In the wolf’s cave in the great blue and white wall of plaster-rock,
miles back beside the rushing of the river, there was famine. The
she-wolf, heavy and near her time, lay agonising in the darkest corner of
the cave, licking in grim silence the raw stump of her right foreleg.
Caught in a steel trap, she had gnawed off her own paw as the price of
freedom. She could not hunt; and the hunting was bad that winter in the
forests by the blue and white wall. The wapiti deer had migrated to safer
ranges, and her gray mate, hunting alone, was hard put to it to keep
starvation from the cave.
The gray wolf trotted briskly down the broken face of the plaster-rock,
in the full glare of the moon, and stood for a moment to sniff the air
that came blowing lightly but keenly over the stiff tops of the forest.
The wind was clean. It gave him no tidings of a quarry. Descending
hurriedly the last fifty yards of the slope, he plunged into the darkness
of the fir woods. Soft as was the snow in those quiet recesses, it was
yet sufficiently packed to support him as he trotted, noiseless and
alert, on the broad-spreading pads of his paws. Furtive and fierce, he
slipped through the shadow like a ghost. Across the open glades he
fleeted more swiftly, a bright and sinister shape, his head swinging a
little from side to side, every sense upon the watch. His direction was
pretty steadily to the west of north.
He had travelled long, till the direction of the moon-shadows had taken a
different angle to his path, when suddenly there came a scent upon the
wind. He stopped, one foot up, arrested in his stride. The gray, cloudy
brush of his tail stiffened out. His nostrils, held high to catch every
waft of the new scent, dilated; and the edges of his upper lip came down
over the white fangs, from which they had been snarlingly withdrawn. His
pause was but for a breath or two. Yes, there was no mistaking it. The
scent was moose—very far off, but moose, without question. He darted
forward at a gallop, but with his muzzle still held high, following that
scent up the wind.
Presently he struck the trail of the herd. An instant’s scrutiny told his
trained sense that there were calves and young cows, one or another of
which he might hope to stampede by his cunning. The same instant’s
scrutiny revealed to him that the herd had passed nearly an hour ahead of
him. Up went the gray cloud of his tail and down went his nose; and then
he straightened himself to his top speed, compared to which the pace
wherewith he had followed the scent up the wind was a mere casual
sauntering.
When he emerged upon the open plateau and reached the spot where the herd
had scattered to browse, he slackened his pace and went warily, peering
from side to side. The cow-moose, lying down in the bushes to fondle her
imprisoned young, was hidden from his sight for the moment; and so it
chanced that before he discovered her he came between her and the wind.
That scent—it was the taint of death to her. It went through her frame
like an electric shock. With a snort of fear and fury she heaved to her
feet and stood, wide-eyed and with lowered brow, facing the menace.
The wolf heard that snorting challenge, and saw the awkward bulk of her
shoulders as she rose above the scrub. His jaws wrinkled back tightly,
baring the full length of his keen white fangs, and a greenish
phosphorescent film seemed to pass suddenly across his narrowed eyeballs.
But he did not spring at once to the attack. He was surprised. Moreover,
he inferred the calf, from the presence of the cow apart from the rest of
the herd. And a full-grown cow-moose, with the mother fury in her heart,
he knew to be a dangerous adversary. Though she was hornless, he knew the
force of her battering front, the swift, sharp stroke of her hoof, the
dauntless intrepidity of her courage. Further, though his own courage and
the avid urge of his hunger might have led him under other circumstances
to attack forthwith, to-night he knew that he must take no chances. The
cave in the blue and white rocks was depending on his success. His mate,
wounded and heavy with young—if he let himself get disabled in this
hunting she must perish miserably. With prudent tactics, therefore, he
circled at a safe distance around the hidden pit; and around its rim
circled the wary mother, presenting to him ceaselessly the defiance of
her huge and sullen front. By this means he easily concluded that the
calf was a prisoner in the pit. This being the case, he knew that with
patience and his experienced craft the game was safely his. He drew off
some half-dozen paces, and sat upon his haunches contemplatively to weigh
the situation. Everything had turned out most fortunately for his
hunting, and food would no longer be scarce in the cave of the painted
rocks.
[Illustration: “AROUND ITS RIM CIRCLED THE WARY MOTHER.”]