 Chapter IX of Shasta of the Wolves by Olaf Baker. This Librivoct recording is in the public domain. The Coming of Kennebec. The wolf brothers were playing in the sun. There were four little brown cubs, very fad and puppy-like, and full of fun. They chased each other up and down, and had wrestling matches and biting competitions, and all sorts of rough-and-tumble games. Shasta sat in the mouth of the cave watching them and laughing softly to himself. He had known many a lot of wolf brothers, and they were always the same funny, fat, frolic-some little rascals until they grew too old to frolic, and began to get their fighting fangs and be ready for the fierce work of the grown-up world. Shasta loved all his foster brothers and never forgot them, even after they had gone out into the world. And not a single wolf brother ever forgot him, or would have refused to fight for him to the deaf if he were in danger. Every year Shasta looked forward to the appearing of the fresh lot of cubs, and loved them with all his heart as soon as they were born. Only he had an instinct which warned him when they were very new babies that they were not to be touched, for although Nitka remained devoted to her man-cub, she would not allow him to meddle with the babies while they were very new, and partly out of respect for her wishes, and partly for fear of what she might do if he disobeyed. Shasta never touched a cub until it was a moon old. While Nitka, though she would never allow anything to approach the cave, not even Shumu himself, while the cubs were small, would let Shasta come in and go out as he chose, so long as he kept to his own end of the cave and did not interfere with her while she mothered the new family. This morning she had gone down to the stream to drink, and lie a while by the runway to see what might come by. She only intended to be a short time away, and had left Shasta on guard while she was gone. Shasta liked to feel that Nitka trusted him, and that he was doing an important thing. It was a very warm morning, and everything seemed at peace. A sweet, clean air blew along the trails, and those who used them scented it delicately and went springingly, because of the pent-up life that was in them, and the goodness of the world. High up on the opposite ridge, a lynx was sunning herself and her kittens outside her den. With her keen eyes she swept the landscape near and distant in a glance that noted everything and lost nothing. Though Shasta could not see her, she saw him and the cubs perfectly. She was no friend of the wolves, as they knew full well, but this morning the historic enmity between them seemed to lie low, and she stared at the little group calmly with no blazing hate in her green eyes. A big red fox came down to the edge of the lake. He stood with one four-foot up, all ears and nose, senting and listening for any hint that should come from the trail, and as he listened he wrinkled his nose, wobbling it quaintly to catch whatever faint smell might come drifting his way. In the shallows the buffalo fish were basking on the bottom with water flowing softly over their gills, and the sunlight shining on their scales. Up in the high blue a pair of fish-hawk sailed eerily on the lookout for food. But the buffalo fish were so busy doing nothing that they escaped observation. They guessed the hawks were somewhere about, but they just lay low and didn't say a word, and it is surprising how much mischief may be avoided simply by doing nothing. Old Gomposh was having a good rub against his favorite tree. It was plastered with mud and hair, and was quite as plain to read as a book, if you knew how to read the rub. He set his back against the rough bark and rubbed and rubbed till the most exquisite sensations went thrilling down his spine. But all these quiet little happenings were really of no consequence to the wolves. What did matter, although they didn't know it, that high up on the tall crags, Kennebec the Great Eagle was thinking wickedly. When Kennebec thought wickedly, someone was sure to suffer. He would sit on the pointed summit of a crag, which it was now worn smooth with the constant gripping of his great claws, and his wonderful eyes would shine with a strong light. Down below him for a thousand feet, the tops of the spruces made the forest look like a green carpet worn into holes. And beyond that, to the south, the lake glimmered and shone, and the Sikuska showed in loops of silver. Over the lake Kennebec could see the fish hawks at their fishing. He looked at them in his lordly way, watching them, ready to swoop at the first sign of a fish. He could not catch fish himself, but that made no difference to his diet. When he felt like fish, he waited till one of the hawks swooped and rose with a fish in its claws. Then Kennebec would sail out majestically from his crag and bully the hawk till it dropped his prey. Before the fish touched the water, Kennebec falling in a dizzy rush would seize in his talons and bear it off in triumph. But this morning he was for bigger game, and the glare that came and went in his eyes was a danger light to any one who should be so unfortunate as to see it. About fifty yards to the left of where he sat a cleft rock held his nest. It was a huge mass of sticks, filling the cleft from side to side. In the middle of it two young eagles sat and gopped for food. Their mother would bring it to them presently. Kennebec was not in a mood to worry about that. They could gop and gop till she came. And if they thought their gopping would have had any effect upon him, they might gop their silly heads off without upsetting him. Suddenly he lifted his great wings, loosed the pinnacle with his horny feet and plunged into space. Below him the world seemed scooped out into a vast abyss. He rose higher and higher till he was nothing but a speck in the surrounding blue. Shasta, watching the foster brothers lazily, saw the speck appear in the high blue. At first it was no larger than a fly, then it grew and grew till it was the size of a grasshopper, then of a fish hawk, and then the blue jays began to scold. Shasta had never forgotten the lesson of the blue jays. When they scolded he knew that something was happening and that you'd better watch out. He looked quickly about him on every side, throwing the keen glance of his piercing eyes down into the forest and up among the rocks. So far as he could see nothing stirred. If an enemy was approaching it was coming unseen, unheard, along the mossy ways. Yet there was no sign of any living creature upon the barglash, nor in all the wide world beside, except that solitary fish hawk circling overhead. Yet although he couldn't see anything, Shasta had a sort of feeling that he ought to drive the cubs back into the den. They would be safe there whether anything happened or whether it didn't. And the blue jays went on scolding all the time. But surely Nitka must hear them and know what was going on. If she didn't take the warning and come racing back, then it was because nothing was going to happen. Moment after moment went by, and still she did not appear. Shasta was growing more and more uneasy. In spite of not seeing anything, there was a vague feeling that something was wrong. The strange warning which comes to the wild creatures, no man can tell how, came to him now. The screaming of the blue jays had aroused him, but the warning had come independently of them. It was so clear, so unmistakable, that he made a wolf noise in his throat to attract the attention of the cubs. Then suddenly he was aware of something overhead. He looked up quickly. The fish-hawk had disappeared. Instead, a winged thunderbolt was dropping out of the sky. It fell from a dizzying height with a rush so swift that it seemed as if it must dash itself to pieces on the earth before it could stop. Shasta was spellbound. He could not stir. Then, before he had time to understand, the thunderbolt had spread wide wings, and Kennebec was hovering overhead. Shasta heard the rustle of those tremendous wings, and a swift fear shot into his heart. But his courage did not forsake him, and with a howl he sprang to protect the cubs. It was too late. Before he could reach them, Kennebec had swooped, and when he rose again he bore a wolf cub in his claws. Just as he did so however, and while he was still beating his wings for the ascent, a few feet from the ground, Nitka, her hair on end with fury, came leaping up the slope. As she reached the spot she made a mighty bound in the air, springing at the eagle with a snarl. But Kennebec was already under way. Nitka's bared fangs clicked together six inches short of his tail, and she fell back to earth with a moan of grief and rage. Shasta, looking on, felt his body shivering like a maple leaf in the wind. He was terrified of what Nitka might do in the present state of her mind. As Kennebec, flying heavily, passed slowly over the treetops in his gradual ascent, the she-wolf's eyeballs riveted upon him, blazed with fury. As long as he remained in sight, growing gradually smaller in the distance, she raged up and down, with a saliva dropping from her jaws. She had been aroused by the screaming of the jays, and had come racing back as soon as she realized that something was wrong. But she was too late to prevent the tragedy. And now the horrible thing had happened, and she would never see her cub again. As soon as her straining eyes could no longer follow the flight of the robber, she hustled the other cubs back into the cave. But that was all. She did not turn on Shasta, nor even so much as growl at him as he sat shivering in the sun. He waited miserably at the mouth of the cave, wondering if Nitka would come out and comfort him. But she remained in sight for the rest of the afternoon, trying to console herself for her loss by fondling the three remaining cubs. And after a while Shasta crept away to his lookout above the valley, where he had met Gomposh for the first time. He had not been there very long before he heard a sound of rustling and tearing to the left. Then the great form of Gomposh himself pushed itself into the glare of the golden afternoon. He had been refreshing himself in his clumsy way among the wild raspberry bushes, and as he came out was licking the juice from his mouth. He came along slowly with his little eyes glancing right and left for any sign of food. There was a hollow log lying full in his path. He gave it a heavy blow with his paw, and then put his ear close to listen to the insects in his crevices which he had disturbed. Evidently what he had heard satisfied him, for he ripped open the log with one slash of his paw, and then proceeded to lick up the grubs and scurrying insects. When he had finished he caught sight of Shasta and came lumbering towards him. As before, they sat together on the rock and said nothing in a very wise way. But presently Shasta unlated himself of his heavy heart and told Gomposh all his grief. And old Gomposh wagged his head slowly and let Shasta understand that it was only what had happened many, many times before in his memory, and was likely to happen as many times again. "'Eagles would be eagles,' he said, as long as feathers were feathers and fur was fur. And if wolf-cubs would also be fat and juicy and lullip in the sun, then what were you to expect if Kennebec came by, and admired the fat rolls at the back of their absurd little necks?' But besides that he gave Shasta to understand that Kennebec was worse than other eagles, and had worked more destruction in his time than any other person with wings. Shasta's talk with Gomposh was a very long one, for the thoughts that were in them oozed out slowly and trickled drop by drop into each other's minds. Yet though the dripping was slow, the thoughts were clear as crystal and plain to understand. That is the difference between animals' talk and ours. The bee speaks seldom with perfect understanding, while we humans stir up our thick brains with a stick that we call an idea and pour out floods of muddy talk. At sunset Gomposh lumbered back into the woods, and Shasta took himself home. He crept very softly into the den, because he felt he was in disgrace. But Nitka was off hunting and the cubs were fast asleep. Very early in the morning Shasta stole out again. He went along swiftly, following a caribou trail that trended south. It was one of the old forest trails which had been used for centuries by the journeying caribou in their autumn and spring migrations. He went on steadily, following the directions which Gomposh had given him the evening before. Gomposh knew all the trails of the forest, where they came from and where they led to, also what sort of company you were likely to meet on the way. Shasta met but few travelers in that pale time just before dawn, and of those he met he had no fear. One was a big timber-wolf travelling slowly after a kill. His eyes flashed when he saw Shasta, but Shasta spoke to him in the wolf language, and in a moment they were friends. And although Shasta did not recognize the wolf, the wolf remembered Shasta, for he was one of those who had taken part in the great wolf-chorus on the memorable night. Then when they had spoken a little and rubbed noses together to show that they were members of the wolf family, they parted, each going a separate way. It was late that evening before Shasta reached the end of his journey. It was a place monstrously tall, and everything there shot up to an immense growth as if it had been sucked upwards by the white lips of the moon in the tremendous nights. Right before him a precipice glimmered vast, and billed itself up and up towards the stars. He lost no time, but curled himself up at the foot and fell asleep, and all night long his dreams were of Kennebec, whose airy was at the top. With dawn he was up and began to climb. Though the precipice looked one huge unbroken wall, it had many crannies and crevices where you might get a foothold if you knew how to climb, and that is just what Shasta could do beyond everything else. He could climb a tree like a martin, and among the rocks his foothold was as sure as a mountain sheep. He went up and up steadily. Sometimes he had to wait while he searched for a sure foothold in the gigantic wall. Here and there a shrub or tree would grow out of a crevice, and with the aid of these he pulled himself up, hand over hand, while half his body hung in the air, and then the muscles of his back stood out like a whip cord and rippled along his arms. As he climbed, the depth under him deepened. He had long passed above the summits of the loftiest pines. Now the force was far below him, and he was hanging between earth and sky in the middle air. He was climbing from the wolf world with its old familiar trails, to the world of the eagles, where the earth trails cease forever in the trackless wastes of air. What had Shumu or Nitka, or the wolf brothers to do with this upper world, where, surely, if you went on climbing, you must come at last to the sheep walks of the stars where the pastures are steep about the moon, and the world yawned under. A false footing or the breaking of a shrub, and down he would go to a certain depth and be dashed to pieces. Yet, in spite of the awful spaces about him and the yawning gulf below, there was no fear in him, nor any dizziness when he looked down. As he rested for a moment and let his eyes wander, he gazed down five hundred feet, as calmly as if he sat by the side of a quiet pool and watched the mirrored world. If Kennebec had known what was approaching his airy on the impossible crags, he would have launched himself out at the intruder with fury and dashed him down the precipice. But he and his mate were far away, having left before dawn for a long journey and had not come back. Up in the nest in the cloven rock, the eaglets sat and wondered why neither of their parents returned with food. After a while Shasta could see the airy rock and the ends of sticks which stuck out from the side. It was above him, right over the edge of the precipice. He had just reached it and was holding on to the branch of a stunted spruce which grew below the rock, when the branch cracked. Without it the foothold was not sufficient, his feet were only clinging to the roughness of the rock, and suddenly that great chasm below seemed to suck him back. For one brief moment fear clutched at Shasta's heart, and he seemed to feel himself falling, falling down the steep face of the world. When the muscles of his feet braced themselves, clinging to the rock, before they relaxed his whole body became a steel spring, and when the branch broke his arms were round the stem of the tree. Once his hands found firm hold there was no more danger, even with half his body hanging in the air it was a simple thing for him to lift himself into the tree. In a few moments more he had scaled the rock and was looking down into the eagle's nest. As soon as his eyes fell on the eaglets his fingers began to twitch. They were horrible looking things, scraggy in their bodies and covered with dark down, with short, stubby quills sticking out here and there. Shasta hated these quillish young monsters with all his heart. They gapped up at him in their ridiculous way with their beaks open. The thing he wanted to do was to grab them at once by their ugly necks and send them spinning down the precipice. Yet they looked so stupid squatting there that it seemed a silly thing to do. If they could have fought, and there could have been a struggle, he would not have hesitated. The nest was surrounded by a litter of bones and odds and ends of feathers and fur. If the eaglets were hungry it was not for want of gorging themselves in the past. The whole place spoke of Kennebec's ravages and his constant desire to kill. Much of the food was only half-eaten, showing there was no need for all this slaughter. It was left there to rot in the sun and to poison the sweet air. Shasta was still hesitating what to do when his eye fell on something which set his blood throbbing. It was the remains of the wolf cub which Kennebec had carried off. At the side of it Shasta became a different being. There was a wolfish rage in his brain and a stranger wolfish glitter in his eye. He saw, in the ugly forms of the eagles before him, the hateful offspring of the hated Kennebec, the destroyer of his wolf brother, and the enemy of his race. The note of anguish in Nitka's voice when she beheld her cub carried away before her eyes had not haunted his ears in vain. A wild desire to avenge his wolf kindred swept over him, and now the chance to do so lay within his power. A chance which, in the countless moons that followed, might never come again. The thing was big. It was tremendous. If the eagles were destroyed it would strike at the heart of Kennebec. Nay, at the heart of the whole eagle world. Shasta stopped. He seized an eaglet fiercely by the neck, lifted it, swung it, sand it, spinning dizzily out into the void. He watched it fall, tumbling over and over down the immense depth, and then strike the summits of the trees. The second followed the fate of the first. Shasta looked down savagely upon an empty nest. But what was that driving furiously up the long steeps of the dawn? It was coming swiftly, terribly, a blazing fire in its yellow eyes. And as the great wings thrashed the air, the whistling roar of the approach filled all the hollow space. Shasta needed only to look once to realize what was upon him, and that now, if ever, he was face to face with death. Kennebec had seen. He was coming back. CHAPTER X HOW SHASTA HIT IN TIME That fierce approach of Kennebec, sweeping up from the remote ends of the hollow world, was a terrible thing to see. Also, when the sound of it reached Shasta's ears, it was terrible to hear. He knew that there was only one thing to do, and that he must do it without an instant's delay. To find some hiding-place where he would be safe from those awful claws and beak, for Kennebec's anger would have no bounds when he discovered that the eaglets had been destroyed. To descend the cliff as he had come up would be impossible for Shasta, as he was fully aware. Once exposed upon that naked face of rock, Kennebec would attack him with fury, and ripping him from his foothold, dash him down below. He took in his surroundings with a swift glance. The place was composed entirely of rocks. They were jagged and splintered by the frosts and tempests of a million years. They wore a fierce and hungry look, like Kennebec himself. It was the raw edge of the world. Shasta lost not a moment. He fled along the tumbled rocks as the mountain sheep flee when they are pursued by wolves. He could not tell where he was going nor where the rocks would end. The instinct in him was to seek refuge among the trees. Surely upon the other side of the prepsis he would find that the forest climbed. The forest was his friend, if he could reach it in time. Under the shelter of the spruces he would be safe. The great eagle could not reach him there. But as he fled he heard the whistling rush of those fearful wings. They were close behind him now, closer and closer. He did not dare to look. He heard, he felt, that was enough. Now the storming wings were over him, beating the air Kennebec hoovered, waiting for the swift downward rush, which if it reached Shasta would be the end. For the moment the air seemed darkened with the shadows of those wings. Then Kennebec swooped. But even as he did so Shasta darted suddenly to the left. He had seen an opening between the rocks and with the quickness which only wild animals possess had bolted in. By the tenth part of a second and the tenth part of an inch Kennebec missed his aim, and stead of the soft body of Shasta those terrible claws of his met the hard rock. For an hour or more he hovered, raging over the spot where Shasta had disappeared. But if he hoped that the boy would come out he was disappointed. Shasta might be half-wolf in his mind, but that did not make him a fool. On the contrary, his wolf-like instincts taught him to stay where he was, and to lie low as long as that wing fury raged overhead. The place into which he had crept was little more than a crevice between two enormous rocks, and could certainly not be called a cave. But narrow as it was there was ample room for Shasta's little body, and settled himself into as comfortable a position as possible he was presently asleep. That was part of his wolf wisdom. Learned he didn't know how. When there was nothing else to be done, sleep. After a time Kennebec grew tired of hovering over the crevice, so he settled down on a near-penical to watch. Noon came and went. A burning heat scorched the rocks. It would have been far cooler up in the high levels of the air. Nevertheless Kennebec chose to sit stewing on his rock, with the glare of his great eyes fixed on the spot where Shasta had disappeared, and the glare had a fierce intensity which seemed as if it were fiercer than even the sun's. For the hard and cruel light in it meant death to whatever should come within Kennebec's power to kill. Late in the afternoon Shasta woke, and peeped out to see if there were any signs of Kennebec. But the pinnacle upon which the eagle had taken up his watch was just out of sight, and Shasta could not see him. In spite of the shade it was very stuffy in the crevice, and the thirst began to dry Shasta's tongue. He thought of the cool green trails of the forest, the water sliding under the moss with a hollow trickle. Now that Kennebec seemed to have gone. It was a great temptation to slip out and make a bolt for the nearest trees. Although they were not in sight, he was sure they must be there, just over the side of the rocks. Yet, in spite of the temptation, something told him it was not safe to go. He could not see Kennebec, it is true, yet a feeling, the sense that seldom fails to warn the wild creatures when danger is at hand, told him to remain where he was. And this obedience to his instinct saved his life. For though Kennebec was out of sight, he was not gone. He sat there, on the burning rock, sultry with heat, but even sultrier with anger, watching and watching with the patience that is born of hate. It was not until the dusk fell that the tawny light of sunset faded from the peaks, that he rose from his perch and flapped heavily away. When it was quite dark Shasta crept out from his hiding place and made his way softly over the rocks. He went slowly, setting his feet with the utmost care, for he knew that the least sound might betray his presence, and bring Kennebec's terrible talons upon him, even in the dark. At last, to his joy, he saw the summits of the spruces glowing against the stars. And in a few minutes more he was safe beneath the trees. CHAPTER XI. SHASTA'S RESTLESSNESS IN WHAT CAME OF IT After Shasta's exploit against Kennebec, he became doubly marked as a person among the forest folk. Along the wild, news flies quickly. It is carried not only by swift feet and keen noses, it seems to travel as well by mysterious carriers, who spread it through the length and breadth of the land. What these carriers are, and what is the manner and meaning of their coming and going, only the wild creatures know. They see them with their large eyes which deepen with the dusk. They hear the soft whisper of their going on the wooden trails of the air. We should not see them, you or I, because our eyes are too accustomed to the artificial lights, and because around our minds are built the brick walls of the world. But the wild creatures, whose eyes have never been dulled by electricity, nor their ears, done by the roar of the motors, see and hear the spirit faces and the flowing shapes which go by under the trees. So not many hours had passed before the great news of Shasta's coming had spread through the wilderness, and particularly the wolves took hold of it, and regarded Shasta as a sort of little god. No one had ever dared to dispute Kennebec's mastery before. Kennebec was so high and mighty that whatever he did must be suffered, even though you raged against it in your heart. But now the strange cub had done the unthinkable deed. He had done it and escaped. All those who had lost their young through Kennebec's evil claws rejoiced that now at last the tyrant was punished, and felt their wrongs avenged. Nevermore would Kennebec feel safe upon his precipice that climbed up to the stars. Feet and hands that had scaled it before might do so again. The fear of it would haunt him through the burning days and the breathless nights. Yet, in spite of Shasta's growing importance among his wild kindred, a strange restlessness began to stir within him, and to move along his blood. And when the mood was strongest his thoughts turned continually toward the place of the rocks, where he had joined the wolf chorus and sung himself into the heart of the pack. It was the memory of the music which haunted him most, and when, from far off, he would hear some wild wolf note come sobbing through the night, the sound would set him thrilling till every hair on his body seemed to be alive. Yet always, following hard upon the remembrance of the chorus, would come that other memory of tall wolfish shapes that moved on their hind legs, and of that red glow in the circle of things that did not move, all of it down there, at the foot of the precipice, as if one looked down through the canyon of sleep to the low layer of a dream. One day, when the thing was strong upon him, he met Gomposh and asked him what it was. Gomposh said little, but thought much. He knew that at certain seasons all things follow a craving within them, and that it made them follow far trails, leading to distant ranges from which they did not always return. The geese went north, honking their mysterious cry. The caribou made long journeys, and deepened the ancient trails. The mountain sheep left their high pastures, guided by an instinct which never failed, to the salt lake in the lowlands to the south. And now it was plain to Gomposh that the strange cub had a craving within him also. It was not to find a lair in the north, nor a salt lake in the south. It was not to change pasture for pasture in the way of the caribou. Gomposh knew certainly that it was none of those things, but that it was the call of the blood that was in him, the secret end-in call, that penetrated even through the deep forests, far into the inmost heart of the wilderness where he lay outcast from his kind. But though Gomposh thought the thing clearly enough in his deep mind, he did not worry it into actual words. "'It is a good restlessness,' he said. "'It is the other part of you that is not wolf. Follow the restlessness of your blood.' That, in the sense of it, was what Gomposh gave Shasta to understand, though he said it in his own peculiar way. After that Shasta's mind was very busy with the new thing that had come to him, and before long he let it have its way, and started on his journey by himself. The wolves watched him go, but did not attempt to stop him. The growing unrest that had been in him had not escaped them. For apart from the feeling which it produced, Shasta's outward behavior was different from before. He came and went continually, restless and ill at ease. The very air above the cave seemed to breathe unrest, and the wolves themselves became restless, though they could not tell the reason why. Yet, although they did nothing to hinder him in his final departing, Nidka's eyes watched him regretfully as his little body disappeared among the trees. He traveled on without stopping until he reached the spot where the great chorus had taken place. As he approached the neighborhood he grew more and more excited. The memories of that wonderful singing night came crowding back upon him. It was broad daylight now, for it was at the middle of the afternoon, and when he reached the high rocks he could see far and wide over the foothills and the prairies beyond. He marveled at the bigness of the world, and at the vast sunny spaces, shadowless in the heat. Out there in the intense sunlight there was no forest to break the glare. The heat glimmered and swam. It was as if the sunlight were a beating pulse. From where he crouched the first end in camp was hidden, but his curiosity was too strong to allow him to remain where he was. So, very cautiously, he crept to the extreme edge of the rocks and looked over. There it was, the same strange circle of things which he could not understand. Also the upright wolves were there, walking about singly or standing in little groups. Shasta watched them intently with shiny eyes, and as he looked the confused murmur of an end in camp rose to his ears, voices of men and women, the barking of dogs, and the crying of children. Also a slow-measured sound, which seemed to the boy to be even more disquieting than the other unaccustomed noises, the beating of an end in tom-tom for a sacred dance. He was so intent upon watching the camp below that it was only a slight noise behind him which made him aware that danger was approaching. He turned his head quickly and then remained spellbound. Not a dozen paces away stood a tall form, motionless as a rock. The hair was long, falling to its shoulders. A single eagle's feather stood up straight behind the head. It was dressed in tan-buck skin and carried a bow of Sarvis Berrywood. The quiver, from which the ends of the long feathered arrows appeared, was of the yellow skin of a buffalo calf. Shasta gazed at this strange apparition with awe. Somehow or other he felt that it had to do with the camp down below. He was afraid of it. He wanted to run. He had an overmastering desire to look his fill at the thing, left him where he was. For a minute or two the enden and the boy looked at each other without making a sound. Then the enden made a step forward and Shasta growled low in his throat. If Shasta was astonished at the enden, the enden was equally astonished at Shasta. The boy's appearance was extraordinarily wild. His matted hair fell straggling over his face. In order to see clearly he had to shake it out of his eyes continually. It was more like an animal's mane than human hair and gave him a ferocious look. His constant exposure to the sun and air, unprotected by any clothes, had thickened the short hair upon his body till it was covered completely with a fine downy growth. When the enden heard the wolfish snarl he paused. Through the thick mane of Shasta's head he saw the gleam of intensely black eyes. Then he advanced again. Shasta looked sharply left and right, measuring distances. He leaped to his feet and began to run. But he ran in wolfish fashion on all fours. Fast though he went, the enden was faster. He heard the quiet pad of the moggesson feet behind him, after seized him. His one thought was to gain the shelter of the friendly trees. Before he could reach them, however, the enden was upon him. Shasta felt something seized his hair behind. His first instinct was that of a wild animal trapped, and he turned in fury upon his assailant. But before he could do any damage the enden threw him down and fastened his arms with the throng. It was in vain that Shasta struggled with all his strength to free himself. The enden was too powerful and the deerskin throng held fast. When he was finally secured, his captor lifted him under his arm and carried him down towards the camp. After struggling fiercely for some time Shasta became still. It was not only that he felt that further resistance would be useless. It seemed to tell him that, as long as he remained quiet, the enden would do him no harm. For the first time since he was a tiny papouse, the smell that clings about all things enden came to his nose. It was an unfamiliar smell, yet somehow it was not new. His eyes and ears had brought with him no memories of his forgotten infancy. His nose was faithful to the past. What faint, glimmering memories of the enden lodges it brought, of the campfire and the cooking, of the buckskin clothes and untanned hides. All the clinging odours of that old enden life, who shall say? Now that he was carried captive to his own people, quite unconscious though he was that he belonged to them, the enden sent was a pleasant thing, so that he was soothed by it, and even for the moment subdued. It took some time to gain the camp, and the downward way was steep, and there was no trail. Moreover Shasta lined limp as he did, was a dead weight and not easy to carry. At last the descent was made and the camp reached. The enden put his burden down. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. OF SHASTA OF THE WOLVES, BY OLOF BAKER. THIS LIBERBOX RECORDING IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. SHASTA SEES HIS RED SKIN KINDRED. Not more than a couple of minutes had passed before the news of the capture had gone through the camp. The Indians, old and young, men, women and children, came crowding round to see this strange monster which, looking all ways, had found Shasta. Sitting haunched upon his calves, glared round at the company with his beady eyes shining through the masses of his hair. The Indians, seeing the glitter of them, thought it was wiser not to come too close, and every time Shasta threw back his head to shake the hair out of his eyes, a murmur went through the crowd. He, looking all ways, told his tale. He had been hunting on the caribou barren, behind the high rocks. On his return he had come upon the little monster crouching on the rocks where the wolves had gathered and looking down upon the camp. Poor little Shasta gazed at the strange things around him with wonder and awe. He did not feel a monster. It was they who were the monsters, these tall, both-faced creatures with skins that seemed to be loose, and not belonging to the bodies at all. No wonder his eyes glittered as he turned them quickly this way and that, taking in all the details of his surroundings with marvelous rapidity. The thing excited him beyond measure. He felt a growing desire to throw back his head and howl. For a time nothing happened. The Indians were content to stare at him in astonishment, while Shasta glared back. Then the chief, Big Eagle, gave the orders that his arms should be untied. Looking all ways, stepped forward and unloosened the deerskin thong. Shasta submitted quietly, for he had a strong feeling within him that it was the best thing to do. Only he wanted to howl very badly. Yet he kept the howl down in his throat and crouched, humped up with his hands on the ground. Suddenly one of the Indians, bolder than the rest, touched Shasta's back, running his hand down his spine. Like a flash, Shasta whirled around with a wolfish snarl seized the offending hand. With a cry of fear and pain the Indians sprang back, snatching his hand away. After that the Indians gave Shasta more room, for now they had a wholesome dread of his temper. If they had not touched him, Shasta would have not turned on them. But the touch of that strange hand maddened him, and said his pulse is throbbing. It was the wild blood in him that rebelled. In common with all really wild creatures he could not bear to be touched by a human hand. And all his life afterwards he was the same. He never overcame the shrinking from being touched by his fellows. After a while the Indians began to move off, and soon Chast was left to himself with only looking always to watch him. For some time Shasta stayed where he was without stirring. He wanted to take in his new surroundings fully, before deciding what to do. The only thing about him that he moved was his head and his eyes. He kept moving his head rapidly this way and that, as some unfamiliar sound caught his ear. He observed the shape of things, and their color and movements, with a piercing gaze which saw everything and lost nothing. And because he was so true to his wolf training he sniffed at them hard, to make them more understandable through his nose. It was all so utterly new and unexpected that it was like being popped down into the middle of another world. Next to the Indians themselves, the things that astonished him most were their lodges. He watched with a feeling of awe the owners going in and out. Some of the lodges were closed. Over the entrance flaps of buffalo skin were laced, and no one entered or came out. Shasta had a feeling that behind the laced flaps mysterious things were lurking. He could not tell what. Or perhaps they were the dens where the Chi-Indians hid their cubs. If so, they were strangely silent and gave no sign of life. Many of the tipis were ornamented with painted circles and figures of animals and birds that ran round the hides. At the top, under the end of the lodge poles, the circles represented the sun, moon, and planets. Below, where the tipi was widest and touched the ground, the circles were what the Indians call dusty stars and were imitations of the prairie puffballs, which, when you touch them, falls swiftly into dust. The tipi against which Shasta crouched was ringed by these dusty stars, but he did not know what they were meant for. He only saw in them round dabs of yellow paint. And because he knew nothing about painting, or that one thing could be laid on another, he thought that the tipis and their decorations had grown as they were, like tall mushrooms, bit and small in their tops by the white teeth of the moon. But wherever his gaze wandered it always returned to looking all ways, who sat a few paces away towards the sun and smoked a pipe of polished stone. And there was this peculiarity about looking always, that although his name suggested a swift and prairie-wide glance, which made it impossible for one to take him by surprise, he had a habit of sitting in a sleepy attitude, staring greenily straight in front of him, as if he noticed nothing that was going on around. Shasta, of course, did not yet know his name. All he knew was that if looking always had a slow eye, he was extremely swift as to his feet. And as he watched him, he measured distances with his own cunning eyes behind his heavy hair. This distance and that. So far from the last porcupine quill on looking always leggings to the nearest toenail on Shasta's naked foot. So far again from toenail to the dusty stars at the edge of the tipi, and from the tipi itself to that lump of rising ground toward the northwest. Shasta began to lay his plans cunningly. If he made straight for the knoll, looking always might catch him before he could reach it. But if he darted behind the tipi, he might be able to dodge and double, and make lightning twists in the air, and so baffle the end in until he could reach the trees. As always, when in danger, Shasta's instincts turned toward the trees. It was not until long afterwards that he learned the ancient medicine song and song. The trees are my medicine. When I am among them, I walk around my own medicine. Shasta was nervous of the tipi. He did not know what might be immediately behind it. That was one reason which kept him so long where he was. If he could see what was on the other side he would feel better and more inclined to run. Another reason was the sense of being surrounded on all sides by strange creatures whose behavior was so utterly unlike the wolves that there was no saying what they would do in the moment he started to run. Yet everywhere he looked away from the lodges there were high bluffs and the prepsises, and the summits of the spruces in the pines, like the ragged edges of the wolf-world. That way lay freedom, and the life that had no terror for him, and in which he was at home. The more he looked at the treetops over the summits of the rising ground to the northwest, the more he felt the desire growing in him to be up and away. At last the moment came when he could bear it no longer. He glanced warily at his captor before making the dash. The time seemed favourable. Looking always had his eyes upon the remote horizon. There was a dull look in them as if they were glazed with dreams. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, Shasta leapt and disappeared behind the teepee. The thing was done with the quickness of a wolf. In spite of that the slumbrous looking mass of the Indian uncoiled itself like a spring. The dream glaze over his eyeballs vanished in a flash. Instantly they became the eyes of an eagle when he swoops. Shasta had scarcely reached the back of the teepee when the Indian was on his feet and had started in pursuit. This time Shasta did not make the mistake of running a straight course. He made a zigzag line through the outermost teepees, turning and twisting with bewildering quickness. Even when he darted out into the open he did not run straight. It was a marvel to see how he turned and doubled. And every time when looking always, with his greater speed, was almost upon him, Shasta would draw his muscles together and leap sideways like a wolf, and every time he leaped he was near to freedom than before. Suddenly something happened which he could not understand. Looking always was not near him. He was farther behind than he had been in the beginning of the chase. Yet Shasta felt something slip over his head, tighten round his body with a terrible grip, and bring him to the ground with a jerk. When he looked round in astonishment and terror there was his pursuer fifty paces away at the other end of a rawhide lariat. Shasta struggled and tore at the hateful thing, which was biting into his naked body. But the thing held. The more he struggled the tighter it became. It was dragging him back to the camp. In a very few minutes he was among the lodges again and knew that escape was hopeless. After this attempt the Indians secured him firmly with thongs, one of which was fastened to a stake driven in the ground. They were fond of making pets of wild animals. And now they felt they had in their midst a creature so wonderful that it was more than half human, and which might prove to be a powerful medicine to the tribe. Once more they crowded round the strange boy and jabbered to each other in their throats. Shasta had never heard such odd sounds. The strange eyes in their hairless faces troubled him, but the noises that came out of their mouths made him tingle all over. It was not until near sunset that the crowd separated, the Indians going back to their evening meal. Shasta looked wistfully at the sun as it dipped to the mountains, rested for a moment or two upon their summit, and then disappeared. The sun was going to his teepee, and the stars which decorated it were not dusty. But they would not bind him with their thongs, the people in these lodges, for nothing is bound there, where the sun and moon go upon the ancient trails. And of those trails only the wolf trail is visible, worn across the heavens by the moggisons of the Indian dead. The smell of cooking came to Shasta's nose and tickled it pleasantly. Not far off a group of squaws were cooking buffalo tongues. Seeing his eyes upon them, one of them took a tongue from the pot and threw it to him with a laugh. Shasta drew back, eyeing it suspiciously, this steaming, smelling thing that lay up on the ground. But by degrees the pleasant smell of it overcame him, and he began to eat. It was his first taste of cooked food. When he had finished he licked his lips with satisfaction, and wished for more. But though the squaws laughed at him, they did not offer him another, for buffalo tongues are a delicacy and not to be lightly given away. The smoke of many fires was now rising from the lodges. Besides the cooking, Shasta could smell the sweet smell of burning cottonwood. As the dusk fell and twilight deepened in to-night, the lodges shone out more and more plainly, lit by inside fires. And in the rising and falling of the flames the painted animals upon the hides seemed to quiver into life, and to chase each other continually round the circles of the tepees. Then, one by one, the fires died down, and the lodges ceased to shine. They became dark and silent, hiding the sleepers within. Only one here and there would give out a ghostly glimmer like a sentinel who watched. As long as the lodges glimmered Shasta did not dare to move. He felt as if the dusty stars of them were eyes upon him. But when the last glimmer died, and all the tepees were dark, he began to move stealthily backwards and forwards, tugging at the thongs. But try as he would he could not loosen them. They were too cunningly arranged for his unskilled fingers to undo, and when he tried his strong white teeth upon them he had no better success. The camp was very still. Presently the wind rose and made the lodges ears flap gently. Shasta did not know what it was, and the sound made him uneasy. All at once there was another sound which set his pulses throbbing. There was a long, sobbing cry, coming down from the mountains. In the midst of his strange surroundings it was like a voice from home. He knew it for the voice of a wolf brother walking along the high roof of the world. He waited for it to come again. In the pause nothing broke the stillness, except the gentle flap, flap of the lodges ears at the top of the tepees. Again the cry came. This time it sounded less clear, as if the wolf were farther away. Shasta felt a desperate sense of loneliness. He was being left to his fate. If the wolf brother went away and did not know he was there, how would he carry a message to the rest of the pack? For if Nitko only knew that he was taken captive by the strange man wolves, surely she would come and rescue him, if any power of rescue lay in her feet in pause. Shasta did not wait any longer. He threw his head backwards and let out a long howling cry. It was the genuine wolf cry. Any wolf hearing it would recognize it at once, and answer it in his mind, even if he did not give tongue. The noise aroused the Indian huskies, but before they helped to reply the wolf on the mountain howled again, and Shasta knew that his call had been answered. He held back louder and more desperately than before. The mournful singing note went with the throb and a quiver far into the night, and the wind, catching it, spit it farther on its way. Again the answering cry came back from the mountains. It came singing down the canyon like a live and quivering thing. Now the huskies could bear it no longer. They broke out into a loud clamor, rushing about wildly, and yelping at the top of their voices. In a moment the whole camp was a stir. The Indians rushed out of their lodges to see what was the matter, shouting to each other, and bidding the women and children stay where they were. Looking always came running to Shasta, fearing lest he should have escaped. But Shasta, the cause of it all, sat there quietly crouched in front of the teepee, and making no outward sign, though every nerve in his body was tingling with excitement. It was some time before the camp settled down again and peace was restored. Every now and again a husky would whine uneasily, or give the ghost bark which Indians say the dogs give when spirits are abroad. But by degrees even these uneasy ones dropped off to sleep, and no sound broke the intense stillness which brooded over the camp. Shasta, however, had no thought of sleep. His mind and body were both wide awake. To him the silence was only a cloak, which muffled but did not kill all sorts of fine sounds that trembled on the air. The wind had dropped now, and the flapping of the lodges had ceased. He listened intently, waiting, always waiting, for what he knew would come. It was in the strange hour just before dawn that two gray wolf shapes came loping down the mountainside. They approached the camp warily, bellies close to the ground, and eyes a glimmer in the dark. It was Nitka and Shumu. The huskies were fast asleep and did not hear them. On they came, moving as soundlessly as the shadows which they seemed. They crept in among the ring of tepees. On all sides lay the sleeping Indians, unconscious that, in their very mist, two great wolves were creeping towards their goal. If Shasta had been on the leeward side he would have scented their approach, but he sat crouched to the windward of the wolves and was not aware of their coming until they had actually entered the camp. Then his wolf sense warned him that something not in was moving between the lodges. So that when, suddenly, Nitka's long body glided into view. He was not astonished, and not in the least alarmed. Her cold nose against his arm, and then the warm caress of her tongue told him all she wanted him to know. Close behind her stood Shumu, but he did not caress Shasta. As usual he kept his feelings to himself, and waited for Nitka to take the lead. Nitka had never seen deer thongs before, nor how they could bind you so that you could not move. But her keen brain soon took in the problem, and once her brain grasped the thing she was ready to act. Holding down with one paw the thong which bound Shasta to the stake, she set her gleaming teeth to work. Shumu followed her example, and in a very few minutes the thing was cut, and Shasta was once more free. Directly Shasta felt that he was free, a wild joy took possession of him. It was not the Indians themselves that terrified him so much as the feeling of being a prisoner in their hands. To be bound, to be helpless, not to be able to run when you wished, that was the terrible thing. The creatures themselves, the smooth-faced, hind-legged walking wolves, seemed harmless enough. At least they had not yet shown any signs of wanting to hurt him. And something almost drew him to them with a drawing which he could not understand. Still the thing which made it possible to feel they were really friends was this being bound in their midst, with this horrible rawhide thong. Directly Nitka's teeth had done the work, and he felt that he could move from the stake. His own thought was to make sure of his freedom by leaving the camp without a moment's delay. So far nothing seemed to have warned the Indians what was going on. The camp was wonderfully still. In a few minutes more the dawn would break. When it did, danger would begin for all wild things within or near the circle of the camp. Above, the stars still shone brightly between the slow drift of the clouds. The tall shapes of the lodges loomed black and threatening, like creatures that watched. Now that the work for which they had come was finished, both Nitka and Shumu were uneasy and anxious to be gone. The smells of the camp did not please them as they had pleased Shasta. To their noses they were the danger sense of something which they did not understand, and fear was in their hearts. It was not the fear that wild animals have of each other, it was deeper down. It was the instinctive fear of man. As soon as she had nodged through the thong and nosed at Shasta to satisfy herself that he was not only free but able to make use of his legs, Nitka gave the sign to Shumu. What sign it was, no one not born of wolf blood could have told you. Even Shasta could have not done so, though he was aware that the sign was given, for the unspoken sign language of the animals is not to be cramped into the narrow shapes of human speech. Whatever the sign was, Shumu obeyed. He slid round the nearest tepee as noiselessly as if his great body floated on the air. Shasta followed, with Nitka close behind. She had led the way into the camp, because of her greater cunning, but now it was for Shumu to find the way out. Her place now was close to her strange cub, so that she could protect him on the instant from any danger that might threaten. Two great shadows had drifted into camp. Now three were stealing out under the stars, and no human eye watched their deathly departure. All would have been well if an unlucky husky dog had not happened to wake as the three shadows glided past. There was a short bark, a rush, and a whirring snarl. Then one piercing yell perent the silence, and the husky lay a bleeding form, thrown by Shumu's jaws three yards away. With that the whole husky pack was on its feet, roused from its slumbers in an instant. At least twenty furious dogs hurled themselves at the wolves. Never had Nitka and Shumu a finer chance to show their fighting power. From two large-grade timber wolves they seemed to transform themselves into leaping whirlwinds that snatched and tore, and flung husky dogs like Shaff into the air. At first Shasta was in the center of the fight. He could not, of course, help his foster parents, for his teeth and hands were useless at such a time. All he could do was to save himself as much as possible from the brunt of the attack. This he did by crouching, leaping and running when the right moment came. Beyond everything else he kept his throat protected with his arms, for his wolf knowledge and training taught him that this was the danger spot, which if you ever did not guard meant the losing of your life. Once or twice he felt a stinging pain, as a husky snatched at him and the sharp teeth scored his flesh. But each time the dog paid dearly for his rashness, and was not for biting any more. It was only when Nitka or Shumu was busy finishing a dog that the thing happened. Otherwise they kept close to Shasta, one on each side, guarding him from attack. Each time Shasta was touched, Nitka's anger passed all bounds. She not only punished the offender with death, but she tore at the other dogs with redoubled fury. So the fight rolled towards the forest, a yapping, snarling mass of leaping bodies and snatching teeth. In its track the bodies of the dead and dying huskies lay bleeding on the dark ground. The thing that Shasta dreaded most was lest the indent should come to the rescue of their dogs. But having had one false alarm, they did not trouble to rouse themselves again, and even looking always remained on his bed of buffalo robes, and said evil things of the huskies for disturbing his repose. It was not many minutes before the fight was over. The huskies, finding themselves outmatched by the superior strength and fury of the wolves, began to lose heart. When the moment came that they had had enough of it, the wolves seemed to know it by instinct. They passed in a flash from defense to attack, and covering Shasta's retreat towards the trees, they charged the pack with unequal fury. Such an onset was irresistible. The huskies gave way before it, completely routed. Their only care was how to save their skins as they fled yelping into the night. Of the twenty dogs which had attacked the wolves, only ten found their way back to camp, and of these many had ugly wounds which they carried as scars to the end of their days. It had been so great a fight that the Indians marveled when the morning light showed them the blood-stained ground and the bodies of the dogs that had died in the fray. All the way back through the dark woods Shasta felt a great joy within him, and the gloom seemed alive with things that gave him greeting as he ran. He could not see them clearly, those things. Yet now and then something shadowy stirred, and swayed towards him or drifted softly by. And though they were so faint and shadowy, he knew them for the good, secret things of the forest, which none but the wild creatures know. His wounds were a little sore, but even as he ran, Nitka found time to doctor them with her tongue. She paid no heed to her own. There would be time enough to attend to them when they had reached the den. Neither she nor Shumu had really dangerous wounds, although they were bleeding in many places. A day or two's rest and licking would make them all right, and as long as their man-cub was safe they did not care. It was bright morning before they reached the den. The sun had risen and was pouring down upon the bar-glosh all the freshness of his early beams. From the tip of a fur-branch a clear little song slipped into the morning air. It was kilo-eat, the white-throated sparrow trilling his morning tune. He had his nest somewhere near the den, only the wolves never found out where. All they knew him by was his song, and the flicker of his flight as he darted daintily past. The very fanning of his wings seemed too sweet in the air. As for his song, he spilt them out in little trickling tunes all through the day, or whenever he happened to wake up in the night. The old wolves didn't mind him much one way or the other, but Chasta was fond of him, and used to make a gurgle in his throat whenever the kilo-eat spilt his voice. And now, as he approached the cave, the song of kilo-eat seemed a welcome home, and when he looked up into the tree there was kilo-eat perched on the fur-tip, with the sunlight shining full on his little wobbling throat. THE BULMOOSE Gomposh's lair was in the black heart of the cedar swamp. Although the cedars were, Gomposh had the feeling of being even older. He liked the ancientness of the place, its dankness and darkness, and above all its silence, the silence of green decaying things. It was so silent that he could almost hear himself thinking, and his thoughts seemed to make more noise than even his great padded feet. Under the gray-twisted trunks the ground oozed with moisture, which fed the pits of black water that never went dry, even in the summer drought. Whatever life stirred in those black pits, occasionally disturbing their stagnant surfaces with oily ripples, it did not greatly affect Gomposh. He preferred not to bother about them, and to devote his mind instead to the clumps of fat fungus, white, red, pink and orange, which glowed like doll lamps in the heart of the gloom. The taste of their flabby fatness pleased his palate. It was not exactly an exciting form of food, but it grew on your doorstep, so to speak, and saved a lot of trouble. And when you wanted to bury your diet there was the skunk cabbages and other damp vegetables. Another thing that recommended the place to the old bear was its comparative freedom from other animals. Gahupare, it is true, inhabited the hollow hemlock on the farther side of the swamp, but he seldom came near Gomposh's lair. Since his activities took him generally to the open slopes of the barglash where the hunting was fair to medium, and sometimes even good. His voice, of course, was a thing to be regretted, and when on first getting out of bed, he would perch at the top of his tree and send the loudest parts of himself shrilling lamnatably far out into the twilight. Gomposh's little eyes would shine with disapproval, and he would make remarks to himself deep down in his throat. But a voice cannot be cuffed into silence when it has wings that carry it out of the reach of your paw, and so Gomposh had to contend himself with a little wholesome grumbling which, after all, kept him from becoming all fungus and fat, and made him change his feeding ground from place to place. The only other bird that ever intruded upon his privacy was the nut hatch. But as this little bird, being one of the quickest of all the feathered folk, spent its time mainly in sliding up and down the cedar trunks like a shadow without feet, only now and then giving forth a tiny faint note in long silences, as if it were apologizing to a cell for being there at all. Gomposh couldn't find it in his heart to lodge a complaint. He would lie in his lair for hours and hours, listening contentedly to the fat, oozy silence, and observing the solemn gloom in which the colors of the red and orange-toed stools seemed loud enough to make noise, and wished that the nut hatched needn't go on apologizing. The lair was in a deep hollow, between the humpy roots of a large old cedar. It was dry enough, except when the rains were very heavy, and it was tunneled out on the edge of one of the hardwood knolls which rose up from the swamp here and there, like the last remaining hilltops of a drowned world. To make this whole still more rainproof, and at the same time warmer, Gomposh had covered the cedar roots with boughs which he had contrived cunningly into a roof. Oh! he was a wise, wary old person, was Gomposh, and the experience of unnumbered winters had taught him that when the blizzards come swirling over the barglash from the northeast, it is a grand and comforting thing to have a good roof over you, thatched, thick and warm with snow. So to this deep cave in the roots of the cedar when the wind moaned and the drowdy tops of the spruce woods and the frost-bit with invisible teeth, Gomposh, bulging with berries and fat, would retire for the winter, and sleep, and sleep, and sleep! Toadstools of various sorts of berries made up the principal part of his diet, but as berries did not grow in the swamp, and after a time he had eaten all the best Toadstools in the neighborhood of his den, he occasionally found it pleasant to leave the swamp and ascend to the blueberry barrens high up on the slopes of the barglash. One morning, not many days after Shastas returned to his wolf-kin, Gomposh got up with the berry-feeling in him very bad. It was a little early for blueberries, but there were other things he might find. Perhaps an Indian pear with its sweet though tasteless fruit, ripened early in some sunny spot. And anyhow there were always confiding beetles under stones, and whole families of insects that live in rotten logs. He left his lair, picking his way carefully between the humpy roots that made the ground lift itself into such strange shapes, and setting his great padded feet on the thick moss as delicately as a fox, so that in case some mouse or water rat should be out of its hole, he might catch it unawares with one of the lightening movements of his immense paw. At the edge of the swamp he pushed his way, stealthily through a thicket of Indian willows, and then paused to sniff the air with that old sensitive nose of his, which brought him tidings of the trails as to what was abroad, with a fine certainty that would not air. But sniff as he would, nothing came to his questing nostrils except the smell that was as old as the centuries. The raw, king sweetness of the wet spruce and fir forests, mixed with the homely scent of the cedar swamp. Yet in spite of this, he did not move without the utmost caution, and for all his apparent clumsiness, his vast furry bulk seemed to drift among the spruces with the quietness of smoke. Far away on the other side of the lake, a great bull moose was making his way angrily through the woods, looking for the cow he had heard calling him at dawn, and thrashing the bushes with his mighty antlers as a challenge to anyone who should be rash enough to dispute his title of Lord of the Wilderness. But as he was travelling up wind, and was, moreover, too far away for the sound of his temper to carry, Gomposh's unerring nose did not receive the warning as he ascended the barglash with the berry want in his inside. He was half way up the mountain, when all at once he stopped, and swung his nose into the wind. Something was abroad now, something with a warmer, thicker scent than the sharp tang of the spruces. What was it? There was a smell of wolf in it, and yet again something which was not wolf. It was a mixture of scents, so finally jumbled together that only a nose like Gomposh's could have disentangled them. In spite of his immense knowledge of the thousand ways in which the wilderness kindreds put themselves upon the air, the old bear was puzzled. So, in order to give his mind perfect leisure to attend to his nose, Gomposh sank back on his haunches, and then sat bold upright with his paws hanging idly in the air. The scent came more and more plainly, and as it grew, Gomposh's brain worked faster and faster. The smell was half strange and half familiar. Where had he smelled it before? And then suddenly he knew. Shasta stealing through the spruces as noiselessly as any of the wild brotherhood, thought he had done an extremely clever thing. He fully believed he had caught an old black bear unawares, sitting upon the trail and sniffing at nothing, with his paws dangling foolishly before him. It was not until the boy was close upon him that Gomposh quickly turned his head, and pretended to be surprised. Shasta, recognizing his old friend, came slowly forward with shiny eyes. At first Gomposh did not speak, but that was not surprising. Gomposh was not one to rush into speech when you could express so much by saying nothing. To be able to express a good deal, and yet not to put it into the shape of words, to say things with your whole body and mind without making noises with your mouth and throat, it is a wonderful faculty. Few people know anything about it, because half the business of people's lives is carried on in the mouth, and they are not happy or wise enough to be quiet. But the beasts use it continually, because they are very happy and very wise. So Gomposh looked at Shasta, and Shasta looked at Gomposh, and for a long time neither of them made a sound. But the mind that was in Gomposh's big body, and the body that was outside of Gomposh's big mind, went on quietly making all sorts of observations which Shasta easily understood. So he knew, just as well as if Gomposh had said it, that the bear was telling him he had been on his travels. Also the things were different in him, that he was another sort of person, because many things had happened to him in the meantime. Exactly what those things were, Gomposh did not know. But he knew what the effect was which they had produced in Shasta. He knew that the part of Shasta was not wolf had mingled with that part of the world which is also not wolf, and that therefore he was a little less wolfish than before. At first Shasta felt a little uncomfortable at the way Gomposh looked at him calmly, through and through. It was as if Gomposh said, We are long way off, little brother, we have traveled far apart, but I catch you with the mind. And Shasta couldn't help feeling as if he had done something of which he was ashamed. He had left the wild kindred, the wolf father, the wolf mother, all that swift, stealthy, fierce wolf world that had its going among the trees. He had gone out to search for another kindred, almost as swift, stealthily and fierce as the wolves themselves, yet of a strange, unnameable cunning, and of a smell stranger still. And yet with all this strangeness the new kindred had fastened itself upon him with a hold which Shasta could not shake off, as of something which is half wolf nature could neither resist nor deny. And the more Gomposh looked at him out of his little piercing eyes, the more keenly he felt that the old bear was realizing this hold upon him of the new kindred, far off beyond the trees. When at last Gomposh spoke, that is, when he allowed the wisdom that was in him to ooze out in bear language, what he remarked amounted to this. You have found the new kindred, you have learned the new knowledge. You are less wolf than you were. Shasta did not like being told that he had grown less a wolf. It was just as if Gomposh had accused him of having lost something which was not to be recovered. I am just the same as I was, he replied stoutly, but he knew it was not true. The moons have gone by, and the moons have gone by, Gomposh said. The runways have been filled with folk, but you have not come along them. You have not watched them. You have missed everything that has gone by. Shasta made it clear that one could not be everywhere at the same time, and that anyhow he had not missed the moons. No one misses the moons, Gomposh remarked gravely, except those of us who go to sleep. It is a pleasant sleep in the winter when we go sleeping through the moons. Nitka and Shumu do not sleep, Shasta said boastfully. We do not sleep the winter sleep, we of the wolves. And so you do not find the world beautifully new when you wake up in the spring, Gomposh said. That was a fresh idea to Shasta. He knew what a wonderful thing it was to find the world new every day, but it must seem terribly new indeed to you after the winter's sleep. The thought of hunger came to his rescue. You must be very hungry, he said triumphantly. It is better to be very hungry once and get it over, Gomposh said composedly. Then go on being hungry all the winter when they tell me food is scarce. Another fresh thought for Shasta. If Gomposh kept on putting new ideas into him at this rate, he felt as if something unpleasant must happen in his head. If he had been rather more of a boy and rather less of a wolf, he might have been inclined to argue with Gomposh, just for the sake of arguing. As it was, he was wise enough to realize that Gomposh knew more than he did, and that however new or uncomfortable the things were that Gomposh said, they were most likely true. So he said nothing for some time, but kept turning over in his head the fresh ideas about newness and hunger and the being less a wolf. You will not stay among us, Gomposh said after a long pause. You will go back to the new kindred and the new smell. Shasta felt frightened at that, so frightened as to be indignant. He was afraid lest the old bear might be saying what was true, and the memory of the hide thong that had cut into his flesh and the horrible captivity when he had been forced to stay in one small space, whether he liked it or not, made him feel more and more strongly that he would not go back whatever happened. As Gomposh did not seem inclined to talk any more, Shasta thought he would continue his walk. It was good to be out on the trails again, passing where the wild feet passed that had never known what it was to be held prisoner in one place. And as he went, all his senses were on the watch to see and hear and smell everything that was going on. So softly he went, without the slightest sound, putting his hands and feet so delicately to the ground that not a leaf rustled, not a twig snapped. But wary though he was, other things were even worrier. Gleaming eyes he did not see watched him out of sight. Keen noses winded him, noses of creatures that kept their bodies a secret, almost from themselves. And so when Shasta suddenly found himself face to face with a big bull moose he nearly jumped out of himself with astonishment. It was not the first time that he had seen moose. In the early summer, down in the alder thicket at the edge of the lake, Shasta, watching motionless between the leaves, had seen a cow and her lanky calf come down into the lake. The cow began to busy herself by pulling water lily roots, and the calf nosed along the bank in an inquisitive manner as if it still found the world a most bewildering place. They did not seem animals to be frightened at, and even the big cow looked a harmless sort of being whose mind, what there was of it, was in her mouth and ears. But the huge bull now in front of Shasta was a very different sort of beast. From the ground to the ridge of the immense four shoulders he measured a good six feet. That great humped ridge covered with thick black hair seemed to mount itself over some enormous strength which lay solid and compact ready to hurl itself forth at an instant's notice in one terrifying blow which would smash any object that dared to challenge it. But what impressed Shasta more than anything else was the great spread of the polished antlers on each side of his head. Antlers like those he had never seen. It was like wearing a forest on your forehead. It made you uncomfortable to look at it. It was like an animal and a tree at the same time. The moose was equally surprised at Shasta. With all the creatures of the forest, lynxes, catamounts, raccoons, wolves, deer, foxes, bears and chipmunks, he was familiar. But this smooth, hornless, round-headed thing was like none of them. It had shape and a character extraordinarily different, and the big moose was not pleased. There was another thing that he did not like, and that was Shasta's smell. Not that this was so unfamiliar as his shape. Indeed, something like it the moose had often smelt before. Moreover, it was a smell that always made him angry. It was that of the wolves. And yet mingled with it in a curious and bewildering way, there was another odor, not so pungent as the wolf sent, but hardly less subjectionable to the moose. And that was the smell of man. What might this mean, the moose did not know? Along all the lonely trails of his wild and adventurous life, he had never yet come with insight or sand of the creature that went always upon its hind legs, with cunning in its hornless head, and death that shot out with its hands. With his great overhanging muscle lifted up, his nostrils quivering, he looked at Shasta viciously out of his little gleaming eyes. It was the wolf in Shasta that made the creature angry. From the endless generations behind him, grandfathers and grandfather's grandfathers that reached back beyond the flood, there had come down to him through the uncounted ages, this hatred, born of fear of the wolves. It was not that he feared any single wolf. Few wolves in all that immense Northland would have dared to attack him singly, or dispute his lordship of the world. But when the snows lay heavily on the hemlocks, and the knights were keen with bitter air from the white heart of the pole, those long-like shapes that came floating over the barrens in packs, with the honey-note in their throats, were not things to be treated contemptuously by even the lordliest moose, at home in his winter yard. Shasta, on his side, felt no enmity towards the moose. He was not wolf enough to have the moose hatred, handed down, pack after pack, since the beginning of the world, running in his blood. What he inherited from his grandfather's grandfathers were Indian instincts. Though, in his utter ignorance of his nature, he did not know them for what they were. So he just stared at the moose with great astonishment, and wondered what would be the right thing to do. In spite of himself he felt a little uneasy. Something he did not know what, warned him that the moose did not like him, and therefore was not going to be his friend. Left to himself, Shasta was willing to be friends, if they would let him, with all the forest folk. And as he never frightened them, or attempted to do them any hurt, most of the creatures came to regard him as a harmless sort of person. Those that did not, respected him too much to molest him because of his strange man-smell, which was so dangerously mixed with that of wolf. But now, here was a beast which, he fell sure, was so far from being his friend, that it would take only some very little thing to turn him into a dangerous enemy. A movement, a look, a puff of air to make sense stronger, and some terrible thing might happen, you could never tell. Now Shasta knew several ways of making himself a bigger person, as it were, and so to be more respected. One was to keep as still as a stone, and to put all of himself into his eyes, staring and staring till it seemed as if they must suddenly become mouths and bite. Which made the creature so uneasy that very few could stand it for long, and would politely meld away among the trees. Another was to make some sudden, violent movement, and to give the hunting cry of the wolves with his full throat. That struck fear into most animals, and they would flee in panic, never stopping till they had put long lengths of trail between them and the little-naked terror that had the wolf cry in his throat. But now, though Shasta put everything that was in him into his eyes, the big-bow bore the stare in an unflinching manner, and stared back defiantly. He did more. He began to paw the ground impatiently with one of his hoofs, as if to show that he was tired of this duel with the eyes, and wanted to try some more complete trial of strength. If Shasta had looked particularly at the pine hoof, he would have noticed how deeply cleft it was, and what sharp edges it had. A terrible instrument that, when it descended like a sledgehammer with all the weight of the huge, seven hundred-pound body behind it to give it driving force. But Shasta was too much occupied in attending to the expression in the animal's eyes, an in fearful admiration of the huge, spreading antlers that made so grand an ornament to the mighty head. And then, because the spirit of the wild things did not tell him what to do, or because if it did, his attention was too much taken up to give heed to its warning. He did the wrong thing instead of the right one. With a sudden spring in the air, he loosed the wolf cry from his throat. If anything was needed to make the moose furious this action of Shasta's was sufficient. At the boy's unexpected movement and cry he bounded to one side, then he stood snorting and stamping the ground viciously. But he did not turn tail. Instead, he began to thrash the underwood furiously with his antlers. Shasta was no coward. Yet what could he do? Naked and utterly defenseless against this enormous animal, armed with those dreadful antlers and those pitiless hatchets on his feet. He looked quickly around, measuring the distance between himself and the nearest tree. To dart to it and climb into safety would have done in less time than it would take to tell it. But quick though he was, he knew by experience that some of the wild things were even quicker. What the moose could do in the way of quickness he had just seen. The whole of that great body was a mass of sinews and muscles that could hurl it this way or that like a flash of lightning before you had time to blink. And the moose, like the wolves and the bears, could make up his mind in less than a thousandth part of a minute, and be somewhere else almost before he had started, and finish a thing completely almost before it was begun. If only Nitko or Shumu, or one of the wolf brothers, could know the danger he was in and come to the rescue. Big though he might be, it would be a bold moose who would lightly tackle Shumu or any of his terrible brood, when once their blood was roused. But though Shasta looked wildly on every side, hoping that the call he had given might have attracted attention, not a dead leaf rustled in response under swiftly patting feet, he turned his gaze again upon his enemy, for enemy he had now undoubtedly become, to catch the first sign of what he might be about to do. The moose was still thrashing the thicket as if to lash himself into increasing fury and glaring at Shasta passionately out of his shining eyes. Because he did not know what was best to be done, Shasta threw back his head, and once again sent out the long-ringing wolf cry that was a summons to the pack. But as luck would have it, not one of all the wolf kindred was within air-shot, and barglash was as empty of wolves as the sky of clouds. At the second cry the moose stopped thrashing the bushes and stood still. But along his neck and shoulders the coarse black hair rose threateningly. A red light burned dangerously in his eyes. Suddenly, without warning, he sprang. Quick as a wolf, Shasta leaped aside. If he had been the fraction of a second later he would have been trampled to death. The murderous hoof of the moose missed its mark by a quarter of an inch. Snorting with rage he raised himself on his hind legs to strike again. And then the wonderful thing happened. Even as the moose rose a huge black form hurled itself through the air, descending on him like a thunderbolt. Before he could deliver the blow intended for Shasta, even before he could change his position in order to protect himself, a huge paw, armed with claws like curved daggers, had ripped his shoulder halfway to the bone. So great was the force of the blow, with the whole weight of Gompash's body behind it, that the moose was hurled to the ground. He had hardly touched it, however, before he was on his feet, quivering with pain and fury. Seeing that his assailant was one of the hated bears, his fury redoubled. In spite of his wounds, now streaming with blood, he rushed savagely at the bear, striking again with his hoofs. But Gompash, though now old, was no novice at boxing. He simply gathered his great hind quarters under him and sat well back upon them, with his four paws lifted. Each time the moose struck, Gompash parried the blow with a lightning sweep of his gigantic paw, and each time the paw swept, the moose bled afresh. Only once did he do Gompash any injury, and that was when, with a sudden charge of his left hand antler, he caught the bear in the ribs. But he paid dearly for the action. Gompash, though nearly losing his balance, brought his right paw down with such sludge-hammer force on his opponent's shoulder, that the moose staggered and almost fell. The blow was so tremendous that the great bull did not care to receive another. With a harsh bellow of rage and anguish he turned, plunged into the underwood and disappeared. The whole forest seemed quake as he went. While all this was happening, Shasta, crouched behind his tree, had watched with intense excitement the progress of the fight. Now that Gompash had proved himself conqueror, and that the moose had disappeared, he came out of his refuge. He wanted to thank Gompash to make him feel how glad he was that he had beaten the moose. But for some reason peculiar to himself, Gompash evidently did not want to be thanked. And when Shasta went up to lay his hand on his thick black coat, he rumbled something rude in his chest and moved sulkily away. As he went he turned once to look back at the boy, and then like the moose, disappeared among the trees. Left alone on the spot where the great battle had been fought and where he had come so near to losing his life, Shasta looked about him carefully. The ground was torn up and trampled, and the grass and leaves blotched with dark stains. A faint smell of newly spilled blood filled the air, and all round crowded the trees, dark, solemn, full of unnameable things. As Shasta watched, a feeling of dread came over him. He could not have explained the feeling. All he knew was that it was a bad place where bad things could happen, and where even Gompash had not cared to remain. Without lingering another moment he fled away on noiseless naked feet. And down in the cedar swamp, among the skunk cabbage and the bad black pools, old Gompash sat in his lair and licked his wound. It did not heal for several days, but the big slavary tongue kept busily at work, and nature, the old unfailing nurse, attended to her job. A good deal of gumbling accompanied the licking and acted like a tongue on Gompash's mind. So it was not long before he went about as usual, and the nut hatches perceived that Gompash was so very much Gompash again that the toad stools were being punished for having grown so fat.