The Killer had had an unsuccessful night. He had waited the long hours
through at the mouth of the trail, but only the Little People--such as
the rabbits and similar folk that hardly constituted a single bite in
his great jaws--had come his way. Now it was morning and it looked as if
he would have to go hungry.
The thought didn't improve his already doubtful mood. He wanted to
growl. The only thing that kept him from it was the realization that it
would frighten away any living creature that might be approaching toward
him up the trail. He started to stretch his great muscles, intending to
leave his ambush. But all at once he froze again into a lifeless gray
patch in the thickets.
There were light steps on the trail. Again they were the steps of
deer,--but not of the great, wary elk this time. Instead it was just a
fawn, or a yearling doe at least, such a creature as had not yet learned
to suspect every turn in the trail. The morning light was steadily
growing, the stars were all dimmed or else entirely faded in the sky,
and it would have been highly improbable that a full-grown buck in his
wisdom would draw within leaping range without detecting him. But he
hadn't the slightest doubt about the fawn. They were innocent
people,--and their flesh was very tender. The forest gods had been good
to him, after all.
He peered through the thickets, and in a moment more he had a glimpse of
the spotted skin. It was almost too easy. The fawn was stealing toward
him with mincing steps--as graceful a creature as dwelt in all this
wilderness world of grace--and its eyes were soft and tender as a
girl's. It was evidently giving no thought to danger, only rejoicing
that the fearful hours of night were done. The mountain lion had already
sought its lair. The fawn didn't know that a worse terror still lingered
at the mouth of the trail.
But even as the Killer watched, the prize was simply taken out of his
mouth. A gray wolf--a savage old male that also had just finished an
unsuccessful hunt--had been stealing through the thickets in search of a
lair, and he came out on the trail not fifty feet distant, halfway
between the bear and the fawn. The one was almost as surprised as the
other. The fawn turned with a frightened bleat and darted away; the wolf
swung into pursuit.
The bear lunged forward with a howl of rage. He leaped into the trail
mouth, then ran as fast as he could in pursuit of the running wolf. He
was too enraged to stop to think that a grizzly bear has never yet been
able to overtake a wolf, once the trim legs got well into action. At
first he couldn't think about anything; he had been cheated too many
times. His first impulse was one of tremendous and overpowering
wrath,--a fury that meant death to the first living creature that he
met.
But in a single second he realized that this wild chase was fairly good
tactics, after all. The chances for a meal were still rather good. The
fawn and the wolf were in the open now, and it was wholly evident that
the gray hunter would overtake the quarry in another moment. It was true
that the Killer would miss the pleasure of slaying his own game,--the
ecstatic blow to the shoulder and the bite to the throat that followed
it. In this case, the wolf would do that part of the work for him. It
was just a simple matter of driving the creature away from his dead.
The fawn reached the stream bank, then went bounding down the margin.
The distance shortened between them. It was leaping wildly, already
almost exhausted; the wolf raced easily, body close to the ground, in
long, tireless strides. The grizzly bear sped behind him.
But at that instant fate took a hand in this merry little chase. To the
fawn, it was nothing but a sharp clang of metal behind him and an
answering shriek of pain,--sounds that in its terror it heard but dimly.
But it was an unlooked-for and tragic reality to the wolf. His leap was
suddenly arrested in mid-air, and he was hurled to the ground with
stunning force. Cruel metal teeth had seized his leg, and a strong chain
held him when he tried to escape. He fought it with desperate savagery.
The fawn leaped on to safety.
But there was no need of the grizzly continuing its pursuit. Everything
had turned out quite well for him, after all. A wolf is ever so much
more filling than any kind of seasonal fawn; and the old gray pack
leader was imprisoned and helpless in one of Hudson's traps.
* * * * *
In the first gray of morning, Dave Turner started back toward his home.
"I'll go with you to the forks in the trail," Hudson told him. "I want
to take a look at some of my traps, anyhow."
Turner had completed his business none too soon. At the same hour--as
soon as it was light enough to see--Bruce was finishing his breakfast in
preparation for the last lap of his journey. He had passed the night by
a spring on a long ridge, almost in eye range of Hudson's camp. Now he
was preparing to dip down into the Killer's glen.
Turner and Hudson followed up the little creek, walking almost in
silence. It is a habit all mountain men fall into, sooner or later,--not
to waste words. The great silences of the wild places seem to forbid it.
Hudson walked ahead, Turner possibly a dozen feet behind him. And
because of the carpet of pine needles, the forest creatures could hardly
hear them come.
Occasionally they caught glimpses of the wild life that teemed about
them, but they experienced none of the delight that had made the two-day
tramp such a pleasure to Bruce. Hudson thought in terms of pelts only;
no creature that did not wear a marketable hide was worth a glance.
Turner did not feel even this interest.
The first of Hudson's sets proved empty. The second was about a turn in
the creek, and a wall of brush made it impossible for him to tell at a
distance whether or not he had made a catch. But when still a quarter of
a mile distant, Hudson heard a sound that he thought he recognized. It
was a high, sharp, agonized bark that dimmed into a low whine. "I
believe I've got a coyote or a wolf up there," he said. They hastened
their steps.
"And you use that little pea-gun for wolves?" Dave Turner asked. He
pointed to the short-barreled, twenty-two caliber rifle that was slung
on the trapper's back. "It doesn't look like it would kill a mosquito."
"A killer gun," Hudson explained. "For polishin' 'em off when they are
alive in the traps. Of course, it wouldn't be no good more'n ten feet
away, and then you have to aim at a vital spot. But I've heard tell of
animals I wouldn't want to meet with that thirty-thirty of yours."
This was true enough. Dave had heard of them also. A thirty-thirty is a
powerful weapon, but it isn't an elephant gun. They hurried on, Dave
very anxious to watch the execution that would shortly ensue if whatever
animal had cried from the trap was still alive. Such things were only
the day's work to Hudson, but Dave felt a little tingle of anticipation.
And the thought damned him beyond redemption.
But instead of the joy of killing a cowering, terror-stricken animal,
helpless in the trap, the wilderness had made other plans for Hudson and
Dave. They hastened about the impenetrable wall of brush, and in one
glance they knew that more urgent business awaited them.
The whole picture loomed suddenly before their eyes. There was no wolf
in the trap. The steel had sprung, certainly, but only a hideous
fragment of a foot remained between the jaws. The bone had been broken
sharply off, as a man might break a match in his fingers. There was no
living wolf for Hudson to execute with his killer gun. Life had gone out
of the gray body many minutes before. The two men saw all these things
as a background only,--dim details about the central figure. But the
thing that froze them in their tracks with terror was the great, gray
form of the Killer, not twenty feet distant, beside the mangled body of
the wolf.
The events that followed thereafter came in such quick succession as to
seem simultaneous. For one fraction of an instant all three figures
stood motionless, the two men staring, the grizzly half-leaning over his
prey, his head turned, his little red eyes full of hatred. Too many
times this night he had missed his game. It was the same intrusion that
had angered him before,--slight figures to break to pieces with one
blow. Perhaps--for no man may trace fully the mental processes of
animals--his fury fully transcended the fear that he must have
instinctively felt; at least, he did not even attempt to flee. He
uttered one hoarse, savage note, a sound in which all his hatred and his
fury and his savage power were made manifest, whirled with incredible
speed, and charged.
The lunge seemed only a swift passing of gray light. No eye could
believe that the vast form could move with such swiftness. There was
little impression of an actual leap. Rather it was just a blow; the
great form, huddled over the dead wolf, had simply reached the full
distance to Hudson.
The man did not even have time to turn. There was no defense; his
killer-gun was strapped on his back, and even if it had been in his
hands, its little bullet would not have mattered the sting of a bee in
honey-robbing. The only possible chance of breaking that deadly charge
lay in the thirty-thirty deer rifle in Dave's arms; but the craven who
held it did not even fire. He was standing just below the outstretched
limb of a tree, and the weapon fell from his hands as he swung up into
the limb. The fact that Hudson stood weaponless, ten feet away in the
clearing, did not deter him in the least.
No human flesh could stand against that charge. The vast paw fell with
resistless force; and no need arose for a second blow. The trapper's
body was struck down as if felled by a meteor, and the power of the
impact forced it deep into the carpet of pine needles. The savage
creature turned, the white fangs caught the light in the open mouth. The
head lunged toward the man's shoulder.
No man may say what agony Hudson would have endured in the last few
seconds of his life if the Killer had been given time and opportunity.
His usual way was to linger long, sharp fangs closing again and again,
until all living likeness was destroyed. The blood-lust was upon him;
there would have been no mercy to the dying creature in the pine
needles. Yet it transpired that Hudson's flesh was not to know those
rending fangs a second time. Although it is an unfamiliar thing in the
wilderness, the end of Hudson's trail was peaceful, after all.
On the hillside above, a stranger to this land had dropped to his knee
in the shrubbery, his rifle lifted to the level of his eyes. It was
Bruce, who had come in time to see the charge through a rift in the
trees.