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."
[Illustration]
Oh! those glorious 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. "These are the best days of my life," he said, "these
are my golden days." He thought it then, and oh, how well he came to
know it in the after years!
[Illustration]
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 telltale 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.
[Illustration]
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 snow-clad 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 timber-lands near the
sawmill, 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.
[Illustration]
Bright, unsad failures they. He seemed indeed to come back
empty-handed, but he really came home laden with the best spoils of
the chase, and he knew it more and more, as time went on, till every
day, at last, on the clear unending trail, was a glad triumphant
march.