THE TERROR OF THE CARBOONA
In the inmost heart of the Carboona, among a wilderness of boulders, old
pine stumps, and dense thickets of juniper and thorn there was a spot to
which all wise Carboona dwellers gave a wide berth. Apart from its
bareness and lack of pasture, the place bore an ill name. Its evil
reputation came from very ancient times. It was shunned equally by
catamount, fox, bear, wolf and moose. And the lesser creatures, which
haunted the neighbouring thickets, kept well within their shelter and
rarely ventured out. Even the Cariboo, with the travelling restlessness
strong within them, turned aside after much uneasy pawing of the ground,
and suspicious blasts of breath, and fetched a semi-circle to the north
or south. Yet not one of these suspicious folk could have given any
plain reason for their avoidance of the spot. It was enough for them
that the wisdom of the ages informed them it was bad.
But now, in addition to the vague influence of the place, its evil
reputation had been strengthened by an added terror which was by no
means vague: it was known as the lair of a new resident--the Great Lone
Wolf.
Where the Lone Wolf had come from, nobody could tell. One Fall, when the
air was full of the honking of the geese, he had arrived mysteriously
with the first cold, and seemed to bring the winter with him. And from
that day, the soundless word went throughout Carboona's inmost recesses:
"Beware of the Terror of the eastern thickets. Beware of the Lone Wolf."
And those who were foolish enough to disregard the warning, escaped a
hard winter by falling to prey to the wolf.
One morning, Lone Wolf slept later than was his habit. During his sleep
he did not dream; yet warm scents, drifting in the shimmering tide of
the heat, lapped against his nose in ripples so fine that they did not
disturb his brain.
When at length he awoke, he yawned. The yawn was like a huge gash in his
lower face. After the yawn, he rose, and shook himself. Then he sat down
on his haunches and looked abroad into the world. He had slept well, and
was not aware of being hungry; so there was no need to bother himself
about hunting. For all that, he was not contented. He wanted something,
but he didn't know what. He felt he might find it, if he went for a
walk. So he walked. When he came to the angle of a certain stone, he
stopped dead, sniffed, set his hair bristling between his shoulders, and
growled in the very black places of his throat.
He had found a rival's mark!
The sudden change in Lone Wolf was remarkable. From being an apparently
lazy hump of dark grey wolfishness with an air of nothing to do, he
turned into an alert, cunning Ferocity whose every nerve and faculty
were tightened up for the performance of something very particular
indeed. As he moved over the sun-scorched surface of the rocky ground,
his body carried low on the great springs of his legs, he seemed to
gather all the ancient floating evil of the locality to himself and give
it a wolf's shape.
If the Carboona peoples had known that the Terror was once more upon the
prowl, a thrill of fear would have shot along the mountain, like an
electric current. But at this drowsy hour of the day, most of them were
resting from their hunting of the previous night and early morning, and
were sleeping in their lairs. Boola and her family were curled up in the
cool chamber at the end of the hole. Baltook was taking a light nap in a
shady spot he knew of among a cluster of shumacks a quarter of a mile
from the den. Goshmeelee sat in huge contentment in the edges of the
swamp--sitting up commodiously on the well-cushioned and very wide
sitting-down part of her, and rocking herself slowly to and fro with a
pleasant sense of the damp and slimy cosiness to be had in the swampy
parts of the world. While the squirrels, chipmunks, and blue jays, and
all other small watchers and warners of danger coming, or to come,
perched on shady look-out points, and blinked their eyes a little in the
drowsy warmth.
As soon as Lone Wolf left the open mountain side and entered the
out-lying edges of the spruce woods, he was fully aware that he was
being watched by many pairs of eyes. And he had not gone very far before
he had annoying proof of this in the defiant chatter of a chipmunk which
was taking noon-tide observation on a hollow log. Above all things, Lone
Wolf wanted to go secretly. As he passed the log, he shot a murderous
look at its occupier out of his cruel grey-green eyes; but he knew
better than to waste his energy by making a leap at that alert bundle of
fur-covered springs, and so went softly on his way, while the chipmunk
sent its angry warning out to all forest-folks within earshot that
murder was on the trail.
He had reached a spot about a mile from the camp when he came to an
abrupt stand. There not fifty paces away, he saw a big wolf, with
another creature beside it which was certainly not a wolf. Both were
travelling quickly eastward. He remained motionless till they had
disappeared and then took up the fresh trail. Its mingled beast and
human smell disturbed him. He had met Red men before, and detested them.
He still carried the mark and the memory of an Indian tomahawk which had
slashed him in the neck, when, running one hard winter with a
desperately hungry pack, he had attacked a solitary Indian travelling
across the frost-bound levels of the lakes. Now, as the mixed smell of
the wolf-breed, and hated man-breed, rose to his nostrils, the old
enmity slumbering within him leaped again to life.
For the rest of that day, he dogged the footsteps of the pair; and when
they separated at twilight, Kiopo going to hunt, and Dusty Star
returning to camp, it was the boy he followed, not the wolf. And little
did Dusty Star suspect, as he went alone through the darkening woods,
that every step of his homeward way was shadowed by the Terror of the
Carboona on delicately-stepping feet.
Over and over again the wolf wanted to leap upon the boy and destroy him
then and there, yet the vague fear of the human being, which disturbs
wild animals, haunted his nerves, and he could not throw it off before
Dusty Star reached the camp.
All that night, he watched in the edges of the forest, roaming to and
fro uneasily, and did not finally leave the neighbourhood till just
before dawn.