Books: Nomads Of The North

J >> James Oliver Curwood >> Nomads Of The North

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The roaring grew more distinct. It seemed on all sides of them.
But it was from the south that there came the first storm of ash
rushing noiselessly ahead of the fire, and after that the smoke.
It was then that Miki turned with a strange whine but it was Neewa
now who took the lead--Neewa, whose forebears had ten thousand
times run this same wild race with death in the centuries since
their world was born. He did not need the keenness of far vision
now. He KNEW. He knew what was behind, and what was on either
side, and where the one trail to safety lay; and in the air he
felt and smelled the thing that was death. Twice Miki made efforts
to swing their course into the east, but Neewa would have none of
it. With flattened ears he went on NORTH. Three times Miki stopped
to turn and face the galloping menace behind them, but never for
an instant did Neewa pause. Straight on--NORTH, NORTH, NORTH--
north to the higher lands, the big waters, the open plains.

They were not alone. A caribou sped past them with the swiftness
of the wind itself. "FAST, FAST, FAST!"--Neewa's instinct cried;
"but--ENDURE! For the caribou, speeding even faster than the fire,
will fall of exhaustion shortly and be eaten up by the flames.
FAST--but ENDURE!"

And steadily, stoically, at his loping gait Neewa led on.

A bull moose swung half across their trail from the west, wind-
gone and panting as though his throat were cut. He was badly
burned, and running blindly into the eastern wall of fire.

Behind and on either side, where the flames were rushing on with
the pitiless ferocity of hunnish regiments, the harvest of death
was a vast and shuddering reality. In hollow logs, under
windfalls, in the thick tree-tops, and in the earth itself, the
smaller things of the wilderness sought their refuge--and died.
Rabbits became leaping balls of flame, then lay shrivelled and
black; the marten were baked in their trees; fishers and mink and
ermine crawled into the deepest corners of the windfalls and died
there by inches; owls fluttered out of their tree-tops, staggered
for a few moments in the fiery air, and fell down into the heart
of the flame. No creature made a sound--except the porcupines; and
as they died they cried like little children.

In the green spruce and cedar timber, heavy with the pitch that
made their thick tops spurt into flame like a sea of explosive,
the fire rushed on with a tremendous roar. From it--in a straight
race--there was no escape for man or beast. Out of that world of
conflagration there might have risen one great, yearning cry to
heaven: WATER--WATER--WATER! Wherever there was water there was
also hope--and life. Breed and blood and wilderness feuds were
forgotten in the great hour of peril. Every lake became a haven of
refuge.

To such a lake came Neewa, guided by an unerring instinct and
sense of smell sharpened by the rumble and roar of the storm of
fire behind him. Miki had "lost" himself; his senses were dulled;
his nostrils caught no scent but that of a world in flames--so,
blindly, he followed his comrade. The fire was enveloping the lake
along its western shore, and its water was already thickly
tenanted. It was not a large lake, and almost round. Its diameter
was not more than two hundred yards. Farther out--a few of them
swimming, but most of them standing on bottom with only their
heads out of water--were a score of caribou and moose. Many other
shorter-legged creatures were swimming aimlessly, turning this way
and that, paddling their feet only enough to keep afloat. On the
shore where Neewa and Miki paused was a huge porcupine, chattering
and chuckling foolishly, as if scolding all things in general for
having disturbed him at dinner. Then he took to the water. A
little farther up the shore a fisher-cat and a fox hugged close to
the water line, hesitating to wet their precious fur until death
itself snapped at their heels; and as if to bring fresh news of
this death a second fox dragged himself wearily out on the shore,
as limp as a wet rag after his swim from the opposite shore, where
the fire was already leaping in a wall of flame. And as this fox
swam in, hoping to find safety, an old bear twice as big as Neewa,
crashed panting from the undergrowth, plunged into the water, and
swam OUT. Smaller things were creeping and crawling and slinking
along the shore; little red-eyed ermine, marten, and mink,
rabbits, squirrels, and squeaking gophers, and a horde of mice.
And at last, with these things which he would have devoured so
greedily running about him, Neewa waded slowly out into the water.
Miki followed until he was submerged to his shoulders. Then he
stopped. The fire was close now, advancing like a race-horse. Over
the protecting barrier of thick timber drove the clouds of smoke
and ash. Swiftly the lake became obliterated, and now out of that
awful chaos of blackness and smoke and heat there rose strange and
thrilling cries; the bleating of a moose calf that was doomed to
die and the bellowing, terror-filled response of its mother; the
agonized howling of a wolf; the terrified barking of a fox, and
over all else the horrible screaming of a pair of loons whose home
had been transformed into a sea of flame.

Through the thickening smoke and increasing heat Neewa gave his
call to Miki as he began to swim, and with an answering whine Miki
plunged after him, swimming so close to his big black brother that
his muzzle touched the other's flank. In mid-lake Neewa did as the
other swimming creatures were doing--paddled only enough to keep
himself afloat; but for Miki, big of bone and unassisted by a
life-preserver of fat, the struggle was not so easy. He was forced
to swim to keep afloat. A dozen times he circled around Neewa, and
then, with something of the situation driven upon him, he came up
close to the bear and rested his forepaws on his shoulders.

The lake was now encircled by a solid wall of fire. Blasts of
flame shot up the pitch-laden trees and leapt for fifty feet into
the blistering air. The roar of the conflagration was deafening.
It drowned all sound that brute agony and death may have made. And
its heat was terrific. For a few terrible minutes the air which
Miki drew into his lungs was like fire itself. Neewa plunged his
head under water every few seconds, but it was not Miki's instinct
to do this. Like the wolf and the fox and the fisher-cat and the
lynx it was his nature to die before completely submerging
himself.

Swift as it had come the fire passed; and the walls of timber that
had been green a few moments before were black and shrivelled and
dead; and sound swept on with the flame until it became once more
only a low and rumbling murmur.

To the black and smouldering shores the live things slowly made
their way. Of all the creatures that had taken refuge in the lake
many had died. Chief of those were the porcupines. All had
drowned.

Close to the shore the heat was still intense, and for hours the
earth was hot with smouldering fire. All the rest of that day and
the night that followed no living thing moved out of the shallow
water. And yet no living thing thought to prey upon its neighbour.
The great peril had made of all beasts kin.

A little before dawn of the day following the fire relief came. A
deluge of rain fell, and when day broke and the sun shone through
a murky heaven there was left no sign of what the lake had been,
except for the dead bodies that floated on its surface or lined
its shores. The living things had returned into their desolated
wilderness--and among them Neewa and Miki.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

For many days after the Great Fire it was Neewa who took the lead.
All their world was a black and lifeless desolation and Miki would
not have known which way to turn. Had it been a local fire of
small extent he would have "wandered" out of its charred path. But
the conflagration had been immense. It had swept over a vast reach
of country, and for a half of the creatures who had saved
themselves in the lakes and streams there was only a death by
starvation left.

But not for Neewa and his breed. Just as there had been no
indecision in the manner and direction of his flight before the
fire so there was now no hesitation in the direction he chose to
seek a live world again. It was due north and west--as straight as
a die. If they came to a lake, and went around it, Neewa would
always follow the shore until he came directly opposite his trail
on the other side of the lake--and then strike north and west
again. He travelled steadily, not only by day but also by night,
with only short intervals of rest, and the dawning of the second
morning found Miki more exhausted than the bear.

There were many evidences now that they had reached a point where
the fire had begun to burn itself out. Patches of green timber
were left standing, there were swamps unscathed by the flames, and
here and there they came upon green patches of meadow. In the
swamps and timber they feasted, for these oases in what had been a
sea of flame were filled with food ready to be preyed upon and
devoured. For the first time Neewa refused to stop because there
was plenty to eat. The sixth day they were a hundred miles from
the lake in which they had sought refuge from the fire.

It was a wonderful country of green timber, of wide plains and of
many lakes and streams--cut up by a thousand usayow (low ridges),
which made the best of hunting. Because it was a country of many
waters, with live streams running between the ridges and from lake
to lake, it had not suffered from the drought like the country
farther south. For a month Neewa and Miki hunted in their new
paradise, and became fat and happy again.

It was in September that they came upon a strange thing in the
edge of a swamp. At first Miki thought that it was a cabin; but it
was a great deal smaller than any cabin he had known. It was not
much larger than the cage of saplings in which Le Beau had kept
him. But it was made of heavy logs, and the logs were notched so
that nothing could knock them down. And these logs, instead of
lying closely one on the other, had open spaces six or eight
inches wide between them. And there was a wide-open door. From
this strange contraption there came a strong odour of over-ripened
fish. The smell repelled Miki. But it was a powerful attraction to
Neewa, who persisted in remaining near it in spite of all Miki
could do to drag him away. Finally, disgusted at his comrade's bad
taste, Miki sulked off alone to hunt. It was some time after that
before Neewa dared to thrust his head and shoulders through the
opening. The smell of the fish made his little eyes gleam.
Cautiously he stepped inside the queer looking thing of logs.
Nothing happened. He saw the fish, all he could eat, just on the
other side of a sapling against which he must lean to reach them.
He went deliberately to the sapling, leaned over, and then!--

"CRASH!"

He whirled about as if shot. There was no longer an opening where
he had entered. The sapling "trigger" had released an over-head
door, and Neewa was a prisoner. He was not excited, but accepted
the situation quite coolly, probably having no doubt in his mind
that somewhere there was an aperture between the logs large enough
for him to squeeze through. After a few inquisitive sniffs he
proceeded to devour the fish. He was absorbed in his odoriferous
feast when out of a clump of dwarf balsams a few yards away
appeared an Indian. He quickly took in the situation, turned, and
disappeared.

Half an hour later this Indian ran into a clearing in which were
the recently constructed buildings of a new Post. He made for the
Company store. In the fur-carpeted "office" of this store a man
was bending fondly over a woman. The Indian saw them as he
entered, and chuckled. "Sakehewawin" ("the love couple"); that was
what they had already come to call them at Post Lac Bain--this man
and woman who had given them a great feast when the missioner had
married them not so very long ago. The man and the woman stood up
when the Indian entered, and the woman smiled at him. She was
beautiful. Her eyes were glowing, and there was the flush of a
flower in her cheeks. The Indian felt the worship of her warm in
his heart.

"Oo-ee, we have caught the bear," he said. "But it is napao (a he-
bear). There is no cub, Iskwao Nanette!"

The white man chuckled.

"Aren't we having the darndest luck getting you a cub for a house-
pet, Nanette?" he asked. "I'd have sworn this mother and her cub
would have been easily caught. A he-bear! We'll have to let him
loose, Mootag. His pelt is good for nothing. Do you want to go
with us and see the fun, Nanette?"

She nodded, her little laugh filled with the joy of love and life.

"Oui. It will be such fun--to see him go!"

Challoner led the way, with an axe in his hand; and with him came
Nanette, her hand in his. Mootag followed with his rifle, prepared
for an emergency. From the thick screen of balsams Challoner
peered forth, then made a hole through which Nanette might look at
the cage and its prisoner. For a moment or two she held her breath
as she watched Neewa pacing back and forth, very much excited now.
Then she gave a little cry, and Challoner felt her fingers pinch
his own sharply. Before he knew what she was about to do she had
thrust herself through the screen of balsams.

Close to the log prison, faithful to his comrade in the hour of
peril, lay Miki. He was exhausted from digging at the earth under
the lower log, and he had not smelled or heard anything of the
presence of others until he saw Nanette standing not twenty paces
away. His heart leapt up into his panting throat. He swallowed, as
though to get rid of a great lump; he stared. And then, with a
sudden, yearning whine, he sprang toward her. With a yell
Challoner leapt out of the balsams with uplifted axe. But before
the axe could fall, Miki was in Nanette's arms, and Challoner
dropped his weapon with a gasp of amazement--and one word:

"MIKI!"

Mootag, looking on in stupid astonishment, saw both the man and
the woman making a great fuss over a strange and wild-looking
beast that looked as if it ought to be killed. They had forgotten
the bear. And Miki, wildly joyous at finding his beloved master
and mistress, had forgotten him also. It was a prodigious WHOOF
from Neewa himself that brought their attention to him. Like a
flash Miki was back at the pen smelling of Neewa's snout between
two of the logs, and with a great wagging of tail trying to make
him understand what had happened.

Slowly, with a thought born in his head that made him oblivious of
all else but the big black brute in the pen, Challoner approached
the trap. Was it possible that Miki could have made friends with
any other bear than the cub of long ago? He drew in a deep breath
as he looked at them. Neewa's brown-tipped nose was thrust between
two of the logs and MIKI WAS LICKING IT WITH HIS TONGUE! He held
out a hand to Nanette, and when she came to him he pointed for a
space, without speaking.

Then he said:

"It is the cub, Nanette. You know--the cub I have told you about.
They've stuck together all this time--ever since I killed the
cub's mother a year and a half ago, and tied them together on a
piece of rope. I understand now why Miki ran away from us when we
were at the cabin. He went back--to the bear."

To-day if you strike northward from Le Pas and put your canoe in
the Rat River or Grassberry waterways, and thence paddle and run
with the current down the Reindeer River and along the east shore
of Reindeer Lake you will ultimately come to the Cochrane--and
Post Lac Bain. It is one of the most wonderful countries in all
the northland. Three hundred Indians, breeds and French, come with
their furs to Lac Bain. Not a soul among them--man, woman, or
child--but knows the story of the "tame bear of Lac Bain"--the pet
of l'ange, the white angel, the Factor's wife.

The bear wears a shining collar and roams at will in the company
of a great dog, but, having grown huge and fat now, never wanders
far from the Post. And it is an unwritten law in all that country
that the animal must not be harmed, and that no bear traps shall
be set within five miles of the Company buildings. Beyond that
limit the bear never roams; and when it comes cold, and he goes
into his long sleep, he crawls into a deep warm cavern that has
been dug for him under the Company storehouse. And with him, when
the nights come, sleeps Miki the dog.

THE END

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