Chapter III. THE HUNGER CRY

They had lost no dogs during the night, and Bill seemed to have forgotten his troubles when, at midday, they came to a bad piece of trail. It was an awkward mix-up. The sled was upside down and stuck between a tree-trunk and a huge rock, and they had to unharness the dogs. The two men were bent over the sled and trying to right it, when Henry observed One Ear going away.

“Here, you, One Ear!” he cried.

But One Ear was already running across the snow. And there, on their back track, was the she-wolf waiting for him.

At first One Ear was cautious and dubious. She seemed to smile at him, showing her teeth in a welcoming rather than a menacing way. She moved toward him a few steps and stopped. One Ear came nearer, his tail and ears in the air, his head high. He tried to sniff noses with her, but she retreated playfully. Every advance on his part was accompanied by a corresponding retreat on her part. Step by step she was leading him away from the security of his human companionship. Once he turned his head and looked back at the sled, at his team-mates, and at the two men who were calling to him, but the she-wolf sniffed noses with him for an instant, and then continued her playful retreat.

In the meantime, Bill remembered of the rifle. But it was stuck beneath the overturned sled, and by the time Henry had helped him to right the load, One Ear and the she-wolf were too close together and the distance too great to risk a shot.

Too late One Ear realized his mistake. Suddenly, the two men saw him turn and start to run back toward them. Then they saw a dozen wolves around. The she-wolf’s playfulness disappeared. With a snarl she sprang upon One Ear. His retreat was cut off, so he changed his course, trying to circle around. More wolves were appearing every moment and joining the chase. The she-wolf was one leap behind One Ear.

“Where are you going?” Henry asked Bill and tried to stop him.

“I won’t stand it. They won’t get any more of our dogs.”

Henry remained behind after Bill had gone. He judged One Ear’s case to be hopeless. He could not break the circle of his pursuers.

Henry sat on the sled. And too quickly, far more quickly than he had expected, it happened. He heard a shot, then two more shots, and he knew that Bill’s ammunition was gone. Then he heard a great outcry of snarls. He recognized One Ear’s yell of pain and terror, and he heard a wolf-cry of an injured animal. And that was all. The snarls ceased. Silence fell down again on the lonely land.

He sat for a long while upon the sled. There was no need for him to go and see what had happened. He knew it as though it had taken place before his eyes. Once, he roused with a start and quickly got the axe out from the sled. But for some time longer he sat and brooded, the two remaining dogs crouching and trembling at his feet.

At last he arose wearily, as though all the determination had gone out of his body, and fastened the dogs to the sled. He passed a rope over his shoulder, and pulled with the dogs. He did not go far. At the first hint of darkness he made a camp and prepared a generous supply of firewood. He fed the dogs, cooked and ate his supper, and made his bed close to the fire.

But he could not enjoy that bed. The wolves were around him and the fire, in a narrow circle, and he saw them plainly: lying down, sitting up, crawling forward on their bellies, or going around. They even slept. Here and there he could see one curled up in the snow like a dog, taking the sleep that he could not now afford.

He kept the fire blazing, because he knew that it alone was between the flesh of his body and their hungry fangs. His two dogs stayed close by him, one on either side, whimpering and snarling desperately. Bit by bit, an inch at a time, with here a wolf bellying forward, and there a wolf bellying forward, the circle narrowed until the man started taking brands from the fire and throwing them into the brutes.

Morning found him tired and worn. He cooked breakfast in the darkness, and at nine o’clock, when the wolves drew back, he started doing what he had planned through the night. He made a wooden scaffold and fixed it high up to the trunks of trees. With the use of a rope, and with the aid of the dogs, he put the coffin to the top of the scaffold.

“They got Bill, and they may get me, but they’ll never get you, young man,” he said, addressing the dead body in the coffin.

Then he took the trail with the lightened sled. Dogs were willing to pull, for they, too, knew that safety was in Fort McGurry. The wolves were now more open in their pursuit. They were very lean – so lean that Henry wondered how they still kept their feet.

He did not dare travel after dark. In grey daylight and dim twilight he prepared an enormous supply of fire-wood.

With night came horror. Not only were the starving wolves growing bolder, but lack of sleep was telling upon Henry. He dozed, crouching by the fire, the blankets about his shoulders, the axe between his knees, and on either side a dog pressing close against him. He awoke once and saw in front of him, not a dozen feet away, a big grey wolf, one of the largest of the pack. The brute deliberately stretched himself, like a lazy dog, looking upon him as if, in truth, he were just a delayed meal that was soon to be eaten.

The wolves reminded Henry of children gathered around a table and waiting for the permission to begin to eat. And he was the food they were to eat! He wondered how and when the meal would begin.

He grew suddenly fond of his body, of his flesh that worked so fine. Then he looked fearfully at the wolf-circle drawn around him: this wonderful body of his was no more than much meat, to be torn by their hungry fangs, like the moose or the rabbit.

He came out of a doze to see the red-hued she-wolf before him. The two dogs were whimpering and snarling at his feet, but she took no notice of them. She was looking at the man, and for some time he returned her look. There was nothing scary about her. She just looked at him with a great wistfulness of hunger. He was the food, and the sight of him excited her. Her mouth opened, the saliva dropped down in anticipation.

A spasm of fear went through him. He reached for a brand to throw at her, but before his fingers had closed on it, she sprang back into safety. He glanced at the hand that held the brand, and in the same instant he seemed to see a vision of those same fingers being crushed and torn by the white teeth of the she-wolf. Never before had he been so fond of his body.

All night, with burning brands, he fought off the hungry pack. Morning came, but for the first time the light of day did not frighten the wolves.

The man waited in vain for them to go. They remained in a circle about him and his fire, showing an arrogance of possession that shook his courage.

He made one desperate attempt to go on the trail. But the moment he left the fire, the boldest wolf leaped for him. He saved himself by springing back, the jaws snapping together six inches from his leg.

The night was a repetition of the night before, save that the need for sleep was too great. The snarling of his dogs was losing its efficacy. Once he suddenly awoke to see the she-wolf was less than a yard from him. Mechanically, without letting go of it, he thrust a brand into her open mouth. She sprang away, yelling with pain.

Before he dozed again, he tied a burning pine- knot to his right hand. His eyes were closed only a few minutes when the flame on his flesh awakened him. Every time he was thus awakened he drove back the wolves with flying brands, checked the fire, and rearranged the pine-knot on his hand. All worked well, but once he tied the pine- knot badly. As his eyes closed it fell away from his hand.

He dreamed. It seemed to him that he was in Fort McGurry. It was warm and comfortable, and he was playing cards with the Factor. Also, it seemed to him that the fort was besieged by wolves. They were howling at the gates, and sometimes he and the Factor paused from the game to listen and laugh at them. And suddenly the door was burst open. He could see the wolves coming into the big living-room. They were leaping straight for him and the Factor. Their howling now followed him everywhere.

And then he awoke to find the howling real. The wolves were all about him and upon him. The teeth of one had closed upon his arm. Instinctively he leaped into the fire, and as he leaped, he felt the sharp teeth that tore through the flesh of his leg. Then there began a fire fight. His mittens temporarily protected his hands, and he threw burning coals into the air in all directions, until the campfire looked like a volcano. But it could not last long. The heat was becoming unbearable to his feet. With a burning brand in each hand, he sprang to the edge of the fire. The wolves had been driven back, and many of them stepped on the fallen coals, crying with pain.

The man thrust his brands at the nearest of his enemies, then thrust his mittens and legs into the snow to cool them. His two dogs were missing, and he well knew that they had served as a course in the meal which had begun days before with Fatty, and the last course of which would likely be himself in the days to follow.

“You haven’t got me yet!” he cried, shaking his fist at the hungry beasts; and at the sound of his voice the whole circle was agitated, and the she-wolf came close to him and watched him with hungry wistfulness.

Henry extended the fire into a large circle and crouched inside it. The whole pack came closer to see what had become of him. They could not cross the fire, and they now settled down in a close-drawn circle, like dogs, blinking and yawning and stretching their lean bodies in the warmth. Then the she-wolf sat down, pointed her nose at a star, and began to howl. One by one the wolves joined her, till the whole pack was howling.

Dawn came, and daylight. The fire was burning low. The fuel had run out, and there was need to get more. The man could not step out of the circle of fire or drive the wolves back. As he gave up and sat inside his circle, a wolf leaped for him, missed, and landed with all four feet in the coals. It cried out with terror, at the same time snarling, and jumped back to cool its paws in the snow.

The man sat down on his blankets. His shoulders relaxed and drooped, his head was on his knees: he had given up the struggle. Now and again he raised his head and watched the fire dying. The circle of flame and coals was breaking into segments with openings in between.

“I guess you can come and get me any time,” he said. “Anyway, I’m going to sleep.”

Once he awakened, and in an opening in the circle, he saw the she-wolf gazing at him.

Again he awakened, a little later, though it seemed hours to him. A mysterious change had taken place. He could not understand at first. Then he discovered it. The wolves were gone. Only the traces on the snow showed how closely they had come.

There were cries of men and sounds of sleds and harnesses, and the whimpering of dogs. Four sleds with half a dozen men approached the man who crouched in the centre of the dying fire. They were shaking him into consciousness. He looked at them like a drunken man and said sleepily:

“Red she-wolf… Come in with the dogs at feeding time… First she ate the dog-food… Then she ate the dogs… And after that she ate Bill…”

“Where’s Lord Alfred?” one of the men shouted in his ear, shaking him roughly.

He shook his head slowly. “No, she didn’t eat him… He’s in a tree at the last camp.”

“Dead?”

“And in a box,” Henry jerked his shoulder away from the grip of his questioner. “Leave alone… Good night, everybody.”

His eyes closed. And even as they put him down upon the blankets his snores sounded in the frosty air.

But there was another sound: a far and faint cry of the hungry wolf-pack as it took the trail of other meat.