THE WOLF BAYS THE TRAIL
Stanley Fyles was in no easy mood. He had passed through a particularly
bad time as a result of the Buffalo Coulee affair. He knew it was
failure. And failure hurt him as nothing else in the world could hurt.
From the moment of his first meeting with Annette on the night trail
he had apprehended disaster. It had truly enough been only vague
apprehension. But that simply made it all the worse. From his point of
view disaster had certainly supervened. And his one thought now was to
get back on the ill fortune of it all by doing what was possible to
remedy it.
As he made his way towards the troop stables his eyes were shining with
the light of battle.
He had spent an hour at the Orderly Room with Superintendent Croisette,
and another half-hour with his sergeant-major. Now, at last, he was
free to pursue the course upon which he had finally decided.
His mare was standing saddled and bridled at the entrance to the
stables. A trooper was putting a finishing touch to the mud-brown
creature’s toilet. Fyles glanced quickly round her. He felt the cinches
of the saddle. He examined the heavy bits in her mouth. And, the
while, the creature restlessly pawed the snow and snatched for freedom.
Fyles turned up his collar and pulled on his fur mitts. The next moment
he was in the saddle. The trooper clapped the dancing mare over the
quarters, by way of friendly parting, and the eager creature leaped
forward in one of those cat-jumps by which the broncho so dearly loves
to express its satisfaction.
Fyles moved out on to the barrack square and passed down towards the
sergeant-major’s quarters to report departure. It was the final act of
official procedure.
As the mare ambled over the hard-beaten snow Fyles had a full view of
the barrack square, right down to the front gate on the far side, where
stood the guardroom. It was the latter in which he found interest. Two
saddle horses were standing there, near to the barrack gate, beyond the
sentry’s beat.
They were long-tailed, lean, tough-looking prairie horses, with none
of the sleekness of the mare under him. The man in charge of them had
their reins linked over his arm, and was smoking a cigarette.
It required no second glance for Fyles to recognize the figure of
the Wolf. Besides, he knew the man had already been waiting with his
charges for some time. And of the object of that waiting he was fully
aware.
It was Annette, and the policeman smiled to himself as he remembered
that those two would soon be travelling the same trail as himself, at
the best gait they could get out of their prairie horses.
The sight merely interested him. It gave him no particular concern. He
intended to reach Buffalo Coulee first, considerably first, no matter
at what pace they urged their horses. For much depended on the speed
of his journey, and he knew he could trust the creature under him to
behave generously.
No. The sight of the Wolf standing there waiting to set out for his
home, gave him no anxiety as to his own plans. But as, a few minutes
later, he nodded farewell to Sturt and left the barracks by a back way
to avoid the waiting man, he wondered profoundly to what extent the
Wolf and Annette, if left to their own headlong methods, would further
complicate their foolish lives. How absurdly they would contrive to
destroy the limited chances of human happiness which life was still
willing to afford them.
* * * * *
The Wolf had smoked many cigarettes. He had smoked incessantly. He
would probably go on smoking indefinitely. It was an expression of his
preoccupation.
The man was hard set by his purpose, from which nothing would be
permitted to deflect him. The delay in Annette’s coming gave him no
anxiety. She would come, he knew. For it was a very different Annette
returning with him to Buffalo Coulee from the fury who had determined
upon his destruction.
But the Wolf was not now thinking of Annette. At no time in his life
had she been far from his thoughts before. But now, for once at least,
she found no place in them. The journey before him, that rush back to
Buffalo Coulee and the thing it meant, preoccupied him to the exclusion
of all else.
The Wolf had undergone one of those swift transformations to which,
under stress, human nature is so susceptible. He was bitterly
determined. Scruple was flung to the winds.
Hitherto he had looked on all life tolerantly. He had seen good in
all men, in all things. He had always felt that the simple fact of
life, with all its tremendous appeal, all its human possibilities, was
something for which to be joyously thankful. But that wholesome phase
had gone, shattered beyond repair. The confining bars of a prison had
brought him his awakening. He had delved to the true meaning of his
presence in Calford.
The man’s mood was written large in eyes that still smiled, but which
shone coldly, implacably, in spite of their natural expression. It was
there in his set jaws, in the tight-set lips closed over his cigarette.
It was in his calm patience, awaiting Annette’s coming. He was master
of himself, steeled to the last fibre of his being for the bitter task
he had set himself.
Finally she came. Annette came alone. She came padding, a bundling,
fur-clad figure over the snow, from one of the long, low huts of the
barrack married quarters, where she had been housed since her coming to
Calford. She came slowly, almost reluctantly. And she was carrying a
bundle of clothing tied up hastily, without care for appearance.
At sight of her the Wolf bestirred out of his preoccupation.
The change in Annette was even more pronounced than was the change in
the Wolf. All the old wilful spirit and impishness had gone out of her.
And as she came to the horses and to the waiting man, her peering eyes
were apprehensive within the depths of her storm collar. She came with
that uncertainty, that dreadful diffidence that suggested imminent,
precipitate flight were her inclination given free play. She looked
pathetically lonely and helpless.
There was no verbal greeting. For an instant the Wolf’s expression
softened. That was all. He took the girl’s bundle from her and tied it
on his saddle. Then he flung the reins over the horses’ heads, and the
girl leaped astride of her saddle and moved off.
Their way lay through the heart of the city with its morning
traffic in full tide. It was down one of the broad avenues, dotted
with automobiles and horse sleighs, and heavy double-bob commercial
vehicles. The way was lined with houses and stores heavily burdened
with slowly melting snow. Then there were the besmirched drifts rotting
against the sidewalks.
The horses ambled their way through the traffic. The Wolf had no desire
to draw attention to their going. And it was not till the river bridge
was crossed, and they breasted their way out of the valley to the
plains above, that the eager horses stretched out into the devouring
gait that was to bear them to their destination.
As the last habitation fell away behind them the Wolf breathed his
relief.
There in the city he felt he had no place. It was the world of
civilization to which his claim had always been small enough, and now
less than ever. Down there the snow had been soft and rotten, and it
appealed to him as though it were symbolical of the life that was lived
there. Up on the plains, with the keen breath blowing down from the far
hills, the trail was iron hard, and he was glad.
He rode on beside the girl with the silence unbroken between them.
Pace was increased to something commensurate with Fyles’ anticipation.
And the Wolf’s mood eased under the influence of activity and the
friendliness of his surroundings.
This was the world to which he belonged. The wintry sky, the keen wind
that could leap to storm in minutes, the depths of snow, and then--the
hills.
Those hills of his childhood. It was good to think of them. And
particularly so now. The deeps of forest. The chaos of snowy crests.
The vast hidden valleys that only knew the denizens of the wilderness
and Nature’s flaming moods. The wild life of it all. The intense hush
and infinite solitude.
The dreams of boyhood came again to the Wolf. Those early vanities and
schemings. But were they dreams? It almost seemed as though they were
not. Perhaps they were visions vouchsafed to him of realities to come.
At any rate now the memory of them revived, and he found them to be
alive with new and profound meaning.
“Wolf!”
Annette had turned. She had released the storm collar from about her
throat, and the sting of the wind had restored the flush of well-being
to the oval of her cheeks. Apprehension had abated in her eyes. And the
Wolf’s heart quickened at the sight of it.
“Why, Wolf?” she cried quickly, anxiously. “What d’you need me back
home for? It’s no sort of good my ever goin’ ther’ again. I--I just
can’t. It’s cruel! Quit me, an’ let me beat it back to the city. I
can get work. I can clean for folks in their houses. That way things
wouldn’t seem so--so bad. I don’t want to see ’em. Any of ’em. I can’t
face it.”
The Wolf reined his horse to a walk. Annette’s pony responded on the
instant.
It was so different. A few weeks ago the girl’s tone, her words, would
have been so very different. There would have been no appeal. She would
have spoken her will and none too easily. And somehow the Wolf would
rather have listened to the old hectoring.
His reply did not come at once. There flashed before his mind a picture
of all that had brought about the pitiful change in this girl who could
never be less than all the world to him. Those dreadful last moments of
his trial. And then the almost brutal method he had used in forcing her
present obedience to his will. He thrust it all aside. He had learned
his lesson.
“You won’t need to face it, kid,” he said quietly. “We’ll make home at
nightfall. By mornin’ we’ll be makin’ the hills.”
Annette’s lips moved, but no sound came. Her eyes were wide with
incredulous amazement.
The Wolf rolled a cigarette and lit it. He left his reins hanging loose
over the horn of his saddle.
Suddenly he heard the girl’s whisper.
“The hills?”
“Sure. The home we’ll make ther’ together.” A sound followed the Wolf’s
announcement. It was something like a laugh. But it was without mirth.
“Ther’s fish in the creeks, an’ pelts in the forests. Same as ther’ was
years back when we reckoned those things figgered bigger than the pile
of dollars I’ve pouched in Buffalo Coulee. We’re goin’ to the hills,
when I’m through to-night.”
As though the man’s words impelled her, Annette turned upon the long
line of the western hills. The Wolf watched her out of the tail of his
eye. He saw the stormy rise and fall of her bosom, which had nothing
to do with the movement of the horse under her. He warmed. A sense of
gladness swept through him.
“You want me up in the hills?”
The girl was still gazing at the far-flung rampart whose jagged outline
cut the wintry sky.
The Wolf pitched his cigarette end away with a vicious jerk.
“Say, kid, have I got to tell you?” he cried roughly. The man’s eyes
lit as he spoke. There flashed into them the light of sudden passion,
all that passion which nothing the girl could do, or say, had ever
had power to abate. “Haven’t you got it yet you’re mine? Can’t I beat
it into your fool head you belong me? Have always belonged me? Ther’
ain’t no life fer you without me. An’ I guess ther’s no life I ken see
without you. Ther’ hasn’t ever been. We’re goin’ to those old hills,
wher’ ther’s all the things we know. It’s goin’ to be the same as when
we were fool kids. Only you’ll be mine. Mine fer good an’ all. An’
there won’t be any Pideau.”
The sight of the vast mountains seemed to hold the girl fascinated.
“But--ther’s--the----”
The Wolf suddenly reached out. He caught the girl’s arm in a grip and
swung her round in the saddle so that she faced him. The storm in his
eyes was something that found her thrilling with an emotion she had
never yet known. The dusky blood receded from her cheeks. But she
looked back into his eyes unafraid.
“God in heaven! Do I care?” he cried hoarsely. “Do you reckon
Sinclair’s kid ken rob me of you? Do you guess his dirt to you makes me
want you less? He don’t figger with me. An’ I guess that baby thing’ll
seem good to me, seein’ it’s mostly part of you. Ther’s goin’ to be no
fool talk that way. Fate handed you to me years back an’ I’ve a grip on
things I ain’t lettin’ go. I’ve told you love for years, kid, when you
fancied laffin’ in my face, or shoutin’ murder at me. I don’t need tell
you more now. It goes all the time. It goes jest as long as I got air
to breathe.”
The last of the girl’s fear fell from her. It fell away like a
nightmare before the golden sun of day. Her bosom suddenly seemed to
fill to choking with some queer wonderful sensation such as she had
never known before.
She turned away to the hills again, and their crystal purity seemed to
be shining with a new light that set her yearning. And in her ears rang
those fierce, savage tones which told her that which the Wolf had never
told her before.
Oh, she knew it now. She gladly saw it and admitted it. It had been so
all along, but she had been blind to it. The Wolf was her master. She
was his slave.
The hills? With him? Yes, yes! A thousand times, yes! The ends of the
earth! Anywhere! She felt that sinewy body near her. She knew the
physical strength of those great hands. The trunk-like neck that held
that head so fearlessly confident. At that instant she would have been
glad to feel the crushing strength of his hands in chastisement for the
things she had done to hurt him.
Suddenly she swung round from the mountains.
“The hills!” she cried urgently. “Wolf! Wolf! Why did you do it?
Oh, I’m not grievin’ you killed him. But why did you? Yes. Sure. It
means the hills, an’ I’m ready. But it’ll be the hills always--for
you--or----”
“Yes. After to-night. But not for other reason!”
The Wolf stared out ahead over the white expanse of winter. Far away
beyond the bare horizon lay Buffalo Coulee, and that--to-night. He was
glad of to-night. There was no other emotion in him than satisfaction
as he contemplated it. A sharp ejaculation broke.
“Tcha! Say, kid, why talk that fool stuff? Ain’t it beat from your head
yet? I didn’t kill that skunk Sinclair. You know it, unless you’re
crazy. Get it right here. I didn’t--kill--Sinclair.”
“But I saw. You’d been ther’! Your gun! An’ he was dead!”
It was the old Annette. All the old spirit. And it gladdened the man’s
heart.
The Wolf flung back his head and laughed. It was a laugh of sheer joy,
carefree, and good to hear. She had come back. It was the old Annette
riding beside him.
“Say, kid, we got a dope of sense between us that wouldn’t save a
maggot from the bughouse. You saw my gun, with Sinclair dead. Maybe you
did. I saw you standin’ with my gun in your hand lookin’ down at the
carcass you’d shot the life right out of. Well?”
“I didn’t! I didn’t! I guessed it was you.”
“Sure. An’ I felt good they should choke me to death so you could get
all the daylight comin’ to you.”
“Man, man! You’re crazy. Who killed Sinclair?”
The Wolf was preparing another smoke.
“You’ll be wise to-night,” he said, pouring the grains of tobacco into
the paper.
“An’ the hills--after to-night.”
There was the hush of awe in the girl’s voice.
“After--to-night.”
Annette reached out. She caught the man’s arm with a jerk that shot his
tobacco from its paper.
“Father--Pideau!”
The Wolf was grinning into twin black depths of horror. Annette’s grip
on his arm tightened spasmodically.
“You shan’t! You crazy fool, I tell you, you shan’t!” she cried.
With his other hand the Wolf took hold of her. He tore her hand from
his arm and crushed it violently in his great palm.
“You’re my woman, kid,” he said, in a tone that brooked no denial.
“You’re mine, now. Ther’s not a thing to this life fer you but--me. I
say it’s the hills--to-morrow!”