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

doubly resented, 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

effortless 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

spruce sapling 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.