by Max Brand
I saw them smiling at one another with a perfect though mute understanding, and for the first time since I had met Massey, and heard of Calmont, I saw how these two men might have been companions and bunkies for years together, as every one knew they had been.
Massey turned off this familiar and friendly strain to say: “Look here, Calmont. Maybe they’re five hundred miles from where you saw them.”
“You know wolves, do you?” asked Calmont, in his usual snarling voice.
“Pretty well.”
“You don’t know a dang thing about ’em! A wolf don’t usually run on more than a forty-mile range. And likely even the winter starving time won’t make him wander more than a hundred, or so. They gotta have the knowledge of the country that they run in, or they’re pretty nigh afraid even to hunt. Like Eskimo, you might say.”
“Why like Eskimo?”
“Well, I recollect bein’ up north on the borders of the Smith Bay, I think it was, and I had some Eskimos along with me, and we was winterin’ there, and I told ’em to put out their fish nets and try to catch something. But they said that there wasn’t no fish in them waters, and that there wasn’t any use in wastin’ time on them. And then along comes a bunch of the native tribe that knows that shore, and they put out their nets and catch a ton of fish, and we all ate them. After that, my Eskimos wanted to stay there forever, but I had to move. Well, wild animals are the same way. They hunt in the country that they know.”
“But Alec never knew any wild country.”
“He’ll learn to, then. And within a coupla days’ marches of where that Injun found him and the dog team that he swiped, we’ll have a pretty fair shot to find him, too.”
Massey, after a time, admitted that this was true, and that was the reason that we kept on toward the place.
Of course, it would seem madness to most people, but not to me. I had seen Alec. This amount of trouble, no dog was really worth; but Alec was not a dog. A wolf, then, you ask? No, not a wolf, either. But he had learned so much from Massey that, when I saw him, he was almost half human.
To see that dog bringing his master matches, or gun, or slippers, or parka, well, it was worth a good deal. To see him walk a tightrope was a caution, and to see a thousand other ways that he had of acting up was a caution too. The only way that Massey punished him was, when he had been really bad, to leave him outside of the tent at night. And there Alec would sit and cry like a baby and mourn like a wolf, until finally he was let in.
Outside of that, I never had seen Massey so much as speak rough to him, far less strike him with hand or whip. They were partners, as surely as ever man and man were partners. Why, for my own part, I never had much influence with Alec. I was not what you would call an intimate acquaintance, but still it gripped my heart like a strong hand when I thought of him being lost to us and condemned to the wilderness, where no man would ever again see the bright, fierce, wise, affectionate eyes.
Yes, in my own way I loved Alec, though it is hard for a boy to give his heart as freely as a man does. Boys are more selfish, more impulsive, more womanish than grown men. They make a fuss about an animal, or a person. But here were two grown men — the hardest I have ever known — who were willing to die for the sake of getting that dog back in traces!
This taught me a good deal. I used to watch the pair of them, day after day. The wonder of this situation never left me, but all the while I was saying to myself that they were laboring together like brothers for a goal which, when they reached it, would make them kill one another.
It was the strangest thing that I ever saw. It was the strangest thing that ever was imagined. But they needed one another. Calmont could not catch the dog without the help of Massey, and Massey could not find the region where Alec was ranging without the help of Calmont. There they were, loathing one another, but tied to each other by a common need.
I can tell you two strange things that happened on that out-trail.
The third day we came to a place where the surface ice suddenly thinned — I don’t know why, on that little mangy stream — but Massey, who was making trail, suddenly broke through and disappeared before our eyes.
I say that he disappeared. I mean that he almost did but, while one of his hands was still reaching for the edge of the ice and breaking it away, Calmont with a yell threw himself forward and skidded along on hands and legs, like a seal — to keep the weight over a bigger surface — until he got to the edge of the hole in a moment, and caught the hand of Massey just as it was taking its last hold.
When he tried to pull Massey out, the ice gave way in great sections, and I think they would have gone down together, if I hadn’t swerved the team away from the place and thrown Calmont a line.
By the aid of that, and the dogs and I pulling like sixty, we got them both out on the ice, and I started a huge fire, and they were soon thawing out.
But the wonderful part was not so much the speed with which Calmont had gone to the rescue, as it was his bulldog persistence in sticking to the rescue work in spite of the fact that every instant it looked as though the powerful current would pull down both the drowning man and the would-be rescuer.
This amazed them both, also, I have no doubt. But the point of the matter was that no thanks were given or expected. They growled at each other more than ever, and seemed ashamed.
The very next day, we were going up a steep, icy slope. When Calmont, ahead of us, slipped and fell like a stone, I got out of the way with a yell of fear, but Massey stood there on the ledge of frozen, slippery rock, with a fifty-foot drop just behind him. To see the last of Calmont, he only needed to step out of the way, but he wouldn’t. He tackled that spinning, falling body. The shock of it dragged them both to the trembling brink of the drop, but there they luckily lodged, two inches from death for them both.
They simply got up and shook themselves like dogs, and went on with the day’s march.
XXV. THE MOOSE
THAT SAME NIGHT, when we camped, I watched the pair of them carefully, for I had high hopes that murder might no longer be in the air. There is no greater thing a man may do than lay down his life for a friend. And if that is true, what is to be said of him who has offered to lay down his life?
Well, each of these man had done exactly that for the other. But instead of a thawing of that cold ice of hatred which encased them both, they looked at one another, so far as I could tell, with an increased aversion. It was perfectly clear to me that what they had done was simply for the sake of forwarding the march; for the sake of Alec the Great, you might say. And that seemed more and more true as I stared at them.
They never spoke to one another, if they could avoid it. Often when something had to be said, one of them would speak to me, so that he could make his mind clear on a subject. This may seem childish, but it did not strike me that way. There was too much danger in the air.
The night settled down on us damp and thick with cold. A really deadly mist poured into the hollows and rose among the trees until we could see only the ones near at hand. And even those looked like ghosts waiting around us. So we built up a whacking big fire to drive away the cold, and in this way we made ourselves fairly comfortable, though comfort is only a comparative thing that far north. Sometimes I found myself wishing for the fireless camps of the open tundra in preference to this choking mist which lay heavy on the lungs with every breath that we drew.
I tried to make a little talk as we sat around the fire, getting the ache of the march out of our legs, but they stared at the flames, or at one another, and they would not answer me except with grunts. They were thinking about the future, and Alec, and the fight that was to come, no doubt, and they could not be bothered by the chatter of a youngster like me.
We all turned in, with a fire built up on each side, and a tunnel of warmth in between. That is an extravagant way of camping, because it takes so much wood chopping, but we had three pairs of hands for all work and we could afford to waste wood and a little labor.
/> In the middle of the night, I sat up straight, with my heart beating and terror gripping me, for I had just had a dream in which Calmont had leaned over me with his wolfish face and, opening his mouth, showed me a set of real wolf’s fangs to tear at my throat.
Naturally I stared across at him, and there I saw him, sitting up as I was, and his face more wolfish than ever in that reddish half light. For the fire had died down, throwing up a good deal of heat, but only enough light to stain the deathly mist that had crept in close about the camp. Through this fog I saw Calmont watching me, and the shock was even worse than the nightmare.
He lifted his head as though listening to something. Then, far away, I heard the cry of wolves upon a blood trail. At least, so it sounded to me, for I always feel that I can recognize the wolf’s hunting cry. And certainly the sound was traveling rapidly across the hills, dipping dimly into valleys and rising loud on the ridges. Massey jumped up at that moment. The sight of him was as good as a warm sunrise to me. He made my blood run smoothly again.
“That may be the pack we’re after,” said Massey.
We threw on the fire enough wood to scare away wild animals, and then we struck out on a line that promised to cut the path of the wolves, if they held a straight course.
A few paces from the fire, the mist closed thickly over us; but when we got to the first ridge, a wind struck the fog away, or sent it in tangles through the trees. We had been stumbling blindly, before, but now we had a much better light.
Calmont held up a hand to order a halt, and listened. In such moments he was the natural master, for he was a good woodsman. Massey looked to him and mutely accepted his leadership.
“The hill!” said Calmont, and started down the slope at a great speed, nursing his rifle under the pit of his arm.
We crossed the hollow, slipping on the ice that crusted the frozen stream there, and toiled up the farther slope to the next crest. There Calmont put us in hiding in the brush, at a point where we could look down on a considerable prospect.
Ice encased the naked branches and the slender stems of the brush. The cold of it brushed through my clothes and set me shivering, while we listened to the pack as it swung over a height, dropped into a vagueness in a hollow, and again boomed loudly just before us.
We were about to see something worth seeing, and perhaps it was the ghostliness of the night, the strange arctic light, the still stranger mist in the trees, that made me feel very hollow and homesick, so that with a great pang I wished myself back among the Arizona sands, and the smoky herbage of the desert. This scene was too unearthly for my taste.
“They’re running fast,” said Massey, canting his ear to the noise.
“Shut up!” answered Calmont in his usual growl
And Massey was still. In the woods, he always acknowledged Calmont’s leadership.
Over the ridge before us now broke the silhouette of a great bull moose, and he came down the slope with enormous strides. He looked like a mountain of meat, loftier than the stunted trees, and streaking behind him, gaining at his heels, was a white wolf.
All snow-white he looked in that light, a beautiful thing to watch as he galloped.
“Alec!” said Massey under his breath.
And suddenly I knew that he was right. Yes, and now I could see, I thought, the black ears and tail tip, and the dark of Alec’s muzzle. But he looked twice as big as when I last had seen him.
How my heart leaped then! Not only to see him, but to realize that this was the goal toward which we had traveled so far, and that for the sake of Alec even such enemies as Calmont and Massey had sworn a truce. To avoid the battle that would surely come after his capture, suddenly I wished that the big hoofs of the moose would split the skull of Alec to the brain. I mean that I almost wished this, but not quite; for to wish for Alec’s death was almost like wishing for the death of a man, he had such brains and spirit, and a sort of human resolute courage.
Behind Alec, over the rim of the ridge, pitched four more running, and Calmont immediately exclaimed: “My team! Mine and maybe the Injun’s dog!”
Well, they looked wolfish enough, except that one had a white breast plate that no wolf was apt to show. They seemed half dead from running, but they kept on, with Alec showing them the way to hold on to a trail.
In the flat of the hollow the moose hit a streak of ice, floundered, and almost fell. He recovered himself, but the effort seemed to take the last of his wind and strength, for instead of bolting straightway, he whirled about and struck at Alec with a forehoof. It was like the reach of a long straight left, and it would have punched Alec into kingdom come if it should have landed.
Well, it did not land. I suppose that at such a time the training Alec had had in dodging whip strokes stood him in good stead. Even the lightning stroke of a bull moose is not so fast as the flick of a whiplash.
The moose was well at bay, now, as Alec swerved from the blow. The other huskies came up with a rush, but they did not charge home. They knew perfectly well that there was death in any stroke from that towering brute. So they sat down in the snow and hung out their tongues. They moved, however, to different points of the compass. No one could have taught them much about moose hunting. But here was where the wolf blood, in which they were rich, came to their help. They maneuvered so that they could threaten the moose from any side; and he, with constant turnings of his head, marked them down with his little, bright eyes.
While the four sat down at the four points of the compass, as it were, Alec stalked around as chief inspector and director of attack.
Calmont pulled his rifle to his shoulder. But Massey jerked it down
“He’ll train Alec!” protested Calmont.
“Never in the world!” declared Massey. “That dog can take care of himself against anything but a thunderbolt, and even a lightning flash would have to be a real bulls-eye to hit that dodging youngster. No, no, Arnie! We’ve got to use this chance to work down close to him. Move softly. They’ve got something on their hands now that’ll make their ears slow to hear, but anything is likely to put them on the run. They’ve gone wild, Arnie. They’ve gone wild, and Heaven knows whether or not Alec is too wild ever to be tamed again! Let’s sneak down on them, men. I want to get close enough so that he can hear my voice well enough to know it. That’s our one chance, I take it!”
Calmont did not protest. What Massey said seemed too thoroughly right to be argued against, and therefore we all began to work down the slope through the verge of the brush.
Mind you, this was a frightfully slow business. The frozen twigs of the bushes were as brittle as glass and as likely to snap. And, as Massey had said, the least alarm might send these wild ones scampering. We had to mind every step, everything against which we brushed, putting back the little branches as cautiously as though they were made of diamonds.
What I saw of the scene in the hollow was somewhat veiled, naturally, by the branches that came between me and the moving figures, but nothing of importance escaped me, because I was breathlessly hanging on the scene.
That moose looked as big as an elephant, and the wolves shrank into insignificance in comparison. However, the man-trained dog, Alec, went calmly about, prospecting. It looked exactly as though he were laying out a plan of attack, and a moment later we could see what was in his mind. I suppose that animals can only communicate with one another in a vague way, but it appeared exactly as though Alec had done some talking.
The next moment the attack was neatly made. All the wolves rose to their feet at the same moment — wolves, I say, for wolves they were now! — and as the moose jumped a bit with excitement, Alec made straight for his head.
It was only a feint. He merely made a pretense of driving in for the throat, though he came so close in this daring work that he had to squat, as the moose hit like a flash over his head. Then, as he leaped back, the second half of the attack went home. For a big husky sprang at the moose from behind and tried for the hamstring with gaping mouth.
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br /> He had delayed too long. He had not quite timed his attack with the feint of the boss. The result was that the moose had time to meet the second half of the battle with a hard-driven kick.
The wolf sailed far off through the air with a death shriek that rang terribly through the hollow and so ended the first phase of the contest.
XXVI. ALEC, THE FIGHTER
WE WERE DOWN a bit nearer, when the second half of the battle actually began. After the death of the first husky, the others showed a strong mind to go on their way; this mountain of meat suddenly smelled rank in their nostrils, for they had made a clever attack, and they had gained nothing but a dead companion.
Calmont was very angry. They had looked on while one of his dogs was killed, and the thing rubbed him the wrong way.
However, Massey convinced him that we would have to be more patient, and we were. We went on working our way closer and closer down the slope, keeping well into our screen of brush. For the dogs, after all, did not draw off. They had only four, altogether, by this time, and four looked like a small number to beat that wise and dangerous old fighter, the moose.
Alec, however, continued to walk around his circle, and he seemed to force his friends to get in closer — up to the firing line, as you might say, from which a quick rush and leap would get them to the enemy.
I suppose the moose felt that the game was in his hands, by this time, but he maintained a perfect watch and ward.
I noticed everything that followed very closely, for I was in an excellent position, and the detailed maneuvering was as follows:
One of the huskies worked around until he was exactly in front of the head of the big quarry. Two others took positions on the sides. Alec, in the meantime, in one of his slow circles, came just behind the heels of the moose.
This was the time agreed upon. You would have thought that, having failed in these tactics the first time, Alec would not try them again. There are other ways of bothering a moose, but perhaps Alec felt that there was none so good as this. On this occasion, the husky in front made the feint at the head. He was not so sure of himself as Alec had been. Or, perhaps, he was discouraged by the poor success of the first venture. At any rate, he only made a feeble feint, which caused the moose to lift a forefoot, without striking.