The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Outcasts, by W. A. Fraser
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Title: The Outcasts
Author: W. A. Fraser
Illustrator: Arthur Heming
Release Date: September 26, 2006 [EBook #19387]
Language: English
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THE OUTCASTS
[Illustration: SHAG CARRIED THE DOG-WOLF ON HIS BACK.]
THE
OUTCASTS
BY W. A. FRASER
ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR HEMING
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK ----- MDCCCCI
_Copyright, 1901, by_
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Illustrations
_The full-page subjects from drawings by Arthur Heming. The
head- and tail-pieces from drawings by J. S. Gordon_
FACING
Shag carried the Dog-wolf on his back Title
"Lying on my back as though I were dead, I
held my tail straight up" 6
"I am no Wolf, Shag; I am A'tim, which
meaneth a Dog in the talk of the Crees" 10
One after another they hurtled into the
slaughter-pen of the Blood Indians' corral 36
Muskwa had A'tim in his long-clawed grasp 66
"Steady, Dog-Wolf, steady," admonished
Shag, "this is a friend of mine" 78
"Oh, don't mention it!" exclaimed the Wolf;
"no doubt we shall find something for
dinner, presently" 114
"Thou art a traitor, and a great liar," said
the Bull 136
THE OUTCASTS
[Illustration]
THE OUTCASTS
CHAPTER ONE
A'tim the Outcast was half Wolf, half Huskie Dog. That meant
ferocity and bloodthirst on the one side, and knowledge of Man's
ways on the other. Also, that he was an Outcast; for neither side
of the house of his ancestry would have aught of him.
A'tim was bred in the far Northland, where the Cree Indians trail
the white snow-waste with Train Dogs; and one time A'tim had
pressed an unwilling shoulder to a dog-collar. Now he was an
outcast vagabond on the southern prairie, close to the Montana
border-land.
It was September; and all day A'tim had skulked in the willow
cover of Belly River flat-lands, close to the lodges of the Blood
Indians.
Nothing to eat had come the way of the Dog-Wolf; only a little
knowledge of something that was to happen, for he had heard
things,--the voices of the Indians sitting in council had slipped
gently down the wind to his sharp Wolf ears.
As he crawled up the river bank close to Belly Buttes and looked
across the plain, he could see the pink flush of eventide, like a
fairy veil, draping the cold blue mountains--the Rockies.
"Good-night, warm Brother," he said, blinking at the setting sun;
"I wonder if you are going to sleep with an empty stomach, as
must A'tim."
The soft-edged shafts of gold-yellow quivered tremblingly behind
the blue-gray mountains, as though Sol were laughing at the
address of the Outcast. The Dog-Wolf looked furtively over his
shoulder at the smoke-wreathed cones of the Blood tepees. The
odor of many flesh-pots tickled his nostrils until they quivered
in longing desire. Buh-h-h! but he was hungry! All his life he
had been hungry; only at long intervals had a gorge of much
eating fallen to his lot.
"Good-night, warm Brother," he said again, turning stubbornly
from the scent of flesh, and eying the crimson flush where the
sun had set; "one more round of your trail and I shall sleep with
a full stomach, for to-morrow the Bloods make a big Kill--the Run
of many Buffalo."
A'tim, sitting on his haunches, and holding his nose high in air
until his throat pipe drew straight and taut, sang: "O-o-o-o-o-h!
for the blood drinking! W-a-u-g-ha! the sweet new meat--hot to
the mouth!"
The Indian Dogs caught up the cry of A'tim as it floated over the
Belly River and voiced it from a thousand throats.
"The Blackfeet!" screamed Eagle Shoe, rushing from his tepee.
"It's only a hungry Wolf," he grunted, as he sat in the council
again; "let us talk of the Buffalo Run."
That was what the Dog-Wolf had heard lying in the tangle of gray
willow, close to the tepee of Eagle Shoe, the Blood Indian; and
he would sleep peacefully, his hunger stayed by the morrow's
prospect. As he sat yawning toward the rose sky in the West, a
huge, dark form came majestically from a cleft in the buttes, and
stood outlined, a towering black mass. A'tim flattened to earth
as though he had been shot, looking not more than a tuft of
withered bunch-grass. Then he arose as suddenly, chuckled to
himself, and growled nervously: "Oh! but I got a start--it's only
old Shag, the Outcast Bull. Ha, ha! A'tim to fear a Buffalo!
Good-evening, Brother," he exclaimed; "you quite frightened me--I
thought it was that debased Long Knife, Camous."
"Thought me Camous!" bellowed the Bull, snorting indignantly;
"he's but a slayer and a thief. All the Paleface Long Knives are
that; killing, killing--stealing, stealing. Why, even among his
own kind he is called 'Camous'; and you, who were bred in the Man
camps, know what that means."
"Of course, of course--ha! most surely it means 'a stealer of
things.' But I meant not to liken you to him, Brother Shag--it
was only my fright; for even in my dreams I am always seeing the
terrible Camous. I have cause to remember him, Shag--it was this
way. Did I ever tell you?"
"Never," answered Shag, heavily.
[Illustration: "LYING ON MY BACK AS THOUGH I WERE DEAD, I HELD MY
TAIL STRAIGHT UP."]
"Well, it was this way: Once upon a time, in the low hills they
call Cypress, I was stalking a herd of antelope. To tell you the
truth, I had been at it for two days. Waugh! but they were wary.
At last I worked within fair eyesight of them, and knowing the
stupid desire they have to look close at anything that may be
strange to them, I took to myself a clever plan. Lying on my back
as though I were dead, I held my tail straight up, and let the
wind blow it back and forth. The big-eyed Eaters-of-Grass asked
one another: 'What is this new thing? Is it a plant or an animal?'
That is the way they talked, I am sure, for they are like
wolf-pups, quite silly. Well, they came closer and closer and
closer. E-u-h-h, e-u-h-h! but my mouth watered with the thought
of their sweet meat as I lay as one dead. Now, they hadn't the
knowledge to work up wind to me, but came straight for the thing
they saw that moved. Would you believe it, just as I was
measuring from the corner of my eye the time for a strong rush,
who should creep over a hill but Camous! In fright I sprang to my
feet, and away went the Goat-faced small-prongs. Then the
deviltry of the many-breathed Fire-stick this Camous carries came
down upon me as I ran faster than I'd ever gone before. 'Click,
snap! click, snap!' the quick-breathing Fire-stick coughed; and
though I rocked, and jumped sideways and twisted, before I could
get away I had one of the breath-stings in my shoulder. E-u-h-h!
but I go lame from it still."
Shag slipped a cud of sweet grass up his throat with a gurgling
cough and chewed it reflectively, for he was of a slow turn of
thought, not at all like the nimble-brained Dog-Wolf. Then he
swallowed the cud, blew from his nostrils the sand that had come
into them crossing the scant-garbed hills of Belly Buttes, and
said ponderously: "Yes, I know the many-breathed Fire-stick;
that's what makes the Palefaces so terrible. The plain simply
reeks with the dead bodies of my people whom they have slain."
"And the bodies all poisoned, too; whur-r, whur-r! All turned
into death meat for the Flesh-feeders, Dog or Wolf," snarled
A'tim. "Killed for the hide--think of that, Shag!--or just the
tongue taken. If we make a kill it is for the eating--to still
the gnawing pain that comes to us, and we waste nothing, leave
nothing."
"Most assuredly," replied the Bull, "thou leavest nothing but the
bones."
"Nothing but the bones," concurred A'tim. "And as I was saying,
these Long Knives put the Flour of Death in the dead Buffalo, and
my Wolf Brethren, when they eat, being forced to of their hunger,
die like flies at Cold Time."
"And a good thing, too--I mean--" and Shag coughed
apologetically; "I mean, as a Calf I received cause to remember
your Wolf Brothers, A'tim; there's a hollow in my thigh you could
bury your paw in, where one of your long-fanged Pack sought to
hamstring me. You, A'tim, who are half Wolf, know how it comes
that where one of your kind puts his teeth, the flesh, sooner or
later, melts away, and leaves but a hole--how is it, A'tim?"
"Foul teeth," growled the Dog-Wolf. "They're a mean lot, are the
Gray Runners; even I, who am half of their kind, bear them no
love--have they not outcasted me because of my Dog blood? I am no
Wolf, Shag; I am A'tim, which meaneth 'a Dog,' in the talk of the
Crees."
"Even so, Brother," said Shag, "how comes it that thou art a
half-breed Wolf at all?"
[Illustration: "I AM NO WOLF, SHAG; I AM A'TIM, WHICH MEANETH A
DOG IN THE TALK OF THE CREES."]
"That is also of Man's evil ways, Brother Bull--thinking to
change everything that was as it should be before he came. This
false mating is of his thought; to get the strength of the Wolf,
and the long-fasting of the Wolf, and the toughness of the Wolf,
into the kind of his Train-Dogs. And because of all this, I, who
am a Dog, am outcasted."
"Well, we'll soon all be gone," sighed the Bull, plaintively;
"when I was a Smooth Horn, and in the full glory of my strength--"
"Thou must have been of a great strength, Shag, for thou art the
biggest Bull from Belly Buttes to Old Man River--Waugh! Waugh!
that I can swear to."
"In those days," continued Shag, taking a swinging lick at his
scraggy hide with his rough tongue, "in those days, when I was a
Smooth Horn, I led a Herd that caused the sweet-grass plain to
tremble like water when we galloped over it. We were as
locusts--that many; and when crossing a coulee I've turned with
pride on the opposite bank--I always went first--and, looking
back, saw the whole hollow just a waving mass of life. Such life,
too, Lone Dog; silk-coated Cows with Calf at knee; and Bulls
there were full many--because I tolerated them, of course--and
all strong and fat, and troubled by nothing but, perchance, in
the Cold Time a few days of the White Storm which covered our
food. But that did not matter much; we just drifted head on to
the harsh-edged blizzard, and lived on the thick fat of our
kidneys."
"But the Redmen--the hairless-faced ones," interrupted Dog-Wolf;
"they killed many a Buffalo in the old days."
"We could spare them," replied Shag; "their Deathshafts of wood
slew but a few. Like yourself, A'tim, they killed only when they
were hungry. It's the many-breathed Fire-stick of the Paleface
that has destroyed us, A'tim; but like you, Brother, I, who am
but an Outcast because of my great age, and because my horns have
become stubs, care not overmuch. Why should I lament over my own
people who have driven me forth--made of me an Outcast?"
"There is to be a big Run to-morrow--a mighty Kill," said A'tim,
growing tired of the old Bull's reminiscent wail.
"Where?" queried the other.
"At Stone Hill Corral. Eagle Shoe says they will kill five
hundred head."
"I know," sighed Shag--"at the Pound; I know that death-trap.
Half a Herd I lost there once through the conceit of a young Bull
hardly out of the Spike Horn age. Well I know the Pound--even the
old Indian of deep cunning who made it, Chief Poundmaker--that's
how he came by his name, A'tim. But, as I was saying, when I
tried to turn the Herd, knowing what was meant, this Calf Bull
led a part of them straight into the very trap. Served him right,
too; but the Cows! Ah, me! My poor people! Slaughtered, every one
of them; and so it will be again to-morrow--eh, A'tim? It's the
big Herd down in the good feeding they're after, I suppose."
"Yes," answered A'tim; "to-morrow the whole Blood tribe, and
Camous the Paleface, who is but a squaw man, living in their
lodges, will make the Run."
"I wish I could stampede the Buffalo to save them," sighed Shag;
"but my sides are sore from the insulting prods of the Spike
Horns. Not a Bull in the whole Herd, from Smooth Horns, who are
wise, down to Spike Horns, who are fools because of their youth,
but thinks it fair sport to drive at me if I go near. Surely I am
an Outcast--which seems to me a strange thing. When we come to
the knowledge age, having gained wisdom, we are driven forth."
"No; you'd only get into trouble," declared A'tim decisively.
"We, who are Brothers because of our condition, will watch this
Run from afar. To-morrow, for once in my life, I shall have a
full stomach."
"I am going back to the Buttes to sleep," declared Shag.
"I will go also," said A'tim; "while you rest, I, who sleep with
one eye open, after the manner of my Wolf Brothers, will watch."
In a little valley driven into the Buttes' side, where the grass
grew long because of deep snow in winter time, the big Buffalo
stopped, prospected the ground with his nose, flipped a sharp
stone from the couch with nimble lip, and knelt down gingerly,
for rheumatism had crept into his old bones; then with a tired
grunt of relaxation he rolled on his side, and blew a great
breath of sweet content through his nostrils.
"A good bed," quoth A'tim. "I will share it with you, Brother;
close against your stomach for warmth."
He took the three turns that had come to him of his Dog
heritage, and curled up contentedly against the great paunch of
the scarred Bull.
"I can't sleep for thinking of the big Kill," murmured Shag. "My
poor Brothers and Sisters, also some of my own children, are in
that Herd, though they, too, have disowned and driven me forth."
"There will be more sweet grass for your feeding when they are
gone, Shag," declared Dog-Wolf.
"Ah, there's plenty of eating, such as it is; though the grass on
the prairie looks short and dry and harsh, yet it is sweet in the
cud. To you, who are but a Dog-Wolf, the eating comes first in
your thought, but with us it is the dread of hunters, who keep us
ever on the move."
"I know of a land where it is not this way," asserted A'tim,
after a pause; "a beautiful land, with pea-vine knee-deep, and
grass the Men call blue-joint, that fair tops my back when I walk
through it. As for drink! why, one day in a single tramp I
crossed sixteen streams of beautiful running water."
"Are you dreaming, A'tim?" asked Shag, touching the Dog-Wolf's
back with the battered point of his stub-horn.
"No, Bull; and there are few hunters in that land, and few of
your kind; and shelter of forest against the White Storm; and
buttes and coulees everywhere."
"An ideal Range," muttered the Bull; "is it far?"
"Perhaps half a moon--perhaps a whole moon from here to there,
just as one's feet stand the trail."
"You make me long for that great feeding," sighed Shag enviously.
"Yes, you'd be better in the Northland, Shag," said the Dog-Wolf,
sleepily--"better there. Here you are an Outcast, even as I am."
"Yes, after the big Kill to-morrow," sighed the Bull mournfully,
"I shall want to trail somewhere. Across Kootenay River is good
feeding-ground, but there the accursed Long Knives are filled
with the very devil of destruction, and kill even such as I am,
though my hide is not worth the lifting. I, who am an Outcast,
and have lost all pride, know this--I am worthless."
The bubbling monotone of the old Bull had put A'tim to sleep. He
was giving vent to gasping snores and plaintive whimpers, and his
legs were twitching spasmodically; he was dreaming of the chase.
Shag turned his massive head and watched the nervous Dog-Wolf
with heavy, tired eyes. "He is chasing the reed-legged Antelope
now; or, perhaps, even in his sleep, Camous pursues him with the
many-breathed Fire-stick. Well, well, by my hump, but we all have
our troubles; even this Dog-Wolf, who is not half my age, has
lived into the hard winter of life."
Then Shag rested his black-whiskered chin on the soft turf, his
tired eyelids, mange-shaved, drooped over the age-blurred eyes,
and these two Outcasts, so strangely mated, driven together by
adversity, slept in the coulee of Belly Buttes.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER TWO
A cold, weakling gray-light was touching with ghastly fresco the
Belly Buttes when A'tim stretched out his paw and scratched
impatiently at Shag's leather side. The Bull came back slowly out
of his heavy sleep.
"Gently, Wolf Brother," he cried petulantly; "your claws are
wondrous strong, and my side has many sore spots--love scars from
my Brother Bulls."
"You'll have worse than Bull scars if you don't wake up,"
answered A'tim; "can't you hear something?"
Shag tipped his massive head sideways with drowsy inquiry, the
heavy lids opening in unwilling laziness. A muffled, palpitating
beat was in the sulky morning air; it was like the monotonous
thump of a war drum over on the Reserve.
"What is it?" queried the Bull, raising his head with full-aged
dignity.
"Eagle Shoe's pinto is pounding the trail; the Run is on,"
answered A'tim.
Shag heaved his huge body to his knees wearily, struggled to his
feet with stiff-limbed action, and shook his gaunt sides.
"You needn't do that," sneered A'tim; "not much grass sticks to
your coat now."
"No, it's only force of habit," grunted Shag. "And to think of
the time when my beautiful hair was the envy of the whole range;
for I was a Silk-Coat, you know--a rare thing in Bulls, to be
sure. But I'm not that now; when I look in the lake waters and
see only this miserable ruff about my neck, and scant tuft on my
tail, I feel sad--feel ashamed. The tongue of the lake tells me
all that, Brother, so say no more about it."
"Wait you here, Shag," commanded A'tim; "I will go up on a Butte
and see the method of these hunters; my eyes are younger than
yours, Herd Leader."
When the Dog-Wolf returned he said: "Eagle Shoe is riding far to
the South; let us follow in the river flat and see this Run, for
it will be a mighty Kill. O-o-o-h! but I am empty--famished!"
"Always of blood," muttered the Bull to himself--"always of blood
and meat eating; Wolf and Dog; Dog-Wolf and Man--always full of
the blood thought and the desire for a Kill."
They could hear the thud of pony hoofs on the dry prairie's
hollow drum as they traveled, winding in and out the tangle of
willow bushes that followed the river. Then the hoof beats died
away, and A'tim said: "Now he has circled to the West--that means
something; let us go up and see."
They stole up the old river bank to the brow of the uplands. A
mile off they could see Eagle Shoe standing beside his cayuse. As
they watched, the Blood Indian stooped, caught up a handful of
black earth-dust and threw it high in air. That was sign talk,
and told his comrades who were hiding on the prairie that he saw
many Buffalo--Buffalo many as the grains of sand cast to the
wind.
Then he trailed his blanket behind him as he walked beside his
ewe-necked pinto, and two Indians stole stealthily from their
prairie cover like Coyotes, and followed Eagle Shoe.
"Ah!" muttered Shag, as he and A'tim went forward slowly, "I
know. This Indian has the cunning of a whole Wolf-Pack; is that
not so, Brother? King Animals!" he exclaimed, in a great voice
like the low of the wind coming through a mountain gorge; "is
that not the Herd yonder, clear-eyed Dog-Wolf?"
"By the chance of meat, it is--a mighty Herd, Shag; such a Herd
as the Caribou make in the Northland when they mate."
"Now the Buffalo see Eagle Shoe," continued Shag; "but they have
no wisdom; they but see some one thing that has life. Perhaps
they will even say: 'It is only old Shag, the Outcast; let us
feed in peace.' Their eyes are the eyes of Calves, and their
noses tell them nothing, for the hunt Man is down Wind, is he
not, A'tim?"
"Surely, Brother; even a _moneas_, a green hunter of a Paleface,
would know better than to send the flavor of his presence on the
Wind's back."
"Yes, even so," continued Shag. "See how gently he moves toward
them. Danger! One Bull's head is up; he has discovered that it is
not a Buffalo; now he has whispered to the others, for they are
moving slowly. Thou hast spoken truth, A'tim--a strange thing for
a Dog-Wolf, too," he muttered to himself--"it _will_ be a mighty
Kill. How slowly the Herd moves; they are not afraid of the one
animal, whatever it is--one, did I say, A'tim? Look you, Brother,
for you have the Wolf-eyes: are there not three now--three Kill
drivers?"
"Yes, three Indians," answered the Dog-Wolf. "The same old Hunt.
I've watched it many a time from behind the runners; I know every
trick of these slayers. Now the Run surely begins; let us close
up, Shag, for the hunters will have no eyes for such as us; their
hearts are full of the killing of many Buffalo. Also, there will
be much meat warm to a cold stomach to-night;" and he licked his
chops greedily.
"I don't like it," muttered Shag; "the Palefaces, with their
many-breathed Fire-sticks, have killed my people, and have driven
them up from the South, and now they are gathered together in a
few mighty Herds such as this. The Redmen, who have not these
Fire-sticks, but have the cunning of Wolves, see all this, and
say they too must slay a whole Herd, where before they killed but
two or three. We'll soon be all gone--we, who are the meat food
of these Redmen, we'll soon be all gone, and then what will they
do, A'tim? Will they kill each other, as your people do when the
famine gets into their hearts? Or will they just lie down and
die, as my people do when the White Storm blots out all the grass
food?"
"I do not know, Great Bull," answered A'tim. "To-night I shall be
full of much meat, perhaps even to-morrow; after that I know not
what may come with the warm trail of the sun."
The Outcasts saw the two Indians ride into the eye of the Wind
that blew up from the South across the Herd. As a sudden squall
ripples a smooth lake, so the scent of the Redmen carried by the
prairie breeze stirred the sea of brown-backed Buffalo.
"Now they will stampede," quoth Shag, eying this man[oe]uver with
heavy intentness.
"Yes," answered A'tim, "and Eagle Shoe will lead your brethren to
their destruction. We will wait here till they have passed, then
we will follow."
"Yonder is one of the bush wings leading to the slaughter-pen,
the Stone Hill Corral," cried Shag; "and on the far side will be
another, though we can't see it yet."
"Yes," concurred A'tim, "I see it; they'll come closer and closer
together, these two run of bushes, and at the far end there will
be but a narrow trail like a coulee, and after that they drop
into Stone Hill Pit--the Buffalo Pound. I saw the Indians
building these trail-slides last night. It will be a great Run--a
mighty Kill!"
"Yes," affirmed Shag, "we both know of this thing--we who are of
no account; it is only the Outcasts who have much wisdom,
seemingly. Behind the bushes hide the Indians, and no Buffalo
will break through because of them. On, on they'll gallop to the
death-pit, the Pound. Let us move up closer; my old blood tingles
with it, for I've been in many a Run."
A'tim grinned like a Hyena. Already in his Wolf nostrils was the
visionary scent of blood, and much killing. That night he would
dip his lean jaws in the Kill of the Redmen.
Eagle Shoe and the two Indians who had come up out of the level
plain like evil spirits were leading and driving their prey into
the wide jaws of the converging stockade. The Buffalo were
pressing on to destruction with increased pace, following with
blind stupidity the horseman who cantered in front of them. From
a lazy stroll they had quickened to a fast walk; a shuffling trot
had given place to an impatient lope. Calves were being hustled
to the center of the moving Herd by loving mothers. Head down,
and wisp-tail straight out, the brown bodies shifted from lope to
mad gallop. The Bulls snorted restlessly and called hoarse-voiced
to their consorts: "Speed fast, for something evil follows."
The beaten earth groaned in hollow misery; the thrusting weight
of half a thousand head made its breast ache; its plaintive
protest grew into an angry roar like incessant thunder; the
dust, sharp-hoof-pounded, rose like a hot breath, and hung
foglike over the troubled sea of rocking bodies.
Behind, the two horsemen, wide apart like fan points, galloped
with hard-set faces. Eagerly the ponies, bred to the Hunt,
stretched their limbs of steel-like toughness, and raced for the
brown cloud that fled as a broken regiment.
Surely it was wondrous sport, as A'tim thought; surely it was
unholy slaughter, as the Outcast Bull muttered.
Now the galloping brutes were well between the brush walls of the
ever-narrowing stockade. A Calf, speed-strangled, slipped from
the dust cloud and wandered aimlessly toward the galloping
horsemen; Grasshead's pony swerved as the Calf sprawled in his
path.
On the Buffalo galloped; faster and faster rode Eagle Shoe. His
cayuse, the fleetest Buffalo horse of all the Blood tribe,
galloped with the full fear in his heart of the danger that was
behind. Low over his neck crouched Eagle Shoe; one false step--a
yawning badger hole, a swerve at a white rock, a falter, and
crunching hoofs would grind the Redskin to pulp.
Wedge-shaped the Herd raced for the leading horseman; hindermost
labored the fatted bulls, but in front thundered the leader.
With hawk eye, Eagle Shoe swept the stockade wall for the opening
through which he was to slip and let the Herd gallop on to their
destruction. Hi, yi! there it was. Sharp to the left, swinging
his body far out on the side to steady the careening cayuse, he
turned. As he shot through the opening two Indians rose up, and
their guns belched a red repulse in the faces of the Buffalo.
On swept the Herd--on raced the pursuing Redskins, now joined
by Eagle Shoe. An Indian rose like a specter behind the bush
wall, and twanged a hoarse-singing arrow into the quivering flank
of the Herd that was as one Buffalo. His Hunt-Cry of joy,
fierce-voiced, was like the wail of an infant--the roar of the
troubled earth hushed it to nothing.
Fear rode on the backs of the striding beasts, and they were
afraid; and in their hearts was only gallop, gallop, gallop;
there was no thought, nothing but frenzy; no thought of breaking
through the wing sides, flimsy as a deep shadow, for behind
twig-laced walls were strange demons possessed of the Man-Call,
the Kill-Cry. On, on, on! only in front was any opening; there
the prairie lay still and smiling. Wedge-like behind their Bull
Leader they thundered. To him the open prairie in front beckoned
and smiled a lie of safe passage; the Pound, the death-pit, dug
on its rounded breast, lay hushed in silent ambush, and the Bull
Leader saw only a narrow gate at the far end of the fast-closing
wings. Soon he would lead all this mighty Herd that had grown
into his charge past the walls that were alive with evil spirits,
and out to the prairie beyond.
What could rise up in front and stay that mad rush of half a
thousand Buffalo? Nothing--nothing! and the Pound still lay
hushed--waiting.
Behind the Bull, with implicit faith, pressed the Herd. Only a
short distance reached the dreaded yellow-leafed walls that hid
the Man enemy. In six breaths he would have passed the narrow
mouth, and all his heart's pride would stream out from that death
gauntlet to the broad Range that called to him.
Even now he drew a sigh of relief; one more jump--oh, spirit of
sacred Buffalo! that yawning abyss! the frown of the Pound. He
braced his giant forelegs in the graveled earth on its very
brink. Too late! Behind, two hundred tons of impetuous fright
crashed against his guarding frame; the treacherous sod crumbled;
down, down, thirty feet sheer, over the cliff he shot: two, six,
a dozen, fifty! beyond all count, one after another, bellowing
Cow and screaming Calf, they hurtled into the slaughter-pen of
the Blood Indians' corral.
[Illustration: ONE AFTER ANOTHER THEY HURTLED INTO THE
SLAUGHTER-PEN OF THE BLOOD INDIANS' CORRAL.]
Inferno upon earth was born in an instant; up from the sun smile
of the prairie rose a shadow of fiends. The walls of the pit,
large as the Coliseum, were lined with Redskins of the murder
caste. Bow-strings twanged; dag-spears, long-handled, were driven
with vengeful swish into the bellowing mob of crazed Buffalo. A
sulphurous cloud of gun smoke settled over the pit. Of a verity
it was a carnival of demons. Surely it was a mighty Kill! Surely
it was a blood fresco on the beautiful earth.
Some strong animals, not shattered in their fall, rushed about
the pit in erratic frenzy, like victims in a Roman arena. The
mocking walls rose on every side, grim, unsurmountable, and
thrust the captives back into the shambles; jagged flint
arrow-heads stung their hearts like angry serpents. Oh, blessed
quick death! better than the smother and trample that beat out
the lives of others, inch by inch. The gun fire belched hot in
their faces; the bellowing of Bulls almost hushed the Hunt-Cry of
the Redman.
For an hour the full carnage lived; the joy of blood-shedding was
over the Indians; gray-aged warriors and lean-chested children,
all drank of the glory of slaughter. Skinning-knife in hand, the
Squaws waited for the tumult to subside that they might complete
the tragedy.
At last no Buffalo chased hopelessly over the dead bodies of his
fellows, seeking a vain safety; all were stricken to their
death--not one had escaped. No bellowing was heard now; nothing
but the victory clamor of the rabble and the gasping choke of
dying Buffalo. Out on the prairie the silly Calf wandered like a
lost babe--the only survivor of a king-led Herd.
Like butchers, the strong-backed Squaws leaped into the arena,
its stone floor slippery with blood, and stripped the bodies of
their victims. The Indians, their warrior pride holding them
aloof from this menial labor, sat and gloried in the mighty Kill.
Shag and the Dog-Wolf had heard the din from afar. "They will not
poison the meat to-night," muttered A'tim, "and when they have
gorged themselves to sleep, I also shall feast, for it must have
been a great Kill."
"It's dreadful!" lamented Shag; "it's dreadful! I can't eat--the
grass tastes of blood, for this Kill has been of my kind. It is
different with you, A'tim. I will sleep here in this near-by
coulee, and when you have feasted, Dog Brother, come back to me,
for I am sad and my heart is heavy; come back, A'tim, and sleep
warm against my side."
Far into the night, by the light of dry willow fires, like
dancing ghouls, the Squaws cut and hacked and laid bare the bones
that had been joyous in much life at sunrise.
Over the camp-fires, for long hours, the pots boiled and bubbled
with the cooking meat--the delicious Buffalo flesh that was meat
and bread to the Indians; and beside the glowing embers huge
joints spitted on sharp sticks sizzled and threw off a perfume
that came to the starved nostrils of A'tim, and almost crazed him
with eager hunger.
Would the Indians never cease eating? he wondered. Close-crept,
he watched Eagle Shoe take a piece of the luscious "back
fat"--ah, well A'tim knew the loin!--and devour it greedily. How
like vultures these feeders were, A'tim thought. At least a dozen
times each Indian returned to the flesh-pots, the Dog-Wolf felt
sure. "They are like Wolves," he snarled; "well I know them. For
days and days they will live on nothing, even as a Wolf; then,
when the Kill is on, they will gorge until they are stupid.
E-u-h-ha! but when they become stupid from this feeding surely I
will also feast; wait, hunger-pain, wait just a little."
A cold moon came up over the fog-lined prairie and looked down
wonderingly at the fierce barbecue. Sometimes the silent prairie,
silent as the Catacombs, would be startled by the exultant cry of
a blood-drunken feaster. It was a fierce joy the Kill had brought
to these Pagans.
Half a thousand robes Eagle Shoe had tallied. "Waugh! Ugh! Ugh!"
he had grunted in sheer joy when the little willow wands which
marked the score had been counted before him. Surely they would
revel in things dear to the heart of an Indian when the robes
were carted to the Hudson Bay Store. The meat was feeling all
right in its way when the stomach was lean, but at the Fort, at
the time of giving up the robes--Waugh! God of the fallen
Indians! how they would revel in the fierce fire-water, the
glorious fire-water! Even the Squaws, useful at the skinning,
would also drink, and reel, and become lower than the animals
they had slain to bring about all this saturnalia. Why had his
forefathers fought against the Palefaces? Was not all this
civilized evil a good thing, after all?
A cloud drifted a frown over the face of the cold moon, and A'tim
skulked closer and closer--almost to the very edge of the
slaughter-pit. The Indian Pack-Dogs snarled at his presence, and
yapped crabbedly. Other gray shadows, less venturesome than the
Dog-Wolf, flitted restlessly back and forth in the dim mist of
the silent plain.
A'tim sneered to himself maliciously. "To-day is the Kill of the
Buffalo," he muttered; "to-morrow you, my Gray Brothers, will
give up your lives because of the Death Powder. There will be
meat enough for the poisoning; feast to-night, for to-morrow you
die, and your pelts will go with those of the Dead Grass-Eaters.
If you had not outcasted me, I, who know of this thing, would
save you; but to-morrow I shall be far away and care not."
Would the Indians never gorge themselves to sleep? Eagle Shoe's
voice was hushed; one by one the feasters stretched themselves
upon the silent grass, and slumbered with a heaviness of full
content. When the last Squaw, weary of the blood toil, curled
beneath her blanket, A'tim crept to the meat piles. All the
energy of his rested stomach urged him to the feasting; there was
no stint.
Surely no Swift-runner, Dog or Wolf, ever had such a choosing.
The Pack-Dogs kept the Wolves at bay, but with A'tim was the
scent of their own kind, the Dog scent. He was not an utter
stranger to them, only an Outcast; they tolerated him as a beggar
at the meat store of which they had more than enough.
At last the hunger pain was all gone. Once in his Train-Dog days
he had looted a cache of White Fish, and eaten until he could eat
no more; it was like that now. Then, with a Dog thought for the
morrow, he stole four huge pieces of choice meat, and cached them
in the little coulee where waited Shag.
"Ah! you've come back, Brother," said the Bull, as A'tim crept
complacently to his side. "I was afraid something might have
happened to you, for hunger often carries us into unknown
danger."
"E-u-h-h! but it was a mighty Kill, Shag. Such flesh I've never
tasted--never--tasted--" He was asleep.
"I wonder what makes the moon red," muttered Shag, drowsily, as
he, too, nodded off to sleep.
Then again the two Outcasts, the one for whom the blood horror
had colored the moon red, and the other with a new joy of meat
fullness, slumbered together in the little coulee by the Buffalo
Pound.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER THREE
Shag was the first to awaken; the night's banquet caused the
morning to come slowly to A'tim.
The pulling cut of Shag's heavy jaws on the crisp grass awoke the
Dog-Wolf. He yawned heavily, and eyed the old Bull with sleepy
indifference. Ghur-h-h-h! what a plaintive figure the aged
Buffalo was, to be sure.
"Good-morning, Brother," whuffed Shag, his mouth full of grass;
"where are you going?"
"I _cached_ a piece of the new meat here last night," answered
A'tim, as he nosed under an overhanging cut-bank. "Forest
thieves!" he ejaculated angrily; "the Gray Stealers of Things
have taken it." His _cache_ was as bare as Mother Hubbard's
cupboard--not even a bone; there was nothing but the reddened
stones where the meat had lain, and a foul odor of Wolf.
Impetuously he rushed to the second _cache_; it, too, was void of
all meat; the third _cache_ held nothing but the footprints of
his gray half-brothers, the Wolf Thieves.
Despair crept into the heart of A'tim; what use to explore the
fourth _cache_? The meat would be gone of a certainty. Why had he
slept so soundly? Why had he hidden the meat at all? Oh! but he
_was_ stupid; as silly as a calf Musk Ox.
And the other meat up at the Pound, such as was left, would be
full of Death Powder, put there for the Gray Runners. How he
hoped they might eat it all--the thieves! It seemed such
unnecessary looting, too, to steal his food when there was so
much at the Pound; it was like the persecution that had kept him
an Outcast from the Wolf Pack.
"There is nothing meaner in the world than a Wolf," he muttered;
"nothing; and already I am hungry again."
At his fourth _cache_ he scratched indifferently. But the long
nails of his paw touched something soft and yielding--it was
flesh. How had it escaped the Gray Stealers?
"See, Shag," he said, bringing his joint close to the Bull, and
laying it down lovingly, "last night I laid in a grub stake, as
my old Master would say, that would have landed me in fair
condition in the Northland. Those accursed Wolves, of whose kind
I am not, being a Dog, have stolen it--all but this piece. It was
out of consideration for you, my friend, knowing your dread of
the blood smell, that made me _cache_ it a little apart. How I
wish I had lain on it--made my bed on its soft, sweet sides. Such
meat I have not eaten for many a day."
"I'm sorry," lamented Shag; "it's too bad. Here is nothing but
sorrow for every one. See how still and quiet the old Range is;
only those slayers of Redmen up by the Pound. Years ago, A'tim,
perhaps when you were a Pup, all this prairie that is so
beautiful with its short Buffalo grass, was just covered with
people of my kind; and Antelope--though they were not of our
kind, still we liked to see them--there was no harm in them,
being, like ourselves, Grass Feeders; and to the South-West,
Dog-Wolf----"
"I am no Wolf," interrupted A'tim, thinking of his stolen meat;
"I am a Dog!"
"Well, well, Dog, to the South-West--from here we can even see
Chief Mountain where is that land--there were beautiful
big-horned Elk, also Grass Feeders, and of a sweet temper."
"I know," ejaculated A'tim, licking at his flesh food; "in the
North it was just the same with the Caribou, the whole land alive
with them--and Mooswa, too."
"But now, A'tim, since the coming of the Palefaces we are
slaughtered by them and by the Redmen. L-o-u-g-h--h-o-o! I shall
leave this old Range to-day forever; my heart is sad."
"Come with me, then, Brother," cried A'tim; "together we will go
to the land of which I have spoken. It is a long, lone trail for
one. I will guard you well, for I know Man's ways; and at night
we will rest side by side."
"I will go," said the Bull simply.
"Let us start," cried A'tim, seizing his joint of Buffalo meat,
and sweeping the horizon with suspicious eyes.
"Your eating is heavy," said Shag; "I will carry it for you on my
horns. L-o-u-g-h--h-u! the blood smells terrible!" he exclaimed
as A'tim pulled the buffalo flesh over Shag's forehead.
Then the two Outcasts took up the long trail toward the
Northland, where in a woof of sage green and bracken gold was
woven a scheme of flesh-colored Castillejia, and wine-tinted
moose-weed, and purple pea-flower; where was the golden shimmer
of Gaillardia and slender star-leafed sunflower; the pencil stalk
of blue-joint, and the tasseled top of luscious pony-grass: a
veritable promised land for the old Bull, buffeted of his
fellows, and finding the short grass of the Southland stubbornly
hard against his worn teeth.
There, too, was Wapoos, the Hare so easily caught in the years of
plenty, and A'tim need never feel the pangs of a collapsing
stomach. There also were Marten, and Grouse, and Pheasant, and
Kit Beaver, and other animals sweet against the tongue. Surely
the Dog-Wolf had lingered too long in that barren Southern
country, where there was only the rat-faced Gopher, who was but
a mouthful; with, perhaps, the chance of a Buffalo Calf caught
away from the Herd. Even that chance was gone now, for man was
killing them all off. Yes, it was well that they should trail to
the Northland, each said to the other.
For days they plodded over the prairie, cobwebbed into deep ruts
by Buffalo trails leading from grassland to water.
It was on the third day that A'tim said to the Buffalo Bull: "I
am thirsty, Shag; my throat is hot with the dust. Know you of
sweet drinking near--even with your sense of the hidden drinking
you can find it, Great Bull, can you not?"
"This hollow trail leads to water, most assuredly," answered
Shag, stepping leisurely into a path that was like an old plow
furrow in a hay meadow. "Even this shows how many were my people
once." The Buffalo sighed. "Within sight are more trails like
this than you have toes to your feet, Dog-Wolf--this whole mighty
Range from here to the Uplands, which is the home of the White
Storm, is so marked with the trails of my people; and now there
are only these Water Runs to remind us of them."
Soon they came to a little lake blue with the mirrored sky, its
mud banks white as though with driven snow. "The bitter water
mark," said Shag, as his heavy hoof sank through the white crust
on the dark mud.
"I know," answered A'tim--"alkali, that's what Man calls it."
"Let us rest here this night--close to the drinking," commanded
Shag; "to-morrow we will go forward again."
That night A'tim ate the last of the Buffalo meat Shag had packed
on his horns for him. The next day they trailed again toward the
Northland.
When they came to a river that was to be forded Shag carried the
Dog-Wolf on his back; when there was presence of danger, a
suspicious horseman, Shag curled up like a boulder, or crouched
in a coulee, and if the Man came too near A'tim led him away on a
hopeless chase. Daily the Dog-Wolf grew into the heart of Shag,
the Buffalo, who listened with eager delight to his tales of the
Northland.
A'tim had fared well while the meat lasted; but they were now in
a land of much hunger--a land almost devoid of life; and the
Dog-Wolf was coming again into the chronic state of his
existence--famine.
As they trailed Northward the grass grew richer and softer and
more luscious; Shag commenced to put on fat. But daily the
Dog-Wolf grew hungrier and thinner. In the vast solitude, walled
on every side by the never-ending sky from which the stars peeped
at night and the sun smiled by day, there was little for the
Dog-Wolf, who was a flesh-eater. Scarce anything but Gophers; not
an Antelope, nor a Mule Deer, nor a Black Tail had they seen for
days. Once a Kit Fox, the small, gray kind of the prairie, waited
tantalizingly with his nozzle flat on the turf, seemingly asleep,
until A'tim was within two jumps, then he slipped nonchalantly
into his burrow as though he had just been called to dinner. A
froth of disappointed rage wreathed the hungry lips of the
Dog-Wolf. Surely he was in danger of starvation.
For two days he lived on a single Mole, unearthed quite by
chance; then a Gopher, stalked from behind the big legs of Shag,
saved him from utter collapse. Of a verity he was living from
hand to mouth; such abject poverty he had never known, not even
in the Southland by the Blood Reserve.
"Carry me, Brother," he said to the Bull, "for I am weak like a
new Pup. If I could but see a Trapper's shack or a camp," he
confided to Shag, as he clung to the Bull's hump, "I might find
something to eat--Ghur-r-r! a piece of the Pork Eating, or a
half-picked bone, or a Duck killed by the Fire-stick! Even one of
my own kind, a Dog, would I eat, I'm that famished--Great Bull,
is that not a shack?" he exclaimed suddenly as a square building
loomed on the horizon.
"I think I see it," said the Bull; "but my eyes are no longer
good at a great distance."
As they journeyed toward the object Shag suddenly stopped and
gave a loud bubbling guffaw.
"What are you laughing at, Bull?" demanded A'tim angrily.
"I, who am an Outcast because of my great age, Dog-Wolf, am even
now a great Fool; and so art thou, A'tim, an Outcast and a Fool."
"Your wit is like yourself, Shag, heavy and not too pleasing.
Pray, why am I a Fool!"
"That is no shack," answered the Bull; "it is but a rock;
there's a line of them, like a trail of teepees, for miles,
stretching for the length of many a day's march, running as
straight as the cough of a Fire-stick, all looking like that one.
Wie-sah-ke-chack, who is God of the Animals, put them there for
the Buffalo to brush their hides against--a most wise act."
With a weary sigh A'tim turned his eyes from the deceitful rock,
and watched furtively for the chance of even a small Kill as they
journeyed.
Day by day Shag was eating of the richer grass and becoming of a
great corpulency. Envious thoughts commenced to creep into the
mind of A'tim. Why should he starve and become a skeleton, while
this hulking Bull, to whom he was acting as a friend and guide,
waxed fat in the land that was of his finding? Many times Shag
carried the Dog-Wolf on his back, and at night the heat of his
great body kept A'tim warm.
But the vicious envy that was in the Wolf mind of A'tim started
a line of proper villainy. Let the Bull grow fat. If the worst
came to the worst--if no other meat was to be had--when the
Frogs, and Moles, and such Waterfowl as might be surprised had
failed, and his very life depended on food, would not there be
much eating off the body of this Bull Buffalo? Therefore let him
wax fat. At first A'tim only thought of it just a little--a
flash-light of evil, like the sting of a serpent; but daily it
grew stronger. What was Shag to him? He was not of his kind. If,
when they came to the Northland, to the forests of the Athabasca,
the Wapoos were in the year of plague, and all other animals had
fled the boundaries because of this, and there was no food to
be had, why should he not feast for days and days off the
Buffalo?--that is, if anything happened to Shag. Something might
happen to him very easily. A'tim knew of many muskegs where a
stupid, heavy-footed Bull might be mired; also, there was the
poison plant, the Death Flower of the Monkshood. He could
persuade the stupid Shag to eat of it, and in an hour the Bull
would die--puffed up like a Cow's udder; it would not hurt the
flesh. Eu-h-h! there were many ways. Shag's company was good--he
was weary of being alone; it was dreadful to be an Outcast; but
rather than starve to death--well, he would eat his friend.
What matter to him the ever-increasing beauty of the landscape,
the richer growth that appealed strongly to his companion from
the bare Southern plain? The wild rose bushes, red-berried in the
autumn of their fruitage, caressed their ankles as they passed;
pink and white berries clung to silver-leafed Buffalo willow
like rose-tinted snowflakes; hazel and wild cherry and gentle
maple swayed in the prairie wind, and sent fluttering leaf-kisses
to the parent earth. Great patches of feed-land waved silver gray
with a tasseled spread of seeding grasses. Oh! but they were
coming into a land of much growth. Shag the Bull lowed in soft
content as he rested full-bellied on the black-loamed prairie.
All the time A'tim was but thinking of something to kill,
something to eat.
That was as they came to Egg Lake.
"Trail slowly, kind Brother," admonished the Dog-Wolf. "It is now
the season of many Ducks here, even at Egg Lake; perchance in the
reed grass yonder, by the willows, I may stalk a Wavey, or even a
Goose." Ghur-r-r! but he was hungry!
A'tim stole on in front; flat to the grass his belly, and low his
head. As silently as floating foam on still water he passed into
the thicket of reed grass, his fierce eyes fixed on four Mallard
that gabbled and dove their supple heads to the mud bottom for
wild rice. Only a little farther and A'tim would be upon them.
Shag was watching solicitously the stalk of his friend.
Suddenly, and without provocation, the lake seemed to stand up
on end and commence throwing things about. The Bull was
startled--what did it all mean? Gradually something huge and
black began to take shape and form from amidst the whirl of many
moving things.
"A Bear!" gasped Shag. "By the strength of my neck he means to
devour A'tim!"
With a rushing charge Shag was upon the fighters--only just in
time, for Muskwa had A'tim in his long-clawed grasp, and in
another instant would have crushed his Dog ribs. And in the
succession of surprises one came to Muskwa with vivid suddenness,
for he was lifted on a pair of strong horns, like a Cub, and
thrown with great speed far out into the thin waters of the lake.
"Thanks, Great Bull," panted the frightened Dog-Wolf, creeping
painfully from the thick sedge grass. "He also was after the
ducks, I think; I walked right on top of him, I was that busy
with my hunt."
"If I had not been in such a blundering hurry," lamented Shag, "I
might have saved him for your eating; but he's gone now."
And so they journeyed till they came to Battle River. There
A'tim caught three frogs among the blossom-topped leeks; they
were no more than three small oysters to a hungry man.
"The water is deep and the banks steep," grunted Shag, looking
dubiously at the stream.
"Lower down is a ford," answered A'tim; "we will cross there."
For when Shag swam in deep water the Dog-Wolf found it difficult
to keep on his back.
"A teepee!" exclaimed A'tim, as they came close to the crossing.
"Let us go back and swim the river," pleaded Shag; "there will be
hunters within the lodge."
"No, wait you here," commanded A'tim; "there will surely be food
in the teepee, and I mean to have it."
[Illustration: MUSKWA HAD A'TIM IN HIS LONG-CLAWED GRASP.]
"Be careful," warned Shag; "this is a land of scarcity, and the
hunters may bring us evil."
But already A'tim was skulking toward a small canvas tent,
gleaming white beside the blue waters of Battle River. The Bull
lay down to conceal his great bulk, and watched apprehensively
the foray of his pillaging comrade. A'tim circled until he was
down wind from the teepee.
"The Man is not in his burrow," he muttered, sniffing the air
that floated from the tent to his sensitive nostrils; "but I
smell the brown Pork Meat they eat."
Cautiously, stealthily, burying his brown-gray body in the river
grass, he stole to the very tent pegs of the canvas shelter;
there he listened, as still and silent as the river stones. There
was no sound within; no living thing even drew breath beyond the
cotton wall--he could have heard that.
In through the flap he slipped. Yes, his scouting had been
perfect. A pair of blankets, an iron fry-pan, and--ah! there was
the rich brown meat, its white edge gleaming a welcome. With a
famished snarl A'tim fastened his lean jaws upon it, and sprang
for the door. He was none too quick. "Thud, thudety-thud,
thudety-thudety-thud!" a horseman was hammering down the sloping
bank across the ford.
As A'tim leaped from the tent the horseman shouted and drove big
rowel spurs hard up the flank of his galloping Cayuse.
"Just my evil chance!" snarled A'tim as he headed for Shag; "but
what is a small piece of Bacon compared with a big Buffalo?" For
into his quick Wolf brain came the safety thought that should the
pursuing hunter sight Shag he would follow, and let the bacon
go.
As the Man galloped he unslung a gun, and fired at the fleeing
Dog-Wolf. A little sputter of dust drove into the nostrils of
A'tim as a trade ball spat in his face and buried itself in front
of him. There was no second shot; only the "thudety-thud" of the
Pony's hoofs. The pursuer was armed with a muzzle-loading trade
musket.
The shot startled Shag. Now he could see them rushing his way;
soon they would be upon him. With a bellow of frightened rage at
the stupidity of A'tim, he stuck his scraggy tail out with its
tip curled over his back, and broke into a solemn gallop.
In an instant the hunter swerved from his course and raced for
the Bull, loading his gun as the Cayuse swung along under a free
rein. Shag chuckled softly as he spread his great quarters, and
hung his nose closer to earth.
"It's a down trail for miles," he muttered, "and I, who in my
prime have outrun the fastest Buffalo Horses of the Bloods and
Blackfeet, can surely show that lean-flanked Pack Animal a long
trail. Mou-o-o-h! but already I feel in my veins the strength of
this rich feeding." And the huge form slipped down the gentle
grade of sloping plain like an express train. Once the hunter
threw the butt of his musket to shoulder and fired; but half the
powder charge had spilled in the restless loading, and the trade
ball wandered aimlessly yards wide of the fleeing Bull. Shag
grunted and kinked his tail derisively as the spirit of old times
threw its glamor over him. It was years since he had been
thought worthy of the chase; surely he was becoming of some
account in the Buffalo world again.
A'tim, sitting on his haunches, watched the departing cavalcade,
and industriously absorbed much of the fat pork. "I can carry it
better in my stomach," he reasoned philosophically. "But who
would have thought old Shag had it in him?" he muttered in
admiration.
As he gazed, the extent of territory between Shag and his pursuer
widened perceptibly. The overworked Pony was tired; no doubt his
rider had trailed for many a league with him, and he was in no
condition for the fierce gallop of a Buffalo Run.
A'tim finished the bacon with undoubted relish, then struck out
across the boundless field of grass. "I must not lose sight of
Shag," he thought; "there will not always be bacon for the
stealing when I am on the edge of starvation."
At last the Pony was pulled to a walk, turned about, and headed
for the teepee that nestled on the river bank. The rider was
indulging in much injudicious vituperation of all the animal
kingdom, including his own well-blown Cayuse, whose trembling
flanks vouched for the energy with which he had tried to overhaul
the galloping Bull.
A'tim circled wide, and, when he considered it safe, fell into
Shag's trail and followed on. Soon he overtook his comrade. "Well
done, my big Bull!" he exclaimed; "that was a rare turn you did
me."
"It was," answered Shag shortly; "hardly of my own choosing,
though; you thrust it upon me. I suppose you were bringing me
the bacon, kind Brother?"
"I knew you could do it," flattered A'tim. "You have the full
speed of a Spike Horn, and the great wisdom of your own age."
Shag said nothing; he was angry at the selfish heartlessness of
the other Outcast. It seemed hardly a fair recognition of the
service he had rendered the Dog-Wolf when he prodded the Bear
from his throat.
"Come, let us be moving," he said; "we must find another
crossing."
"Oh! but I feel years younger," cried A'tim joyfully, as they
headed again for Battle River. "Euh-euh-euh-euh! Yap-yap-yap!" he
laughed; "this eating has put the joyousness of a Pup into my
heart."
That night they crossed the river at another ford, and slept in a
bluff of slim-bodied white poplars, for they were on the edge of
the North timber lands.
"This is good cover," muttered A'tim, as he raked the yellow
heart-shaped leaves of the poplar together for a bed.
"It's new to me," muttered Shag; "and it will also give cover to
one's enemies; one must be very cautious in the Northland, I
think."
Then the two Outcasts slept together on the border of the North
fairyland to which the Dog-Wolf was leading Shag the Bull.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER FOUR
In the morning A'tim had for his breakfast a wistful remembrance
of the yesterday's eating--that was all; while Shag made a frugal
meal off the bronzed grass, fast curing on its stem for the
winter forage.
"There'll be good eating here for the Grass Feeders," he said,
grinding leisurely at the wild hay.
"Indeed there will," answered the Dog-Wolf. "The Grass Feeders
will wax fat for the benefit of the Meat Eaters. I wish one would
come my way now," he sighed hungrily.
"We are almost half way," continued A'tim, as he trotted beside
the long-striding Bull.
"I'm glad of that, Brother. My foot joints are not so well oiled
as they once were, and are getting hot and dry. Strange that we
should not see some of our cousins, is it not, Dog-Wolf?"
"I saw one yesterday," replied A'tim.
"Aye, Brother, and he saw you, too."
"Else I had eaten him," added the Dog-Wolf.
"A Coyote?" asked Shag incredulously; "eat a Coyote? Impossible!
No animal ever ate a Coyote!"
"No animal was ever so hungry as I was yesterday before
Wie-sah-ke led me to the Fat Bacon."
"It's terribly dreary," said Shag, returning again to his first
thought; "no Elk, no Antelope, no Buffalo, no Indian Cayuse. Why
is it? Has Man killed them all off, as he has done with my
people?"
"Yes, Man, and the Man-fire. From the black that is underneath
this new grass I know that last year the Man-fire swept over this
land faster and straighter than a Wolf Pack gallops----"
Suddenly he broke off and made a fierce rush into the prairie. A
brown Cow-Bird flew up and lighted on Shag's horn. The Dog-Wolf
rose on his hind legs and snapped viciously at the Bird.
"Steady, Dog-Wolf, steady," admonished Shag, "this is a friend of
mine. Do you not know the Cow-Bird, who is always with the Herd?"
"Who is your friend?" asked the Cow-Bird of Shag. "Queer company
you keep, Great Bull; a Herd Leader leading a Wolf is new to me."
"I'm no Wolf, Scavenger!" retorted A'tim. "I'm a Dog; I'll crack
your----"
"Perhaps, perhaps," retorted the Cow-Bird.
"Perhaps what?" snarled A'tim.
"Perhaps you're a Dog, and perhaps you will crack my--neck, you
were going to say. Are you leading the Bull to your Wolf Pack,
perhaps--Dog?"
"Never mind, Comrades," interrupted Shag. "We are glad of your
company, little Cow-Bird--are we not, A'tim?"
"Yes," answered the Dog-Wolf, licking his chops, and looking
treacherously from the corner of his slit eyes at the Bird.
"Where are you going, Great Bull?" asked the Cow-Bird, spreading
his deep-brown wings mockingly, as though he would fly down on
the Dog-Wolf's head.
"To the Northland."
[Illustration: "STEADY, DOG-WOLF, STEADY," ADMONISHED SHAG,
"THIS IS A FRIEND OF MINE."]
"I know," quoth the Bird; "but I stick to the plains; why, I
don't know, for there are few Buffalo now. This summer I made a
long trip. I started in at Edmonton with a Herd of the Man's
Buffalo."
"I've seen them," said Shag; "great clumsy things without shape
or make; as big behind as they are in front; of a verity the
shape of their own carts."
"Well," continued the Bird, "there was a matter of a dozen of
these creatures tied to a four-wheeled cart, and I followed the
Herd through to the place they call Fort Garry. But I got tired
of it--day after day the same thing. What I like is to fly about.
Now, I'll travel with you to-day, just for companionship, and
to-morrow I shall be off with some new friend."
"Perhaps," mumbled the Wolf.
"Did you speak, Wolf?" perked the Bird.
"I said, 'Good riddance,'" snapped A'tim.
"He, he, he!" laughed the Cow-Bird; "your friend is pleasant
company, Great Bull."
That night the two Outcasts and the Cow-Bird camped together,
near the Saskatchewan River; the brown body curled up contentedly
on Shag's horn, while the Dog-Wolf slept against his paunch.
In the morning the Cow-Bird was gone.
"Have you seen him?" Shag asked of A'tim.
"He flew away early," answered the Dog-Wolf.
"He should have taken all his coat with him," answered Shag,
thrusting from his mouth a bunch of grass in which were three
brown feathers.
"He flew far away," affirmed A'tim sheepishly.
"The length of your gullet, Dog-Wolf," declared Shag. "Thou must
be wondrous hungry to eat one of our own party--a cannibal."
A'tim answered nothing as they journeyed down along the steep,
heavily wooded river bank, its soft shale sides slid into mighty
terraces, but in his heart was a murder thought, as he eyed the
great bulk of his Brother Outcast, that he would also eat him.
They passed over the broad Saskatchewan, running emerald green
between its high, pink-earthed banks, through a long, tortuous
ford, taking Shag to the belly and half way up his ribs. As they
topped the north bank and rested after the steep climb, A'tim
pointed his nose to a distant flat where nestled the white
stockaded fort of the Hudson's Bay Company.
"That's Fort Edmonton," he said bitterly; "and see the cluster of
teepees all about, thick as Muskrat lodges in a muskeg. Because
of the dwellers within there is no eating to be had here for me.
Cree Indians, and Half-breeds, and Palefaces, all searching the
country for something to kill; and when they have slaughtered the
Beaver, and Marten, and Foxes, and everyting else that has
life, they bring the pelts there and get fire-water, which burns
their stomachs and sets their brains on fire. An honest hunter
like myself, who only kills to stay the hunger that is bred in
him, has no chance; we must sneak and steal, or die."
"But there will be much waste of the Bacon Food there, surely,
A'tim. Why do you not replenish the stomach that is but a curse
to you, being empty, at the lodges we see?"
"No, friend Bull," answered the Dog-Wolf; "unwittingly enough I
nearly caused you disaster the last time I fed at Man's expense.
That time there was but one hunter; here are many, and they would
slay you quick enough."
This was all a lie; the Dog-Wolf had no such consideration for
his Brother Outcast. At the Fort were fierce-fanged hounds that
would run him to earth of a certainty should he venture near;
either that, or if caught he would be quickly clapped into a Dog
Train, and made to push against a collar. Many a weary day of
that he had in his youth; he would rather starve as a vagabond.
Also, would he not perhaps fall heir to the eating that was on
the body of the huge Bull?
"No, Brother," he said decisively; "we shall soon come to a land
with food for both of us; let us go."
Toward the Athabasca they journeyed. The prairie was almost done
with, only patches of it now like fields; poplar and willow and
birch growing everywhere; and beyond the Sturgeon River, tiny
forests of gnarled, stunted jack-pine, creeping wearily from a
soft carpet of silver and emerald moss which lay thick upon the
white sand hills. Little red berries, like blood stars, peeped at
them from the setting of silk lace moss--wintergreen berries, and
grouse berries, and lowbush cranberries, all blushing a furious
red.
"I could sleep here forever," muttered Shag, as he rolled in
luxurious content on this forest rug.
"I can't sleep because of my hunger pains," snarled A'tim. "You
who are well fed care not how I fare." A'tim was petulantly
unreasonable.
Shag looked at the Dog-Wolf wonderingly. "I'm sorry for you, for
your hunger, Dog Brother. Did I not call lovingly to a Moose Calf
but to-day, thinking to entice him your way?"
"Yes, and frightened the big-nosed, spindle-legged suckling with
your gruff voice, so that what should have been an easy stalk
turned out a long chase for nothing."
"Well, well," responded Shag soothingly, "no doubt you will soon
have food--this can't go on forever, this barrenness of the
woods; I'm sorry for you, for once I had nothing to eat for days
and days. That was ten seasons of the Calf-gathering since--I
remember it well. The White Storm came in the early Cold Time,
and buried the whole Range to the depth of my belly. We Buffalo
did nothing but drift, drift, drift--like locusts, or dust before
the wind. We always go head-on to a storm, for our heads are warm
clothed with much hair, but when it lasts for days and days we
grow weary, and just drift looking for food, for grass. I
remember, at Pot Hole, which is a deep coulee, and has always
been a great shelter to us in such times, on one side was some
grass still bare of the White Storm; but the Buffalo were so many
they ate it as locusts might--quicker than I tell it. As I have
said, Dog-Wolf, I lived for a month off the fat that was in my
loins about the kidneys, for I had never a bite to eat. Then the
fat, aye, even the red meat, commenced to melt from my hump and
my neck, even to my legs, and I grew weak--so weak I could
hardly crawl. Many of us died; first the Cow Mothers, giving up
their lives for the Calves, A'tim; then the old people; we who
were in the middle of life (for I was a Smooth Horn then,
Brother, and Leader of the Herd) lived through this terrible
time.
"It was a great weeding out of the Herd; it was like the sweep of
the fire breath that bares the prairie only to make the grass
come up stronger and sweeter again. Longingly we waited for our
friend, the gentle Chinook, to come up out of the Southwest; but
this time it must have got lost in the mountains, for only the
South wind, which is always cold, or a blizzard breath from the
Northwest blew across the bleak, white-covered Buffalo land.
"One night, just as I thought I must surely die before morning, a
sweet moisture came into my nostrils, and I knew that our Wind
Brother, the Chinook, had found us at last. The sun smiled at us
in the morning and warmed the white cover, and by night we could
see the grass; next day the White Storm was all gone. So, Brother
Outcast, I too, know what it is to be hungry. Have a strong
heart--food will be sent."
"Sent!" snapped A'tim crabbedly; "who will send it? Will my Gray
Half-Brothers, who are Wolves, send it--come and lay a dead
Caribou at my feet? Will the Train Dogs, of whose kind I am, come
and feed me with White Fish--the dried Fish their drivers give
them so sparingly?"
"I cannot say, Dog-Wolf; but surely food does not come of one's
own thinking. The grass does not grow because of me, but for me.
The Animals all say it is our God, Wie-sah-ke-chack, who sends
the eating."
"E-u-h-h!" yawned A'tim sulkily, swinging his head in petulant
irritation, "I must have meat, no matter where it comes from; I
can't starve." There was a covert threat in the Dog-Wolf's voice,
but Shag did not notice it--his mind was above that sort of
thing.
In the evening, as they entered a little thicket of dogberry
bushes growing in low land, a small brown shadow flitted across
their path. With a snarl A'tim was after it, crushing through the
long, dry, spike-like grass in hot pursuit. Shag waited.
Back and forth, up and down, in and out, double and twist,
sometimes near and sometimes far, but always with the "Ghur-r-r!"
of the Dog-Wolf's breath coming to Shag's ears, the shadow and
its pursuer chased. Suddenly Shag started as a plaintive squeak
died away in a harsh growl of exultation.
"He has him," muttered Shag; "this will stay the clamor of his
hunger talk, I hope."
The well-blown Dog-Wolf came back carrying a Hare. "Hardly worth
the trouble," he said disdainfully, laying the fluffy figure down
at Shag's feet. "Now I know of a surety why the Flesh Feeders
have fled the Boundaries; it is the Plague Year of Wapoos. This
thing that should be fat, and of tender juiciness, is but a skin
full of bones; there are even the plague lumps in his throat.
There is almost as much poison in this carrion as in a Trapper's
bait; but I must eat of it, for I am wondrous hungry."
"I, also, have eaten bad food in my time," said Shag; "great
pains in the stomach I've had from it. Some seasons the White
Storm would come early in the Cold Time, and cover the grass not
yet fully ripened into seed. It would hold warm because of this,
and grow again, and become green; then the white cover would go,
and the grass would freeze and become sour to the tongue.
Mou-u-ah! but all through the Cold Time I would have great pains.
How far do we go now, A'tim, till we rest in the Northland?"
"Till there is food for both of us."
"Quite true," concurred Shag. "We must go on until you also have
food, my friend."
It was coming up the bank out of La Biche River that A'tim,
perfectly mad with hunger, made a vicious snap at the Bull's leg,
just above the hock, meaning to hamstring him. Shag flipped about
and faced the Dog Wolf.
"What is this, A'tim?" he demanded, lowering his horns and
stamping in vexed restlessness.
"A big fly of the Bull-Dog kind. I snapped at him, and in my
eagerness grazed your leg."
Shag tossed his huge head unbelievingly, and snorted through his
dilated nostrils. "There are no Bull-Dogs now, A'tim; they were
killed off days since by the white-striped Hornets."
"There was one, Shag--at least I thought so, Great Bull."
"Well, don't think again--just that way. Once bitten is twice shy
with me; and, as you see, I carry the Tribe mark of your
Wolf-kind in my thigh since the time I was a Calf."
"Ghur-r-r! Of the Wolf-kind, quite true, Great Bull--that is
their way; but I, who am no Wolf, but a Dog, do not seek to
hamstring my friends."
The Bull answered nothing, but as they journeyed watched his
companion carefully.
"Dreadfully foolish!" mused A'tim. "I must coax this stupid Bull
into a muskeg; his big carcass will keep me alive through all the
Cold Time."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER FIVE
They were now well within the treacherous muskeg lands which
border the Athabasca; and that very night, while Shag slumbered
in the deep sleep of a full age, A'tim, whose lean stomach tugged
at his eyelids and kept them open, stole off into the forest, and
searched by the strong light of the moon for a bog that would
mire his comrade to death.
An open piece of swamp land, fringed by tamarack and slim-bodied
spruce, promised fair for his scheme. Back and forth, back and
forth over its cushion of deep moss he passed, seeking for a
treacherous place--a place wherein Shag would sink to the belly;
where the sand-mud would grasp his legs like soft chains and hold
him to his death, but not engulf the body--that must remain for
A'tim's eating.
"Euh-h! the very thing!" he exclaimed joyously, as his foot sank
deep in soft slime. "Yes, indeed, the very spot. Now must I cover
up its black mud so that the blurred eyes of old Shag will see
only a fair trail, not over ankle-deep."
For an hour he labored with rare villainy, carrying bunches of
moss to cover up the black ooze, that was not more than twenty
feet broad; even small willow wands and coarse rush grass he
placed under the moss, so that he himself, light-footed as a cat,
might cross ahead of the unsuspicious Bull, and lure him to his
death. "There," he said finally, as he sat on his haunches and
rested for a minute, looking like a ghoul in the ghostly
moonlight, "I think that's a trick worthy of my Wolf cunning."
Then he hastened back to the other Outcast.
Shag was awake and heard the Dog-Wolf creep to his side. "Where
have you been, A'tim?" he asked sleepily.
"I heard a strange noise in the forest, and thought perhaps some
evil Hunter had followed your big trail; fearing for your safety,
Brother, I went to see what it was."
"And?" queried Shag.
"It was nothing--nothing but a Lynx or some prowling animal."
Shag was already snoring heavily again, and the Dog-Wolf, tired
by his exertion, also soon slumbered.
Next morning A'tim was in rare good humor. "We shall only have
another day or two of this weary tramp," he said, "for the air is
full of the perfume of living things; also things that are dead,
for yonder, high in the air, float three Birds of the Vulture
kind. I shall be in the land of much eating to-day or to-morrow,
I know."
"I am glad of that," answered Shag heartily; "I am tired of this
long tramp--my bones ache from it."
Talking almost incessantly to distract the other's attention,
A'tim led the way straight for his muskeg trap.
"There is some lovely blue-joint grass on the other side of this
beautiful little plain," he said as they came to the tamarack
border of the swamp.
"Is it safe crossing?" asked Shag.
"Quite safe," answered the Dog-Wolf; "there is not a mud spot to
be seen--you will scarce wet a shin. I will go ahead and warn you
should it so happen that there be a soft hole; follow close in my
track."
"Lough-hu! lough-hu!" grunted the Bull at the first step in the
muskeg, as his foot cushioned in the deep moss: "this is like
walking on the White Storm." Ere he could take another step a
startled, "Mouah! Mouah!" struck on his ear. It was the call of
his own kind; and whipping about in an instant, he saw, staring
at him from the tamarack fringe, a Buffalo Cow.
Where had she come from? It was the God of Chance that had sent
her to save the unsuspicious, noble old Bull, only he did not
know that--how could he? "Perhaps she is an Outcast like myself,"
he muttered, advancing eagerly to caress her forehead with his
tongue.
"Come back, Shag," called the Dog-Wolf, seeing the destruction of
his plan; "come back to the sweet feeding; that is but a
disgraced Cow, outcasted from some Herd."
Startled by the bark of the Dog-Wolf, or perhaps by the ungainly
garb of the hairless, manged Bull, the Cow turned and fled.
Excited into activity, Shag galloped after her, his huge feet
making the forest echo with the crack of smashing timber as he
slid through the bush like an avalanche; but the Cow was swift of
foot, and pig-jinked around stumps and over timber, and down
coulees and up hills until Shag was fairly blown and forced to
give up the pursuit.
"Was there ever such a queer happening?" exclaimed Shag, staring
after the vanished figure of the Cow. A'tim had followed with
eager gallop, inwardly reviling the ill luck which had snatched
from him the mighty Kill of the fat Bull. The Cow Buffalo was,
perhaps, only one of those spirit animals that prowl at night and
utter strange cries.
Also had they galloped miles past the muskeg trap, and A'tim
dared not take the Bull back; some new plan must be devised for
his destruction.
"Where did she come from?" puffed Shag, his froth-covered tongue
lolling from between big, thick lips; "where did she come from,
A'tim, you who know the Northland forests?"
"She's a Wood Buffalo," answered the Dog-Wolf.
"What's a Wood Buffalo?" asked Shag.
"They are even as yourself, Great Bull; driven from the plains by
the many-breathed Fire-stick, they have come to this good Range
of the Northland. They go not in Herds, but few together, as
Mooswa and others of the forest."
"Why did she run away, Brother A'tim?" grunted Shag, lying down
to rest.
The Dog-Wolf laughed disagreeably. "That is but the way of the
Cow kind," he answered.
"No," said Shag decisively; "she was frightened."
"She was," assented A'tim; "Ghur-r-r! I should say so."
"At what?" asked Shag.
"Forgive me, Brother, but most assuredly she was frightened by
you."
"By me--am I not of her kind?"
"Yes, but how should she know? Are you like a Buffalo, Shag? Your
hide is bare and scarred, and perhaps she took you for some evil
thing."
Shag looked ruefully at his great, scraggy sides, so like an
Elephant's, only more disreputable, and sighed resignedly; "I
suppose I can't help it," he muttered.
"You can, Shag; if you will but eat of the Fur Flower it will
cure this evil disease which is in your blood, and bring back the
beautiful silk coat that was the envy of the Buffalo Range."
"Do you speak the truth, Dog-Wolf?" asked Shag.
"Most surely. All the Dwellers in the Northland know that. Are
not all the Forest-Dwellers full-haired?"
"And this Fur Flower, A'tim; where is it?"
"Less than a day's trail," answered the Dog-Wolf.
"Find it for me, kind Brother," begged the Bull. "When one
frightens those of his own kind it is time to try something."
As they plodded through the forest, A'tim muttered: "Now I shall
surely have this vain old Bull. The Death Coulee is close to
Porcupine Water, and that is not far. Shag shall eat of the Death
Flower, which I have called the Fur Flower, to improve his
appearance; and when he is dead I will eat of him to improve
mine."
A three hours' tramp and they came to a little valley rich in
bright yellow grass, topped by a stately plant that nodded and
rustled in the wind as its many seed pods swayed like strings of
dark pearls. It was the Monkshood, the deadly aconite, which,
when the summer was young, hung its helmet flower in a shimmering
veil of blue over the sweet grass of the Death Valley--the valley
known of all animals as the Coulee of the Long Rest, for he who
browsed there found his limbs bound in the steel cords of death.
"There," said A'tim, nodding his head at the bronze gold of the
many Monkshood, "there is the Fur Flower. It will be dry eating
now, being of a season's age, but in the early feed-time it is
sweet and tender. While you eat of it I shall rest here."
A strong rustling of grass almost at their heels caused the
Dog-Wolf to spring to his feet in alarm.
"Eu-h-h, eu-h-h! here is the accursed Cow again. Where in the
name of Forest Fools have you come from--why do you follow us?"
exclaimed A'tim.
"It is the way of my kind," she replied, "to follow a Herd
Leader; there is no harm in that."
Into the big, sleepy eyes of Shag crept a pleased look.
"Where go you, Great Bull?" she asked.
"To eat of this Fur Flower my kind Brother, A'tim, has told me
will bring back my coat; a soft, silky coat it was, too."
"Eat of that--that which is the Death Grass growing in the Valley
of the Long Rest! You must wish to die; our Herd Leader, who was
even of your size, Great Bull, ate of it, and died like a
stricken Calf."
"What is this?" demanded Shag, his big, honest eyes turned on
A'tim with a wondering look of unbelief.
"A lie," quoth A'tim; "the Cow is full of a stupid duplicity:
perhaps she even killed this Herd Leader by some trick, and
blames it on the innocent Fur Flower. Does it look like a poison
herb, Wise Bull? Is it like the scraggy Loco Plant of the South
Ranges? Has it not the beautiful blossom of a good herb? Would
Wie-sah-ke-chack, who is wise, put such a tempting coat on a
death plant?"
Shag looked puzzled. Why should A'tim wish him to eat of a Death
Flower; and yet, there was the graze of the Wolf's fang on his
thigh that time they came up out of La Biche River. That surely
had the full flavor of treachery about it. His ponderous mind
worked slowly over the tortuous puzzle.
"I am a stranger here," he said, "and know little of these herbs,
but this Dog-Wolf, who is also an Outcast like myself, has
trailed from the Southland with me, and we have been even as
Brothers. Thinking perhaps that my rough coat was not so fine as
it once was, I listened to the speech of this Dog-Wolf to the end
that this blue-flowered herb will cause the soft, beautiful hair
to grow again."
"It is the Death Flower," declared the Cow with sententious
persistence; "and this Outcast Wolf is a traitor, for if he is
from the Northland he also knows that, even as in the Southland
they know the Loco Plant."
A'tim slunk back nervously and watched Shag with wary caution.
"Do you believe this lie, Shag, my dear Friend? Ghur-r-r-ah! do
you think I would do such a thing? This lone Cow, who is also an
Outcast because of some wrong thing, must be locoed (mad)--even
as every Herd has one such."
"I am wise enough not to eat of the Death Flower, by the
knowledge of our kind. But you can prove all this, Herd
Leader--let the Dog-Wolf eat of this medicine plant, if it be
harmless."
This clever idea pleased the Bull mightily. "Yes, A'tim," he
cried; "the Cow, who is but a Buffalo, and, of course, has not
the great Wolf wisdom, may be mistaken. You who are an eater of
grasses when you are ill, eat of this Fur Flower, as you name it;
then also I will eat in great faith--after a little," he added in
an undertone.
A'tim walked backward a few paces hesitatingly, and, looking
wondrous hurt, said in a deprecating voice: "Ghur-r-rh, eu-h-h! I
have been a friend to you, Lone Bull, even a Brother in solitude;
and now at the word of a stranger, a silly Cow, who having done
some wrong has been outcasted from her Herd, you lose faith in
me, and treat me as a traitor."
Still farther into the tangle of birch and poplar he backed,
saying: "Of course, I couldn't expect you to take my part against
a sleek-hided Buffalo Cow."
With a sudden spring he turned, and barked derisively as he loped
through the forest: "Good-by, bald-hided old Bull; I will bring
harm to you because of this."
"I think you were just in time," said Shag to the Cow; "that
Dog-Wolf meant my death."
Then Shag learned from the Buffalo Cow that she was one of a Herd
of six, and that the Herd was not very far away; that they were
unguarded because of the loss of their Leader through the Death
Flower, even as she had said. Willingly Shag went with her,
making many protestations as to his disreputable appearance, and
the unfitness of his well-worn stub-horns to battle for them; but
he went.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER SIX
A'tim slunk through the forest, his lean body filled with nothing
but the rage of disappointed appetite. "I'm starving!" he gasped;
"Starving! I must have something to eat. By the feast that is in
a dead Buffalo! if that evil-minded Cow had also eaten of the
Death Flower when her Bull did, as she says, I should now be
closer friend than ever with old Shag--Shag, the Fool."
A large dead cottonwood, rotted to the heart till its flesh was
like red earth mould, lay across his path like an unburied
Redskin. "Should be Grub Worms here," muttered A'tim, sniffing
at the moss shroud which clothed the tree corpse. In famine haste
he tore with strong claws at the crumbling mass. One, two, three
large Grubs, full of a white fat, twisted and squirmed at their
rude awakening; the Dog-Wolf swallowed them greedily. "Eu-h-h!
Hi, yi! Such a tiny morsel," he whined plaintively; "they but
give life to the famine pains which were all but dead through
starvation. Wait, you, fool Bull--I'll crack your ribs with my
strong teeth yet! But small as the Grubs are there should be
more."
With swift diligence A'tim excavated, grumblingly, until his
gaunt form was half buried in the hole.
Three Gray Shadows were creeping in stealthy silence upon his
flank; owing to his anxious work A'tim was oblivious to the
approaching trouble.
"E-e-yah!" and quick as a slipping sound that fluttered his ear
A'tim was up on the dead cottonwood, only to find himself peering
into the lurid eyes of a huge Wolf.
Like war stars, four other balls of light gleamed at him from a
close crescent. The Outcast was clever. Surely this was a case
for diplomacy; he had no desire to feed three hungry Wolves with
his thin carcass.
"You startled me, Brothers," he said, grinning nervously.
"I did not mean to," replied the Pack Leader; "my foot slipped on
a wet leaf."
"Ye-e-s--just so," hesitated A'tim in deprecating voice; "so
fortunate--I mean--Brothers, I'm sorry I can't offer you good
eating--there were only three Grubs----"
"Oh, don't mention it!" exclaimed the Wolf; "no doubt we shall
find something for dinner presently--don't you think so,
children?" he asked, turning to the others.
"I was going to say," recommenced the Outcast, "that I could not
ask you to eat just here, but I was actually on my way to invite
you to a big feeding."
The Timber Wolf bared his fangs in a grin of derisive unbelief.
His comrades blinked at one another solemnly. "Was there ever
such a liar?"
A'tim coughed nervously and continued his politic address. "I
heard your powerful bay, Pack Leader, hours ago, as I was
attending to a little trailing matter I had on hand, and resolved
to invite you to the Kill when I had located the trailed one."
[Illustration: "OH, DON'T MENTION IT!" EXCLAIMED THE WOLF; "NO
DOUBT WE SHALL FIND SOMETHING FOR DINNER PRESENTLY."]
"That's good news," answered the Wolf, "for we are wondrous
hungry," and he edged closer to the Outcast.
A'tim shrank into a very small parcel on the log. "I, too,
have been sick for the need of food. I have starved, actually
starved, for a moon; why, I am nothing but skin and bone; the
smallest creature, even a weasel, would find it difficult to
fill his stomach from my lean ribs. Besides, I have eaten off a
plague-stricken Rabbit but a day since, and my blood is on
fire--though there's not much of it, to be sure. I'm filled with
the accursed plague poison--I believe there's enough of it in my
poor, thin body to bring to their death a whole Wolf Pack."
"That's serious!" exclaimed the Gray Wolf; "but you'd die anyway,
so it doesn't matter--I mean, never mind about that just now.
Gh-u-r-r-h! what of this great kill?"
"Well, Brother Wolves----"
"Brother _Wolves_?" questioned the other with a sneer-tinge in
his gruff voice; "thou art overthick in the shoulder for a Wolf."
"I never saw ears like yours on a Wolf, Newcomer," said one of
the youngsters; "they are short and round like those of the
Huskie Dog we ate. Is not that so?" he asked, turning to the
Leader.
"Yes, indeed; we ate him, I'm ashamed to say--for Dog meat is
horrible--but what is one to do when there's naught else in the
Boundaries?"
A'tim shuddered; their merciless eyes gleamed with the ferocity
of famine. Neither his strength nor his speed, which had so
often stood him in good stead, would avail him this time; nothing
but his half-breed duplicity--Wolf cunning and Dog wisdom.
"But I _am_ a Wolf," he reiterated; "else why should I seek your
company at my Kill?"
"We were easily found," sneered the Wolf; "we did not take much
calling, did we? Knowing your desire for our fellowship, we kept
you not waiting--E-a-ah, Lone Dog? But where hunts the Pack that
carry their tails curled over their backs like Train Dogs?"
"It's because of my nervousness--you startled me," pleaded A'tim;
"also my seat is narrow."
"And the big, round feet, Lone Dog? They leave not a Wolf track.
And you're broad in the loin, and heavy in the jowl, and short
in the leg--a Dog, a Hermit Dog, by the knowledge that has come
to me of age."
"I'm a Wolf from the Southland," maintained A'tim. "We shape
different there. Our meat is the flesh of Buffalo, and our Kill
is because of strength, and not speed--therefore we are of a
strong build. You are of the Northland; swift as the wind, and
long running, Great Wolf--you and your beautiful Sons--yet was I
eager for your company at this Kill, which has taken me days to
arrange."
"Buh-h, buh-ha! his great Kill! and here is the killer slaying
fierce, white Wood Grubs--but never mind; what of the Kill, Lone
Dog?"
"What say you to a Buffalo--a fat, young Bull?" asked A'tim,
heaving a sigh of relief; "would not that be a dinner fit for a
great Pack Leader, like yourself?"
"A Buffalo?" queried the Wolf incredulously. "I have heard of
such in these forests, but I come from the North, and have never
seen them--have we, Sons?"
"Never," they answered, closing in on A'tim.
"Even to-day I trailed one, and was on my way to ask you to the
Kill, as is the way of the Wolf kind. I am no Dog, to kill and
eat in secret."
"It's truly noble to feed your friends," declared the Wolf. He
snapped viciously at A'tim's throat with fang-lined jaws. The
Dog-Wolf jumped back nervously.
"Wait, Brothers," he pleaded; "you do not believe me, I see--let
us go together, and if I do not show you this Buffalo, waiting
for the Kill, then--"
"Yes, then--" sneered the Wolf; "if you fail to show us this
Buffalo, then--" He grinned diabolically in A'tim's face.
"E-e-u-h, I know," exclaimed the Dog-Wolf, stepping down gingerly
from the log. "You may keep close; I will show you that I have
spoken no lie."
Together, one Wolf on either side of A'tim and one behind, they
glided along his back trail till they came to the scene of his
caustic farewell to Shag. Suddenly the Pack Leader stopped,
buried his nose in a hoof hole and sniffed with discriminating
intentness.
"If-if-if-fh-h! By my scent, 'tis not Mooswa--nor Caribou. What
say you, sons? Perhaps it is the Buffalo of which the Lone Dog
speaks. Phew-yi, hi! Another trail call. Here are two of these
big-footed creatures, be they Buffalo, or what--you spoke of but
one, Lone Dog; Wolves do not tackle a Herd."
"Only a silly Cow," answered A'tim. "She will flee at the first
blood cry."
The big Wolf softened a trifle. Surely here was prospect of a
mighty Kill. There would be much flesh feeding and blood drinking
till they were gorged. And the Lone Dog would keep. When the
Buffalo were eaten, then--He look grimly at A'tim's attenuated
form. "Not much to tempt one after the sweet meat of a Grass
Feeder," he muttered disconsolately. "How shall we make the Kill,
Lone Dog?" he asked.
"When we have trailed them down watch till they feed apart and
stampede the Cow with a fierce rush full of much cry; then all on
the Bull--two in front, to put them at bay, and two behind with
sharp teeth for the hamstring. That will lay him helpless as a
new Calf."
"Thou art a Leader of Sorts, Lone Dog; but why not the Cow first?
It's an easier task, and better eating."
"Ah, my Brothers, I see you have never run the Kings of the
Prairie. While you were busy with the Cow, what think you the
Bull would be doing--brushing his mane with a wet tongue? His
strong horns, stronger than Wolf tusks, would be ripping your
ribs, and the weight of his huge forehead would be breaking your
backs--flat as a fallen leaf he would crush you. No, no; by my
knowledge of these things, first the Bull--after, the Cow will
be easy."
All this logic, sound though it seemed, was born of A'tim's
desire for revenge upon old Shag for refusing to be murdered.
"Well, it is your Run and your Kill, and to the Trailer the say
of the Kill is our Law," answered the Wolf; "lead us to the
eating, and make haste lest we get too hungry."
But A'tim had started ere the Wolf had finished his implied
threat. Nose to ground, and tail almost as straight as a true
Wolf's, he raced through the ghost forms of silent poplars,
sheared by the autumn winds of their gold-leaf mantle. Over
wooded upland, and through lowland cradling the treacherous
muskeg, spruce-shielded and moss-bedded, he followed the trail of
old Shag and his Cow mate. Ever at his flank, one on either
side, sped the young Wolves, and, lapping their quarters, loped
in easy stride their giant Sire. In the Dog-Wolf's heart were
revenge and the prospect of much eating, and the diplomacy that
was to save his life.
"This strange Run is surely from the hand of Wie-sah-ke-chack,"
muttered the Pack Leader; "and of the end I have no knowledge,
but, by the memory of my long fast, there will be food at the end
of it for me and the Pups."
Through a black cemetery of fire-killed trees, the charred limbs
cracking harshly under their eager feet, they swept. Suddenly
the trail kinked sharply to the right, and the Dog-Wolf,
swift-rushing, overshot it. "E-u-h! at fault," he muttered. "Some
trick of the fool Cow's." Back and forth, back and forth like
Setters the four Killers scurried.
"H-o-o-oh! here away!" cried A'tim, picking it up; and on again
galloped the Gray Hunters.
At Towatano Creek the trail went into the air; at least it was no
longer of the earth. Straight to the south bank it had led, but
on the north there was nothing; nothing but the hoot of a
frightened Arctic Owl that swirled off into the forest because of
their impetuous blood cry.
"They are not wet to their death," cried the Wolf, "for here is
little water."
It was as though the Bisons had crawled into a cave, only there
was no burrow in sight--nothing. A'tim was confused.
"Surely thou art a Dog," cried the Wolf disdainfully; "they have
gone up the water, or they have gone down the water. This is no
young Bull we follow, for he has the wisdom which comes with age;
that, or this Cow has the duplicity of a Mother guarding her
Calf."
"I will search up, and do you seek down," said A'tim.
"Not so," replied the Wolf; "we will stay here together while my
Pups pick up the trail, be it up or down."
Very close to A'tim the huge Wolf sat while his two Sons searched
the opposite bank for the coming out of Shag. Soon a "Hi,
yi--he, he, he-voh-ooh!" came floating dismally up the tortuous
stretch of winding stream. "Come; they have found it," said the
Wolf.
On again, faster and faster, flitted the Gray Shadows in the
waning of the day. All vain had been the precautions of the Cow;
the twisting and doubling, and walking in the water to kill the
scent--all in vain. Nothing would turn these blood-thirsters from
the trail.
"Hurry a little," panted the Wolf from behind. "Gallop, Lone Dog;
gallop, brave Pups; the scent grows strong, and we need light for
our work."
A'tim stretched his thin limbs in eager chase; at his shoulder
now raced the Wolf Pups; the blood fever crept stronger and
stronger into the hot hearts of the Gray Runners. Short yelps
of hungry exultation broke from their dry throats; it was like
the tolling of a death bell; first one and then the other,
"Oo-oo-ooh-ooh!" The dry leaves scurried under their feet,
swirled up by the wind from their rushing bodies. Poplar bluff,
and jack-pine knoll, and spruce thicket, and open patch of
rosebush-matted plain flitted by like the tide of a landscape
through which an express speeds.
Why had this silly Cow and effete old Bull traveled so far? A'tim
wondered. Would they never overtake them?
Suddenly a vibrating bellow echoed through the forest and halted
the Wolf Runners.
"It's the Bull!" cried A'tim triumphantly. "Now, Brothers, we
shall feast. Have I not spoken the truth?"
On again sped the four Killers--the four that were eager of
blood; on through the thicket, and with suddenness out upon a
plain that had been fire-swept years before--a plain wide, and
void of poplar, or spruce, or cottonwood. Only the grass plain,
and on the plain seven Buffalo; a waiting crescent of seven huge
heads lined in symmetrical defense; a little in front old Shag,
and behind, shoulder to shoulder, the others. With a cry of
dismay, A'tim stopped.
"A trick--a trap!" yelped the Wolf.
"I did not know of these," whined A'tim; "but it is nothing. If
we charge boldly they will stampede."
"They will fight," answered the Wolf. "No charge will break a
Wolf Pack, and it will be that way with these, I think."
"The Buffalo are different," lied A'tim. He knew better, but it
was his only hope. Well he knew that if there were no attack his
New Comrades would surely eat him. In the battle many things
might come to pass, his Dog wisdom said; the Wolves might be
killed, or prodded full of a sufficiency of fight; the Buffalo
might stampede, being new to Shag's leadership; or, when the
combat was heavy, he could steal away if he saw it going against
them. Also his desire for revenge on Shag was a potent factor.
"They will surely break if we charge with strength," he declared:
"they are Cows, having no Calves to guard, and each will think
only of her own safety when she hears your fierce cry, Pack
Leader. I, who have lived upon Buffalo in the South, know this.
Why should I say this, being also in the fight, if it were not
true. Come, Brothers, even now they are afraid."
The Buffalo Cows were stamping the young-turfed prairie with
nervous feet. Shag was throwing clouds of dust over his lowered
head, and kinking his tufted tail in battle anger.
"Yes, he will fight," declared A'tim, as Shag snorted and shook
his head defiantly; "he will fight, but that will save much
running, for we shall soon bring him down."
The Wolf Leader weighed the matter with a gravity born of his
long fast. Certainly it appeared worth a battle. If they could
but make one Kill, what a feast it would be! Never had he seen
Grass Feeders of this bulk. Why should he and his Sons, who
were strong fighters, full of the Wolf cunning, dread these
Buffalo who had nothing but horns for defense! No fear of the
fierce-cutting hoof thrust, such as Mooswa gave! And he was
hungry. He looked at the Dog-Wolf with the eye of an epicure;
what miserable eating his thin carcass would make. Much better
this fight for a Buffalo.
"We will charge," he said. "All at the Bull!"
With short, gasping yelps the three Wolves and the Mongrel dashed
at the Herd. The crescent of horned heads swayed a little
irresolutely; but Shag, wise old Leader, Leader of mighty Herds,
Patrician of a thousand kine, who had stood against the fierce
blizzard, and the Foothill Wolves that came down in mighty Packs
seeking the calves that were in his charge,--he who had fought
the young Bulls growing into their strength, and kept them in
subjection until his horns were worn to stubs and of no avail;
whose heart, once aroused, was strong, and knew not of defeat
until it came: this dauntless Monarch of the plain stood firm.
What were four Wolves to him! Let them come.
"This is a Leader!" said the six Cows. "Surely here is no
danger."
"No danger," repeated Shag, hearing their voices; "stand close
and there is no danger."
"Oo-oo-oo-ah, wah, wah, wah!" howled the Wolves and barked the
Dog-Wolf, as almost to the stockade of heavy heads they rushed.
"Circle, Brothers, circle," called the big Wolf, as he swerved to
the right, seeking to turn the flank of the Cow line. Like
trained soldiers the Buffalo crescent swung as the Wolves swung,
Shag always a little in front. With an angry snarl the Leader
dashed at the Buffalo; his two Sons were at his shoulder.
"The Bull! the Bull!" yelped A'tim, crouching to steal under the
giant head, and lay him by the flank.
Famine-braved, the Wolves fought and snapped, and snarled the
Kill cry. Crazed beyond cowardice by the smell of their own
blood, the Cows fenced and thrust, and stood one against the
other--the sharp horns ripped like skinning-knives.
"Ee-e-yah! if I could but do it!" snarled the great Wolf. Ah! he
had her--by the nose! Down to her knees, dragged by the Wolf,
came the Cow that had turned Shag from the Death Flower.
"Yah, yah, yah!" snarled the Wolf joyously through his set teeth,
as the Cow bellowed loud in her agony of terror.
Then something like the falling of a great forest was heard, and
the Buffalo Bull descended upon the Big Wolf and blotted him out
from the light of the world. It was not a question of horns at
all; it was simply a great weight like an avalanche of rock
crushing him into the herbed plain. His grim jaws relaxed their
hold; from ears and nostrils flowed his mighty strength in a red
stream.
Even as Shag charged the Wolf, A'tim had reached for the Cow's
flank! Ah! here was his chance. The Bull's fat throat beckoned to
him from within easy reach. Wah, for his revenge! E-e-uh, for the
throat grip--the throat-cutting hold!
Eagerly, wide-jawed he sprang at the Brother Outcast--and missed.
The carnage had sent Shag's life back a score of years; the
battle heat warmed his old blood until it coursed with the fire
of fighting youth; he was a young Bull again, full of the
glorious supple strength that had been his as chief gladiator of
all the prairie arena: that was why A'tim fell short as he
reached for the death hold.
With a deft twist Shag had the Dog-Wolf pinned to the earth
between the worn old horns.
"Now, traitor," he grunted.
"Spare me," pleaded A'tim; "I, who am not of your kind, slept by
your side, and guided you to this land where you have a Herd. I
was forced to this by the Wolves--they threatened to eat me.
Spare me, Great Bull; I came to warn you, but the Wolves followed
fast."
Shag hesitated. One crunch from his broad forehead, one little
push--so, and the Dog-Wolf, who was A'tim, would--
[Illustration: "THOU ART A TRAITOR, AND A GREAT LIAR," SAID THE
BULL.]
"Spare me, Shag--let me go," pleaded the mongrel again; "I
brought you to this Herd--to this Northland which is good. Were
we not Outcast Brothers together?"
Again Shag hesitated. Why not? Was he not a Buffalo Bull, a
Leader of Herds? Did his kind ever do aught for revenge--kill
except in defense of their own lives? And was not this Dog-Wolf
lying helpless between his horns beyond all chance of doing him
injury--this Mongrel that had been as a Brother to him when they
were Outcasts? Also the Wolves were dead--trampled into silence.
"Thou art a traitor, and a great liar, A'tim," said the Bull,
rising, "but you may go because you are an Outcast, and because I
also was one."
And that was the beginning of the Herd of the Wood Buffalo, that
are big and strong and beautiful, in the spruce forests of the
Athabasca Lake.
[Illustration: END]
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
The punctuation was standardized in the caption "One after another they
hurtled into the slaughter-pen of the Blood Indians' corral."
The word "everyting" has been retained on page 82.
The punctuation and paragraphing were standardized on page 129.
The "oe" ligature in the word manoeuver is represented as [oe].
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Outcasts, by W. A. Fraser
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