FREE FROM BONDS
There was a low moaning of the wind in the spruce-tops as Kazan slunk
off into the blackness and mystery of the forest. For hours he lay near
the camp, his red and blistered eyes gazing steadily at the tent wherein
the terrible thing had happened a little while before.
He knew now what death was. He could tell it farther than man. He could
smell it in the air. And he knew that there was death all about him, and
that he was the cause of it. He lay on his belly in the deep snow and
shivered, and the three-quarters of him that was dog whined in a
grief-stricken way, while the quarter that was wolf still revealed
itself menacingly in his fangs, and in the vengeful glare of his eyes.
Three times the man--his master--came out of the tent, and shouted
loudly, "Kazan--Kazan--Kazan!"
Three times the woman came with him. In the firelight Kazan could see
her shining hair streaming about her, as he had seen it in the tent,
when he had leaped up and killed the other man. In her blue eyes there
was the same wild terror, and her face was white as the snow. And the
second and third time, she too called, "Kazan--Kazan--Kazan!"--and all
that part of him that was dog, and not wolf, trembled joyously at the
sound of her voice, and he almost crept in to take his beating. But fear
of the club was the greater, and he held back, hour after hour, until
now it was silent again in the tent, and he could no longer see their
shadows, and the fire was dying down.
Cautiously he crept out from the thick gloom, working his way on his
belly toward the packed sledge, and what remained of the burned logs.
Beyond that sledge, hidden in the darkness of the trees, was the body of
the man he had killed, covered with a blanket. Thorpe, his master, had
dragged it there.
He lay down, with his nose to the warm coals and his eyes leveled
between his forepaws, straight at the closed tent-flap. He meant to
keep awake, to watch, to be ready to slink off into the forest at the
first movement there. But a warmth was rising from out of the gray ash
of the fire-bed, and his eyes closed. Twice--three times--he fought
himself back into watchfulness; but the last time his eyes came only
half open, and closed heavily again.
And now, in his sleep, he whined softly, and the splendid muscles of his
legs and shoulders twitched, and sudden shuddering ripples ran along his
tawny spine. Thorpe, who was in the tent, if he had seen him, would have
known that he was dreaming. And Thorpe's wife, whose golden head lay
close against his breast, and who shuddered and trembled now and then
even as Kazan was doing, would have known what he was dreaming about.
In his sleep he was leaping again at the end of his chain. His jaws
snapped like castanets of steel,--and the sound awakened him, and he
sprang to his feet, his spine as stiff as a brush, and his snarling
fangs bared like ivory knives. He had awakened just in time. There was
movement in the tent. His master was awake, and if he did not escape--
He sped swiftly into the thick spruce, and paused, flat and hidden, with
only his head showing from behind a tree. He knew that his master would
not spare him. Three times Thorpe had beaten him for snapping at
McCready. The last time he would have shot him if the girl had not saved
him. And now he had torn McCready's throat. He had taken the life from
him, and his master would not spare him. Even the woman could not save
him.
Kazan was sorry that his master had returned, dazed and bleeding, after
he had torn McCready's jugular. Then he would have had her always. She
would have loved him. She did love him. And he would have followed her,
and fought for her always, and died for her when the time came. But
Thorpe had come in from the forest again, and Kazan had slunk away
quickly--for Thorpe meant to him what all men meant to him now: the
club, the whip and the strange things that spat fire and death. And
now--
Thorpe had come out from the tent. It was approaching dawn, and in his
hand he held a rifle. A moment later the girl came out, and her hand
caught the man's arm. They looked toward the thing covered by the
blanket. Then she spoke to Thorpe and he suddenly straightened and
threw back his head.
"H-o-o-o-o--Kazan--Kazan--Kazan!" he called.
A shiver ran through Kazan. The man was trying to inveigle him back. He
had in his hand the thing that killed.
"Kazan--Kazan--Ka-a-a-a-zan!" he shouted again.
Kazan sneaked cautiously back from the tree. He knew that distance meant
nothing to the cold thing of death that Thorpe held in his hand. He
turned his head once, and whined softly, and for an instant a great
longing filled his reddened eyes as he saw the last of the girl.
He knew, now, that he was leaving her forever, and there was an ache in
his heart that had never been there before, a pain that was not of the
club or whip, of cold or hunger, but which was greater than them all,
and which filled him with a desire to throw back his head and cry out
his loneliness to the gray emptiness of the sky.
Back in the camp the girl's voice quivered.
"He is gone."
The man's strong voice choked a little.
"Yes, he is gone. _He knew_--and I didn't. I'd give--a year of my
life--if I hadn't whipped him yesterday and last night. He won't come
back."
Isobel Thorpe's hand tightened on his arm.
"He will!" she cried. "He won't leave me. He loved me, if he was savage
and terrible. And he knows that I love him. He'll come back--"
"Listen!"
From deep in the forest there came a long wailing howl, filled with a
plaintive sadness. It was Kazan's farewell to the woman.
After that cry Kazan sat for a long time on his haunches, sniffing the
new freedom of the air, and watching the deep black pits in the forest
about him, as they faded away before dawn. 'Now and then, since the day
the traders had first bought him and put him into sledge-traces away
over on the Mackenzie, he had often thought of this freedom longingly,
the wolf blood in him urging him to take it. But he had never quite
dared. It thrilled him now. There were no clubs here, no whips, none of
the man-beasts whom he had first learned to distrust, and then to hate.
It was his misfortune--that quarter-strain of wolf; and the clubs,
instead of subduing him, had added to the savagery that was born in him.
Men had been his worst enemies. They had beaten him time and again until
he was almost dead. They called him "bad," and stepped wide of him, and
never missed the chance to snap a whip over his back. His body was
covered with scars they had given him.
He had never felt kindness, or love, until the first night the woman had
put her warm little hand on his head, and had snuggled her face close
down to his, while Thorpe--her husband--had cried out in horror. He had
almost buried his fangs in her white flesh, but in an instant her gentle
touch, and her sweet voice, had sent through him that wonderful thrill
that was his first knowledge of love. And now it was a man who was
driving him from her, away from the hand that had never held a club or a
whip, and he growled as he trotted deeper into the forest.
He came to the edge of a swamp as day broke. For a time he had been
filled with a strange uneasiness, and light did not quite dispel it. At
last he was free of men. He could detect nothing that reminded him of
their hated presence in the air. But neither could he smell the presence
of other dogs, of the sledge, the fire, of companionship and food, and
so far back as he could remember they had always been a part of his
life.
Here it was very quiet. The swamp lay in a hollow between two
ridge-mountains, and the spruce and cedar grew low and thick--so thick
that there was almost no snow under them, and day was like twilight. Two
things he began to miss more than all others--food and company. Both the
wolf and the dog that was in him demanded the first, and that part of
him that was dog longed for the latter. To both desires the wolf blood
that was strong in him rose responsively. It told him that somewhere in
this silent world between the two ridges there was companionship, and
that all he had to do to find it was to sit back on his haunches, and
cry out his loneliness. More than once something trembled in his deep
chest, rose in his throat, and ended there in a whine. It was the wolf
howl, not yet quite born.
Food came more easily than voice. Toward midday he cornered a big white
rabbit under a log, and killed it. The warm flesh and blood was better
than frozen fish, or tallow and bran, and the feast he had gave him
confidence. That afternoon he chased many rabbits, and killed two more.
Until now, he had never known the delight of pursuing and killing at
will, even though he did not eat all he killed.
But there was no fight in the rabbits. They died too easily. They were
very sweet and tender to eat, when he was hungry, but the first thrill
of killing them passed away after a time. He wanted something bigger. He
no longer slunk along as if he were afraid, or as if he wanted to remain
hidden. He held his head up. His back bristled. His tail swung free and
bushy, like a wolf's. Every hair in his body quivered with the electric
energy of life and action. He traveled north and west. It was the call
of early days--the days away up on the Mackenzie. The Mackenzie was a
thousand miles away.
He came upon many trails in the snow that day, and sniffed the scents
left by the hoofs of moose and caribou, and the fur-padded feet of a
lynx. He followed a fox, and the trail led him to a place shut in by
tall spruce, where the snow was beaten down and reddened with blood.
There was an owl's head, feathers, wings and entrails lying here, and he
knew that there were other hunters abroad besides himself.
Toward evening he came upon tracks in the snow that were very much like
his own. They were quite fresh, and there was a warm scent about them
that made him whine, and filled him again with that desire to fall back
upon his haunches and send forth the wolf-cry. This desire grew stronger
in him as the shadows of night deepened in the forest. He had traveled
all day, but he was not tired. There was something about night, now that
there were no men near, that exhilarated him strangely. The wolf blood
in him ran swifter and swifter. To-night it was clear. The sky was
filled with stars. The moon rose. And at last he settled back in the
snow and turned his head straight up to the spruce-tops, and the wolf
came out of him in a long mournful cry which quivered through the still
night for miles.
For a long time he sat and listened after that howl. He had found
voice--a voice with a strange new note in it, and it gave him still
greater confidence. He had expected an answer, but none came. He had
traveled in the face of the wind, and as he howled, a bull moose crashed
through the scrub timber ahead of him, his horns rattling against the
trees like the tattoo of a clear birch club as he put distance between
himself and that cry.
Twice Kazan howled before he went on, and he found joy in the practise
of that new note. He came then to the foot of a rough ridge, and turned
up out of the swamp to the top of it. The stars and the moon were nearer
to him there, and on the other side of the ridge he looked down upon a
great sweeping plain, with a frozen lake glistening in the moonlight,
and a white river leading from it off into timber that was neither so
thick nor so black as that in the swamp.
And then every muscle in his body grew tense, and his blood leaped. From
far off in the plain there came a cry. It was _his_ cry--the wolf-cry.
His jaws snapped. His white fangs gleamed, and he growled deep in his
throat. He wanted to reply, but some strange instinct urged him not to.
That instinct of the wild was already becoming master of him. In the
air, in the whispering of the spruce-tops, in the moon and the stars
themselves, there breathed a spirit which told him that what he had
heard was the wolf-cry, but that it was not the wolf _call_.
The other came an hour later, clear and distinct, that same wailing howl
at the beginning--but ending in a staccato of quick sharp yelps that
stirred his blood at once into a fiery excitement that it had never
known before. The same instinct told him that this was the call--the
hunt-cry. It urged him to come quickly. A few moments later it came
again, and this time there was a reply from close down along the foot of
the ridge, and another from so far away that Kazan could scarcely hear
it. The hunt-pack was gathering for the night chase; but Kazan sat quiet
and trembling.
He was not afraid, but he was not ready to go. The ridge seemed to split
the world for him. Down there it was new, and strange, and without men.
From the other side something seemed pulling him back, and suddenly he
turned his head and gazed back through the moonlit space behind him, and
whined. It was the dog-whine now. The woman was back there. He could
hear her voice. He could feel the touch of her soft hand. He could see
the laughter in her face and eyes, the laughter that had made him warm
and happy. She was calling to him through the forests, and he was torn
between desire to answer that call, and desire to go down into the
plain. For he could also see many men waiting for him with clubs, and he
could hear the cracking of whips, and feel the sting of their lashes.
For a long time he remained on the top of the ridge that divided his
world. And then, at last, he turned and went down into the plain.
All that night he kept close to the hunt-pack, but never quite
approached it. This was fortunate for him. He still bore the scent of
traces, and of man. The pack would have torn him into pieces. The first
instinct of the wild is that of self-preservation. It may have been
this, a whisper back through the years of savage forebears, that made
Kazan roll in the snow now and then where the feet of the pack had trod
the thickest.
That night the pack killed a caribou on the edge of the lake, and
feasted until nearly dawn. Kazan hung in the face of the wind. The smell
of blood and of warm flesh tickled his nostrils, and his sharp ears
could catch the cracking of bones. But the instinct was stronger than
the temptation.
Not until broad day, when the pack had scattered far and wide over the
plain, did he go boldly to the scene of the kill. He found nothing but
an area of blood-reddened snow, covered with bones, entrails and torn
bits of tough hide. But it was enough, and he rolled in it, and buried
his nose in what was left, and remained all that day close to it,
saturating himself with the scent of it.
That night, when the moon and the stars came out again, he sat back with
fear and hesitation no longer in him, and announced himself to his new
comrades of the great plain.
The pack hunted again that night, or else it was a new pack that started
miles to the south, and came up with a doe caribou to the big frozen
lake. The night was almost as clear as day, and from the edge of the
forest Kazan first saw the caribou run out on the lake a third of a mile
away. The pack was about a dozen strong, and had already split into the
fatal horseshoe formation, the two leaders running almost abreast of the
kill, and slowly closing in.
With a sharp yelp Kazan darted out into the moonlight. He was directly
in the path of the fleeing doe, and bore down upon her with lightning
speed. Two hundred yards away the doe saw him, and swerved to the right,
and the leader on that side met her with open jaws. Kazan was in with
the second leader, and leaped at the doe's soft throat. In a snarling
mass the pack closed in from behind, and the doe went down, with Kazan
half under her body, his fangs sunk deep in her jugular. She lay heavily
on him, but he did not lose his hold. It was his first big kill. His
blood ran like fire. He snarled between his clamped teeth.
Not until the last quiver had left the body over him did he pull himself
out from under her chest and forelegs. He had killed a rabbit that day
and was not hungry. So he sat back in the snow and waited, while the
ravenous pack tore at the dead doe. After a little he came nearer, nosed
in between two of them, and was nipped for his intrusion.
As Kazan drew back, still hesitating to mix with his wild brothers, a
big gray form leaped out of the pack and drove straight for his throat.
He had just time to throw his shoulder to the attack, and for a moment
the two rolled over and over in the snow. They were up before the
excitement of sudden battle had drawn the pack from the feast. Slowly
they circled about each other, their white fangs bare, their yellowish
backs bristling like brushes. The fatal ring of wolves drew about the
fighters.
It was not new to Kazan. A dozen times he had sat in rings like this,
waiting for the final moment. More than once he had fought for his life
within the circle. It was the sledge-dog way of fighting. Unless man
interrupted with a club or a whip it always ended in death. Only one
fighter could come out alive. Sometimes both died. And there was no man
here--only that fatal cordon of waiting white-fanged demons, ready to
leap upon and tear to pieces the first of the fighters who was thrown
upon his side or back. Kazan was a stranger, but he did not fear those
that hemmed him in. The one great law of the pack would compel them to
be fair.
He kept his eyes only on the big gray leader who had challenged him.
Shoulder to shoulder they continued to circle. Where a few moments
before there had been the snapping of jaws and the rending of flesh
there was now silence. Soft-footed and soft-throated mongrel dogs from
the South would have snarled and growled, but Kazan and the wolf were
still, their ears laid forward instead of back, their tails free and
bushy.
Suddenly the wolf struck in with the swiftness of lightning, and his
jaws came together with the sharpness of steel striking steel. They
missed by an inch. In that same instant Kazan darted in to the side, and
like knives his teeth gashed the wolf's flank.
They circled again, their eyes growing redder, their lips drawn back
until they seemed to have disappeared. And then Kazan leaped for that
death-grip at the throat--and missed. It was only by an inch again, and
the wolf came back, as he had done, and laid open Kazan's flank so that
the blood ran down his leg and reddened the snow. The burn of that
flank-wound told Kazan that his enemy was old in the game of fighting.
He crouched low, his head straight out, and his throat close to the
snow. It was a trick Kazan had learned in puppyhood--to shield his
throat, and wait.
Twice the wolf circled about him, and Kazan pivoted slowly, his eyes
half closed. A second time the wolf leaped, and Kazan threw up his
terrible jaws, sure of that fatal grip just in front of the forelegs.
His teeth snapped on empty air. With the nimbleness of a cat the wolf
had gone completely over his back.
The trick had failed, and with a rumble of the dog-snarl in his throat,
Kazan reached the wolf in a single bound. They met breast to breast.
Their fangs clashed and with the whole weight of his body, Kazan flung
himself against the wolf's shoulders, cleared his jaws, and struck again
for the throat hold. It was another miss--by a hair's breadth--and
before he could recover, the wolf's teeth were buried in the back of
his neck.
For the first time in his life Kazan felt the terror and the pain of the
death-grip, and with a mighty effort he flung his head a little forward
and snapped blindly. His powerful jaws closed on the wolf's foreleg,
close to the body. There was a cracking of bone and a crunching of
flesh, and the circle of waiting wolves grew tense and alert. One or the
other of the fighters was sure to go down before the holds were broken,
and they but awaited that fatal fall as a signal to leap in to the
death.
Only the thickness of hair and hide on the back of Kazan's neck, and the
toughness of his muscles, saved him from that terrible fate of the
vanquished. The wolf's teeth sank deep, but not deep enough to reach the
vital spot, and suddenly Kazan put every ounce of strength in his limbs
to the effort, and flung himself up bodily from under his antagonist.
The grip on his neck relaxed, and with another rearing leap he tore
himself free.
As swift as a whip-lash he whirled on the broken-legged leader of the
pack and with the full rush and weight of his shoulders struck him
fairly in the side. More deadly than the throat-grip had Kazan sometimes
found the lunge when delivered at the right moment. It was deadly now.
The big gray wolf lost his feet, rolled upon his back for an instant,
and the pack rushed in, eager to rend the last of life from the leader
whose power had ceased to exist.
From out of that gray, snarling, bloody-lipped mass, Kazan drew back,
panting and bleeding. He was weak. There was a curious sickness in his
head. He wanted to lie down in the snow. But the old and infallible
instinct warned him not to betray that weakness. From out of the pack a
slim, lithe, gray she-wolf came up to him, and lay down in the snow
before him, and then rose swiftly and sniffed at his wounds.
She was young and strong and beautiful, but Kazan did not look at her.
Where the fight had been he was looking, at what little remained of the
old leader. The pack had returned to the feast. He heard again the
cracking of bones and the rending of flesh, and something told him that
hereafter all the wilderness would hear and recognize his voice, and
that when he sat back on his haunches and called to the moon and the
stars, those swift-footed hunters of the big plain would respond to it.
He circled twice about the caribou and the pack, and then trotted off to
the edge of the black spruce forest.
When he reached the shadows he looked back. Gray Wolf was following him.
She was only a few yards behind. And now she came up to him, a little
timidly, and she, too, looked back to the dark blotch of life out on the
lake. And as she stood there close beside him, Kazan sniffed at
something in the air that was not the scent of blood, nor the perfume of
the balsam and spruce. It was a thing that seemed to come to him from
the clear stars, the cloudless moon, the strange and beautiful quiet of
the night itself. And its presence seemed to be a part of Gray Wolf.
He looked at her, and he found Gray Wolf's eyes alert and questioning.
She was young--so young that she seemed scarcely to have passed out of
puppyhood. Her body was strong and slim and beautifully shaped. In the
moonlight the hair under her throat and along her back shone sleek and
soft. She whined at the red staring light in Kazan's eyes, and it was
not a puppy's whimper. Kazan moved toward her, and stood with his head
over her back, facing the pack. He felt her trembling against his chest.
He looked at the moon and the stars again, the mystery of Gray Wolf and
of the night throbbing in his blood.
Not much of his life had been spent at the posts. Most of it had been on
the trail--in the traces--and the spirit of the mating season had only
stirred him from afar. But it was very near now. Gray Wolf lifted her
head. Her soft muzzle touched the wound on his neck, and in the
gentleness of that touch, in the low sound in her throat, Kazan felt and
heard again that wonderful something that had come with the caress of
the woman's hand and the sound of her voice.
He turned, whining, his back bristling, his head high and defiant of the
wilderness which he faced. Gray Wolf trotted close at his side as they
entered into the gloom of the forest.