As a young tree breaks and goes down in the gale Ray Brent went down
before the combined attack of the wolves. What desperate struggle he
made only seemed to increase their fury and shatter him the faster.
Utterly futile were all his blows: his frantic, piercing screams of fear
and agony raised to heaven, but were answered with no greater mercy than
that he would have shown to Ben a moment before.
Seemingly in an instant he was on his back and the ravening pack were
about him in a ring. In that lurid firelight their fangs gleamed like
ivory as they flashed, here and there, over his body and throat, and
their fierce eyes blazed with pale-blue fire,--the mark and sign of the
blood madness of the beasts of prey.
Seemingly in a single instant the life had been torn from him, leaving
only a strange, huddled, ghastly thing beside the dying fire. But the
pack leaped from him at once. Fenris had caught sight of Chan's figure
as he ran for the nearest tree and seemingly with one leap he was upon
him. He sprang at him from the side; and his fangs gleamed once.
He had struck true, his fangs went home, and the life went out of Chan
Heminway in a single, neighing scream. He pitched forward, shuddered
once in the soft grass, and lay still. The pack surged around his body,
struck at it once or twice, then stood growling as if waiting for their
leader's command.
Before ever Ray fell, Ben had taken what measures of self-defense he
could in case the pack, forgetting its master's master, might turn on
himself and the girl. He had reached the knife hilt and severed the
ropes about the girl's wrists. "Stay behind me," he cautioned. "Don't
move a muscle."
He knew that any attempt to reach and climb a tree would attract the
attention of the pack and send them ravening about her. Again he knew
that her life as well as his own depended on his control of the pack
leader. He saw Chan go down, seemingly in a single instant, and he
braced himself against attack. "Down, Fenris!" he shouted. "Down--get
down!"
The great wolf started at the voice, then stood beside the fallen,
gazing at Ben with fierce, luminous eyes. "Down, down, boy," Ben
cautioned, in a softer voice. "There, old fellow--down--down."
Then Fenris whined in answer, and Ben knew that he was no longer to be
feared. The three lesser wolves seemed startled, standing in a nervous
group, yet growling savagely and eyeing him across the dying fire. For a
moment Fenris's fury had passed to them, but now that his rage was dead,
all they had left was an inborn fear of such a breed as this,--these
tall forms that died so easily in their fangs. Fenris trotted slowly
toward Ben, but with the true instincts of the wild his followers knew
that this was no affair of fangs and death. He came in love, in a
remembered comradeship, just as often he had led them to the mouth of
the cavern, and they did not understand. They slowly backed away into
the shadows, fading like ghosts.
Ben's arms, in unspeakable gratitude, went about the shoulders of the
wolf. Beatrice, sobbing uncontrollably yet swept with that infinite
thankfulness of the redeemed, crept to his side. Fenris whined and
shivered in the arms of his god.
Quietude came at last to that camp beside the lake, in the far, hidden
heart of Back There. Once more the blood moved with sweet, normal
tranquillity in the veins, the thrill and stir died in the air, and the
moonlight was beautiful on the spruce.
The wolves had gone. Fenris's three brethren had slipped away, perhaps
wholly mystified and deeply awed by their madness of a moment before;
and from the ridge top they had called for their leader to join them. He
had done his work, he had avenged the base blow that had seemed to
strike at his own wild heart, he had received the caress he had
craved,--and there was no law for him to stay. The female called
enticingly; the wild game was running for his pleasure on the trails.
Ben had watched the struggle in his fierce breast, and Beatrice's eyes
were soft and wonderfully lustrous in the subdued light as she gave the
wolf a parting caress. But he could not stay with them. The primal laws
of his being bade otherwise. His was the way of the open trails, the
nights of madness and the rapture of hunting--and these were folk of the
caves! They were not his people, although his love for them burned like
fire in his heart.
He could not deny the call of his followers on the ridge. It was like a
chain, drawing him remorselessly to them. Whining, he had sped away into
the darkness.
The fire had been built up, Beatrice had rallied her spent strength by
full feeding of the rich, dried meat, and had done what she could for
Neilson's injury. Ben, exhausted, had lain down in some of the blankets
of his enemy's outfit. Neilson was not, however, mortally hurt. The
bullet had coursed through the region of his shoulder, missing his heart
and lungs, and although he was all but unconscious, they had every
reason to believe that a few weeks of rest would see him well again.
Beatrice bathed the wound, bandaged it the best she could, then covered
him up warmly and let him go to sleep. And the time came at last, long
past the midnight hour, that she crept once more to Ben's side.
There was little indeed for them to say. The stress of the night had
taken from them almost all desire to talk. But Ben took her hand in his
feebly, and held it against his lips.
"We're safe now," Beatrice told him, her eye's still bright with tears.
"We've seen it through, and we're safe."
Ben nodded happily. It was true: there was nothing further for them to
fear. With the aid of the rifles of the three fallen, they could procure
meat in plenty for their remaining time at Back There; besides, the
store of jerked caribou and moose was enough to hold them over. When the
rains came again, the three of them--Neilson and Ben and Beatrice--could
glide on down to the Indian encampments in the canoe. Thence they could
reach the white settlements beyond the mountains.
Her glance into the future went still farther, because she knew certain
news that as yet Ben had not heard. She had heard from Ray's lips that
night that Ben's claim had been legally filed; he had only to return and
take possession. It straightened out the future, promised success in the
battle of life, gave him an interest to hold him in these northern
forests. But she would not tell him to-night. It could wait for a more
quiet hour.
Presently she saw that he was trying to speak to her, whispering; trying
to draw her ear down to his lips. She smiled, with an infinite
tenderness. Dimly though he spoke, she heard him every word.
"I love you," he told her simply. He watched her face, as intently as
the three Wise Men watched the East, for a sign. And he saw it, clear
and ineffably wonderful, in the stars that came into her eyes.
"I love you," she answered, with equal simplicity. They lay a while in
silence, blissful in this wonder each had for the other, wholly content
just that their hands and lips should touch.
The same miracle was upon them both; and the girl's thought, ranging
far, seized upon a deep and moving discovery. "All this belongs to us,"
she told him, indicating with one movement of her arm the boundless
solitudes about them. "This is our own country, isn't it, Ben? We can't
ever--go away."
It was true: they could never leave the forest for long. They were its
children, bred in the bone. Their strong thews would waste in a gentler
land. It was their heritage. They must not go where they could not
behold the dark line of the forest against the sky.
The fire burned down. The moon wheeled through the sky. The tall spruce
saw the dawn afar and beckoned.