The Way of the Wild | Page 2

come from Heaven knows where, going to--who could tell in the

end?
All at once one fell. Without apparent reason or cause, it fell. And the
wolverine, with his quick, intelligent eyes, watched it fall, from branch
to branch, turning over and over--oh! so softly--to the ground. When he
had poked his way to it--walking flat-footed, like a bear or a railway
porter--it was dead. Slain in a breath! Without a flutter, killed! By what?
By disease--diphtheria. But not here would the terrible drama be
worked out. This was but an isolated victim, first of the thousands that
would presently succumb to the fell disease far, far over there, to the
westward, hundreds of miles away, in England and Wales, perhaps,
whither they were probably bound.
But the poor starved corpse, choked to death in the end maybe, was of
no use to the wolverine. As he sniffed it he found that out. The thing
was wasted to the bones even. And turning away from it--he suddenly
"froze" in his tracks where he stood.
One of those little wandering eddies which seem to meander about a
forest in an aimless sort of way, coming from and going now hither, as
if the breeze itself were lost among the still aisles, had touched his wet
muzzle; and its touch spelt--"Man!"
If it had been the taint of ten thousand deaths it could not have affected
him more. He became a beast cast in old, old bronze, and as hard as
bronze; and when he moved, it was stiffly, and all bristly, and on end.
Animals have no counting of time. In the wild, things happen as swiftly
as a flash of light; or, perhaps, nothing happens at all for a night, or a
day, or half a week. Therefore I do not know exactly how long that
wolverine was encircling that scent, and pinning it down to a certain
spot--himself unseen. All animals, almost, can do that, but none, not
even the lynx or the wild cat, so well as the wolverine. He is the one
mammal that, in the wild, is a name only--a name to conjure with.
He found, in the end, that there was no man; but there had been. He
found--showing himself again now--that a man--a hunter, a trapper, one
after fur--had made himself here a cache, a store under the earth;

and--well, the wolverine's great, bear-like claws seemed made for
digging.
He dug--and, be sure, if there had been any danger there he would have
known it. He dug like a North-Country miner, with swiftness and
precision, stopping every now and again to sit back on his haunches,
and, with humped shoulders, stare--scowl, I mean--round in his
lowering, low-browed fashion.
Once a bull-elk, nearly a six-footer, but he loomed large as an elephant,
came clacking past between the ranked tree-boles, stopping a moment
to straddle a sapling and browse; while the wolverine, sitting
motionless and wide-legged, watched him. Once a lynx, with its eternal,
set grin, floated by, half-seen, half-guessed, as if a wisp of wood mist
had broken loose and was floating about. Once a fox, somewhere in the
utter silence of the forest depths, barked a hoarse, sharp, malicious
sound; and once, hoarser still and very hollowly, a great horned owl
hooted with disconcerting suddenness. (The scream of a rabbit
followed these two, but whether fox or owl had been in at that killing
the wolverine never knew.) Twice a wood-hare turning now to match
the whiteness of its surroundings, finicked up one of the still, silent
forest lanes towards him, stopped, faced half-round, sat "frozen" for a
fraction, and vanished as if it were a puff of wind-caught snow. (And,
really, one had no idea till now that the always apparently lifeless forest
could have been so full of life in the dark hours.)
But all these things made no difference to the wolverine, to Gulo,
though he "froze" with habitual care to watch them--for your wild
creature rarely takes chances. Details must never be overlooked in the
wild. He dug on, and in digging came right to the cache, roofed and
anchored all down, safe beyond any invasion, with tree-trunks.
And--and, mark you, not being able to pull tree-trunks out of the
ground, and being too large to squeeze between them, he gnawed
through one! Gnawed through it, he did, and came down to the bazaar
below.
So far, he had been only beast. Now we see why I said he had more
brains than were good for any animal except man.

He bit through the canvas, or whatever it was that protected the cached
articles. He got his head inside. He felt about purposefully, and backed
out, dragging a trap with him. With it he removed into the inky
shadows, and it was never