Books: Nomads Of The North
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James Oliver Curwood >> Nomads Of The North
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To Neewa and Miki--and especially to the son of Hela--the grim
combat had widened even more that subtle and growing comprehension
of the world as it existed for them. It was the unforgettable
wisdom of experience backed by an age-old instinct and the
heredity of breed. They had killed small things--Neewa, his bugs
and his frogs and his bumble-bees; Miki, his rabbit--they had
fought for their lives; they had passed through experiences that,
from the beginning, had been a gamble with death; but it had
needed the climax of a struggle such as they had seen with their
own eyes to open up the doors that gave them a new viewpoint of
life.
It was many minutes before Miki went forth and smelled of Newish,
the dead owl. He had no desire now to tear at her feathers in the
excitement of an infantile triumph and ferocity. Along with
greater understanding a new craft and a new cunning were born in
him. The fate of Mispoon and his mate had taught him the priceless
value of silence and of caution, for he knew now that in the world
there were many things that were not afraid of him, and many
things that would not run away from him. He had lost his fearless
and blatant contempt for winged creatures; he had learned that the
earth was not made for him alone, and that to hold his small place
on it he must fight as Maheegun and the owls had fought. This was
because in Miki's veins was the red fighting blood of a long line
of ancestors that reached back to the wolves.
In Neewa the process of deduction was vastly different. His breed
was not the fighting breed, except as it fought among its own
kind. It did not make a habit of preying upon other beasts, and no
other beast preyed upon it. This was purely an accident of birth--
the fact that no other creature in all his wide domain was
powerful enough, either alone or in groups, to defeat a grown
black bear in open battle. Therefore Neewa learned nothing of
fighting in the tragedy of Maheegun and the owls. His profit, if
any, was in a greater caution. And his chief interest was in the
fact that Maheegun and the two owls had not devoured the young
bull. His supper was still safe.
With his little round eyes on the alert for fresh trouble he kept
himself safely hidden while he watched Miki investigating the
scene of battle. From the body of the owl Miki went to Ahtik, and
from Ahtik he sniffed slowly over the trail which Maheegun had
taken into the bush. In the edge of the cover he found Mispoon. He
did not go farther, but returned to Neewa, who by this time had
made up his mind that he could safely come out into the open.
Fifty times that day Miki rushed to the defense of their meat. The
big-eyed, clucking moose-birds were most annoying. Next to them
the Canada jays were most persistent. Twice a little gray-coated
ermine, with eyes as red as garnets, came in to get his fill of
blood. Miki was at him so fiercely that he did not return a third
time. By noon the crows had got scent or sight of the carcass and
were circling overhead, waiting for Neewa and Miki to disappear.
Later, they set up a raucous protest from the tops of the trees in
the edge of the forest.
That night the wolves did not return to the dip. Meat was too
plentiful, and those that were over their gorge were off on a
fresh kill far to the west. Once or twice Neewa and Miki heard
their distant cry.
Again through a star-filled radiant night they watched and
listened, and slept at times. In the soft gray dawn they went
forth once more to their feast.
And here is where Makoki, the old Cree runner, would have
emphasized the presence of the Beneficent Spirit. For day followed
day, and night followed night, and Ahtik's flesh and blood put
into Neewa and Miki a strength and growth that developed
marvellously. By the fourth day Neewa had become so fat and sleek
that he was half again as big as on the day he fell out of the
canoe. Miki had begun to fill out. His ribs could no longer be
counted from a distance. His chest was broadening and his legs
were losing some of their angular clumsiness. Practice on Ahtik's
bones had strengthened his jaws. With his development he felt less
and less the old puppyish desire to play--more and more the
restlessness of the hunter. The fourth night he heard again the
wailing hunt-cry of the wolves, and it held a wild and thrilling
note for him.
With Neewa, fat and good humour and contentment were all
synonymous. As long as the meat held out there was no very great
temptation for him beyond the dip and the slope. Two or three
times a day he went down to the creek; and every morning and
afternoon--especially about sunset--he had his fun rolling
downhill. In addition to this he began taking his afternoon naps
in the crotch of a small sapling. As Miki could see neither sense
nor sport in tobogganing, and as he could not climb a tree, he
began to spend more and more time in venturing up and down the
foot of the ridge. He wanted Neewa to go with him on these
expeditions. He never set out until he had entreated Neewa to come
down out of his tree, or until he had made an effort to coax him
away from the single trail he had made to the creek and back.
Neewa's obstinacy would never have brought about any real
unpleasantness between them. Miki thought too much of him for
that; and if it had come to a final test, and Neewa had thought
that Miki would not return, he would undoubtedly have followed
him.
It was another and a more potent thing than an ordinary quarrel
that placed the first great barrier between them. Now it happened
that Miki was of the breed which preferred its meat fresh, while
Neewa liked his "well hung." And from the fourth day onward, what
was left of Ahtik's carcass was ripening. On the fifth day Miki
found the flesh difficult to eat; on the sixth, impossible. To
Neewa it became increasingly delectable as the flavour grew and
the perfume thickened. On the sixth day, in sheer delight, he
rolled in it. That night, for the first time, Miki could not sleep
with him.
The seventh day brought the climax. Ahtik now fairly smelled to
heaven. The odour of him drifted up and away on the soft June wind
until all the crows in the country were gathering. It drove Miki,
slinking like a whipped cur, down into the creek bottom. When
Neewa came down for a drink after his morning feast Miki sniffed
him over for a moment and then slunk away from him again. As a
matter of fact, there was small difference between Ahtik and Neewa
now, except that one lay still and the other moved. Both smelled
dead; both were decidedly "well hung." Even the crows circled over
Neewa, wondering why it was that he walked about like a living
thing.
That night Miki slept alone under a clump of bush in the creek
bottom. He was hungry and lonely, and for the first time in many
days he felt the bigness and emptiness of the world. He wanted
Neewa. He whined for him in the starry silence of the long hours
between sunset and dawn. The sun was well up before Neewa came
down the hill. He had finished his breakfast and his morning roll,
and he was worse than ever. Again Miki tried to coax him away but
Neewa was disgustingly fixed in his determination to remain in his
present glory. And this morning he was more than usually anxious
to return to the dip. All of yesterday he had found it necessary
to frighten the crows away from his meat, and to-day they were
doubly persistent in their efforts to rob him. With a grunt and a
squeal to Miki he hustled back up the hill after he had taken his
drink.
His trail entered the dip through the pile of rocks from which
Miki and he had watched the battle between Maheegun and the two
owls, and as a matter of caution he always paused for a few
moments among these rocks to make sure that all was well in the
open. This morning he received a decided shock. Ahtik's carcass
was literally black with crows. Kakakew and his Ethiopic horde of
scavengers had descended in a cloud, and they were tearing and
fighting and beating their wings about Ahtik as if all of them had
gone mad. Another cloud was hovering in air; every bush and near-
by sapling was bending under the weight of them, and in the sun
their jet-black plumage glistened as if they had just come out of
the bath of a tinker's pot. Neewa stood astounded. He was not
frightened; he had driven the cowardly robbers away many times.
But never had there been so many of them. He could see no trace of
his meat. Even the ground about it was black.
He rushed out from the rocks with his lips drawn back, just as he
had rushed a dozen or more times before. There was a mighty roar
of wings. The air was darkened by them, and the ravenish screaming
that followed could have been heard a mile away. This time Kakakew
and his mighty crew did not fly back to the forest. Their number
gave them courage. The taste of Ahtik's flesh and the flavour of
it in their nostrils intoxicated them, to the point of madness,
with desire. Neewa was dazed. Over him, behind him, on all sides
of him they swept and circled, croaking and screaming at him, the
boldest of them swooping down to beat at him with their wings.
Thicker grew the menacing cloud, and then suddenly it descended
like an avalanche. It covered Ahtik again. In it Neewa was fairly
smothered. He felt himself buried under a mass of wings and
bodies, and he began fighting, as he had fought the owls. A score
of pincer-like black beaks fought to get at his hair and hide;
others stabbed at his eyes; he felt his ears being pulled from his
head, and the end of his nose was a bloody cushion within a dozen
seconds. The breath was beaten out of him; he was blinded, and
dazed, and every square inch of him was aquiver with its own
excruciating pain. He forgot Ahtik. The one thing in the world he
wanted most was a large open space in which to run.
Putting all his strength into the effort he struggled to his feet
and charged through the mass of living things about him. At this
sign of defeat many of the crows left him to join in the feast. By
the time he was half way to the cover into which Maheegun had gone
all but one had left him. That one may have been Kakakew himself.
He had fastened himself like a rat-trap to Neewa's stubby tail,
and there he hung on like grim death while Neewa ran. He kept his
hold until his victim was well into the cover. Then he flopped
himself into the air and rejoined his brethren at the putrified
carcass of the bull.
If ever Neewa had wanted Miki he wanted him now. Again his entire
viewpoint of the world was changed. He was stabbed in a hundred
places. He burned as if afire. Even the bottoms of his feet hurt
him when he stepped on them, and for half an hour he hid himself
under a bush, licking his wounds and sniffing the air for Miki.
Then he went down the slope into the creek bottom, and hurried to
the foot of the trail he had made to and from the dip. Vainly he
quested about him for his comrade. He grunted and squealed, and
tried to catch the scent of him in the air. He ran up the creek a
distance, and back again. Ahtik counted as nothing now.
Miki was gone.
CHAPTER TEN
A quarter of a mile away Miki had heard the clamour of the crows.
But he was in no humour to turn back, even had he guessed that
Neewa was in need of his help. He was hungry from long fasting
and, for the present, his disposition had taken a decided turn. He
was in a mood to tackle anything in the eating line, no matter how
big, but he was a good mile from the dip in the side of the ridge
before he found even a crawfish. He crunched this down, shell and
all. It helped to take the bad taste out of his mouth.
The day was destined to hold for him still another unforgettable
event in his life. Now that he was alone the memory of his master
was not so vague as it had been yesterday, and the days before.
Brain-pictures came back to him more vividly as the morning
lengthened into afternoon, bridging slowly but surely the gulf
that Neewa's comradeship had wrought. For a time the exciting
thrill of his adventure was gone. Half a dozen times he hesitated
on the point of turning back to Neewa. It was hunger that always
drove him on a little farther. He found two more crawfish. Then
the creek deepened and its water ran slowly, and was darker. Twice
he chased old rabbits, that got away from him easily. Once he came
within an ace of catching a young one. Frequently a partridge rose
with a thunder of wings. He saw moose-birds, and jays, and many
squirrels. All about him was meat which it was impossible for him
to catch. Then fortune turned his way. Poking his head into the
end of a hollow log he cornered a rabbit so completely that there
was no escape. During the next few minutes he indulged in the
first square meal he had eaten for three days.
So absorbed was he in his feast that he was unconscious of a new
arrival on the scene. He did not hear the coming of Oochak, the
fisher-cat; nor, for a few moments, did he smell him. It was not
in Oochak's nature to make a disturbance. He was by birth and
instinct a valiant hunter and a gentleman, and when he saw Miki
(whom he took to be a young wolf) feeding on a fresh kill, he made
no move to demand a share for himself. Nor did he run away. He
would undoubtedly have continued on his way very soon if Miki had
not finally sensed his presence, and faced him.
Oochak had come from the other side of the log, and stood not more
than six feet distant. To one who knew as little of his history as
Miki there was nothing at all ferocious about him. He was shaped
like his cousins, the weazel, the mink, and the skunk. He was
about half as high as Miki, and fully as long, so that his two
pairs of short legs seemed somewhat out of place, as on a
dachshund. He probably weighed between eight and ten pounds, had a
bullet head, almost no ears, and atrocious whiskers. Also he had a
bushy tail and snapping little eyes that seemed to bore clean
through whatever he looked at. To Miki his accidental presence was
a threat and a challenge. Besides, Oochak looked like an easy
victim if it came to a fight. So he pulled back his lips and
snarled.
Oochak accepted this as an invitation for him to move on, and
being a gentleman who respected other people's preserves he made
his apologies by beginning a velvet-footed exit. This was too much
for Miki, who had yet to learn the etiquette of the forest trails.
Oochak was afraid of him. He was running away! With a triumphant
yelp Miki took after him. After all, it was simply a mistake in
judgment. (Many two-footed animals with bigger brains than Miki's
had made similar mistakes.) For Oochak, attending always to his
own business, was, for his size and weight, the greatest little
fighter in North America.
Just what happened in the one minute that followed his assault
Miki would never be able quite to understand. It was not in
reality a fight; it was a one-sided immolation, a massacre. His
first impression was that he had tackled a dozen Oochaks instead
of one. Beyond that first impression his mind did not work, nor
did his eyes visualize. He was whipped as he would never be
whipped again in his life. He was cut and bruised and bitten; he
was strangled and stabbed; he was so utterly mauled that for a
space after Oochak had gone he continued to rake the air with his
paws, unconscious of the fact that the affair was over. When he
opened his eyes, and found himself alone, he slunk into the hollow
log where he had cornered the rabbit.
In there he lay a good half hour, trying hard to comprehend just
what had happened. The sun was setting when he dragged himself
out. He limped. His one good ear was bitten clean through. There
were bare spots on his hide where Oochak had scraped the hair off.
His bones ached, his throat was sore, and there was a lump over
one eye. He looked longingly back over the "home" trail. Up there
was Neewa. With the lengthening shadows of the day's end a great
loneliness crept upon him and a desire to turn back to his
comrade. But Oochak had gone that way--and he did not want to meet
Oochak again.
He wandered a little farther south and east, perhaps a quarter of
a mile, before the sun disappeared entirely. In the thickening
gloom of twilight he struck the Big Rock portage between the
Beaver and the Loon.
It was not a trail. Only at rare intervals did wandering voyageurs
coming down from the north make use of it in their passage from
one waterway to the other. Three or four times a year at the most
would a wolf have caught the scent of man in it. It was there
tonight, so fresh that Miki stopped when he came to it as if
another Oochak had risen before him. For a space he was turned
into the rigidity of rock by a single overwhelming emotion. All
other things were forgotten in the fact that he had struck the
trail of a man--AND, THEREFORE, THE TRAIL OF CHALLONER, HIS
MASTER. He began to follow it--slowly at first, as if fearing that
it might get away from him. Darkness came, and he was still
following it. In the light of the stars he persisted, all else
crowded from him but the homing instinct of the dog and the desire
for a master.
At last he came almost to the shore of the Loon, and there he saw
the campfire of Makoki and the white man.
He did not rush in. He did not bark or yelp; the hard schooling of
the wilderness had already set its mark upon him. He slunk in
cautiously--then stopped, flat on his belly, just outside the rim
of firelight. Then he saw that neither of the men was Challoner.
But both were smoking, as Challoner had smoked. He could hear
their voices, and they were like Challoner's voice. And the camp
was the same--a fire, a pot hanging over it, a tent, and in the
air the odours of recently cooked things.
Another moment or two and he would have gone into the firelight.
But the white man rose to his feet, stretched himself as he had
often seen Challoner stretch, and picked up a stick of wood as big
as his arm. He came within ten feet of Miki, and Miki wormed
himself just a little toward him, and stood up on his feet. It
brought him into a half light. His eyes were aglow with the
reflection of the fire. And the man saw him.
In a flash the club he held was over his head; it swung through
the air with the power of a giant arm behind it and was launched
straight at Miki. Had it struck squarely it would have killed him.
The big end of it missed him; the smaller end landed against his
neck and shoulder, driving him back into the gloom with such force
and suddenness that the man thought he had done for him. He called
out loudly to Makoki that he had killed a young wolf or a fox, and
dashed out into the darkness.
The club had knocked Miki fairly into the heart of a thick ground
spruce. There he lay, making no sound, with a terrible pain in his
shoulder. Between himself and the fire he saw the man bend over
and pick up the club. He saw Makoki hurrying toward him with
ANOTHER club, and under his shelter he made himself as small as he
could. He was filled with a great dread, for now he understood the
truth. THESE men were not Challoner. They were hunting for him--
with clubs in their hands. He knew what the clubs meant. His
shoulder was almost broken.
He lay very still while the men searched about him. The Indian
even poked his stick into the thick ground spruce. The white man
kept saying that he was sure he had made a hit, and once he stood
so near that Miki's nose almost touched his boot. He went back and
added fresh birch to the fire, so that the light of it illumined a
greater space about them. Miki's heart stood still. But the men
searched farther on, and at last went back to the fire.
For an hour Miki did not move. The fire burned itself low. The old
Cree wrapped himself in a blanket, and the white man went into his
tent. Not until then did Miki dare to crawl out from under the
spruce. With his bruised shoulder making him limp at every step he
hurried back over the trail which he had followed so hopefully a
little while before. The man-scent no longer made his heart beat
swiftly with joy. It was a menace now. A warning. A thing from
which he wanted to get away. He would sooner have faced Oochak
again, or the owls, than the white man with his club. With the
owls he could fight, but in the club he sensed an overwhelming
superiority.
The night was very still when he dragged himself back to the
hollow log in which he had killed the rabbit. He crawled into it,
and nursed his wounds through all the rest of the hours of
darkness. In the early morning he came out and ate the rest of the
rabbit.
After that he faced the north and west--where Neewa was. There was
no hesitation now. He wanted Neewa again. He wanted to muzzle him
with his nose and lick his face even though he did smell to
heaven. He wanted to hear him grunt and squeal in his funny,
companionable way; he wanted to hunt with him again, and play with
him, and lie down beside him in a sunny spot and sleep. Neewa, at
last, was a necessary part of his world.
He set out.
And Neewa, far up the creek, still followed hopefully and
yearningly over the trail of Miki.
Half way to the dip, in a small open meadow that was a glory of
sun, they met. There was no very great demonstration. They stopped
and looked at each other for a moment, as if to make sure that
there was no mistake. Neewa grunted. Miki wagged his tail. They
smelled noses. Neewa responded with a little squeal, and Miki
whined. It was as if they had said,
"Hello, Miki!"
"Hello, Neewa!"
And then Neewa lay down in the sun and Miki sprawled himself out
beside him. After all, it was a funny world. It went to pieces now
and then, but it always came together again. And to-day their
world had thoroughly adjusted itself. Once more they were chums--
and they were happy.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was the Flying-Up Moon--deep and slumbering midsummer--in all
the land of Keewatin. From Hudson Bay to the Athabasca and from
the Hight of Land to the edge of the Great Barrens, forest, plain,
and swamp lay in peace and forgetfulness under the sun-glowing
days and the star-filled nights of the August MUKOO-SAWIN. It was
the breeding moon, the growing moon, the moon when all wild life
came into its own once more. For the trails of this wilderness
world--so vast that it reached a thousand miles east and west and
as far north and south--were empty of human life. At the Hudson
Bay Company's posts--scattered here and there over the illimitable
domain of fang and claw--had gathered the thousands of hunters and
trappers, with their wives and children, to sleep and gossip and
play through the few weeks of warmth and plenty until the strife
and tragedy of another winter began. For these people of the
forests it was MUKOO-SAWIN--the great Play Day of the year; the
weeks in which they ran up new debts and established new credits
at the Posts; the weeks in which they foregathered at every Post
as at a great fair--playing, and making love, and marrying, and
fattening up for the many days of hunger and gloom to come.
It was because of this that the wild things had come fully into
the possession of their world for a space. There was no longer the
scent of man in all the wilderness. They were not hunted. There
were no traps laid for their feet, no poison-baits placed
temptingly where they might pass. In the fens and on the lakes the
wildfowl squawked and honked unfearing to their young, just
learning the power of wing; the lynx played with her kittens
without sniffing the air for the menace of man; the cow moose went
openly into the cool water of the lakes with their calves; the
wolverine and the marten ran playfully over the roofs of deserted
shacks and cabins; the beaver and the otter tumbled and frolicked
in their dark pools; the birds sang, and through all the
wilderness there was the drone and song of Nature as some Great
Power must at first have meant that Nature should be. A new
generation of wild things had been born. It was a season of Youth,
with tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of little
children of the wild playing their first play, learning their
first lessons, growing up swiftly to face the menace and doom of
their first winter. And the Beneficent Spirit of the forests,
anticipating what was to come, had prepared well for them.
Everywhere there was plenty. The blueberries, the blackberries,
the mountain-ash and the saskatoons were ripe; tree and vine were
bent low with their burden of fruit. The grass was green and
tender from the summer rains. Bulbous roots were fairly popping
out of the earth; the fens and the edges of the lakes were rich
with things to eat, overhead and underfoot the horn of plenty was
emptying itself without stint.
In this world Neewa and Miki found a vast and unending
contentment. They lay, on this August afternoon, on a sun-bathed
shelf of rock that overlooked a wonderful valley. Neewa, stuffed
with luscious blueberries, was asleep. Miki's eyes were only
partly closed as he looked down into the soft haze of the valley.
Up to him came the rippling music of the stream running between
the rocks and over the pebbly bars below, and with it the soft and
languorous drone of the valley itself. He napped uneasily for half
an hour, and then his eyes opened and he was wide awake. He took a
sharp look over the valley. Then he looked at Neewa, who, fat and
lazy, would have slept until dark. It was always Miki who kept him
on the move. And now Miki barked at him gruffly two or three
times, and nipped at one of his ears.
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