was working swiftly. It was Kazan whowas restless now. Moonlight nights had come and the wanderlust wasgrowing more and more insistent in his veins. And Gray Wolf, too, wasfilled with the strange longing to roam at large out into the big world. 

Came then the afternoon when Ba-ree went on his longest hunt. Half amile away he killed his first rabbit. He remained beside it until dusk. The moon rose, big and golden, flooding the forests and plains andridges with a light almost like that of day. It was a glorious night. And Ba-ree found the moon, and left his kill. And the direction inwhich he traveled _was away from the windfall_. 

All that night Gray Wolf watched and waited. And when at last the moonwas sinking into the south and west she settled back on her haunches, turned her blind face to the sky and sent forth her first howl since theday Ba-ree was born. Nature had come into her own. Far away Ba-reeheard, but he did not answer. A new world was his. He had said good-byto the windfall--and home. 

CHAPTER XIX

THE USURPERS

It was that glorious season between spring and summer, when the northernnights were brilliant with moon and stars, that Kazan and Gray Wolf setup the valley between the two ridges on a long hunt. It was thebeginning of that _wanderlust_ which always comes to the furred andpadded creatures of the wilderness immediately after the young-born ofearly spring have left their mothers to find their own way in the bigworld. They struck west from their winter home under the windfall in theswamp. They hunted mostly at night and behind them they left a trailmarked by the partly eaten carcasses of rabbits and partridges. It wasthe season of slaughter and not of hunger. Ten miles west of the swampthey killed a fawn. This, too, they left after a single meal. Theirappetites became satiated with warm flesh and blood. They grew sleek andfat and each day they basked longer in the warm sunshine. They had fewrivals. The lynxes were in the heavier timber to the south. There wereno wolves. Fisher-cat, marten and mink were numerous along the creek, but these were neither swift-hunting nor long-fanged. One day they cameupon an old otter. He was a giant of his kind, turning a whitish graywith the approach of summer. Kazan, grown fat and lazy, watched himidly. Blind Gray Wolf sniffed at the fishy smell of him in the air. Tothem he was no more than a floating stick, a creature out of theirelement, along with the fish, and they continued on their way notknowing that this uncanny creature with the coal-like flappers was soonto become their ally in one of the strange and deadly feuds of thewilderness, which are as sanguinary to animal life as the deadliestfeuds of men are to human life. 

The day following their meeting with the otter Gray Wolf and Kazancontinued three miles farther westward, still following the stream. Herethey encountered the interruption to their progress which turned themover the northward ridge. The obstacle was a huge beaver dam. The damwas two hundred yards in width and flooded a mile of swamp and timberabove it. Neither Gray Wolf nor Kazan was deeply interested in beavers. They also moved out of their element, along with the fish and the otterand swift-winged birds. 

So they turned into the north, not knowing that nature had alreadyschemed that they four--the dog, wolf, otter and beaver--should soon beengaged in one of those merciless struggles of the wild which keepanimal life down to the survival of the fittest, and whose tragichistories are kept secret under the stars and the moon and the windsthat tell no tales. 

For many years no man had come into this valley between the two ridgesto molest the beaver. If a Sarcee trapper had followed down the namelesscreek and had caught the patriarch and chief of the colony, he would atonce have judged him to be very old and his Indian tongue would havegiven him a name. He would have called him Broken Tooth, because one ofthe four long teeth with which he felled trees and built dams was brokenoff. Six years before Broken Tooth had led a few beavers of his own agedown the stream, and they had built their first small dam and theirfirst lodge. The following April Broken Tooth's mate had four littlebaby beavers, and each of the other mothers in the colony increased thepopulation by two or three or four. At the end of the fourth year thisfirst generation of children, had they followed the usual law of nature, would have mated and left the colony to build a dam and lodges of theirown. They mated, but did not emigrate. 

The next year the second generation of children, now four years old, mated but did not leave, so that in this early summer of the sixth yearthe colony was very much like a great city that had been long besiegedby an enemy. It numbered fifteen lodges and over a hundred beavers, notcounting the fourth babies which had been born during March and April. The dam had been lengthened until it was fully two hundred yards inlength. Water had been made to flood large areas of birch and poplar andtangled swamps of tender willow and elder. Even with this food wasgrowing scarce and the lodges were overcrowded. This was becausebeavers are almost human in their love for home. Broken Tooth's lodgewas fully nine feet long by seven wide inside, and there were now livingin it children and grandchildren to the number of twenty-seven. For thisreason Broken Tooth was preparing to break the precedent of his tribe. When Kazan and Gray Wolf sniffed carelessly at the strong scents of thebeaver city, Broken Tooth was marshaling his family, and two of his sonsand their families, for the exodus. 

As yet Broken Tooth was the recognized leader in the colony. No otherbeaver had grown to his size and strength. His thick body was fullythree feet long. He weighed at least sixty pounds. His tail was fourteeninches in length and five in width, and on a still night he could strikethe water a blow that could be heard a quarter of a mile away. Hiswebbed hindfeet were twice as large as his mate's and he was easily theswiftest swimmer in the colony. 

Following the afternoon when Gray Wolf and Kazan struck into the northcame the clear still night when Broken Tooth climbed to the top of thedam, shook himself, and looked down to see that his army was behindhim. The starlit water of the big pond rippled and flashed with themovement of many bodies. A few of the older beavers clambered up afterBroken Tooth and the old patriarch plunged down into the narrow streamon the other side of the dam. Now the shining silken bodies of theemigrants followed him in the starlight. In ones and twos and threesthey climbed over the dam and with them went a dozen children born threemonths before. Easily and swiftly they began the journey down-stream, the youngsters swimming furiously to keep up with their parents. In allthey numbered forty. Broken Tooth swam well in the lead, with his olderworkers and battlers behind him. In the rear followed mothers andchildren. 

All of that night the journey continued. The otter, their deadliestenemy--deadlier even than man--hid himself in a thick clump of willowsas they passed. Nature, which sometimes sees beyond the vision of man, had made him the enemy of these creatures that were passing hishiding-place in the night. A fish-feeder, he was born to be a conserveras well as a destroyer of the creatures on which he fed. Perhaps naturetold him that too many beaver dams stopped the run of spawning fish andthat where there were many beavers there were always few fish. Maybe hereasoned as to why fish-hunting was poor and he went hungry. So, unableto cope singly with whole tribes of his enemies, he worked to destroytheir dams. How this, in turn, destroyed the beavers will be seen in thefeud in which nature had already schemed that he should play a part withKazan and Gray Wolf. 

A dozen times during this night Broken Tooth halted to investigate thefood supplies along the banks. But in the two or three places where hefound plenty of the bark on which they lived it would have beendifficult to have constructed a dam. His wonderful engineering instinctsrose even above food instincts. And when each time he moved onward, nobeaver questioned his judgment by remaining behind. In the early dawnthey crossed the burn and came to the edge of the swamp domain of Kazanand Gray Wolf. By right of discovery and possession that swamp belongedto the dog and the wolf. In every part of it they had left their mark ofownership. But Broken Tooth was a creature of the water and the scent ofhis tribe was not keen. He led on, traveling more slowly when theyentered the timber. Just below the windfall home of Kazan and Gray Wolfhe halted, and clambering ashore balanced himself upright on his webbedhindfeet and broad four-pound tail. Here he had found ideal conditions. A dam could be constructed easily across the narrow stream, and thewater could be made to flood a big supply of poplar, birch, willow andalder. Also the place was sheltered by heavy timber, so that the winterswould be warm. Broken Tooth quickly gave his followers to understandthat this was to be their new home. On both sides of the stream theyswarmed into the near-by timber. The babies began at once to nibblehungrily at the tender bark of willow and alder. The older ones, everyone of them now a working engineer, investigated excitedly, breakfastingby nibbling off a mouthful of bark now and then. 

That day the work of home-building began. Broken Tooth himself selecteda big birch that leaned over the stream, and began the work of cuttingthrough the ten-inch butt with his three long teeth. Though the oldpatriarch had lost one tooth, the three that remained had notdeteriorated with age. The outer edge of them was formed of the hardestenamel; the inner side was of soft ivory. They were like the fineststeel chisels, the enamel never wearing away and the softer ivoryreplacing itself year by year as it was consumed. Sitting on hishindlegs, with his forepaws resting against the tree and with his heavytail giving him a firm balance, Broken Tooth began gnawing a narrow ringentirely around the tree. He worked tirelessly for several hours, andwhen at last he stopped to rest another workman took up the task. Meanwhile a dozen beavers were hard at work cutting timber. Long beforeBroken Tooth's tree was ready to fall across the stream, a smallerpoplar crashed into the water. The cutting on the big birch was in theshape of an hour-glass. In twenty hours it fell straight across thecreek. While the beaver prefers to do most of his work at night he is aday-laborer as well, and Broken Tooth gave his tribe but little restduring the days that followed. With almost human intelligence the littleengineers kept at their task. Smaller trees were felled, and these werecut into four or five foot lengths. One by one these lengths were rolledto the stream, the beavers pushing them with their heads and forepaws, and by means of brush and small limbs they were fastened securelyagainst the birch. When the framework was completed the wonderful cementconstruction was begun. In this the beavers were the masters of men. Dynamite was the only force that could hereafter break up what they werebuilding now. Under their cup-like chins the beavers brought from thebanks a mixture of mud and fine twigs, carrying from half a pound to apound at a load and began filling up the framework with it. Their taskseemed tremendous, and yet Broken Tooth's engineers could carry a ton ofthis mud and twig mixture during a day and night. In three days thewater was beginning to back, until it rose about the butts of a dozen ormore trees and was flooding a small area of brush. This made workeasier. From now on materials could be cut in the water and easilyfloated. While a part of the beaver colony was taking advantage of thewater, others were felling trees end to end with the birch, laying theworking frame of a dam a hundred feet in width. 

They had nearly accomplished this work when one morning Kazan and GrayWolf returned to the swamp. 

CHAPTER XX

A FEUD IN THE WILDERNESS

A soft wind blowing from the south and east brought the scent of theinvaders to Gray Wolf's nose when they were still half a mile away. Shegave the warning to Kazan and he, too, found the strange scent in theair. It grew stronger as they advanced. When two hundred yards from thewindfall they heard the sudden crash of a falling tree, and stopped. Fora full minute they stood tense and listening. Then the silence wasbroken by a squeaking cry, followed by a splash. Gray Wolf's alert earsfell back and she turned her blind face understandingly toward Kazan. They trotted ahead slowly, approaching the windfall from behind. Notuntil they had reached the top of the knoll on which it was situated didKazan begin to see the wonderful change that had taken place duringtheir absence. Astounded, they stood while he stared. There was nolonger a little creek below them. Where it had been was a pond thatreached almost to the foot of the knoll. It was fully a hundred feet inwidth and the backwater had flooded the trees and bush for five or sixtimes that distance toward the burn. They had come up quietly and BrokenTooth's dull-scented workers were unaware of their presence. Not fiftyfeet away Broken Tooth himself was gnawing at the butt of a tree. Anequal distance to the right of him four or five of the baby beavers wereat play building a miniature dam of mud and tiny twigs. On the oppositeside of the pond was a steep bank six or seven feet high, and here a fewof the older children--two years old, but still not workmen--were havinggreat fun climbing the bank and using it as a toboggan-slide. It wastheir splashing that Kazan and Gray Wolf had heard. In a dozen differentplaces the older beavers were at work. 

A few weeks before Kazan had looked upon a similar scene when he hadreturned into the north from Broken Tooth's old home. It had notinterested him then. But a quick and thrilling change swept through himnow. The beavers had ceased to be mere water animals, uneatable andwith an odor that displeased him. They were invaders--and enemies. Hisfangs bared silently. His crest stiffened like the hair of a brush, andthe muscles of his forelegs and shoulders stood out like whipcords. Nota sound came from him as he rushed down upon Broken Tooth. The oldbeaver was oblivious of danger until Kazan was within twenty feet ofhim. Naturally slow of movement on land, he stood for an instantstupefied. Then he swung down from the tree as Kazan leaped upon him. Over and over they rolled to the edge of the bank, carried on by thedog's momentum. In another moment the thick heavy body of the beaver hadslipped like oil from under Kazan and Broken Tooth was safe in hiselement, two holes bitten clean through his fleshy tail. Baffled in hiseffort to get a death-hold on Broken Tooth, Kazan swung like a flash tothe right. The young beavers had not moved. Astonished and frightened atwhat they had seen, they stood as if stupefied. Not until they saw Kazantearing toward them did they awaken to action. Three of them reached thewater. The fourth and fifth--baby beavers not more than three monthsold--were too late. With a single snap of his jaw Kazan broke the hackof one. The other he pinned down by the throat and shook as a terriershakes a rat. When Gray Wolf trotted down to him both of the littlebeavers were dead. She sniffed at their soft little bodies and whined. Perhaps the baby creatures reminded her of runaway Ba-ree, her own baby, for there was a note of longing in her whine as she nosed them. It wasthe mother whine. 

But if Gray Wolf had visions of her own Kazan understood nothing ofthem. He had killed two of the creatures that had dared to invade theirhome. To the little beavers he had been as merciless as the gray lynxthat had murdered Gray Wolf's first children on the top of the Sun Rock. Now that he had sunk his teeth into the flesh of his enemies his bloodwas filled with a frenzied desire to kill. He raved along the edge ofthe pond, snarling at the uneasy water under which Broken Tooth haddisappeared. All of the beavers had taken refuge in the pond, and itssurface was heaving with the passing of many bodies beneath. Kazan cameto the end of the dam. This was new. Instinctively he knew that it wasthe work of Broken Tooth and his tribe and for a few moments he torefiercely at the matted sticks and limbs. Suddenly there was an upheavalof water close to the dam, fifty feet out from the bank, and BrokenTooth's big gray head appeared. For a tense half minute Broken Tooth andKazan measured each other at that distance. Then Broken Tooth drew hiswet shining body out of the water to the top of the dam, and squattedflat, facing Kazan. The old patriarch was alone. Not another beaver hadshown himself. 

The surface of the pond had now become quiet. Vainly Kazan tried todiscover a footing that would allow him to reach the watchful invader. But between the solid wall of the dam and the bank there was a tangledframework through which the water rushed with some violence. Three timesKazan fought to work his way through that tangle, and three times hisefforts ended in sudden plunges into the water. All this time BrokenTooth did not move. When at last Kazan gave up the attack the oldengineer slipped over the edge of the dam and disappeared under thewater. He had learned that Kazan, like the lynx, could not fight waterand he spread the news among the members of his colony. 

Gray Wolf and Kazan returned to the windfall and lay down in the warmsun. Half an hour later Broken Tooth drew himself out on the oppositeshore of the pond. He was followed by other beavers. Across the waterthey resumed their work as if nothing had happened. The tree-cuttersreturned to their trees. Half a dozen worked in the water, carryingloads of cement and twigs. The middle of the pond was their dead-line. Across this not one of them passed. A dozen times during the hour thatfollowed one of the beavers swam up to the dead-line, and rested there, looking at the shining little bodies of the babies that Kazan hadkilled. Perhaps it was the mother, and perhaps some finer instinctunknown to Kazan told this to Gray Wolf. For Gray Wolf went down twiceto sniff at the dead bodies, and each time--without seeing--she wentwhen the mother beaver had come to the dead-line. 

The first fierce animus had worn itself from Kazan's blood, and he nowwatched the beavers closely. He had learned that they were not fighters. They were many to one and yet they ran from him like a lot of rabbits. Broken Tooth had not even struck at him, and slowly it grew upon himthat these invading creatures that used both the water and land wouldhave to be hunted as he stalked the rabbit and the partridge. Early inthe afternoon he slipped off into the bush, followed by Gray Wolf. Hehad often begun the stalking of a rabbit by moving _away_ from it and heemployed this wolf trick now with the beavers. Beyond the windfall heturned and began trotting up the creek, with the wind. For a quarter ofa mile the creek was deeper than it had ever been. One of their oldfording places was completely submerged, and at last Kazan plunged inand swam across, leaving Gray Wolf to wait for him on the windfall sideof the stream. 

Alone he made his way quickly in the direction of the dam, traveling twohundred yards back from the creek. Twenty yards below the dam a densethicket of alder and willow grew close to the creek and Kazan tookadvantage of this. He approached within a leap or two of the dam withoutbeing seen and crouched close to the ground, ready to spring forth whenthe opportunity came. Most of the beavers were now working in the water. The four or five still on shore were close to the water and somedistance up-stream. After a wait of several minutes Kazan was almost onthe point of staking everything on a wild rush upon his enemies when amovement on the dam attracted his attention. Half-way out two or threebeavers were at work strengthening the central structure with cement. Swift as a flash Kazan darted from his cover to the shelter behind thedam. Here the water was very shallow, the main portion of the streamfinding a passage close to the opposite shore. Nowhere did it reach tohis belly as he waded out. He was completely hidden from the beavers, and the wind was in his favor. The noise of running water drowned whatlittle sound he made. Soon he heard the beaver workmen over him. Thebranches of the fallen birch gave him a footing, and he clambered up. 

A moment later his head and shoulders appeared above the top of thedam. Scarce an arm's length away Broken Tooth was forcing into place athree-foot length of poplar as big around as a man's arm. He was so busythat he did not hear or see Kazan. Another beaver gave the warning as heplunged into the pond. Broken Tooth looked up, and his eyes met Kazan'sbared fangs. There was no time to turn. He threw himself back, but itwas a moment too late. Kazan was upon him. His long fangs sank deep intoBroken Tooth's neck. But the old beaver had thrown himself enough backto make Kazan lose his footing. At the same moment his chisel-like teethgot a firm hold of the loose skin at Kazan's throat. Thus clinched, withKazan's long teeth buried almost to the beaver's jugular, they plungeddown into the deep water of the pond. 

Broken Tooth weighed sixty pounds. The instant he struck the water hewas in his element, and holding tenaciously to the grip he had obtainedon Kazan's neck he sank like a chunk of iron. Kazan was pulledcompletely under. The water rushed into his mouth, his ears, eyes andnose. He was blinded, and his senses were a roaring tumult. But insteadof struggling to free himself he held his breath and buried his teethdeeper. They touched the soft bottom and for a moment floundered in themud. Then Kazan loosened his hold. He was fighting for his own lifenow--and not for Broken Tooth's. With all of the strength of hispowerful limbs he struggled to break loose--to rise to the surface, tofresh air, to life. He clamped his jaws shut, knowing that to breathewas to die. On land he could have freed himself from Broken Tooth's holdwithout an effort. But under water the old beaver's grip was more deadlythan would have been the fangs of a lynx ashore. There was a suddenswirl of water as a second beaver circled close about the strugglingpair. Had he closed in with Broken Tooth, Kazan's struggles wouldquickly have ceased. 

But nature had not foreseen the day when Broken Tooth would be fightingwith fang. The old patriarch had no particular reason now for holdingKazan down. He was not vengeful. He did not thirst for blood or death. Finding that he was free, and that this strange enemy that had twiceleaped upon him could do him no harm, he loosed his hold. It was not amoment too soon for Kazan. He was struggling weakly when he rose to thesurface of the water. Three-quarters drowned, he succeeded in raisinghis forepaws over a slender branch that projected from the dam. Thisgave him time to fill his lungs with air, and to cough forth the waterthat had almost ended his existence. For ten minutes he clung to thebranch before he dared attempt the short swim ashore. When he reachedthe bank he dragged himself up weakly. All the strength was gone fromhis body. His limbs shook. His jaws hung loose. He was beaten--completelybeaten. And a creature without a fang had worsted him. He felt theabasement of it. Drenched and slinking, he went to the windfall, laydown in the sun, and waited for Gray Wolf. 

Days followed in which Kazan's desire to destroy his beaver enemiesbecame the consuming passion of his life. Each day the dam became moreformidable. Cement work in the water was carried on by the beaversswiftly and safely. The water in the pond rose higher each twenty-fourhours, and the pond grew steadily wider. The water had now been turnedinto the depression that encircled the windfall, and in another week ortwo, if the beavers continued their work, Kazan's and Gray Wolf's homewould be nothing more than a small island in the center of a wide areaof submerged swamp. 

Kazan hunted only for food now, and not for pleasure. Ceaselessly hewatched his opportunity to leap upon incautious members of BrokenTooth's tribe. The third day after the struggle under the water hekilled a big beaver that approached too close to the willow thicket. Thefifth day two of the young beavers wandered into the flooded depressionback of the windfall and Kazan caught them in shallow water and torethem into pieces. After these successful assaults the beavers began towork mostly at night. This was to Kazan's advantage, for he was anight-hunter. On each of two consecutive nights he killed a beaver. Counting the young, he had killed seven when the otter came. 

Never had Broken Tooth been placed between two deadlier or moreferocious enemies than the two that now assailed him. On shore Kazanwas his master because of his swiftness, keener scent, and fightingtrickery. In the water the otter was a still greater menace. He wasswifter than the fish that he caught for food. His teeth were like steelneedles. He was so sleek and slippery that it would have been impossiblefor them to hold him with their chisel-like teeth could they have caughthim. The otter, like the beaver, possessed no hunger for blood. Yet inall the Northland he was the greatest destroyer of their kind--an evengreater destroyer than man. He came and passed like a plague, and it wasin the coldest days of winter that greatest destruction came with him. In those days he did not assault the beavers in their snug houses. Hedid what man could do only with dynamite--made an embrasure throughtheir dam. Swiftly the water would fall, the surface ice would crashdown, and the beaver houses would be left out of water. Then followeddeath for the beavers--starvation and cold. With the protecting watergone from about their houses, the drained pond a chaotic mass of brokenice, and the temperature forty or fifty degrees below zero, they woulddie within a few hours. For the beaver, with his thick coat of fur, canstand less cold than man. Through all the long winter the water abouthis home is as necessary to him as fire to a child. 

But it was summer now and Broken Tooth and his colony had no very greatfear of the otter. It would cost them some labor to repair the damage hedid, but there was plenty of food and it was warm. For two days theotter frisked about the dam and the deep water of the pond. Kazan tookhim for a beaver, and tried vainly to stalk him. The otter regardedKazan suspiciously and kept well out of his way. Neither knew that theother was an ally. Meanwhile the beavers continued their work withgreater caution. The water in the pond had now risen to a point wherethe engineers had begun the construction of three lodges. On the thirdday the destructive instinct of the otter began its work. He began toexamine the dam, close down to the foundation. It was not long before hefound a weak spot to begin work on, and with his sharp teeth and smallbullet-like head he commenced his drilling operations. Inch by inch heworked his way through the dam, burrowing and gnawing over and under thetimbers, and always through the cement. The round hole he made was fullyseven inches in diameter. In six hours he had cut it through thefive-foot base of the dam. 

A torrent of water began to rush from the pond as if forced out by ahydraulic pump. Kazan and Gray Wolf were hiding in the willows on thesouth side of the pond when this happened. They heard the roar of thestream tearing through the embrasure and Kazan saw the otter crawl up tothe top of the dam and shake himself like a huge water-rat. Withinthirty minutes the water in the pond had fallen perceptibly, and theforce of the water pouring through the hole was constantly increasingthe outlet. In another half hour the foundations of the three lodges, which had been laid in about ten inches of water, stood on mud. Notuntil Broken Tooth discovered that the water was receding from thehouses did he take alarm. He was thrown into a panic, and very soonevery beaver in the colony tearing excitedly about the pond. They swamswiftly from shore to shore, paying no attention to the dead-line now. Broken Tooth and the older workmen made for the dam, and with a snarlingcry the otter plunged down among them and out like a flash for the creekabove the pond. Swiftly the water continued to fall and as it fell theexcitement of the beavers increased. They forgot Kazan and Gray Wolf. 

Several of the younger members of the colony drew themselves ashore onthe windfall side of the pond, and whining softly Kazan was about toslip back through the willows when one of the older beavers waddled upthrough the deepening mud close on his ambush. In two leaps Kazan wasupon him, with Gray Wolf a leap behind him. The short fierce struggle inthe mud was seen by the other beavers and they crossed swiftly to theopposite side of the pond. The water had receded to a half of itsgreatest width before Broken Tooth and his workmen discovered the breachin the wall of the dam. The work of repair was begun at once. For thiswork sticks and brush of considerable size were necessary, and to reachthis material the beavers were compelled to drag their heavy bodiesthrough the ten or fifteen yards of soft mud left by the falling water. Peril of fang no longer kept them back. Instinct told them that theywere fighting for their existence--that if the embrasure were not filledup and the water kept in the pond they would very soon be completelyexposed to their enemies. It was a day of slaughter for Gray Wolf andKazan. They killed two more beavers in the mud close to the willows. Then they crossed the creek below the dam and cut off three beavers inthe depression behind the windfall. There was no escape for these three. They were torn into pieces. Farther up the creek Kazan caught a youngbeaver and killed it. 

Late in the afternoon the slaughter ended. Broken Tooth and hiscourageous engineers had at last repaired the breach, and the water inthe pond began to rise. 

Half a mile up the creek the big otter was squatted on a log basking inthe last glow of the setting sun. To-morrow he would go and do overagain his work of destruction. That was his method. For him it was play. 

But that strange and unseen arbiter of the forests called O-ee-ki, "theSpirit, " by those who speak the wild tongue, looked down at last withmercy upon Broken Tooth and his death-stricken tribe. For in that lastglow of sunset Kazan and Gray Wolf slipped stealthily up the creek--tofind the otter basking half asleep on the log. 

The day's work, a full stomach, and the pool of warm sunlight in whichhe lay had all combined to make the otter sleepy. He was as motionlessas the log on which he had stretched himself. He was big and gray andold. For ten years he had lived to prove his cunning superior to that ofman. Vainly traps had been set for him. Wily trappers had built narrowsluice-ways of rock and tree in small streams for him, but the old otterhad foiled their cunning and escaped the steel jaws waiting at the lowerend of each sluice. The trail he left in soft mud told of his size. Afew trappers had seen him. His soft pelt would long ago have found itsway to London, Paris or Berlin had it not been for his cunning. He wasfit for a princess, a duke or an emperor. For ten years he had livedand escaped the demands of the rich. 

But this was summer. No trapper would have killed him now, for his peltwas worthless. Nature and instinct both told him this. At this season hedid not dread man, for there was no man to dread. So he lay asleep onthe log, oblivious to everything but the comfort of sleep and the warmthof the sun. 

Soft-footed, searching still for signs of the furry enemies who hadinvaded their domain, Kazan slipped along the creek. Gray Wolf ran closeat his shoulder. They made no sound, and the wind was in theirfavor--bringing scents toward them. It brought the otter smell. To Kazanand Gray Wolf it was the scent of a water animal, rank and fishy, andthey took it for the beaver. They advanced still more cautiously. ThenKazan saw the big otter asleep on the log and he gave the warning toGray Wolf. She stopped, standing with her head thrown up, while Kazanmade his stealthy advance. The otter stirred uneasily. It was growingdusk. The golden pool of sunlight had faded away. Back in the darkeningtimber an owl greeted night with its first-low call. The otter breatheddeeply. His whiskered muzzle twitched. He was awakening--stirring--whenKazan leaped upon him. Face to face, in fair fight, the old otter couldhave given a good account of himself. But there was no chance now. Thewild itself had for the first time in his life become his deadliestenemy. It was not man now--but O-ee-ki, "the Spirit, " that had laid itshand upon him. And from the Spirit there was no escape. Kazan's fangssank into his soft jugular. Perhaps he died without knowing what it wasthat had leaped upon him. For he died--quickly, and Kazan and Gray Wolfwent on their way, hunting still for enemies to slaughter, and notknowing that in the otter they had killed the one ally who would havedriven the beavers from their swamp home. 

The days that followed grew more and more hopeless for Kazan and GrayWolf. With the otter gone Broken Tooth and his tribe held the winninghand. Each day the water backed a little farther into the depressionsurrounding the windfall. By the middle of July only a narrow strip ofland connected the windfall hummock with the dry land of the swamp. Indeep water the beavers now worked unmolested. Inch by inch the waterrose, until there came the day when it began to overflow the connectingstrip. For the last time Kazan and Gray Wolf passed from their windfallhome and traveled up the stream between the two ridges. The creek held anew meaning for them now and as they traveled they sniffed its odors andlistened to its sounds with an interest they had never known before. Itwas an interest mingled a little with fear, for something in the mannerin which the beavers had beaten them reminded Kazan and Gray Wolf of_man_. And that night, when in the radiance of the big white moon theycame within scent of the beaver colony that Broken Tooth had left, theyturned quickly northward into the plains. Thus had brave old BrokenTooth taught them to respect the flesh and blood and handiwork of histribe. 

CHAPTER XXI

A SHOT ON THE SAND-BAR

July and August of 1911 were months of great fires in the Northland. Theswamp home of Kazan and Gray Wolf, and the green valley between the tworidges, had escaped the seas of devastating flame; but now, as they setforth on their wandering adventures again, it was not long before theirpadded feet came in contact with the seared and blackened desolationthat had followed so closely after the plague and starvation of thepreceding winter. In his humiliation and defeat, after being driven fromhis swamp home by the beavers, Kazan led his blind mate first into thesouth. Twenty miles beyond the ridge they struck the fire-killedforests. Winds from Hudson's Bay had driven the flames in an unbrokensea into the west, and they had left not a vestige of life or a patch ofgreen. Blind Gray Wolf could not see the blackened world, but she_sensed_ it. It recalled to her memory of that other fire, after thebattle on the Sun Rock; and all of her wonderful instincts, sharpenedand developed by her blindness, told her that to the north--and notsouth--lay the hunting-grounds they were seeking. The strain of dog thatwas in Kazan still pulled him south. It was not because he sought man, for to man he had now become as deadly an enemy as Gray Wolf herself. Itwas simply dog instinct to travel southward; in the face of fire it waswolf instinct to travel northward. At the end of the third day Gray Wolfwon. They recrossed the little valley between the two ridges, and swungnorth and west into the Athabasca country, striking a course that wouldultimately bring them to the headwaters of the McFarlane River. 

Late in the preceding autumn a prospector had come up to Fort Smith, onthe Slave River, with a pickle bottle filled with gold dust and nuggets. He had made the find on the McFarlane. The first mails had taken thenews to the outside world, and by midwinter the earliest members of atreasure-hunting horde were rushing into the country by snow-shoe anddog-sledge. Other finds came thick and fast. The McFarlane was rich infree gold, and miners by the score staked out their claims along it andbegan work. Latecomers swung to new fields farther north and east, andto Fort Smith came rumors of "finds" richer than those of the Yukon. Ascore of men at first--then a hundred, five hundred, a thousand--rushedinto the new country. Most of these were from the prairie countries tothe south, and from the placer beds of the Saskatchewan and the Frazer. From the far North, traveling by way of the Mackenzie and the Liard, came a smaller number of seasoned prospectors and adventurers from theYukon--men who knew what it meant to starve and freeze and die byinches. 

One of these late comers was Sandy McTrigger. There were several reasonswhy Sandy had left the Yukon. He was "in bad" with the police whopatrolled the country west of Dawson, and he was "broke. " In spite ofthese facts he was one of the best prospectors that had ever followedthe shores of the Klondike. He had made discoveries running up to amillion or two, and had promptly lost them through gambling and drink. He had no conscience, and little fear. Brutality was the chief thingwritten in his face. His undershot jaw, his wide eyes, low forehead andgrizzly mop of red hair proclaimed him at once as a man not to betrusted beyond one's own vision or the reach of a bullet. It wassuspected that he had killed a couple of men, and robbed others, but asyet the police had failed to get anything "on" him. But along with thisbad side of him, Sandy McTrigger possessed a coolness and a couragewhich even his worst enemies could not but admire, and also certainmental depths which his unpleasant features did not proclaim. 

Inside of six months Red Gold City had sprung up on the McFarlane, ahundred and fifty miles from Fort Smith, and Fort Smith was five hundredmiles from civilization. When Sandy came he looked over the crudecollection of shacks, gambling houses and saloons in the new town, andmade up his mind that the time was not ripe for any of his "inside"schemes just yet. He gambled a little, and won sufficient to buy himselfgrub and half an outfit. A feature of this outfit was an oldmuzzle-loading rifle. Sandy, who always carried the latest Savage onthe market, laughed at it. But it was the best his finances would allowof. He started south--up the McFarlane. Beyond a certain point on theriver prospectors had found no gold. Sandy pushed confidently _beyond_this point. Not until he was in new country did he begin his search. Slowly he worked his way up a small tributary whose headwaters werefifty or sixty miles to the south and east. Here and there he foundfairly good placer gold. He might have panned six or eight dollars'worth a day. With this much he was disgusted. Week after week hecontinued to work his way up-stream, and the farther he went the poorerhis pans became. At last only occasionally did he find colors. Aftersuch disgusting weeks as these Sandy was dangerous--when in the companyof others. Alone he was harmless. 

One afternoon he ran his canoe ashore on a white strip of sand. This wasat a bend, where the stream had widened, and gave promise of at least afew colors. He had bent down close to the edge of the water whensomething caught his attention on the wet sand. What he saw were thefootprints of animals. Two had come down to drink. They had stood sideby side. And the footprints were fresh--made not more than an hour ortwo before. A gleam of interest shot into Sandy's eyes. He looked behindhim, and up and down the stream. 

"Wolves, " he grunted. "Wish I could 'a' shot at 'em with that oldminute-gun back there. Gawd--listen to that! And in broad daylight, too!"

He jumped to his feet, staring off into the bush. 

A quarter of a mile away Gray Wolf had caught the dreaded scent of manin the wind, and was giving voice to her warning. It was a long wailinghowl, and not until its last echoes had died away did Sandy McTriggermove. Then he returned to the canoe, took out his old gun, put a freshcap on the nipple and disappeared quickly over the edge of the bank. 

For a week Kazan and Gray Wolf had been wandering about the headwatersof the McFarlane and this was the first time since the preceding winterthat Gray Wolf had caught the scent of man in the air. When the windbrought the danger-signal to her she was alone. Two or three minutesbefore the scent came to her Kazan had left her side in swift pursuit ofa snow-shoe rabbit, and she lay flat on her belly under a bush, waitingfor him. In these moments when she was alone Gray Wolf was constantlysniffing the air. Blindness had developed her scent and hearing untilthey were next to infallible. First she had heard the rattle of SandyMcTrigger's paddle against the side of his canoe a quarter of a mileaway. Scent had followed swiftly. Five minutes after her warning howlKazan stood at her side, his head flung up, his jaws open and panting. Sandy had hunted Arctic foxes, and he was using the Eskimo tactics now, swinging in a half-circle until he should come up in the face of thewind. Kazan caught a single whiff of the man-tainted air and his spinegrew stiff. But blind Gray Wolf was keener than the little red-eyed foxof the North. Her pointed nose slowly followed Sandy's progress. Sheheard a dry stick crack under his feet three hundred yards away. Shecaught the metallic click of his gun-barrel as it struck a birchsapling. The moment she lost Sandy in the wind she whined and rubbedherself against Kazan and trotted a few steps to the southwest. 

At times such as this Kazan seldom refused to take guidance from her. They trotted away side by side and by the time Sandy was creeping upsnake-like with the wind in his face, Kazan was peering from the fringeof river brush down upon the canoe on the white strip of sand. WhenSandy returned, after an hour of futile stalking, two fresh tracks ledstraight down to the canoe. He looked at them in amazement and then asinister grin wrinkled his ugly face. He chuckled as he went to his kitand dug out a small rubber bag. From this he drew a tightly corkedbottle, filled with gelatine capsules. In each little capsule were fivegrains of strychnine. There were dark hints that once upon a time SandyMcTrigger had tried one of these capsules by dropping it in a cup ofcoffee and giving it to a man, but the police had never proved it. Hewas expert in the use of poison. Probably he had killed a thousand foxesin his time, and he chuckled again as he counted out a dozen of thecapsules and thought how easy it would be to get this inquisitive pairof wolves. Two or three days before he had killed a caribou, and each ofthe capsules he now rolled up in a little ball of deer fat, doing thework with short sticks in place of his fingers, so that there would beno man-smell clinging to the death-baits. Before sundown Sandy set outat right-angles over the plain, planting the baits. Most of them he hungto low bushes. Others he dropped in worn rabbit and caribou trails. Thenhe returned to the creek and cooked his supper. 

Then next morning he was up early, and off to the poison baits. Thefirst bait was untouched. The second was as he had planted it. The thirdwas gone. A thrill shot through Sandy as he looked about him. Somewherewithin a radius of two or three hundred yards he would find his game. Then his glance fell to the ground under the bush where he had hung thepoison capsule and an oath broke from his lips. The bait had not beeneaten. The caribou fat lay scattered under the bush and still imbeddedin the largest portion of it was the little white capsule--unbroken. Itwas Sandy's first experience with a wild creature whose instincts weresharpened by blindness, and he was puzzled. He had never known this tohappen before. If a fox or a wolf could be lured to the point oftouching a bait, it followed that the bait was eaten. Sandy went on tothe fourth and the fifth baits. They were untouched. The sixth was tornto pieces, like the third. In this instance the capsule was broken andthe white powder scattered. Two more poison baits Sandy found pulleddown in this manner. He knew that Kazan and Gray Wolf had done the work, for he found the marks of their feet in a dozen different places. Theaccumulated bad humor of weeks of futile labor found vent in hisdisappointment and anger. At last he had found something tangible tocurse. The failure of his poison baits he accepted as a sort of climaxto his general bad luck. Everything was against him, he believed, and hemade up his mind to return to Red Gold City. Early in the afternoon helaunched his canoe and drifted down-stream with the current. He wascontent to let the current do all of the work to-day, and he used hispaddle just enough to keep his slender craft head on. He leaned backcomfortably and smoked his pipe, with the old rifle between his knees. The wind was in his face and he kept a sharp watch for game. 

It was late in the afternoon when Kazan and Gray Wolf came out on asand-bar five or six miles down-stream. Kazan was lapping up the coolwater when Sandy drifted quietly around a bend a hundred yards abovethem. If the wind had been right, or if Sandy had been using his paddle, Gray Wolf would have detected danger. It was the metallic click-click ofthe old-fashioned lock of Sandy's rifle that awakened her to a sense ofperil. Instantly she was thrilled by the nearness of it. Kazan heard thesound and stopped drinking to face it. In that moment Sandy pressed thetrigger. A belch of smoke, a roar of gunpowder, and Kazan felt a red-hotstream of fire pass with the swiftness of a lightning-flash through hisbrain. He stumbled back, his legs gave way under him, and he crumpleddown in a limp heap. Gray Wolf darted like a streak off into the bush. Blind, she had not seen Kazan wilt down upon the white sand. Not untilshe was a quarter of a mile away from the terrifying thunder of thewhite man's rifle did she stop and wait for him. 

Sandy McTrigger grounded his canoe on the sand-bar with an exultantyell. 

"Got you, you old devil, didn't I?" he cried. "I'd 'a' got the other, too, if I'd 'a' had something besides this damned old relic!"

He turned Kazan's head over with the butt of his gun, and the leer ofsatisfaction in his face gave place to a sudden look of amazement. Forthe first time he saw the collar about Kazan's neck. 

"My Gawd, it ain't a wolf, " he gasped. "It's a dog, Sandy McTrigger--_adog!"_

CHAPTER XXII

SANDY'S METHOD

McTrigger dropped on his knees in the sand. The look of exultation wasgone from his face. He twisted the collar about the dog's limp neckuntil he came to the worn plate, on which he could make out the faintlyengraved letters _K-a-z-a-n_. He spelled the letters out one by one, andthe look in his face was of one who still disbelieved what he had seenand heard. 

"A dog!" he exclaimed again. "A dog, Sandy McTrigger an' a--a beauty!"

He rose to his feet and looked down on his victim. A pool of blood layin the white sand at the end of Kazan's nose. After a moment Sandy bentover to see where his bullet had struck. His inspection filled him witha new and greater interest. The heavy ball from the muzzle-loader hadstruck Kazan fairly on top of the head. It was a glancing blow that hadnot even broken the skull, and like a flash Sandy understood thequivering and twitching of Kazan's shoulders and legs. He had thoughtthat they were the last muscular throes of death. But Kazan was notdying. He was only stunned, and would be on his feet again in a fewminutes. Sandy was a connoisseur of dogs--of dogs that had worn sledgetraces. He had lived among them two-thirds of his life. He could telltheir age, their value, and a part of their history at a glance. In thesnow he could tell the trail of a Mackenzie hound from that of aMalemute, and the track of an Eskimo dog from that of a Yukon husky. Helooked at Kazan's feet. They were wolf feet, and he chuckled. Kazan waspart wild. He was big and powerful, and Sandy thought of the comingwinter, and of the high prices that dogs would bring at Red Gold City. He went to the canoe and returned with a roll of stout moose-hidebabiche. Then he sat down cross-legged in front of Kazan and beganmaking a muzzle. He did this by plaiting babiche thongs in the samemanner that one does in making the web of a snow-shoe. In ten minutes hehad the muzzle over Kazan's nose and fastened securely about his neck. To the dog's collar he then fastened a ten-foot rope of babiche. Afterthat he sat back and waited for Kazan to come to life. 

When Kazan first lifted his head he could not see. There was a red filmbefore his eyes. But this passed away swiftly and he saw the man. Hisfirst instinct was to rise to his feet. Three times he fell back beforehe could stand up. Sandy was squatted six feet from him, holding the endof the babiche, and grinning. Kazan's fangs gleamed back. He growled, and the crest along his spine rose menacingly. Sandy jumped to his feet. 

"Guess I know what you're figgering on, " he said. "I've had _your_ kindbefore. The dam' wolves have turned you bad, an' you'll need a whole lotof club before you're right again. Now, look here. "

Sandy had taken the precaution of bringing a thick club along with thebabiche. He picked it up from where he had dropped it in the sand. Kazan's strength had fairly returned to him now. He was no longer dizzy. The mist had cleared away from his eyes. Before him he saw once more hisold enemy, man--man and the club. All of the wild ferocity of hisnature was roused in an instant. Without reasoning he knew that GrayWolf was gone, and that this man was accountable for her going. He knewthat this man had also brought him his own hurt, and what he ascribed tothe man he also attributed to the club. In his newer undertaking ofthings, born of freedom and Gray Wolf, Man and Club were one andinseparable. With a snarl he leaped at Sandy. The man was not expectinga direct assault, and before he could raise his club or spring asideKazan had landed full on his chest. The muzzle about Kazan's jaws savedhim. Fangs that would have torn his throat open snapped harmlessly. Under the weight of the dog's body he fell back, as if struck down by acatapult. 

As quick as a cat he was on his feet again, with the end of the babichetwisted several times about his hand. Kazan leaped again, and this timehe was met by a furious swing of the club. It smashed against hisshoulder, and sent him down in the sand. Before he could recover Sandywas upon him, with all the fury of a man gone mad. He shortened thebabiche by twisting it again and again about his hand, and the club roseand fell with the skill and strength of one long accustomed to its use. The first blows served only to add to Kazan's hatred of man, and theferocity and fearlessness of his attacks. Again and again he leaped in, and each time the club fell upon him with a force that threatened tobreak his bones. There was a tense hard look about Sandy's cruel mouth. He had never known a dog like this before, and he was a bit nervous, even with Kazan muzzled. Three times Kazan's fangs would have sunk deepin his flesh had it not been for the babiche. And if the thongs abouthis jaws should slip, or break--. 

Sandy followed up the thought with a smashing blow that landed onKazan's head, and once more the old battler fell limp upon the sand. McTrigger's breath was coming in quick gasps. He was almost winded. Notuntil the club slipped from his hand did he realize how desperate thefight had been. Before Kazan recovered from the blow that had stunnedhim Sandy examined the muzzle and strengthened it by adding anotherbabiche thong. Then he dragged Kazan to a log that high water hadthrown up on the shore a few yards away and made the end of the babicherope fast to a dead snag. After that he pulled his canoe higher up onthe sand, and began to prepare camp for the night. 

For some minutes after Kazan's stunned senses had become normal he laymotionless, watching Sandy McTrigger. Every bone in his body gave himpain. His jaws were sore and bleeding. His upper lip was smashed wherethe club had fallen. One eye was almost closed. Several times Sandy camenear, much pleased at what he regarded as the good results of thebeating. Each time he brought the club. The third time he prodded Kazanwith it, and the dog snarled and snapped savagely at the end of it. Thatwas what Sandy wanted--it was an old trick of the dog-slaver. Instantlyhe was using the club again, until with a whining cry Kazan slunk underthe protection of the snag to which he was fastened. He could scarcelydrag himself. His right forepaw was smashed. His hindquarters sank underhim. For a time after this second beating he could not have escaped hadhe been free. 

Sandy was in unusually good humor. 

"I'll take the devil out of you all right, " he told Kazan for thetwentieth time. "There's nothin' like beatin's to make dogs an' wimminlive up to the mark. A month from now you'll be worth two hundreddollars or I'll skin you alive!"

Three or four times before dusk Sandy worked to rouse Kazan's animosity. But there was no longer any desire left in Kazan to fight. His twoterrific beatings, and the crushing blow of the bullet against hisskull, had made him sick. He lay with his head between his forepaws, hiseyes closed, and did not see McTrigger. He paid no attention to the meatthat was thrown under his nose. He did not know when the last of the sunsank behind the western forests, or when the darkness came. But at lastsomething roused him from his stupor. To his dazed and sickened brain itcame like a call from out of the far past, and he raised his head andlistened. Out on the sand McTrigger had built a fire, and the man stoodin the red glow of it now, facing the dark shadows beyond the shoreline. He, too, was listening. What had roused Kazan came again now--the lostmourning cry of Gray Wolf far out on the plain. 

With a whine Kazan was on his feet, tugging at the babiche. Sandysnatched up his club, and leaped toward him. 

"Down, you brute!" he commanded. 

In the firelight the club rose and fell with ferocious quickness. WhenMcTrigger returned to the fire he was breathing hard again. He tossedhis club beside the blankets he had spread out for a bed. It was adifferent looking club now. It was covered with blood and hair. 

"Guess that'll take the spirit out of him, " he chuckled. "It'll dothat--or kill 'im!"

Several times that night Kazan heard Gray Wolf's call. He whined softlyin response, fearing the club. He watched the fire until the last embersof it died out, and then cautiously dragged himself from under the snag. Two or three times he tried to stand on his feet, but fell back eachtime. His legs were not broken, but the pain of standing on them wasexcruciating. He was hot and feverish. All that night he had craved adrink of water. When Sandy crawled out from between his blankets in theearly dawn he gave him both meat and water. Kazan drank the water, butwould not touch the meat. Sandy regarded the change in him withsatisfaction. By the time the sun was up he had finished his breakfastand was ready to leave. He approached Kazan fearlessly now, without theclub. Untying the babiche he dragged the dog to the canoe. Kazan slunkin the sand while his captor fastened the end of the hide rope to thestern of the canoe. Sandy grinned. What was about to happen would be funfor him. In the Yukon he had learned how to take the spirit out of dogs. 

He pushed off, bow foremost. Bracing himself with his paddle he thenbegan to pull Kazan toward the water. In a few moments Kazan stood withhis forefeet planted in the damp sand at the edge of the stream. For abrief interval Sandy allowed the babiche to fall slack. Then with asudden powerful pull he jerked Kazan out into the water. Instantly hesent the canoe into midstream, swung it quickly down with the current, and began to paddle enough to keep the babiche taut about his victim'sneck. In spite of his sickness and injuries Kazan was now compelled toswim to keep his head above water. In the wash of the canoe, and withSandy's strokes growing steadily stronger, his position became eachmoment one of increasing torture. At times his shaggy head was pulledcompletely under water. At others Sandy would wait until he had driftedalongside, and then thrust him under with the end of his paddle. He grewweaker. At the end of a half-mile he was drowning. Not until then didSandy pull him alongside and drag him into the canoe. The dog fell limpand gasping in the bottom. Brutal though Sandy's methods had been, theyhad worked his purpose. In Kazan there was no longer a desire to fight. He no longer struggled for freedom. He knew that this man was hismaster, and for the time his spirit was gone. All he desired now was tobe allowed to lie in the bottom of the canoe, out of reach of the club, and safe from the water. The club lay between him and the man. The endof it was within a foot or two of his nose, and what he smelled was hisown blood. 

For five days and five nights the journey down-stream continued, andMcTrigger's process of civilizing Kazan was continued in three morebeatings with the club, and another resort to the water torture. On themorning of the sixth day they reached Red Gold City, and McTrigger putup his tent close to the river. Somewhere he obtained a chain for Kazan, and after fastening the dog securely back of the tent he cut off thebabiche muzzle. 

"You can't put on meat in a muzzle, " he told his prisoner. "An' I wantyou to git strong--an' fierce as hell. I've got an idee. It's an ideeyou can lick your weight in wildcats. We'll pull off a stunt pretty soonthat'll fill our pockets with dust. I've done it afore, and we can do it_here_. Wolf an' dog--s'elp me Gawd but it'll be a drawin' card!"

Twice a day after this he brought fresh raw meat to Kazan. QuicklyKazan's spirit and courage returned to him. The soreness left his limbs. His battered jaws healed. And after the fourth day each time that Sandycame with meat he greeted him with the challenge of his snarling fangs. McTrigger did not beat him now. He gave him no fish, no tallow andmeal--nothing but raw meat. He traveled five miles up the river to bringin the fresh entrail of a caribou that had been killed. One day Sandybrought another man with him and when the stranger came a step too nearKazan made a sudden swift lunge at him. The man jumped back with astartled oath. 

"He'll do, " he growled. "He's lighter by ten or fifteen pounds than theDane, but he's got the teeth, an' the quickness, an' he'll give a goodshow before he goes under. "

"I'll make you a bet of twenty-five per cent. Of my share that he don'tgo under, " offered Sandy. 

"Done!" said the other. "How long before he'll be ready?"

Sandy thought a moment. 

"Another week, " he said. "He won't have his weight before then. A weekfrom to-day, we'll say. Next Tuesday night. Does that suit you, Harker?"

Harker nodded. 

"Next Tuesday night, " he agreed. Then he added, "I'll make it a _half_of my share that the Dane kills your wolf-dog. "

Sandy took a long look at Kazan. 

"I'll just take you on that, " he said. Then, as he shook Harker's hand, "I don't believe there's a dog between here and the Yukon that can killthe wolf!"

CHAPTER XXIII

PROFESSOR McGILL

Red Gold City was ripe for a night of relaxation. There had been somegambling, a few fights and enough liquor to create excitement now andthen, but the presence of the mounted police had served to keep thingsunusually tame compared with events a few hundred miles farther north, in the Dawson country. The entertainment proposed by Sandy McTrigger andJan Harker met with excited favor. The news spread for twenty milesabout Red Gold City and there had never been greater excitement in thetown than on the afternoon and night of the big fight. This was largelybecause Kazan and the huge Dane had been placed on exhibition, each dogin a specially made cage of his own, and a fever of betting began. Threehundred men, each of whom was paying five dollars to see the battle, viewed the gladiators through the bars of their cages. Harker's dog wasa combination of Great Dane and mastiff, born in the North, and bred tothe traces. Betting favored him by the odds of two to one. Occasionallyit ran three to one. At these odds there was plenty of Kazan money. Those who were risking their money on him were the older wildernessmen--men who had spent their lives among dogs, and who knew what the redglint in Kazan's eyes meant. An old Kootenay miner spoke low inanother's ear:

"I'd bet on 'im even. I'd give odds if I had to. He'll fight all aroundthe Dane. The Dane won't have no method. "

"But he's got the weight, " said the other dubiously. "Look at his jaws, an' his shoulders--"

"An' his big feet, an' his soft throat, an' the clumsy thickness of hisbelly, " interrupted the Kootenay man. "For Gawd's sake, man, take myword for it, an' don't put your money on the Dane!"

Others thrust themselves between them. At first Kazan had snarled at allthese faces about him. But now he lay back against the boarded side ofthe cage and eyed them sullenly from between his forepaws. 

The fight was to be pulled off in Barker's place, a combination ofsaloon and cafe. The benches and tables had been cleared out and in thecenter of the one big room a cage ten feet square rested on a platformthree and a half feet from the floor. Seats for the three hundredspectators were drawn closely around this. Suspended just above the opentop of the cage were two big oil lamps with glass reflectors. 

It was eight o'clock when Harker, McTrigger and two other men bore Kazanto the arena by means of the wooden bars that projected from the bottomof his cage. The big Dane was already in the fighting cage. He stoodblinking his eyes in the brilliant light of the reflecting lamps. Hepricked up his ears when he saw Kazan. Kazan did not show his fangs. Neither revealed the expected animosity. It was the first they had seenof each other, and a murmur of disappointment swept the ranks of thethree hundred men. The Dane remained as motionless as a rock when Kazanwas prodded from his own cage into the fighting cage. He did not leap orsnarl. He regarded Kazan with a dubious questioning poise to hissplendid head, and then looked again to the expectant and excited facesof the waiting men. For a few moments Kazan stood stiff-legged, facingthe Dane. Then his shoulders dropped, and he, too, coolly faced thecrowd that had expected a fight to the death. A laugh of derision sweptthrough the closely seated rows. Catcalls, jeering taunts flung atMcTrigger and Harker, and angry voices demanding their money backmingled with a tumult of growing discontent. Sandy's face was red withmortification and rage. The blue veins in Barker's forehead had swollentwice their normal size. He shook his fist in the face of the crowd, andshouted:

"Wait! Give 'em a chance, you dam' fools!"

At his words every voice was stilled. Kazan had turned. He was facingthe huge Dane. And the Dane had turned his eyes to Kazan. Cautiously, prepared for a lunge or a sidestep, Kazan advanced a little. The Dane'sshoulders bristled. He, too, advanced upon Kazan. Four feet apart theystood rigid. One could have heard a whisper in the room now. Sandy andHarker, standing close to the cage, scarcely breathed. Splendid in everylimb and muscle, warriors of a hundred fights, and fearless to the pointof death, the two half-wolf victims of man stood facing each other. Nonecould see the questioning look in their brute eyes. None knew that inthis thrilling moment the unseen hand of the wonderful Spirit God of thewilderness hovered between them, and that one of its miracles wasdescending upon them. It was _understanding_. Meeting in theopen--rivals in the traces--they would have been rolling in the throesof terrific battle. But _here_ came that mute appeal of brotherhood. Inthe final moment, when only a step separated them, and when men expectedto see the first mad lunge, the splendid Dane slowly raised his head andlooked over Kazan's back through the glare of the lights. Harkertrembled, and under his breath he cursed. The Dane's throat was open toKazan. But between the beasts had passed the voiceless pledge of peace. Kazan did not leap. He turned. And shoulder to shoulder--splendid intheir contempt of man--they stood and looked through the bars of theirprison into the one of human faces. 

A roar burst from the crowd--a roar of anger, of demand, of threat. Inhis rage Harker drew a revolver and leveled it at the Dane. Above thetumult of the crowd a single voice stopped him. 

"Hold!" it demanded. "Hold--in the name of the law!"

For a moment there was silence. Every face turned in the direction ofthe voice. Two men stood on chairs behind the last row. One was SergeantBrokaw, of the Royal Northwest Mounted. It was he who had spoken. He washolding up a hand, commanding silence and attention. On the chair besidehim stood another man. He was thin, with drooping shoulders, and a palesmooth face--a little man, whose physique and hollow cheeks told nothingof the years he had spent close up along the raw edge of the Arctic. Itwas he who spoke now, while the sergeant held up his hand. His voice waslow and quiet:

"I'll give the owners five hundred dollars for those dogs, " he said. 

Every man in the room heard the offer. Harker looked at Sandy. For aninstant their heads were close together. 

"They won't fight, and they'll make good team-mates, " the little manwent on. "I'll give the owners five hundred dollars. "

Harker raised a hand. 

"Make it six, " he said. "Make it six and they're yours. "

The little man hesitated. Then he nodded. 

"I'll give you six hundred, " he agreed. 

Murmurs of discontent rose throughout the crowd. Harker climbed to theedge of the platform. 

"We ain't to blame because they wouldn't fight, " he shouted, "but ifthere's any of you small enough to want your money back you can git itas you go out. The dogs laid down on us, that's all. We ain't to blame. "

The little man was edging his way between the chairs, accompanied by thesergeant of police. With his pale face close to the sapling bars of thecage he looked at Kazan and the big Dane. 

"I guess we'll be good friends, " he said, and he spoke so low that onlythe dogs heard his voice. "It's a big price, but we'll charge it to theSmithsonian, lads. I'm going to need a couple of four-footed friends ofyour moral caliber. "

And no one knew why Kazan and the Dane drew nearer to the littlescientist's side of the cage as he pulled out a big roll of bills andcounted out six hundred dollars for Harker and Sandy McTrigger. 

CHAPTER XXIV

ALONE IN DARKNESS

Never had the terror and loneliness of blindness fallen upon Gray Wolfas in the days that followed the shooting of Kazan and his capture bySandy McTrigger. For hours after the shot she crouched in the bush backfrom the river, waiting for him to come to her. She had faith that hewould come, as he had come a thousand times before, and she lay close onher belly, sniffing the air, and whining when it brought no scent of hermate. Day and night were alike an endless chaos of darkness to her now, but she knew when the sun went down. She sensed the first deepeningshadows of evening, and she knew that the stars were out, and that theriver lay in moonlight. It was a night to roam, and after a time shemoved restlessly about in a small circle on the plain, and sent out herfirst inquiring call for Kazan. Up from the river came the pungent odorof smoke, and instinctively she knew that it was this smoke, and thenearness of man, that was keeping Kazan from her. But she went no nearerthan that first circle made by her padded feet. Blindness had taught herto wait. Since the day of the battle on the Sun Rock, when the lynx haddestroyed her eyes, Kazan had never failed her. Three times she calledfor him in the early night. Then she made herself a nest under a_banskian_ shrub, and waited until dawn. 

Just how she knew when night blotted out the last glow of the sun, sowithout seeing she knew when day came. Not until she felt the warmth ofthe sun on her back did her anxiety overcome her caution. Slowly shemoved toward the river, sniffing the air and whining. There was nolonger the smell of smoke in the air, and she could not catch the scentof man. She followed her own trail back to the sand-bar, and in thefringe of thick bush overhanging the white shore of the stream shestopped and listened. After a little she scrambled down and wentstraight to the spot where she and Kazan were drinking when the shotcame. And there her nose struck the sand still wet and thick withKazan's blood. She knew it was the blood of her mate, for the scent ofhim was all about her in the sand, mingled with the man-smell of SandyMcTrigger. She sniffed the trail of his body to the edge of the stream, where Sandy had dragged him to the canoe. She found the fallen tree towhich he had been tied. And then she came upon one of the two clubs thatSandy had used to beat wounded Kazan into submissiveness. It was coveredwith blood and hair, and all at once Gray Wolf lay back on her haunchesand turned her blind face to the sky, and there rose from her throat acry for Kazan that drifted for miles on the wings of the south wind. Never had Gray Wolf given quite that cry before. It was not the "call"that comes with the moonlit nights, and neither was it the hunt-cry, northe she-wolf's yearning for matehood. It carried with it the lament ofdeath. And after that one cry Gray Wolf slunk back to the fringe of bushover the river, and lay with her face turned to the stream. 

A strange terror fell upon her. She had grown accustomed to darkness, but never before had she been _alone_ in that darkness. Always therehad been the guardianship of Kazan's presence. She heard the cluckingsound of a spruce hen in the bush a few yards away, and now that soundcame to her as if from out of another world. A ground-mouse rustledthrough the grass close to her forepaws, and she snapped at it, andclosed her teeth on a rock. The muscles of her shoulders twitchedtremulously and she shivered as if stricken by intense cold. She wasterrified by the darkness that shut out the world from her, and shepawed at her closed eyes, as if she might open them to light. Early inthe afternoon she wandered back on the plain. It was different. Itfrightened her, and soon she returned to the beach, and snuggled downunder the tree where Kazan had lain. She was not so frightened here. Thesmell of Kazan was strong about her. For an hour she lay motionless, with her head resting on the club clotted with his hair and blood. Nightfound her still there. And when the moon and the stars came out shecrawled back into the pit in the white sand that Kazan's body had madeunder the tree. 

With dawn she went down to the edge of the stream to drink. She couldnot see that the day was almost as dark as night, and that thegray-black sky was a chaos of slumbering storm. But she could smell thepresence of it in the thick air, and could _feel_ the forked flashes oflightning that rolled up with the dense pall from the south and west. The distant rumbling of thunder grew louder, and she huddled herselfagain under the tree. For hours the storm crashed over her, and the rainfell in a deluge. When it had finished she slunk out from her shelterlike a thing beaten. Vainly she sought for one last scent of Kazan. Theclub was washed clean. Again the sand was white where Kazan's blood hadreddened it. Even under the tree there was no sign of him left. 

Until now only the terror of being alone in the pit of darkness thatenveloped her had oppressed Gray Wolf. With afternoon came hunger. Itwas this hunger that drew her from the sand-bar, and she wandered backinto the plain. A dozen times she scented game, and each time it evadedher. Even a ground-mouse that she cornered under a root, and dug outwith her paws, escaped her fangs. 

Thirty-six hours before this Kazan and Gray Wolf had left a half oftheir last kill a mile of two farther back on the plain. The kill wasone of the big barren rabbits, and Gray Wolf turned in its direction. She did not require sight to find it. In her was developed to its finestpoint that sixth sense of the animal kingdom, the sense of orientation, and as straight as a pigeon might have winged its flight she cut throughthe bush to the spot where they had cached the rabbit. A white fox hadbeen there ahead of her, and she found only scattered bits of hair andfur. What the fox had left the moose-birds and bush-jays had carriedaway. Hungrily Gray Wolf turned back to the river. 

That night she slept again where Kazan had lain, and three times shecalled for him without answer. A heavy dew fell, and it drenched thelast vestige of her mate's scent out of the sand. But still through theday that followed, and the day that followed that, blind Gray Wolf clungto the narrow rim of white sand. On the fourth day her hunger reached apoint where she gnawed the bark from willow bushes. It was on this daythat she made a discovery. She was drinking, when her sensitive nosetouched something in the water's edge that was smooth, and bore a faintodor of flesh. It was one of the big northern river clams. She pawed itashore, sniffing at the hard shell. Then she crunched it between herteeth. She had never tasted sweeter meat than that which she foundinside, and she began hunting for other clams. She found many of them, and ate until she was no longer hungry. For three days more she remainedon the bar. 

And then, one night, the call came to her. It set her quivering with astrange new excitement--something that may have been a new hope, and inthe moonlight she trotted nervously up and down the shining strip ofsand, facing now the north, and now the south, and then the east and thewest--her head flung up, listening, as if in the soft wind of the nightshe was trying to locate the whispering lure of a wonderful voice. Andwhatever it was that came to her came from out of the south and east. Off there--across the barren, far beyond the outer edge of the northerntimber-line--was _home_. And off there, in her brute way, she reasonedthat she must find Kazan. The call did not come from their old windfallhome in the swamp. It came from beyond that, and in a flashing visionthere rose through her blindness a picture of the towering Sun Rock, ofthe winding trail that led to it, and the cabin on the plain. It wasthere that blindness had come to her. It was there that day had ended, and eternal night had begun. And it was there that she had mothered herfirst-born. Nature had registered these things so that they could neverbe wiped out of her memory, and when the call came it was from thesunlit world where she had last known light and life and had last seenthe moon and the stars in the blue night of the skies. 

And to that call she responded, leaving the river and its food behindher--straight out into the face of darkness and starvation, no longerfearing death or the emptiness of the world she could not see; for aheadof her, two hundred miles away, she could see the Sun Rock, the windingtrail, the nest of her first-born between the two big rocks--_andKazan_!

CHAPTER XXV

THE LAST OF McTRIGGER

Sixty miles farther north Kazan lay at the end of his fine steel chain, watching little Professor McGill mixing a pail of tallow and bran. Adozen yards from him lay the big Dane, his huge jaws drooling inanticipation of the unusual feast which McGill was preparing. He showedsigns of pleasure when McGill approached him with a quart of themixture, and he gulped it between his huge jaws. The little man with thecold blue eyes and the gray-blond hair stroked his back without fear. His attitude was different when he turned to Kazan. His movements werefilled with caution, and yet his eyes and his lips were smiling, and hegave the wolf-dog no evidence of his fear, if it could be called fear. 

The little professor, who was up in the north country for theSmithsonian Institution, had spent a third of his life among dogs. Heloved them, and understood them. He had written a number of magazinearticles on dog intellect that had attracted wide attention amongnaturalists. It was largely because he loved dogs, and understood themmore than most men, that he had bought Kazan and the big Dane on thenight when Sandy McTrigger and his partner had tried to get them tofight to the death in the Red Gold City saloon. The refusal of the twosplendid beasts to kill each other for the pleasure of the three hundredmen who had assembled to witness the fight delighted him. He had alreadyplanned a paper on the incident. Sandy had told him the story of Kazan'scapture, and of his wild mate, Gray Wolf, and the professor had askedhim a thousand questions. But each day Kazan puzzled him more. No amountof kindness on his part could bring a responsive gleam in Kazan's eyes. Not once did Kazan signify a willingness to become friends. And yet hedid not snarl at McGill, or snap at his hands when they came withinreach. Quite frequently Sandy McTrigger came over to the little cabinwhere McGill was staying, and three times Kazan leaped at the end ofhis chain to get at him, and his white fangs gleamed as long as Sandywas in sight. Alone with McGill he became quiet. Something told him thatMcGill had come as a friend that night when he and the big Dane stoodshoulder to shoulder in the cage that had been built for a slaughterpen. Away down in his brute heart he held McGill apart from other men. He had no desire to harm him. He tolerated him, but showed none of thegrowing affection of the huge Dane. It was this fact that puzzledMcGill. He had never before known a dog that he could not make love him. 

To-day he placed the tallow and bran before Kazan, and the smile in hisface gave way to a look of perplexity. Kazan's lips had drawn suddenlyback. A fierce snarl rolled deep in his throat. The hair along his spinestood up. His muscles twitched. Instinctively the professor turned. Sandy McTrigger had come up quietly behind him. His brutal face wore agrin as he looked at Kazan. 

"It's a fool job--tryin' to make friends with _him_" he said. Then headded, with a sudden interested gleam in his eyes, "When you startin'?"

"With first frost, " replied McGill. "It ought to come soon. I'm going tojoin Sergeant Conroy and his party at Fond du Lac by the first ofOctober. "

"And you're going up to Fond du Lac--alone?" queried Sandy. "Why don'tyou take a man?"

The little professor laughed softly. 

"Why?" he asked. "I've been through the Athabasca waterways a dozentimes, and know the trail as well as I know Broadway. Besides, I like tobe alone. And the work isn't too hard, with the currents all flowing tothe north and east. "

Sandy was looking at the Dane, with his back to McGill. An exultantgleam shot for an instant into his eyes. 

"You're taking the dogs?"

"Yes. "

Sandy lighted his pipe, and spoke like one strangely curious. 

"Must cost a heap to take these trips o' yourn, don't it?"

"My last cost about seven thousand dollars. This will cost five, " saidMcGill. 

"Gawd!" breathed Sandy. "An' you carry all that along with you! Ain'tyou afraid--something might happen--?"

The little professor was looking the other way now. The carelessness inhis face and manner changed. His blue eyes grew a shade darker. A hardsmile which Sandy did not see hovered about his lips for an instant. Then he turned, laughing. 

"I'm a very light sleeper, " he said. "A footstep at night rouses me. Even a man's breathing awakes me, when I make up my mind that I must beon my guard. And, besides"--he drew from his pocket a blue-steeledSavage automatic--"I know how to use _this_. " He pointed to a knot inthe wall of the cabin. "Observe, " he said. Five times he fired at twentypaces, and when Sandy went up to look at the knot he gave a gasp. Therewas one jagged hole where the knot had been. 

"Pretty good, " he grinned. "Most men couldn't do better'n that with arifle. "

When Sandy left, McGill followed him with a suspicious gleam in hiseyes, and a curious smile on his lips. Then he turned to Kazan. 

"Guess you've got him figgered out about right, old man, " he laughedsoftly. "I don't blame you very much for wanting to get him by thethroat. Perhaps--"

He shoved his hands deep in his pockets, and went into the cabin. Kazandropped his head between his forepaws, and lay still, with wide-openeyes. It was late afternoon, early in September, and each night broughtnow the first chill breaths of autumn. Kazan watched the last glow ofthe sun as it faded out of the southern skies. Darkness always followedswiftly after that, and with darkness came more fiercely his wildlonging for freedom. Night after night he had gnawed at his steel chain. Night after night he had watched the stars, and the moon, and hadlistened for Gray Wolf's call, while the big Dane lay sleeping. To-nightit was colder than usual, and the keen tang of the wind that came freshfrom the west stirred him strangely. It set his blood afire with whatthe Indians call the Frost Hunger. Lethargic summer was gone and thedays and nights of hunting were at hand. He wanted to leap out intofreedom and run until he was exhausted, with Gray Wolf at his side. Heknew that Gray Wolf was off there--where the stars hung low in the clearsky, and that she was waiting. He strained at the end of his chain, andwhined. All that night he was restless--more restless than he had beenat any time before. Once, in the far distance, he heard a cry that hethought was the cry of Gray Wolf, and his answer roused McGill from deepsleep. It was dawn, and the little professor dressed himself and cameout of the cabin. With satisfaction he noted the exhilarating snap inthe air. He wet his fingers and held them above his head, chuckling whenhe found the wind had swung into the north. He went to Kazan, and talkedto him. Among other things he said, "This'll put the black flies tosleep, Kazan. A day or two more of it and we'll start. "

Five days later McGill led first the Dane, and then Kazan, to a packedcanoe. Sandy McTrigger saw them off, and Kazan watched for a chance toleap at him. Sandy kept his distance, and McGill watched the two with athought that set the blood running swiftly behind the mask of hiscareless smile. They had slipped a mile down-stream when he leaned overand laid a fearless hand on Kazan's head. Something in the touch of thathand, and in the professor's voice, kept Kazan from a desire to snap athim. He tolerated the friendship with expressionless eyes and amotionless body. 

"I was beginning to fear I wouldn't have much sleep, old boy, " chuckledMcGill ambiguously, "but I guess I can take a nap now and then with_you_ along!"

He made camp that night fifteen miles up the lake shore. The big Dane hefastened to a sapling twenty yards from his small silk tent, but Kazan'schain he made fast to the butt of a stunted birch that held down thetent-flap. Before he went into the tent for the night McGill pulled outhis automatic and examined it with care. 

For three days the journey continued without a mishap along the shore ofLake Athabasca. On the fourth night McGill pitched his tent in a clumpof _banskian_ pine a hundred yards back from the water. All that day thewind had come steadily from behind them, and for at least a half of theday the professor had been watching Kazan closely. From the west therehad now and then come a scent that stirred him uneasily. Since noon hehad sniffed that wind. Twice McGill had heard him growling deep in histhroat, and once, when the scent had come stronger than usual, he hadbared his fangs, and the bristles stood up along his spine. For an hourafter striking camp the little professor did not build a fire, but satlooking up the shore of the lake through his hunting glass. It was duskwhen he returned to where he had put up his tent and chained the dogs. For a few moments he stood unobserved, looking at the wolf-dog. Kazanwas still uneasy. He lay _facing_ the west. McGill made note of this, for the big Dane lay behind Kazan--to the east. Under ordinaryconditions Kazan would have faced him. He was sure now that there wassomething in the west wind. A little shiver ran up his back as hethought of what it might be. 

Behind a rock he built a very small fire, and prepared supper. Afterthis he went into the tent, and when he came out he carried a blanketunder his arm. He chuckled as he stood for a moment over Kazan. 

"We're not going to sleep in there to-night, old hoy, " he said. "I don'tlike what you've found in the west wind. It may he a--_thunder-storm!_"He laughed at his joke, and buried himself in a clump of stunted_banskians_ thirty paces from the tent. Here he rolled himself in hisblanket, and went to sleep. 

It was a quiet starlit night, and hours afterward Kazan dropped his nosebetween his forepaws and drowsed. It was the snap of a twig that rousedhim. The sound did not awaken the sluggish Dane but instantly Kazan'shead was alert, his keen nostrils sniffing the air. What he had smelledall day was heavy about him now. He lay still and quivering. Slowly, from out of the _banskians_ behind the tent, there came a figure. It wasnot the little professor. It approached cautiously, with lowered headand hunched shoulders, and the starlight revealed the murderous face ofSandy McTrigger. Kazan crouched low. He laid his head flat between hisforepaws. His long fangs gleamed. But he made no sound that betrayed hisconcealment under a thick _banskian_ shrub. Step by step Sandyapproached, and at last he reached the flap of the tent. He did notcarry a club or a whip in his hand now. In the place of either of thosewas the glitter of steel. At the door to the tent he paused, and peeredin, his back to Kazan. 

Silently, swiftly--the wolf now in every movement, Kazan came to hisfeet. He forgot the chain that held him. Ten feet away stood the enemyhe hated above all others he had ever known. Every ounce of strength inhis splendid body gathered itself for the spring. And then he leaped. This time the chain did not pull him back, almost neck-broken. Age andthe elements had weakened the leather collar he had worn since the daysof his slavery in the traces, and it gave way with a snap. Sandy turned, and in a second leap Kazan's fangs sank into the flesh of his arm. Witha startled cry the man fell, and as they rolled over on the ground thebig Dane's deep voice rolled out in thunderous alarm as he tugged at hisleash. In the fall Kazan's hold was broken. In an instant he was on hisfeet, ready for another attack. And then the change came. He was_free_. The collar was gone from his neck. The forest, the stars, thewhispering wind were all about him. _Here_ were men, and off therewas--Gray Wolf! His ears dropped, and he turned swiftly, and slippedlike a shadow back into the glorious freedom of his world. 

A hundred yards away something stopped him for an instant. It was notthe big Dane's voice, but the sharp _crack--crack--crack_, of the littleprofessor's automatic. And above that sound there rose the voice ofSandy McTrigger in a weird and terrible cry. 

CHAPTER XXVI

AN EMPTY WORLD

Mile after mile Kazan went on. For a time he was oppressed by theshivering note of death that had come to him in Sandy McTrigger's cry, and he slipped through the _banskians_ like a shadow, his earsflattened, his tail trailing, his hindquarters betraying that curiousslinking quality of the wolf and dog stealing away from danger. Then hecame out upon a plain, and the stillness, the billion stars in the clearvault of the sky, and the keen air that carried with it a breath of theArctic barrens made him alert and questioning. He faced the direction ofthe wind. Somewhere off there, far to the south and west, was Gray Wolf. For the first time in many weeks he sat back on his haunches and gavethe deep and vibrant call that echoed weirdly for miles about him. Backin the _banskians_ the big Dane heard it, and whined. From over thestill body of Sandy McTrigger the little professor looked up with awhite tense face, and listened for a second cry. But instinct told Kazanthat to that first call there would be no answer, and now he struck outswiftly, galloping mile after mile, as a dog follows the trail of itsmaster home. He did not turn hack to the lake, nor was his directiontoward Red Gold City. As straight as he might have followed a roadblazed by the hand of man he cut across the forty miles of plain andswamp and forest and rocky ridge that lay between him and the McFarlane. All that night he did not call again for Gray Wolf. With him reasoningwas a process brought about by habit--by precedent--and as Gray Wolf hadwaited for him many times before he knew that she would be waiting forhim now near the sand-bar. 

By dawn he had reached the river, within three miles of the sand-bar. Scarcely was the sun up when he stood on the white strip of sand wherehe and Gray Wolf had come down to drink. Expectantly and confidently helooked about him for Gray Wolf, whining softly, and wagging his tail. Hebegan to search for her scent, but rains had washed even her footprintsfrom the clean sand. All that day he searched for her along the riverand out on the plain. He went to where they had killed their lastrabbit. He sniffed at the bushes where the poison baits had hung. Againand again he sat back on his haunches and sent out his mating cry toher. And slowly, as he did these things, nature was working in him thatmiracle of the wild which the Crees have named the "spirit call. " As ithad worked in Gray Wolf, so now it stirred the blood of Kazan. With thegoing of the sun, and the sweeping about him of shadowy night, he turnedmore and more to the south and east. His whole world was made up of thetrails over which he had hunted. Beyond those places he did not knowthat there was such a thing as existence. And in that world, small inhis understanding of things, was Gray Wolf. He could not miss her. Thatworld, in his comprehension of it, ran from the McFarlane in a narrowtrail through the forests and over the plains to the little valley fromwhich the beavers had driven them. If Gray Wolf was not here--she wasthere, and tirelessly he resumed his quest of her. 

Not until the stars were fading out of the sky again, and gray day wasgiving place to night, did exhaustion and hunger stop him. He killed arabbit, and for hours after he had feasted he lay close to his kill, andslept. Then he went on. 

The fourth night he came to the little valley between the two ridges, and under the stars, more brilliant now in the chill clearness of theearly autumn nights, he followed the creek down into their old swamphome. It was broad day when he reached the edge of the great beaver pondthat now completely surrounded the windfall under which Gray-Wolf'ssecond-born had come into the world. Broken Tooth and the other beavershad wrought a big change in what had once been his home and Gray Wolf's, and for many minutes Kazan stood silent and motionless at the edge ofthe pond, sniffing the air heavy with the unpleasant odor of theusurpers. Until now his spirit had remained unbroken. Footsore, withthinned sides and gaunt head, he circled slowly through the swamp. Allthat day he searched. And his crest lay flat now, and there was a huntedlook in the droop of his shoulders and in the shifting look of hiseyes. Gray Wolf was gone. 

Slowly nature was impinging that fact upon him. She had passed out ofhis world and out of his life, and he was filled with a loneliness and agrief so great that the forest seemed strange, and the stillness of thewild a thing that now oppressed and frightened him. Once more the dog inhim was mastering the wolf. With Gray Wolf he had possessed the world offreedom. Without her, that world was so big and strange and empty thatit appalled him. Late in the afternoon he came upon a little pile ofcrushed clamshells on the shore of the stream. He sniffed atthem--turned away--went back, and sniffed again. It was where Gray Wolfhad made a last feast in the swamp before continuing south. But thescent she had left behind was not strong enough to tell Kazan, and for asecond time he turned away. That night he slunk under a log, and criedhimself to sleep. Deep in the night he grieved in his uneasy slumber, like a child. And day after day, and night after night, Kazan remained aslinking creature of the big swamp, mourning for the one creature thathad brought him out of chaos into light, who had filled his world forhim, and who, in going from him, had taken from this world even thethings that Gray Wolf had lost in her blindness. 

CHAPTER XXVII

THE CALL OF SUN ROCK

In the golden glow of the autumn sun there came up the stream overlookedby the Sun Rock one day a man, a woman and a child in a canoe. Civilization had done for lovely Joan what it had done for many anotherwild flower transplanted from the depths of the wilderness. Her cheekswere thin. Her blue eyes had lost their luster. She coughed, and whenshe coughed the man looked at her with love and fear in his eyes. Butnow, slowly, the man had begun to see the transformation, and on the daytheir canoe pointed up the stream and into the wonderful valley that hadbeen their home before the call of the distant city came to them, henoted the flush gathering once more in her cheeks, the fuller redness ofher lips, and the gathering glow of happiness and content in her eyes. He laughed softly as he saw these things, and he blessed the forests. Inthe canoe she had leaned back, with her head almost against hisshoulder, and he stopped paddling to draw her to him, and run hisfingers through the soft golden masses of her hair. 

"You are happy again, Joan, " he laughed joyously. "The doctors wereright. You are a part of the forests. "

"Yes, I am happy, " she whispered, and suddenly there came a littlethrill into her voice, and she pointed to a white finger of sand runningout into the stream. "Do you remember--years and years ago, itseems--that Kazan left us here? _She_ was on the sand over there, calling to him. Do you remember?" There was a little tremble about hermouth, and she added, "I wonder--where they--have gone. "

The cabin was as they had left it. Only the crimson _bakneesh_ had grownup about it, and shrubs and tall grass had sprung up near its walls. Once more it took on life, and day by day the color came deeper intoJoan's cheeks, and her voice was filled with its old wild sweetness ofsong. Joan's husband cleared the trails over his old trap-lines, andJoan and the little Joan, who romped and talked now, transformed thecabin into _home_. One night the man returned to the cabin late, andwhen he came in there was a glow of excitement in Joan's blue eyes, anda tremble in her voice when she greeted him. 

"Did you hear it?" she asked. "Did you hear--_the call_?"

He nodded, stroking her soft hair. 

"I was a mile back in the creek swamp, " he said. "I heard it!"

Joan's hands clutched his arms. 

"It wasn't Kazan, " she said. "I would recognize _his_ voice. But itseemed to me it was like the other--the call that came that morning fromthe sand-bar, his _mate_?"

The man was thinking. Joan's fingers tightened. She was breathing alittle quickly. 

"Will you promise me this?" she asked, "Will you promise me that youwill never hunt or trap for wolves?"

"I had thought of that, " he replied. "I thought of it--after I heard thecall. Yes, I will promise. "

Joan's arms stole up about his neck. 

"We loved Kazan, " she whispered. "And you might kill him--or _her_"

Suddenly she stopped. Both listened. The door was a little ajar, and tothem there came again the wailing mate-call of the wolf. Joan ran to thedoor. Her husband followed. Together they stood silent, and with tensebreath Joan pointed over the starlit plain. 

"Listen! Listen!" she commanded. "It's her cry, _and it came from theSun Rock_!"

She ran out into the night, forgetting that the man was close behind hernow, forgetting that little Joan was alone in her bed. And to them, frommiles and miles across the plain, there came a wailing cry in answer--acry that seemed a part of the wind, and that thrilled Joan until herbreath broke in a strange sob. 

Farther out on the plain she went and then stopped, with the golden glowof the autumn moon and the stars shimmering in her hair and eyes. It wasmany minutes before the cry came again, and then it was so near thatJoan put her hands to her mouth, and her cry rang out over the plain asin the days of old. 

"_Kazan! Kazan! Kazan_!"

At the top of the Sun Rock, Gray Wolf--gaunt and thinned bystarvation--heard the woman's cry, and the call that was in her throatdied away in a whine. And to the north a swiftly moving shadow stoppedfor a moment, and stood like a thing of rock under the starlight. It wasKazan. A strange fire leaped through his body. Every fiber of his bruteunderstanding was afire with the knowledge that here was _home_. It washere, long ago, that he had lived, and loved, and fought--and all atonce the dreams that had grown faded and indistinct in his memory cameback to him as real living things. For, coming to him faintly over theplain, _he heard Joan's voice!_

In the starlight Joan stood, tense and white, when from out of the palemists of the moon-glow he came to her, cringing on his belly, pantingand wind-run, and with a strange whining note in his throat. And as Joanwent to him, her arms reaching out, her lips sobbing his name over andover again, the man stood and looked down upon them with the wonder of anew and greater understanding in his face. He had no fear of thewolf-dog now. And as Joan's arms hugged Kazan's great shaggy head up toher he heard the whining gasping joy of the beast and the sobbingwhispering voice of the girl, and with tensely gripped hands he facedthe Sun Rock. 

"My Gawd, " he breathed. "I believe--it's so--"

As if in response to the thought in his mind, there came once moreacross the plain Gray Wolf's mate-seeking cry of grief and ofloneliness. Swiftly as though struck by a lash Kazan was on hisfeet--oblivious of Joan's touch, of her voice, of the presence of theman. In another instant he was gone, and Joan flung herself against herhusband's breast, and almost fiercely took his face between her twohands. 

"_Now_ do you believe?" she cried pantingly. "_Now_ do you believe inthe God of my world--the God I have lived with, the God that gives soulsto the wild things, the God that--that has brought--us, all--together--once more--_home_!"

His arms closed gently about her. 

"I believe, my Joan, " he whispered. 

"And you understand--now--what it means, 'Thou shalt not kill'?"

"Except that it brings us life--yes, I understand, " he replied. 

Her warm soft hands stroked his face. Her blue eyes, filled with theglory of the stars, looked up into his. 

"Kazan and _she_--you and I--and the baby! Are you sorry--that we cameback?" she asked. 

So close he drew her against his breast that she did not hear the wordshe whispered in the soft warmth of her hair. And after that, for manyhours, they sat in the starlight in front of the cabin door. But theydid not hear again that lonely cry from the Sun Rock. Joan and herhusband understood. 

"He'll visit us again to-morrow, " the man said at last. "Come, Joan, letus go to bed. "

Together they entered the cabin. 

And that night, side by side, Kazan and Gray Wolf hunted again in themoonlit plain.