All day Buck brooded by the pool or roamed restlessly about thecamp. Death, as a cessation of movement, as a passing out and awayfrom the lives of the living, he knew, and he knew John Thornton wasdead. It left a great void in him, somewhat akin to hunger, but a voidwhich ached and ached, and which food could not fill, At times, when hepaused to contemplate the carcasses of the Yeehats, he forgot the pain ofit; and at such times he was aware of a great pride in himself,--a pridegreater than any he had yet experienced. He had killed man, thenoblest game of all, and he had killed in the face of the law of club andfang. He sniffed the bodies curiously. They had died so easily. Itwas harder to kill a husky dog than them. They were no match at all,were it not for their arrows and spears and clubs. Thenceforward hewould be unafraid of them except when they bore in their hands theirarrows, spears, and clubs.
Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into the sky,lighting the land till it lay bathed in ghostly day. And with the coming ofthe night, brooding and mourning by the pool, Buck became alive to astirring of the new life in the forest other than that which the Yeehats hadmade, He stood up, listening and scenting. From far away drifted afaint, sharp yelp, followed by a chorus of similar sharp yelps. As themoments passed the yelps grew closer and louder. Again Buck knewthem as things heard in that other world which persisted in his memory.
He walked to the centre of the open space and listened. It was the call,the many- noted call, sounding more luringly and compellingly than everbefore. And as never before, he was ready to obey. John Thorntonwas dead. The last tie was broken. Man and the claims of man no longer bound him.
Hunting their living meat, as the Yeehats were hunting it, on theflanks of the migrating moose, the wolf pack had at last crossed overfrom the land of streams and timber and invaded Buck's valley. Intothe clearing where the moonlight streamed, they poured in a silveryflood; and in the centre of the clearing stood Buck, motionless as astatue, waiting their coming. They were awed, so still and large hestood, and a moment's pause fell, till the boldest one leaped straight forhim. Like a flash Buck struck, breaking the neck. Then he stood,without movement, as before, the stricken wolf rolling in agony behindhim. Three others tried it in sharp succession; and one after the otherthey drew back, streaming blood from slashed throats or shoulders.
This was sufficient to fling the whole pack forward, pell-mell,crowded together, blocked and confused by its eagerness to pull downthe prey. Buck's marvellous quickness and agility stood him in goodstead. Pivoting on his hind legs, and snapping and gashing, he waseverywhere at once, presenting a front which was apparently unbrokenso swiftly did he whirl and guard from side to side. But to preventthem from getting behind him, he was forced back, down past the pooland into the creek bed, till he brought up against a high gravel bank.
He worked along to a right angle in the bank which the men had made inthe course of mining, and in this angle he came to bay, protected onthree sides and with nothing to do but face the front.
And so well did he face it, that at the end of half an hour the wolvesdrew back discomfited. The tongues of all were out and lolling, thewhite fangs showing cruelly white in the moonlight. Some were lyingdown with heads raised and ears pricked forward; others stood on theirfeet, watching him; and still others were lapping water from the pool.
One wolf, long and lean and gray, advanced cautiously, in a friendlymanner, and Buck recognized the wild brother with whom he had run fora night and a day. He was whining softly, and, as Buck whined, theytouched noses.
Then an old wolf, gaunt and battle-scarred, came forward. Buckwrithed his lips into the preliminary of a snarl, but sniffed noses withhim, Whereupon the old wolf sat down, pointed nose at the moon, andbroke out the long wolf howl. The others sat down and howled. Andnow the call came to Buck in unmistakable accents. He, too, sat downand howled. This over, he came out of his angle and the pack crowdedaround him, sniffing in half- friendly, half-savage manner. The leaderslifted the yelp of the pack and sprang away into the woods. The wolvesswung in behind, yelping in chorus. And Buck ran with them, side byside with the wild brother, yelping as he ran.
* * *And here may well end the story of Buck. The years were not manywhen the Yeehats noted a change in the breed of timber wolves; forsome were seen with splashes of brown on head and muzzle, and with arift of white centring down the chest. But more remarkable than this,the Yeehats tell of a Ghost Dog that runs at the head of the pack. Theyare afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has cunning greater than they, stealingfrom their camps in fierce winters, robbing their traps, slaying their dogs,and defying their bravest hunters.
Nay, the tale grows worse. Hunters there are who fail to return tothe camp, and hunters there have been whom their tribesmen found withthroats slashed cruelly open and with wolf prints about them in the snowgreater than the prints of any wolf. Each fall, when the Yeehats followthe movement of the moose, there is a certain valley which they neverenter. And women there are who become sad when the word goes overthe fire of how the Evil Spirit came to select that valley for an abiding- place.
In the summers there is one visitor, however, to that valley, of whichthe Yeehats do not know. It is a great, gloriously coated wolf, like, andyet unlike, all other wolves. He crosses alone from the smiling timberland and comes down into an open space among the trees. Here ayellow stream flows from rotted moose- hide sacks and sinks into theground, with long grasses growing through it and vegetable mouldoverrunning it and hiding its yellow from the sun; and here he muses fora time, howling once, long and mournfully, ere he departs.
But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come onand the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seenrunning at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight orglimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throata-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.
The End
