PART II - - - CHAPTER I

CHAPTER I--THE BATTLE OF THE FANGS


It was the she-wolf who had first caught the sound of men's voices and
the whining of the sled-dogs; and it was the she-wolf who was first to
spring away from the cornered man in his circle of dying flame. The pack
had been loath to forego the kill it had hunted down, and it lingered for
several minutes, making sure of the sounds, and then it, too, sprang away
on the trail made by the she-wolf.

Running at the forefront of the pack was a large grey wolf--one of its
several leaders. It was he who directed the pack's course on the heels
of the she-wolf. It was he who snarled warningly at the younger members
of the pack or slashed at them with his fangs when they ambitiously tried
to pass him. And it was he who increased the pace when he sighted the
she-wolf, now trotting slowly across the snow.

She dropped in alongside by him, as though it were her appointed
position, and took the pace of the pack. He did not snarl at her, nor
show his teeth, when any leap of hers chanced to put her in advance of
him. On the contrary, he seemed kindly disposed toward her--too kindly
to suit her, for he was prone to run near to her, and when he ran too
near it was she who snarled and showed her teeth. Nor was she above
slashing his shoulder sharply on occasion. At such times he betrayed no
anger. He merely sprang to the side and ran stiffly ahead for several
awkward leaps, in carriage and conduct resembling an abashed country
swain.

This was his one trouble in the running of the pack; but she had other
troubles. On her other side ran a gaunt old wolf, grizzled and marked
with the scars of many battles. He ran always on her right side. The
fact that he had but one eye, and that the left eye, might account for
this. He, also, was addicted to crowding her, to veering toward her till
his scarred muzzle touched her body, or shoulder, or neck. As with the
running mate on the left, she repelled these attentions with her teeth;
but when both bestowed their attentions at the same time she was roughly
jostled, being compelled, with quick snaps to either side, to drive both
lovers away and at the same time to maintain her forward leap with the
pack and see the way of her feet before her. At such times her running
mates flashed their teeth and growled threateningly across at each other.
They might have fought, but even wooing and its rivalry waited upon the
more pressing hunger-need of the pack.

After each repulse, when the old wolf sheered abruptly away from the
sharp-toothed object of his desire, he shouldered against a young three-
year-old that ran on his blind right side. This young wolf had attained
his full size; and, considering the weak and famished condition of the
pack, he possessed more than the average vigour and spirit. Nevertheless,
he ran with his head even with the shoulder of his one-eyed elder. When
he ventured to run abreast of the older wolf (which was seldom), a snarl
and a snap sent him back even with the shoulder again. Sometimes,
however, he dropped cautiously and slowly behind and edged in between the
old leader and the she-wolf. This was doubly resented, even triply
resented. When she snarled her displeasure, the old leader would whirl
on the three-year-old. Sometimes she whirled with him. And sometimes
the young leader on the left whirled, too.

At such times, confronted by three sets of savage teeth, the young wolf
stopped precipitately, throwing himself back on his haunches, with fore-
legs stiff, mouth menacing, and mane bristling. This confusion in the
front of the moving pack always caused confusion in the rear. The wolves
behind collided with the young wolf and expressed their displeasure by
administering sharp nips on his hind-legs and flanks. He was laying up
trouble for himself, for lack of food and short tempers went together;
but with the boundless faith of youth he persisted in repeating the
manoeuvre every little while, though it never succeeded in gaining
anything for him but discomfiture.

Had there been food, love-making and fighting would have gone on apace,
and the pack-formation would have been broken up. But the situation of
the pack was desperate. It was lean with long-standing hunger. It ran
below its ordinary speed. At the rear limped the weak members, the very
young and the very old. At the front were the strongest. Yet all were
more like skeletons than full-bodied wolves. Nevertheless, with the
exception of the ones that limped, the movements of the animals were
effortless and tireless. Their stringy muscles seemed founts of
inexhaustible energy. Behind every steel-like contraction of a muscle,
lay another steel-like contraction, and another, and another, apparently
without end.

They ran many miles that day. They ran through the night. And the next
day found them still running. They were running over the surface of a
world frozen and dead. No life stirred. They alone moved through the
vast inertness. They alone were alive, and they sought for other things
that were alive in order that they might devour them and continue to
live.

They crossed low divides and ranged a dozen small streams in a
lower-lying country before their quest was rewarded. Then they came upon
moose. It was a big bull they first found. Here was meat and life, and
it was guarded by no mysterious fires nor flying missiles of flame. Splay
hoofs and palmated antlers they knew, and they flung their customary
patience and caution to the wind. It was a brief fight and fierce. The
big bull was beset on every side. He ripped them open or split their
skulls with shrewdly driven blows of his great hoofs. He crushed them
and broke them on his large horns. He stamped them into the snow under
him in the wallowing struggle. But he was foredoomed, and he went down
with the she-wolf tearing savagely at his throat, and with other teeth
fixed everywhere upon him, devouring him alive, before ever his last
struggles ceased or his last damage had been wrought.

There was food in plenty. The bull weighed over eight hundred
pounds--fully twenty pounds of meat per mouth for the forty-odd wolves of
the pack. But if they could fast prodigiously, they could feed
prodigiously, and soon a few scattered bones were all that remained of
the splendid live brute that had faced the pack a few hours before.

There was now much resting and sleeping. With full stomachs, bickering
and quarrelling began among the younger males, and this continued through
the few days that followed before the breaking-up of the pack. The
famine was over. The wolves were now in the country of game, and though
they still hunted in pack, they hunted more cautiously, cutting out heavy
cows or crippled old bulls from the small moose-herds they ran across.

There came a day, in this land of plenty, when the wolf-pack split in
half and went in different directions. The she-wolf, the young leader on
her left, and the one-eyed elder on her right, led their half of the pack
down to the Mackenzie River and across into the lake country to the east.
Each day this remnant of the pack dwindled. Two by two, male and female,
the wolves were deserting. Occasionally a solitary male was driven out
by the sharp teeth of his rivals. In the end there remained only four:
the she-wolf, the young leader, the one-eyed one, and the ambitious three-
year-old.

The she-wolf had by now developed a ferocious temper. Her three suitors
all bore the marks of her teeth. Yet they never replied in kind, never
defended themselves against her. They turned their shoulders to her most
savage slashes, and with wagging tails and mincing steps strove to
placate her wrath. But if they were all mildness toward her, they were
all fierceness toward one another. The three-year-old grew too ambitious
in his fierceness. He caught the one-eyed elder on his blind side and
ripped his ear into ribbons. Though the grizzled old fellow could see
only on one side, against the youth and vigour of the other he brought
into play the wisdom of long years of experience. His lost eye and his
scarred muzzle bore evidence to the nature of his experience. He had
survived too many battles to be in doubt for a moment about what to do.

The battle began fairly, but it did not end fairly. There was no telling
what the outcome would have been, for the third wolf joined the elder,
and together, old leader and young leader, they attacked the ambitious
three-year-old and proceeded to destroy him. He was beset on either side
by the merciless fangs of his erstwhile comrades. Forgotten were the
days they had hunted together, the game they had pulled down, the famine
they had suffered. That business was a thing of the past. The business
of love was at hand--ever a sterner and crueller business than that of
food-getting.

And in the meanwhile, the she-wolf, the cause of it all, sat down
contentedly on her haunches and watched. She was even pleased. This was
her day--and it came not often--when manes bristled, and fang smote fang
or ripped and tore the yielding flesh, all for the possession of her.

And in the business of love the three-year-old, who had made this his
first adventure upon it, yielded up his life. On either side of his body
stood his two rivals. They were gazing at the she-wolf, who sat smiling
in the snow. But the elder leader was wise, very wise, in love even as
in battle. The younger leader turned his head to lick a wound on his
shoulder. The curve of his neck was turned toward his rival. With his
one eye the elder saw the opportunity. He darted in low and closed with
his fangs. It was a long, ripping slash, and deep as well. His teeth,
in passing, burst the wall of the great vein of the throat. Then he
leaped clear.

The young leader snarled terribly, but his snarl broke midmost into a
tickling cough. Bleeding and coughing, already stricken, he sprang at
the elder and fought while life faded from him, his legs going weak
beneath him, the light of day dulling on his eyes, his blows and springs
falling shorter and shorter.

And all the while the she-wolf sat on her haunches and smiled. She was
made glad in vague ways by the battle, for this was the love-making of
the Wild, the sex-tragedy of the natural world that was tragedy only to
those that died. To those that survived it was not tragedy, but
realisation and achievement.

When the young leader lay in the snow and moved no more, One Eye stalked
over to the she-wolf. His carriage was one of mingled triumph and
caution. He was plainly expectant of a rebuff, and he was just as
plainly surprised when her teeth did not flash out at him in anger. For
the first time she met him with a kindly manner. She sniffed noses with
him, and even condescended to leap about and frisk and play with him in
quite puppyish fashion. And he, for all his grey years and sage
experience, behaved quite as puppyishly and even a little more foolishly.

Forgotten already were the vanquished rivals and the love-tale
red-written on the snow. Forgotten, save once, when old One Eye stopped
for a moment to lick his stiffening wounds. Then it was that his lips
half writhed into a snarl, and the hair of his neck and shoulders
involuntarily bristled, while he half crouched for a spring, his claws
spasmodically clutching into the snow-surface for firmer footing. But it
was all forgotten the next moment, as he sprang after the she-wolf, who
was coyly leading him a chase through the woods.

After that they ran side by side, like good friends who have come to an
understanding. The days passed by, and they kept together, hunting their
meat and killing and eating it in common. After a time the she-wolf
began to grow restless. She seemed to be searching for something that
she could not find. The hollows under fallen trees seemed to attract
her, and she spent much time nosing about among the larger snow-piled
crevices in the rocks and in the caves of overhanging banks. Old One Eye
was not interested at all, but he followed her good-naturedly in her
quest, and when her investigations in particular places were unusually
protracted, he would lie down and wait until she was ready to go on.

They did not remain in one place, but travelled across country until they
regained the Mackenzie River, down which they slowly went, leaving it
often to hunt game along the small streams that entered it, but always
returning to it again. Sometimes they chanced upon other wolves, usually
in pairs; but there was no friendliness of intercourse displayed on
either side, no gladness at meeting, no desire to return to the
pack-formation. Several times they encountered solitary wolves. These
were always males, and they were pressingly insistent on joining with One
Eye and his mate. This he resented, and when she stood shoulder to
shoulder with him, bristling and showing her teeth, the aspiring solitary
ones would back off, turn-tail, and continue on their lonely way.

One moonlight night, running through the quiet forest, One Eye suddenly
halted. His muzzle went up, his tail stiffened, and his nostrils dilated
as he scented the air. One foot also he held up, after the manner of a
dog. He was not satisfied, and he continued to smell the air, striving
to understand the message borne upon it to him. One careless sniff had
satisfied his mate, and she trotted on to reassure him. Though he
followed her, he was still dubious, and he could not forbear an
occasional halt in order more carefully to study the warning.

She crept out cautiously on the edge of a large open space in the midst
of the trees. For some time she stood alone. Then One Eye, creeping and
crawling, every sense on the alert, every hair radiating infinite
suspicion, joined her. They stood side by side, watching and listening
and smelling.

To their ears came the sounds of dogs wrangling and scuffling, the
guttural cries of men, the sharper voices of scolding women, and once the
shrill and plaintive cry of a child. With the exception of the huge
bulks of the skin-lodges, little could be seen save the flames of the
fire, broken by the movements of intervening bodies, and the smoke rising
slowly on the quiet air. But to their nostrils came the myriad smells of
an Indian camp, carrying a story that was largely incomprehensible to One
Eye, but every detail of which the she-wolf knew.

She was strangely stirred, and sniffed and sniffed with an increasing
delight. But old One Eye was doubtful. He betrayed his apprehension,
and started tentatively to go. She turned and touched his neck with her
muzzle in a reassuring way, then regarded the camp again. A new
wistfulness was in her face, but it was not the wistfulness of hunger.
She was thrilling to a desire that urged her to go forward, to be in
closer to that fire, to be squabbling with the dogs, and to be avoiding
and dodging the stumbling feet of men.

One Eye moved impatiently beside her; her unrest came back upon her, and
she knew again her pressing need to find the thing for which she
searched. She turned and trotted back into the forest, to the great
relief of One Eye, who trotted a little to the fore until they were well
within the shelter of the trees.

As they slid along, noiseless as shadows, in the moonlight, they came
upon a run-way. Both noses went down to the footprints in the snow.
These footprints were very fresh. One Eye ran ahead cautiously, his mate
at his heels. The broad pads of their feet were spread wide and in
contact with the snow were like velvet. One Eye caught sight of a dim
movement of white in the midst of the white. His sliding gait had been
deceptively swift, but it was as nothing to the speed at which he now
ran. Before him was bounding the faint patch of white he had discovered.

They were running along a narrow alley flanked on either side by a growth
of young spruce. Through the trees the mouth of the alley could be seen,
opening out on a moonlit glade. Old One Eye was rapidly overhauling the
fleeing shape of white. Bound by bound he gained. Now he was upon it.
One leap more and his teeth would be sinking into it. But that leap was
never made. High in the air, and straight up, soared the shape of white,
now a struggling snowshoe rabbit that leaped and bounded, executing a
fantastic dance there above him in the air and never once returning to
earth.

One Eye sprang back with a snort of sudden fright, then shrank down to
the snow and crouched, snarling threats at this thing of fear he did not
understand. But the she-wolf coolly thrust past him. She poised for a
moment, then sprang for the dancing rabbit. She, too, soared high, but
not so high as the quarry, and her teeth clipped emptily together with a
metallic snap. She made another leap, and another.

Her mate had slowly relaxed from his crouch and was watching her. He now
evinced displeasure at her repeated failures, and himself made a mighty
spring upward. His teeth closed upon the rabbit, and he bore it back to
earth with him. But at the same time there was a suspicious crackling
movement beside him, and his astonished eye saw a young spruce sapling
bending down above him to strike him. His jaws let go their grip, and he
leaped backward to escape this strange danger, his lips drawn back from
his fangs, his throat snarling, every hair bristling with rage and
fright. And in that moment the sapling reared its slender length upright
and the rabbit soared dancing in the air again.

The she-wolf was angry. She sank her fangs into her mate's shoulder in
reproof; and he, frightened, unaware of what constituted this new
onslaught, struck back ferociously and in still greater fright, ripping
down the side of the she-wolf's muzzle. For him to resent such reproof
was equally unexpected to her, and she sprang upon him in snarling
indignation. Then he discovered his mistake and tried to placate her.
But she proceeded to punish him roundly, until he gave over all attempts
at placation, and whirled in a circle, his head away from her, his
shoulders receiving the punishment of her teeth.

In the meantime the rabbit danced above them in the air. The she-wolf
sat down in the snow, and old One Eye, now more in fear of his mate than
of the mysterious sapling, again sprang for the rabbit. As he sank back
with it between his teeth, he kept his eye on the sapling. As before, it
followed him back to earth. He crouched down under the impending blow,
his hair bristling, but his teeth still keeping tight hold of the rabbit.
But the blow did not fall. The sapling remained bent above him. When he
moved it moved, and he growled at it through his clenched jaws; when he
remained still, it remained still, and he concluded it was safer to
continue remaining still. Yet the warm blood of the rabbit tasted good
in his mouth.

It was his mate who relieved him from the quandary in which he found
himself. She took the rabbit from him, and while the sapling swayed and
teetered threateningly above her she calmly gnawed off the rabbit's head.
At once the sapling shot up, and after that gave no more trouble,
remaining in the decorous and perpendicular position in which nature had
intended it to grow. Then, between them, the she-wolf and One Eye
devoured the game which the mysterious sapling had caught for them.

There were other run-ways and alleys where rabbits were hanging in the
air, and the wolf-pair prospected them all, the she-wolf leading the way,
old One Eye following and observant, learning the method of robbing
snares--a knowledge destined to stand him in good stead in the days to
come.