Books: Nomads Of The North
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James Oliver Curwood >> Nomads Of The North
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Instantly the drone which Miki had heard changed into the angry
buzzing of a saw. Quick as a flash Neewa's mother would have had
the nest under her paws and the life crushed out of it, while
Neewa's tug had only served partly to dislodge the home of Ahmoo
and his dangerous tribe. And it happened that Ahmoo was at home
with three quarters of his warriors. Before Neewa could give the
nest a second tug they were piling out of it in a cloud and
suddenly a wild yell of agony rose out of Miki. Ahmoo himself had
landed on the end of the dog's nose. Neewa made no sound, but
stood for a moment swiping at his face with both paws, while Miki,
still yelling, ran the end of his crucified nose into the ground.
In another moment every fighter in Ahmoo's army was busy. Suddenly
setting up a bawling on his own account Neewa turned tail to the
nest and ran. Miki was not a hair behind him. In every square inch
of his tender hide he felt the red-hot thrust of a needle. It was
Neewa that made the most noise. His voice was one continuous bawl,
and to this bass Miki's soprano wailing added the touch which
would have convinced any passing Indian that the loup-garou devils
were having a dance.
Now that their foes were in disorderly flight the wasps, who are
rather a chivalrous enemy, would have returned to their upset
fortress had not Miki, in his mad flight, chosen one side of a
small sapling and Neewa the other--a misadventure that stopped
them with a force almost sufficient to break their necks.
Thereupon a few dozen of Ahmoo's rear guard started in afresh.
With his fighting blood at last aroused, Neewa swung out and
caught Miki where there was almost no hair on his rump. Already
half blinded, and so wrought up with pain and terror that he had
lost all sense of judgment or understanding, Miki believed that
the sharp dig of Neewa's razor-like claws was a deeper thrust than
usual of the buzzing horrors that overwhelmed him, and with a
final shriek he proceeded to throw a fit.
It was the fit that saved them. In his maniacal contortions he
swung around to Neewa's side of the sapling, when, with their
halter once more free from impediment, Neewa bolted for safety.
Miki followed, yelping at every jump. No longer did Neewa feel a
horror of the river. The instinct of his kind told him that he
wanted water, and wanted it badly. As straight as Challoner might
have set his course by a compass he headed for the stream, but he
had proceeded only a few hundred feet when they came upon a tiny
creek across which either of them could have jumped. Neewa jumped
into the water, which was four or five inches deep, and for the
first time in his life Miki voluntarily took a plunge. For a long
time they lay in the cooling rill.
The light of day was dim and hazy before Miki's eyes, and he was
beginning to swell from the tip of his nose to the end of his bony
tail. Neewa, being so much fat, suffered less. He could still see,
and, as the painful hours passed, a number of things were
adjusting themselves in his brain. All this had begun with the
man-beast. It was the man-beast who had taken his mother from him.
It was the man-beast who had chucked him into the dark sack, and
it was the man-beast who had FASTENED THE ROPE AROUND HIS NECK.
Slowly the fact was beginning to impinge itself upon him that the
rope was to blame for everything.
After a long time they dragged themselves out of the rivulet and
found a soft, dry hollow at the foot of a big tree. Even to Neewa,
who had the use of his eyes, it was growing dark in the deep
forest. The sun was far in the west. And the air was growing
chilly. Flat on his belly, with his swollen head between his fore
paws, Miki whined plaintively.
Again and again Neewa's eyes went to the rope as the big thought
developed itself in his head. He whined. It was partly a yearning
for his mother, partly a response to Miki. He drew closer to the
pup, filled with the irresistible desire for comradeship. After
all, it was not Miki who was to blame. It was the man-beast--and
THE ROPE!
The gloom of evening settled more darkly about them, and snuggling
himself still closer to the pup Neewa drew the rope between his
fore paws. With a little snarl he set his teeth in it. And then,
steadily, he began to chew. Now and then he growled, and in the
growl there was a peculiarly communicative note, as if he wished
to say to Miki:
"Don't you see?--I'm chewing this thing in two. I'll have it done
by morning. Cheer up! There's surely a better day coming."
CHAPTER SEVEN
The morning after their painful experience with the wasp's nest,
Neewa and Miki rose on four pairs of stiff and swollen legs to
greet a new day in the deep and mysterious forest into which the
accident of the previous day had thrown them. The spirit of
irrepressible youth was upon them, and, though Miki was so swollen
from the stings of the wasps that his lank body and overgrown legs
were more grotesque than ever, he was in no way daunted from the
quest of further adventure.
The pup's face was as round as a moon, and his head was puffed up
until Neewa might reasonably have had a suspicion that it was on
the point of exploding. But Miki's eyes--as much as could be seen
of them--were as bright as ever, and his one good ear and his one
half ear stood up hopefully as he waited for the cub to give some
sign of what they were going to do. The poison in his system no
longer gave him discomfort. He felt several sizes too large--but,
otherwise, quite well.
Neewa, because of his fat, exhibited fewer effects of his battle
with the wasps. His one outstanding defect was an entirely closed
eye. With the other, wide open and alert, he looked about him. In
spite of his one bad eye and his stiff legs he was inspired with
the optimism of one who at last sees fortune turning his way. He
was rid of the man-beast, who had killed his mother; the forests
were before him again, open and inviting, and the rope with which
Challoner had tied him and Miki together he had successfully
gnawed in two during the night. Having dispossessed himself of at
least two evils it would not have surprised him much if he had
seen Noozak, his mother, coming up from out of the shadows of the
trees. Thought of her made him whine. And Miki, facing the vast
loneliness of his new world, and thinking of his master, whined in
reply.
Both were hungry. The amazing swiftness with which their
misfortunes had descended upon them had given them no time in
which to eat. To Miki the change was more than astonishing; it was
overwhelming, and he held his breath in anticipation of some new
evil while Neewa scanned the forest about them.
As if assured by this survey that everything was right, Neewa
turned his back to the sun, which had been his mother's custom,
and set out.
Miki followed. Not until then did he discover that every joint in
his body had apparently disappeared. His neck was stiff, his legs
were like stilts, and five times in as many minutes he stubbed his
clumsy toes and fell down in his efforts to keep up with the cub.
On top of this his eyes were so nearly closed that his vision was
bad, and the fifth time he stumbled he lost sight of Neewa
entirely, and sent out a protesting wail. Neewa stopped and began
prodding with his nose under a rotten log. When Miki came up Neewa
was flat on his belly, licking up a colony of big red vinegar ants
as fast as he could catch them. Miki studied the proceeding for
some moments. It soon dawned upon him that Neewa was eating
something, but for the life of him he couldn't make out what it
was. Hungrily he nosed close to Neewa's foraging snout. He licked
with his tongue where Neewa licked, and he got only dirt. And all
the time Neewa was giving his jolly little grunts of satisfaction.
It was ten minutes before he hunted out the last ant and went on.
A little later they came to a small open space where the ground
was wet, and after sniffing about a bit, and focussing his one
good eye here and there, Neewa suddenly began digging. Very
shortly he drew out of the ground a white object about the size of
a man's thumb and began to crunch it ravenously between his jaws.
Miki succeeded in capturing a fair sized bit of it. Disappointment
followed fast. The thing was like wood; after rolling it in his
mouth a few times he dropped it in disgust, and Neewa finished the
remnant of the root with a thankful grunt.
They proceeded. For two heartbreaking hours Miki followed at
Neewa's heels, the void in his stomach increasing as the swelling
in his body diminished. His hunger was becoming a torture. Yet not
a bit to eat could he find, while Neewa at every few steps
apparently discovered something to devour. At the end of the two
hours the cub's bill of fare had grown to considerable
proportions. It included, among other things, half a dozen green
and black beetles; numberless bugs, both hard and soft; whole
colonies of red and black ants; several white grubs dug out of the
heart of decaying logs; a handful of snails; a young frog; the egg
of a ground-plover that had failed to hatch; and, in the vegetable
line, the roots of two camas and one skunk cabbage. Now and then
he pulled down tender poplar shoots and nipped the ends off.
Likewise he nibbled spruce and balsam gum whenever he found it,
and occasionally added to his breakfast a bit of tender grass.
A number of these things Miki tried. He would have eaten the frog,
but Neewa was ahead of him there. The spruce and balsam gum
clogged up his teeth and almost made him vomit because of its
bitterness. Between a snail and a stone he could find little
difference, and as the one bug he tried happened to be that
asafoetida-like creature known as a stink-bug he made no further
efforts in that direction. He also bit off a tender tip from a
ground-shoot, but instead of a young poplar it was Fox-bite, and
shrivelled up his tongue for a quarter of an hour. At last he
arrived at the conclusion that, up to date, the one thing in
Neewa's menu that he COULD eat was grass.
In the face of his own starvation his companion grew happier as he
added to the strange collection in his stomach. In fact, Neewa
considered himself in clover and was grunting his satisfaction
continually, especially as his bad eye was beginning to open and
he could see things better. Half a dozen times when he found fresh
ant nests he invited Miki to the feast with excited little
squeals. Until noon Miki followed like a faithful satellite at his
heels. The end came when Neewa deliberately dug into a nest
inhabited by four huge bumble-bees, smashed them all, and ate
them.
From that moment something impressed upon Miki that he must do his
own hunting. With the thought came a new thrill. His eyes were
fairly open now, and much of the stiffness had gone from his legs.
The blood of his Mackenzie father and of his half Spitz and half
Airedale mother rose up in him in swift and immediate demand, and
he began to quest about for himself. He found a warm scent, and
poked about until a partridge went up with a tremendous thunder of
wings. It startled him, but added to the thrill. A few minutes
later, nosing under a pile of brush, he came face to face with his
dinner.
It was Wahboo, the baby rabbit. Instantly Miki was at him, and had
a firm hold at the back of Wahboo's back. Neewa, hearing the
smashing of the brush and the squealing of the rabbit, stopped
catching ants and hustled toward the scene of action. The
squealing ceased quickly and Miki backed himself out and faced
Neewa with Wahboo held triumphantly in his jaws. The young rabbit
had already given his last kick, and with a fierce show of
growling Miki began tearing the fur off. Neewa edged in, grunting
affably. Miki snarled more fiercely. Neewa, undaunted, continued
to express his overwhelming regard for Miki in low and
supplicating grunts--and smelled the rabbit. The snarl in Miki's
throat died away. He may have remembered that Neewa had invited
him more than once to partake of his ants and bugs. Together they
ate the rabbit. Not until the last bit of flesh and the last
tender bone were gone did the feast end, and then Neewa sat back
on his round bottom and stuck out his little red tongue for the
first time since he had lost his mother. It was the cub sign of a
full stomach and a blissful mind. He could see nothing to be more
desired at the present time than a nap, and stretching himself
languidly he began looking about for a tree.
Miki, on the other hand, was inspired to new action by the
pleasurable sensation of being comfortably filled. Inasmuch as
Neewa chewed his food very carefully, while Miki, paying small
attention to mastication, swallowed it in chunks, the pup had
succeeded in getting away with about four fifths of the rabbit. So
he was no longer hungry. But he was more keenly alive to his
changed environment than at any time since he and Neewa had fallen
out of Challoner's canoe into the rapids. For the first time he
had killed, and for the first time he had tasted warm blood, and
the combination added to his existence an excitement that was
greater than any desire he might have possessed to lie down in a
sunny spot and sleep. Now that he had learned the game, the
hunting instinct trembled in every fibre of his small being. He
would have gone on hunting until his legs gave way under him if
Neewa had not found a napping-place.
Astonished half out of his wits he watched Neewa as he leisurely
climbed the trunk of a big poplar. He had seen squirrels climb
trees--just as he had seen birds fly--but Neewa's performance held
him breathless; and not until the cub had stretched himself out
comfortably in a crotch did Miki express himself. Then he gave an
incredulous yelp, sniffed at the butt of the tree, and made a
half-hearted experiment at the thing himself. One flop on his back
convinced him that Neewa was the tree-climber of the partnership.
Chagrined, he wandered back fifteen or twenty feet and sat down to
study the situation. He could not perceive that Neewa had any
special business up the tree. Certainly he was not hunting for
bugs. He yelped half a dozen times, but Neewa made no answer. At
last he gave it up and flopped himself down with a disconsolate
whine.
But it was not to sleep. He was ready and anxious to go on. He
wanted to explore still further the mysterious and fascinating
depths of the forest. He no longer felt the strange fear that had
been upon him before he killed the rabbit. In two minutes under
the brush-heap Nature had performed one of her miracles of
education. In those two minutes Miki had risen out of whimpering
puppyhood to new power and understanding. He had passed that
elemental stage which his companionship with Challoner had
prolonged. He had KILLED, and the hot thrill of it set fire to
every instinct that was in him. In the half hour during which he
lay flat on his belly, his head alert and listening, while Neewa
slept, he passed half way from puppyhood to dogdom. He would never
know that Hela, his Mackenzie hound father, was the mightiest
hunter in all the reaches of the Little Fox country, and that
alone he had torn down a bull caribou. But he FELT it. There was
something insistent and demanding in the call. And because he was
answering that call, and listening eagerly to the whispering
voices of the forest, his quick ears caught the low, chuckling
monotone of Kawook, the porcupine.
Miki lay very still. A moment later he heard the soft clicking of
quills, and then Kawook came out in the open and stood up on his
hind feet in a patch of sunlight.
For thirteen years Kawook had lived undisturbed in this particular
part of the wilderness, and in his old age he weighed thirty
pounds if he weighed an ounce. On this afternoon, coming for his
late dinner, he was feeling even more than usually happy. His
eyesight at best was dim. Nature had never intended him to see
very far, and had therefore quilted him heavily with the barbed
shafts of his protecting armour. Thirty feet away he was entirely
oblivious of Miki, at least apparently so; and Miki hugged the
ground closer, warned by the swiftly developing instinct within
him that here was a creature it would be unwise to attack.
For perhaps a minute Kawook stood up, chuckling his tribal song
without any visible movement of his body. He stood profile to
Miki, like a fat alderman. He was so fat that his stomach bulged
out in front like the half of a balloon, and over this stomach his
hands were folded in a peculiarly human way, so that he looked
more like an old she-porcupine than a master in his tribe.
It was not until then that Miki observed Iskwasis, the young
female porcupine, who had poked herself slyly out from under a
bush near Kawook. In spite of his years the red thrill of romance
was not yet gone from the old fellow's bones, and he immediately
started to give an exhibition of his good breeding and elegance.
He began with his ludicrous love-making dance, hopping from one
foot to the other until his fat stomach shook, and chuckling
louder than ever. The charms of Iskwasis were indeed sufficient to
turn the head of an older beau than Kawook. She was a distinctive
blonde; in other words, one of those unusual creatures of her
kind, an albino. Her nose was pink, the palms of her little feet
were pink, and each of her pretty pink eyes was set in an iris of
sky-blue. It was evident that she did not regard old Kawook's
passion-dance with favour and sensing this fact Kawook changed his
tactics and falling on all four feet began to chase his spiky tail
as if he had suddenly gone mad. When he stopped, and looked to see
what effect he had made he was clearly knocked out by the fact
that Iskwasis had disappeared.
For another minute he sat stupidly, without making a sound. Then
to Miki's consternation he started straight for the tree in which
Neewa was sleeping. As a matter of fact, it was Kawook's dinner-
tree, and he began climbing it, talking to himself all the time.
Miki's hair began to stand on end. He did not know that Kawook,
like all his kind, was the best-natured fellow in the world, and
had never harmed anything in his life unless assaulted first.
Lacking this knowledge he set up a sudden frenzy of barking to
warn Neewa.
Neewa roused himself slowly, and when he opened his eyes he was
looking into a spiky face that sent him into a convulsion of
alarm. With a suddenness that came within an ace of toppling him
from his crotch he swung over and scurried higher up the tree.
Kawook was not at all excited. Now that Iskwasis was gone he was
entirely absorbed in the anticipation of his dinner. He continued
to clamber slowly upward, and at this the horrified Neewa backed
himself out on a limb in order that Kawook might have an
unobstructed trail up the tree.
Unfortunately for Neewa it was on this limb that Kawook had eaten
his last meal, and he began working himself out on it, still
apparently oblivious of the fact that the cub was on the same
branch. At this Miki sent up such a series of shrieking yelps from
below that Kawook seemed at last to realize that something unusual
was going on. He peered down at Miki who was making vain efforts
to jump up the trunk of the tree; then he turned and, for the
first time, contemplated Neewa with some sign of interest. Neewa
was hugging the limb with both forearms and both hind legs. To
retreat another foot on the branch that was already bending
dangerously under his weight seemed impossible.
It was at this point that Kawook began to scold fiercely. With a
final frantic yelp Miki sat back on his haunches and watched the
thrilling drama above him. A little at a time Kawook advanced, and
inch by inch Neewa retreated, until at last he rolled clean over
and was hanging with his back toward the ground. It was then that
Kawook ceased his scolding and calmly began eating his dinner. For
two or three minutes Neewa kept his hold. Twice he made efforts to
pull himself up so that he could get the branch under him. Then
his hind feet slipped. For a dozen seconds he hung with his two
front paws--then shot down through fifteen feet of space to the
ground. Close to Miki he landed with a thud that knocked the wind
out of him. He rose with a grunt, took one dazed look up the tree,
and without further explanation to Miki began to leg it deeper
into the forest--straight into the face of the great adventure
which was to be the final test for these two.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Not until he had covered at least a quarter of a mile did Neewa
stop. To Miki it seemed as though they had come suddenly out of
day into the gloom of evening. That part of the forest into which
Neewa's flight had led them was like a vast, mysterious cavern.
Even Challoner would have paused there, awed by the grandeur of
its silence, held spellbound by the enigmatical whispers that made
up its only sound. The sun was still high in the heavens, but not
a ray of it penetrated the dense green canopy of spruce and balsam
that hung like a wall over the heads of Miki and Neewa. About them
was no bush, no undergrowth; under their feet was not a flower or
a spear of grass. Nothing but a thick, soft carpet of velvety
brown needles under which all life was smothered. It was as if the
forest nymphs had made of this their bedchamber, sheltered through
all the seasons of the year from wind and rain and snow; or else
that the were-wolf people--the loup-garou--had chosen it as their
hiding-place and from its weird and gloomy fastnesses went forth
on their ghostly missions among the sons of men.
Not a bird twittered in the trees. There was no flutter of life in
their crowded branches. Everything was so still that Miki heard
the excited throbbing of life in his own body. He looked at Neewa,
and in the gloom the cub's eyes were glistening with a strange
fire. Neither of them was afraid, yet in that cavernous silence
their comradeship was born anew, and in it there was something now
that crept down into their wild little souls and filled the
emptiness that was left by the death of Neewa's mother and the
loss of Miki's master. The pup whined gently, and in his throat
Neewa made a purring sound and followed it with a squeaky grunt
that was like the grunt of a little pig. They edged nearer, and
stood shoulder to shoulder facing their world. They went on after
a little, like two children exploring the mystery of an old and
abandoned house. They were not hunting, yet every hunting instinct
in their bodies was awake, and they stopped frequently to peer
about them, and listen, and scent the air.
To Neewa it all brought back a memory of the black cavern in which
he was born. Would Noozak, his mother, come up presently out of
one of those dark forest aisles? Was she sleeping here, as she had
slept in the darkness of their den? The questions may have come
vaguely in his mind. For it was like the cavern, in that it was
deathly still; and a short distance away its gloom thickened into
black pits. Such a place the Indians called MUHNEDOO--a spot in
the forest blasted of all life by the presence of devils; for only
devils would grow trees so thick that sunlight never penetrated.
And only owls held the companionship of the evil spirits.
Where Neewa and Miki stood a grown wolf would have paused, and
turned back; the fox would have slunk away, hugging the ground;
even the murderous-hearted little ermine would have peered in with
his beady red eyes, unafraid, but turned by instinct back into the
open timber. For here, in spite of the stillness and the gloom,
THERE WAS LIFE. It was beating and waiting in the ambush of those
black pits. It was rousing itself, even as Neewa and Miki went on
deeper into the silence, and eyes that were like round balls were
beginning to glow with a greenish fire. Still there was no sound,
no movement in the dense overgrowth of the trees. Like the imps of
MUHNEDOO the monster owls looked down, gathering their slow wits--
and waiting.
And then a huge shadow floated out of the dark chaos and passed so
close over the heads of Neewa and Miki that they heard the
menacing purr of giant wings. As the wraith-like creature
disappeared there came back to them a hiss and the grating snap of
a powerful beak. It sent a shiver through Miki. The instinct that
had been fighting to rouse itself within him flared up like a
powder-flash. Instantly he sensed the nearness of an unknown and
appalling danger.
There was sound about them now--movement in the trees, ghostly
tremours in the air, and the crackling, metallic SNAP--SNAP--SNAP
over their heads. Again Miki saw the great shadow come and go. It
was followed by a second, and a third, until the vault under the
trees seemed filled with shadows; and with each shadow came nearer
that grating menace of powerfully beaked jaws. Like the wolf and
the fox he cringed down, hugging the earth. But it was no longer
with the whimpering fear of the pup. His muscles were drawn tight,
and with a snarl he bared his fangs when one of the owls swooped
so low that he felt the beat of its wings. Neewa responded with a
sniff that a little later in his life would have been the defiant
WHOOF of his mother. Bear-like he was standing up. And it was upon
him that one of the shadows descended--a monstrous feathered bolt
straight out of darkness.
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