child's mother at that moment of supreme authority, but the old woman
had her misgivings; for she believed it was the white wolf, not the
wind, who had spoken in that hour, and she trembled lest the child
should come under his ban.
As the years passed, however, it began to appear that the old squaw's
fears were groundless. Among the lodges beside the bleak Michikamaw the
child grew up without misadventure; and when he was big enough to begin
his boyish hunting and to follow the trails among the dark spruce
forests, it began to be rumored that he was in some special favor with
the wolf folk. It was said--and, though he could not be persuaded to
talk of it, he was never known to deny it--that the old white wolf,
whose howling was like the wind in the mountain clefts, had been seen
again and again following the boy, not obtrusively, but at a little
distance and with an air of watching over him. Certain it was that the
boy was without fear to go alone in the forest, and went always as if
with a sense of being safeguarded by some unseen influence. Moreover,
whenever the wind howled in the night, or the voice of the solitary wolf
came quavering down, like the wind, from the granite heights, the boy
would be seized with a restlessness and a craving to go forth into the
darkness. This impulse was quelled sternly by his father until the lad
was old enough and wise enough to restrain it of his own accord; but it
was not held, among the tribe, to be any unaccountable or dreadful
thing that the boy should be thus compassed about with mystery, for this
was the tribe of the Nasquapees, the "Wizards," who were all mystics and
credited with secret powers.
As Wind-in-the-Night grew to manhood, the white wolf grew less and less
conspicuous in his affairs, till he came to be little more than a
tradition. But at any time of crisis there was sure to be some
suggestion of him, some reminder, whether in a far-off windy howl that
might be wolf or might be wind, or else in a gaunt, white shadow
flitting half-seen across the youth's trail. Whether, as all the tribe
took for granted, it was always the same wolf, a magic beast forever
young and vigorous, or whether the grim warder who had presided over the
child's birth had bequeathed his mysterious office to a descendant like
himself, is a point that need not be decided. Suffice to say that when,
at the age of eighteen, Wind-in-the-Night underwent his initiation into
the status of full manhood, a great white wolf played an unbidden but
not unlooked-for part in it. When, during that long and solitary fasting
on the hilltop, the young man's fainting eyes saw visions of awe and
unknown portent, and strange, phantasmal shapes of beast and bird came
floating up about him with eyes of menace, always at the last moment
would come that pallid, prowling warder and drive the ghosts away.
* * * * *
It was a bad winter. In the gray fishing village at the mouth of the
Natashquouan came word to Wind-in-the-Night that certain of the
scattered bands of his tribe in the interior were near to starving. He
had been now some six months absent from home, guiding a party of
prospectors, and his heart was troubled with desire for the little,
lonely cluster of lodges on the shore of the Michikamaw. He thought of
his own spacious wigwam of birch bark, with the crossed poles projecting
above the roof. With a pang of solicitude, he thought of the comely and
kindly young squaw, his wife, and of that straight-limbed,
copper-colored little five-year-old, his son, whose dark eyes danced
like the sunlight on the ripples, and who would always run laughing to
meet him and clutch him by the knees so sturdily.
Wind-in-the-Night wondered if they were hungry. Was it possible that
there could be fear and famine in that far-off wigwam deep in the snows,
while he, here under the white man's roof, was warm and well fed? With
smoldering eyes and no explanations, he resigned his profitable post and
started inland, on his snowshoes, with a toboggan load of pemmican and
flour. The men of the village, pipe in hand, and weary-eyed with their
winter inactivity, looked after him from their doorways and shook their
heads.
"He'll never make the Michikamaw with that there load," muttered one.
"It's the wolves'll be gittin' the load an' him too!" growled another.
Another spat tobacco juice into the snow in a sort of resigned derision.
Then all closed their doors tight against the deathly cold, huddled up
to their stoves, and dreamed grumblingly of spring. The solitary figure
bending to the straps of his toboggan never looked back. His thoughts
were all on the distant wigwam of birch bark and the woman and child
within it, who might be hungry.
Once across the bleak ridge which overlooked the settlement,
Wind-in-the-Night was swallowed up in the untamed, untouched Labrador
wilderness--everywhere a confusion of low hills, bowl-like valleys, and
spruce forests up-thrusting their dark, pointed tops above the enormous
overlay of the snow. Wind-in-the-Night swung on with a long, loping,
bent-kneed, straight-footed stride, his immense, racquet-like snowshoes
settling into the snow at each step with a curious muffled sigh that had
small resemblance to any other sound on earth.
He chose his path unhesitatingly, picking up his landmarks without
conscious effort among hill-tops and valleys and ravines which to the
uninitiated eye must have all looked alike. Just before noon he halted,
lit a fire, made himself a kettle of tea after the comforting fashion he
had learned from the white men, and chewed a rocky morsel of pemmican
without taking time to cook it. Then he pushed on eagerly.
The shadows began to fall early in that latitude; and as they began to
fall, Wind-in-the-Night began glancing from time to time over his
shoulder. He did it half-unconsciously, so absorbed was he in his
thoughts. At last he caught himself at it, as it were, and for a moment
wondered what he did it for. The next instant, with a little tingling at
the nape of his neck--just where, on a dog or a moose, the hair stiffens
at such moments--he understood.
He felt that he was being followed.
His path was the open, snow-sheeted channel of a little river, with the
fir woods crowding down to its brink on either side. Wind-in-the-Night
halted and peered into the thickets with eyes trained and penetrating,
but he could distinguish nothing. He listened, but there was not a sound
in all that lifeless world, save a ghostly settling of the snow
somewhere behind him. He sniffed the air, but his nostrils could detect
no taint upon it. He pushed on again, and immediately he felt in his
spine, in his hair, that the depths of the forest, to right and to left,
were full of moving life.
Then he knew that he was being trailed by many wolves.
It was the thought of the woman and the boy, hungry in their wigwam on
the Michikamaw, that made his heart sink. He knew that for the moment he
was safe, but, when the night came, it would be another matter. He was
not afraid physically, for his muscles and his nerves stretched to the
thought of the great fight he would make before the gray beasts should
pull him down. But that the food, the succor he was bringing, should
never reach the wigwam--this thought turned his heart cold. He increased
his pace, hoping to find a spot where he might encamp to advantage and
fortify himself for the night.
In that broken country of wide-sown boulders and fantastic outcrop,
Wind-in-the-Night had reason to hope for a post of better advantage than
the open trail. And after a half-mile's further traveling, while yet
there was daylight enough to discourage the wolves from showing
themselves, he found it. About halfway up a sparsely wooded hillside to
his right he marked a steep-faced boulder, at the foot of which he
resolved to make his stand.
On his way up the slope he passed a small dead fir tree and a stunted
birch, both of which he hastily chopped down and flung across his
toboggan for firewood. Arriving at the rock, he thrust the loaded
toboggan close against its foot, and then, at a distance of about ten
feet before it, he hastened to start his fire. It was a little fire, a
true Indian's fire, economical of fuel; for there was no more wood in
sight except green spruce, which made but poor and precarious burning
unless with plenty of dry stuff to urge it on. He thought for a moment
of venturing some little way into the woods in search of fuel; but, even
as he was weighing the chances of it, the dusk gathered, and the wolves
began to show themselves along the skirts of the timber. Some prowled
forth and slipped back again at once into the gloom, while others came
out and stood eyeing him steadily.
But more fuel, of some sort, Wind-in-the-Night knew he must have. About
halfway between the rock and the skirts of the close growth stood a
single small spruce. He knew that its sappy wood would burn with
difficulty, but it would do to make the rest of the fuel last
longer--possibly, with the most parsimonious care, even till sunrise.
Stirring his fire to a brisker blaze--at which, for a moment or two,
the wolves drew back into their covert--he strode forth and felled the
spruce in half a dozen skilful strokes. Then he dragged it back toward
the rock.
To the watchers in the shadow, however, this looked like a retreat.
Their hesitation vanished. As if at a signal, they shot from covert and
launched themselves, a torrent of shadowy, flame-eyed, leaping shapes,
upon the man. He, catching sight of the dreadful onslaught over his
shoulder, dropped the tree he was dragging, and sprang desperately for
the doubtful shelter of his fire.
He felt in his heart, however, that he was too late, that he would never
reach the fire. Well, he would not die pulled down like a fleeing doe
from behind. He faced about and swung up his axe, his lean, dark jaw set
grimly.
The hordes of his assailants were within a dozen paces of him, when
suddenly they stopped, thrusting out their forefeet with violence and
going back upon their haunches with low snarls. An immense white wolf
had sprung in between the hordes and their quarry, and stood there
rigid, confronting his fellows with bared fangs, flattened ears, and
every hair erect along his back. His authority seemed to be
unquestionable, for not a wolf ventured to pass him. Reluctantly,
sullenly, they drew back to within a few paces of the edge of the wood;
and there they halted, some crouching, some sitting, some moving
restlessly to and fro, and all eyeing their inexorable chief
expectantly, as if looking for him to withdraw his inhibition at any
moment and let them at their prey.
Wind-in-the-Night gave one long look at his strange protector, then
calmly turned and strode back to his fire. Calmly he proceeded to chop
his wood into small billets, for the more frugal use. Then he moved the
fire closer in toward the foot of the rock, in order that a smaller
blaze might suffice to warm him through the night. Seating himself with
his back to the loaded toboggan, he prepared his supper. His appetite
craved a thick, hot soup of pemmican, but he had a feeling that the
enticing smell of such a meal on the icy air might make the wolves
forget their deference to his protector. He contented himself with a
sticky and unpalatable gruel made by stirring a couple of handfuls of
flour into the boiling tea, and he felt a reasonable confidence that the
smell of such fare would prove no irresistible temptation to wolfish
nostrils. The thought occurred to him that perhaps he ought, in
courtesy, to throw a chunk of pemmican to his protector, who was now
pacing slowly and methodically to and fro before him like a sentinel,
with eyes fixed ever on those waiting hordes. But to Wind-in-the-Night
the great white beast was no mortal wolf, and he feared to affront him
by the offer of white man's food.
[Illustration: "The gaunt, tirelessly patrolling shape of his white
sentinel."]
The brief meal done, Wind-in-the-Night lighted his pipe and smoked
stolidly, crouching over the small fire. In spite of the terrific cold,
he was warm enough here, with the rock close at his back, the snow
banked up at either side, and his blankets about him. From time to time
he fed the fire frugally, and calculated that at this rate he could make
his fuel last the whole night through. But sleep was not to be thought
of. His small, unflinching eyes looked out across the meager flames,
through the thin reek of the smoke, and met calmly the scores of cruel,
narrowed eyes glaring upon him grimly from the edges of the timber. But
the eyes of the tireless sentinel he did not meet, for they were kept
always turned away from him. How long, he wondered, would the sentinel
remain tireless? Or how long would those ravening watchers remain
obedient to the authority that denied their hunger relief? No, decidedly
he must not sleep.
Smoking endlessly, feeding the little fire and crouching over it,
thinking of the wigwam on the lone white shore of the Michikamaw, and
watching ever that dread half-circle of hungry eyes, and the gaunt,
tirelessly patrolling shape of his white sentinel, he began to see
strange visions. The waiting wolves vanished. In their place, emerging
like mists from the forest and taking form in the firelight, came the
spirits of the totems of his ancestors--white bears and black with eyes
of men, eagles that walked stridingly, gray lynxes with a stare that
seemed to pierce him through the bone, and towering black moose bulls
with the storm-drift whirling in their antlers. They filled him with awe
and wonder, but he had no fear of them, for he knew that he had done no
trespass against the traditions. Then, without surprise, he saw his
white guardian, the living presentment of his own totem, grow at once to
the stature of a caribou, and come and sit down opposite him just across
the fire, and look meaningly into his eyes. Wind-in-the-Night strove
desperately to interpret that grave meaning. As his brain groped after
it, suddenly a long, thin howling filled his ears, whether the voice of
the wind or the voice of a wolf he could not tell.
The sound grew louder, louder, more penetrating and insistent, and then
he came out of his vision with a start. He lifted his head, which had
fallen on his breast. A late and aged moon hung distorted just over the
line of the treetops before him. He was deadly cold, and the fire had
burned down to a little heap of red embers. The dreadful waiting hordes
had all vanished from the skirts of the timber, whirling off, doubtless,
on the trail of some unprohibited quarry. Only the white sentinel
remained, and he had shrunk back to his former stature, which was beyond
that of his fellows, indeed, but not altogether incredible. He was
sitting on his haunches just the other side of the dying fire. His long
muzzle was lifted straight in the air, and he was howling to the
decrepit moon.
As Wind-in-the-Night lifted his head the white wolf stopped howling,
dropped his nose, and stared earnestly into the man's eyes. Hurriedly
but carefully, the man thrust some dry sticks into the embers and fanned
them into flame. Then he stood up. He knew that the white wolf's howling
had awakened him and saved him from being frozen to death.
"Thank you, white brother," he said simply, with firm confidence that
the mystical beast could understand human speech in the tongue of the
Nasquapees.
The great wolf cocked his ears at the sound, and gazed at the man
inquiringly for a second or two. Then he arose slowly and sauntered off
into the forest.
Wind-in-the-Night knew that the peril had passed. He heaped wood on the
fire with what was, for an Indian, lavish recklessness. When he was well
warmed he went and dragged up the tree which he had felled, then he
cooked himself a liberal meal--a strong stew of pemmican and
flour--and, having eaten it, felt mightily refreshed. Having no more
inclination for sleep, he resumed his journey, resolving to snatch at
the midday halt what sleep he should find himself needing.
Now, it had chanced, some days earlier than this, that in one of the
lodges by the Michikamaw a child had fallen sick. There was bitter
famine in the lodges, but that was plainly not what ailed the little
one. None of the wise men of the tribe could diagnose the sickness, and
the child was near to death. Then an old brave, the child's uncle, who
had been much about the posts of the Hudson Bay Company, which are
scattered over Labrador, said that the white man's medicine was a magic
to cure all disease, and that, if the little one could but come to one
of the posts, his life would surely be saved. The old brave was himself
hungering for an excuse to get away to the warmth which was to be found
in the dwellings of the white man, and he said that he would take the
little one out to North West River to be healed. And the mother,
dry-eyed, but with despair at her heart, had let him go. It was only a
chance, but it seemed the only chance; and she greatly feared to meet
the child's father if it should die in his absence.
Wind-in-the-Night had made good going, and was eating up the long miles
of his journey. At noon, in a deep trough dug with his snowshoes in the
snow, and with a good fire at his feet, he had slept soundly for two
hours. In that pure and tonic air but little sleep was needed. That
night there was no more sign of wolves, and he felt assured that his
strange protector had led them off to other hunting.
The trail from the Natashquouan was leading him almost due north. Late
in the afternoon of the fourth day of his journey, he crossed the fresh
trail of a wolf-pack running east. He thought little of it, but, from
the habit of the trained hunter and trapper, he gave it a searching
scrutiny as he went. Then he stopped short. He had marked another trail
underlying that of the wolf-pack.
It was the trail of a man on snowshoes, drawing a loaded sledge and
traveling eastward.
Wind-in-the-Night concluded at once, from his direction, that the
traveler came from the lodges on the Michikamaw. It must be one of his
own people. He examined the tracks minutely, and presently made out that
the traveler was going unsteadily, with an occasional stumble, as if
from weariness or weakness. And the wolf-pack was hunting him.
The trails being fresh, it was plain that the hunt could not be far
ahead. Acting on the first impulse of his courageous spirit,
Wind-in-the-Night started instantly in pursuit, hunting the hunters.
Then came the memory of his errand, the thought of the woman and the boy
in the wigwam of birch bark, hungry and needing him; and he stopped,
half-turning to go back.
For some seconds he stood there in an agony of irresolution, his heart
dragging him both ways. If he went to the help of the hunted man, he
might, more than probably, himself be pulled down and devoured by the
ravening pack. He must think of his own first, and save his life for
them. Then he thought of his fellow-tribesman, worn out with flight,
making his last fight alone in the silence and the snow. His wife and
boy, at least, were sheltered and with their people about them, and
would not be left utterly to starve so long as there was a shred of meat
to be shared in the tribe. He tried to turn back to them, but the
picture of the spent and stumbling fugitive was too much for him. He
snatched up his rifle, a repeating Winchester, from the toboggan, and
with a groan raced onward in the trail of the wolves.
It was not yet sunset, and he felt reasonably assured that the pack
would not dare to close in upon their prey before dusk began to fall, so
he continued to drag his loaded toboggan along, knowing that, if he
should leave it behind him, its precious cargo would fall a prey to the
lynxes and the foxes. He calculated to overtake the chase at any moment.
As he ran, sweating in his harness in spite of the intense cold, he
studied the trail of the wolves, and saw that the pack was not a large
one--perhaps not much beyond a score in number. If the fugitive should
prove to have any fight left in him, they two would stand back to back
and perhaps be able to pull the desperate venture through.
Before he had gone half a mile, Wind-in-the-Night saw the trail of the
pack divide and seek the coverts on either side of the track of the
lonely snowshoer. That track grew more and more irresolute and uneven,
and he knew that the fugitive could not be far ahead. He pictured him
even now turning wearily at bay, his back to some rock or steep hillock,
his loaded sledge uptilted before him as a barricade, and the wolves
crowding the thickets on either side, waiting for the moment to rush in
upon him.
He pushed on furiously, expecting this picture to greet his eyes at
every turn of the trail. But still it delayed, and the tension of his
suspense grew almost unbearable. The dusk began to gather among the
white-shrouded fir thickets. Why did not the fugitive stop and make
ready some defense? Then he rounded a corner, and there, fifty paces
ahead of him, was what he was looking for.
But there was a difference in the picture. There were the wolves, no
longer in hiding, but stalking forth from the thickets. There was the
upthrust of rock. There was the man, at bay, with his back to it. But
the loaded sledge was not before him as a barrier. Instead of that, it
was thrust behind him, as something precious to be guarded with his
life. The tall figure, at first bent with fatigue, straightened itself
up defiantly, lifted a musket, and fired at a bunch of wolves just
springing from the woods on his left. Flinging down the weapon--an old
muzzle-loader, which there was no time to recharge--he reached back to
the sledge for his axe.
At that moment Wind-in-the-Night recognized the old brave's face. With a
gasp, he twisted himself clear of his harness and sprang forward. In the
same instant the wolves closed in.
In the front of the attack was a great white beast, so swift in his leap
that the man had no time to swing up his weapon in defense.
A hoarse cry, whether of grief or horror, burst from the lips of
Wind-in-the-Night as the mystic white shape of his protector sprang at
the old brave's throat. But he did not hesitate. He whipped up his rifle
and fired, and the white wolf dropped sprawling over the front of the
sledge.
In a sort of frenzy at the sacrilege of which, in his own eyes, he had
just been guilty, Wind-in-the-Night fired shot after shot, dropping a
wolf to every bullet. But the fate of their great leader seemed to have
abashed the whole pack; and before half a dozen shots were fired they
had slunk off, stricken with panic.
Without a glance at the man whom he had saved, Wind-in-the-Night stalked
forward and flung himself down upon the body of the white wolf,
imploring it to pardon what he had done. As he poured out his guttural
pleading, a feeble child's voice came to his ears, and he lifted his
head with a sudden tightening at his heart.
"I _thought_ you would come pretty quick, father," said the small voice
tremblingly, "for I'd been calling you ever so long."
A little face, meager and burning-eyed, was gazing at him trustfully
from among the furs in the sledge. Wind-in-the-Night forgot the slain
wolf. He bent over the sledge and clutched the frail figure to his
breast, too amazed to ask any questions. He shook in every nerve to
think how nearly he had refused to come to that unheard call.
The old brave was starting to light a fire.
"The boy was very sick," said he calmly, unjarred by the dreadful
ordeal which he had just passed through. "I was taking him to North West
River to be cured by the white man's medicine. But already he recovers,
so we will go back to the Michikamaw with the food."
"Good," said Wind-in-the-Night. He stood up and stared long at the body
of the great beast whom he had slain.
"We will take him with us," he said at last, "and give him the burial of
a chief. It would be ill work if we should leave him to be eaten by
foxes."
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