While Beatrice was at her household tasks--cooking the meals, cleaning
the cave, washing and repairing their clothes--Ben never forgot his more
serious work. Certain hours every day he spent in exploration, seeking
out the passes over the hills, examining every possible means of
entrance and egress into his valley, getting the lay of the land and
picking out the points from which he would make his attack. Already he
knew every winding game trail and every detail of the landscape for five
miles or more around. His ultimate vengeance seemed just as sure as the
night following the day.
Ever he listened for the first sound of the pack train in the forest;
and even in his hours of pleasure his eyes ever roamed over the sweep of
valley and marsh below. He was prepared for his enemies now. One or
five, they couldn't escape him. He had provided for every contingency
and had seemingly perfected his plan to the last detail.
He had not the slightest fear that his eagerness would cost him his aim
when finally his eye looked along the sights at the forms of his
enemies, helpless in the marsh. He was wholly cold about the matter now.
The lust and turmoil in his veins, remembered like a ghastly dream from
that first night, returned but feebly now, if at all. This change, this
restraint had been increasingly manifest since his occupation of the
cave, and it had marked, at the same time, a growing barrier between
himself and Fenris. But he could not deny but that such a development
was wholly to have been expected. Fenris was a child of the open forest
aisles, never of the fireside and the hearth. It was not that the wolf
had ceased to give him his dint of faithful service, or that he loved
him any the less. But each of them had other interests,--one his home
and hearth; the other the ever-haunting, enticing call of the wildwood.
Lately Fenris had taken to wandering into the forest at night, going and
coming like a ghost; and once his throat and jowls had been stained with
dark blood.
"It's getting too tame for you here, old boy, isn't it?" Ben said to him
one hushed, breathless night. "But wait just a little while more. It
won't be tame then."
It was true: the hunting party, if they had started at once, must be
nearing their death valley by now. Except for the absolute worst of
traveling conditions they would have already come. Ben felt a growing
impatience: a desire to do his work and get it over. His pulse no longer
quickened and leaped at the thought of vengeance; and the wolflike
pleasure in simple killing could no longer be his. It would merely be
the soldier's work--a dreadful obligation to perform speedily and to
forget. Even the memory of the huddled form of his savior and friend, so
silent and impotent in the dead leaves, did not stir him into madness
now.
Yet he never thought of disavowing his vengeance. It was still the main
purpose of his life. He had no theme but that: when that work was done
he could conceive of nothing further of interest on earth, nothing else
worth living for. Not for an instant had he relented: except for that
one kiss, on the occasion of her birthday, he had never broken his
promise in regard to his relations with Beatrice. His first trait was
steadfastness, a trait that, curiously enough, is inherent in all living
creatures who are by blood close to the wild wolf, from the German
police dog to the savage husky of the North. But he was certainly and
deeply changed in these weeks in the cave. He no longer hated these
three murderous enemies of his. The power to hate had simply died in his
body. He regarded their destruction rather as a duty he owed old Ezram,
an obligation that he would die sooner than forego.
The hushed, dark, primal forest had a different appeal for him now. He
loved it still, with the reverence and adoration of the forester he was,
but no longer with that love a servant bears his master. He had
distinctly escaped from its dominance. The passion and mounting fire
that it wakened at the fall of darkness could no longer take possession
of him, as strong drink possesses the brain, bending his will, making of
him simply a tool and a pawn to gratify its cruel desires and to achieve
its mysterious ends. He had been, in spirit, a brother of the wolf,
before: a runner in the packs. Such had been the outgrowth of innate
traits; part of his strange destiny. Now, after these weeks in the cave,
he was a man. It was hard for him to explain even to himself. It was as
if in the escape from his own black passions, he had also escaped the
curious tyranny of the wild; not further subject to its cruel moods and
whims, but rather one of a Dominant Breed, a being who could lift his
head in defiance to the storm, obey his own will, go his own way. This
was no little change. Perhaps, when all is said and done, it marks the
difference between man and the lesser mammals, the thing that has
evolved a certain species of the primates--simply woods creatures that
trembled at the storm and cowered in the night--into the rulers and
monarchs of the earth.
Ben had come out from the darkened forest trails where he made his lairs
and had gone into a cave to live! He had found a permanent abode--a
lasting, shelter from the cold and the storm. It suggested a curious
allegory to him. Some time in the long-forgotten past, probably when the
later glaciers brought their promise of cold, all his race left their
leafy bowers and found cave homes in the cliffs. Before that time they
were merely woods children, blind puppets of nature, sleeping where
exhaustion found them; wandering without aim in the tree aisles; mating
when they met the female of their species on the trails and venturing on
again; knowing the ghastly, haunting fear of the night and the blind
terror of the storm and elements: merely higher beasts in a world of
beasts. But they came to the caves. They established permanent abodes.
They began to be men.
All that now stands as civilization, all the conquest of the earth and
sea and air began from that moment. It was the Great Epoch,--and Ben had
illustrated it in his own life. The change had been infinitely slow, but
certain as the movement of the planets in their spheres. Behind the
sheltering walls they got away from fear,--that cruel bondage in which
Nature holds all her wild creatures, the burden that makes them her
slaves. Never to shudder with horror when the darkness fell in silence
and mystery; never to have the heart freeze with terror when the thunder
roared in the sky and the wind raged in the trees. The cave dwellers
began to come into their own. Sheltered behind stone walls they could
defy the elements that had enslaved them so long. This freedom gained
they learned to strike the fire; they took one woman to keep the cave,
instead of mating indiscriminately in the forest, thus marking the
beginning of family life. Love instead of deathless hatred, gentleness
rather than cruelty, peace in the place of passion, mercy and tolerance
and self-control: all these mighty bulwarks of man's dominance grew into
strength behind the sheltering walls of home.
Thus in these few little weeks Ben Darby--a beast of the forest in his
unbridled passions--had in some measure imaged the life history of the
race. He had lived again the momentous regeneration. The protecting
walls, the hearth, particularly Beatrice's wholesome and healing
influence, had tamed him. He was still a forester, bred in the
bone--loving these forest depths with an ardor too deep for words--but
the mark of the beast was gone from his flesh.
He could still deal justice to Ezram's murderers and thus keep faith
with his dead partner; but the primal passions could no longer dominate
him. His pet, however, remained the wolf. The sheltering cavern walls
were never for him. He loved Ben with an undying devotion, yet a barrier
was rising between them. They could not go the same paths forever.
Matters reached a crisis between Fenris and himself one still, warm
night in late July. The two were sitting side by side at the cavern maw,
watching the slow enchantment of the forest under the spell of the
rising moon; Beatrice had already gone to her hammock. As the last
little blaze died in the fire, and it crackled at ever longer intervals,
Ben suddenly made a moving discovery. The fringe of forest about him,
usually so dreamlike and still, was simply breathing and throbbing with
life.
Ben dropped his hand to the wolf's shoulders. "The little folks are
calling on us to-night," he said quietly.
In all probability he spoke the truth. It was not an uncommon thing for
the creatures of the wood--usually the lesser people such as rodents and
the small hunters--to crowd close to the edge of the glade and try to
puzzle out this ruddy mystery in its center. Unused to men they could
never understand. Sometimes the lynx halted in his hunt to investigate,
sometimes an old black bear--kindly, benevolent good-humored old
bachelor that every naturalist loves--grunted and pondered at the edge
of shadow, and sometimes even such lordly creatures as moose and caribou
paused in their night journeys to see what was taking place.
Curiously, the wolf started violently at Ben's touch. The man suddenly
regarded him with a gaze of deepest interest. The hair was erect on the
powerful neck, the eyes swam in pale, blue fire, and he was staring away
into the mysterious shadows.
"What do you see, old-timer?" Ben asked. "I wish I could see too."
He brought his senses to the finest focus, trying hard to understand. He
was aware only of the strained silence at first. Then here and there,
about the dimmining circle of firelight, he heard the soft rustle of
little feet, the subdued crack of a twig or the scratch of a dead leaf.
The forest smells--of which there is no category in heaven or
earth--reached him with incredible clarity. These were faint, vaguely
exciting smells, some of them the exquisite fragrances of summer
flowers, others beyond his ken. And presently two small, bright circles
appeared in a distant covert, glowed once, and then went out.
By peering closely, with unwinking eyes, he began to see other
twin-circles of green and yellow light. Yet they were furtive little
radiances--vanishing swiftly--and they were nothing of which to be
afraid.
"They _are_ out to-night," he murmured. "No wonder you're excited,
Fenris. What is it--some celebration in the forest?"
There was no possible explanation. Foresters know that on certain nights
the wilderness seems simply to teem with life--scratchings and rustlings
in every covert--and on other nights it is still and lifeless as a
desert. The wild folk were abroad to-night and were simply paying
casual, curious visits to Ben's fire.
Once more Ben glanced at the wolf. The animal no longer crouched. Rather
he was standing rigid, his head half-turned and lifted, gazing away
toward a distant ridge behind the lake. A wilderness message had reached
him, clear as a voice.
But presently Ben understood. Throbbing through the night he heard a
weird, far-carrying call--a long-drawn note, broken by half-sobs--the
mysterious, plaintive utterance of the wild itself. Yet it was not an
inanimate voice. He recognized it at once as the howl of a wolf, one of
Fenris' wild brethren.
The creature at his feet started as if from a blow. Then he stood
motionless, listening, and the cry came the second time. He took two
leaps into the darkness.
Deeply moved, Ben watched him. The wolf halted, then stole back to his
master's side. He licked the man's hand with his warm tongue, whining
softly.
"What is it, boy?" Ben asked. "What do you want me to do?"
The wolf whined louder, his eyes luminous with ineffable appeal. Once
more he leaped into the shadows, pausing as if to see if Ben would
follow him.
The man shook his head, rather soberly. A curious, excited light was in
his eyes. "I can't go, old boy," he said. "This is my place--here.
Fenris, I can't leave the cave."
For a moment they looked eyes into eyes--in the glory of that moon as
strange a picture as the wood gods ever beheld. Once more the wolf call
sounded. Fenris whimpered softly.
"Go ahead if you like," Ben told him. "God knows it's your destiny."
The wolf seemed to understand. With a glad bark he sped away and almost
instantly vanished into the gloom.
But Fenris had not broken all ties with the cave. The chain was too
strong for that, the hold on his wild heart too firm. If there is one
trait, far and near in the wilds, that distinguishes the woods children,
it is their inability to forget. Fenris had joined his fellows, to be
sure; but he still kept watch over the cave.
The strongest wolf in the little band, the nucleus about which the
winter pack would form, he largely confined their hunting range to the
district immediately about the cave. It held him like a chain of iron.
Although the woods trails beguiled him with every strong appeal, the
sight of his master was a beloved thing to him still, and scarcely a
night went by but that he paused to sniff at the cavern maw, seeing that
all was well. At such times his followers would linger, trembling and
silent, in the farther shadows. Because they had never known the love of
man they utterly failed to understand. But in an instant Fenris would
come back to them, the wild urge in his heart seemingly appeased by the
mere assurance of Ben's presence and safety.
Ben himself was never aware of these midnight visits. The feet of the
wolves were like falling feathers on the grass; and if sometimes,
through the cavern maw, he half-wakened to catch the gleam of their
wild eyes, he attributed it merely to the presence of skulking coyotes,
curious concerning the dying coals of the fire.