CHASED BY WOLVES
The horses trotted along briskly for a few miles, but they were tired
from two days of hard work, and, in spite of their eagerness to reach
home, their pace slackened. I did not urge them. It would be, as Mr.
Phillips had said, a moonlight night; the rays of the rising moon were
already silvering the deepening dusk. Ralph was again asleep in his
snug harbor, with Guard lying quietly beside him.
"The cows will be waiting at the corral bars when we get home," Jessie
remarked once, "but it is going to be so light that we can do the
chores nearly as well at midnight as we could at mid-day, so there is
really no need of hurrying. We've had good luck to-day, haven't we,
Leslie?"
"Yes," I answered, "we have," but I spoke absently. I was listening to
again catch a sound that had just reached my ears; faint, far off,
but welcome; it was one that we seldom heard in that mountain-guarded
valley where our days were passed.
"Did you hear that, Jessie?"
"What?"
"The whistle of a locomotive engine; there it is again! How far off it
seems!"
"Sound travels a long way over these plains; there's nothing to
intercept it--but I didn't hear it."
"Listen. It will sound again, perhaps, when the train reaches another
crossing. It must be way down on the Huerfano. There, didn't you hear
that?"
"Yes; do keep still, Guard."
Guard, aroused from his nap, was sitting up and looking around with an
occasional low growl.
"Seems to me that they must have railway crossings pretty thick down
on the Huerfano," Jessie remarked, after a moment's silence. "That
makes three whistles--if they are whistles--that we've heard within
as many minutes."
"That's true, Jessie--I hadn't thought of that. It may not be an
engine. It sounds louder, instead of diminishing as it would if--keep
still, Guard! What in the world is the matter with you!"
For answer, Guard, with every hair on his back erect and standing up
like the quills of a porcupine, got up, and wriggled himself under
the seat on which we were sitting, making his way to the end of the
wagon-box, where he stood with legs braced to keep himself steady, his
chin resting on the edge of the tailboard, and his eyes fixed on the
darkening roadway over which we had just passed. Every now and then
he gave a low, sullen growl, and, even from where we sat, and in the
increasing gloom we could see that his white fangs were bared.
"How strangely Guard acts!" exclaimed Jessie, with a sudden catch in
her voice, and a dawning fear of--she knew not what--in her eyes.
At that instant the sound that I had taken for the far-off, dying
whistle of a locomotive, came again to my ears; nearer, more distinct,
in increasing volume--a weird, melancholy call--a pursuing cry. The
lines were in my hands, and at that instant the horses suddenly sprang
forward, faster, faster, until their pace became a tearing run, and
then some words of my own, spoken weeks before, flashed into my mind,
bringing with them a mental illumination.
"There are wolves!" I had said. I was conscious of an effort to steady
my voice, to keep it from shaking, as I thrust the lines into Jessie's
hands. "Try to keep the horses in the road, Jessie; do not check them.
I am going back there by Guard."
"What for?" Jessie's tones were sharp with apprehension, and again, as
if in explanation, came that pursuing chorus. I sprang over the back
of the seat, and knelt in the bottom of the wagon-box, securing the
rifle and cartridge-belt. Jessie, holding the lines firmly in either
hand, shifted her position to look down on me. Her face gleamed white
in the dusk as she breathed, rather than spoke: "Wolves, Leslie?"
"Yes." I had the gun now and staggered to my feet. "Watch the horses,
Jessie." Jessie nodded.
Ralph, roused by the rapid motion, had awakened. He struggled to a
sitting posture. "What for is us doin' so fas'?" he inquired, with
interest.
Jessie made no reply, but she put one foot on his short skirt, holding
him in place. Some intuition told him what was taking place, perhaps,
what might take place. Clasping both chubby hands around Jessie's foot
to steady himself, he sat in silence, making no complaint. The brave
spirit within his baby body had risen to meet the crisis as gallantly
as could that of any Gordon over whose head a score of years had
passed.
Reaching the end of the wagon, I crouched down beside Guard, with
rifle poised and finger on the trigger, waiting for the pursuing
outcry to resolve itself into tangible shape. I had not long to wait.
Dusky shadows came stealing out from either side of the roadway.
Shadows that, as I strained my eyes upon them, seemed to grow and
multiply, until, in less time than it takes to tell it, we were close
beset by a pack of wolves in full cry. The terrified horses were
bounding along and the wagon was bouncing after them, at a rate that
threatened momentarily to either shatter the wagon or set the horses
free from it, but Jessie still kept them in the road. A moment more
and the wolves were upon us, and had ceased howling; their quarry was
at hand. I could see their eyes flaming in the darkness, and with the
rifle muzzle directed toward a couple of those flaming points, I
fired. There was a terrific clamor again as the report of the gun died
away, and a score or more of our pursuers halted, sniffing at a fallen
comrade. But one gaunt long-limbed creature disdained to stop for such
a matter. He kept after the wagon. Guard was young and, moreover, this
was his first experience with wolves. He had stopped growling, but
his eyes seemed to dart fire, and as the wolf that had outstripped its
mates sprang up, with gnashing teeth, hurling himself at the tailboard
in a determined effort to spring into the wagon, Guard attempted to
spring out and grapple with him. I was leaning against the dog, ready
to meet the wolf's closer approach with a bullet, and, in consequence,
I felt the impetus of his leap before he could accomplish it. The gun
dropped from my hand with a crash as I threw both arms around Guard,
intent on holding him in the wagon. I was so far successful that his
leap was checked; he fell across the tailboard, his head and forelegs
outside. My grip about his body tightened as I felt him slipping. I
pulled back mightily, and had the satisfaction of tumbling backward
with him into the wagon-box, but not before he had briefly sampled the
wolf. The creature's savage head and cruel eyes appeared above the
tailboard, even as I dragged at Guard, who, not to be deterred by my
interference, made a vicious lunge at the enemy, and fell back with
me, his mouth and throat so full of wolf-hair and hide that he was
nearly strangled. But that particular wolf had drawn off. I regained
my feet and admonished Guard: "Stay there, sir! Stay right there!" I
gasped, and again secured the gun. The wolves, on each side of us now,
were running close to the front wheels and to the galloping horses,
and one was again trying to leap into the box from the rear. The rifle
spoke, and he fell motionless on the road, at the same instant I heard
Ralph saying, imperatively: "Do away! Do away I tells 'oo!" I looked
around. Ralph was on his knees--no one could have kept footing in that
wagon-box just then--a pair of wolves were leaping up wildly beside
the near wheel, making futile springs and snaps at him, and just
then he lifted something, some dark object from the bottom of the
wagon-box, and hurled it at them with all the power of his baby hands.
Whatever the object was, its effect on the wolves was instantaneous.
The pack had not stopped to look at the wolf brought down by my
second shot, but they all stopped, snarling and fighting over Ralph's
missile. A few took on after us, and then Ralph threw another; they
stopped again at that, and then I saw that the child was throwing out
the game that Phillips had given us. With another command to Guard to
remain where he was, I crept back to the pile of game yet remaining,
and tossed out what was left. Then I crept on to Jessie.
"Can you slow the horses down?" I shouted in her ear. "The wolves will
not follow us again; they have got what they were after."
The horses knew me, and by dint of much pulling and many soothing
words I had them partially quieted, but it took so long to gain even
that much control over them that the wolves were far out of sight and
sound behind us when I at length ventured to look back. The horses
were walking at last, but it was a walk so full of frightened starts
and nervous glances that it threatened at any moment to break into a
run. By the moonlight Jessie and I looked into each others' white
faces, and, with Ralph cuddled between us, clung together for a
breathless instant of thanksgiving. Then--"'Ose dogs was hundry,"
Ralph observed, philosophically, adding, as an afterthought: "Me
hundry, too; is we mos' 'ome, 'Essie?"
"We'll be there soon," I answered, tremulously. We saw or heard
nothing more of the wolves, which were of that cowardly species--a
compromise between the skulking coyote and the savage gray wolf, known
as "Loafers." A loafer very seldom attacks man, but he will, if
numerous enough, run down and destroy cattle--sometimes horses. In
this instance it was undoubtedly the scent of the game in the wagon
that attracted them. Once attracted and bent on capture, they are as
fiercely determined as their gray cousins, and but for the fortunate
accident of Ralph's using a duck for a projectile they would have kept
up the chase until the horses were exhausted, and they were able to
help themselves.
It was after nine when we reached home, and never had home seemed
a dearer or safer place. The chores all done, Ralph asleep in his
little crib, and Guard sleeping the sleep of the just on the kitchen
doorstep, Jessie and I sat down by the table to eat a belated supper,
and count our hard-won gains. The melon crop was all sold, and it had
netted us forty dollars.