THE WOLVES AVENGE
Presently, at a given sign, the procession started. It was led by an
old medicine-man, who moved slowly forward, singing a medicine-chant
as he walked. He was extremely old and shrivelled and was smothered
in paint and feathers. And he had a husky voice that cut the air
like a saw. Behind him rode the chief on horseback, a splendid
figure of a man, upright as a dart, and magnificently dressed.
Immediately after him came Shasta on the travois. The braves
followed in a long line.
Shasta's heart was heavy with fear. No one told him what was going
to be done with him, yet a terrible foreboding made him shiver now
and then. And yet the birds twittered, and the air was fragrant with
the scent of the dew-drenched grass, and the sky blue between the
trails of mist. All the world seemed full of life, and free, except
himself only, bound and aching on the travois.
When the procession reached the top of a high ridge, the travois was
stopped. The Indians lifted Shasta out and bound him to a stake
driven into the ground. Around the stake they piled fagots of wood.
When this was finished, the medicine-man sprinkled dried sweet grass
over the pile so that when the flames rose up there might be a
pleasant smell. During the preparations the braves arranged
themselves in a large circle about the stake. As soon as the
arrangements were completed, they waited for the medicine-man to
light the fire, and sing the words which would be the signal for the
opening of the dance. There was a pause. For a few moments nothing
happened. It was one of those strange pieces of silence which drop
sometimes even into the centre of civilized life, and people become
uneasy--they could not tell you why. Only the mist went on, trailing
over the ridge, swaying weirdly as the air pushed. It was still cold
with the freshness left by the dawn. And although the sun had
already risen, his beams were not strong enough as yet to dispel the
dense masses of mist that kept rising from all the lower grounds.
Near or distant, so far as Shasta's keen ears could detect, nothing
stirred. The fat blue grouse which had been feeding on the
blueberries had fled at the Indians' approach. The old coyote who
had made her den on the south side of the hill was out hunting with
her young ones and had not yet returned. For any sight or sound that
declared itself, the lonely ridge at the edge of the prairies was a
dead lump of burnt-up summer grass where not a living creature
stirred. In that tremendous pause when all the world seemed to be
waiting, Shasta threw back his head and gave the long gathering-cry
of the wolves.
That call for help went ringing out far from the summit of the ridge.
The hollow places sucked it in, and gave back sobbing echoes of its
desperate need. One long cry that was not an echo, came from the
hills in answer. That was all. Then the silence of the Wild closed
down, and you could hear your heart beat in your side. From the
prairies, from the hills, from the mountains beyond, no sound came.
The familiar shapes of things were there as before; but they were
dumb, blind, motionless, strangled in the mist. Close by a small
fire already burning, the medicine-man stood with a forked stick in
his hand, ready to take the live coal which should light the fagots
about the stake. And as he stood, he kept repeating to himself now
and again the strange words of a world-old medicine-chant, so strange
and old that even for him the original meaning of the words had
departed, leaving crooked shapes and sounds behind. The eyes of all
the assembled Indians were fastened intently upon him. When he
should have finished the chant, he would take the live coal from the
fire, and the great death dance would begin. It was the dance by
which they would celebrate the burning of the evil spirit or
"medicine" which they believed Shasta embodied, and which, once
destroyed, would enable them to vanquish all their foes. And then,
when the dance began, and became wilder and wilder as the flames
mounted higher at the stake, the whole hill-top would be alive with
Indian shapes that swayed madly in the mist.
But what shapes were those coming down from the foothills--those
long, flowing shapes with tongues that lolled and eyes that shone?
There was no warning sound that told of their coming. They flowed
down the hillsides in a grey flood that rippled but did not break.
Down the hills, past the Indian camp, through the valley bottom, out
on the prairie, it flowed uninterruptedly till it reached the foot of
the ridge. And still, to all outward seeming, the world appeared
exactly as it was before, as if the sun himself, with all the vast
lonely spaces of sky and earth, and all the creatures they contained,
were waiting for that terrible moment when the medicine-chant should
cease.
As for Shasta himself, after that first despairing cry, he had not
moved a muscle of his body. He felt that the end was near at hand;
that nothing but a miracle could save him now.
The medicine-chant was drawing to a close. The medicine-man moved a
pace or two nearer to the fire. Round the great circle of expectant
braves there passed a thrill that went through them like swift flame.
For a second or two Shasta felt as if his heart had stopped. At that
instant, a short, deep-throated bellow came up from the mist below.
It was the signal for the attack. And there was no other warning.
Yet there they all were--Nitka, Shoomoo, the foster-brothers who
remembered Shasta, and the other brothers who did not, and many
others besides, belonging to widely-sundered packs, hundreds and
hundreds of them, all united under the leadership of the giant
Shoomoo for the one great purpose of rescuing Shasta from the hands
of his cruel foes.
Up the sides of the ridge they bounded--those long, grey bodies that
seemed buoyant like the mist.
When they reached the summit, there was not an instant's pause. In
one ringing wolf-voice, the whole of the united packs gave tongue.
Already the medicine-man had taken the live coal on the stick and was
just about to set it to the dried grass round the stake when he was
hurled to the earth by the leaping form of a tremendous wolf--none
other than Shoomoo himself!
As he fell, an Indian darted forward, intending to bury his tomahawk
in the wolf. But before he could do so, Shoomoo had leaped away from
the prostrate figure, and in an instant had thrown himself on his
assailant. There was a gleam as the raised tomahawk caught the
light. Yet though it descended it inflicted no fatal wound, and the
Indian was borne helplessly to the ground, from which he never rose
again.
The Indians fought desperately, but they were hopelessly outnumbered
from the first. There were wolves everywhere. If one was killed or
disabled, half-a-dozen more instantly filled his place. They came
from all quarters, surging up from the lower ground in waves that
seemed as if they would never end. On every hand the fight raged
furiously. On all sides it was the same mass of dark, leaping
bodies, gleaming eyes, and white fangs that tore and slashed. And
everywhere it was Shoomoo, Nitka, and the wolf-brothers that did the
deadliest work. Shoomoo, himself, seemed to be everywhere at once.
Over and over again, Shasta, shivering, and frenzied with excitement
as he watched the progress of the fight, saw the giant form of the
great father wolf hurl itself through the air, and strike some
struggling Indian to the ground.
Would the wolves win? Would the wolves win?--That was the agonizing
thought that made Shasta shake from head to foot. If they did, he
was saved. If not--then all was lost. He would be doomed to die the
terrible death by fire. He wrenched and strained in a vain attempt
to loose his bonds. His utmost efforts were of no avail. Whatever
was the result of the contest, he knew that he must remain helpless
to the end.
Once or twice a wild despair seized him. There came a pause in the
fight, as if the wolves wavered. Suppose, after all, the Indians
were able to hold their own? In spite of their terrible losses, they
had killed many of their wolfish foes. Numbers of them lay dead or
dying. It would be small wonder if, after all, the rest should grow
intimidated, and slink off. Yet after each temporary lull, there
would be a fresh attack led by Shoomoo or Nitka, and again the air
would ring with the terrible gathering cry of the packs.
At last the Indians could hold out no longer. Utterly unprepared as
they were for this fearful horde of undreamed-of enemies; feeling,
too, that their "medicine" had deserted them and that the Great
Spirit, being offended, had abandoned them to their fate,--the
survivors lost their presence of mind and fled shrieking down the
hill.
Few, very few, ever found their way back to camp. It was the wolf
triumph, the wolf revenge. The ridge, from end to end, was strewn
with Indian dead.
It was Nitka herself who released Shasta, and her famous teeth which
tore the thongs from his arms and legs, and, after long and patient
work, at last set him free. And when he lay on the ground, almost
too dazed to understand, with his whole body feeling like one big
bruise, it was her loving tongue that comforted him, caressing him
back to life.
The sun was already high in the heavens before Shasta was strong
enough to move. Then, with Nitka on one side and Shoomoo on the
other, and the wolf-brothers all about on every hand, Shasta started
for home. But it was not the home of his Indian kin. It was the
cave upon the Bargloosh, far away from the tread of human feet; the
old strange home whose rocky walls seemed to him to hold the
beginnings of his life.
* * * * * * *
Did he go back to his people later? Did he say good-bye to the
wolf-folk for ever, and forget the ways of the Wild? Perhaps. Who
can say?
Perhaps Gomposh could tell you, or even Goohooperay. Or you might
entice it out of Shoshawnee when his face goes red on the lookout
butte towards the setting sun.
But _if_ he went back, which is possible, I do not think he would
ever forget. For the Wild, and the ways of its folk, are too great
to be forgotten. And then, you see, he was Shasta of the _Wolves_!
THE END