THE GREAT CHANGE
The rocks, the ridges and the valleys were taking on a warmer glow. The
poplar buds were ready to burst. The scent of balsam and of spruce grew
heavier in the air each day, and all through the wilderness, in plain
and forest, there was the rippling murmur of the spring floods finding
their way to Hudson's Bay. In that great bay there was the rumble and
crash of the ice fields thundering down in the early break-up through
the Roes Welcome--the doorway to the Arctic, and for that reason there
still came with the April wind an occasional sharp breath of winter.
Kazan had sheltered himself against that wind. Not a breath of air
stirred in the sunny spot the wolf-dog had chosen for himself. He was
more comfortable than he had been at any time during the six months of
terrible winter--and as he slept he dreamed.
Gray Wolf, his wild mate, lay near him, flat on her belly, her forepaws
reaching out, her eyes and nostrils as keen and alert as the smell of
man could make them. For there was that smell of man, as well as of
balsam and spruce, in the warm spring air. She gazed anxiously and
sometimes steadily, at Kazan as he slept. Her own gray spine stiffened
when she saw the tawny hair along Kazan's back bristle at some dream
vision. She whined softly as his upper lip snarled back, showing his
long white fangs. But for the most part Kazan lay quiet, save for the
muscular twitchings of legs, shoulders and muzzle, which always tell
when a dog is dreaming; and as he dreamed there came to the door of the
cabin out on the plain a blue-eyed girl-woman, with a big brown braid
over her shoulder, who called through the cup of her hands, "Kazan,
Kazan, Kazan!"
The voice reached faintly to the top of the Sun Rock, and Gray Wolf
flattened her ears. Kazan stirred, and in another instant he was awake
and on his feet. He leaped to an outcropping ledge, sniffing the air and
looking far out over the plain that lay below them.
Over the plain the woman's voice came to them again, and Kazan ran to
the edge of the rock and whined. Gray Wolf stepped softly to his side
and laid her muzzle on his shoulder. She had grown to know what the
Voice meant. Day and night she feared it, more than she feared the scent
or sound of man.
Since she had given up the pack and her old life for Kazan, the Voice
had become Gray Wolf's greatest enemy, and she hated it. It took Kazan
from her. And wherever it went, Kazan followed.
Night after night it robbed her of her mate, and left her to wander
alone under the stars and the moon, keeping faithfully to her
loneliness, and never once responding with her own tongue to the
hunt-calls of her wild brothers and sisters in the forests and out on
the plains. Usually she would snarl at the Voice, and sometimes nip
Kazan lightly to show her displeasure. But to-day, as the Voice came a
third time, she slunk back into the darkness of a fissure between two
rocks, and Kazan saw only the fiery glow of her eyes.
Kazan ran nervously to the trail their feet had worn up to the top of
the Sun Rock, and stood undecided. All day, and yesterday, he had been
uneasy and disturbed. Whatever it was that stirred him seemed to be in
the air, for he could not see it or hear it or scent it. But he could
_feel_ it. He went to the fissure and sniffed at Gray Wolf. Usually she
whined coaxingly. But her response to-day was to draw back her lips
until he could see her white fangs.
A fourth tune the Voice came to them faintly, and she snapped fiercely
at some unseen thing in the darkness between the two rocks. Kazan went
again to the trail, still hesitating. Then he began to go down. It was a
narrow winding trail, worn only by the pads and claws of animals, for
the Sun Rock was a huge crag that rose almost sheer up for a hundred
feet above the tops of the spruce and balsam, its bald crest catching
the first gleams of the sun in the morning and the last glow of it in
the evening. Gray Wolf had first led Kazan to the security of the
retreat at the top of the rock.
When he reached the bottom he no longer hesitated, but darted swiftly in
the direction of the cabin. Because of that instinct of the wild that
was still in him, he always approached the cabin with caution. He never
gave warning, and for a moment Joan was startled when she looked up from
her baby and saw Kazan's shaggy head and shoulders in the open door. The
baby struggled and kicked in her delight, and held out her two hands
with cooing cries to Kazan. Joan, too, held out a hand.
"Kazan!" she cried softly. "Come in, Kazan!"
Slowly the wild red light in Kazan's eyes softened. He put a forefoot on
the sill, and stood there, while the girl urged him again. Suddenly his
legs seemed to sink a little under him, his tail drooped and he slunk in
with that doggish air of having committed a crime. The creatures he
loved were in the cabin, but the cabin itself he hated. He hated all
cabins, for they all breathed of the club and the whip and bondage. Like
all sledge-dogs he preferred the open snow for a bed, and the
spruce-tops for shelter.
Joan dropped her hand to his head, and at its touch there thrilled
through him that strange joy that was his reward for leaving Gray Wolf
and the wild. Slowly he raised his head until his black muzzle rested on
her lap, and he closed his eyes while that wonderful little creature
that mystified him so--the baby--prodded him with her tiny feet, and
pulled his tawny hair. He loved these baby-maulings even more than the
touch of Joan's hand.
Motionless, sphinx-like, undemonstrative in every muscle of his body,
Kazan stood, scarcely breathing. More than once this lack of
demonstration had urged Joan's husband to warn her. But the wolf that
was in Kazan, his wild aloofness, even his mating with Gray Wolf had
made her love him more. She understood, and had faith in him.
In the days of the last snow Kazan had proved himself. A neighboring
trapper had run over with his team, and the baby Joan had toddled up to
one of the big huskies. There was a fierce snap of jaws, a scream of
horror from Joan, a shout from the men as they leaped toward the pack.
But Kazan was ahead of them all. In a gray streak that traveled with the
speed of a bullet he was at the big husky's throat. When they pulled him
off, the husky was dead. Joan thought of that now, as the baby kicked
and tousled Kazan's head.
"Good old Kazan," she cried softly, putting her face down close to him.
"We're glad you came, Kazan, for we're going to be alone to-night--baby
and I. Daddy's gone to the post, and you must care for us while he's
away."
She tickled his nose with the end of her long shining braid. This always
delighted the baby, for in spite of his stoicism Kazan had to sniff and
sometimes to sneeze, and twig his ears. And it pleased him, too. He
loved the sweet scent of Joan's hair.
"And you'd fight for us, if you had to, wouldn't you?" she went on. Then
she rose quietly. "I must close the door," she said. "I don't want you
to go away again to-day, Kazan. You must stay with us."
Kazan went off to his corner, and lay down. Just as there had been some
strange thing at the top of the Sun Rock to disturb him that day, so now
there was a mystery that disturbed him in the cabin. He sniffed the air,
trying to fathom its secret. Whatever it was, it seemed to make his
mistress different, too. And she was digging out all sorts of odds and
ends of things about the cabin, and doing them up in packages. Late that
night, before she went to bed, Joan came and snuggled her hand close
down beside him for a few moments.
"We're going away," she whispered, and there was a curious tremble that
was almost a sob in her voice. "We're going home, Kazan. We're going
away down where his people live--where they have churches, and cities,
and music, and all the beautiful things in the world. And we're going to
take _you_, Kazan!"
Kazan didn't understand. But he was happy at having the woman so near to
him, and talking to him. At these times he forgot Gray Wolf. The dog
that was in him surged over his quarter-strain of wildness, and the
woman and the baby alone filled his world. But after Joan had gone to
her bed, and all was quiet in the cabin, his old uneasiness returned. He
rose to his feet and moved stealthily about the cabin, sniffing at the
walls, the door and the things his mistress had done into packages. A
low whine rose in his throat. Joan, half asleep, heard it, and murmured:
"Be quiet, Kazan. Go to sleep--go to sleep--"
Long after that, Kazan stood rigid in the center of the room, listening,
trembling. And faintly he heard, far away, the wailing cry of, Gray
Wolf. But to-night it was not the cry of loneliness. It sent a thrill
through him. He ran to the door, and whined, but Joan was deep in
slumber and did not hear him. Once more he heard the cry, and only once.
Then the night grew still. He crouched down near the door.
Joan found him there, still watchful, still listening, when she awoke in
the early morning. She came to open the door for him, and in a moment he
was gone. His feet seemed scarcely to touch the earth as he sped in the
direction of the Sun Rock. Across the plain he could see the cap of it
already painted with a golden glow.
He came to the narrow winding trail, and wormed his way up it swiftly.
Gray Wolf was not at the top to greet him. But he could smell her, and
the scent of that other thing was strong in the air. His muscles
tightened; his legs grew tense. Deep down in his chest there began the
low rumble of a growl. He knew now what that strange thing was that had
haunted him, and made him uneasy. It was _life_. Something that lived
and breathed had invaded the home which he and Gray Wolf had chosen. He
bared his long fangs, and a snarl of defiance drew back his lips.
Stiff-legged, prepared to spring, his neck and head reaching out, he
approached the two rocks between which Gray Wolf had crept the night
before. She was still there. And with her was _something else_. After a
moment the tenseness left Kazan's body. His bristling crest drooped
until it lay flat. His ears shot forward, and he put his head and
shoulders between the two rocks, and whined softly. And Gray Wolf
whined. Slowly Kazan backed out, and faced the rising sun. Then he lay
down, so that his body shielded I the entrance to the chamber between
the rocks.
Gray Wolf was a mother.