Shepherds of the Wild/Chapter 17
Chapter XVII
These were not wolves. This fact dawned upon Alice Crowson, running her little flock at top speed toward the camp, before ever she saw their savage forms burst forth from the thickets behind and even before she discerned the twitch and leap of their shadows in the distant stretch of moonlit canyon. Only in the starving time of winter had wolves approached with such terrible fearlessness and frenzy. Nor was the cry that long, strange running song of the wolf pack. She knew their breed. They were enormous hounds: such a savage pack as might have started forth from some awful Underworld of fable.
And it would have been better were they wolves. Not for nothing has man waged immemorial centuries of warfare, not only upon wolves but on the great felines as well. They have been taught a wholesome respect for the tall breed that has come to dominate the earth, and much hunger and madness must be upon them before they will dare raise fang or claw against him. But it is not this way with dogs. They have lived among men since the first days of the cave dwellers; they have found men out; they have been willing slaves and faithful servants, and once the impulse comes to attack, there is no ingenerate barrier of instincts to hold them back.
Alice glanced behind, and the Little People that watch with such bright eyes all the dramas of the forest heard her utter an unfamiliar sound. It sprang instinctively to her lips. "Hugh!" she cried to that beetling silence. "Help me, Hugh." Yet she knew that she cried in vain. She was still more than half a mile from the camp; and Hugh could not hear her, and he could not save.
For the pack had revealed itself. There was a stretch behind her almost bare of underbrush; the great trees laid shadows across it like iron bars across the windows of a cell, and shapeless black shadows were leaping across it. There was a countless number of them, and they seemed to be overtaking her with heart-breaking rapidity. Instantly she knew that she could not hope to reach the camp before they would be upon her.
She must not permit herself to lag behind. Her place was with the sheep. The savage hounds were on their track, and her one hope was that her presence, with the aid of the pistol, might hold them off until she could head the helpless band into the camp. She tried to blind her eyes to another, more dreadful, possibility. This was no time to admit it into her thoughts. But surely, surely they would not attack her. Dogs always barked and menaced, but they rarely really attacked human beings. Yet the thought kept creeping back, haunting her, filling her—in those little seconds of stress in which the pack leaped nearer—with an unnamable horror. It couldn't be that they were so frantic that they would tear her down in order to get at their prey. Fate did not have that in store for her at least,—their cruel fangs at her tender flesh, their leaping, frenzied bodies lingering just an instant beside her, then racing on after the terrified sheep.
It occurred to her that there might be time, even yet, to spring up a tree and leave the sheep to their fate. Yet was not she the shepherdess, the guardian of the flock? But she saw the issue clearly, and her eyes glanced about for some tree with branches low enough where she could climb to safety. But already that chance was lost. She was in a region of open forest—great trees standing one by one with branches starting fully fifty feet above ground—and even now the dogs were at her heels.
She swung about, she saw their huge, dark forms in the moonlight. No man could look into their yellow-green eyes and doubt the madness that was upon them. The pack seemed to divide, some of them closed in, the others circled about and arrested the flight of the sheep. They drew up, wholly enclosed by the savage ring. And Alice reached for her pistol.
Through its long years that forest had never beheld a stranger scene: the huddled band of white sheep, the girl—the eternal shepherdess of the wilderness—standing guard over them, the savage pack in its grim circle. Over it all abided the mystery of the moon, and ranged about were the tall, impassive pines. The high range behind was a sweep of incredible beauty. But just an instant the tableau endured. It broke, the enchanted immobility of the forms gave way to lightning movement, the shadows leaped—met—sprung apart with the sense of infinite motion, the whole scene was in an instant the wild confusion and stress of a nightmare. The hounds sprang toward the sheep.
Alice screamed, cried out, then fired her pistol. Her aim was none too good the first shot. Her terror cost her the steadiness of her hand. Yet at once she recalled the dreadful fact that the only shells she carried were in her pistol, her reserve supply having been packed among her camp supplies, and she must not waste one. But the leaping dogs were an almost impossible target: her second shot succeeded only in scratching along the shoulder of Old Ben, the pack leader, arousing his savagery all the more.
The sheep were dying now. Already the scene was one of unspeakable carnage. Yet it was true that the full madness of the feast of death was not yet upon them. They lingered to worry their dead before springing to a fresh victim. And such times gave Alice her only feeble chance to use her pistol.
The third shot went true: the dog fell kicking in the dry pine needles. Two of the others, maddened by the sight of the death struggle, sprang with revolting fury upon his defenseless body. She fired at them, sobbing when she saw she missed again. It was her fourth shot; and only two remained.
A pistol has never the power of a rifle. It lacks the ability to shock and stun, and, worse, has nothing of its deadly accuracy. And it was all too plain that she had not succeeded in terrifying the pack. Still they plunged at the sheep, avoiding only those that were crowded about her knees, and their fury was increasing with every instant. Every breath saw more of their domestic instincts fall away from them, giving way to the deadly passions of the wild.
She fired the fifth time, and once more she shot true. The dog died in the pine needles. Then she heard the pistol's sharp sound again.
Then, at the darkest thought of all, a sob caught at her lips. Perhaps she should not have fired that last, little remaining pistol ball. For she looked and saw that a new madness, a more terrible ferocity had come upon the pack.
Perhaps it was just that they were launching full upon the feast of death at last. Perhaps the sheep died too tamely, and in their pack strength they were swept with new desires. The pungent smell of blood, the shots, the casualties in their own ranks, and the sight of this slight, sobbing figure in the middle of the white band filled their canine brains with fury and their veins with lust. Their excitement was at the highest pitch: and she raised her voice in a frantic scream for help.
For her eyes had dropped down to Ben, the terrible leader of the pack; and his glowing eyes were no longer fixed upon the sheep. Instead he was crouched, snarling,—just out of leaping range in front of her; and white foam was at his fangs. And then he came creeping toward her, across the blood-stained pine needles.
Out of the comer of her eyes she saw other black forms, all of them snarling, all of them stealing along the flanks of the little flock in her direction. There was no defense. The last cartridge in her little pistol had been spent. Regret, infinitely bitter, seized her at the realization that the last shot should have been saved for her own moment of ultimate need.
Darting down the narrow game trail, Hugh Gaylord sped in the direction of the shots. In all the forest dramas that the pines had looked down upon—the lightning flight of the deer before the wolf pack, the elk speeding madly with the lynx at his flanks—they had never seen a more desperate ride, a wilder race. He had lashed the horse into the fastest pace it knew: not loping, not running easily, but a frantic run to burst open the heart and force the jets of blood through the walls of the veins. Hugh was riding for Alice's life, and the least fraction of the last second might hold the issue.
He had only one thought and one prayer: that he could arrive in time. He scarcely tried to guide the horse. He left it to the animal's instincts to keep to the trail. It was only a little moonlit serpent between walls of brush or through the open tree lanes; it had treacherous turns, and here and there great logs had fallen across it, yet the reins hung loose and he flailed at the animal's side with the strap ends. He didn't know when a low-hanging limb of a tree would crush his skull, when the horse would trip and hurl him to his death. These things simply did not matter. They scarcely entered his mind.
All thoughts of self, even realization of self-identity was gone from him: he was simply the rescuer, speeding to give aid. He suddenly knew—in a blinding flash of light—that in this undertaking not even his own life mattered a hair. If she had been a stranger to him, even the lowliest herdsman, Hugh Gaylord would still have raced to give aid. The Old Colonel had not been mistaken in his judgment of Hugh's basic metal, and he would have stood, bravely and strongly, this elemental test of manhood. But this was more. The forest was shadowed, the trail was dark, yet Hugh saw more clearly than ever before. Life and death were not the only issues now. All of infinity, it seemed to him, hung in the balance; and no inward doubts, no voice of reason could make it less.
In one instant he realized that Alice was in her own being his life and death, his heaven and hell, his spirit and his world and his stars. She called him through the night, and as long as life dwelt in his body he would fight toward her. Her hands reached out to him, and he would grasp them boldly across the yawning chasm. Danger, death, travail and pain were but gifts to give, freely, with never a regret. The way was dark, but an inward light had come to him.
He heard the second shot, then the third and the fourth. He sped on. The clamor of the pack seemed just at hand. Sharp and piercing above it the last shot reached him. And then there was a long delay, a grim silence that seemed to tear him to pieces with horror. Was the fight over? Did she already lie still? The pack, also, was ominously silent, snarling rather than baying. The pistol was empty,—and Hugh guessed the truth.
To Alice, in that forest nightmare of terror, the last hope seemed gone. The great hounds were creeping toward her, strangely wolfine in their stealth, and it seemed to her that their muscles were gathering to leap. She alone stood in the way of the gratification of their lust. Was not the death feast waiting, with only her frail body and her pistol, oddly silent, to stand between? Besides, their madness was at its height.
"Hold firm," a voice kept pleading in her ears. It was the voice of her own being, an inner knowledge that she must still look straight into those lurid eyes. She must not yield herself to terror. To turn, to waver but an instant meant that those white fangs would flash toward her throat. And now the last little vestige of her dominance over them was spent.
She couldn't hold them at bay any more. Ever they were escaping her, they were crouching lower, their fangs were bared and gleaming. And she had thrown away the last, grim chance that her pistol had afforded. No shot remained to put her forever beyond the ravening circle's power to harm. The last gate of mercy was irremediably closed.
She was no longer aware of her own screams—scream after scream that soared and throbbed and died in the silence. They carried far, and they wakened strange conjectures in the dark minds of the coyotes, skulking on a distant trail. The prey was at bay, then, the coyotes knew,—the dog pack was at the kill, and they trembled and shivered themselves with passion. Hugh heard the sounds, and they were like strangling cords about his throat.
The sounds seemed only to further madden the dogs. There was nothing for them to fear—the pistol was silent, the tall, erect form among the sheep had not the strength of the least of them. She stood so slight, so appalled, no more to be feared than one of the ewes that now lay so silent, its whiteness so streaked and stained with red, in the pine needles. Her fate could be the same as that of the lamb, thrown by Fargo to their kennels.
The moment of silence and waiting was almost at an end. In an instant dreadful activity would return to those tense figures, just as when they had attacked the sheep. One little breath remained. Her faltering hands clasped at her breast, as if to shield it.
And then her dull, terror-dimmed eyes saw a strange thing. At first there was only disbelief, then amazement, then a rapturous flood of hope. For the fierce eyes of the dogs were no longer upon her. It was as if they had forgotten her existence, but rather that their attentions had been fixed and held by something beyond the wall of thickets. They were gazing beyond her, and all of them were growling, uneasily, deep in their throats. And at last, in the little interludes between her screams, she heard the wild hoof beats of the approaching horse.
Hugh swept up to her, not daring to fire at first. The dogs were too near to her for that. He sprang with incredible strength from the horse's back, and the butt of his rifle swung high. And there was a strange, half-strangled shriek of a dying hound as the blow struck home.
And that was the first blow of a mighty battle—a fierce conflict to the death that may—for all human beings may know—be cave talk among the beasts until the forests grow old and die. The rifle butt, reinforced with iron, withstood the force of the shock, and he swung it down again. Hugh fought with the fury of a wild creature himself, and behind it was the high purpose and the inner strength that has made man the ruler and master of the earth. But it lasted only a moment. For a time that seemed interminable the animals leaped at the tall figure among them, their fangs tore his flesh and his clothes, and he swung his weapon back and forth like a battle-ax of old. But he was the master, he was of the dominant breed, and more than anything else in the face of this crisis he was not afraid. And the coward that dwells just under the skins of such beasts as these came forth and claimed them.
They broke and fled, one by one, and many were those that lay with broken backs at his feet. The first law of the forest is that it is better to run away than to die; but now they were out of striking range he opened fire upon them with his rifle, and with amazing, deadly accuracy. The air was full of their dying screams. No longer would the pack chase the black bear through the ridges. Their strength was broken and Fargo's plan had failed.
But the moment meant more than this. To Alice it was deliverance in the last instant of despair. Now she lay fainting among the fallen, but Hugh, bleeding and triumphant, saw that she was uninjured. To Hugh it was almost a justification of life itself. He knew the joy of victory, the glory of strength.
And Hugh's strength was still upon him when, after certain hours were done, he came back to the prone body of Fargo—consciousness only half returned to it—beside the dying fire at the sheep camp. He had been sleeping peacefully and was not easy to waken.
"You can have your horse now," Hugh had said, when at last he gained the man's attention. He spoke quite clearly and distinctly, and all matters returned to Fargo's consciousness with a rush. "And, of course, you can have your dogs, too. There's quite a little heap of them for you back there in the forest."
It seemed to Fargo, when he went to look, that only a laugh followed him out of the firelight. It was to haunt him for months, that laugh. There was quite a heap of them,—an impotent heap that Fargo stood by clear into the dawn, strange fumes of rage and hatred in his brain. The buzzards dropped down one by one to see what had interested him.