PART II

CHAPTER I - THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS

It was the she-wolf who had first caught the sound of men's voices and

the whining of the sled-dogs; and it was the she-wolf who was first to

spring away from the cornered man in his circle of dying flame. The pack

had been loath to forego the kill it had hunted down, and it lingered for

several minutes, making sure of the sounds, and then it, too, sprang away

on the trail made by the she- wolf.

Running at the forefront of the pack was a large grey wolf - one of its

several leaders. It was he who directed the pack's course on the heels of

the she-wolf. It was he who snarled warningly at the younger members of

the pack or slashed at them with his fangs when they ambitiously tried to

pass him. And it was he who increased the pace when he sighted the she-

wolf, now trotting slowly across the snow.

She dropped in alongside by him, as though it were her appointed

position, and took the pace of the pack. He did not snarl at her, nor show

his teeth, when any leap of hers chanced to put her in advance of him. On

the contrary, he seemed kindly disposed toward her - too kindly to suit her,

for he was prone to run near to her, and when he ran too near it was she

who snarled and showed her teeth. Nor was she above slashing his

shoulder sharply on occasion. At such times he betrayed no anger. He

merely sprang to the side and ran stiffly ahead for several awkward leaps,

in carriage and conduct resembling an abashed country swain.

This was his one trouble in the running of the pack; but she had other

troubles. On her other side ran a gaunt old wolf, grizzled and marked with

the scars of many battles. He ran always on her right side. The fact that he

had but one eye, and that the left eye, might account for this. He, also, was

addicted to crowding her, to veering toward her till his scarred muzzle

touched her body, or shoulder, or neck. As with the running mate on the

left, she repelled these attentions with her teeth; but when both bestowed

their attentions at the same time she was roughly jostled, being compelled,

with quick snaps to either side, to drive both lovers away and at the same

time to maintain her forward leap with the pack and see the way of her

feet before her. At such times her running mates flashed their teeth and

growled threateningly across at each other. They might have fought, but

even wooing and its rivalry waited upon the more pressing hunger-need of the pack.

After each repulse, when the old wolf sheered abruptly away from the

sharp-toothed object of his desire, he shouldered against a young three-

year-old that ran on his blind right side. This young wolf had attained his

full size; and, considering the weak and famished condition of the pack, he

possessed more than the average vigour and spirit. Nevertheless, he ran

with his head even with the shoulder of his one-eyed elder. When he

ventured to run abreast of the older wolf (which was seldom), a snarl and a

snap sent him back even with the shoulder again. Sometimes, however, he

dropped cautiously and slowly behind and edged in between the old leader

and the she-wolf. This was doublyresented, even triply resented. When

she snarled her displeasure, the old leader would whirl on the three-year-

old. Sometimes she whirled with him. And sometimes the young leader on

the left whirled, too.

At such times, confronted by three sets of savage teeth, the young wolf

stopped precipitately, throwing himself back on his haunches, with fore-

legs stiff, mouth menacing, and mane bristling. This confusion in the front

of the moving pack always caused confusion in the rear. The wolves

behind collided with the young wolf and expressed their displeasure by

administering sharp nips on his hind-legs and flanks. He was laying up

trouble for himself, for lack of food and short tempers went together; but

with the boundless faith of youth he persisted in repeating the manoeuvre

every little while, though it never succeeded in gaining anything for him

but discomfiture.

Had there been food, love-making and fighting would have gone on

apace, and the pack-formation would have been broken up. But the

situation of the pack was desperate. It was lean with long- standing hunger.

It ran below its ordinary speed. At the rear limped the weak members, the

very young and the very old. At the front were the strongest. Yet all were

more like skeletons than full-bodied wolves. Nevertheless, with the

exception of the ones that limped, the movements of the animals were

eftortless and tireless. Their stringy muscles seemed founts of

inexhaustible energy. Behind every steel-like contraction of a muscle, lay

another steel-like contraction, and another, and another, apparently without end.

They ran many miles that day. They ran through the night. And the

next day found them still running. They were running over the surface of a

world frozen and dead. No life stirred. They alone moved through the vast

inertness. They alone were alive, and they sought for other things that

were alive in order that they might devour them and continue to live.

They crossed low divides and ranged a dozen small streams in a lower-

lying country before their quest was rewarded. Then they came upon

moose. It was a big bull they first found. Here was meat and life, and it

was guarded by no mysterious fires nor flying missiles of flame. Splay

hoofs and palmated antlers they knew, and they flung their customary

patience and caution to the wind. It was a brief fight and fierce. The big

bull was beset on every side. He ripped them open or split their skulls with

shrewdly driven blows of his great hoofs. He crushed them and broke

them on his large horns. He stamped them into the snow under him in the

wallowing struggle. But he was foredoomed, and he went down with the

she-wolf tearing savagely at his throat, and with other teeth fixed

everywhere upon him, devouring him alive, before ever his last struggles

ceased or his last damage had been wrought.

There was food in plenty. The bull weighed over eight hundred pounds

- fully twenty pounds of meat per mouth for the forty-odd wolves of the

pack. But if they could fast prodigiously, they could feed prodigiously, and

soon a few scattered bones were all that remained of the splendid live

brute that had faced the pack a few hours before.

There was now much resting and sleeping. With full stomachs,

bickering and quarrelling began among the younger males, and this

continued through the few days that followed before the breaking-up of

the pack. The famine was over. The wolves were now in the country of

game, and though they still hunted in pack, they hunted more cautiously,

cutting out heavy cows or crippled old bulls from the small moose-herds

they ran across.

There came a day, in this land of plenty, when the wolf-pack split in

half and went in different directions. The she-wolf, the young leader on

her left, and the one-eyed elder on her right, led their half of the pack

down to the Mackenzie River and across into the lake country to the east.

Each day this remnant of the pack dwindled. Two by two, male and female,

the wolves were deserting. Occasionally a solitary male was driven out by

the sharp teeth of his rivals. In the end there remained only four: the she-

wolf, the young leader, the one-eyed one, and the ambitious three-year-

old. The she-wolf had by now developed a ferocious temper. Her three

suitors all bore the marks of her teeth. Yet they never replied in kind, never

defended themselves against her. They turned their shoulders to her most

savage slashes, and with wagging tails and mincing steps strove to placate

her wrath. But if they were all mildness toward her, they were all

fierceness toward one another. The three-year-old grew too ambitious in

his fierceness. He caught the one-eyed elder on his blind side and ripped

his ear into ribbons. Though the grizzled old fellow could see only on one

side, against the youth and vigour of the other he brought into play the

wisdom of long years of experience. His lost eye and his scarred muzzle

bore evidence to the nature of his experience. He had survived too many

battles to be in doubt for a moment about what to do.

The battle began fairly, but it did not end fairly. There was no telling

what the outcome would have been, for the third wolf joined the elder, and

together, old leader and young leader, they attacked the ambitious three-

year-old and proceeded to destroy him. He was beset on either side by the

merciless fangs of his erstwhile comrades. Forgotten were the days they

had hunted together, the game they had pulled down, the famine they had

suffered. That business was a thing of the past. The business of love was at

hand - ever a sterner and crueller business than that of food-getting.

And in the meanwhile, the she-wolf, the cause of it all, sat down

contentedly on her haunches and watched. She was even pleased. This was

her day - and it came not often - when manes bristled, and fang smote fang

or ripped and tore the yielding flesh, all for the possession of her.

And in the business of love the three-year-old, who had made this his

first adventure upon it, yielded up his life. On either side of his body stood

his two rivals. They were gazing at the she- wolf, who sat smiling in the

snow. But the elder leader was wise, very wise, in love even as in battle.

The younger leader turned his head to lick a wound on his shoulder. The

curve of his neck was turned toward his rival. With his one eye the elder

saw the opportunity. He darted in low and closed with his fangs. It was a

long, ripping slash, and deep as well. His teeth, in passing, burst the wall

of the great vein of the throat. Then he leaped clear.

The young leader snarled terribly, but his snarl broke midmost into a

tickling cough. Bleeding and coughing, already stricken, he sprang at the

elder and fought while life faded from him, his legs going weak beneath

him, the light of day dulling on his eyes, his blows and springs falling

shorter and shorter.

And all the while the she-wolf sat on her haunches and smiled. She

was made glad in vague ways by the battle, for this was the love- making

of the Wild, the sex-tragedy of the natural world that was tragedy only to

those that died. To those that survived it was not tragedy, but realisation

and achievement.

When the young leader lay in the snow and moved no more, One Eye

stalked over to the she-wolf. His carriage was one of mingled triumph and

caution. He was plainly expectant of a rebuff, and he was just as plainly

surprised when her teeth did not flash out at him in anger. For the first

time she met him with a kindly manner. She sniffed noses with him, and

even condescended to leap about and frisk and play with him in quite

puppyish fashion. And he, for all his grey years and sage experience,

behaved quite as puppyishly and even a little more foolishly.

Forgotten already were the vanquished rivals and the love-tale red-

written on the snow. Forgotten, save once, when old One Eye stopped for

a moment to lick his stiffening wounds. Then it was that his lips half

writhed into a snarl, and the hair of his neck and shoulders involuntarily

bristled, while he half crouched for a spring, his claws spasmodically

clutching into the snow-surface for firmer footing. But it was all forgotten

the next moment, as he sprang after the she-wolf, who was coyly leading

him a chase through the woods.

After that they ran side by side, like good friends who have come to an

understanding. The days passed by, and they kept together, hunting their

meat and killing and eating it in common. After a time the she-wolf began

to grow restless. She seemed to be searching for something that she could

not find. The hollows under fallen trees seemed to attract her, and she

spent much time nosing about among the larger snow-piled crevices in the

rocks and in the caves of overhanging banks. Old One Eye was not

interested at all, but he followed her good-naturedly in her quest, and

when her investigations in particular places were unusually protracted, he

would lie down and wait until she was ready to go on.

They did not remain in one place, but travelled across country until

they regained the Mackenzie River, down which they slowly went, leaving

it often to hunt game along the small streams that entered it, but always

returning to it again. Sometimes they chanced upon other wolves, usually

in pairs; but there was no friendliness of intercourse displayed on either

side, no gladness at meeting, no desire to return to the pack-formation.

Several times they encountered solitary wolves. These were always males,

and they were pressingly insistent on joining with One Eye and his mate.

This he resented, and when she stood shoulder to shoulder with him,

bristling and showing her teeth, the aspiring solitary ones would back off,

turn-tail, and continue on their lonely way.

One moonlight night, running through the quiet forest, One Eye

suddenly halted. His muzzle went up, his tail stiffened, and his nostrils

dilated as he scented the air. One foot also he held up, after the manner of

a dog. He was not satisfied, and he continued to smell the air, striving to

understand the message borne upon it to him. One careless sniff had

satisfied his mate, and she trotted on to reassure him. Though he followed

her, he was still dubious, and he could not forbear an occasional halt in

order more carefully to study the warning.

She crept out cautiously on the edge of a large open space in the midst

of the trees. For some time she stood alone. Then One Eye, creeping and

crawling, every sense on the alert, every hair radiating infinite suspicion,

joined her. They stood side by side, watching and listening and smelling.

To their ears came the sounds of dogs wrangling and scuffling, the

guttural cries of men, the sharper voices of scolding women, and once the

shrill and plaintive cry of a child. With the exception of the huge bulks of

the skin-lodges, little could be seen save the flames of the fire, broken by

the movements of intervening bodies, and the smoke rising slowly on the

quiet air. But to their nostrils came the myriad smells of an Indian camp,

carrying a story that was largely incomprehensible to One Eye, but every

detail of which the she-wolf knew.

She was strangely stirred, and sniffed and sniffed with an increasing

delight. But old One Eye was doubtful. He betrayed his apprehension, and

started tentatively to go. She turned. and touched his neck with her muzzle

in a reassuring way, then regarded the camp again. A new wistfulness was

in her face, but it was not the wistfulness of hunger. She was thrilling to a

desire that urged her to go forward, to be in closer to that fire, to be

squabbling with the dogs, and to be avoiding and dodging the stumbling

feet of men.

One Eye moved impatiently beside her; her unrest came back upon her,

and she knew again her pressing need to find the thing for which she

searched. She turned and trotted back into the forest, to the great relief of

One Eye, who trotted a little to the fore until they were well within the

shelter of the trees.

As they slid along, noiseless as shadows, in the moonlight, they came

upon a run-way. Both noses went down to the footprints in the snow.

These footprints were very fresh. One Eye ran ahead cautiously, his mate

at his heels. The broad pads of their feet were spread wide and in contact

with the snow were like velvet. One Eye caught sight of a dim movement

of white in the midst of the white. His sliding gait had been deceptively

swift, but it was as nothing to the speed at which he now ran. Before him

was bounding the faint patch of white he had discovered.

They were running along a narrow alley flanked on either side by a

growth of young spruce. Through the trees the mouth of the alley could be

seen, opening out on a moonlit glade. Old One Eye was rapidly

overhauling the fleeing shape of white. Bound by bound he gained. Now

he was upon it. One leap more and his teeth would be sinking into it. But

that leap was never made. High in the air, and straight up, soared the shape

of white, now a struggling snowshoe rabbit that leaped and bounded,

executing a fantastic dance there above him in the air and never once

returning to earth.

One Eye sprang back with a snort of sudden fright, then shrank down

to the snow and crouched, snarling threats at this thing of fear he did not

understand. But the she-wolf coolly thrust past him. She poised for a

moment, then sprang for the dancing rabbit. She, too, soared high, but not

so high as the quarry, and her teeth clipped emptily together with 'a

metallic snap. She made another leap, and another.

Her mate had slowly relaxed from his crouch and was watching her.

He now evinced displeasure at her repeated failures, and himself made a

mighty spring upward. His teeth closed upon the rabbit, and he bore it

back to earth with him. But at the same time there was a suspicious

crackling movement beside him, and his astonished eye saw a young

sprucesapling bending down above him to strike him. His jaws let go their

grip, and he leaped backward to escape this strange danger, his lips drawn

back from his fangs, his throat snarling, every hair bristling with rage and

fright. And in that moment the sapling reared its slender length upright and

the rabbit soared dancing in the air again.

The she-wolf was angry. She sank her fangs into her mate's shoulder in

reproof; and he, frightened, unaware of what constituted this new

onslaught, struck back ferociously and in still greater fright, ripping down

the side of the she-wolf's muzzle. For him to resent such reproof was

equally unexpected to her, and she sprang upon him in snarling

indignation. Then he discovered his mistake and tried to placate her. But

she proceeded to punish him roundly, until he gave over all attempts at

placation, and whirled in a circle, his head away from her, his shoulders

receiving the punishment of her teeth.

In the meantime the rabbit danced above them in the air. The she- wolf

sat down in the snow, and old One Eye, now more in fear of his mate than

of the mysterious sapling, again sprang for the rabbit. As he sank back

with it between his teeth, he kept his eye on the sapling. As before, it

followed him back to earth. He crouched down under the impending blow,

his hair bristling, but his teeth still keeping tight hold of the rabbit. But the

blow did not fall. The sapling remained bent above him. When he moved

it moved, and he growled at it through his clenched jaws; when he

remained still, it remained still, and he concluded it was safer to continue

remaining still. Yet the warm blood of the rabbit tasted good in his mouth.

It was his mate who relieved him from the quandary in which he found

himself. She took the rabbit from him, and while the sapling swayed and

teetered threateningly above her she calmly gnawed off the rabbit's head.

At once the sapling shot up, and after that gave no more trouble,

remaining in the decorous and perpendicular position in which nature had

intended it to grow. Then, between them, the she-wolf and One Eye

devoured the game which the mysterious sapling had caught for them.

There were other run-ways and alleys where rabbits were hanging in

the air, and the wolf-pair prospected them all, the she-wolf leading the

way, old One Eye following and observant, learning the method of

robbing snares - a knowledge destined to stand him in good stead in the

days to come.
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