The Voice of the Pack Part 19

"The second reason is that it's the one hope we have left. I take it that none of us are deceived on that point. And no man can die tamely--if he is a man--while there's a chance. I mean a young man, like me,--not one who is old and tired. It sounds perfectly silly to talk about finding Cranston's winter quarters, and then, with my bare hands, conquering him, taking his food and his blankets and his snowshoes and his rifle to fight away these wolves, and bringing 'em back here."

"You wouldn't be barehanded," the girl reminded him. "You could have the pistol."

He didn't even seem to hear her. "I've been thinking about it. It's a long, long chance--much worse than the chance we had of getting out by straight walking. I think we could have made it, if the wolves had kept off and the snowshoe hadn't broken. It would have nearly killed us, but I believe we could have got out. That's why I didn't try this other way first. A man with his bare hands hasn't much of a chance against another with a rifle, and I don't want you to be too hopeful. And of course, the hardest problem is finding his camp.

"But I do feel sure of one thing: that he is back to his old trapping line on the North Fork--somewhere south of here--and his camp is somewhere on the river. I think he would have gone there so that he could cut off any attempt I might make to get through with those letters. My plan is to start back at an angle that will carry me between the North Fork and our old house. Somewhere in there I'll find his tracks, the tracks he made when he first came over to burn up the house.

I suppose he was careful to mix 'em up after once he arrived there, but the first part of the way he likely walked straight toward the house from his camp. Somewhere, if I go that way, I'll cross his trail--within ten miles at least. Then I'll back-track him to his camp."

"And never come back!" the girl cried.

"Maybe not. But at least everything that can be done will be done.

Nothing will be left. No regrets. We will have made the last trial. I'm not going to waste any time, s...o...b..rd. The sooner we get your fire built the better."

"Father and I are to stay here--?"

"What else can you do?" He went back to his traces and drew the sled one hundred yards farther. He didn't seem to see the gaunt wolf that backed off into the shadows as he approached. He refused to notice that the pack seemed to be steadily growing bolder. Human hunters usually had guns that could blast and destroy from a distance; but even an animal intelligence could perceive that these three seemed to be without this means of inflicting death. A wolf is ever so much more intelligent than a crow,--yet a crow shows little fear of an unarmed man and is wholly unapproachable by a boy with a gun. The ugly truth was simply that in their increasing madness and excitement and hunger, they were becoming less and less fearful of these three strange humans with the sled.

It was not a good place for a camp. They worked a long time before they cleared a little patch of ground of its snow mantle. Dan cut a number of saplings--laboriously with his ax--and built a fire with the comparatively dry core of a dead tree. True, it was feeble and flickering, but as good as could be hoped for, considering the difficulties under which he worked. The dead logs under the snow were soaked with water from the rains and the thaws. The green wood that he cut smoked without blazing.

"No more time to be lost," Dan told s...o...b..rd. "It lies in your hands to keep the fire burning. And don't leave the circle of the firelight without that pistol in your hand."

"You don't mean," she asked, unbelieving, "that you are going to go out there to fight Cranston--unarmed?"

"Of course, s...o...b..rd. You must keep the pistol."

"But it means death; that's all it means. What chance would you have against a man with a rifle? And as soon as you get away from this fire, the wolves will tear you to pieces."

"And what would you and your father do, if I took it? You can't get him into a tree. You can't build a big enough fire to frighten them. Please don't even talk about this matter, s...o...b..rd. My mind's made up. I think the pack will stay here. They usually--G.o.d knows how--know who is helpless and who isn't. Maybe with the gun, you will be able to save your lives."

"What's the chance of that?"

"You might--with one cartridge--kill one of the devils; and the others--but you know how they devour their own dead. That might break their famine enough so that they'd hold off until I can get back. That's the prize I'm playing for."

"And what if you don't get back?"

He took her hand in one of his, and with the other he caressed, for a single moment, the lovely flesh of her throat. The love he had for her spoke from his eyes,--such speech as no human vision could possibly mistake. Both of them were tingling and breathless with a great, sweet wonder.

"Never let those fangs tear that softness, while you live," he told her gently. "Never let that brave old man on the sled go to his death with the pack tearing at him. Cheat 'em, s...o...b..rd! Beat 'em the last minute, if no other way remains! Show 'em who's boss, after all--of all this forest."

"You mean--?" Her eyes widened.

"I mean that you must only spend one of those three sh.e.l.ls in fighting off the wolves. Save that till the moment you need it most. The other two must be saved--for something else."

She nodded, shuddering an instant at a menacing shadow that moved within sixty feet of the fire. The firelight half-blinded them, dim as it was, and they couldn't see into the darkness as well as they had before.

Except for strange, blue-yellow lights, close together and two and two about the fire, they might have thought that the pack was gone.

"Then good-by, Dan!" she told him. And she stretched up her arms. "The thing I said--that day on the hillside--doesn't hold any more."

His own arms encircled her, but he made no effort to claim her lips.

Lennox watched them quietly; in this moment of crisis not even pretending to look away. Dan shook his head to her entreating eyes. "It isn't just a kiss, darling," he told her soberly. "It goes deeper than that. It's a symbol. It was your word, too, and mine; and words can't be broken, things being as they are. Can't I make you understand?"

She nodded. His eyes burned. Perhaps she didn't understand, as far as actual functioning of the brain was concerned. But she reached up to him, as women--knowing life in the concrete rather than the abstract--have always reached up to men; and she dimly caught the gleam of some eternal principle and right behind his words. This strong man of the mountains had given his word, had been witness to her own promise to him and to herself, and a law that goes down to the roots of life prevented him from claiming the kiss.

Many times, since the world was new, comfort--happiness--life itself have been contingent on the breaking of a law. Yet in spite of what seemed common sense, even though no punishment would forthcome if it were broken, the law has been kept. It was this way now. It wouldn't have been just a kiss such as boys and girls have always had in the moonlight. It meant the symbolic renunciation of the debt that Dan owed Cranston,--a debt that in his mind might possibly go unpaid, but which no weight of circ.u.mstance could make him renounce.

His longing for her lips pulled at the roots of him. But by the laws of his being he couldn't claim them until the debt incurred on the hillside, months ago, had been paid; to take them now meant to dull the fine edge of his resolve to carry the issue through to the end, to dim the star that led him, to weaken him, by bending now, for the test to come. He didn't know why. It had its font in the deep wells of the spirit. Common sense can't reveal how the holy man keeps strong the spirit by denying the flesh. It goes too deep for that. Dan kept to his consecration.

He did, however, kiss her hands, and he kissed the tears out of her eyes. Then he turned into the darkness and broke through the ring of the wolves.

VII

Dan Failing was never more thankful for his unerring sense of direction.

He struck off at a forty-five-degree angle between their late course and a direct road to the river, and he kept it as if by a surveyor's line.

All the old devices of the wilderness--the ridge on ridge that looked just alike, inclines that to the casual eye looked like downward slopes, streams that vanished beneath the snow, and the snow-mist blowing across the face of the landmarks--could not avail against him.

A half dozen of the wolves followed him at first. But perhaps their fierce eyes marked his long stride and his powerful body, and decided that their better chance was with the helpless man and the girl beside the flickering fire. They turned back, one by one. Dan kept straight on and in two hours crossed Cranston's trail.

It was perfectly plain in the moonlit snow. He began to back-track. He headed down a long slope and in an hour more struck the North Fork. He didn't doubt but that he would find Cranston in his camp, if he found the camp at all. The man had certainly returned to it immediately after setting fire to the buildings, if for no other reason than for food. It isn't well to be abroad on the wintry mountains without a supply of food; and Cranston would certainly know this fact.

Dan didn't know when a rifle bullet from some camp in the thickets would put an abrupt end to his advance. The brush grew high by the river, the elevation was considerably lower, and there might be one hundred camps out of the sight of the casual wayfarer. If Cranston should see him, mus.h.i.+ng across the moonlit snow, it would give him the most savage joy to open fire upon him with his rifle.

Dan's advance became more cautious. He was in a notable trapping region, and he might encounter Cranston's camp at any moment. His keen eyes searched the thickets, and particularly they watched the sky line for a faint glare that might mean a camp fire. He tried to walk silently. It wasn't an easy thing to do with awkward snowshoes; but the river drowned the little noise that he made. He tried to take advantage of the shelter of the thickets and the trees. Then, at the base of a little ridge, he came to a sudden halt.

He had estimated just right. Not two hundred yards distant, a camp fire flickered and glowed in the shelter of a great log. He saw it, by the most astounding good fortune, through a little rift in the trees. Ten feet on either side, and it was obscured.

He lost no time. He did not know when the wolves about s...o...b..rd's camp would lose the last of their cowardice. Yet he knew he must keep a tight grip on his self-control and not let the necessity of haste cost him his victory. He crept forward, step by step, placing his snowshoes with consummate care. When he was one hundred yards distant he saw that Cranston's camp was situated beside a little stream that flowed into the river and that--like the mountaineer he was--he had built a large lean-to reinforced with s...o...b..nks. The fire burned at its opening.

Cranston was not in sight; either he was absent from camp or asleep in his lean-to. The latter seemed the more likely.

Dan made a wide detour, coming in about thirty yards behind the construction. Still he moved with incredible caution. Never in his life had he possessed a greater mastery over his own nerves. His heart leaped somewhat fast in his breast; but this was the only wasted motion. It isn't easy to advance through such thickets without ever a misstep, without the rustle of a branch or the crack of a twig. Certain of the wild creatures find it easy; but men have forgotten how in too many centuries of cities and farms. It is hardly a human quality; and a spectator would have found a rather ghastly fascination in watching the lithe motions, the pa.s.sionless face, the hands that didn't shake at all.

But there were no spectators--unless the little band of wolves, stragglers from the pack that had gathered on the hills behind--watched with lighted eyes.

Dan went down at full length upon the snow and softly removed his snowshoes. They would be only an impediment in the close work that was sure to follow. He slid along the snow crust, clear to the mouth of the lean-to.

The moonlight poured through and showed the interior with rather remarkable plainness. Cranston was sprawled, half-sitting, half-lying on a tree-bough pallet near the rear wall. There was not the slightest doubt of the man's wakefulness. Dan heard him stir, and once--as if at the memory of his deed of the day before--he cursed in a savage whisper.

Although he was facing the opening of the lean-to, he was wholly unaware of Dan's presence. The latter had thrust his head at the side of the opening, and it was in shadow. Cranston seemed to be watching the great, white snow fields that lay in front, and for a moment Dan was at loss to explain this seeming vigil. Then he understood. The white field before him was part of the long ridge that the three of them would pa.s.s on their way to the valleys. Cranston had evidently antic.i.p.ated that the girl and the man would attempt to march out--even if he hadn't guessed they would try to take the helpless Lennox with them--and he wished to be prepared for emergencies. There might be sport to have with Dan, unarmed as he was. And his eyes were full of strange conjectures in regard to s...o...b..rd. Both would be exhausted now and helpless--

Dan's eyes encompa.s.sed the room: the piles of provisions heaped against the wall, the snowshoes beside the pallet, but most of all he wished to locate Cranston's rifle. Success or failure hung on that. He couldn't find it at first. Then he saw the glitter of its barrel in the moonlight,--leaning against a grub-box possibly six feet from Cranston and ten from himself.

His heart leaped. The best he had hoped for--for the sake of s...o...b..rd, not himself--was that he would be nearer to the gun than Cranston and would be able to seize it first. But conditions could be greatly worse than they were. If Cranston had actually had the weapon in his hands, the odds of battle would have been frightfully against Dan. It takes a certain length of time to seize, swing, and aim a rifle; and Dan felt that while he would be unable to reach it himself, Cranston could not procure it either, without giving Dan an opportunity to leap upon him.

In all his dreams, through the months of preparation, he had pictured it thus. It was the test at last.

The gun might be loaded, and still--in these days of safety devices--unready to fire; and the loss of a fraction of a second might enable Cranston to reach his knife. Thus Dan felt justified in ignoring the gun altogether and trusting--as he had most desired--to a battle of hands. And he wanted both hands free when he made his attack.

If Dan had been erect upon his feet, his course would have been an immediate leap on the shoulders of his adversary, running the risk of Cranston reaching his hunting knife in time. But the second that he would require to get to his feet would entirely offset this advantage.