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bickering and quarreling 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 vigor 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- even a sterner and
crueler 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 realization 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
gray 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 traveled 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 runway. 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 moonlight 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 sort 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 eyes 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...
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