HIS SON
It happened that Kazan was to remember three things above all others. He
could never quite forget his old days in the traces, though they were
growing more shadowy and indistinct in his memory as the summers and the
winters passed. Like a dream there came to him a memory of the time he
had gone down to Civilization. Like dreams were the visions that rose
before him now and then of the face of the First Woman, and of the faces
of masters who--to him--had lived ages ago. And never would he quite
forget the Fire, and his fights with man and beast, and his long chases
in the moonlight. But two things were always with him as if they had
been but yesterday, rising clear and unforgetable above all others, like
the two stars in the North that never lost their brilliance. One was
Woman. The other was the terrible fight of that night on the top of the
Sun Rock, when the lynx had blinded forever his wild mate, Gray Wolf.
Certain events remain indelibly fixed in the minds of men; and so, in a
not very different way, they remain in the minds of beasts. It takes
neither brain nor reason to measure the depths of sorrow or of
happiness. And Kazan in his unreasoning way knew that contentment and
peace, a full stomach, and caresses and kind words instead of blows had
come to him through Woman, and that comradeship in the wilderness--faith,
loyalty and devotion--were a part of Gray Wolf. The third unforgetable
thing was about to occur in the home they had found for themselves under
the swamp windfall during the days of cold and famine.
They had left the swamp over a month before when it was smothered deep
in snow. On the day they returned to it the sun was shining warmly in
the first glorious days of spring warmth. Everywhere, big and small,
there were the rushing torrents of melting snows and the crackle of
crumbling ice, the dying cries of thawing rock and earth and tree, and
each night for many nights past the cold pale glow of the aurora
borealis had crept farther and farther toward the Pole in fading glory.
So early as this the poplar buds had begun to swell and the air was
filled with the sweet odor of balsam, spruce and cedar. Where there had
been famine and death and stillness six weeks before, Kazan and Gray
Wolf now stood at the edge of the swamp and breathed the earthy smells
of spring, and listened to the sounds of life. Over their heads a pair
of newly-mated moose-birds fluttered and scolded at them. A big jay sat
pluming himself in the sunshine. Farther in they heard the crack of a
stick broken under a heavy hoof. From the ridge behind them they caught
the raw scent of a mother bear, busy pulling down the tender poplar buds
for her six-weeks-old cubs, born while she was still deep in her winter
sleep.
In the warmth of the sun and the sweetness of the air there breathed to
Gray Wolf the mystery of matehood and of motherhood. She whined softly
and rubbed her blind face against Kazan. For days, in her way, she tried
to tell him. More than ever she wanted to curl herself up in that warm
dry nest under the windfall. She had no desire to hunt. The crack of
the dry stick under a cloven hoof and the warm scent of the she-bear and
her cubs roused none of the old instincts in her. She wanted to curl
herself up in the old windfall--and wait. And she tried hard to make
Kazan understand her desire.
Now that the snow was gone they found that a narrow creek lay between
them and the knoll on which the windfall was situated. Gray Wolf picked
up her ears at the tumult of the little torrent. Since the day of the
Fire, when Kazan and she had saved themselves on the sand-bar, she had
ceased to have the inherent wolf horror of water. She followed
fearlessly, even eagerly, behind Kazan as he sought a place where they
could ford the rushing little stream. On the other side Kazan could see
the big windfall. Gray Wolf could _smell_ it and she whined joyously,
with her blind face turned toward it. A hundred yards up the stream a
big cedar had fallen over it and Kazan began to cross. For a moment Gray
Wolf hesitated, and then followed. Side by side they trotted to the
windfall. With their heads and shoulders in the dark opening to their
nest they scented the air long and cautiously. Then they entered. Kazan
heard Gray Wolf as she flung herself down on the dry floor of the snug
cavern. She was panting, not from exhaustion, but because she was filled
with a sensation of contentment and happiness. In the darkness Kazan's
own jaws fell apart. He, too, was glad to get back to their old home. He
went to Gray Wolf and, panting still harder, she licked his face. It had
but one meaning. And Kazan understood.
For a moment he lay down beside her, listening, and eyeing the opening
to their nest. Then he began to sniff about the log walls. He was close
to the opening when a sudden fresh scent came to him, and he grew rigid,
and his bristles stood up. The scent was followed by a whimpering,
babyish chatter. A porcupine entered the opening and proceeded to
advance in its foolish fashion, still chattering in that babyish way
that has made its life inviolable at the hands of man. Kazan had heard
that sound before, and like all other beasts had learned to ignore the
presence of the innocuous creature that made it. But just now he did not
stop to consider that what he saw was a porcupine and that at his first
snarl the good-humored little creature would waddle away as fast as it
could, still chattering baby talk to itself. His first reasoning was
that it was a live thing invading the home to which Gray Wolf and he had
just returned. A day later, or perhaps an hour later, he would have
driven it back with a growl. Now he leaped upon it.
A wild chattering, intermingled with pig-like squeaks, and then a rising
staccato of howls followed the attack. Gray Wolf sprang to the opening.
The porcupine was rolled up in a thousand-spiked ball a dozen feet away,
and she could hear Kazan tearing about in the throes of the direst agony
that can befall a beast of the forests. His face and nose were a mat of
quills. For a few moments he rolled and dug in the wet mold and earth,
pawing madly at the things that pierced his flesh. Then he set off like
all dogs will who have come into contact with the friendly porcupine,
and raced again and again around the windfall, howling at every jump.
Gray Wolf took the matter coolly. It is possible that at times there are
moments of humor in the lives of animals. If so, she saw this one. She
scented the porcupine and she knew that Kazan was full of quills. As
there was nothing to do and nothing to fight she sat back on her
haunches and waited, pricking up her ears every time Kazan passed her in
his mad circuit around the windfall. At his fourth or fifth heat the
porcupine smoothed itself down a little, and continuing the interrupted
thread of its chatter waddled to a near-by poplar, climbed it and began
to gnaw the tender bark from a limb.
At last Kazan halted before Gray Wolf. The first agony of a hundred
little needles piercing his flesh had deadened into a steady burning
pain. Gray Wolf went over to him and investigated him cautiously. With
her teeth she seized the ends of two or three of the quills and pulled
them out. Kazan was very much dog now. He gave a yelp, and whimpered as
Gray Wolf jerked out a second bunch of quills. Then he flattened himself
on his belly, stretched out his forelegs, closed his eyes, and without
any other sound except an occasional yelp of pain allowed Gray Wolf to
go on with the operation. Fortunately he had escaped getting any of the
quills in his mouth and tongue. But his nose and jaws were soon red
with blood. For an hour Gray Wolf kept faithfully at her task and by the
end of that time had succeeded in pulling out most of the quills. A few
still remained, too short and too deeply inbedded for her to extract
with her teeth.
After this Kazan went down to the creek and buried his burning muzzle in
the cold water. This gave him some relief, but only for a short time.
The quills that remained worked their way deeper and deeper into his
flesh, like living things. Nose and lips began to swell. Blood and
saliva dripped from his mouth and his eyes grew red. Two hours after
Gray Wolf had retired to her nest under the windfall a quill had
completely pierced his lip and began to prick his tongue. In desperation
Kazan chewed viciously upon a piece of wood. This broke and crumpled the
quill, and destroyed its power to do further harm. Nature had told him
the one thing to do to save himself. Most of that day he spent in
gnawing at wood and crunching mouthfuls of earth and mold between his
jaws. In this way the barb-toothed points of the quills were dulled and
broken as they came through. At dusk he crawled under the windfall, and
Gray Wolf gently licked his muzzle with her soft cool tongue. Frequently
during the night Kazan went to the creek and found relief in its
ice-cold water.
The next day he had what the forest people call "porcupine mumps." His
face was swollen until Gray Wolf would have laughed if she had been
human, and not blind. His chops bulged like cushions. His eyes were mere
slits. When he went out into the day he blinked, for he could see
scarcely better than his sightless mate. But the pain was mostly gone.
The night that followed he began to think of hunting, and the next
morning before it was yet dawn he brought a rabbit into their den. A few
hours later he would have brought a spruce partridge to Gray Wolf, but
just as he was about to spring upon his feathered prey the soft chatter
of a porcupine a few yards away brought him to a sudden stop. Few things
could make Kazan drop his tail. But that inane and incoherent prattle of
the little spiked beast sent him off at double-quick with his tail
between his legs. As man abhors and evades the creeping serpent, so
Kazan would hereafter evade this little creature of the forests that
never in animal history has been known to lose its good-humor or pick a
quarrel.
Two weeks of lengthening days, of increasing warmth, of sunshine and
hunting, followed Kazan's adventure with the porcupine. The last of the
snow went rapidly. Out of the earth began to spring tips of green. The
_bakneesh_ vine glistened redder each day, the poplar buds began to
split, and in the sunniest spots, between the rocks of the ridges the
little white snow-flowers began to give a final proof that spring had
come. For the first of those two weeks Gray Wolf hunted frequently with
Kazan. They did not go far. The swamp was alive with small game and each
day or night they killed fresh meat. After the first week Gray Wolf
hunted less. Then came the soft and balmy night, glorious in the
radiance of a full spring moon when she refused to leave the windfall.
Kazan did not urge her. Instinct made him understand, and he did not go
far from the windfall that night in his hunt. When he returned he
brought a rabbit.
Came then the night when from the darkest corner of the windfall Gray
Wolf warned him back with a low snarl. He stood in the opening, a rabbit
between his jaws. He took no offense at the snarl, but stood for a
moment, gazing into the gloom where Gray Wolf had hidden herself. Then
he dropped the rabbit and lay down squarely in the opening. After a
little he rose restlessly and went outside. But he did not leave the
windfall. It was day when he reentered. He sniffed, as he had sniffed
once before a long time ago, between the boulders at the top of the Sun
Rock. That which was in the air was no longer a mystery to him. He came
nearer and Gray Wolf did not snarl. She whined coaxingly as he touched
her. Then his muzzle found something else. It was soft and warm and made
a queer little sniffling sound. There was a responsive whine in his
throat, and in the darkness came the quick soft caress of Gray Wolf's
tongue. Kazan returned to the sunshine and stretched himself out before
the door of the windfall. His jaws dropped open, for he was filled with
a strange contentment.