The Gold Hunters

CHAPTER X. THE MYSTERIOUS SHOT

For many minutes the two stood silently gazing into the North. At their feet spread the broad plain where Mukoki had killed the caribou while they watched him from the plateau; beyond that were the dense stretches of forest, broken here and there by other plains and meadows, and a dozen lakes glistened in the red tints of the setting sun. When Rod first looked upon that country a few months before it was a world of ice and snow, a cold, dazzling panorama of white that reached from where he stood to the Pole. Now it was wakening under the first magic touch of spring. Far away the two young gold hunters caught a glimmer of the stream which they were to follow up to the chasm. Last winter it had been a tiny creek; now it was swollen to the size of a river.

Suddenly, as they looked, two dark objects came slowly out into an opening a mile away. At that distance they appeared hardly larger than dogs, and Rod, whose mind was still filled with thoughts of Wolf, exclaimed “Wolves!”

In the same breath he caught himself, and added:

“Moose!”

“A cow and her calf,” said Wabi.

“How do you know?” asked Rod.

“There; watch them now!” cried Wabi, catching his companion by the arm. “The mother is ahead, and even from here I can see that she is pacing. A moose never trots or gallops, like a deer, but paces, using both feet on a side at the same time. Notice how the calf jumps about. An old moose would never do that.”

“But both animals look to be about the same size,” replied Rod, still doubtful.

“It's a two-year-old calf; almost as big as its mother. In fact, it's not really a calf, because it is too old; but so long as young moose stick to their mothers we call them calves up here. I've known them to remain together for three years.”

“They're coming this way!” whispered the white youth.

The moose had turned, heading for the base of the mountain upon which they stood. Wabi drew his companion behind a big rock, from which both could look down without being seen.

“Be quiet!” he warned. “They're coming to feed on the sprouting poplar along the mountain side. Just been over to the creek to get a drink. We may have some fun!”

He wet a finger in his mouth and held it above his head, the forest pathfinder's infallible method of telling how the wind blows. No matter how slight the movement of the air may be, one side of the finger dries first, in an instant, and is warm, while the side that remains damp is cold, and in the lee, that side toward which the wind is blowing.

“The wind is wrong, dead wrong,” said Wabi. “It's blowing straight toward them. Unless we are so high that our scent goes above them they won't come much nearer.”

Another minute and Rod nudged Wabigoon.

“They're within range!”

“Yes, but we won't shoot. We don't need meat.”

As the young Indian spoke the cow brought herself to a dead stop so suddenly that Wabi gave a delighted grunt.

“Great!” he whispered. “She's caught a whiff of us, a quarter of a mile away. See how she holds her head, her great ears chucked forward to hear, her nose half to the sky! She knows there's danger on this mountain. Now—”

He did not finish. Like a flash the cow had darted ahead of her calf, seeming to shoulder it back, and in another moment the two were racing swiftly into the North, the mother this time in the rear instead of leading.

“I love moose,” said Wabi, his eyes glowing. “Do you notice that I never shoot them, Rod?”

“By George, so you don't! I never thought of it. What is the reason?”

“There are a good many reasons. Of course I have shot them, when in very great need of meat; but it's an unpleasant job for me. You call the lion the king of beasts. Well, he isn't. The moose is monarch of them all. You saw how the mother moose acted. She led her calf when approaching, because if there should be danger she wanted to meet it first; and when she found danger she drove her calf ahead of her in retreat, so that if harm came to either of them it would come to her. Isn't that the human mother instinct? And the bull is glorious! In the mating season he will face a dozen men in defense of his cow. If she falls first he will stand between her body and the hunters' rifles, pawing the earth, his eyes glaring defiance, until he is riddled with bullets. Once I saw a wounded cow, and as she staggered away the big bull that was with her hugged her close behind, never for a moment leaving her exposed to the fire, but unflinchingly taking every bullet in his own body. So beautiful was his courage that you would not have known he was wounded until he fell dead in his tracks, literally cut to pieces. It was that sight that made me swear never to kill another moose—unless I had to.”

Rod was silent. The mother and the calf had disappeared when he turned to Wabigoon.

“I'm glad you told me that, Wabi,” he said. “You are teaching me new things about this big wilderness every day. I've shot one moose. I won't shoot another unless we need him.”

They went back to their old camp, and by the time Mukoki returned with his second load everything was in shape for the night, and a supper of delicious bear steaks, coffee and “hot-stone biscuits,” as Rod called their baked combination of flour, water and salt, was soon ready. After their meal the three sat for a long time near the fire, for there was still a slight chill in the night air, and talked mostly about Wolf and his adventures. Rod, in his distant home in civilization had read and heard much that was false about wild animals, was confident that Wolf would find they had returned into the wilderness and would join them again, and to corroborate his belief he narrated several stories of similar happenings. Wabigoon listened courteously to him, which is the way of the Indian. Then he said:

“Such stories as those are false, Rod. When I spent my year at school with you I read dozens of stories about wild animals, and very few of them were true. All sorts of people write about the wilderness, and yet not one out of a hundred of those same people have ever been in the real wilderness. And it is wonderful what some of them make wild animals do!”

Rod straightened himself with a jerk.

“I have been here only a few months, Wabi, and yet I have seen more wonderful things about animals than I have ever read in print,” he declared.

“Of course you have,” agreed his companion. “And there is just the point I want to make clear. Wild animals are the most wonderful creatures in existence, and if some of their actual habits and adventures were told they would be laughed at down where you came from. Where your writers make their mistake is in bringing them into too close association with human beings, and making them half human. Wolf remained with us because he knew no better. We caught him when he was a whelp, and as he grew older both Mukoki and I could see that at times he was filled with a wild longing to join his people. We knew that it was coming. He will never return to us.”

Mukoki made a soft sound deep down in his throat, and Rod turned suddenly toward him.

“You believe that, Mukoki?”

“Wolf gone!”

“But animals think, don't they?” persisted Rod, to whom the discussion was of absorbing interest. “They reason, they remember!”

“They do all of that,” replied Wabi, “and more. I have read certain so-called natural history stories which ridiculed the idea of wild animals possessing mental abilities, and which ascribed pretty nearly all their actions to instinct. Such stories are as wrong as those which give wild animals human endowments. Animals do think. Don't you suppose that mother moose was thinking when she stopped out there in the plain? Wasn't she turning the situation over in her mind, if you want to speak of it as that, and mentally figuring just where the danger lay, and in which direction she ought to take flight? And besides reason wild animals have instinct. One proof of this is their sixth sense; the sense of—of—what do you call it?”

“Orientation?” assisted Rod.

“Yes; that's it. Orientation. A bear, for instance, doesn't carry a compass with him, as some nature writers would like to have you believe, and yet he can go from this mountain to a den a hundred miles away as straight as a bird can fly. That's instinct.”

“Then Wolf—” mused Rod slowly.

“Is with the hunt pack,” finished the young Indian.

Mukoki spoke softly, as though to himself.

“Last winter the snow came, and now it is water. Two moons past, Wolf, heem tame. Now wild. The Great Spirit say that is right, I guess so.”

“He means that it is nature,” said Wabi.

For an hour after the others had wrapped themselves in their blankets Rod sat alone beside the fire, listening, and thinking. And after that he went to the edge of the plateau, and watched the great spring moon as it floated slowly over the vast, still wilderness. How wonderful these solitudes were, how little the teeming millions of civilization knew about them! Somehow, in those moments, as he watched the shivering Northern Lights playing far beyond the farthest footstep of man, there came to Roderick Drew the thought that God must be nearer to earth here than anywhere else in the world. For the first time his soul was filled with something that was almost love for the red man's Great Spirit. And why not? For was not that Great Spirit his own God? Sad, lonely, silent, mysterious, a whole world lay before him, a world that was the Indian Bible, that contained for the red man of the North the teachings and the voice of the Creator of all things. A wind had risen and was whispering over the plains; he heard the hushed voices of the quivering poplar boughs, and there came from far below him the soft, chuckling, mating hoot of an owl. Gradually his eyes closed, and he leaned more heavily upon the rock against which he had seated himself. After that he dreamed of what he had looked upon, while the fire at the camp died away, and Mukoki and Wabigoon slumbered, oblivious of his absence.

Of how long he slept Rod had no idea. He was suddenly brought back into wakefulness by a sound that startled him to the marrow of his bones, a terrible scream close to his ears. He sat bolt upright, quaking in every limb. For a moment he tried to cry out, but his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. What had happened? Was it Wabi, or Mukoki?

A dozen paces away was a huge rock and as he looked he saw something move upon it, a long, lithe object that shone a silvery white in the moonlight, and he knew that it was a lynx. Stealthily Rod reached for his rifle, which had slipped between his knees, and as he did so the lynx sent forth another of its blood-curdling screams. Even now the white youth shivered at the sound, so much like the terrible cry of some person in dying agony. He leveled his gun. There was a flash in the moonlight, a sharp report, and a shout from the direction of the camp. In another moment Rod was upon his feet, and sorry that he had shot. It flashed upon him that he might have watched the lynx, one of the night pirates of all this strange wilderness, and that its pelt, at this season, would be worthless. He went to the rock cautiously. The lynx was not there. He walked around it, holding his rifle in readiness for attack. The lynx was gone. He had made a clean miss!

Both Mukoki and Wabigoon met him on the opposite side of the rock.

“'Nother heap big Woonga,” grinned the old pathfinder remembering Rod's former adventure on this same plateau. “Kill?”

“Missed!” said Rod shortly. “What a scream that was! Ugh!”

This time he went to bed with the others, and slept until early dawn. The morning was one of those rare gifts of budding spring, warm and redolent with the sweetness of new life, and its beauty acted as a tonic on the three adventurers. Their fears of the day before were gone, and with song and whistle and cheery voice they began the descent of the mountain. Mukoki went on ahead of Rod and Wabigoon with his pack, and the two boys had not made more than two of the six miles in the portage across the plain when he met them again, returning for his second load. By noon the canoe and its contents were safely at the creek, and the gold hunters halted until after dinner. The little stream across which Rod had easily leaped without wetting his feet a few weeks before had swollen into a fair-sized river, and in places its searching waters had formed tiny lakes. Unlike the Ombabika, sweeping down from its mountain heights, there was but little current here, a fact that immensely pleased Mukoki and his companions.

“We near mak' cabin to-night,” said the old Indian. “I take load to-night.”

During the two hours' paddle up-stream Mukoki spoke but little, and as they approached nearer to their last winter's thrilling fight with the Woongas, in which they had so nearly lost their lives, he ceased even to respond by nod or grunt to the conversation of his companions. Once Wabigoon spoke again of Wolf, and for an instant the old Indian, who was in the bow, half turned to them, and for two strokes his paddle rested in mid air. From the stern Wabi reached forward and poked Rod, and the white youth understood. Next to Minnetaki and Wabigoon, and perhaps himself, he knew that the faithful pathfinder loved Wolf best, and that; he was filled with a little of that savage madness which came to him now and then when he dwelt on the terrible tragedy that had entered his life many years before. When the hunters reached the end of their canoe journey up the stream Mukoki silently shouldered his pack and set out over the plain. He spoke no word, made no sign.

“It would be useless,” said Wabigoon, as Rod made a movement as if to follow and stop their comrade. “No persuasion could turn Mukoki now. He wants to reach the old camp to-night, where Wolf disappeared. He won't be back until morning.”

And Mukoki went on, never for an instant turning his face, until his companions lost sight of him. But once out of their vision his, manner took on a strange and sudden change. He lowered the head strap of his pack over his breast, so that he might clutch at it with one hand, and move his head freely. His eyes glowed with the dull fire of wakening excitement; his steps were quick, and yet cautious, every movement in his advance was one of listening and watchful expectancy. A person watching the old warrior would have said that he was keenly on the alert for game, or danger. And yet the safety of his rifle was locked, a fresh trail of bear aroused no new interest in him, and when he heard a crashing in the brush on his right, where a buck had got wind of him, he gave but a single glance in its direction. He was not seeking game. Nor were his fears aroused by suspicion of possible danger. Wherever the ground was soft and moist he traveled slowly, with his eyes on the earth, and at one of these spots he came to a sudden pause. Before him were the clearly defined imprints of a wolf's feet.

With a low cry Mukoki threw off his pack and fell upon his knees. His eyes burned fiercely now. There was something of madness in the way in which he groveled in the soft earth, creeping from one footprint to the next ahead of it, and stopping always where the right forefoot had left its track. It was that foot which had held Wolf a captive in Mukoki's trap, and he had lost two toes. None was missing here, and the old pathfinder rose to his feet again, disappointment shadowing the twitching expectancy in his face.

Five times that afternoon Mukoki fell on his knees beside the trails of wolves, and five times the light of hope went out for a moment in his eyes. It was sunset when he climbed the mountain ridge to the little lake hidden away in the dip; only a last pale glow tinted the sky behind the forests when he set down his pack close to the charred remains of the old cabin. For many minutes he rested, his gaze fixed on those blackened reminders of their thrilling battle for life the winter before. His wild blood leaped again at the thought of the strife, of the desperate race that he and Roderick had run over the mountain to the burning cabin, and of their rescue of Wabigoon. Suddenly his eyes caught the white gleam of something half a hundred paces away, and he rose and walked toward it, grunting and chuckling in half-savage pleasure. The Woongas had not returned to bury their dead, and the bones beside which he stopped were those of the outlaw whom Wabigoon had killed, picked clean by the small animals of the forest.

Mukoki returned to his pack and sat down As darkness fell about him he made no effort to build a fire. He had brought food, but did not eat it. More dense grew the shadows in the forest, thicker the gloom that hung over the mountains. Still he sat, silent, listening. To him, softly and timidly at first, came the sounds of the night: the chuckling notes of birds that awakened when the earth masked itself in darkness, the hoot of an owl, the faint wailing echo of a far-away lynx cry, the plunge of a mink in the lake. And now the wind began whispering in the balsams, singing gently its age-old song of loneliness, of desolation, of mystery, and Mukoki straightened himself and looked to where the red glow of the moon was rising above the mountain. After a little he rose to his feet, took his rifle, and climbed to the summit of the ridge, with a thousand miles of wilderness sweeping between him and the Arctic sea somewhere out there in that wilderness—was Wolf!

The moon rose higher. It disclosed the old Indian, as rigid as a rock, with his back to a white, barkless tree in which the sap had run dry a generation before. As he stood there he heard a sound, and turned his face toward it, a sound that came from a mass of tumbled boulders, like the falling of a small rock upon a larger one. And as he looked there came from the darkness of the boulders a flash of fire and the explosion of a gun, and as Mukoki crumpled down in his tracks there followed a cry so terrible, so unhuman, so blood-curdling that, as he fell, an answering cry of horror burst from the lips of the old warrior. He lay like dead, though he was not touched. Instinct more than reason had impelled him to fall at the sound of the mysterious shot. Cautiously he wormed his rifle to his shoulder. But there came no movement from the rocks.

Then, from half-way down the mountain, there came again that terrible cry, and Mukoki knew that no animal in all these wilds could make it, but that it was human, and yet more savage than anything that had ever brought terror into his soul. Trembling, he crouched to the earth, a nameless fear chilling the blood in his veins. And the cry came again, and yet again, always farther and farther away, now at the foot of the mountain, now upon the plain, now floating away toward the chasm, echoing and reechoing between the mountain ridges, startling the creatures of the night into silence, and wresting deep sobbing breaths from out of Mukoki's soul. And the old warrior moved not a muscle until far away, miles and miles, it seemed, there died the last echo of it, and only the whispering winds rustled over the mountain top.