Yet when the morning came the old wolfish instinct was back in his heart.
"I must away to the hills," he said, "take up the trail, and be a beast
of the chase once more; my wits against their wits; my strength against
their strength; and against their speed, my gun."
Oh! those glorious sand-hills—an endless rolling stretch of sandy dunes,
with lakes and woods and grassy lawns between. Life—life, on every
side, and life within, for Yan was young and strong and joyed in powers
complete, and he said, "These are the best days of my life, these are
my golden days." He thought it then, and oh, how well he came to know
it in the after years!
[Illustration: The seasons round.]
All day at a long wolf-lope he would go and send the white hare and the
partridge flying from his path, and swing along and scan the ground for
sign and the tell-tale inscript in the snow, the oldest of all writing,
more thrillful of interest by far than the finest glyph or scarab that
ever Egypt gave to modern day.
But the driving snow was the wild deer's friend, as the driven snow was
his foe, and down it came that day and wiped out every trace.
The next day and the next still found Yan careering in the hills, but
never a track or sign did he see. And the weeks went by and many a
rolling mile he ran and many a bitter day and freezing night he passed
in the snowclad hills, sometimes on a deer-trail but more often without.
Sometimes in the barren hills, and sometimes led by woodmen's talk to
far-off sheltering woods, and once or twice he saw indeed the buff-white
bannerets go floating up the hills. Sometimes reports came of a great buck
that frequented the timberlands near the saw-mill, and more than once
Yan found his trail, but never got a glimpse of him; and the few deer
there were, now grew so wild with long pursuit that he had no further
chances to shoot, and the hunting season passed in one long train of
failures. Bright, unsad failures they, for every day on the trail was
a glad triumphant march.
[Illustration]
He seemed indeed to come back empty-handed, but he really came home
laden with the best spoils of the chase.