ALWAYS TWO BY TWO
It was January when a guide from the post brought Paul Weyman to Henri
Loti's cabin on the Waterfound. He was a man of thirty-two or three,
full of the red-blooded life that made Henri like him at once. If this
had not been the case, the first few days in the cabin might have been
unpleasant, for Henri was in bad humor. He told Weyman about it their
first night, as they were smoking pipes alongside the redly glowing box
stove.
"It is damn strange," said Henri. "I have lost seven lynx in the traps,
torn to pieces like they were no more than rabbits that the foxes had
killed. No thing--not even bear--have ever tackled lynx in a trap
before. It is the first time I ever see it. And they are torn up so bad
they are not worth one half dollar at the post. Seven!--that is over two
hundred dollar I have lost! There are two wolves who do it. Two--I know
it by the tracks--always two--an'--never one. They follow my trap-line
an' eat the rabbits I catch. They leave the fisher-cat, an' the mink,
an' the ermine, an' the marten; but the lynx--_sacré_ an' damn!--they
jump on him an' pull the fur from him like you pull the wild cotton
balls from the burn-bush! I have tried strychnine in deer fat, an' I
have set traps and deadfalls, but I can not catch them. They will drive
me out unless I get them, for I have taken only five good lynx, an' they
have destroyed seven."
This roused Weyman. He was one of that growing number of thoughtful men
who believe that man's egoism, as a race, blinds him to many of the more
wonderful facts of creation. He had thrown down the gantlet, and with a
logic that had gained him a nation-wide hearing, to those who believed
that man was the only living creature who could reason, and that common
sense and cleverness when displayed by any other breathing thing were
merely instinct. The facts behind Henri's tale of woe struck him as
important, and until midnight they talked about the two strange wolves.
"There is one big wolf an' one smaller," said Henri. "An' it is always
the big wolf who goes in an' fights the lynx. I see that by the snow.
While he's fighting, the smaller wolf makes many tracks in the snow just
out of reach, an' then when the lynx is down, or dead, it jumps in an'
helps tear it into pieces. All that I know by the snow. Only once have I
seen where the smaller one went in an' fought with the other, an' then
there was blood all about that was not lynx blood; I trailed the devils
a mile by the dripping."
During the two weeks that followed, Weyman found much to add to the
material of his book. Not a day passed that somewhere along Henri's
trap-line they did not see the trails of the two wolves, and Weyman
observed that--as Henri had told him--the footprints were always two by
two, and never one by one. On the third day they came to a trap that had
held a lynx, and at sight of what remained Henri cursed in both French
and English until he was purple in the face. The lynx had been torn
until its pelt was practically worthless.
Weyman saw where the smaller wolf had waited on its haunches, while its
companion had killed the lynx. He did not tell Henri all he thought. But
the days that followed convinced him more and more that he had found the
most dramatic exemplification of his theory. Back of this mysterious
tragedy of the trap-line there was a _reason_.
Why did the two wolves not destroy the fisher-cat, the ermine and the
marten? Why was their feud with the lynx alone?
Weyman was strangely thrilled. He was a lover of wild things, and for
that reason he never carried a gun. And when he saw Henri placing
poison-baits for the two marauders, he shuddered, and when, day after
day, he saw that these poison-baits were untouched, he rejoiced.
Something in his own nature went out in sympathy to the heroic outlaw of
the trap-line who never failed to give battle to the lynx. Nights in the
cabin he wrote down his thoughts and discoveries of the day. One night
he turned suddenly on Henri.
"Henri, doesn't it ever make you sorry to kill so many wild things?" he
asked.
Henri stared and shook his head.
"I kill t'ousand an' t'ousand," he said. "I kill t'ousand more."
"And there are twenty thousand others just like you in this northern
quarter of the continent--all killing, killing for hundreds of years
back, and yet you can't kill out wild life. The war of Man and the
Beast, you might call it. And, if you could return five hundred years
from now, Henri, you'd still find wild life here. Nearly all the rest of
the world is changing, but you can't change these almost impenetrable
thousands of square miles of ridges and swamps and forests. The
railroads won't come here, and I, for one, thank God for that. Take all
the great prairies to the west, for instance. Why, the old buffalo
trails are still there, plain as day--and yet, towns and cities are
growing up everywhere. Did you ever hear of North Battleford?"
"Is she near Montreal or Quebec?" Henri asked.
Weyman smiled, and drew a photograph from his pocket. It was the picture
of a girl.
"No. It's far to the west, in Saskatchewan. Seven years ago I used to
go up there every year, to shoot prairie chickens, coyotes and elk.
There wasn't any North Battleford then--just the glorious prairie,
hundreds and hundreds of square miles of it. There was a single shack on
the Saskatchewan River, where North Battleford now stands, and I used to
stay there. In that shack there was a little girl, twelve years old. We
used to go out hunting together--for I used to kill things in those
days. And the little girl would cry sometimes when I killed, and I'd
laugh at her.
"Then a railroad came, and then another, and they joined near the shack,
and all at once a town sprang up. Seven years ago there was only the
shack there, Henri. Two years ago there were eighteen hundred people.
This year, when I came through, there were five thousand, and two years
from now there'll be ten thousand.
"On the ground where that shack stood are three banks, with a capital of
forty million dollars; you can see the glow of the electric lights of
the city twenty miles away. It has a hundred-thousand dollar college, a
high school, the provincial asylum, a fire department, two clubs, a
board of trade, and it's going to have a street-car line within two
years. Think of that--all where the coyotes howled a few years ago!
"People are coming in so fast that they can't keep a census. Five years
from now there'll be a city of twenty thousand where the old shack
stood. And the little girl in that shack, Henri--she's a young lady now,
and her people are--well, rich. I don't care about that. The chief thing
is that she is going to marry me in the spring. Because of her I stopped
killing things when she was only sixteen. The last thing I killed was a
prairie wolf, and it had young. Eileen kept the little puppy. She's got
it now--tamed. That's why above all other wild things I love the wolves.
And I hope these two leave your trap-line safe."
Henri was staring at him. Weyman gave him the picture. It was of a
sweet-faced girl, with deep pure eyes, and there came a twitch at the
corners of Henri's mouth as he looked at it.
"My Iowaka died t'ree year ago," he said. "She too loved the wild
thing. But them wolf--damn! They drive me out if I can not kill them!"
He put fresh fuel into the stove, and prepared for bed.
One day the big idea came to Henri.
Weyman was with him when they struck fresh signs of lynx. There was a
great windfall ten or fifteen feet high, and in one place the logs had
formed a sort of cavern, with almost solid walls on three sides. The
snow was beaten down by tracks, and the fur of rabbit was scattered
about. Henri was jubilant.
"We got heem--sure!" he said.
He built the bait-house, set a trap and looked about him shrewdly. Then
he explained his scheme to Weyman. If the lynx was caught, and the two
wolves came to destroy it, the fight would take place in that shelter
under the windfall, and the marauders would have to pass through the
opening. So Henri set five smaller traps, concealing them skilfully
under leaves and moss and snow, and all were far enough away from the
bait-house so that the trapped lynx could not spring them in his
struggles.
"When they fight, wolf jump this way an' that--an' sure get in," said
Henri. "He miss one, two, t'ree--but he sure get in trap somewhere."
That same morning a light snow fell, making the work more complete, for
it covered up all footprints and buried the telltale scent of man. That
night Kazan and Gray Wolf passed within a hundred feet of the windfall,
and Gray Wolf's keen scent detected something strange and disquieting in
the air. She informed Kazan by pressing her shoulder against his, and
they swung off at right angles, keeping to windward of the trap-line.
For two days and three cold starlit nights nothing happened at the
windfall. Henri understood, and explained to Weyman. The lynx was a
hunter, like himself, and also had its hunt-line, which it covered about
once a week. On the fifth night the lynx returned, went to the windfall,
was lured straight to the bait, and the sharp-toothed steel trap closed
relentlessly over its right hindfoot. Kazan and Gray Wolf were traveling
a quarter of a mile deeper in the forest when they heard the clanking of
the steel chain as the lynx fought; to free itself. Ten minutes later
they stood in the door of the windfall cavern.
It was a white clear night, so filled with brilliant stars that Henri
himself could have hunted by the light of them. The lynx had exhausted
itself, and lay crouching on its belly as Kazan and Gray Wolf appeared.
As usual, Gray Wolf held back while Kazan began the battle. In the first
or second of these fights on the trap-line, Kazan would probably have
been disemboweled or had his jugular vein cut open, had the fierce cats
been free. They were more than his match in open fight, though the
biggest of them fell ten pounds under his weight. Chance had saved him
on the Sun Rock. Gray Wolf and the porcupine had both added to the
defeat of the lynx on the sand-bar. And along Henri's hunting line it
was the trap that was his ally. Even with his enemy thus shackled he
took big chances. And he took bigger chances than ever with the lynx
under the windfall.
The cat was an old warrior, six or seven years old. His claws were an
inch and a quarter long, and curved like simitars. His forefeet and his
left hindfoot were free, and as Kazan advanced, he drew back, so that
the trap-chain was slack under his body. Here Kazan could not follow his
old tactics of circling about his trapped foe, until it had become
tangled in the chain, or had so shortened and twisted it that there was
no chance for a leap. He had to attack face to face, and suddenly he
lunged in. They met shoulder to shoulder. Kazan's fangs snapped at the
other's throat, and missed. Before he could strike again, the lynx flung
out its free hindfoot, and even Gray Wolf heard the ripping sound that
it made. With a snarl Kazan was flung back, his shoulder torn to the
bone.
Then it was that one of Henri's hidden traps saved him from a second
attack--and death. Steel jaws snapped over one of his forefeet, and when
he leaped, the chain stopped him. Once or twice before, blind Gray Wolf
had leaped in, when she knew that Kazan was in great danger. For an
instant she forgot her caution now, and as she heard Kazan's snarl of
pain, she sprang in under the windfall. Five traps Henri had hidden in
the space in front of the bait-house, and Gray Wolf's feet found two of
these. She fell on her side, snapping and snarling. In his struggles
Kazan sprung the remaining two traps. One of them missed. The fifth, and
last, caught him by a hindfoot.
This was a little past midnight. From then until morning the earth and
snow under the windfall were torn up by the struggles of the wolf, the
dog and the lynx to regain their freedom. And when morning came, all
three were exhausted, and lay on their sides, panting and with bleeding
jaws, waiting for the coming of man--and death.
Henri and Weyman were out early. When they struck off the main line
toward the windfall, Henri pointed to the tracks of Kazan and Gray Wolf,
and his dark face lighted up with pleasure and excitement. When they
reached the shelter under the mass of fallen timber, both stood
speechless for a moment, astounded by what they saw. Even Henri had seen
nothing like this before--two wolves and a lynx, all in traps, and
almost within reach of one another's fangs. But surprise could not long
delay the business of Henri's hunter's instinct. The wolves lay first in
his path, and he was raising his rifle to put a steel-capped bullet
through the base of Kazan's brain, when Weyman caught him eagerly by the
arm. Weyman was staring. His fingers dug into Henri's flesh. His eyes
had caught a glimpse of the steel-studded collar about Kazan's neck.
"Wait!" he cried. "It's not a wolf. It's a dog!"
Henri lowered his rifle, staring at the collar. Weyman's eyes shot to
Gray Wolf. She was facing them, snarling, her white fangs bared to the
foes she could not see. Her blind eyes were closed. Where there should
have been eyes there was only hair, and an exclamation broke from
Weyman's lips.
"Look!" he commanded of Henri. "What in the name of heaven--"
"One is dog--wild dog that has run to the wolves," said Henri. "And the
other is--wolf."
"And _blind_!" gasped Weyman.
"_Oui_, blind, m'sieur," added Henri, falling partly into French in his
amazement. He was raising his rifle again. Weyman seized it firmly.
[Illustration: "Wait! it's not a wolf!"]
"Don't kill them, Henri," he said. "Give them to me--alive. Figure up
the value of the lynx they have destroyed, and add to that the wolf
bounty, and I will pay. Alive, they are worth to me a great deal. My
God, a dog--and a blind wolf--_mates_!"
He still held Henri's rifle, and Henri was staring at him, as if he did
not yet quite understand.
Weyman continued speaking, his eyes and face blazing.
"A dog--and a blind wolf--_mates_!" he repeated. "It is wonderful,
Henri. Down there, they will say I have gone beyond _reason_, when my
book comes out. But I shall have proof. I shall take twenty photographs
here, before you kill the lynx. I shall keep the dog and the wolf alive.
And I shall pay you, Henri, a hundred dollars apiece for the two. May I
have them?"
Henri nodded. He held his rifle in readiness, while Weyman unpacked his
camera and got to work. Snarling fangs greeted the click of the
camera-shutter--the fangs of wolf and lynx. But Kazan lay cringing, not
through fear, but because he still recognized the mastery of man. And
when he had finished with his pictures, Weyman approached almost within
reach of him, and spoke even more kindly to him than the man who had
lived back in the deserted cabin.
Henri shot the lynx, and when Kazan understood this, he tore at the end
of his trap-chains and snarled at the writhing body of his forest enemy.
By means of a pole and a babiche noose, Kazan was brought out from under
the windfall and taken to Henri's cabin. The two men then returned with
a thick sack and more babiche, and blind Gray Wolf, still fettered by
the traps, was made prisoner. All the rest of that day Weyman and Henri
worked to build a stout cage of saplings, and when it was finished, the
two prisoners were placed in it.
Before the dog was put in with Gray Wolf, Weyman closely examined the
worn and tooth-marked collar about his neck.
On the brass plate he found engraved the one word, "Kazan," and with a
strange thrill made note of it in his diary.
After this Weyman often remained at the cabin when Henri went out on the
trap-line. After the second day he dared to put his hand between the
sapling bars and touch Kazan, and the next day Kazan accepted a piece of
raw moose meat from his hand. But at his approach, Gray Wolf would
always hide under the pile of balsam in the corner of their prison. The
instinct of generations and perhaps of centuries had taught her that man
was her deadliest enemy. And yet, this man did not hurt her, and Kazan
was not afraid of him. She was frightened at first; then puzzled, and a
growing curiosity followed that. Occasionally, after the third day, she
would thrust her blind face out of the balsam and sniff the air when
Weyman was at the cage, making friends with Kazan. But she would not
eat. Weyman noted that, and each day he tempted her with the choicest
morsels of deer and moose fat. Five days--six--seven passed, and she had
not taken a mouthful. Weyman could count her ribs.
"She die," Henri told him on the seventh night. "She starve before she
eat in that cage. She want the forest, the wild kill, the fresh blood.
She two--t'ree year old--too old to make civilize."
Henri went to bed at the usual hour, but Weyman was troubled, and sat
up late. He wrote a long letter to the sweet-faced girl at North
Battleford, and then he turned out the light, and painted visions of her
in the red glow of the fire. He saw her again for that first time when
he camped in the little shack where the fifth city of Saskatchewan now
stood--with her blue eyes, the big shining braid, and the fresh glow of
the prairies in her cheeks. She had hated him--yes, actually hated him,
because he loved to kill. He laughed softly as he thought of that. She
had changed him--wonderfully.
He rose, opened the door, softly, and went out. Instinctively his eyes
turned westward. The sky was a blaze of stars. In their light he could
see the cage, and he stood, watching and listening. A sound came to him.
It was Gray Wolf gnawing at the sapling bars of her prison. A moment
later there came a low sobbing whine, and he knew that it was Kazan
crying for his freedom.
Leaning against the side of the cabin was an ax. Weyman seized it, and
his lips smiled silently. He was thrilled by a strange happiness, and a
thousand miles away in that city on the Saskatchewan he could feel
another spirit rejoicing with him. He moved toward the cage. A dozen
blows, and two of the sapling bars were knocked out. Then Weyman drew
back. Gray Wolf found the opening first, and she slipped out into the
starlight like a shadow. But she did not flee. Out in the open space she
waited for Kazan, and for a moment the two stood there, looking at the
cabin. Then they set off into freedom, Gray Wolf's shoulder at Kazan's
flank.
Weyman breathed deeply.
"Two by two--always two by two, until death finds one of them," he
whispered.