Early that winter Jimmie was taken down with a fever. The Wolf howled
miserably in the yard when he missed his little friend, and finally on
the boy's demand was admitted to the sick-room, and there this great
wild Dog--for that is all a Wolf is--continued faithfully watching by
his friend's bedside.
The fever had seemed slight at first, so that every one was shocked
when there came suddenly a turn for the worse, and three days before
Christmas Jimmie died. He had no more sincere mourner than his
"Wolfie." The great gray creature howled in miserable answer to the
church-bell tolling when he followed the body on Christmas Eve to the
graveyard at St. Boniface. He soon came back to the premises behind the
saloon, but when an attempt was made to chain him again, he leaped a
board fence and was finally lost sight of.
Later that same winter old Renaud, the trapper, with his pretty
half-breed daughter, Ninette, came to live in a little log-cabin on the
river bank. He knew nothing about Jimmie Hogan, and he was not a little
puzzled to find Wolf tracks and signs along the river on both sides
between St. Boniface and Fort Garry. He listened with interest and
doubt to tales that the Hudson Bay Company's men told of a great
Gray-wolf that had come to live in the region about, and even to enter
the town at night, and that was in particular attached to the woods
about St. Boniface Church.
On Christmas Eve of that year when the bell tolled again as it had done
for Jimmie, a lone and melancholy howling from the woods almost
convinced Renaud that the stories were true. He knew the
wolf-cries--the howl for help, the love song, the lonely wail, and the
sharp defiance of the Wolves. This was the lonely wail.
The trapper went to the riverside and gave an answering howl. A shadowy
form left the far woods and crossed on the ice to where the man sat,
log-still, on a log. It came up near him, circled past and sniffed,
then its eye glowed; it growled like a Dog that is a little angry, and
glided back into the night.
Thus Renaud knew, and before long many townfolk began to learn, that a
huge Gray-wolf was living in their streets, "a Wolf three times as big
as the one that used to be chained at Hogan's gin-mill." He was the
terror of Dogs, killing them on all possible occasions, and some said,
though it was never proven, that he had devoured more than one
half-breed who was out on a spree.
And this was the Winnipeg Wolf that I had seen that day in the wintry
woods. I had longed to go to his help, thinking the odds so hopelessly
against him, but later knowledge changed the thought. I do not know how
that fight ended, but I do know that he was seen many times afterward
and some of the Dogs were not.
Thus his was the strangest life that ever his kind had known. Free of
all the woods and plains, he elected rather to lead a life of daily
hazard in the town--each week at least some close escape, and every day
a day of daring deeds; finding momentary shelter at times under the
very boardwalk crossings. Hating the men and despising the Dogs, he
fought his daily way and held the hordes of Curs at bay or slew them
when he found them few or single; harried the drunkard, evaded men with
guns, learned traps--learned poison, too--just how, we cannot tell, but
learn it he did, for he passed it again and again, or served it only
with a Wolf's contempt.
Not a street in Winnipeg that he did not know; not a policeman in
Winnipeg that had not seen his swift and shadowy form in the gray dawn
as he passed where he would; not a Dog in Winnipeg that did not cower
and bristle when the telltale wind brought proof that old Garou was
crouching near. His only path was the warpath, and all the world his
foes. But throughout this lurid, semi-mythic record there was one
recurring pleasant thought--Garou never was known to harm a child.
V
Ninette was a desert-born beauty like her Indian mother, but gray-eyed
like her Normandy father, a sweet girl of sixteen, the belle of her
set. She might have married any one of the richest and steadiest young
men of the country, but of course, in feminine perversity her heart was
set on that ne'er-do-well, Paul des Roches. A handsome fellow, a good
dancer and a fair violinist, Fiddler Paul was in demand at all
festivities, but he was a shiftless drunkard and it was even whispered
that he had a wife already in Lower Canada. Renaud very properly
dismissed him when he came to urge his suit, but dismissed him in vain.
Ninette, obedient in all else, would not give up her lover. The very
day after her father had ordered him away she promised to meet him in
the woods just across the river. It was easy to arrange this, for she
was a good Catholic, and across the ice to the church was shorter than
going around by the bridge. As she went through the snowy wood to the
tryst she noticed that a large gray Dog was following. It seemed quite
friendly, and the child (for she was still that) had no fear, but when
she came to the place where Paul was waiting, the gray Dog went forward
rumbling in its chest. Paul gave one look, knew it for a huge Wolf,
then fled like the coward he was. He afterward said he ran for his gun.
He must have forgotten where it was, as he climbed the nearest tree to
find it. Meanwhile Ninette ran home across the ice to tell Paul's
friends of his danger. Not finding any firearms up the tree, the
valiant lover made a spear by fastening his knife to a branch and
succeeded in giving Garou a painful wound on the head. The savage,
creature growled horribly but thenceforth kept at a safe distance,
though plainly showing his intention to wait till the man came down.
But the approach of a band of rescuers changed his mind, and he went
away.
Fiddler Paul found it easier to explain matters to Ninette than he
would to any one else. He still stood first in her affections, but so
hopelessly ill with her father that they decided on an elopement, as
soon as he should return from Fort Alexander, whither he was to go for
the Company, as dog-driver. The Factor was very proud of his train
Dogs--three great Huskies with curly, bushy tails, big and strong as
Calves, but fierce and lawless as pirates. With these the Fiddler Paul
was to drive to Fort Alexander from Fort Garry--the bearer of several
important packets. He was an expert Dog-driver, which usually means
relentlessly cruel. He set off blithely down the river in the morning,
after the several necessary drinks of whiskey. He expected to be gone a
week, and would then come back with twenty dollars in his pocket, and
having thus provided the sinews of war, would carry out the plan of
elopement. Away they went down the river on the ice. The big Dogs
pulled swiftly but sulkily as he cracked the long whip and shouted,
"Allez, allez, marchez." They passed at speed by Renaud's shanty on the
bank, and Paul, cracking his whip and running behind the train, waved
his hand to Ninette as she stood by the door. Speedily the cariole with
the sulky Dogs and drunken driver disappeared around the bend--and that
was the last ever seen of Fiddler Paul.
That evening the Huskies came back singly to Fort Garry. They were
spattered with frozen blood, and were gashed in several places. But
strange to tell they were quite "unhungry."
Runners went on the back trail and recovered the packages. They were
lying on the ice unharmed. Fragments of the sled were strewn for a mile
or more up the river; not far from the packages were shreds of clothing
that had belonged to the Fiddler.
It was quite clear, the Dogs had murdered and eaten their driver.
The Factor was terribly wrought up over the matter. It might cost him
his Dogs. He refused to believe the report and set off to sift the
evidence for himself. Renaud was chosen to go with him, and before they
were within three miles of the fatal place Renaud pointed to a very
large track crossing from the east to the west bank of the river, just
after the Dog sled. He ran it backward for a mile or more on the
eastern bank, noted how it had walked when the Dogs walked and run when
they ran, before he turned to the Factor and said: "A beeg Voolf--he
come after ze cariole all ze time."
Now they followed the track where it had crossed to the west shore. Two
miles above Kildonan woods the Wolf had stopped his gallop to walk over
to the sled trail, had followed it a few yards, then had returned to
the woods.
"Paul he drop somesin' here, ze packet maybe; ze Voolf he come for
smell. He follow so--now he know zat eez ze drunken Paul vot slash heem
on ze head."
A mile farther the Wolf track came galloping on the ice behind the
cariole. The man track disappeared now, for the driver had leaped on
the sled and lashed the Dogs. Here is where he cut adrift the bundles.
That is why things were scattered over the ice. See how the Dogs were
bounding under the lash. Here was the Fiddler's knife in the snow. He
must have dropped it in trying to use it on the Wolf. And here-what!
the Wolf track disappears, but the sled track speeds along. The Wolf
has leaped on the sled. The Dogs, in terror, added to their speed; but
on the sleigh behind them there is a deed of vengeance done. In a
moment it is over; both roll off the sled; the Wolf track reappears on
the east side to seek the woods. The sled swerves to the west bank,
where, after half a mile, it is caught and wrecked on a root.
The snow also told Renaud how the Dogs, entangled in the harness, had
fought with each other, had cut themselves loose, and trotting homeward
by various ways up the river, had gathered at the body of their late
tyrant and devoured him at a meal.
Bad enough for the Dogs, still they were cleared of the murder. That
certainly was done by the Wolf, and Renaud, after the shock of horror
was past, gave a sigh of relief and added, "Eet is le Garou. He hab
save my leel girl from zat Paul. He always was good to children."