THE LAST OF McTRIGGER
Sixty miles farther north Kazan lay at the end of his fine steel chain,
watching little Professor McGill mixing a pail of tallow and bran. A
dozen yards from him lay the big Dane, his huge jaws drooling in
anticipation of the unusual feast which McGill was preparing. He showed
signs of pleasure when McGill approached him with a quart of the
mixture, and he gulped it between his huge jaws. The little man with the
cold blue eyes and the gray-blond hair stroked his back without fear.
His attitude was different when he turned to Kazan. His movements were
filled with caution, and yet his eyes and his lips were smiling, and he
gave the wolf-dog no evidence of his fear, if it could be called fear.
The little professor, who was up in the north country for the
Smithsonian Institution, had spent a third of his life among dogs. He
loved them, and understood them. He had written a number of magazine
articles on dog intellect that had attracted wide attention among
naturalists. It was largely because he loved dogs, and understood them
more than most men, that he had bought Kazan and the big Dane on the
night when Sandy McTrigger and his partner had tried to get them to
fight to the death in the Red Gold City saloon. The refusal of the two
splendid beasts to kill each other for the pleasure of the three hundred
men who had assembled to witness the fight delighted him. He had already
planned a paper on the incident. Sandy had told him the story of Kazan's
capture, and of his wild mate, Gray Wolf, and the professor had asked
him a thousand questions. But each day Kazan puzzled him more. No amount
of kindness on his part could bring a responsive gleam in Kazan's eyes.
Not once did Kazan signify a willingness to become friends. And yet he
did not snarl at McGill, or snap at his hands when they came within
reach. Quite frequently Sandy McTrigger came over to the little cabin
where McGill was staying, and three times Kazan leaped at the end of
his chain to get at him, and his white fangs gleamed as long as Sandy
was in sight. Alone with McGill he became quiet. Something told him that
McGill had come as a friend that night when he and the big Dane stood
shoulder to shoulder in the cage that had been built for a slaughter
pen. Away down in his brute heart he held McGill apart from other men.
He had no desire to harm him. He tolerated him, but showed none of the
growing affection of the huge Dane. It was this fact that puzzled
McGill. He had never before known a dog that he could not make love him.
To-day he placed the tallow and bran before Kazan, and the smile in his
face gave way to a look of perplexity. Kazan's lips had drawn suddenly
back. A fierce snarl rolled deep in his throat. The hair along his spine
stood up. His muscles twitched. Instinctively the professor turned.
Sandy McTrigger had come up quietly behind him. His brutal face wore a
grin as he looked at Kazan.
"It's a fool job--tryin' to make friends with _him_" he said. Then he
added, with a sudden interested gleam in his eyes, "When you startin'?"
"With first frost," replied McGill. "It ought to come soon. I'm going to
join Sergeant Conroy and his party at Fond du Lac by the first of
October."
"And you're going up to Fond du Lac--alone?" queried Sandy. "Why don't
you take a man?"
The little professor laughed softly.
"Why?" he asked. "I've been through the Athabasca waterways a dozen
times, and know the trail as well as I know Broadway. Besides, I like to
be alone. And the work isn't too hard, with the currents all flowing to
the north and east."
Sandy was looking at the Dane, with his back to McGill. An exultant
gleam shot for an instant into his eyes.
"You're taking the dogs?"
"Yes."
Sandy lighted his pipe, and spoke like one strangely curious.
"Must cost a heap to take these trips o' yourn, don't it?"
"My last cost about seven thousand dollars. This will cost five," said
McGill.
"Gawd!" breathed Sandy. "An' you carry all that along with you! Ain't
you afraid--something might happen--?"
The little professor was looking the other way now. The carelessness in
his face and manner changed. His blue eyes grew a shade darker. A hard
smile which Sandy did not see hovered about his lips for an instant.
Then he turned, laughing.
"I'm a very light sleeper," he said. "A footstep at night rouses me.
Even a man's breathing awakes me, when I make up my mind that I must be
on my guard. And, besides"--he drew from his pocket a blue-steeled
Savage automatic--"I know how to use _this_." He pointed to a knot in
the wall of the cabin. "Observe," he said. Five times he fired at twenty
paces, and when Sandy went up to look at the knot he gave a gasp. There
was one jagged hole where the knot had been.
"Pretty good," he grinned. "Most men couldn't do better'n that with a
rifle."
When Sandy left, McGill followed him with a suspicious gleam in his
eyes, and a curious smile on his lips. Then he turned to Kazan.
"Guess you've got him figgered out about right, old man," he laughed
softly. "I don't blame you very much for wanting to get him by the
throat. Perhaps--"
He shoved his hands deep in his pockets, and went into the cabin. Kazan
dropped his head between his forepaws, and lay still, with wide-open
eyes. It was late afternoon, early in September, and each night brought
now the first chill breaths of autumn. Kazan watched the last glow of
the sun as it faded out of the southern skies. Darkness always followed
swiftly after that, and with darkness came more fiercely his wild
longing for freedom. Night after night he had gnawed at his steel chain.
Night after night he had watched the stars, and the moon, and had
listened for Gray Wolf's call, while the big Dane lay sleeping. To-night
it was colder than usual, and the keen tang of the wind that came fresh
from the west stirred him strangely. It set his blood afire with what
the Indians call the Frost Hunger. Lethargic summer was gone and the
days and nights of hunting were at hand. He wanted to leap out into
freedom and run until he was exhausted, with Gray Wolf at his side. He
knew that Gray Wolf was off there--where the stars hung low in the clear
sky, and that she was waiting. He strained at the end of his chain, and
whined. All that night he was restless--more restless than he had been
at any time before. Once, in the far distance, he heard a cry that he
thought was the cry of Gray Wolf, and his answer roused McGill from deep
sleep. It was dawn, and the little professor dressed himself and came
out of the cabin. With satisfaction he noted the exhilarating snap in
the air. He wet his fingers and held them above his head, chuckling when
he found the wind had swung into the north. He went to Kazan, and talked
to him. Among other things he said, "This'll put the black flies to
sleep, Kazan. A day or two more of it and we'll start."
Five days later McGill led first the Dane, and then Kazan, to a packed
canoe. Sandy McTrigger saw them off, and Kazan watched for a chance to
leap at him. Sandy kept his distance, and McGill watched the two with a
thought that set the blood running swiftly behind the mask of his
careless smile. They had slipped a mile down-stream when he leaned over
and laid a fearless hand on Kazan's head. Something in the touch of that
hand, and in the professor's voice, kept Kazan from a desire to snap at
him. He tolerated the friendship with expressionless eyes and a
motionless body.
"I was beginning to fear I wouldn't have much sleep, old boy," chuckled
McGill ambiguously, "but I guess I can take a nap now and then with
_you_ along!"
He made camp that night fifteen miles up the lake shore. The big Dane he
fastened to a sapling twenty yards from his small silk tent, but Kazan's
chain he made fast to the butt of a stunted birch that held down the
tent-flap. Before he went into the tent for the night McGill pulled out
his automatic and examined it with care.
For three days the journey continued without a mishap along the shore of
Lake Athabasca. On the fourth night McGill pitched his tent in a clump
of _banskian_ pine a hundred yards back from the water. All that day the
wind had come steadily from behind them, and for at least a half of the
day the professor had been watching Kazan closely. From the west there
had now and then come a scent that stirred him uneasily. Since noon he
had sniffed that wind. Twice McGill had heard him growling deep in his
throat, and once, when the scent had come stronger than usual, he had
bared his fangs, and the bristles stood up along his spine. For an hour
after striking camp the little professor did not build a fire, but sat
looking up the shore of the lake through his hunting glass. It was dusk
when he returned to where he had put up his tent and chained the dogs.
For a few moments he stood unobserved, looking at the wolf-dog. Kazan
was still uneasy. He lay _facing_ the west. McGill made note of this,
for the big Dane lay behind Kazan--to the east. Under ordinary
conditions Kazan would have faced him. He was sure now that there was
something in the west wind. A little shiver ran up his back as he
thought of what it might be.
Behind a rock he built a very small fire, and prepared supper. After
this he went into the tent, and when he came out he carried a blanket
under his arm. He chuckled as he stood for a moment over Kazan.
"We're not going to sleep in there to-night, old hoy," he said. "I don't
like what you've found in the west wind. It may he a--_thunder-storm!_"
He laughed at his joke, and buried himself in a clump of stunted
_banskians_ thirty paces from the tent. Here he rolled himself in his
blanket, and went to sleep.
It was a quiet starlit night, and hours afterward Kazan dropped his nose
between his forepaws and drowsed. It was the snap of a twig that roused
him. The sound did not awaken the sluggish Dane but instantly Kazan's
head was alert, his keen nostrils sniffing the air. What he had smelled
all day was heavy about him now. He lay still and quivering. Slowly,
from out of the _banskians_ behind the tent, there came a figure. It was
not the little professor. It approached cautiously, with lowered head
and hunched shoulders, and the starlight revealed the murderous face of
Sandy McTrigger. Kazan crouched low. He laid his head flat between his
forepaws. His long fangs gleamed. But he made no sound that betrayed his
concealment under a thick _banskian_ shrub. Step by step Sandy
approached, and at last he reached the flap of the tent. He did not
carry a club or a whip in his hand now. In the place of either of those
was the glitter of steel. At the door to the tent he paused, and peered
in, his back to Kazan.
Silently, swiftly--the wolf now in every movement, Kazan came to his
feet. He forgot the chain that held him. Ten feet away stood the enemy
he hated above all others he had ever known. Every ounce of strength in
his splendid body gathered itself for the spring. And then he leaped.
This time the chain did not pull him back, almost neck-broken. Age and
the elements had weakened the leather collar he had worn since the days
of his slavery in the traces, and it gave way with a snap. Sandy turned,
and in a second leap Kazan's fangs sank into the flesh of his arm. With
a startled cry the man fell, and as they rolled over on the ground the
big Dane's deep voice rolled out in thunderous alarm as he tugged at his
leash. In the fall Kazan's hold was broken. In an instant he was on his
feet, ready for another attack. And then the change came. He was
_free_. The collar was gone from his neck. The forest, the stars, the
whispering wind were all about him. _Here_ were men, and off there
was--Gray Wolf! His ears dropped, and he turned swiftly, and slipped
like a shadow back into the glorious freedom of his world.
A hundred yards away something stopped him for an instant. It was not
the big Dane's voice, but the sharp _crack--crack--crack_, of the little
professor's automatic. And above that sound there rose the voice of
Sandy McTrigger in a weird and terrible cry.