“Well, Spanker’s troubles is over anyway;I guess he’s digested by this time an’ cavortin’ over the landscape in the bellies of twenty different wolves,” was Henry’s epitaph on this, the latest lost dog. “Have some coffee, Bill.”
But Bill shook his head.
“Go on,” Henry pleaded, elevating the pot.
Bill shoved his cup aside.“I’ll be ding-dong-danged if I do.I said I wouldn’t if ary dog turned up missin’, an’ I won’t.”
“It’s darn good coffee,” Henry said enticingly.
But Bill was stubborn,and he ate a dry breakfast washed down with mumbled curses at One Ear for the trick he had played.
“I’ll tie ’em up out of reach of each other to-night,” Bill said, as they took the trail.
They had travelled little more than a hundred yards,when Henry, who was in front,bent down and picked up something with which his snowshoe had collided.It was dark, and he could not see it,but he recognised it by the touch. He flung it back,so that it struck the sled and bounced along until it fetched up on Bill’s snowshoes.
“Mebbe you’ll need that in your business,” Henry said.
Bill uttered an exclamation.It was all that was left of Spanker—the stick with which he had been tied.
“They ate ’m hide an’ all,” Bill announced.“The stick’s as clean as a whistle.They’ve ate the leather offen both ends.They’re damn hungry, Henry,an’ they’ll have you an’ me guessin’ before this trip’s over. ”
Henry laughed defiantly.“I ain’t been trailed this way by wolves before,but I’ve gone through a whole lot worse an’ kept my health.Takes more’n a handful of them pesky critters to do for yours truly, Bill, my son.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Bill muttered ominously.
“Well, you’ll know all right when we pull into McGurry.”
“I ain’t feelin’ special enthusiastic,” Bill persisted.
“You’re off colour, that’s what’s the matter with you,” Henry dogmatised. “What you need is quinine,an’ I’m goin’ to dose you up stiff as soon as we make McGurry. ”
Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis,and lapsed into silence. The day was like all the days.Light came at nine o’clock.At twelve o’clock the southern horizon was warmed by the unseen sun;and then began the cold grey of afternoon that would merge,three hours later, into night.
It was just after the sun’s futile effort to appear,that Bill slipped the rifle from under the sled-lashings and said:
“You keep right on, Henry,I’m goin’ to see what I can see.”
“You’d better stick by the sled,” his partner protested.“You’ve only got three cartridges,an’ there’s no tellin’ what might happen.”
“Who’s croaking now?” Bill demanded triumphantly.
Henry made no reply, and plodded on alone,though often he cast anxious glances back into the grey solitude where his partner had disappeared. An hour later, taking advantage of the cut-offs around which the sled had to go, Bill arrived.
“They’re scattered an’ rangin’ along wide,” he said:“keeping up with us an’ lookin’ for game at the same time.You see, they’re sure of us,only they know they’ve got to wait to get us.In the meantime they’re willin’ to pick up anything eatable that comes handy. ”
“You mean they _think_ they’re sure of us,” Henry objected pointedly.
But Bill ignored him. “I seen some of them.They’re pretty thin.They ain’t had a bite in weeks I reckon,outside of Fatty an’ Frog an’ Spanker;an’ there’s so many of ’em that that didn’t go far.They’re remarkable thin.Their ribs is like wash-boards,an’ their stomachs is right up against their backbones.They’re pretty desperate, I can tell you.They’ll be goin’ mad, yet, an’ then watch out.”
A few minutes later, Henry,who was now travelling behind the sled, emitted a low,warning whistle. Bill turned and looked,then quietly stopped the dogs. To the rear,from around the last bend and plainly into view,on the very trail they had just covered,trotted a furry, slinking form.Its nose was to the trail,and it trotted with a peculiar, sliding,effortless gait. When they halted, it halted,throwing up its head and regarding them steadily with nostrils that twitched as it caught and studied the scent of them.
“It’s the she-wolf,” Bill answered.
The dogs had lain down in the snow,and he walked past them to join his partner in the sled.Together they watched the strange animal that had pursued them for days and that had already accomplished the destruction of half their dog-team.
After a searching scrutiny,the animal trotted forward a few steps.This it repeated several times,till it was a short hundred yards away. It paused,head up, close by a clump of spruce trees,and with sight and scent studied the outfit of the watching men.It looked at them in a strangely wistful way,after the manner of a dog;but in its wistfulness there was none of the dog affection.It was a wistfulness bred of hunger,as cruel as its own fangs,as merciless as the frost itself.
It was large for a wolf,its gaunt frame advertising the lines of an animal that was among the largest of its kind.
“Stands pretty close to two feet an’ a half at the shoulders,” Henry commented. “An’ I’ll bet it ain’t far from five feet long. ”
“Kind of strange colour for a wolf,” was Bill’s criticism. “I never seen a red wolf before.Looks almost cinnamon to me.”
The animal was certainly not cinnamon-coloured.Its coat was the true wolf-coat.The dominant colour was grey,and yet there was to it a faint reddish hue—a hue that was baffling,that appeared and disappeared,that was more like an illusion of the vision, now grey,distinctly grey, and again giving hints and glints of a vague redness of colour not classifiable in terms of ordinary experience.
“Looks for all the world like a big husky sled-dog,” Bill said. “I wouldn’t be s’prised to see it wag its tail. ”
“Hello, you husky!” he called. “Come here, you whatever-your-name-is.”
“Ain’t a bit scairt of you,” Henry laughed.
Bill waved his hand at it threateningly and shouted loudly;but the animal betrayed no fear.The only change in it that they could notice was an accession of alertness.It still regarded them with the merciless wistfulness of hunger.They were meat, and it was hungry;and it would like to go in and eat them if it dared.