Читать книгу Blood on the Trail - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 4

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The horror that came over the wolf was greater than Gray Cloud would have felt had the red rim of the running fire topped the line of hills at that instant. Fear does not depend upon reason, but upon instinct. And the instinct of Gray Cloud taught him that nothing in the world, not the puma, not the grizzly bear, is to be dreaded half as much as man is to be feared.

The other looked over his shoulder toward the direction of the fire, frowned, shook his head, and then raised and pointed the rifle in his hands.

By making an effort, the lobo could barely manage to stand, and this Gray Cloud did, his short, furry ears pricking. He knew perfectly well what happened on occasions like this. The brief thunder spoke; the animal dropped; the end had come. But the quickest way was the best way.

Big Dave Reagan lowered the rifle after an instant and shook his head again.

“Game,” he said aloud. “Dead game.”

He considered the bright, yellow eyes. Steadily they looked back into his.

Then he looked again over his shoulder, and as he did so, the prairie fire topped the horizon and dipped over the brow of the hill into the hollow.

Dave Reagan started. It was time for him to be on the move. And if he wished to have the scalp of Gray Cloud to show, and one of those forefeet to prove that he really had found the famous prowler, it was time to kill the wolf and use the knife with haste; the fire was coming fast.

But he was a simple soul, this Dave Reagan. His cousins, with whom he lived, called him a half-wit; nearly everyone on the range smiled and shrugged shoulders when his name was mentioned. At least, he was so simple that he could not pull the trigger on this beast, and he knew it. He had shot many another wolf in the traps, but this one was different. Perhaps Gray Cloud’s fame changed his status and made his yellow eyes seem more fearless, more understanding, more human, as it were.

Instead of shooting, Dave Reagan made up his mind to another course, though he grunted and swore a little as he did so, knowing that he would be accused of folly. He took out a long cord, noosed an end of it with deft fingers, and flung the noose over the muzzle of the wolf.

Gray Cloud did not stir. He allowed the noose to be drawn tight while his gaze remained, fascinated, upon the approaching line of fire. It had seemed to him, at first, that death by the hand of man was the most terrible of all. That was before man had come. Now, with an age-old dread, he watched the running line of the fire, and saw the flames toss up into high heads when they reached and consumed a longer and richer tuft than usual.

It would be at him soon, eating his great body as it would eat a log of wood. The dread of it made his throat dry and puckered his eyes. He was almost unaware of what the man beside him was doing, until the noose was fast above his jaws and tied back around his neck to hold it securely in place.

Then Dave Reagan sprang the jaws of the locks with the might of his hands, picked up his prize as shepherds pick up a lamb, and slung the heavy burden over his great shoulders.

The fire was not twenty yards away, running fast. Hardly another man on the range could have endured the blast of heat and smoke as long as he had already endured it. But now he bowed his head so that the wide brim of the hat might offer some protection to his face, and ran forward straight toward the line of fire, but at its thinnest and lowest point. He closed his eyes. Flame gushed up around him. He ran on, paused, threw the wolf to the ground, and beat out the fire that had started in his trousers legs.

He would be reproved for that, he well knew. When another garment had to be provided for him, the whole family always looked upon him with savage eyes.

When he recovered himself, he was amazed at two things—first, that the captive had not taken this moment to make off, and second, that Gray Cloud had not put his teeth in his benefactor while he was being carried—for the cord had been slipped already from the muzzle!

The first problem was easily solved. The traps had been fixed in the fore and hind leg on the right side. Had they been alternate, Gray Cloud might have hobbled away at a staggering lope. As it was, he could not move without falling down. He was barely able to stand, shifting his feet a little as the heat of the ground burned his pads.

The matter of the failure to flee was settled, then, but why had not Gray Cloud used his teeth on a human enemy?

That was a greater mystery.

Dave Reagan had no solution for it. But, as a matter of fact, he was accustomed to being bewildered; he could merely let his mind leap forward to a definite conclusion.

Gray Cloud thought that he had met a friend! Dave stepped closer. The wolf did not snarl or snap. Instead, Gray Cloud turned his head and looked after the line of the retreating fire. A miracle had been performed for him. It would be hard to say that there was really gratitude in his heart, but at least he knew that he was still helpless. He might sink his teeth in the leg of the man, but he could not leap as high as the soft throat, where the human life lay—not from those crippled legs of his. So he endured.

He was shuddering in every limb at the closeness of the human scent, and the smell of steel and gunpowder was rank in his nostrils. But he had learned the philosophy of the wilderness. When death comes near—well, it has long been known; it is a familiar thing! The caged lion is as fierce in its instincts as when it was roaming through the jungles, but in the cage it knows its helplessness, and allows itself to be whipped and prodded around the floor.

So Gray Cloud stood still.

The man reached down and laid a hand on his head.

It was not such a fearless thing as it seemed. Those jaws might be swift to turn and snap, but the hand was swift, also. And if the jaws were strong, there was crushing power in the man’s fingers.

Gray Cloud could not know that, but he could recognize fearlessness. It is the first of all qualities that appeals to beast or to the human mind. Besides, he was helpless.

It was by no ordinary process that Dave Reagan reached his next conclusion. To kill the trapped wolf had seemed murder of a special sort. To kill the animal after he had, in a measure, risked his own life for that of the beast, was tenfold murder. Besides, suppose that he could walk into the back yard of the house of his cousins with that famous captive? That would be something worth while.

He was rarely able to make them exclaim, except in disgust or in contempt. They called him “fool” and “half-wit” to his face. No labor was sufficient to win praise from them. Whatever he did was wrong, and his happiest days were those on which the fewest words were addressed to him. But now, if he returned with the equivalent of twenty-five hundred dollars, could they keep from praising him?

He smiled with a strange eagerness, as wistful as an unhappy child.

He could lash the jaws of the wolf securely this time; but, on the other hand, half the glory would be gone from him if he came in with a victim helplessly tied. The miracle was, in his case, to keep those famous jaws inactive, but not by sheer force.

He leaned lower. Gray Cloud did not stir. His yellow eyes turned green, but that was all. His teeth were not showed.

Nothing can be done without risk. That was an early lesson in the hard life of young Dave Reagan. In a moment more he had caught up the wolf like a sack and had the animal over his shoulders again!

He had steeled himself to feel the slash of the teeth, but there was not so much as a growl. Gray Cloud submitted. He had been carried once before in this manner, and taken through consuming fire. Other strange things might happen, besides, this was no time, obviously, to translate thought and fear into toothwork.

It was four miles to the Reagan house, and Gray Cloud weighed a hundred and thirty pounds, though there was hardly an ounce of fat on him. Yet the man carried that burden the entire distance, only resting twice on the way.

And each pause was memorable to Gray Cloud.

For he was replaced on the ground the first time beside a brook, and there he was allowed to drink his fill. Now and then, guiltily, he jerked up his head and looked into the face of the man, but danger was not threatened. And the water slaked such a thirst as he never had known before—more than two days of dreadful famine!

He lay down, his eyes closed, panting. He rose and drank again. When he was sufficed, he rested once more, and now the man, the familiar, the ancient enemy, washed the fever from the trap wounds and tied up the hurts with bits of rag.

Gray Cloud lowered his head and sniffed at the process once. Then he drew himself back into his attitude of calm indifference. Miracles were still happening. He could not understand, because nothing like this had ever happened to his ancestors except, far away in the past, certain strange events with red Indians. Some of these, perhaps, moved faintly in the current of his blood, not coming into the mind, but helping to control his actions.

He was lifted again onto the shoulders of the man, and the powerful muscles worked and stirred and slid like snakes beneath him as Dave Reagan stepped on.

The second halting place was at another brook. Gray Cloud drank again, luxuriating in the cool of the water. Most of the pain had left his wounds.

And again he was lifted, and carried straight on to the house of the man.

As it rose out of the trees, a single tremor ran through him, yet his body remained limp.

Then dogs rushed out, half a dozen of them, and made straight for them. He started to struggle, but a terrible roar came from the throat of the man, and the house dogs slunk away.

The wolf settled down on those competent shoulders. There was much to fear, of course, but in one thing there could be placed some trust—this strange creature which stood like man, walked like man, and carried the scent of humanity, plus steel and gunpowder. Yet there was a difference. In the profound depths of his mind, Gray Cloud registered that difference, and found his mind overwhelmed.