Northern Trails, Book I. | Page 4

WOLF'S CHALLENGE
WHERE THE TRAIL BEGINS
NOEL AND MOOKA
THE WAY OF THE WOLF
THE WHITE WOLF'S HUNTING
TRAILS THAT CROSS IN THE SNOW
GLOSSARY OF INDIAN NAMES

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
"A QUICK SNAP WHERE THE HEART LAY"
"THE TERRIBLE HOWL OF A GREAT WHITE WOLF"
"WATCHING HER GROWING YOUNGSTERS"
"AS THE MOTHER'S LONG JAWS CLOSED OVER THE SMALL
OF THE BACK"
"THE SILENT, APPALLING DEATH-WATCH BEGAN"

WAYEESES THE STRONG ONE

_The Old Wolf's Challenge_
We were beating up the Straits to the Labrador when a great gale
swooped down on us and drove us like a scared wild duck into a cleft
in the mountains, where the breakers roared and the seals barked on the
black rocks and the reefs bared their teeth on either side, like the long
jaws of a wolf, to snap at us as we passed.
In our flight we had picked up a fisherman--snatched him out of his
helpless punt as we luffed in a smother of spray, and dragged him
aboard, like an enormous frog, at the end of the jib sheet--and it was he
who now stood at the wheel of our little schooner and took her

careening in through the tickle of Harbor Woe. There, in a desolate,
rock-bound refuge on the Newfoundland coast, the Wild Duck swung to
her anchor, veering nervously in the tide rip, tugging impatiently and
clanking her chains as if eager to be out again in the turmoil. At sunset
the gale blew itself out, and presently the moon wheeled full and clear
over the dark mountains.
Noel, my big Indian, was curled up asleep in a caribou skin by the
foremast; and the crew were all below asleep, every man glad in his
heart to be once more safe in a snug harbor. All about us stretched the
desolate wastes of sea and mountains, over which silence and darkness
brooded, as over the first great chaos. Near at hand were the black
rocks, eternally wet and smoking with the fog and gale; beyond
towered the icebergs, pale, cold, glittering like spires of silver in the
moonlight; far away, like a vague shadow, a handful of little gray
houses clung like barnacles to the base of a great bare hill whose foot
was in the sea and whose head wavered among the clouds of heaven.
Not a light shone, not a sound or a sign of life came from these little
houses, whose shells close daily at twilight over the life within, weary
with the day's work. Only the dogs were restless--those strange
creatures that shelter in our houses and share our bread, yet live in
another world, a dumb, silent, lonely world shut out from ours by
impassable barriers.
For hours these uncanny dogs had puzzled me, a score of vicious,
hungry brutes that drew the sledges in winter and that picked up a
vagabond living in the idle summer by hunting rabbits and raiding the
fishermen's flakes and pig-pens and by catching flounders in the sea as
the tide ebbed. Venture among them with fear in your heart and they
would fly at your legs and throat like wild beasts; but twirl a big stick
jauntily, or better still go quietly on your way without concern, and
they would skulk aside and watch you hungrily out of the corners of
their surly eyes, whose lids were red and bloodshot as a mastiff's. When
the moon rose I noticed them flitting about like witches on the lonely
shore, miles away from the hamlet; now sitting on their tails in a
solemn circle; now howling all together as if demented, and anon
listening intently in the vast silence, as if they heard or smelled or
perhaps just felt the presence of some unknown thing that was hidden
from human senses. And when I paddled ashore to watch them one ran

swiftly past without heeding me, his nose outstretched, his eyes green
as foxfire in the moonlight, while the others vanished like shadows
among the black rocks, each intent on his unknown quest.
That is why I had come up from my warm bunk at midnight to sit alone
on the taffrail, listening in the keen air to the howling that made me
shiver, spite of myself, and watching in the vague moonlight to
understand if possible what the brutes felt amid the primal silence and
desolation.
A long interval of profound stillness had passed, and I could just make
out the circle of dogs sitting on their tails on the open shore, when
suddenly, faint and far away, an unearthly howl came rolling down the
mountains, _ooooooo-ow-wow-wow!_ a long wailing crescendo
beginning softly, like a sound in a dream, and swelling into a roar that
waked the sleeping echoes and set them jumping like startled goats