Books: Nomads Of The North
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James Oliver Curwood >> Nomads Of The North
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Miki heard them again, after that hour's interval of silence.
Farther and farther he had wandered from the forest. He had
crossed the "burn," and was in the open plain, with the rough
ridges cutting through and the big river at the edge of it. It was
not so gloomy out here, and his loneliness weighed upon him less
heavily than in the deep timber.
And across this plain came the voice of the wolves.
He did not move away from it to-night. He waited, silhouetted
against the vivid starlight at the crest of a rocky knoll, and the
top of this knoll was so small that another could not have stood
beside him without their shoulders touching. On all sides of him
the plain swept away in the white light of the stars and moon;
never had the desire to respond to the wild brethren urged itself
upon him more fiercely than now. He flung back his head, until his
black-tipped muzzle pointed up to the stars, and the voice rolled
out of his throat. But it was only half a howl. Even then,
oppressed by his great loneliness, there gripped him that
something instinctive which warned him against betrayal. After
that he remained quiet, and as the wolves drew nearer his body
grew tense, his muscles hardened, and in his throat there was the
low whispering of a snarl instead of a howl. He sensed danger. He
had caught, in the voice of the wolves, the ravening note that had
made Pierrot cross himself and mutter of the loups-garous, and he
crouched down on his belly at the top of the rocky mound.
Then he saw them. They were sweeping like dark and swiftly moving
shadows between him and the forest. Suddenly they stopped, and for
a few moments no sound came from them as they packed themselves
closely on the scent of his fresh trail in the snow. And then they
surged in his direction; this time there was a still fiercer
madness in the wild cry that rose from their throats. In a dozen
seconds they were at the mound. They swept around it and past it,
all save one--a huge gray brute who shot up the hillock straight
at the prey the others had not yet seen. There was a snarl in
Miki's throat as he came. Once more he was facing the thrill of a
great fight. Once more the blood ran suddenly hot in his veins,
and fear was driven from him as the wind drives smoke from a fire.
If Neewa were only there now, to fend at his back while he fought
in front! He stood up on his feet. He met the up-rushing pack-
brute head to head. Their jaws clashed, and the wild wolf found
jaws at last that crunched through his own as if they had been
whelp's bone, and he rolled and twisted back to the plain in a
dying agony. But not until another gray form had come to fill his
place. Into the throat of this second Miki drove his fangs as the
wolf came over the crest. It was the slashing, sabre-like stroke
of the north-dog, and the throat of the wolf was torn open and the
blood poured out as if emptied by the blade of a knife. Down he
plunged to join the first, and in that instant the pack swept up
and over Miki, and he was smothered under the mass of their
bodies. Had two or three attacked him at once he would have died
as quickly as the first two of his enemies had come to their end.
Numbers saved him in the first rush. On the level of the plain he
would have been torn into pieces like a bit of cloth, but on the
space at the top of the KOPJE, no larger than the top of a table,
he was lost for a few seconds under the snarling and rending horde
of his enemies. Fangs intended for him sank into other wolf-flesh;
the madness of the pack became a blind rage, and the assault upon
Miki turned into a slaughter of the wolves themselves. On his
back, held down by the weight of bodies, Miki drove his fangs
again and again into flesh. A pair of jaws seized him in the
groin, and a shock of agony swept through him. It was a death-
grip, sinking steadily into his vitals. Just in time another pair
of jaws seized the wolf who held him, and the hold in his groin
gave way. In that moment Miki felt himself plunging down the steep
side of the knoll, and after him came a half of what was left
alive of the pack.
The fighting devils in Miki's brain gave way all at once to that
cunning of the fox which had served him even more than claw and
fang in times of great danger. Scarcely had he reached the plain
before he was on his feet, and no sooner had he touched his feet
than he was off like the wind in direction of the river. He had
gained a fifty-yard start before the first of the wolves
discovered his flight. There were only eight that followed him
now. Of the thirteen mad beasts five were dead or dying at the
foot of the hillock. Of these Miki had slain two. The others had
fallen at the fangs of their own brethren.
Half a mile away were the steep cliffs of the river, and at the
edge of these cliffs was a great cairn of rocks in which for one
night Miki had sought shelter. He had not forgotten the tunnel
into the tumbled mass of rock debris, nor how easily it could be
defended from within. Once in that tunnel he would turn in the
door of it and slaughter his enemies one by one, for only one by
one could they attack him. But he had not reckoned with that huge
gray form behind him that might have been named Lightning, the
fiercest and swiftest of all the mad wolves of the pack. He sped
ahead of his slower-footed companions like a streak of light, and
Miki had made but half the distance to the cairn when he heard the
panting breath of Lightning behind him. Even Hela, his father,
could not have run more swiftly than Miki, but great as was Miki's
speed, Lightning ran more swiftly. Two thirds of the distance to
the cliff and the huge wolf's muzzle was at Miki's flank. With a
burst of speed Miki gained a little. Then steadily Lightning drew
abreast of him, a grim and merciless shadow of doom.
A hundred yards farther on and a little to the right was the
cairn. But Miki could not run to the right without turning into
Lightning's jaws, and he realized now that if he reached the cairn
his enemy would be upon him before he could dive into the tunnel
and face about. To stop and fight would be death, for behind he
could hear the other wolves. Ten seconds more and the chasm of the
river yawned ahead of them.
At its very brink Miki swung and struck at Lightning. He sensed
death now, and in the face of death all his hatred turned upon the
one beast that had run at his side. In an instant they were down.
Two yards from the edge of the cliff, and Miki's jaws were at
Lightning's throat when the pack rushed upon them. They were swept
onward. The earth flew out from under their feet, and they were in
space. Grimly Miki held to the throat of his foe. Over and over
they twisted in mid-air, and then came a terrific shock. Lightning
was under. Yet so great was the shock, that, even though the
wolf's huge body was under him like a cushion, Miki was stunned
and dazed. A minute passed before he staggered to his feet.
Lightning lay still, the life smashed out of him. A little beyond
him lay the bodies of two other wolves that in their wild rush had
swept over the cliff.
Miki looked up. Between him and the stars he could see the top of
the cliff, a vast distance above him. One after the other he
smelled at the bodies of the three dead wolves. Then he limped
slowly along the base of the cliff until he came to a fissure
between two huge rocks. Into this he crept and lay down, licking
his wounds. After all there were worse things in the world than Le
Beau's trapline. Perhaps there were even worse things than men.
After a time he stretched his great head out between his fore-
paws, and slowly the starlight grew dimmer, and the snow less
white, and he slept.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In a twist of Three Jackpine River, buried in the deep of the
forest between the Shamattawa country and Hudson Bay, was the
cabin in which lived Jacques Le Beau, the trapper. There was not
another man in all that wilderness who was the equal of Le Beau in
wickedness--unless it was Durant, who hunted foxes a hundred miles
north, and who was Jacques's rival in several things. A giant in
size, with a heavy, sullen face and eyes which seemed but half-
hidden greenish loopholes for the pitiless soul within him--if he
had a soul at all--Le Beau was a "throw-back" of the worst sort.
In their shacks and teepees the Indians whispered softly that all
the devils of his forebears had gathered in him.
It was a grim kind of fate that had given to Le Beau a wife. Had
she been a witch, an evil-doer and an evil-thinker like himself,
the thing would not have been such an abortion of what should have
been. But she was not that. Sweet-faced, with something of unusual
beauty still in her pale cheeks and starving eyes--trembling at
his approach and a slave in his presence--she was, like his dogs,
the PROPERTY of The Brute. And the woman had a baby. One had
already died; and it was the thought that this one might die, as
the other had died, that brought at times the new flash of fire
into her dark eyes.
"Le bon Dieu--I pray to the Blessed Angels--I swear you SHALL
live!" she would cry to it at times, hugging it close to her
breast. And it was at these times that the fire came into her
eyes, and her pale cheeks flushed with a smouldering bit of the
flame that had once been her beauty. "Some day--SOME DAY--"
But she never finished, even to the child, what was in her mind.
Sometimes her dreams were filled with visions. The world was still
young, and SHE was not old. She was thinking of that as she stood
before the cracked bit of mirror in the cabin, brushing out her
hair, that was black and shining and so long that it fell to her
hips. Of her beauty her hair had remained. It was defiant of The
Brute. And deep back in her eyes, and in her face, there were
still the living, hidden traces of her girlhood heritage ready to
bloom again if Fate, mending its error at last, would only take
away forever the crushing presence of the Master. She stood a
little longer before the bit of glass when she heard the crunching
of footsteps in the snow outside.
Swiftly what had been in her face was gone. Le Beau had been away
on his trapline since yesterday, and his return filled her with
the old dread. Twice he had caught her before the mirror and had
called her vile names for wasting her time in admiring herself
when she might have been scraping the fat from his pelts. The
second time he had sent her reeling back against the wall, and had
broken the mirror until the bit she treasured now was not much
larger than her two slim hands. She would not be caught again. She
ran with the glass to the place where she kept it in hiding, and
then quickly she wove the heavy strands of her hair into a braid.
The strange, dead look of fear and foreboding closed like a veil
over the secrets her eyes had disclosed to herself. She turned, as
she always turned in her woman's hope and yearning, to greet him
when he entered.
The Brute entered, a dark and surly monster. He was in a wicked
humour. His freshly caught furs he flung to the floor. He pointed
to them, and his eyes were narrowed to menacing slits as they fell
upon her.
"He was there again--that devil!" he growled. "See, he has spoiled
the fisher, and he has cleaned out my baits and knocked down the
trap-houses. Par les mille cornes du diable, but I will kill him!
I have sworn to cut him into bits with a knife when I catch him--
and catch him I will, to-morrow. See to it there--the skins--when
you have got me something to eat. Mend the fisher where he is torn
in two, and cover the seam well with fat so that the agent over at
the post will not discover it is bad. Tonnerre de Dieu!--that
brat! Why do you always keep his squalling until I come in? Answer
me, Bete!"
Such was his greeting. He flung his snowshoes into a corner,
stamped the snow off his feet, and got himself a fresh plug of
black tobacco from a shelf over the stove. Then he went out again,
leaving the woman with a cold tremble in her heart and the wan
desolation of hopelessness in her face as she set about getting
him food.
From the cabin Le Beau went to his dog-pit, a corral of saplings
with a shelter-shack in the centre of it. It was The Brute's boast
that he had the fiercest pack of sledge-dogs between Hudson Bay
and the Athabasca. It was his chief quarrel with Durant, his rival
farther north; and his ambition was to breed a pup that would kill
the fighting husky which Durant brought down to the Post with him
each winter at New Year. This season he had chosen Netah ("The
Killer") for the big fight at God's Lake. On the day he would
gamble his money and his reputation against Durant's, his dog
would be just one month under two years of age. It was Netah he
called from out of the pack now.
The dog slunk to him with a low growl in his throat, and for the
first time something like joy shone in Le Beau's face. He loved to
hear that growl. He loved to see the red and treacherous glow in
Netah's eyes, and hear the menacing click of his jaws. Whatever of
nobility might have been in Netah's blood had been clubbed out by
the man. They were alike, in that their souls were dead. And
Netah, for a dog, was a devil. For that reason Le Beau had chosen
him to fight the big fight.
Le Beau looked down at him, and drew a deep breath of
satisfaction.
"OW! but you are looking fine, Netah," he exulted. "I can almost
see running blood in those devil-eyes of yours; OUI--red blood
that smells and runs, as the blood of Durant's POOS shall run when
you sink those teeth in its jugular. And to-morrow we are going to
give you the test--such a beautiful test!--with the wild dog that
is robbing my traps and tearing my fishers into bits. For I will
catch him, and you shall fight him until he is almost dead; and
then I shall cut his heart out alive, as I have promised, and you
will eat it while it is still beating, so that there will be no
excuse for your losing to that POOS which M'sieu Durant will bring
down. COMPRENEZ? It will be a beautiful test--to-morrow. And if
you fail I will kill you. OUI; if you so much as let a whimper out
of you, I will kill you--dead."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
That same night, ten miles to the west, Miki slept under a
windfall of logs and treetops not more than half a mile from Le
Beau's trapline.
In the early dawn, when Le Beau left his cabin, accompanied by
Netah, The Killer, Miki came out from under his windfall after a
night of troublous dreams. He had dreamed of those first weeks
after he had lost his master, when Neewa was always at his side;
and the visions that had come to him filled him with an uneasiness
and a loneliness that made him whine as he stood watching the dark
shadows fading away before the coming of day. Could Le Beau have
seen him there, as the first of the cold sun struck upon him, the
words which he had repeated over and over to The Killer would have
stuck in his throat. For at eleven months of age Miki was a young
giant of his breed. He weighed sixty pounds, and none of that
sixty was fat. His body was as slim and as lean as a wolf's. His
chest was massive, and over it the muscles rolled like BABICHE
cord when he moved. His legs were like the legs of Hela, the big
Mackenzie hound who was his father; and with his jaws he could
crack a caribou bone as Le Beau might have cracked it with a
stone. For eight of the eleven months of his life the wilderness
had been his master; it had tempered him to the hardness of living
steel; it had wrought him without abeyance to age in the mould of
its pitiless schooling--had taught him to fight for his life, to
kill that he might live, and to use his brain before he used his
jaws. He was as powerful as Netah, The Killer, who was twice his
age, and with his strength he possessed a cunning and a quickness
which The Killer would never know. Thus had the raw wilderness
prepared him for this day.
As the sun fired up the forest with a cold flame Miki set off in
direction of Le Beau's trapline. He came to where Le Beau had
passed yesterday and sniffed suspiciously of the man-smell that
was still strong in the snowshoe tracks. He had become accustomed
to this smell, but he had not lost his suspicion of it. It was
repugnant to him, even as it fascinated him. It filled him with an
inexplicable fear, and yet he found himself powerless to run away
from it. Three times in the last ten days he had seen the man-
brute himself. Once he had been hiding within a dozen yards of Le
Beau when he passed.
This morning he headed straight for the swamp through which Le
Beau's traps were set. There the rabbits were thickest and it was
in the swamp that they most frequently got in Jacques's KEKEKS--
the little houses he built of sticks and cedar boughs to keep the
snow off his baits. They were so numerous that they were a pest,
and each time that Le Beau made his trip over the line he found at
least two out of every three traps sprung by them, and therefore
made useless for the catching of fur. But, where there were many
rabbits there were also fishers and lynx, and in spite of the rage
which the plague of rabbits sent him into, Le Beau continued to
set his traps there. And now, in addition to the rabbits, he had
the wild dog to contend with.
His heart was fired by a vengeful anticipation as he hurried on
through the glow of the early sun, with The Killer at his heels,
led by a BABICHE thong. Miki was nosing about the first trap-house
as Netah and Le Beau entered the edge of the swamp, three miles to
the east.
It was in this KEKEK that Miki had killed the fisher-cat the
previous morning. It was empty now. Even the bait-peg was gone,
and there was no sign of a trap. A quarter of a mile farther on he
came to a second trap-house, and this also was empty. He was a bit
puzzled. And then he went on to the third house. He stood for
several minutes, sniffing the air still more suspiciously, before
he drew close to it. The man-tracks were thicker here. The snow
was beaten down with them, and the scent of Le Beau was so strong
in the air that for a space Miki believed he was near. Then he
advanced so that he got a look into the door of the trap-house.
Squatted there, staring at him with big round eyes, was a huge
snowshoe rabbit. A premonition of danger held Miki back. It was
something in the attitude of Wapoos, the old rabbit. He was not
like the others he had caught along Le Beau's line. He was not
struggling in a trap; he was not stretched out, half frozen, and
he was not dangling at the end of a snare. He was all furred up
into a warm and comfortable looking ball. As a matter of fact, Le
Beau had caught him with his hands in a hollow log, and had tied
him to the bait peg with a piece of buck-skin string; and after
that, just out of Wapoos's reach, he had set a nest of traps and
covered them with snow.
Nearer and nearer to this menace drew Miki, in spite of the
unaccountable impulse that warned him to keep back. Wapoos,
fascinated by his slow and deadly advance, made no movement, but
sat as if frozen into stone. Then Miki was at him. His powerful
jaws closed with a crunch. In the same instant there came the
angry snap of steel and a fisher-trap closed on one of his hind
feet. With a snarl he dropped Wapoos and turned upon it, SNAP--
SNAP--SNAP went three more of Jacques's nest of traps. Two of them
missed. The third caught him by a front paw. As he had caught
Wapoos, and as he had killed the fisher-cat, so now he seized this
new and savage enemy between his jaws. His fangs crunched on the
cold steel; he literally tore it from his paw so that blood
streamed forth and strained the snow red. Madly he twisted himself
to get at his hind foot. On this foot the fisher-trap had secured
a hold that was unbreakable. He ground it between his jaws until
the blood ran from his mouth. He was fighting it when Le Beau came
out from behind a clump of spruce twenty yards away with The
Killer at his heels.
The Brute stopped. He was panting, and his eyes were aflame. Two
hundred yards away he had heard the clinking of the trap-chain.
"OW! he is there," he gasped, tightening his hold on The Killer's
lead thong. "He is there, Netah, you Red Eye! That is the robber
devil you are to kill--almost. I will unfasten you, and then--GO
TO!"
Miki, no longer fighting the trap, was eyeing them as they
advanced. In this moment of peril he felt no fear of the man. In
his veins the hot blood raged with a killing madness. The truth
leapt upon him in a flash of instinctive awakening. These two were
his enemies instead of the thing on his foot--the man-beast, and
Netah, The Killer. He remembered--as if it were yesterday. This
was not the first time he had seen a man with a club in his hand.
And Le Beau held a club. But he was not afraid. His steady eyes
watched Netah. Unleashed by his master, The Killer stood on stiff
legs a dozen feet away, the wiry crest along his spine erect, his
muscles tense.
Miki heard the man-beast's voice.
"Go to, you devil! GO TO!"
Miki waited, without the quiver of a muscle. Thus much he had
learned of his hard lessons in the wilderness--to wait, and watch,
and use his cunning. He was flat on his belly, his nose between
his forepaws. His lips were drawn back a little, just a little;
but he made no sound, and his eyes were as steady as two points of
flame. Le Beau stared. He felt suddenly a new thrill, and it was
not the thrill of his desire for vengeance. Never had he seen a
lynx or a fox or a wolf in a trap like that. Never had he seen a
dog with eyes like the eyes that were on Netah. For a moment he
held his breath.
Foot by foot, and then almost inch by inch, The Killer crept in.
Ten feet, eight, six--and all that time Miki made no move, never
winked an eye. With a snarl like that of a tiger, Netah came at
him.
What happened then was the most marvellous thing that Jacques Le
Beau had ever seen. So swiftly that his eyes could scarcely follow
the movement, Miki had passed like a flash under the belly of
Netah, and turning then at the end of his trap chain he was at The
Killer's throat before Le Beau could have counted ten. They were
down, and The Brute gripped the club in his hand and stared like
one fascinated. He heard the grinding crunch of jaws, and he knew
they were the Wild Dog's jaws; he heard a snarl choking slowly
into a wheezing sob of agony, and he knew that the sound came from
The Eller. The blood rose into his face. The red fire in his eyes
grew livid--a blaze of exultation, of triumph.
"TONNERRE DE DIEU! he is choking the life out of Netah!" he
gasped. "NON, I have never seen a dog like that. I will keep him
alive; and he shall fight Durant's POOS over at Post Fort O' God!
By the belly of Saint Gris, I say--"
The Killer was as good as dead if left another minute. With
upraised club Le Beau advanced. As he sank his fangs deeper into
Netah's throat Miki saw the new danger out of the corner of his
eye. He loosed his jaws and swung himself free of The Killer as
the club descended. He only partly evaded the smashing blow, which
caught him on the shoulder and knocked him down. Quick as a flash
he was on his feet and had lunged at Le Beau. The Frenchman was a
master with the club. All his life he had used it, and he brought
it around in a sudden side-swing that landed with terrific force
against Miki's head. The blood spurted from his mouth and
nostrils. He was dazed and half blinded. He leapt again, and the
club caught him once more. He heard Le Beau's ferocious cry of
joy. A third, a fourth, and a fifth time he went down under the
club, and Le Beau no longer laughed, but swung his weapon with a
look that was half fear in his eyes. The sixth time the club
missed, and Miki's jaws closed against The Brute's chest, ripping
away the thick coat and shirt as if they had been of paper, and
leaving on Le Beau's skin a bleeding gash. Ten inches more--a
little better vision in his blood-dimmed eyes--and he would have
reached the man's throat. A great cry rose out of Le Beau. For an
instant he felt the appalling nearness of death.
"Netah! Netah!" he cried, and swung the club wildly.
Netah did not respond. It may be that in this moment he sensed the
fact that it was his master who had made him into a monster. About
him was the wilderness, opening its doors of freedom. When Le Beau
called again The Killer was slinking away, dripping blood as he
went--and this was the last that Le Beau saw of him. Probably he
joined the wolves, for The Killer was a quarter-strain wild.
Le Beau got no more than a glimpse of him as he disappeared. His
club-arm shot out again, a clean miss; and this time it was pure
chance that saved him. The trap-chain caught, and Miki fell back
when his hot breath was almost at The Brute's jugular. He fell
upon his side. Before he could recover himself the club was
pounding his head into the snow. The world grew black. He no
longer had the power to move. Lying as if dead he still heard over
him the panting, exultant voice of the man-beast. For Le Beau,
black though his heart was, could not keep back a prayerful cry of
thankfulness that he was victor--and had missed death, though by a
space no wider than the link of a chain.
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