The Last of the Plainsmen

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The Yellow Knives were breaking camp, and the hunters were at
once conscious of the difference in their bearing. Rea addressed
several braves, but got no reply. He laid his broad hand on the
old wrinkled chief, who repulsed him, and turned his back. With a
growl, the trapper spun the Indian round, and spoke as many words
of the language as he knew. He got a cold response, which ended
in the ragged old chief starting up, stretching a long, dark arm
northward, and with eyes fixed in fanatical subjection, shouting:
"Naza! Naza! Naza!"

"Heathen!" Rea shook his gun in the faces of the messengers.
"It'll go bad with you to come Nazain' any longer on our trail.
Come, Buff, clear out before I get mad."

When they were once more in the cabin, Rea told Jones that the
messengers had been sent to warn the Yellow Knives not to aid the
white hunters in any way. That night the dogs were kept inside,
and the men took turns in watching. Morning showed a broad trail
southward. And with the going of the Yellow Knives the mercury
dropped to fifty, and the long, twilight winter night fell.

So with this agreeable riddance and plenty of meat and fuel to
cheer them, the hunters sat down in their snug cabin to wait many
months for daylight.

Those few intervals when the wind did not blow were the only
times Rea and Jones got out of doors. To the plainsman, new to
the north, the dim gray world about him was of exceeding
interest. Out of the twilight shone a wan, round, lusterless ring
that Rea said was the sun. The silence and desolation were
heart-numbing.

"Where are the wolves?" asked Jones of Rea.

"Wolves can't live on snow. They're farther south after caribou,
or farther north after musk-ox."

In those few still intervals Jones remained out as long as he
dared, with the mercury sinking to -sixty degrees. He turned from
the wonder of the unreal, remote sun, to the marvel in the
north--Aurora borealis--ever-present, ever-changing,
ever-beautiful! and he gazed in rapt attention.

"Polar lights," said Rea, as if he were speaking of biscuits.
"You'll freeze. It's gettin' cold."

Cold it became, to the matter of -seventy degrees. Frost covered
the walls of the cabin and the roof, except just over the fire.
The reindeer were harder than iron. A knife or an ax or a
steel-trap burned as if it had been heated in fire, and stuck to
the hand. The hunters experienced trouble in breathing; the air
hurt their lungs.

The months dragged. Rea grew more silent day by day, and as he
sat before the fire his wide shoulders sagged lower and lower.
Jones, unaccustomed to the waiting, the restraint, the barrier of
the north, worked on guns, sleds, harness, till he felt he would
go mad. Then to save his mind he constructed a windmill of
caribou hides and pondered over it trying to invent, to put into
practical use an idea he had once conceived.

Hour after hour he lay under his blankets unable to sleep, and
listened to the north wind. Sometimes Rea mumbled in his
slumbers; once his giant form started up, and he muttered a
woman's name. Shadows from the fire flickered on the walls,
visionary, spectral shadows, cold and gray, fitting the north. At
such times he longed with all the power of his soul to be among
those scenes far southward, which he called home. For days Rea
never spoke a word, only gazed into the fire, ate and slept.
Jones, drifting far from his real self, feared the strange mood
of the trapper and sought to break it, but without avail. More
and more he reproached himself, and singularly on the one fact
that, as he did not smoke himself, he had brought only a small
store of tobacco. Rea, inordinate and inveterate smoker, had
puffed away all the weed in clouds of white, then had relapsed
into gloom.

CHAPTER 10. SUCCESS AND FAILURE

At last the marvel in the north dimmed, the obscure gray shade
lifted, the hope in the south brightened, and the mercury climbed
reluctantly, with a tyrant's hate to relinquish power.

Spring weather at twenty-five below zero! On April 12th a small
band of Indians made their appearance. Of the Dog tribe were
they, an offcast of the Great Slaves, according to Rea, and as
motley, starring and starved as the Yellow Knives. But they were
friendly, which presupposed ignorance of the white hunters, and
Rea persuaded the strongest brave to accompany them as guide
northward after musk-oxen.

On April 16th, having given the Indians several caribou
carcasses, and assuring them that the cabin was protected by
white spirits, Rea and Jones, each with sled and train of dogs,
started out after their guide, who was similarly equipped, over
the glistening snow toward the north. They made sixty miles the
first day, and pitched their Indian tepee on the shores of
Artillery Lake. Traveling northeast, they covered its white waste
of one hundred miles in two days. Then a day due north, over
rolling, monotonously snowy plain; devoid of rock, tree or shrub,
brought them into a country of the strangest, queerest little
spruce trees, very slender, and none of them over fifteen feet in
height. A primeval forest of saplings.

"Ditchen Nechila," said the guide.

"Land of Sticks Little," translated Rea.

An occasional reindeer was seen and numerous foxes and hares
trotted off into the woods, evincing more curiosity than fear.
All were silver white, even the reindeer, at a distance, taking
the hue of the north. Once a beautiful creature, unblemished as
the snow it trod, ran up a ridge and stood watching the hunters.
It resembled a monster dog, only it was inexpressibly more wild
looking.

"Ho! Ho! there you are!" cried Rea, reaching for his Winchester.
"Polar wolf! Them's the white devils we'll have hell with."

As if the wolf understood, he lifted his white, sharp head and
uttered a bark or howl that was like nothing so much as a
haunting, unearthly mourn. The animal then merged into the white,
as if he were really a spirit of the world whence his cry seemed
to come.

In this ancient forest of youthful appearing trees, the hunters
cut firewood to the full carrying capacity of the sleds. For five
days the Indian guide drove his dogs over the smooth crust, and
on the sixth day, about noon, halting in a hollow, he pointed to
tracks in the snow and called out: "Ageter! Ageter! Ageter!"

The hunters saw sharply defined hoof-marks, not unlike the tracks
of reindeer, except that they were longer. The tepee was set up
on the spot and the dogs unharnessed.

The Indian led the way with the dogs, and Rea and Jones followed,
slipping over the hard crust without sinking in and traveling
swiftly. Soon the guide, pointing, again let out the cry:
"Ageter!" at the same moment loosing the dogs.

Some few hundred yards down the hollow, a number of large black
animals, not unlike the shaggy, humpy buffalo, lumbered over the
snow. Jones echoed Rea's yell, and broke into a run, easily
distancing the puffing giant.

The musk-oxen squared round to the dogs, and were soon surrounded
by the yelping pack. Jones came up to find six old bulls uttering
grunts of rage and shaking ram-like horns at their tormentors.
Notwithstanding that for Jones this was the cumulation of years
of desire, the crowning moment, the climax and fruition of
long-harbored dreams, he halted before the tame and helpless
beasts, with joy not unmixed with pain.

"It will be murder!" he exclaimed. "It's like shooting down
sheep."

Rea came crashing up behind him and yelled, "Get busy. We need
fresh meat, an' I want the skins."

The bulls succumbed to well-directed shots, and the Indian and
Rea hurried back to camp with the dogs to fetch the sleds, while
Jones examined with warm interest the animals he had wanted to
see all his life. He found the largest bull approached within a
third of the size of a buffalo. He was of a brownish-black color
and very like a large, woolly ram. His head was broad, with
sharp, small ears; the horns had wide and flattened bases and lay
flat on the head, to run down back of the eyes, then curve
forward to a sharp point. Like the bison, the musk ox had short,
heavy limbs, covered with very long hair, and small, hard hoofs
with hairy tufts inside the curve of bone, which probably served
as pads or checks to hold the hoof firm on ice. His legs seemed
out of proportion to his body.

Two musk-oxen were loaded on a sled and hauled to camp in one
trip. Skinning them was but short work for such expert hands. All
the choice cuts of meat were saved. No time was lost in broiling
a steak, which they found sweet and juicy, with a flavor of musk
that was disagreeable.

"Now, Rea, for the calves," exclaimed Jones, "And then we're
homeward bound."

"I hate to tell this redskin," replied Rea. "He'll be like the
others. But it ain't likely he'd desert us here. He's far from
his base, with nothin' but thet old musket." Rea then commanded
the attention of the brave, and began to mangle the Great Slave
and Yellow Knife languages. Of this mixture Jones knew but few
words. "Ageter nechila," which Rea kept repeating, he knew,
however, meant "musk-oxen little."

The guide stared, suddenly appeared to get Rea's meaning, then
vigorously shook his head and gazed at Jones in fear and horror.
Following this came an action as singular as inexplicable. Slowly
rising, he faced the north, lifted his hand, and remained
statuesque in his immobility. Then he began deliberately packing
his blankets and traps on his sled, which had not been unhitched
from the train of dogs.

"Jackoway ditchen hula," he said, and pointed south.

"Jackoway ditchen hula," echoed Rea. "The damned Indian says
'wife sticks none.' He's goin' to quit us. What do you think of
thet? His wife's out of wood. Jackoway out of wood, an' here we
are two days from the Arctic Ocean. Jones, the damned heathen
don't go back!"

The trapper coolly cocked his rifle. The savage, who plainly saw
and understood the action, never flinched. He turned his breast
to Rea, and there was nothing in his demeanor to suggest his
relation to a craven tribe.

"Good heavens, Rea, don't kill him!" exclaimed Jones, knocking up
the leveled rifle.

"Why not, I'd like to know?" demanded Rea, as if he were
considering the fate of a threatening beast. "I reckon it'd be a
bad thing for us to let him go."

"Let him go," said Jones. "We are here on the ground. We have
dogs and meat. We'll get our calves and reach the lake as soon as
he does, and we might get there before."

"Mebbe we will," growled Rea.

No vacillation attended the Indian's mood. From friendly guide,
he had suddenly been transformed into a dark, sullen savage. He
refused the musk-ox meat offered by Jones, and he pointed south
and looked at the white hunters as if he asked them to go with
him. Both men shook their heads in answer. The savage struck his
breast a sounding blow and with his index finger pointed at the
white of the north, he shouted dramatically: "Naza! Naza! Naza!"

He then leaped upon his sled, lashed his dogs into a run, and
without looking back disappeared over a ridge.

The musk-ox hunters sat long silent. Finally Rea shook his shaggy
locks and roared. "Ho! Ho! Jackoway out of wood! Jackoway out of
wood! Jackoway out of wood!"

On the day following the desertion, Jones found tracks to the
north of the camp, making a broad trail in which were numerous
little imprints that sent him flying back to get Rea and the
dogs. Muskoxen in great numbers had passed in the night, and
Jones and Rea had not trailed the herd a mile before they had it
in sight. When the dogs burst into full cry, the musk-oxen
climbed a high knoll and squared about to give battle.

"Calves! Calves! Calves!" cried Jones.

"Hold back! Hold back! Thet's a big herd, an' they'll show fight"

As good fortune would have it, the herd split up into several
sections, and one part, hard pressed by the dogs, ran down the
knoll, to be cornered under the lee of a bank. The hunters,
seeing this small number, hurried upon them to find three cows
and five badly frightened little calves backed against the bank
of snow, with small red eyes fastened on the barking, snapping
dogs.

To a man of Jones's experience and skill, the capturing of the
calves was a ridiculously easy piece of work. The cows tossed
their heads, watched the dogs, and forgot their young. The first
cast of the lasso settled over the neck of a little fellow. Jones
hauled him out over the slippery snow and laughed as he bound the
hairy legs. In less time than he had taken to capture one buffalo
calf, with half the escort, he had all the little musk-oxen bound
fast. Then he signaled this feat by pealing out an Indian yell of
victory.

"Buff, we've got 'em," cried Rea; "An' now for the hell of it
gettin' 'em home. I'll fetch the sleds. "You might as well down
thet best cow for me. I can use another skin."

Of all Jones's prizes of captured wild beasts--which numbered
nearly every species common to western North America--he took
greatest pride in the little musk-oxen. In truth, so great had
been his passion to capture some of these rare and inaccessible
mammals, that he considered the day's world the fulfillment of
his life's purpose. He was happy. Never had he been so delighted
as when, the very evening of their captivity, the musk-oxen,
evincing no particular fear of him, began to dig with sharp hoofs
into the snow for moss. And they found moss, and ate it, which
solved Jones's greatest problem. He had hardly dared to think how
to feed them, and here they were picking sustenance out of the
frozen snow.

"Rea, will you look at that! Rea, will you look at that!" he kept
repeating. "See, they're hunting, feed."

And the giant, with his rare smile, watched him play with the
calves. They were about two and a half feet high, and resembled
long-haired sheep. The ears and horns were undiscernible, and
their color considerably lighter than that of the matured beasts.

"No sense of fear of man," said the life-student of animals. "But
they shrink from the dogs."

In packing for the journey south, the captives were strapped on
the sleds. This circumstance necessitated a sacrifice of meat and
wood, which brought grave, doubtful shakes of Rea's great head.

Days of hastening over the icy snow, with short hours for sleep
and rest, passed before the hunters awoke to the consciousness
that they were lost. The meat they had packed had gone to feed
themselves and the dogs. Only a few sticks of wood were left.

"Better kill a calf, an' cook meat while we've got little wood
left," suggested Rea.

"Kill one of my calves? I'd starve first!" cried Jones.

The hungry giant said no more.

They headed southwest. All about them glared the grim monotony of
the arctics. No rock or bush or tree made a welcome mark upon the
hoary plain Wonderland of frost, white marble desert, infinitude
of gleaming silences!

Snow began to fall, making the dogs flounder, obliterating the
sun by which they traveled. They camped to wait for clearing
weather. Biscuits soaked in tea made their meal. At dawn Jones
crawled out of the tepee. The snow had ceased. But where were the
dogs? He yelled in alarm. Then little mounds of white, scattered
here and there became animated, heaved, rocked and rose to dogs.
Blankets of snow had been their covering.

Rea had ceased his "Jackoway out of wood," for a reiterated
question: "Where are the wolves?"

"Lost," replied Jones in hollow humor.

Near the close of that day, in which they had resumed travel,
from the crest of a ridge they descried a long, low, undulating
dark line. It proved to be the forest of "Little sticks," where,
with grateful assurance of fire and of soon finding their old
trail, they made camp.

"We've four biscuits left, an' enough tea for one drink each,"
said Rea. "I calculate we're two hundred miles from Great Slave
Lake. Where are the wolves?"

At that moment the night wind wafted through the forest a long,
haunting mourn. The calves shifted uneasily; the dogs raised
sharp noses to sniff the air, and Rea, settling back against a
tree, cried out: "Ho! Ho!" Again the savage sound, a keen wailing
note with the hunger of the northland in it, broke the cold
silence. "You'll see a pack of real wolves in a minute," said
Rea. Soon a swift pattering of feet down a forest slope brought
him to his feet with a curse to reach a brawny hand for his
rifle. White streaks crossed the black of the tree trunks; then
indistinct forms, the color of snow, swept up, spread out and
streaked to and fro. Jones thought the great, gaunt, pure white
beasts the spectral wolves of Rea's fancy, for they were silent,
and silent wolves must belong to dreams only.

"Ho! Ho!" yelled Rea. "There's green-fire eyes for you, Buff.
Hell itself ain't nothin' to these white devils. Get the calves
in the tepee, an' stand ready to loose the dogs, for we've got to
fight."

Raising his rifle he opened fire upon the white foe. A
struggling, rustling sound followed the shots. But whether it was
the threshing about of wolves dying in agony, or the fighting of
the fortunate ones over those shot, could not be ascertained in
the confusion.

Following his example Jones also fired rapidly on the other side
of the tepee. The same inarticulate, silently rustling wrestle
succeeded this volley.

"Wait!" cried Rea. "Be sparin' of cartridges."

The dogs strained at their chains and bravely bayed the wolves.
The hunters heaped logs and brush on the fire, which, blazing up,
sent a bright light far into the woods. On the outer edge of that
circle moved the white, restless, gliding forms.

"They're more afraid of fire than of us," said Jones.

So it proved. When the fire burned and crackled they kept well in
the background. The hunters had a long respite from serious
anxiety, during which time they collected all the available wood
at hand. But at midnight, when this had been mostly consumed, the
wolves grew bold again.

"Have you any shots left for the 45-90, besides what's in the
magazine?" asked Rea.

"Yes, a good handful."

"Well, get busy."

With careful aim Jones emptied the magazine into the gray,
gliding, groping mass. The same rustling, shuffling, almost
silent strife ensued.

"Rea, there's something uncanny about those brutes. A silent pack
of wolves!"

"Ho! Ho!" rolled the giant's answer through the woods.

For the present the attack appeared to have been effectually
checked. The hunters, sparingly adding a little of their fast
diminishing pile of fuel to the fire. decided to lie down for
much needed rest, but not for sleep. How long they lay there,
cramped by the calves, listening for stealthy steps, neither
could tell; it might have been moments and it might have been
hours. All at once came a rapid rush of pattering feet, succeeded
by a chorus of angry barks, then a terrible commingling of savage
snarls, growls, snaps and yelps.

"Out!" yelled Rea. "They're on the dogs!"

Jones pushed his cocked rifle ahead of him and straightened up
outside the tepee. A wolf, large as a panther and white as the
gleaming snow, sprang at him. Even as he discharged his rifle,
right against the breast of the beast, he saw its dripping jaws,
its wicked green eyes, like spurts of fire and felt its hot
breath. It fell at his feet and writhed in the death struggle.
Slender bodies of black and white, whirling and tussling
together, sent out fiendish uproar. Rea threw a blazing stick of
wood among them, which sizzled as it met the furry coats, and
brandishing another he ran into the thick of the fight. Unable to
stand the proximity of fire, the wolves bolted and loped off into
the woods.

"What a huge brute!" exclaimed Jones, dragging the one he had
shot into the light. It was a superb animal, thin, supple,
strong, with a coat of frosty fur, very long and fine. Rea began
at once to skin it, remarking that he hoped to find other pelts
in the morning.

Though the wolves remained in the vicinity of camp, none ventured
near. The dogs moaned and whined; their restlessness increased as
dawn approached, and when the gray light came, Jones founds that
some of them had been badly lacerated by the fangs of the wolves.
Rea hunted for dead wolves and found not so much as a piece of
white fur.

Soon the hunters were speeding southward. Other than a
disposition to fight among themselves, the dogs showed no evil
effects of the attack. They were lashed to their best speed, for
Rea said the white rangers of the north would never quit their
trail. All day the men listened for the wild, lonesome, haunting
mourn. But it came not.

A wonderful halo of white and gold, that Rea called a sun-dog,
hung in the sky all afternoon, and dazzlingly bright over the
dazzling world of snow circled and glowed a mocking sun, brother
of the desert mirage, beautiful illusion, smiling cold out of the
polar blue.

The first pale evening star twinkled in the east when the hunters
made camp on the shore of Artilery Lake. At dusk the clear,
silent air opened to the sound of a long, haunting mourn.

"Ho! Ho!" called Rea. His hoarse, deep voice rang defiance to the
foe.

While he built a fire before the tepee, Jones strode up and down,
suddenly to whip out his knife and make for the tame little
musk-oxen, now digging the snow. Then he wheeled abruptly and
held out the blade to Rea.

"What for?" demanded the giant.

"We've got to eat," said Jones. "And I can't kill one of them. I
can't, so you do it."

"Kill one of our calves?" roared Rea. "Not till hell freezes
over! I ain't commenced to get hungry. Besides, the wolves are
going to eat us, calves and all."

Nothing more was said. They ate their last biscuit. Jones packed
the calves away in the tepee, and turned to the dogs. All day
they had worried him; something was amiss with them, and even as
he went among them a fierce fight broke out. Jones saw it was
unusual, for the attacked dogs showed craven fear, and the
attacking ones a howling, savage intensity that surprised him.
Then one of the vicious brutes rolled his eyes, frothed at the
mouth, shuddered and leaped in his harness, vented a hoarse howl
and fell back shaking and retching.

"My God! Rea!" cried Jones in horror. "Come here! Look! That dog
is dying of rabies! Hydrophobia! The white wolves have
hydrophobia!"

"If you ain't right!" exclaimed Rea. "I seen a dog die of thet
onct, an' he acted like this. An' thet one ain't all. Look, Buff!
look at them green eyes! Didn't I say the white wolves was hell?
We'll have to kill every dog we've got."

Jones shot the dog, and soon afterward three more that manifested
signs of the disease. It was an awful situation. To kill all the
dogs meant simply to sacrifice his life and Rea's; it meant
abandoning hope of ever reaching the cabin. Then to risk being
bitten by one of the poisoned, maddened brutes, to risk the most
horrible of agonizing deaths--that was even worse.

"Rea, we've one chance," cried Jones, with pale face. "Can you
hold the dogs, one by one, while muzzle them?"

"Ho! Ho!" replied the giant. Placing his bowie knife between his
teeth, with gloved hands he seized and dragged one of the dogs to
the campfire. The animal whined and protested, but showed no ill
spirit. Jones muzzled his jaws tightly with strong cords. Another
and another were tied up, then one which tried to snap at Jones
was nearly crushed by the giant's grip. The last, a surly brute,
broke out into mad ravings the moment he felt the touch of
Jones's hands, and writhing, frothing, he snapped Jones's sleeve.
Rea jerked him loose and held him in the air with one arm, while
with the other he swung the bowie. They hauled the dead dogs out
on the snow, and returning to the fire sat down to await the cry
they expected.

Presently, as darkness fastened down tight, it came--the same
cry, wild, haunting, mourning. But for hours it was not repeated.

"Better rest some," said Rea; "I'll call you if they come."

Jones dropped to sleep as he touched his blankets. Morning dawned
for him, to find the great, dark, shadowy figure of the giant
nodding over the fire.

"How's this? Why didn't you call me?" demanded Jones.

"The wolves only fought a little over the dead dogs."

On the instant Jones saw a wolf skulking up the bank. Throwing up
his rifle, which he had carried out of the tepee, he took a
snap-shot at the beast. It ran off on three legs, to go out of
sight over the hank. Jones scrambled up the steep, slippery
place, and upon arriving at the ridge, which took several moments
of hard work, he looked everywhere for the wolf. In a moment he
saw the animal, standing still some hundred or more paces down a
hollow. With the quick report of Jones's second shot, the wolf
fell and rolled over. The hunter ran to the spot to find the wolf
was dead. Taking hold of a front paw, he dragged the animal over
the snow to camp. Rea began to skin the animal, when suddenly he
exclaimed:

"This fellow's hind foot is gone!"

"That's strange. I saw it hanging by the skin as the wolf ran up
the bank. I'll look for it."

By the bloody trail on the snow he returned to the place where
the wolf had fallen, and thence back to the spot where its leg
had been broken by the bullet. He discovered no sign of the foot.

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