The Way of the Wild | Page 6

the lid of a lead
box, very low down. He stood higher against the tree-trunks than he
had done the night before, and, though he did not know it, was safe
from any horse, for the snow was quite deep. The cold was awful, but it
did not seem to trouble him, as he slouched slowly southward.
There appeared to be nothing alive at all throughout this white land, but
you must never trust to that in the wild. Things there are very rarely
what they seem. For instance, Gulo came into a clearing, dim under the
night sky, though it would never be dark that night. To the ear and the
eye that clearing was as empty as a swept room. To Gulo's nose it was
not, and he was just about to crouch and execute a stalk, when half the
snow seemed to get up and run away. The runners were wood-hares.
They had "frozen" stiff on the alarm from their sentries. But it was not
Gulo who had caused them to depart. Him, behind a tree, they had not
spotted. Something remained--something that moved. And Gulo saw it
when it moved--not before. It was an ermine, a stoat in winter dress,
white as driven snow. Then it caught sight of Gulo, or, more likely, the
gleam of his eyes, and departed also.
Gulo slouched on, head down, back humped, tail low, a most
dejected-looking, out-at-heels tramp of the wilderness.
Once he came upon a wild cat laying scientific siege to a party of
grouse. The grouse were nowhere to be seen; nor was the wild cat, after

Gulo announced his intention to break his neutrality. Gulo knew where
the grouse were. He dug down into the snow, and came upon a tunnel.
He dug farther, and came upon other tunnels, round and clean, in the
snow. All the tunnels smelt of grouse, but devil a grouse could he find.
He had come a bit early. It was as yet barely night, and he should have
waited till later, when they would be more asleep. However, he dug on
along the tunnels, driving the grouse before him. And then a strange
thing happened. About three yards ahead of him the snow burst--burst,
I say, like a six-inch shell, upwards. There was a terrific commotion, a
wild, whirring, whirling smother, a cloud of white, and away went five
birds, upon heavily beating wings, into the gathering gloom. Gulo went
away, too, growling deep down inside of, and to, himself.
He was hungry, was Gulo. Indeed, there did not seem to be many times
when he was not hungry. Also, being angry--not even a wild animal
likes failure--he was seeking a sacrifice; but he had crossed the plain,
which the night before had been as a nightmare desert to him, and the
moon was up before his chance came.
He crossed the trail of the reindeer. He did not know anything about
those reindeer, mark you, whether they were wild or semi-tame; and I
do not know, though he may have done, how old the trail was. It was
sufficient for him that they were reindeer, and that they had traveled in
the general direction that he wanted to go. For the rest--he had the
patience, perhaps more than the patience, of a cat, the determination of
a bulldog, and the nose of a bloodhound. He trailed those reindeer the
better part of that night, and most of the time it snowed, and part of the
time it snowed hard.
By the time a pale, frozen dawn crept weakly over the forest tree-tops
Gulo must have been well up on the trail of that herd, and he had
certainly traveled an astonishing way. He had dug up one lemming--a
sort of square-ended relation of the rat, with an abbreviated tail--and
pounced upon one pigmy owl, scarce as large as a thrush, which he did
not seem to relish much--perhaps owl is an acquired taste--before he
turned a wild cat out of its lair--to the accompaniment of a whole
young riot of spitting and swearing--and curled up for the day.

He was hungry when he went to sleep. Also, it was snowing then.
When he woke up it was almost dark, and snowing worse than ever. If
it could have been colder, it was.
While he cleaned himself Gulo took stock of the outside prospect, so
far as the white curtain allowed to sight, and by scent a good deal that it
did not. This without appearing outside the den, you understand. And if
there had been any enemy in hiding, waiting for him outside, he would
have discovered the fact then. He had many enemies, and no friends,
had Gulo. All that he received from all whom he met was hate, but