Wolf pack

“ Not even an inexperienced ear could have any delusions about the pack song now. It was that oldest of wilderness songs, the hunting-cry,—that frenzied song of blood-lust that the wolf pack utters when it is running on the trail of game. It had found the track of living flesh at last.
"There's no use stopping, or trying to climb a tree," Dan told them simply. "In the first place, Lennox can't do it. In the second, we've got to take a chance—for cold and hunger can get up a tree where the wolf pack can't." ”

“ Their long white fangs snapped, and the fire in their eyes took a different hue.
Very well the dark wolf knew the meaning of the halt, the turn, the change in his fellows' eyes. He knew the stern law of the pack—the instant and inevitable doom of its hurt member. The average gray wolf knows how to accept the inevitable. Fate itself—the law of the pack—he does not presume to defy. He will fight—to justify his blood, and, perhaps, to drug his despair and die in the heat of the struggle. ”

“ I also imagined I detected the noise of padded feet and the scraping noise of claws on the wood. A shudder ran through me. Was a panther, a mountain lion, about to spring [210] upon me? No, I abandoned the thought and instinctively I knew that it must be one of the black wolf pack. Then I remembered hearing the cracking and breaking of sticks or timber while I was trying to sleep in the bedroom, and I felt that Pluto had broken out of the pen and was creeping up on us slowly and stealthily as I have seen a fox creep up on a covey of quail. ”

“ The Baron had come up with his huntsmen, riding at their head, and almost riding on the tails of his dogs, his eye flashing, his nostrils dilated, exciting the pack with wild shouts and furious blasts, digging his spurs into his horse’s sides whenever an obstacle of any kind caused it to hesitate for a single instant. The black wolf, on his side, still held on at the same rapid pace; although sorely shaken at hearing the fresh pack in full pursuit only a short way behind him, just as he had got back to the forest, he had not lost an inch of ground. ”

“ The creature was fully one hundred yards distant, yet Dan could hear him with entire plainness. And for a while he couldn't even guess what manner of thing it might be.
A cougar that made so much noise would be immediately expelled from the union. A wolf pack, running by sight, might crack brush as freely; but a wolf pack would also bay to wake the dead. Of course it might be an elk or a steer, and still more likely, a bear. He stood still and listened. The sound grew nearer. ”

“ After the fashion of the old Mosaic law, which somehow is written on the very face of the wilderness as one of its necessities, he decides that only life for life will compensate such loss. The danger of hunting the big, brown wolf—he knows too well to attempt it without help. He will bait his small traps with poison; take out his big, steel wolf traps to-morrow; then with a band of young braves follow the wolf-pack's trail during this lull in the hunting season. ”

“ The trail of a wolf pack is never a dull trail, and at first I gave myself up to full enjoyment of it, here puzzling over a record that I could not understand, [247] there finding another so typical that at times I seemed to be trailing a band of roving dogs. Wolves do not blunder through a region; they are alive and inquisitive every moment, the youngsters especially. In this pack the loup-garou and a big female held together (it was the end of winter, near the mating season) , while the cubs and yearlings were continually going off on side tours of investigation. ”

“ And there is no living thing in these woods that can stand against a wolf pack in its full strength."
"Except man, of course."
"A strong man, with an accurate rifle, of course, and except possibly in the starving times in winter he'd never have to fight them. All the beasts of prey are out to-night. You see, Dan, when the moon shines, the deer feed at night instead of in the twilights and the dawn. And of course the wolves and the cougars hunt the deer. It may be that they are running cattle, or even sheep." ”

“ CHAPTER X PRETTY SHELLS’ DISTRESS DELOS CONKLIN had caught four of the six miscreants of the wolf pack which so long had troubled the stock range. Lop-Ear, the leader, had succumbed to skill and luck. The wolver’s task was therefore probably accomplished, for the two remaining members of the band, the slender half-breed wolf-dog and the female, would hardly have the strength or ability to carry on a proportionately destructive career, even if they still had the will to continue their raiding. ”

“ She felt the crowding in of the dark woods whose shadows fell upon her cabin.
In the morning she went along the edge of the timber on the south side of the lake and found where the deer had been ambushed by the clever brutality of the wolf band. The deer had landed on a sand spit, partly grown to brush and shrubs. As the animal surged toward the cover of the woods the leader of the pack cut in from behind and doubtlessly had hamstrung the tired buck. And there the other wolves had charged in from the shadows to finish and devour. ”

“ The great, gray leader of the pack, a wolf that weighed nearly one hundred pounds, began slowly and deliberately to set his muscles for the spring. It was the same as when the great bull elk comes to bay at the base of the cliffs: usually some one wolf, often the great pack leader, wishing to remind his followers of his might, or else some full-grown male proud in his strength, will attack alone. Because this was the noblest game that the pack had ever faced, the leader chose to make the first leap himself. ”

“ The eagle screamed, descended like a thunderbolt and skilfully avoiding the branching antlers, struck the bull, driving one talon into the neck and the other into the back, flapping its huge wings as it tore with its beak at the body of the elk like a trained “bear coote.”
I was thunderstruck. The evident partnership of the wolves and bird needed explanation and it was not long in coming. A shrill whistle pierced the air, the black wolves immediately ceased to worry the elk, the eagle soared overhead, and for an instant the elk stood confused, then leaped high in the air and fell dead. ”

“ THE night after the wagon came down from the Singing Birds all the sleepers in the ranch were awakened by the passing of Lop-Ear’s pack in the dark. Yelping wraiths of the sage and alkali, they filled the vast Flats of the Dancing Maids with their jubilant squealing, baying, careless rage. It was as if they were taunting the humans who listened, despite themselves, shivering at that challenge out of an ancient past when human beings must stand back to back, clubs against fangs in defense of life. The wolves were crossing from the Sparkling Dawns to the Needle Tops. ”

“ I cried impatiently; “this is no four-legged witch nor bear either. That was a man and when he thought he would be followed he put on moccasins made from bears’ paws to leave a disguised trail. And moreover I believe that man is none other than the Wild Hunter without his wolf pack. And that pass is the pathway he takes in and out of this park. I’m going to trail him whether you want to or not. ”

“ THEN Lop-Ear came with his pack. She had nearly forgotten the presence of these attractive outlaws. The moon was shining. The cabin pond was like a pool of milk, it was so bright and full of light. The trout swimming through the water were black fish-shapes and cast black shadows on the white-sand bottom. Migrant birds were chirruping uneasily in the trees, as if they were still on their way in the night. The green timber forest had awakened, as the desert does, in the evening. And then as they topped a ridge or knob far away, the voices of the wolves became clamorous in the gloom. ”

“ Moose Ear, here, will conduct you to your rooms and I will take a turn about the place before retiring to see that all is well, and also to see that my black wolf pack is securely confined within the wolf corral. This is a precaution, gentlemen, which I take every night, because a wolf is a wolf no matter how well trained he may be upon the surface, and night is the time wolves delight to run. These beasts are especially dangerous to strangers and it is for that reason I am putting [204] you in the house in place of allowing you to camp outdoors, as I know you would prefer to do. ”

“ There came a day, in this land of plenty, when the wolf-pack split in half and went in different directions. The she-wolf, the young leader on her left, and the one-eyed elder on her right, led their half of the pack down to the Mackenzie River and across into the lake country to the east. Each day this remnant of the pack dwindled. Two by two, male and female, the wolves were deserting. Occasionally a solitary male was driven out by the sharp teeth of his rivals. In the end there remained only four: the she-wolf, the young leader, the one-eyed one, and the ambitious three-year-old. ”

“ The peaceful atmosphere, the rare and lovely sensation of safety and complaisance had been shattered by the wolves’ deer hunt. The hermit Indian woman retreated behind her barred door and sat wrapped in a robe before the fireplace in which she heaped up an armful of wood. The omen was only too significant. When lobos come through it means trouble. Even great bears listen with ill patience to those scoundrels.
The pack was intact. She had heard every voice, counted six different brutes by the vibrations of their throats. ”

“ Far away on the ridge top, a pair of wolves sat together with no more evidence of life than two shadows. One of the most effective accomplishments a wolf possesses is its ability to freeze into a motionless thing, so the sharpest eye can scarcely detect him in the thickets. It is an advantage in hunting, and it is an even greater advantage when being hunted. Yet at the same second they sprang up, simply seemed to spin in the dead pine needles, and brought up with sharp noses pointed and ears erect, facing the valley. ”

“ He raised his rifle and singled out the great, gray wolf that appeared to be commander-in-chief of the creatures. This was a huge animal with bristling hackles who was covered with wounds and scars received no doubt in defending his title of leader of the pack.
Sandy took careful aim between the wolf’s blazing yellow eyes that shone in the gathering dusk like signal lamps. He pulled the trigger and a blaze and a sharp crack followed. Mingled with them was the death cry of the big gray wolf. ”

“ And she knew that the Wolf and Pideau had foregathered to complete their plans for the conveyance of those five hundred gallons of liquor.
She turned from her window. She picked up her fur coat. She clad herself against the storm. Then, closing down the stove damper for safety, she passed out of the home of the wolf pack.
Pideau was lounging back in his hard square chair in the office of the store. His ill-shod feet were thrust up on the desk which was the repository for such accountings as his partnership with the Wolf necessitated. His mood was more than usually suspicious. ”

“ But, collectively, the Wolf is one of the most dangerous animals that can be found. Herding together in droves when pressed by hunger, the wolves will openly hunt prey, performing this task as perfectly as a pack of trained hounds. Full of wiles themselves, they are craftily wise in anticipating the wiles of the animals which they pursue; and even in full chase, while the body of the pack is following on the footsteps of the flying animal, one or two are detached on the flanks, so as to cut it off if it should attempt to escape by doubling on its pursuers. ”

“ At their advent five wolf-dogs leaped up snarling from their rest beside the stove.
“Lie down!” gurgled Cantine’s and Blera’s rescuer.
He kicked the dogs soundly in the ribs till they retreated into the huge empty wood-box that stood behind the stove.
“I don’t like the brutes inside,” he mumbled, still wrestling convulsively to get rid of the gagging pilot-bread, “but it’s a case of have to keep them inside or get them eaten whole. Tutchi’s Village is full of savage semi-wolves, and they run the river in a hunt-pack every night.” ”

“ Annette started back as though he had struck her in the face. Her lips sucked in the cold air, and the color faded out of her cheeks.
“Me hand them—penitentiary? Me?” she gasped.
“Do you want to herd with the wolves in snow-time? Say, there’ll be no marrying talk when the Wolf knows. The Wolf, who reckons you’re marked down his chattel. The Wolf, who you can’t ever hope to stand up to.” ”

“ AFTER the reappearance of the sun I came to a region where the Lapps among whom I lived were in great fear of wolves, for three packs of them had made their appearance in the forests about one hundred and fifty miles away to the eastward, and the news had come to the people.
One day as I was in the tent watching the meal that was being cooked, one of the Lapps said to me, "We dread the wolves. No animal is as cunning as a wolf when he is hungry, and the Chief of the Pack is chosen by them as their leader because he is the most cunning of them all." ”

“ He knows how to make Injuns love him and varmints fear him, he kin pack all his duffle in my bag, he need not cough up eny money when he’s with me. Reckon we be alright here, but waugh! we’ve gotter watch tha’ black wolf pack!—yes and also that young Indian whose ram you shot; it seems he looks after the wolves and sees to it that they are fastened up in their corral. ”