Dusty Star Part 1

Dusty Star.

by Olaf Baker.

PART I

CHAPTER I

CARBOONA'S SECRET

In an old badger-hole among a maze of bramble-brakes and ancient thickets of thorn and juniper covering the foot of one of Carboona's eastern spurs, one morning very early, as Little-Sweet-Voice, the white-throated sparrow, was singing his earliest song, a great event took place.

It was twilight in the badger-hole, and only persons accustomed to odds and ends of day-light could have seen what was going on. Not that it mattered. The only person to whom it could have mattered was a grey mother-wolf, and she did not need the light.

The badger-hole had been enlarged, and specially arranged for the event, without the badgers having been consulted. This wasn't as rude as it sounds, for the simple reason that there hadn't been any badgers to consult. Long before the mother-wolf and her mate had gone apartment-hunting, the badgers had moved deeper into Carboona, leaving no address. Now that it was more roomy and better aired, it was a pleasant place enough so long as you didn't stub your nose against a jagged stump of pine root that pierced the northern wall. True it was a little damp in places, and got noticeably stuffier as you went further in; but it was a good wolf stuffiness, and helped to give the true home smell that warned strangers that all interfering noses had best keep out of the way.

Before Little-Sweet-Voice, at the tip of his fir-branch high over the hole, had come to the end of his song, seven baby wolves had got themselves born.

Seven little blind, hairless, helpless things that hadn't an inch of beauty between them; seven little flabby uglinesses that could do nothing but wriggle and suck. But such as they were, the old wolf loved her ugly babies with all her wolfish heart. For a long time no one--not even the father wolf--saw them but herself. A better place for being secret than the hole among the bramble-brakes she could not have chosen.

The great old thorn-trees, with their twisty stems and th.o.r.n.y branches which had been growing twistier and thornier through countless moons, stretched their gnarled limbs high above the den and guarded endless secrecies as countless as the moons. And the brambles reached their twisted tangles this way and that in a bewildering labyrinth of thorns.

While, dotting all the upper slopes, the junipers, large and little, stood up in dusk battalions above the lonely land. None but the wild furred feet of the wilderness ever went that way. In all its mazy length the print of human moccasins had never slurred the undergrowth trails.

Even the wild creatures themselves did not greatly frequent it, by reason of its mighty growth of thorns, so that even among the long solitudes of Carboona, it was a loneliness apart.

It was some time before the little wolves got any idea of the outside thorniness and brambleness which hid them from the public gaze. All they knew of the world was the good smell and the good gloom of the badger-hole, where, as soon as their eyes were opened after the nine days, they could make out the immense grey ma.s.s of their mother, who came and went mysteriously, a mountain of warmth and food. And here, in the perpetual twilight, they slept and sucked, and sprawled and tumbled, and occasionally went tremendous expeditions, and stubbed their noses against the pine root that struck like a savage promontory into the abyss.

Not until they were several weeks old, and were really getting very troublesome in the den, did the patient old mother allow them their first glimpse of the world; and then only after she had taken every possible precaution to safeguard against anything, bird, beast and human, being on the watch.

The first coming out of the cubs into the sunlight was a wonderful affair. The old mother, having first scoured the country on all sides to see that no danger was lurking near, put her nose into the mouth of the den, and made a low noise in her throat. Instantly there was a hollow thumping and scurrying and scrambling and yelping, and then the badger-hole became a miniature volcano that shot seven small wolf-bodies into the light.

Out they tumbled, seven little furry fatnesses, with pointed noses, and p.r.i.c.ked ears, and tiny black eyes that blinked nervously in the sun. And there they sat for a while in unspeakable amazement, and stared and blinked, and blinked and stared, and wondered where they were.

The first to move was a cub the merest trifle larger than the rest. He ran a few steps in an uncertain wobbling manner, stubbed his nose against a stone, yelped, backed almost as fast as he had gone forward, lost his balance on an old mole-hill, and rolled over on his back. And this was his first experience of the unevenness of the world. After that he lay and kicked, struggling with all his baby might to get right side up again. And his six brothers and sisters observed him from their superior elevation of six inches, and never offered to help; till, all of a sudden, it occurred to them what a glorious opportunity his upside-downness presented to them, and rolled down upon him in a body.

During the scuffle which followed, the old mother sat and watched with admiring love. When the babies rolled over on their backs, or came to mimic disaster with roots or stones, she let them recover themselves as best they could, and learn by experience what were the hard things in the world and what the soft. And when she considered they had been long enough out of doors, she packed them back to bed again, and went off to hunt.

The cubs had played out of doors many times, and had grown quite used to the look of the bramble-brakes and the great thorns, and that immense hot roundness that went dazzling down behind the western peaks, when, one evening, the wolf-mother came upon a strange trail. Of all the creatures upon Carboona there was not one with whose body-scent and foot-scent she was not familiar. When the merest ghosts of scent came wafting along the tides of the summer air, her nose disentangled them delicately and never gave the right smell to the wrong owner. But the smell of the strange trail puzzled her. It belonged to neither bear, badger, fox, wolf, lynx nor caribou. It was buckskin, and yet not wholly buckskin; it was buckskin with something inside it which certainly was not buck.

The strange trail did not cross the brakes. That was fortunate, but it came dangerously near their northern extremity, and then turned east.

The wolf followed it for a long distance till it pa.s.sed out of her home range, and then slowly retraced it through the darkening spruce woods, sniffing suspiciously as she went. A week later she hit upon the trail again. This time the smell was fainter, but the trail itself was more disturbing: it actually touched the upper slopes where the junipers went black against the moon.

Three nights later Carboona's watching eyes saw an unaccustomed sight.

They saw a gaunt grey shape pa.s.s silently and swiftly between the junipers in the light of the setting moon. From the jaws of the shape, a wolf-cub hung, very limp--swaying a little as its bearer trotted.

Past the junipers, past the beds of wild raspberries, over the granite-covered shoulder of the hill, deep into the black heart of the spruce woods, the old wolf went. She knew her way, though her eyes saw no trail. She had pa.s.sed that way before, during the days and nights when her heart misgave her, because of the strange trail, and the knowledge that a new presence had come into the woods. She had no fear of the forest, so long as it lay far from the trail, and the thing she distrusted. For all that, the great secrecy that was upon her made her shun the open places where the moonlight glared, and keep rather to the good grey glooms where her body melted among the shadows, and seemed itself a shade. And the little furry fatness hanging helpless from her jaws gave itself up limply to its mother's will, and to the vast movement of the night.

The new den she had chosen as a refuge for her cubs lay among the innermost recesses of Carboona, below the granite peaks. No brakes here, no watching junipers: a waste of rock and scrub, scored by deep ravines and dried beds of water-courses that thundered in the thaw.

But black and inhospitable though the region was, it possessed the one thing dear to uneasy motherhood--absolute loneliness. She had dug the den herself, enlarging a natural hollow beside an enormous rock. Not even the father wolf himself knew as yet where the new den was; for by the unwritten law of wolf-life he was banished from the home during the infancy of the cubs.

Here the old wolf deposited her baby, leaving it in s.h.i.+vering loneliness to grow used to the new home as best it might till its brothers and sisters were brought to join it. Five times more the mother made the long double journey, each time carrying a cub. As she returned to the old den on the sixth and last time, the sun was already high above the eastern hills.

The last cub was not in a happy frame of mind. One by one, its brothers and sisters had been taken away from it, which meant that, as each hairy little bundle of warmth went out under the moon, the warmth in the den was that much the less. And when the fifth had followed the way of the others, the remaining cub felt solitary indeed.

At first he lay perfectly still, for that was his mother's command, though she had not put it into words. The deep mother-wisdom that warms the wits of the wild creatures has its own mysterious ways of conveying its meaning. "Lie still!" is one of the very first lessons a mother teaches her young. "Run home!" follows close upon it. To disobey either may mean death.

It grew colder in the den and lonelier. The last cub didn't want to disobey and he really did try to go to sleep; but cold and loneliness are uneasy bed-fellows, and he had a sort of feeling that perhaps if he went to the den door, he might find out where the rest of the family were. The little fat body lay curled up close, and, in spite of the warmth the family had left behind, tiny s.h.i.+vers shook it every now and then.

It was no use any longer pretending to go to sleep. The small bright eyes opened wide, and stared into the shadow that glimmered with the moon. And suddenly, out of the shadow, Fear came, and the cub s.h.i.+vered with something worse than cold. He had never been frightened before. It was a new and terrible experience. It was in his head; it was in his stomach; the thing was all over him; the very den was full.

He lay for a long time, trembling, and whimpering in a small smothered way. He hoped his mother might hear him, and come back; yet he did not dare to cry too loud lest other ears might catch the sound and lead some prowling enemy to the den. Dawn was just beginning to break when at length he could bear it no longer, and, in spite of his mother's strict command, he crawled to the mouth of the den.

With wide-open, frightened eyes, he stared out into the world. On the bramble-sprays the dew lay thickly. Dew was grey on the gra.s.s round the trodden doorway of the den. It was a damp world that glimmered in the yellow gleam of the dawn. Beyond the brambles lay the trees, beyond the trees, the rocky peaks; beyond the utmost peak, the blue vastness where the eagles have their trails. It all made the cub feel dreadfully small, dreadfully alone.

Yet somewhere out there, in the wet grey world of the dawn, his mother and the family were to be found. He put his baby nose to the ground and sniffed. The family smell was plain all about the doorway. A faint trail of it seemed to lead off towards the junipers, but when he took a step or two in that direction the trail was drowned in dew. He went back to the den-door, paused to sniff again, and set off in the opposite direction.

Why he went that way, he could not tell. Once he had started, he did not think of turning back. To return meant the den again. He had a distrust of the den. It was in the den that he had first known fear.

He went on for what seemed to him an endless distance among enormous jungles of bramble and fern. No sign of his mother, or the other cubs, nor any faintest whiff of the heavy family smell! Once a rabbit, leaping past, scared him out of his wits; and once--how his heart thumped with terror as he pressed himself close to the ground!--a great dog-fox went slinking to windward, spilling the musk of his murderous self into the telltale air.

For some time after the fox had disappeared, the cub crouched where he was, too terrified to stir. Then, bit by bit, his courage came to him again, and he went cautiously on his way.

He had just reached the end of the thickets, where the forest proper began, and was plucking up heart to enter the shade of the giant trees, when a new terror presented itself, and he crouched low as before. But this time it was no fox, lynx, or other four-footed enemy that threatened him. It was a creature that stood on two hind feet, with its fore-paws by its side, and an eagle feather in its hair.

The cub narrowed his eyes till they were as good as shut, with only the tiniest slit between their lids through which it could see the strange adornments the creature wore on its feet. He hoped, if he lay as motionless as a stone, that the creature would not notice him. When hunting was afoot, absolute stillness would often serve to hide you as effectually as a cover of leaves. In his utter ignorance of the world, he could have no idea of an Indian's piercing sight.

There was a swift movement, noiseless as the swoop of an owl's wing, and before he could open his eyes, he felt himself seized by the back of the neck and swung into the air.

When the mother-wolf reached the den for the sixth and last time, her fine sense told her in an instant that something was wrong. She entered the den with misgiving. As she feared, it was empty. Her nose found the trail immediately; but it was growing a little stale, for the sun was high now, and it had been made in the dawn dew. Nevertheless, the mother-pa.s.sion within her sharpened the keenness of her scent, and off she went at a swift trot. Every time the cub had stopped, she sniffed eagerly, as if to drink his very body through her nose. When she took up the fainter trail of his movement, an uneasy light glittered in her eyes. Woe to the creature, whatever it was, which had dared to harm him, if she should find a second trail!

Where the maze of the thickets ended and the forest began she stopped dead, her hair bristling, her eyes alight. Here was the spot of the cub's capture! Here was the second trail! As she sniffed, and learnt the record told in smell, her anger rose. But with the anger went misgiving, and the uneasiness of fear; for here she recognized again the trail of the new presence upon Carboona, the dread of which had caused her to seek another den. The trail went straight into the forest, in a south-easterly direction. With the utmost caution the mother-wolf took it up, in a swift, noiseless lope, pa.s.sing deeper and deeper into the vast wilderness of spruce and pine that went descending, always descending, towards the basin of the world. But long before it reached the lowest levels, the trail turned due east through the mighty gorge that sucks the prairie wind into Carboona's bosom like an enormous throat. Through the gorge went the old wolf, sniffing, peering, listening--every sense strained to the utmost, for now the buckskin scent was strong upon the ground, and the trail was very new.

Just where the gorge began to deepen at its western extremity, the wolf caught sight of a creature moving, the like of which she had never seen before. It was like a wolf that went upon its hind legs, and yet it was certainly not a wolf. Its gait was slow, yet certain, with a free, elastic movement that seemed to drink the wind.

The wolf slackened her pace, crouching so low as she went that the longer hairs on her belly swept the ground. Nearer and nearer she drew in her soundless progress, and as the distance lessened between her and her mysterious foe, the green fire in her eyes glittered more dangerously, for now her senses told her what her heart and brain had already guessed. _She saw the little shape that lay in the Indian's arm!_

And in spite of the unseen danger slowly but surely drawing upon him down the dark throat of the gorge, the Indian's elastic stride never faltered, as he proceeded towards the spot where he had hobbled his pony beside the camp of the evening before. And yet, before it was too late, the warning came.

He heard nothing; he saw nothing. That strange sense which seems to belong to the wild creatures, and the wild people, only, woke in the dark places of his brain. He turned his head quickly over his shoulder, sweeping the gorge with a piercing glance. He saw the fir-trees bracing themselves in the clefts of the precipice; he saw the tangled curtains of clematis and vine; he saw the ancient tree-trunks that went on dropping to decay through a thousand moons. One thing only he missed--the gaunt grey shadow where two points of light smouldered dully in the shelter of a rock.

Having satisfied himself that nothing living was in sight, he continued on his way.

As for the wolf-cub, he had long given up all attempts to escape. The continuous movement, together with the warmth of his captor's body, produced a soothing effect upon him, and he made no fresh effort to regain his freedom.

Suddenly, part of a rock on the Indian's right seemed to split and launch itself into the air, with a rasping, tearing noise between a growl and a snarl. Quick as a weazel, the Indian leaped aside. The long fangs, intended for his throat, missed their mark by half an inch, but struck his shoulder with a clash of meeting bone. Instantly he whipped out his knife, and stabbed fiercely at his foe. As he did so, the wolf leaped away. She, in her turn, was the fraction of a second too late.

She snarled as she felt the blade. At the sound of his mother's unexpected voice, the cub gave a bleating cry. The noise seemed to send a wave of fury through her. Once more she sprang with eyeb.a.l.l.s that blazed.