THE SHE-WOLF
Breakfast eaten and the slim camp-outfit lashed to the sled, the men turned their backs on the cheery огонь and launched out into the darkness. At once began to rise the cries that were fiercely sad - cries that called through the darkness and cold to one another and answered back. Conversation ceased. Daylight came at nine o'clock. At midday the sky to the south warmed to rose-colour, and marked where the bulge of the earth intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world. But the rose-colour swiftly faded. The grey light of день that remained lasted until three o'clock, when it, too, faded, and the pall of the Arctic night descended upon the lone and silent land.
As darkness came on, the hunting-cries to right and left and rear drew closer - so close that еще than once they sent surges of fear through the toiling dogs, throwing them into short-lived panics.
At the conclusion of one such panic, when he and Henry had got the Собаки back in the traces, Bill said:
"I wisht they'd strike game somewheres, an' go away an' leave us alone."
"They do get on the nerves horrible," Henry sympathised.
They spoke no еще until camp was made.
Henry was bending over and adding ice to the babbling pot of beans when he was startled by the sound of a blow, an exclamation from Bill, and a sharp snarling cry of pain from among the dogs. He straightened up in time to see a dim form disappearing across the snow into the shelter of the dark. Then he saw Bill, standing amid the dogs, half triumphant, half crestfallen, in one hand a стаут, толстый club, in the other the tail and part of the body of a sun-cured salmon.
"It got half of it," he announced; "but I got a whack at it jes' the same. D'ye hear it squeal?"
"What'd it look like?" Henry asked.
"Couldn't see. But it had four legs an' a mouth an' hair an' looked like any dog."
"Must be a tame wolf, I reckon."
"It's damned tame, whatever it is, comin' in here at feedin' time an' gettin' its whack of fish."
That night, when ужин was finished and they sat on the oblong box and pulled at their pipes, the круг of gleaming eyes drew in even closer than before.
"I wisht they'd spring up a bunch of moose или something, an' go away an' leave us alone," Bill said.
Henry grunted with an intonation that was not all sympathy, and for a quarter of an час they sat on in silence, Henry staring at the fire, and Bill at the круг of eyes that burned in the darkness just beyond the firelight.
"I wisht we was pullin' into McGurry right now," he began again.
"Shut up your wishin' and your croakin'," Henry burst out angrily. "Your stomach's sour. That's what's ailin' you. глотать, ласточка a spoonful of sody, an' you'll sweeten up wonderful an' be еще pleasant company."
In the morning Henry was aroused by fervid blasphemy that proceeded from the mouth of Bill. Henry propped himself up on an elbow and looked to see his comrade standing among the Собаки beside the replenished fire, his arms raised in objurgation, his face distorted with passion.
"Hello!" Henry called. "What's up now?"
"Frog's gone," came the answer.
"No."
"I tell Ты yes."
Henry leaped out of the blankets and to the dogs. He counted them with care, and then joined his partner in cursing the power of the Wild that had robbed them of another dog.
"Frog was the strongest dog of the bunch," Bill pronounced finally.
"An' he was no fool dog neither," Henry added.
And so was recorded the секунда epitaph in two days.
A gloomy breakfast was eaten, and the four remaining Собаки were harnessed to the sled. The день was a repetition of the days that had gone before. The men toiled without speech across the face of the Холодное сердце world. The silence was unbroken save by the cries of their pursuers, that, unseen, hung upon their rear. With the coming of night in the mid-afternoon, the cries sounded closer as the pursuers drew in according to their custom; and the Собаки grew excited and frightened, and were guilty of panics that Рапунцель - Запутанная история the traces and further depressed the two men.
"There, that'll fix Ты fool critters," Bill сказал(-а) with satisfaction that night, standing erect at completion of his task.
Henry left the cooking to come and see. Not only had his partner tied the Собаки up, but he had tied them, after the Indian fashion, with sticks. About the neck of each dog he had fastened a leather thong. To this, and so close to the neck that the dog could not get his teeth to it, he had tied a стаут, толстый stick four или five feet in length. The other end of the stick, in turn, was made fast to a stake in the ground by means of a leather thong. The dog was unable to gnaw through the leather at his own end of the stick. The stick prevented him from getting at the leather that fastened the other end.
Henry nodded his head approvingly.
"It's the only contraption that'll ever hold One Ear," he said. "He can gnaw through leather as clean as a нож an' jes' about half as quick. They all'll be here in the mornin' hunkydory."
"You jes' bet they will," Bill affirmed. "If one of em' turns up missin', I'll go without my coffee."
"They jes' know we ain't loaded to kill," Henry remarked at bed- time, indicating the gleaming круг that hemmed them in. "If we could put a couple of shots into 'em, they'd be еще respectful. They come closer every night. Get the firelight out of your eyes an' look hard - there! Did Ты see that one?"
For some time the two men amused themselves with watching the movement of vague forms on the edge of the firelight. By looking closely and steadily at where a pair of eyes burned in the darkness, the form of the animal would slowly take shape. They could even see these forms Переместить at times.
A sound among the Собаки attracted the men's attention. One Ear was uttering quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick toward the darkness, and desisting now and again in order to make frantic attacks on the stick with his teeth.
"Look at that, Bill," Henry whispered.
Full into the firelight, with a stealthy, sidelong movement, glided a doglike animal. It moved with commingled mistrust and daring, cautiously observing the men, its attention fixed on the dogs. One Ear strained the full length of the stick toward the intruder and whined with eagerness.
"That fool One Ear don't seem scairt much," Bill сказал(-а) in a low tone.
"It's a she-wolf," Henry whispered back, "an' that accounts for Fatty an' Frog. She's the decoy for the pack. She draws out the dog an' then all the rest pitches in an' eats 'm up."
The огонь crackled. A log fell apart with a loud spluttering noise. At the sound of it the strange animal leaped back into the darkness.
"Henry, I'm a-thinkin'," Bill announced.
"Thinkin' what?"
"I'm a-thinkin' that was the one I lambasted with the club."
"Ain't the slightest doubt in the world," was Henry's response.
"An' right here I want to remark," Bill went on, "that that animal's familyarity with campfires is suspicious an' immoral."
"It knows for certain more'n a self-respectin' волк ought to know," Henry agreed. "A волк that knows enough to come in with the Собаки at feedin' time has had experiences."
"Ol' Villan had a dog once that run away with the wolves," Bill cogitates aloud. "I ought to know. I shot it out of the pack in a moose pasture over 'on Little Stick. An' Ol' Villan cried like a baby. Hadn't seen it for three years, he said. Ben with the Волки all that time."
"I reckon you've called the turn, Bill. That wolf's a dog, an' it's eaten рыба many's the time from the hand of man."
"An if I get a chance at it, that волк that's a dog'll be jes' meat," Bill declared. "We can't afford to lose no еще animals."
"But you've only got three cartridges," Henry objected.
"I'll wait for a dead sure shot," was the reply.
In the morning Henry renewed the огонь and cooked breakfast to the accompaniment of his partner's snoring.
"You was sleepin' jes' too comfortable for anything," Henry told him, as he routed him out for breakfast. "I hadn't the сердце to rouse you."
Bill began to eat sleepily. He noticed that his cup was empty and started to reach for the pot. But the pot was beyond arm's length and beside Henry.
"Say, Henry," he chided gently, "ain't Ты forgot somethin'?"
Henry looked about with great carefulness and shook his head. Bill held up the empty cup.
"You don't get no coffee," Henry announced.
"Ain't run out?" Bill asked anxiously.
"Nope."
"Ain't thinkin' it'll hurt my digestion?"
"Nope."
A flush of angry blood pervaded Bill's face.
"Then it's jes' warm an' anxious I am to be hearin' Ты explain yourself," he said.
"Spanker's gone," Henry answered.
Without haste, with the air of one resigned to misfortune Bill turned his head, and from where he sat counted the dogs.
"How'd it happen?" he asked apathetically.
Henry shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know. Unless One Ear gnawed 'm loose. He couldn't a-done it himself, that's sure."
"The darned cuss." Bill spoke gravely and slowly, with no hint of the anger that was raging within. "Jes' because he couldn't chew himself loose, he chews Spanker loose."
"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 Остаться в живых 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 сказал(-а) I wouldn't if ary dog turned up missin', an' I won't."
"It's darn good coffee," Henry сказал(-а) 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 еще 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 Ты an' me guessin' before this trip's over."
Henry laughed defiantly. "I ain't been trailed this way by Волки 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 Ты need is quinine, an' I'm goin' to dose Ты up stiff as soon as we make McGurry."
Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis, and lapsed into silence. The день 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 винтовка 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 час 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. Ты 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 минуты 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 Собаки had laid down in the snow, and he walked past them to Присоединиться 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 вперед 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 ель 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 волк before. Looks almost cinnamon to me."
The animal was certainly not cinnamon-coloured. Its пальто 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 еще 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, Ты husky!" he called. "Come here, Ты 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.
"Look here, Henry," Bill said, unconsciously lowering his voice to a whisper because of what he imitated. "We've got three cartridges. But it's a dead shot. Couldn't miss it. It's got away with three of our dogs, an' we oughter put a stop to it. What d'ye say?"
Henry nodded his consent. Bill cautiously slipped the gun from under the sled-lashing. The gun was on the way to his shoulder, but it never got there. For in that instant the she-wolf leaped sidewise from the trail into the clump of ель trees and disappeared.
The two men looked at each other. Henry whistled long and comprehendingly.
"I might have knowed it," Bill chided himself aloud as he replaced the gun. "Of course a волк that knows enough to come in with the Собаки at feedin' time, 'd know all about shooting-irons. I tell Ты right now, Henry, that critter's the cause of all our trouble. We'd have six Собаки at the present time, 'stead of three, if it wasn't for her. An' I tell Ты right now, Henry, I'm goin' to get her. She's too smart to be shot in the open. But I'm goin' to lay for her. I'll bushwhack her as sure as my name is Bill."
"You needn't stray off too far in doin' it," his partner admonished. "If that pack ever starts to jump you, them three cartridges'd be wuth no more'n three whoops in hell. Them Животные is damn hungry, an' once they start in, they'll sure get you, Bill."
They camped early that night. Three Собаки could not drag the sled so fast nor for so long hours as could six, and they were Показ unmistakable signs of playing out. And the men went early to bed, Bill first seeing to it that the Собаки were tied out of gnawing- reach of one another.
But the Волки were growing bolder, and the men were aroused еще than once from their sleep. So near did the Волки approach, that the Собаки became frantic with terror, and it was necessary to replenish the огонь from time to time in order to keep the adventurous marauders at safer distance.
"I've hearn sailors talk of sharks followin' a ship," Bill remarked, as he crawled back into the blankets after one such replenishing of the fire. "Well, them Волки is land sharks. They know their business better'n we do, an' they ain't a-holdin' our trail this way for their health. They're goin' to get us. They're sure goin' to get us, Henry."
"They've half got Ты a'ready, a-talkin' like that," Henry retorted sharply. "A man's half licked when he says he is. An' you're half eaten from the way you're goin' on about it."
"They've got away with better men than Ты an' me," Bill answered.
"Oh, shet up your croakin'. Ты make me all-fired tired."
Henry rolled over angrily on his side, but was surprised that Bill made no similar display of temper. This was not Bill's way, for he was easily angered by sharp words. Henry thought long over it before he went to sleep, and as his eyelids fluttered down and he dozed off, the thought in his mind was: "There's no mistakin' it, Bill's almighty blue. I'll have to cheer him up to-morrow."
Breakfast eaten and the slim camp-outfit lashed to the sled, the men turned their backs on the cheery огонь and launched out into the darkness. At once began to rise the cries that were fiercely sad - cries that called through the darkness and cold to one another and answered back. Conversation ceased. Daylight came at nine o'clock. At midday the sky to the south warmed to rose-colour, and marked where the bulge of the earth intervened between the meridian sun and the northern world. But the rose-colour swiftly faded. The grey light of день that remained lasted until three o'clock, when it, too, faded, and the pall of the Arctic night descended upon the lone and silent land.
As darkness came on, the hunting-cries to right and left and rear drew closer - so close that еще than once they sent surges of fear through the toiling dogs, throwing them into short-lived panics.
At the conclusion of one such panic, when he and Henry had got the Собаки back in the traces, Bill said:
"I wisht they'd strike game somewheres, an' go away an' leave us alone."
"They do get on the nerves horrible," Henry sympathised.
They spoke no еще until camp was made.
Henry was bending over and adding ice to the babbling pot of beans when he was startled by the sound of a blow, an exclamation from Bill, and a sharp snarling cry of pain from among the dogs. He straightened up in time to see a dim form disappearing across the snow into the shelter of the dark. Then he saw Bill, standing amid the dogs, half triumphant, half crestfallen, in one hand a стаут, толстый club, in the other the tail and part of the body of a sun-cured salmon.
"It got half of it," he announced; "but I got a whack at it jes' the same. D'ye hear it squeal?"
"What'd it look like?" Henry asked.
"Couldn't see. But it had four legs an' a mouth an' hair an' looked like any dog."
"Must be a tame wolf, I reckon."
"It's damned tame, whatever it is, comin' in here at feedin' time an' gettin' its whack of fish."
That night, when ужин was finished and they sat on the oblong box and pulled at their pipes, the круг of gleaming eyes drew in even closer than before.
"I wisht they'd spring up a bunch of moose или something, an' go away an' leave us alone," Bill said.
Henry grunted with an intonation that was not all sympathy, and for a quarter of an час they sat on in silence, Henry staring at the fire, and Bill at the круг of eyes that burned in the darkness just beyond the firelight.
"I wisht we was pullin' into McGurry right now," he began again.
"Shut up your wishin' and your croakin'," Henry burst out angrily. "Your stomach's sour. That's what's ailin' you. глотать, ласточка a spoonful of sody, an' you'll sweeten up wonderful an' be еще pleasant company."
In the morning Henry was aroused by fervid blasphemy that proceeded from the mouth of Bill. Henry propped himself up on an elbow and looked to see his comrade standing among the Собаки beside the replenished fire, his arms raised in objurgation, his face distorted with passion.
"Hello!" Henry called. "What's up now?"
"Frog's gone," came the answer.
"No."
"I tell Ты yes."
Henry leaped out of the blankets and to the dogs. He counted them with care, and then joined his partner in cursing the power of the Wild that had robbed them of another dog.
"Frog was the strongest dog of the bunch," Bill pronounced finally.
"An' he was no fool dog neither," Henry added.
And so was recorded the секунда epitaph in two days.
A gloomy breakfast was eaten, and the four remaining Собаки were harnessed to the sled. The день was a repetition of the days that had gone before. The men toiled without speech across the face of the Холодное сердце world. The silence was unbroken save by the cries of their pursuers, that, unseen, hung upon their rear. With the coming of night in the mid-afternoon, the cries sounded closer as the pursuers drew in according to their custom; and the Собаки grew excited and frightened, and were guilty of panics that Рапунцель - Запутанная история the traces and further depressed the two men.
"There, that'll fix Ты fool critters," Bill сказал(-а) with satisfaction that night, standing erect at completion of his task.
Henry left the cooking to come and see. Not only had his partner tied the Собаки up, but he had tied them, after the Indian fashion, with sticks. About the neck of each dog he had fastened a leather thong. To this, and so close to the neck that the dog could not get his teeth to it, he had tied a стаут, толстый stick four или five feet in length. The other end of the stick, in turn, was made fast to a stake in the ground by means of a leather thong. The dog was unable to gnaw through the leather at his own end of the stick. The stick prevented him from getting at the leather that fastened the other end.
Henry nodded his head approvingly.
"It's the only contraption that'll ever hold One Ear," he said. "He can gnaw through leather as clean as a нож an' jes' about half as quick. They all'll be here in the mornin' hunkydory."
"You jes' bet they will," Bill affirmed. "If one of em' turns up missin', I'll go without my coffee."
"They jes' know we ain't loaded to kill," Henry remarked at bed- time, indicating the gleaming круг that hemmed them in. "If we could put a couple of shots into 'em, they'd be еще respectful. They come closer every night. Get the firelight out of your eyes an' look hard - there! Did Ты see that one?"
For some time the two men amused themselves with watching the movement of vague forms on the edge of the firelight. By looking closely and steadily at where a pair of eyes burned in the darkness, the form of the animal would slowly take shape. They could even see these forms Переместить at times.
A sound among the Собаки attracted the men's attention. One Ear was uttering quick, eager whines, lunging at the length of his stick toward the darkness, and desisting now and again in order to make frantic attacks on the stick with his teeth.
"Look at that, Bill," Henry whispered.
Full into the firelight, with a stealthy, sidelong movement, glided a doglike animal. It moved with commingled mistrust and daring, cautiously observing the men, its attention fixed on the dogs. One Ear strained the full length of the stick toward the intruder and whined with eagerness.
"That fool One Ear don't seem scairt much," Bill сказал(-а) in a low tone.
"It's a she-wolf," Henry whispered back, "an' that accounts for Fatty an' Frog. She's the decoy for the pack. She draws out the dog an' then all the rest pitches in an' eats 'm up."
The огонь crackled. A log fell apart with a loud spluttering noise. At the sound of it the strange animal leaped back into the darkness.
"Henry, I'm a-thinkin'," Bill announced.
"Thinkin' what?"
"I'm a-thinkin' that was the one I lambasted with the club."
"Ain't the slightest doubt in the world," was Henry's response.
"An' right here I want to remark," Bill went on, "that that animal's familyarity with campfires is suspicious an' immoral."
"It knows for certain more'n a self-respectin' волк ought to know," Henry agreed. "A волк that knows enough to come in with the Собаки at feedin' time has had experiences."
"Ol' Villan had a dog once that run away with the wolves," Bill cogitates aloud. "I ought to know. I shot it out of the pack in a moose pasture over 'on Little Stick. An' Ol' Villan cried like a baby. Hadn't seen it for three years, he said. Ben with the Волки all that time."
"I reckon you've called the turn, Bill. That wolf's a dog, an' it's eaten рыба many's the time from the hand of man."
"An if I get a chance at it, that волк that's a dog'll be jes' meat," Bill declared. "We can't afford to lose no еще animals."
"But you've only got three cartridges," Henry objected.
"I'll wait for a dead sure shot," was the reply.
In the morning Henry renewed the огонь and cooked breakfast to the accompaniment of his partner's snoring.
"You was sleepin' jes' too comfortable for anything," Henry told him, as he routed him out for breakfast. "I hadn't the сердце to rouse you."
Bill began to eat sleepily. He noticed that his cup was empty and started to reach for the pot. But the pot was beyond arm's length and beside Henry.
"Say, Henry," he chided gently, "ain't Ты forgot somethin'?"
Henry looked about with great carefulness and shook his head. Bill held up the empty cup.
"You don't get no coffee," Henry announced.
"Ain't run out?" Bill asked anxiously.
"Nope."
"Ain't thinkin' it'll hurt my digestion?"
"Nope."
A flush of angry blood pervaded Bill's face.
"Then it's jes' warm an' anxious I am to be hearin' Ты explain yourself," he said.
"Spanker's gone," Henry answered.
Without haste, with the air of one resigned to misfortune Bill turned his head, and from where he sat counted the dogs.
"How'd it happen?" he asked apathetically.
Henry shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know. Unless One Ear gnawed 'm loose. He couldn't a-done it himself, that's sure."
"The darned cuss." Bill spoke gravely and slowly, with no hint of the anger that was raging within. "Jes' because he couldn't chew himself loose, he chews Spanker loose."
"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 Остаться в живых 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 сказал(-а) I wouldn't if ary dog turned up missin', an' I won't."
"It's darn good coffee," Henry сказал(-а) 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 еще 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 Ты an' me guessin' before this trip's over."
Henry laughed defiantly. "I ain't been trailed this way by Волки 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 Ты need is quinine, an' I'm goin' to dose Ты up stiff as soon as we make McGurry."
Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis, and lapsed into silence. The день 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 винтовка 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 час 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. Ты 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 минуты 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 Собаки had laid down in the snow, and he walked past them to Присоединиться 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 вперед 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 ель 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 волк before. Looks almost cinnamon to me."
The animal was certainly not cinnamon-coloured. Its пальто 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 еще 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, Ты husky!" he called. "Come here, Ты 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.
"Look here, Henry," Bill said, unconsciously lowering his voice to a whisper because of what he imitated. "We've got three cartridges. But it's a dead shot. Couldn't miss it. It's got away with three of our dogs, an' we oughter put a stop to it. What d'ye say?"
Henry nodded his consent. Bill cautiously slipped the gun from under the sled-lashing. The gun was on the way to his shoulder, but it never got there. For in that instant the she-wolf leaped sidewise from the trail into the clump of ель trees and disappeared.
The two men looked at each other. Henry whistled long and comprehendingly.
"I might have knowed it," Bill chided himself aloud as he replaced the gun. "Of course a волк that knows enough to come in with the Собаки at feedin' time, 'd know all about shooting-irons. I tell Ты right now, Henry, that critter's the cause of all our trouble. We'd have six Собаки at the present time, 'stead of three, if it wasn't for her. An' I tell Ты right now, Henry, I'm goin' to get her. She's too smart to be shot in the open. But I'm goin' to lay for her. I'll bushwhack her as sure as my name is Bill."
"You needn't stray off too far in doin' it," his partner admonished. "If that pack ever starts to jump you, them three cartridges'd be wuth no more'n three whoops in hell. Them Животные is damn hungry, an' once they start in, they'll sure get you, Bill."
They camped early that night. Three Собаки could not drag the sled so fast nor for so long hours as could six, and they were Показ unmistakable signs of playing out. And the men went early to bed, Bill first seeing to it that the Собаки were tied out of gnawing- reach of one another.
But the Волки were growing bolder, and the men were aroused еще than once from their sleep. So near did the Волки approach, that the Собаки became frantic with terror, and it was necessary to replenish the огонь from time to time in order to keep the adventurous marauders at safer distance.
"I've hearn sailors talk of sharks followin' a ship," Bill remarked, as he crawled back into the blankets after one such replenishing of the fire. "Well, them Волки is land sharks. They know their business better'n we do, an' they ain't a-holdin' our trail this way for their health. They're goin' to get us. They're sure goin' to get us, Henry."
"They've half got Ты a'ready, a-talkin' like that," Henry retorted sharply. "A man's half licked when he says he is. An' you're half eaten from the way you're goin' on about it."
"They've got away with better men than Ты an' me," Bill answered.
"Oh, shet up your croakin'. Ты make me all-fired tired."
Henry rolled over angrily on his side, but was surprised that Bill made no similar display of temper. This was not Bill's way, for he was easily angered by sharp words. Henry thought long over it before he went to sleep, and as his eyelids fluttered down and he dozed off, the thought in his mind was: "There's no mistakin' it, Bill's almighty blue. I'll have to cheer him up to-morrow."
A knocking, loud and then soft.
A calling, sweet and tender,
I looked but it was gone
Sweet smells the сарай loft.
A corner, around it went
The быстрый, стремительный, свифт moves of a midnight wolf,
A panting, kind, intoxicating.
What a pleasure the moon lent.
I called it, but it disappeared
Through trees, forest, and caves.
Up and down did I search
Wondering what the message geared.
I was cornered, afraid and alone.
Touch, it reached to my heart.
Intense and nerve-racking
The green of its eyes shone.
And at the time of the gasp,
The midnight волк was gone
With a быстрый, стремительный, свифт Переместить of its tail.
And I, the hare, was loose of its grasp.
I thought and realized soon
What the message was about,
That Любовь is timid, yet a wild thing,
It only glitters in the moon.
And I thought for awhile,
Standing in the midst of a field.
When suddenly came the midnight wolf,
And the sight of it made me smile.
A calling, sweet and tender,
I looked but it was gone
Sweet smells the сарай loft.
A corner, around it went
The быстрый, стремительный, свифт moves of a midnight wolf,
A panting, kind, intoxicating.
What a pleasure the moon lent.
I called it, but it disappeared
Through trees, forest, and caves.
Up and down did I search
Wondering what the message geared.
I was cornered, afraid and alone.
Touch, it reached to my heart.
Intense and nerve-racking
The green of its eyes shone.
And at the time of the gasp,
The midnight волк was gone
With a быстрый, стремительный, свифт Переместить of its tail.
And I, the hare, was loose of its grasp.
I thought and realized soon
What the message was about,
That Любовь is timid, yet a wild thing,
It only glitters in the moon.
And I thought for awhile,
Standing in the midst of a field.
When suddenly came the midnight wolf,
And the sight of it made me smile.
Ok Ты know how curtis runs into his Alpha school bully from his other pack well know there in a fight
Curtis shot back 'Well listen loser i think your just jealous!' and then it hit him like a frieght train Justin punched him in the face his snout was bleeding and he got up and punched justin square in the face hearing a pop he had broken his nose and Now Calvin walked in and сказал(-а) 'Guys break it up!' then justin blurted out 'At least i still have еще dominence than Ты curtis!' then Curtis сказал(-а) back 'You chalenge my dominence?' and that was settled to a dominence fight monday The Далее thing curtis knew was he was standing with a group of people around him cheering 'Curtis Curtis Curtis' then he saw justin and he went crazy he beat justin down into the ground and he heard justin crying in pain even after it was over once again he was вверх male...
Curtis shot back 'Well listen loser i think your just jealous!' and then it hit him like a frieght train Justin punched him in the face his snout was bleeding and he got up and punched justin square in the face hearing a pop he had broken his nose and Now Calvin walked in and сказал(-а) 'Guys break it up!' then justin blurted out 'At least i still have еще dominence than Ты curtis!' then Curtis сказал(-а) back 'You chalenge my dominence?' and that was settled to a dominence fight monday The Далее thing curtis knew was he was standing with a group of people around him cheering 'Curtis Curtis Curtis' then he saw justin and he went crazy he beat justin down into the ground and he heard justin crying in pain even after it was over once again he was вверх male...
Has tales to tell,
The legends and lore
He knows so well.
From survival and feasting
On the vast plain,
From blinding blizzards
And torrential rain.
They have seen it all
As the Indians have,
Almost extinct
As the buffalo calf.
Beautiful creatures
Who stand with pride,
Few do live
And most have died.
His last request
Is a howl at the moon,
Telling his brothers
We'll be extinct real soon.
If Ты look into his eyes
Ты will see a tear,
His howl he bellows
Is all Ты will hear.
If mankind would stop
And try to save,
The волк would flourish
Again one day.
Let's save these beautiful
Mystical eyes,
To tell еще tales
That are so wise.
The eyes of the wolf
Has tales to tell,
His howl at the moon
We know so well.