The Cross Pull/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI
There was one man who had given many interesting facts to the world. He had unravelled the half-century old mystery of the lost herd. All that men knew of the swift-fox was through his research. He had definitely linked the buffalo gray with the so-called lobo wolf.
Great beasts had come down out of the north and it was rumored that for the first time moose had been seen in the beaver swamps of the Thoroughfare. This man was now on his way to the Land of Many Rivers to determine whether this new western moose was a distinct type or merely a detached band strayed down from their northern range.
Far up Seclusion Creek Moran lay rolled in his blankets, his head propped up on one elbow as he listened to the night sounds which he loved so well and had not heard for so long a time. A cow elk barked from the timber; from far down the stream came the shrill staccato of a coyote, and another answered from above. An owl on the rim-rocks overhead hooted his whereabouts to a far off mate. These sounds, the very essence of loneliness to most men, were the voices of old friends to Moran. He read in them more of primitive love and understanding of savagery.
There was a sudden hush, and for a space of minutes no living creature raised its voice. Moran had heard no sound to indicate the reason for this but he knew that the wild things of the hills could hear things much too distant to be detected by the ear of man. This sudden suspension of all animal communications, the absolute cessation of every note, meant but one thing to Moran. As unerringly as if he himself had heard it he knew that somewhere a wolf had howled. Yet Moran knew too, that this high country was not infested with wolves. This one must be a straggler passing through.
Moran had stopped for the night at the lower edge of the snow line and when he rolled his pack in the morning it took him less than an hour to climb out of the spruce belt above: the timberline. He worked his way on up the divide and before noon he stood in the Rampart Pass. The serrated masses of the Rainbow Peaks, the ragged saw-teeth of the Tetons, and the other distant ranges that walled in the Land of Many Rivers showed up in miniature, clear cut and distinct, broken only by the dark rents which marked each wild gorge through which the rivers rushed on their way to the low country.
The south slope of the divide was streaked with brown where the more exposed spots were free of snow. Moran chose a long ridge that swept down far below timberline, its bald crest looming above the trees and splitting the solid green of the spruce belt, and followed it down the far side of the divide.
When well down among the trees three jays flew above him, rending the air with weird squawks. He watched them pitch down into an opening in the timber. An eagle swooped grandly down out of the sky, and a string of chattering magpies flitted from tree to tree toward the same spot. Two ravens winged down from a cliff face, one of them croaking hoarsely and the other emitting a series of clear tenor whistles, each note ending with a click as if a sharp rap on the beak had chopped each whistle short.
Moran knew what this feathered conclave presaged. The meat-eating birds of the hills were assembling to the feast. He would find some carcass in the opening, and he turned aside to investigate. The carrion hosts flapped away at his approach, protesting raucously at this interruption of their banquet. Out in the open spot he could see a dead cow elk.
Moran knew there were but three beasts in the hills who could kill an elk; the grizzly, the mountain lion and the wolf. The fact that the elk lay in open country eliminated the first. Few grizzlies are killers and those who are invariably stalk their prey in dense, down-timbered spots. They must creep close enough for a short rush and then tear and hammer down their meat by sheer strength. The mountain lion launches himself for the back, strikes his talons deep through skin and flesh and rides his victim to death, his teeth buried ever deeper in the neck.
As Moran drew near he had no slightest doubt as to the identity of the slayer. The severed hamstrings convicted the wolf.
The birds had hopped about and obliterated most of the other signs. In a spot of moist earth he could make out one track and whistled in surprise at its size. He wondered if it was possible that one last buffalo gray still lingered in the hills.
He had come down from winter to spring. Here each open spot was green and the drifts only laid in the darkest, most sheltered spots in the timber. As he walked under the trees Moran whistled cheerfully.
He had a sudden feeling that something watched him—followed him. Many times he had tried to analyze this feeling. All men who live in the open are familiar with it. They variously speak of it as a “feeling” or a “hunch.” Others, slightly more learned, refer to it as intuition or class it as some mysterious, subtle sixth sense. Moran strove always for some natural explanation of all things.
Often when hunting or rambling in the hills he had suddenly known that game was near him. He could not tell why he knew. At times he had even known the kind—bear, elk or deer as the case might be. Later, upon investigation, he frequently found a fresh bear track or the warm bed of some elk or deer if the animal itself was gone. There is a strong odor that lingers for hours about the deserted bed of a large animal and when very close to it even the nose of man can easily tell the difference between the scent of deer and elk. It was this fact that had first started Moran’s mind working along one certain line until he had finally evolved a satisfactory theory of his own.
In the dim ages of the past man had undoubtedly used his senses of scent and hearing as keenly as the beasts, else he had not survived. From long centuries of disuse these senses had become dulled yet they still functioned slightly. Some faint scent or sound, the snapping of a twig or the soft pad of a distant footfall, too elusive to make a distinct impression upon the consciousness of modern man, was communicated to some long dormant brain cell which now only reacted sluggishly and the warning was manifested by this vague feeling, hunch or intuition that all hill men know.
This was Moran’s solution and as he walked he kept his face straight to the front, glancing to the right and left without turning his head, seeking ocular proof of the presence he felt. His patience was rewarded by one brief glimpse of a long gray shape that slipped between the spruce trunks a hundred yards up the slope and that one instant enabled him to identify the animal as belonging to the wolf tribe. His thrill of satisfaction was accompanied by a shock of surprise.
Moran knew that the tales of animals who stalk men through the hills originate mainly in the too imaginative minds of novices in the woods. Animals who had lived in localities little frequented by man had sometimes approached him out of curiosity. He had seen deer draw near and stamp excitedly at this strange two legged beast—many such evidences as that—but to be followed was something entirely new. To be followed by a wolf, the one creature who avoids man scent like a pestilence, was almost incredible to Moran. It upset all the convictions formed by years of study.
This beast must be a dog. Moran turned back until he reached a long drift that stretched far up the slope along the sheltered side of a gulch and started up to find the track where the wolf had crossed. The tracks of dogs and wolves are so similar that even experts can not always be sure. The wolf track is slightly, almost imperceptibly longer than that of some dogs but the large, wolfish types of dogs incline also to that shape of track.
One thing Moran knew. A wolf’s track would be evenly spaced and placed one directly before the other in a straight line and show no trace of the wavering, scrambling gait of the dog. But some of the wolfish breeds of dogs inherit this wolf gait and the one glimpse had proven that the animal was of that kind.
Moran found the trail across the drift, true, straight and evenly spaced; still he was not convinced. A sudden thought flitted across his mind.
“Flash!” he called. “Flash! Come out of it, you big gray rascal. Come on out here.”
He knew that Flash’s body had never been found after the shooting at the Bar T ranch. The Wind River wolf had never reappeared on the range and it was presumed that Flash was dead. There was just a chance that he had survived.
Moran called again and again.
Out in the timber Flash thrilled and trembled. First the sound of the whistle; then the familiar appearance of the man he followed and the scent he knew for Moran’s; now the much loved voice; all senses coordinated and Flash knew that this was Moran. He longed to go to him but hard experience had taught him that all men, even former friends, now sought his life.
He circled several times clear around the spot where Moran sat on a log. Moran caught occasional glimpses of him through the trees. It was Flash!
Each circle was drawn closer. Flash heard the glad note in Moran’s voice. Moran carried no rifle but there was a holster at his hip and Flash had learned to dread all guns. At last he stood in plain sight, standing rigid fifty yards away down an aisle through the trees.
Foot by foot he approached. He whined and this was the first sound Moran had ever heard from him. When he stood within ten feet of Moran his conflicting emotions were so powerful that he writhed his head from side to side and clashed his teeth in savage snaps to relieve the inner strain, baring his fangs terribly but whining eagerly at the same time.
When at last Moran touched him all doubt was gone. In his frantic joy he abandoned his usual dignity and threw his weight upon him so recklessly that Moran braced himself to keep from being overthrown.
At the end of an hour Moran started on and Flash stayed so close as to almost touch him. When they reached a spot where several canyons branched off, Flash trotted ahead and stood in a break in the rims through which a game trail pitched down over the lip of a deep gorge. He looked back expectantly at Moran.
“You think that’s the best one to follow down, old boy?” said Moran. “All right, we’ll try it.” And Moran started along the trail that tacked dizzily down the nose of the canyon. After striking the bottom it followed a tiny stream which grew steadily larger, fed by springs and melting drifts.
After a mile of this Moran noted wolf tracks in the trail. It was padded thick with them.
“You old rascal, you’ve been holding out here for a long time,” he said.
Flash turned aside and started up through the down timber of the slope. Moran was not surprised. He had a sudden hope that Flash was mated and that he would find the den under a windfall or among the rocks at the base of the cliff. It was late for pups to remain at a den but wolves sometimes mated late. This was no place for a wolf den but it was possible.
Flash watched Moran. The man kept on as if he had not noticed. Flash whined after him. He ran around in front and once more turned up the slope.
“What’s up there, Flash?” asked Moran. “What do you want to show me?” He smiled as he thought of the consternation his appearance would occasion a she wolf if the den were really there. He turned and followed Flash up the slope.
He stopped and stared incredulously at the cabin. It was old and moss covered. The occupant had left no tracks on the game trail. This must be the refuge of some hermit—some fugitive who avoided men.