CHAPTER VII
A NIGHT OF TOIL
An hour later, from the gnarled branches of the willow--up intowhich Stern had fairly flung her, and where he had himself clamberedwith the beasts ravening at his legs--the two sole survivors of thehuman race watched the glowering eyes that dotted the velvet gloom.
"I estimate a couple of hundred, all told," judged Allan. "Odd wenever ran across any of them before to-night. Must be some kind of amigration under way--maybe some big shift of game, of deer, orbuffalo, or what-not. But then, in that case, they wouldn't be sostarved, so dead-set on white meat as they seem to be."
Beta shifted her place on a horizontal limb.
"It's awfully hard for a _soft_ wood," she remarked. "Do you thinkwe'll have to stay here long, dear?"
"That depends. I don't see that the fifteen we've killed sinceroosting here have served as any terrible examples to the others. Andwe're about twenty cartridges to the bad. They're not worth it, thesedevils. We've got to save our ammunition for something edible till Ican get my shop to running and begin making my own powder. No; must bethere's some other and better way."
"But what?" asked the girl. "We're safe enough here, but we're notgetting any nearer home--and I'm _so_ hungry!"
"Same here," Stern coincided. "And the lunch was all in the boat;worse luck! Who the deuce could have cut her loose? I thought we'dpretty effectually cleared out those Hinkmatinks, or whatever theHorde consisted of. But evidently something, or somebody, is stillleft alive with a terrific grudge against us, or an awful longing fornavigation."
"Was the cord broken or cut?"
"I'll see."
Stern clambered to a lower branch. With the trigger-guard of his riflehe was able to catch the cord. All about the trunk, meanwhile, thewolves leaped snarling. The fetid animal smell of them was strong uponthe air--that, and the scent of blood and raw meat, where they hadfeasted on the slain.
With the severed cord, Allan climbed back to where Beatrice sat.
"Hold the rifle, will you?" asked he. A moment, and by the quickshowers of sparks that issued from his flint and steel, he wasexamining the leather thong.
"_Cut!_"
"Cut? But then, then--"
"No tide or wind to blame. Some intelligence, even though rudimentary,has been at work here--is at work--opposed to us."
"But what?"
"No telling. There may be more things in this world yet than either ofus dream. Perhaps we committed a very grave error to leave theapparently peaceful little nook we've got, up there on the Hudson, andtackle this place again. But who could ever have thought of anythinglike this after that terrible slaughter?"
They kept silence a few minutes. The wolves now had sunk to a plane ofcomparative insignificance. At the very worst Stern could annihilatethem, one by one, with a lavish expenditure of his ammunition.Unnoticed now, they yelped, and scratched and howled about the tree,sat on their haunches, waiting in the gloom, or sneaked--vagueshadows--among the deeper dusks of the forest.
And once again the east began to glow, even as when he and she hadwatched the moon rise over the hills beyond the Hudson; and theirhearts beat with joy for even that relief from the dark mystery ofsolitude and night.
After a while the man spoke.
"It's this way," said he. "Whoever cut that cord and either let thebanca float away or else stole it, evidently doesn't want to come toclose quarters for the present, so long as these wolves are makingthemselves friendly.
"Perhaps, in a way, the wolves are a factor in our favor; perhaps,without them, we might have had a poisoned arrow sticking into us, ora spear or two, before now. My guess is that we'll get a wide berth solong as the wolves stay in the neighborhood. I think the anthropoids,or whoever they were, must have been calculating on ambushing us as wecame back, and expected to 'get' us while we were hunting for theboat.
"They didn't reckon on this little diversion. When they heard it theyprobably departed for other regions. They won't be coming around justyet, that's a safe wager. Mighty lucky, eh? Think what Ar targets we'dmake, up here in this willow, by moonlight!"
"You're right, Allan. But when it comes daylight we'll make betterones. And I don't know that I enjoy sitting up here and starving todeath, with a body-guard of wolves to keep away the Horde, very muchmore than I would taking a chance with the arrows. It's two sixes,either way, and not a bit nice, is it?"
"Hang the whole business! There must be some other way--some way outof this infernal pickle! Hold on--wait--I--I almost see it now!"
"What's your plan, dear?"
"Wait! Let me think, a minute!"
She kept silence. Together they sat among the spreading branches inthe growing moonlight. A bat reeled overhead, chippering weakly. Faraway a whippoorwill began its fluty, insistent strain. A distant cryof some hunting beast echoed, unspeakably weird, among the dead,deserted streets buried in oblivion. The brush crackled and snappedwith the movements of the wolf-pack; the continued snarling, whining,yapping, stilled the chorus of the frogs along the sedgy banks.
"If I could only snare a good, lively one!" suddenly broke out Stern.
"What for?"
"Why, don't you see?" And with sudden inspiration he expounded.Together, eager as children, they planned. Beatrice clapped her handswith sheer delight.
"But," she added pensively, "it'll be a little hard on the wolf, won'tit?"
Stern had to laugh.
"Yes," he assented; "but think how much he'll learn about the new kindof game he tried to hunt!"
Half an hour later a grim old warrior of the pack, deftly and securelycaught by one hind leg with the slip-noosed leather cord, dangledinverted from a limb, high out of reach of the others.
Slowly he swung, jerking, writhing, frothing as he fought in vain tosnap his jaws upon the cord he could not touch. And night grewhorrible with the stridor of his yells.
"Now then," remarked Stern calmly, "to work. The moonlight's goodenough to shoot by. No reason I should miss a single target."
Followed a time of frightful tumult as the living ate the dying andthe dead, worrying the flesh from bones that had as yet scarcelyceased to move. Beatrice, pale and silent, yet very calm, watched theslaughter. Stern, as quietly methodical as though working out areaction, sighted, fired, sighted, fired. And the work went on apace.The bag of cartridges grew steadily lighter. The work was done longbefore all the wolves had died. For the survivors, gorged torepletion, some wounded, others whole, slunk gradually away anddisappeared in the dim glades, there to sleep off their cannibaldebauch.
At last Stern judged the time was come to descend.
"Bark away, old boy!" he exclaimed. "The louder the better. You're ourdanger-signal now. As long as those poor, dull anthropoid brains keepsensing you I guess we're safe!"
To Beatrice he added:
"Come now, dear. I'll help you down. The quicker we tackle that raftand away, the sooner we'll be home!"
"Home!" she repeated. "Oh, how glad I'll be to see our bungalow again!How I hate the ruins of the city now! Look out, Allan--you'll have tolet me take a minute or two to straighten out in. You don't know howawfully cramped I am!"
"Just slide into my arms--there, that's right!" he answered, and swungher down as easily as though she had been a child. Her arms went roundhis neck; their lips met and thrilled in a long kiss.
But not even the night-breeze and the moon could now beguile them toanother. For there was hard, desperate work to do, and time was short.
A moment they stood there together, under the old tree wherein thewolf was dangling in loud-mouthed rage.
"Well, here's where I go at it!" exclaimed the man.
He opened the big sack. Fumbling among the tools, he quickly found theax.
"You, Beta," he directed, "get together all the plaited rope you cantake off the bag, and cut me some strips of hide. Cut a lot of them.I'll need all you can make. We've got to work fast--got to clear outof here before sunrise or there may be the devil to pay!"
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bsp; It was a labor of extraordinary difficulty, there in those dense anddim-lit thickets, felling a tall spruce, limbing it out and cutting itinto three sections. But Stern attacked it like a demon. Now and againhe stopped to listen or to jab tile suspended wolf with the ax-handle.
"Go on there, you alarm-signal!" he commanded. "Let's have plenty ofmusic, good and loud, too. Maybe if you deliver the goods and holdout--well, you'll get away with your life. Otherwise, not!"
Robinson Crusoe's raft had been a mere nothing to build compared withthis one that the engineer had to construct there at the water's edge,among the sedges and the reeds For Crusoe had planks and beams andnails to help him; while Stern had naught but his ax, the forest, andsome rough cordage.
He had to labor in the gloom, as well, listening betimes for sounds ofperil or stopping to stimulate the wolf. The dull and rusty axretarded him; blisters rose upon his palms, and broke, and formedagain. But still he toiled.
The three longitudinal spruce timbers he lashed together with polesand with the cords that Beatrice prepared for him. On these, again, helaid and lashed still other poles, rough-hewn.
In half an hour's hard work, while the moon began to sink to thewestward, he had stepped a crude mast and hewed a couple ofpunt-poles.
"No use our trying to row this monstrosity," he said to Beatrice,stopping a moment to dash the sweat off his forehead with a shakinghand. "We either rig the skin sack in some way as a sail, or we driftup with the tide, tie at the ebb, and so on--and if we make thebungalow in three days we're lucky!
"Come on now, Beatrice. Lend a hand here and we'll launch her! Goodthing the tide's coming up--she almost floats already. Now, one, two,three!"
The absurd raft yielded, moved, slid out upon the marshy water and wasafloat!
"Get aboard!" commanded Allan. "Go forward to the _salon de luxe_.I'll stow the bag aft, so."
He lifted her in his arms and set her on the raft. The bag hecarefully deposited at what passed for the stern. The raft sank a bitand wallowed, but bore up.
"Now then, all aboard!" cried Stern.
"The wolf, Allan, the wolf! How about _him?_"
"That's right, I almost plumb forgot! I guess he's earned his life,all right enough."
Quickly he slashed the cord. The wolf dropped limp, tried to crawl,but could not, and lay panting on its side, tongue lolling, eyesglazed and dim.
"He'll be a horrible example all his life of what it means to monkeywith the new kind of meat," remarked Allan, clambering aboard. "Ifwolves or anthropoids can learn, they ought to learn from him!"
Strongly, steadily, they poled the raft out through the marshy slip,on, on, past the crumbling wreckage of the pier-head.
"Now the tide's got us," exclaimed Allan with satisfaction, as themoonlit current, all silver and rippling with calm beauty, swung themup-stream.
Beatrice, still strong, and full of vigorous, pulsing life, in spiteof the long vigil in the tree and the hard night of work, curled up atthe foot of the rough mast, on the mass of fir-tips Stern had piledthere.
"You steer, boy," said she, "and I'll go to work on making some kindof sail out of the big skin. By morning we ought to have our littlecraft under full control."
"It's one beautiful boat, isn't it?" mocked Stern, poling off from agaunt hulk that barred the way.
"It mayn't be very beautiful," she answered softly, "but it carriesthe greatest, purest, noblest love that ever was since the worldbegan--it carries the hope of the whole world, of all the ages--andit's taking us home!"
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