Читать книгу Dusty Star - Olaf Baker - Страница 9

Table of Contents

Running Wolf was like his name. He was always on the move. Ever since Dusty Star could remember anything at all, his father had been going and coming, disappearing without warning, and re-appearing unexpectedly, as if the feet of many wolves went hunting in his blood.

It was in the Red Moon, the moon of the harvest, that he now made up his mind to pay a visit to his tribe, and see how the world wagged itself where great Chiefs and Medicine-men smoked the medicine-pipe together in the wonderful painted lodges very far south. But as the journey was a long one, and the cold weather would follow the geese, before he could return, he decided that the whole family should travel with him, and take up their winter quarters with the tribe.

Once Running Wolf had made up his mind, there was not a moment to lose. Almost before you could have believed it possible, Osikomix, the piebald pony, had the lodge-poles fastened to his back, and the entire family—Nikana, Dusty Star, Blue Wings and Kiopo—were on their way, following the direction the wild geese would take when they left the vast northern waters when the call came from the south.

Their way lay at first through the meadows of high bunch-grass that lay beside the stream, where the alders were tinged with faint purple, and all the willow thickets shone a fine clear red. Kiopo badly wanted to stop and hunt mice, but Dusty Star made him clearly understand that no loitering by the runways was possible now, and that he must keep in his place in the procession behind Osikomix and Running Wolf.

After a while they came to the country of the cottonwoods, where the trees were turning yellow, and where the sarvis berries were scarlet like flame. And they reached the borders of the great southern prairies where the low roll of the ridges seemed to have no end.

Dusty Star was very excited. He had never travelled so far on the prairies before, nor imagined that the world could be so tremendously big. And he knew that somewhere out in that always increasing bigness lay the great camp for which they were bound. He had never seen such a camp, but his mother had told him stories. He knew it was full of people—braves, squaws, papooses—very many papooses, like the baby-sister which Nikana was now carrying on her back. And there was feasting and dancing, and pony-racing, and being religious, though the last was not at all tiresome, being full of buffalo dances, and wolf songs, and generally ending in a sarvis-berry stew. What Nikana omitted to mention, were the huskies: so Dusty Star did not know that every Indian camp swarmed with huskies—dogs that were half-wolves, always hungry, always quarrelling, always ready for a fight; and—what was even more important—Kiopo did not know.

At sundown, Running Wolf made his camp. The spot he had chosen was at the foot of a low cliff, under which ran a river, which would have to be forded before they could proceed on their journey. Running Wolf attended to Osikomix. Dusty Star helped his mother to collect brushwood for a fire. Kiopo went hunting along the river bank to get an evening meal. Blue Wings was the only person who remained idle. Yet even she sucked her thumb with unceasing perseverance, and made soft glug-glugging noises in her little Indian throat.

That night when Dusty Star had lain down in his buffalo-robe bed, with Kiopo curled at his feet, he stayed awake a long time. He listened to the voices that seem born of the darkness—the hoot of the little grey owl from the swamp across the river, the evening call of coyotes among the prairie bluffs and those other small mysterious sounds that creep about the silence without paws or walking feet. And overhead was the night—the enormous Indian night, with all its glittering fires—stretched like a huge tepee from horizon to horizon, though the stars upon its sides were anything but dusty, and if the Great Spirit walked there, he was careful that his moccasins should not crush the tiny stars. And when at length Dusty Star fell asleep, he dreamed of a great hunting across the windy places of the sky, where the buffaloes clashed their horns against the cliffs of Heaven, and the wolf-pack woke the echoes in the hollows of the moon.

The fording of the river next morning was a great delight. Dusty Star rode on his father's back, and Blue Wings went on her mother's. Osikomix, splashed grandly across, taking the water up to his belly. But when the party had reached the opposite shore, Dusty Star found that Kiopo was left behind. There he stood looking anxiously at the water, and enquiringly at his owners, as if asking which of them was coming back to fetch him. But as it was soon made plain to him that no one intended to do so, and that the party was preparing to continue on its way, he put his courage into all his paws and plunged into the stream. It was the very first time he had taken to the water, but his instinct taught him what to do, and he swam bravely across, dragging himself up the opposite bank, a little half-drowned caricature of a wolf, panting with excitement and pride.

After that, there were no more adventures for the day. At night, they camped as before, and again Dusty Star dreamed of the great hunting that swept between the stars.

It was in the afternoon of the nineteenth day's travel that they came at last within sight of the camp. When Dusty Star saw the great number of tepees crowded together, his eyes grew big with amazement. He had not thought there could have been so many lodges in all the world. To him it was a huge prairie city, whose houses were built of buffalo, with doors of buckskin at which no one ever knocked.

If Dusty Star's eyes were filled with wonder at the sight of so many tepees, Kiopo's nose was tickled with amazement at the quantity of smells. Every bush, every stone, every clump of grass he came to, told him of a dog. It might have been expected that fresh scents would greet him in a land of many trails. But so much smell (in, other words, so much dog) at once, was overpowering, and disturbed his peace of mind.

Nothing could have been quieter or more orderly than the manner in which the travellers approached the camp. It is true that Kiopo was a little in advance, and that his hair was bristling uneasily between his shoulders, but that was only to be expected with so much smell in the air. Suddenly, without a moment's warning, a large hairy body sprang with a snarl from a clump of bunch-grass, and rushed savagely upon him. Now for all his dog training with his Indian friends, Kiopo was, in the mind of him, as well as in the muscle, a genuine wolf. So, when the husky rushed, Kiopo leaped aside, as the wolves leap. Before his enemy charged again, the long wolf fangs glittered; there was a lighting plunge of the whole body, and down the husky's haunch went a long clean rip. The husky turned in fury, and his teeth shut like a trap. They closed—but not on the little wolf. They clashed on an inch of clear atmosphere which lay to the west of Kiopo's hairy neck. And in almost the same moment, the husky got a second slash.

But alas for Kiopo! Wolf-like though his tactics were, he was not yet old or powerful enough to fight with more than one foe at once. His enemy's attack was a signal to all the huskies on that side of the camp. The moment before, hardly another husky was to be seen. Now they seemed to spring from every tepee and clump of grass. At least a dozen bore down on the combatants in a yelping, snarling pack. In an instant, and before Dusty Star could do anything to save him, Kiopo had disappeared from sight under a mass of writhing bodies, legs, and tails. Dusty Star was desperate, and cried wildly to his father and mother to save his little wolf. Fortunately it was not the first time that Running Wolf and Nikana had had to disperse a mob of Indian dogs. With loud yells and violent kicks they charged the rolling heap. Several Indians, hearing the commotion, came running to their aid. Dusty Star himself was foremost in the attack, yelling, kicking, pulling, pounding with all his might, utterly regardless as to whether he might be bitten or not. Wild with fury against the huskies, and his deadly fear lest Kiopo should be killed, he hurled himself on the pack like a little demon.

Mercifully for Kiopo, the very number of his enemies saved him from serious harm, for he was so completely covered by them that only a few could reach him with their teeth, and many of the bites that should have been for him fell to the share of a husky; so that, while half the pack appeared to be worrying Kiopo, they were in reality falling foul of each other to his decided advantage. Kiopo, on the other hand, never ceased for an instant to use his powerful teeth. No need for him to watch for a chance to bite. He had simply to work his jaws like a piece of perfect machinery. He fought with all the desperation of an animal caught in a trap. What roused him to fury was not so much the combined attack, as the being pinned down by numbers so that he was powerless to escape. Every muscle in his strong young body was contracted to the utmost. Not even a fully-grown wolf could have fought with more determination and pluck.

At last the huskies, beaten and kicked on all sides lost heart and were driven off. What was left on the ground was an extremely mauled and tumbled specimen of what less than five minutes before had been a very trim little wolf.

Instantly Dusty Star was on his knees beside his pet. Kiopo was bleeding in various places, and panting hard. Dusty Star put his arms round him, and besought him not to die. To die, however, was one of the last things Kiopo intended to do. Exhausted he might be, and wanting to get his breath, but his body was sound and his spirit unbroken. In the eyes that looked up gratefully into those of his big brother, there shone a clear, unconquerable light. Very soon he was able to get up and shake himself. Then, keeping a wary eye on all sides, he walked forward with his party, and so entered the camp.

Although his reappearance alive, when, according to all husky calculations, he ought to have been dead, was the occasion for many growls, and a threatening show of teeth, his enemies did not venture to attack him again. Unwelcome though he was, it was plain that he had come among them under the protection of powerful friends. An unprotected stranger would have indeed led "a dog's life," and sooner or later, died a dog's death, unpitied to the last. But into their hard husky intelligence, this fact had embedded itself like a stone: What the lord-humans protect, it is dangerous to attack.