Awaking next morning much refreshed, but with a keen appetite for more
grouse, Dan Davidson sat up and reflected. He felt that, although
refreshed, the great weakness resulting from excessive loss of blood
still rendered him almost helpless, and he knew that making new blood
was a process that required good feeding and considerable time. What,
then, was to be done?
He had scarcely asked himself the question when a rustle in the bushes
near him caused him to look quickly round and seize his gun. But the
noise was not repeated, and nothing could be seen to justify alarm.
Still Dan felt that the sound justified caution; he therefore kept his
gun handy, and loosened in its sheath the scalping-knife which he always
carried in his belt--for eating purposes, not for scalping.
Thus he sat for nearly an hour with an uncomfortable sensation that
danger of some sort lurked near him, until he almost fell asleep. Then,
rousing himself he proceeded to breakfast on the bones and scraps of the
previous night's supper.
While thus engaged he tried to make up his mind what course he ought to
pursue--whether to remain where he was until his friends should have
time to find him--for he felt sure that Okematan would escape and reach
the Settlement, in which case a search for him would certainly be set on
foot--or whether he should make a desperate effort to stagger on, and
ultimately, if need be, creep towards home. The pain of his wound was
now so great as to render the latter course almost impossible. He
therefore resolved to wait and give his friends time to institute a
search, trusting to another shot at willow-grouse for a supply of food.
He had scarcely made up his mind to this plan when the rustling in the
bushes was repeated again. Seizing his gun, which he had laid down, Dan
faced round just in time to see the hindquarters and tail of a large
grey wolf disappearing in the bushes.
To say that he felt considerable alarm when he saw this is not to stamp
him with undue timidity, for he would have rejoiced to have had the wolf
in his clutches, then and there, and to engage in single combat with it,
weak though he was. What troubled him was his knowledge of the fact
that the mean spirited and sly brute was noted for its apparent sagacity
in finding out when an intended victim was growing too feeble to show
fight--either from wounds or old age--and its pertinacity and patience
in biding the time when an attack could be made with safety.
Had this horrible creature discerned, by some occult knowledge, that the
sands in his glass were running low? Was it to be his fate to face his
glaring murderer until he had not vital power left to grapple with it,
or to guard his throat from its hideous fangs? These were questions
which forced themselves upon him, and which might well have caused the
stoutest heart to shrink from the threatened and terrible doom.
In the strength of his emotion he had almost fired at a venture at the
spot where the brute had disappeared; but luckily the remembrance that
it was his last charge of ammunition came to him in time, and he had the
resolution to restrain himself even when his finger was on the trigger.
Dan now perceived that he must not venture to remain on the spot where
he had passed the night, because, being surrounded on three sides by
shrubbery, it afforded his grisly foe an opportunity to approach from
any quarter, and spring on him the moment he should find him off his
guard.
There was a natural bank of earth out on the plain about three or four
hundred yards off, with neither trees nor bushes near it. The bank was
not more than four feet high, and the top slightly overhung its base, so
that it afforded some slight protection from the sun. To this spot Dan
resolved to betake himself, and immediately began the journey--for a
journey it surely was, seeing that the hunter had to do it on hands and
knees, lifting his gun and pushing it before him, each yard or so, as he
went along. The inflammation of his wound rendered the process all the
slower and more painful, and a burning thirst, which he had no means of
slaking, added to his misery.
By the time he had passed over the short distance, he was so much
exhausted that he fell at the foot of the bank almost in a swoon.
Evidently the wolf imagined that its time had now come, for it sneaked
out of the wood when the hunter fell, and began cautiously to advance.
But Dan saw this, and, making a desperate effort, arose to a sitting
posture, leaned his back against the bank, and placed his gun across his
knees.
Seeing this, the wolf sat down on its haunches, and coolly began to bide
its time.
"Ha! you brute!" muttered Dan, "I could easily stop your mischief if my
strength wasn't all gone. As it is, I dare not give you my last shot
till you are so close that you can look down the barrel o' my gun."
From this point a watch of endurance began on both sides--the brute, of
course, unaware of the deadly weapon which its intended victim held, and
the man fully aware of the fact that if he should venture to lie down
and sleep, his doom would be sealed.
It is impossible for any one who has not had trial of similar
experiences to imagine the rush of thought and feeling that passed
through the brain and breast of Dan Davidson during the long dreary
hours of that terrible day. Sometimes he fell into a half-dreamy
condition, in which his mind leaped over forests and ocean to bonnie
Scotland, where his days of childhood were spent in glorious revelry on
her sunny banks and braes. At other times the memory of school-days
came strong upon him, when play and lessons, and palmies were all the
cares he had; or thoughts of Sabbaths spent with his mother--now in the
church, now in the fields, or at the cottage door learning Bible stories
and hearing words of wisdom and the story of the crucified One from her
lips. Then the scene would change, and he was crossing the stormy
ocean, or fighting with Red-skins, or thundering after the buffalo on
the wide prairies. But through all the varied fabric of his thoughts
there ran two distinct threads, one golden, the other black. The first
we need hardly say was Elspie McKay; the second was that awful wolf
which sat there glaring at him with a hang-dog expression, with the red
tongue hanging out of its mouth, and from which he never for a moment
allowed his eyes to wander.
As evening began to draw on, the situation became terrible, for Dan felt
that the little strength he had left was fast sinking. The efforts by
which he had succeeded in rousing himself in the earlier parts of the
day were failing of their effect. Then a strange and sudden change
occurred, for, while he knew that the end of the trial was rapidly
approaching, he began to experience a feeling of indifference--the
result, no doubt, of excessive weariness--and almost a wish that all was
over. Nevertheless, whenever that wolf moved, or changed its position
ever so little, the instinct of self-preservation returned in full
force, and Dan, pulling himself together, prepared to defend himself
desperately to the last gasp.
While the two were thus glaring at each other, Dan was startled and
thoroughly aroused from his irresistible lethargy by a loud report.
Next moment he saw the wolf extended dead upon the plain.