by Brand, Max
Suddenly she whirled, her mane bristling, her ears twitched back, her eyes green with hatred, her fangs bared.
Frosty walked right up to that dreadful mask of hatred and sniffed at her nose. And then, suddenly, they stood back from one another and laughed two red laughters, set off with teeth that glistened just like ice.
There are no tears at the wedding ceremony of a wolf. They seem to have a saving sense of humor, and so there was only a great deal of that silent laughter at the marriage of Frosty under the spring moon.
Kind Mother Nature had brought to him a proper mate, and he could have looked his life long among the ladies of his kind before he would have found one more handsome, more discreet, more prepared to learn the wisdom of hunting laws and ways.
She had been well raised, as wolf rearing goes. She was not the least bit of a fool, and she knew as well as a Greek philosopher that the track of grizzly is not one to follow, and that foxes are too swift to be caught, and that their wits are even sharper than their teeth. She knew that mountain sheep are better avoided than troubled, and that small pickings will eventually make a full belly.
She knew the rain signs and the wind signs that the god of wolves hangs in the midnight blue of the sky, and she could read like type the scents that travel on the breeze. But in all the bright days of her life she never had tasted either beef or horse, and sheep were unknown to her except when the well-guarded flocks went by at a distance, always accompanied by the distressing scent of man, the great enemy, and gunpowder and steel.
When Frosty discovered that she was afraid of going out of the highlands into the hills, he sat down and looked her in the face. Then he stood up and jogged quietly on his way along the down trail.
She turned and went the other way, until she found out that he would no longer follow. Then she whined like a dog for him, and afterward she sang a mournful tune. Last of all, she got to her feet and raced like the wind to catch up with him, picking his scent off the ground and then out of the air until she was at his side once more.
He merely turned his head a little and admitted that he was aware of her coming. For he had a very good domestic and political head, did Frosty, and he knew as well as any wolf in the world how to be the head of a family.
So they came out into the foothills, and Frosty headed straight for the biggest, the choicest, of all of his preserves. It was a ranch where there were cattle and sheep; where there were plenty of pigs and chickens, and a creamery, and poultry, including ducks and turkeys and geese, and there were rabbits, white and brown, and there were goats and beef cattle big and small, and horses, and mules, and nearly every sort of four-footed beast that one could imagine on a big Western ranch.
It was the Truman place, with an almost national reputation behind it. But Frosty, in a sense, knew that place better than even its wise-headed owner. He had tasted of every sort of meat that his unwilling host could provide, and his track was so well-known that drawings and photographs and measurements of the tracks of Frosty were to be found in the study of John Truman. That was not all. Mrs. Truman was a very clever artist with her pencil, and several times she had seen the terrible Frosty — by starlight, by moonlight, in the dusk, and in the crystal pink of the early morning light. So she had done a number of pictures of the monster, and, in fact, Frosty was a major item of conversation in the Truman household.
It was not accident that when Frosty came out of the mountains to dine in high estate, his mate beside him, he should have traveled straight toward the greatest of danger. It was not accident, because something far from chance had brought Barry Christian and Duff Gregor and the famous pack of the Thurston dogs to the ranch of Truman.
It was known that Truman would do almost anything in the world to get rid of the cunning marauder. There was some risk that he might recognize Christian, but, as a matter of fact, he proved to be blind to everything except the manifest excellence of the dog pack of Joe Thurston. He was glad to house that pack and feed it gratis, and he hoped that Thurston would continue to stay at his house, even for a year and a day, and enjoy free board for his pack, so long as the chief business of that pack continued to be the hunting of Frosty.
They sat in the house, the four of them, and looked at the photographs of the sign of Frosty, and admired the clever drawings which Mrs. Truman had made of the devastator himself. And while they were laying their plans and deciding in what direction they had better cast through the hills and into the mountains in the hope of finding the trail of the great wolf, Frosty in person was sliding through the fence of the southeastern section and heading straight toward the house, followed by his frightened mate.
She was, in fact, fairly blind with fear.
But she was also hungry, and when she came to a fresh-killed carcass she said:
“That meat is new and good. And I have an empty stomach.”
Frosty shuddered till his mane stood up on end.
Dead meat? Eat dead meat? Not since he was a puppy — not since he had become a wolf of the world and had learned how to set his own table properly.
But he decided to give her a lesson. So he took her right up into the wind toward the new kill, and then lay down and bade her study the scents.
A pair of coyotes, frightened from the feast, fled far away. But Frosty paid no heed to them.
“Death is not a nothing,” he said. “There is always a reason. Sometimes it is the odor of gunpowder and the steel of man. Sometimes the teeth of other hunters have done the work. And sometimes it is the work of poison such as I have seen kill big wolves, and wise and strong wolves. A small tooth will kill the biggest wolf in the world if it strikes him in the right place. Poison is such a strong tooth as that. It cannot be seen. But it can be tasted, and, above all, it can be smelled.
“Now hold your head straight up and sniff the air — smell the fresh blood from where the coyotes have been feeding. And in that you find an acrid taint. That is poison. It will kill those coyotes. It will surely kill them. I have seen a mountain lion in such an agony that it leaped at the grizzly of Thunder Mountain in the middle of its fit from the poison. And the grizzly, of course, smashed the head of that big cat with one stroke of his paw.
“Now, to prove that I know of what I speak, come with me and you shall see a thing.”
He took her around the carcass of the dead calf and across the big field to the edge of a dry draw. Rapid, light feet scampered away from a place where the stars fell bright and small in a little water hole.
“After poison, hunters drink,” said Frosty. “Now watch!”
The two coyotes had climbed to the farther side of the draw when one of them stopped, whirled suddenly, and snapped at the empty air. The wolves could hear the teeth clash like steel against steel. The other coyote drew back and sat down to watch.
“Poison!” said Frosty. “And now he is fighting an enemy that he cannot see. Look!”
The coyote had leaped up into the air, and, falling again, it twisted into a frightful convulsion. Its mate, a moment later, was caught by the same fits. In the fury of their silent agonies, it seemed as though they were fighting one another in the midst of the thin cloud of dust that they raised.
Then the two were still. One lay perfectly still on its side. The other was braced up on its forelegs, but the hindquarters trailed on the ground as though paralyzed.
And as a small breeze moved the air, the two wolves found in it again the strange, the indescribable scent of the invisible death. Frosty’s mate shrank suddenly against his side, and she snarled:
“Let us go! Quickly! Quickly! Every wise wolf knows that men are dangerous, and that they can bite from far away. Let us go. I had rather have a few field mice in peace of mind than all the beef banquets of this world of men.”
CHAPTER XII
The Kill
IT WAS very good reasoning that the lady had applied to that question, but Frosty only laughed his red laughter. He looked at the beauty of his mate and remembered her speed of foot an
d all the cleverness that she had showed along the trail, and he felt a great happiness, because he knew that he was going to have a proper audience to appreciate his efforts.
He said to her: “Men have their own keen ways. So have mice and squirrels, for that matter. And so has Frosty. Come with me!”
The scent of the poison and the sight of what it could accomplish had made her almost sick with fear, but she followed Frosty slowly across the fields, and then he showed her some good hunting.
The wind came always in puffs, slowly and gently, the very best sort of a wind for the carrying of scents of every kind, and, getting to the right quarter of the compass, Frosty worked up that wind to the edge of a big field where a great mound of something living slept upon the ground.
“Beef?” said his mate.
“Ours!” said Frosty, and since the wires of that fence were strung close together and wickedly barbed, he leaped lightly and trotted on.
Over his shoulder he saw her slenderer body follow, arching against the stars, and he was immensely pleased to see this blind faith in her. But he paused to give her a caution.
“This is a trick,” said Frosty, “which I have learned. But it has cost a good many other wolves their lives. It is all a matter of foot and eye and tooth and quick thinking. I have seen three wolves gored to death in this game — yes, and each time they were hunting in packs. Perhaps they were a little too hungry to have clear wits. Sit down and watch me work. That is a bull yonder, and a bull fights to the last gasp. One thing is to make the kill swiftly, because a bull roars as he fights. And then men come on horses!”
“Ugh!” shuddered his mate. “The wind changes, and I smell dogs and the scent of many men.”
“There are always dogs about this place,” said Frosty carelessly. “The trouble with dogs is that when they can run fast enough to catch you, they have no jaw muscles for biting. And when they are big enough to take a grip, they are too clumsy to put a tooth on a wolf that has his wits about him. Besides, the fools are easily made to change their minds.”
He thought, as he said that, of the two great dogs of the trapper that had not been made to change their minds till they were dead. And back in his mind there was the memory of a certain great mastiff that, in the midst of a mob scene, had once managed to lay its deadly grip on Frosty. The pain of the wound ached right up into the back of his mind as he recalled it.
His mate obediently sat down. He could see the stars in her bright eyes, and it made him laugh to observe her fear. However, she said nothing. Only the fur of her mane lifted as she saw him actually turn toward that monstrous antagonist.
He went up softly toward that mountain of dangerous flesh. There had been a night when he had slit the throat of a sleeping steer just as it tossed up its head. Perhaps he would have equal luck on this occasion and make the battle end in blessed silence. However, he was not surprised when the big brute lurched suddenly from the ground, rear end first, and swung to face him. For a range bull is only a shade less wary than any meat eater, and fully as savage.
This was the hardy veteran of a score of battles with his kind, a true champion of the range. He got the wind of Frosty, came to his feet like a wild cat, and charged without even waiting to bellow.
He missed Frosty.
The she-wolf did not rise from her haunches. She remained in the near distance, lolling her tongue, apparently indifferent. In reality, she was taking stock of her mate’s talent as a provider. She saw Frosty avoid that thrusting of sharp horns, swing to the side, and sway back again to get behind the monster.
But the bull was wary, and spun about in time.
He put down his head and pawed the earth, preparing to bellow. Frosty made a bluff of charging straight at the head and lowered horns. It was a very good bluff. It looked to the watcher as though her mate were hurling himself right on those terrible, curved spear points. The bull took three little running steps to meet the shock — and Frosty floated away to the side, slid like a ghost under the belly of the bull, and danced away on the farther side.
The bull whirled again. Muttering thunder was forming in his throat. The she-wolf heard it, and she smelled fresh blood — beef blood. She could even hear it trickling to the ground, splashing in a pool. Frosty had used his teeth in that last maneuver.
He was ready to use them again. He went in at that huge bull like a snipe flying against the wind. The bull backed, checked, charged furiously. In the dullness of the starlight high overhead, the she-wolf saw the clots of turf flying. The ground trembled with the beating of the hoofs.
The horns missed Frosty by a margin so slight that the bull paused to hook two or three times at the spot in the air where the gray wolf had seemed to be. Then he jerked up his head with an almost human groan of pain, for Frosty, twisting about to the rear, had chopped right through the great tendon over the hock as cleanly as a butcher could have done with a sharp cleaver.
The bull started to spin, but it was hard to maneuver rapidly on only one rear leg, and the she-wolf heard the dull, chopping sound as the great fangs of Frosty struck through the tendon of the other leg.
The bull dropped to his hind quarters, still formidable, for with the sway of his monstrous horns he could guard his flanks; in the meantime, out of his throat rolled a thundering call of rage, and appeal, and helplessness.
Frosty sat down five yards away to laugh, as though he enjoyed that music, but in the middle of the lowing he flashed off his feet and dipped right in under the stretched-out throat of the bull. He cut that throat wide open across the tender narrows just beneath the jaws. The bull, trying to bellow again, only belched forth a vast stream of blood.
Frosty went back and stood beside his mate, panting:
“That was easy. You see how it’s done. Just a little matter of foot and eye and tooth.”
She put her shoulder against him and shuddered. And the heart of Frosty grew great. He suddenly felt as though he would rejoice in a chance to bring red meat home to a wife and cubs. Yes, to dozens of them!
The bull, slumping suddenly forward, struck the earth in a loose, dead bulk. Now he was still, and the banquet table was spread!
The she-wolf delayed only to see her mate put tooth to the hide. Then she was instantly at work.
Frosty was hungry; he was very hungry. It was a long time since he had had a chance to enjoy the sort of diet that he relished most, but all of his hunger and all this delicious smell of fresh blood could not hide in his mind the knowledge that he was dining on the very verge of destruction. So, while his wife tore-out great gobbets and whole pounds of tender flesh, Frosty ate more daintily, more delicately.
Now and again he would lift his great, wise young head and survey the country around him, and the obscure line where the starlit sky met the thicker night of the earth. It took eyes and some knowing to observe the movement of forms at a distance against such a background. But, when danger threatened a moment later, it took nothing but ears and nose to understand.
It was the scent of man and dogs in the distance, and the sound of a man calling, and the answering high yip-yipping of the dogs.
Inside the house of Truman they had been talking late, smoking, telling old tales of hunting, listening to Thurston’s description of some of the great runs the pack had made; and then, out of the distance, they heard the booming, thundering call of the bull.
Truman got out of this chair at once, crossed the room, and opened a window wide. He leaned into the night and listened. The bellowing of the bull was cut off short. In the middle of the great, angry lament the thunder ended.
Truman turned back to the others.
“There’s something wrong,” he said. “That’s a mighty expensive bull I’ve got out yonder, and I don’t like the way he cut off that bellow, as though somebody had just laid a whip on him!”
Christian said: “Maybe it’s Frosty come down to dine.”
Truman shook his head. “It won’t be Frosty,” he said. “Frosty wouldn’t waste as much
effort as that killing old beef when there’s so much young stuff scattered around the place. He’d rather have veal than beef. I know his tastes.”
He leaned out through the window again, shaking his head, very worried.
Thurston stood up and said:
“I’ll take a walk with a few of my dogs and see what I can turn up.”
“No good doing that,” answered Truman. “No good trying to run that devil of a wolf in the dark of the moon, and he very well knows it.”
Thurston turned and smiled. It was not a real smile, but merely a baring of the teeth.
“You’re rather proud of what your Blue Waters wolf can do, Truman,” he said, “but I’ll tell you this: My pack will find in the dark and it will run in the dark, and it will kill in the dark, too. If friend Frosty is anywhere around, he’s a dead wolf before morning.”
With that Joe Thurston walked out of the house and got his selection from the dogs. He simply took a pair of pointers so perfectly trained that they would obey gestures as far as the wave of the hand could be seen. Whistles could give them further orders.
Barry Christian walked out with Thurston and the dogs into the field, and saw, almost at once, the outline of the bulk of the bull, prostrate. Asleep, perhaps, as Barry Christian thought. But then the dogs, scouting close to the bull, failed to rouse it to its feet, which was strange, and a moment later the pointers were kiting across the field and giving trouble.
“Wolves, by thunder!” shouted Thurston.
His whistle shrilled into the night to call back the pointers before they ran themselves into hopeless trouble.
“Come back to the house!” he shouted to Christian. “We’ll saddle up and hit the trail.”
Christian had lighted a match close to the bull. He saw the terribly torn throat; he saw a big patch of blood, and in the softness of the ground that was outlined, the huge print of a wolf’s foot, a print so big that it started his heart racing.
“Thurston!” he cried. “We’ve got on his trail at last. It’s Frosty, or his twin!”