Part 12

"Francois is a Breed," asserted Mooswa; "and days are like the little sticks the Breed-men use when they play cards--something to gamble with."

"The Pack could be ready if the Man pressed too close as you led him to our Man-Cub," suggested Rof.

"I do not fear him the first day," continued Mooswa; "Man's speed is always the same and I can judge of it; it is the second day, when I am tired from the deep snow, that a little rest, too long drawn out, or a misjudged circle with one of the followers travelling wide of my trail, that may cause me to come within reach of their Firestick."

"Well, you might not reach Red Stone Brook in one day," asserted Blue Wolf; "so perchance you may need help the second. You'll find the Man just below Big Rapids."

"I'll start to-night," said Mooswa, "for The Boy must get help from his own kind soon. He is sick of the wounded leg--also of a half-filled stomach; but then there is another illness that neither I nor any of us can understand. Perhaps it is of that thing the Factor said Men had and would sell for the evil fire-water--the soul. One time the eyes of The Boy are all right, even as yours, Rof, or mine, seeing the things that are; and then a look comes in them that is like the darkening of a purple Moose-flower when the sunlight is suddenly chased away by a cloud. Then this Boy, that is a Man-Cub, talks to his Mother, and his Sister, and calls to the things he names Angels, up on the roof; though I know not what they may be, because it is only little humpbacked Carcajou dropping wood down the chimney. Yes, that's what it must be," Mooswa continued, reflectively, "the sickness of this Soul-thing the Men-kind have, for The Boy laughs, and cries, and his eyes blaze, and look soft like one's young, and flood with tears, and glare hot and dry. Yes, he must have help from his own kind, for we know not of this thing.

"With good fortune I may lead this Man to him by the coming of darkness the first day; if not, then Blue Wolf will stand guard on my trail the second."

"Yes, even the first day, also, will I be near," asserted Rof.

FRANCOIS AT THE LANDING

As Mooswa tramped down the wide roadbed of frozen river, Francois, up at The Landing, was doing very much as the Bull Moose had feared.

He had weathered the blizzard, lying huddled up with his dogs in the shelter of a cut-bank, not daring to stir even for food till the fury of the icy blast had passed. He had even come to The Landing with a full resolve to go back immediately after he had secured his outfit; alas! for the carrying out of it, he was but an easily influenced Half-breed. At The Landing were several of his own kind down from Little Slave Lake with the first kill of Winter fur. With these the possession of money or goods always meant an opportunity for gambling.

Francois had a "debt credit" at the Hudson's Bay Company's store equal to the value of his needs; any Trapper who has kept his slate clean in the Company's accounts can usually get credit for a small outfit.

When the Half-breed had completed his purchase, the Factor tossed him a large plug of smoking tobacco, which was the usual terminal act of a deal in goods in any of the Company's posts.

Francois filled his pipe, sat down by the hot box-stove with its roaring fire of dry Poplar-wood, and smoked, and spat, and dilated upon the severity of the blizzard, and regaled the other occupants of the Trading Post with stories of Wolverine's depredations. Suddenly he ceased speaking, held the pipe in his hand hesitatingly, and straightened his head up in a listening attitude. The deep, sonorous, monotonous "tum-tum, tum-tum, tum-tum" of a gambling outfit's drum-music came sleepily to his acute listening ear. It was like a blast from the huntsman's horn to a fox-hound; it tingled in his blood, and sent a longing creeping through his veins.

"There goes that Nichie outfit from Slave Lake again," cried the Factor, angrily. "They've gambled for three nights; if the police were here I'd have a stop put to it."

Francois tried to close his ears to the coaxing, throbbing, skin-covered tambourine the gambling party's music-maker was hammering that still, frosty night; but his hearing only became acuter, for it centred more and more on the thing he was trying to keep from his mind. Even the "Huh, huh!--huh, huh!--huh, huh!--huh, huh!" of the half-dozen Indians who sat about a blazing camp-fire, and rocked their bodies and swayed their arms in rhythmic time, came to him with malevolent fascination.

"I t'ink me I go sleep," Francois said, knocking the ashes from his pipe, and putting it in his bead-worked deerskin fire-bag.

"You'd better pull out sharp in the morning," commanded the Factor; "young McGregor will be running short of grub before you get back."

"I roun' up ever' t'ing to-night," returned Francois, "an' hit de trail firs' t'ing in de mornin', soor. I make me de S'ack in t'ree day."

Outside, the "Tum-tum" called to him; the "Huh, huh!" pleaded with him like the voice of a siren. He would go and sit by their fire just for a little, the Breed reasoned--not play! for more than once he had been stripped to his very shirt when luck set against him. True, other times he had accumulated furs, and dogs, and guns, even the caribou-skin coats, and Cow-boy hats--fine valuable hats worth ten dollars a piece,--when fortune smiled and he had guessed unerringly in which hand his opponent-player had hidden the cartridge shell, or whatever other token they used.

"Huh-huh! Francois! Huh, Boy--Welcome!" went round the circle of squatting figures when the Half-breed stood amongst them. The musician stopped beating his instrument; solemnly each player and onlooker held out a hand and gave Francois one sharp jerk of greeting. Two rows of men sat facing each other, a big blanket over their knees; room was made for the new arrival.

"S'pose I not gamble to-night me," said Francois, hesitatingly.

They laughed in astonishment--doubtingly.

"S'pose you 'fraid you lose, Man-who-saves-his-money," cried a Saltaux Indian, disdainfully.

Now a Breed or an Indian must not be accused of being afraid of anything; if he be, and submit to it, he is undone for all time. Half their bravery is due to this same moral cowardice. Francois hesitated, and the others, ignoring him, drew the blanket over their knees; the player secreted the tokens, and drawing forth his hands crossed his arms, always waving them in rhythmic time to the tum-tum. Then the Man-who-guesses in the opposite party indicated with his fingers where he thought the tokens were hidden.

It wasn't in human blood to stand out against this thing--not generations of gambler blood, and Francois cried, half fiercely: "Make room, Brothers! We'll see who's afraid."

That was the beginning. In the end, which came toward daylight, Francois had neither grub-stake, nor rifle, nor train-dogs. Time after time he took in exchange for some asset a little bundle of Red-willow counter sticks; time after time the little sticks, some long and some short, dwindled until they were all gone. The evil fate that had been his down at the trapping stuck to him in gambling.

Broken, and half numbed by loss of sleep and a sense of impending disaster, brought on by his despoiled condition, Francois crawled off to a friend's tepee, laid down like a train-dog, and fell asleep.

MOOSWA BRINGS HELP TO THE BOY

Mile after mile Mooswa cut from the head-trail with his easy-swinging rack, the strong crust of frozen snow giving his great limbs free play.

The open bed of the river held just such a run as he liked: no tree branches to catch his huge horns, no fallen tree giving cover to a stalking Panther or strange Wolf Pack; and, as if to make his trip perfect, he was running up a North Wind. He was like a telegraph operator sitting at his clicking instrument with the wires telling him everything.

"A brother Moose crossed here, just a hundred yards ahead," the Wind whispered one time. "Wh-f-f-f-! it was a Bull, too," the scent-wind told his delicate nostrils. "Ugh-wh-e-e-e-f-f-! Sikak has crossed the trail here, and killed the strongest scent left by any other--disgusting little brute!" This message Mooswa took from the wind, and repeated to himself. For a mile his nostrils were simply stricken dumb by the foul odour; his nose told him nothing of other affairs.

Then for a matter of ten miles there was but the sweet breath of Spruce as the wind filtered through a long point covered with it. "Line clear," the frosty air signalled, as Mooswa, taking a straight course for the merging of dark green and river-white, raced eagerly.

At the "Second Rapid," where the float-ice had grounded on rock-boulders in the Autumn closing-time, the river bosom humped like a corduroy road. "I must remember this spot on my coming back," Mooswa muttered, as he picked his way more slowly over the troubled ice-road. "Here I can make a big run if enemies are close," he added as a stretch of many miles reached away, level as a mill pond.

"Wolves! the Gray Hunters! the Murder Brothers who go in packs!" he said, as his quick-feeling nose picked their presence from the North Wind. "Not Rof's Pack," he continued, sampling the scent a little finer--"Strangers!" and he watched warily, cocking his ears forward for a warning whimper.

"Huh! they're busy!" for as he flashed over their cross-trail there arose the fainter odour of Caribou. "Safe journey, cousin," he muttered, "and confusion to the Throat-cutters. It's the Meat-eating, the Blood-drinking," he philosophized, "that breeds all the enmity in the Boundaries. There are Grasses, and Leaves, and Flowers enough for all, and no encroachment, if we'd only stick to it; but eating one's Comrades is what makes the trouble."

Just before daylight Mooswa stopped, climbed up a sloping bank warily, and ate a light breakfast; then slipped back to the river-bed, huddled up in the lee of a clay-cut, and after resting for two hours pushed on again. Another ten miles and he stopped like a flash, holding his head straight up wind, the coarse, strong-growing hairs over his withers vibrating with intensity. "Sniff! sniff! Dogs! Man! Rof said nothing of Dogs. This makes it more complicated. It is the scent of White Men, and the Dog-smell is not that of Huskies. These Whites sometimes bring the long-legged creatures that follow us like Wolves."

He worked cautiously down the river till his eyes caught sight of a blue smoke-feather floating lazily upward.

Five or six short steps at a time, three or four yards he moved,--then stopped and watched with eyes, ears, nose, and all his full sensibility. He knew the Man-trick of a flank movement--he must get them out on the river behind him; besides, there was now the stronger, more certain odour of Dogs.

He was perhaps a matter of half a mile from the little Shack above which twisted the spiral curl of smoke, when a fierce, strong-throated "Yap! yap! Whe-e-e, yap!" cut the frosty air.

"I thought so," Mooswa muttered. "I know that breed--the fierce-fanged ones the Scotch Factor had at Fort Resolution--from his own Boundaries across the sea they came. They are like the Men themselves--on, on, rush and hold. Deep-chested, small-gutted as Caribou; with long legs that carry them over the snow like those of my own family; gray-haired and strong-jawed, like Blue Wolf: but weak in the feet--small-footed, with hair between their toes which balls up in the snow and makes them go lame." Then Mooswa considered the task he had undertaken.

"If the Man slips the Dogs, and the snow keeps hard and dry, there will be more fighting than running," he said to himself, "for these brutes will come faster than I care to go. But there is a strong crust, strong enough to bear me, and if the sun warms the snow so that it will ball in the haired toes, then I'll have a chance in the run. The Man moves," he continued, whiffing at the air. "Two of them!" he muttered, as their forms outlined against the morning sky; "Rof brought tidings of but one. Now for it! I'm coming, Boy!"

He turned and walked slowly back on his track, breaking into a shuffling trot farther on.

In a few minutes the two men, snow-shoe clad, rifle in hand, and cartridge-belted, reappeared circling through the woods on the bank. With one of them were four Scotch Stag-hounds in leash. Mooswa's eyes took in the situation as he trotted, carrying his head a little to one side. "The flank movement," he muttered, "and a stolen shot at the next bend--they'll not slip the Dogs while they have hope of a shot."

When the first river-bank point hid him from their sight he raced. "They're running now," he thought, for he was down wind from them, and the telegraph was working.

When the two hunters reached the belly of the next bend they saw a big Bull Moose quietly browsing at the point beyond. He was walking slowly, snipping at the tree branches as he moved.

"Keep the dogs back," one hunter said; "we are sure to get a quiet shot at him, for he's on the feed."

Point after point, bend succeeding bend, Mooswa played this game; mile after mile they toiled, the tantalizing expectation of a stolen shot leading them an amazing distance on the Moose trail.

"It's the Stag-hounds that keep him moving," remarked the man who had spoken before; "he's down wind, and gets them in his big, fat nose--if I could rustle a shot into his carcass, I'd slip them quick enough; but if we let them go now it will be a play of twenty or thirty miles before we get another sight of him. I'm not struck on following a Bull Moose under full trot with a pack of dogs behind him."

"We'll get a shot on the quiet soon," remarked his comrade. "He is a bit on edge just now, but will settle down after he has seen us a few times." They had given up travelling in the bush, and were following straight on the hoof-marks in the river-bed.

"Hello!" sang out one, pointing to a depression in the snow, "he's been lying down resting here--he's getting fagged. Somebody else must have been running him before we struck his trail--he's nearly beat."

As they crossed the Wolf trail Mooswa had found on his way down, the Trapper in the lead said, significantly, "It's the Gray Hunters have done the Bull up; they've been after him, and he's dead beat."

The big Stag-hounds sniffed the Wolf trail, dropped their long, bony tails in sullen fear, raised their heads, and bayed a howling note of defiance.

"Shut up, Bruce!" exclaimed one of the men, pulling at the raw-hide leash, "you'll be better up against a Moose than tackling that gang."

Now the mark in the snow had been made by Mooswa just to draw the hunters on; he wasn't tired, for the hard crust held him up, and he could have kept that gait for two days.

They had travelled probably thirty miles when the leader said, "Better slip the dogs, Mac, this Moose is putting up a game on us; he's as cunning as an old fox, and we'll lose him to-night, I'm afraid."

When the straps were unbuckled the Scotch hounds broke into a chorus of delight: "Yi, yi, yi, yi! yap! yap! yi, yi! Bah-h-h! Bah-h-h!" stretched their long limbs and raced on the Bull Moose's trail. That showed a strain of Collie blood in their veins, for if they had been pure bred they would have run silent, and by sight only.

"Pleasant greeting that," muttered Mooswa, as his flanks lengthened out in a terrific pacing gait.

"We're coming--we're coming! yi, yi!" sang the Stag-hounds, their heads low to the snow; their lean flanks stretching out until they seemed like something shot from a catapult. But swift as they were, Mooswa was swifter. They were running at high pressure, straining every nerve, using every ounce of speed that was in their wire-haired bodies; the Bull was running with a little in hand--something in reserve. "They will upset everything," he thought. "Those blood thirsters will chase me on past the Shack, and the Men may never see it."

At the Second Rapid, with its tortuous ice-humps, the Bull lost a little ground--he had to go slower. The dogs, quicker of foot, and able to turn sharper, gained on him. Each time they caught sight of their prey they gave a savage yelp of eager exultation, and ran with heads high--ran by the eye.

"Sing, gaunt Brothers!" said Mooswa; "on the level you'll have to run with your bellies closer to the trail to keep your advantage."

Well clear of the Rapid ice, the Bull again swung his awkward-looking body forward with increased pace. Suddenly a hoof crashed through the crust almost bringing him on his nose; before he had gone a hundred yards this happened again. Fringed by giant Spruce, tall banks on either side had stood as barrier between the fierce biting frost-wind and snow crust; also the day's hot sun was beginning to rot its brittle shell. Oftener and oftener it broke under the racing Moose; the lighter dogs ran freely over its treacherous surface. The Bull looked over his shoulder at his pursuers; they were gaining--he could see that. "Six points more to the Shack," he muttered, as he rounded a low-reaching headland that turned the river wide in its snake-like course. Animals count river distances as do the Indians, so many land points from one place to another; Mooswa's six points were a good ten miles.

Each time he floundered in the deep Snow his swift-running enemies gained at least a dozen yards.

"I wish Blue Wolf were here," thought Mooswa; "I'll never make the Shack. I'll try a Boundary Call." He stretched his throat, and called, "Wha-a-a--i-i-n-g," which is not unlike the cry of a Rook. The hounds answered with an ironical yell; but another sound struck the runner's ear, very faint, and very far ahead; it was the Help-call of The Boundaries--Blue Wolf's voice.

"Good old Rof!" cried the Moose, as he shot forward with revived strength.

The hounds were now running by sight, head up all the time. Every few minutes Mooswa repeated his signal--each time it was answered ahead, stronger and closer; and behind him the eager yap! of the pursuers was drawing nearer. "There'll be more fighting than running presently," he thought; "it's just as well--if Rof has the Pack, it won't take long to settle these hungry Hunters."

Rounding the next bend a clear stretch of two miles lay straight away, and at the farther end of it his trained eye discovered three moving specks. Behind him, not thirty yards back, raced the dogs.

"It will be a battle," he muttered; "four against four--four of the Boundaries in the Starvation Year, against four Fish-fed Dwellers in Man's camp."

Another mile and the foremost dog was snapping at the Bull's hocks, just falling short each jump; but Blue Wolf and his comrades were only a stone's-throw off.

As Mooswa and his pursuers neared the great, gaunt, blue-coated Wolf, the latter crouched--chest, and neck, and jaw flat on the snow; behind, well spread in rigid leverage, were the strong, gnarled legs. A length off two younger wolves waited ready for battle, flat-lying as their leader. Mooswa understood. As he slashed by Blue Wolf, almost touching him, the close-following Stag-hound sprang for his quarters, all but dragging him to earth; but the fangs failed to hold, tearing a gash down Moose's thigh, and as the Dog fell sideways a pair of jaws, strong as a bear-trap, closed on his lean throat.

"Hold fast, Brother!" wheezed Mooswa, swinging around in his own length, and making a vicious sword-cut at the hound's back with his iron hoof. A second dog sprang at the Bull's throat, only to strike the big antlers quickly lowered to guard it.

Rof's two sons had closed with the other hounds, and a battle to the death raged. There was not much noise, only a snarling sucking from where Blue Wolf's fangs were fastened in the throat of the hound he had pinned down.

Once Mooswa got a clean slash at his fighting dog with a fore-foot that laid the brute's shoulder open; once the dog fastened in Mooswa's throat as the treacherous crust gave way and threw him off his guard. It seemed anybody's battle. Blue Wolf knew better than to let go the first hold he had taken. It was said in the Boundaries that long ago, two or three generations back, a Bull-dog had mated with one of his ancestors, and the strong strain had more than held its own--the way of the Bull-dog, which is to catch and hold, against the way of the Wolf, which is to cut and jump, cut and jump. Certain it is that Rof fought as no other Wolf ever did--except his two Sons, holding and sucking, and working his jaws saw-like, as an Otter-hound does, more and more into the grip. But the Stag-hound had a well-fed strength which stood him in good stead. Over and over the two rolled; the hound's jaws fastened on one of Blue Wolf's fore-legs, close to the paw. The bone had been broken long ago--chewed into splinters, and the pain was terrific; but if Blue Wolf had the tenacity of the Bull-dog strain, he also had the wild wisdom of the Wolf brain, and he knew that to let go meant death.

Once something swept the hound sideways with terrific force from over the top of Rof, almost breaking the dog's back; that was a little side help from the shovel-horns of Bull Moose. Up to that time it had been all hoarse growls from the strong-fighting animals, for the advantage had lain not much on either side. Suddenly a "Wh-u-f-f! ki-yi-yi-yi--wh-e-e-e, yi-i-i," dying into a piercing treble, went up. Mooswa was grinding his dog into the snow-crust with his hundred-pound antlers. A lucky pass with a fore-foot had brought the hound down, and before he could recover, Mooswa had thrown the weight of his fighting charge upon him, and was cutting his steel-gray body into fragments.

There was still hot work to be done, for one of the young Wolves had been overcome, stretched out with a broken neck, and the released dog was helping his comrade pull down the other. They were both at him when Mooswa charged. Once, twice, three times, as a trip-hammer hits hot iron, the heart-shaped hoofs, knife-like on the edges, smote the dogs, for they were taken unawares; then, as before, his horns made the work complete.

As Mooswa straightened himself a little staggeringly, for his throat was badly torn, there were only two left fighting; all the rest were dead--the two sons of Blue Wolf, and the three Stag-hounds.

"Thanks, Brother," said Blue Wolf, rising on weak legs, as a deft, dragging blow from Moose's right arm laid open the hound's stomach, and finished the work Rof's fast-tiring strength was hardly equal to. "Very neatly done--I could almost fancy it was a rip from Muskwa's paw. My two Lads are done for," he whined piteously, looking at the gaunt, gray bodies stretched out on the white snow, all splashed crimson with red wine from their veins. "Wolf-blood and Dog-blood--it scents much alike," he said, turning his head away, as he sat on his haunches holding up a broken leg. Drip, drip-drip, drip, little red drops ate their hot way into the snow from Bull-Moose's neck.

"That is a nasty slash, Mooswa," sympathized Blue Wolf, looking at his companion's wound.

"We twig-feeders have strong gullets," answered the Bull, "else it had been worse. There's nothing torn, for I still breathe through my nose; but for many a day you'll hunt on three legs because of me, Comrade."

"I suppose so," moaned Blue Wolf, regretfully, licking nervously at his crushed paw. "I'll mate well with Black King. But it is all in the life of the Pack, and not your fault; no one takes blame to himself who calls when his life is at bay. Where go you, Brother--how far back are the Hunters?"

Mooswa straightened his head sharp into the wind--it still held steady from the North. "Their scent comes from the second point, and we must trail again; the Firestick is not like a Dog--it bites beyond reach. Get in my horns, Rof, and I'll carry you."