Part 2

As the chorus died, the wolf gave a loud yelp and rushed out into the night. A terrible rage seized Antoine. He leaped from his furs and ran out after the wolf. She fled with a rapid, swinging trot over the scintillating snow toward the concourse of her people. The man fled after, slipping, falling, getting up, running, running, and ever the wolf widened the glittering stretch of snow between them. To Antoine, the ever-widening space of glinting coldness vaguely symbolised the barrier that seemed growing between him and his last companion.

“Susette, O, Susette!” he cried at last, breathless and exhausted. His cry was dirge-like, even as the wolves’; thin and sharp and ice-like—the voice of the old world-ache.

She had disappeared in the dusk of a ravine. Antoine, huddled in the snows with his face upon his knees, sobbed in the winter stillness. At last, with slow and faltering step, he returned to his lair; and for the first time in months he felt the throat-pang of the alien.

He threw himself down upon the floor of the cave and cursed the world. Then he cursed Susette.

“It’s some other wolf!” he hissed. “Some other grey dog that she’s gone to see. O, damn him! damn his grey hide! I’ll kill her when she comes back!”

He took out his knife and began whetting it viciously upon his boot.

“I’ll cut her into strips and eat ’em! Wasn’t I good to her? O, I’ll cut her into strips!”

He whetted his knife for an hour, cursing the while through his set teeth. At last his anger grew into a foolish madness. He hurled himself upon the bunch of furs beside him and imagined that they were Susette. He set his teeth into the furs, he crushed them with his hands, he tore at them with his nails. Then in the impotence of his anger, he fell upon his face and sobbed himself to sleep.

Strange visions passed before him. Again he killed Lecroix, and saw the dead face grinning at the stars. Again he sat in his mother’s lodge and wept because he was a stranger. Again he was fleeing, fleeing, fleeing from a leather noose that hung above him like a black cloud, and circled and lowered and raised and lowered until it swooped down upon him and closed about his neck.

With a yell of fright he awoke from his nightmare. His head throbbed, his mouth was parched. At last day came in sneakingly through the opening—a dull, melancholy light; and with it came Susette, sniffing, with the bristles of her neck erect.

“Susette! Susette!” cried the man joyfully.

He no longer thought of killing her. He seized her in his arms; he kissed her frost-whitened muzzle; he caressed her; he called her a woman. She received his caresses with disdain. Whereat the man redoubled his acts of fondness. He fed her and petted her as she ate; whereat the bristles on her neck fell. She nosed him half fondly.

And Antoine, man-like, was glad again. He contented himself with touching the frayed hem of the garment of Happiness.

He ate none that day. He said to himself, “I won’t hunt till it’s all gone; she can have it all.” He was afraid to leave Susette. He was afraid to take her with him again into the land of her own people. Antoine was jealous.

All day he was kind to her with the pitiful kindness of a doting lover for his unfaithful mistress.

That night she consented to lie within his arms, and Antoine cried softly as he whispered into her ear: “Susette, I hain’t a goin’ to be jealous no more. You’ve been a bad girl, Susette. Don’t do it again. I won’t be mean less’n you let _him_ come skulkin’ round here, damn his grey hide! But O, Susette”—his voice was like a spoken pang—“I wisht—I wisht I was that other wolf!”

The next morning Antoine did not get up. He felt sore and exhausted. By evening his heart was beating like a hammer. His head ached and swam; his burning eyes saw strange, uncertain visions.

“Susette,” he called, “I hain’t quite right; come here and let me touch you again.”

Night was falling and Susette sat sullenly apart, listening for the call of her people. She did not go to him. All night the man tossed and raved. After a lingering age of delirious wanderings, dizzy flights from huge pitiless pursuers, he became conscious of the daylight. He raised his head feebly and looked about the den. Susette was gone. A fury of jealousy again seized Antoine. She had gone to that other wolf—he felt certain of that. He tried to arise, but the fever had weakened him so that he lay impotently, torn alternately with anger and longing.

Suddenly a frost-whitened snout was thrust in at the opening. It was Susette. The man was too weak to cry out his joy, but his eyes filled with a soft light.

Susette entered sniffing strangely, whining and switching her tail as she came. At her heels followed another grey wolf—a male, larger-boned, lanker, with a more powerful snout. He whined and moved his tail nervously at sight of the man.

Antoine lay staring impotently upon the intruder. “So that’s him,” thought the man; “I wisht I could get up.”

A delirious anger shook him; he struggled to arise, but could not. “O God,” he moaned; it was an unusual thing for this man to say the word so; “O God, please le’ me get up and fight!”

A harsh growl stopped him. The grey intruder approached him with a rapid, sinuous movement of the tail. His jaws grinned hideously with long sharp teeth displayed. The rage of hunger was in his eyes fixed steadily upon the sick man.

Antoine stared steadily into the glaring eyes of his wolfish rival, already crouching for the spring.

On a sudden, a strange exhilaration came over the man. He seemed drinking in the essence of life from the pitiless stare of his adversary. His great limbs, seeming devitalised but a moment before, now tingled to their extremities with a sudden surging of the wine of life. His eyes, which the fever had burned into the dulness of ashes, flamed suddenly again with the eager lust of fight.

He raised himself upon his haunches, beast-like, and with the lifting of a sneering lip that disclosed his grinding teeth, he gave a cry that was both a snarl and a sob. In that moment, these many centuries of artificial life were as a vanished dream. From the long-slumbering dust of the prehistoric cave-man came a giant spirit to steel the sinews of its far removed and weaker kin.

Antoine met the impetuous spring of the wolf with the downward blow of a fist, and sprang whining upon his momentarily worsted foe. Never before had he fought in all his bitter pariah life as now he fought for the possession of his last companion.

His antagonist was larger than Susette, the survivor of many moonlit battles to the death in the frozen, foodless wilderness of hills.

Antoine struggled not as a man; he was now merely the good, glorious, fighting beast—masterful, primitive, the keeper of his own. Lacerated with the snapping of powerful jaws, bleeding from his face and hands, the man felt that he was winning. With a whining cry, less than half human, he succeeded in fixing his left hand upon the hairy throat, crushed the wolf down upon its back, and with prodigious strength, began pressing the fingers of his right hand in between the protruding lower ribs. He would tear them out! He would thrust his hand in among the vitals of his foe!

All the while Susette, whining and switching her tail, watched with glowing eyes the struggle of the males, and waited for the proof of the master.

At this juncture she arose with a nervous, threatening swaying of the head, approached the two cautiously, then hurled herself into the encounter. She leaped with a savage yelp upon him who had long been her master.

The man’s grip relaxed. He fell back and threw out his arms in which once more the weakness of the fever came.

“Susette!” he gasped; “I was good to you; I——”

His voice was choked into a wheeze. Susette had gripped him by the throat, and the two were upon him.

She had gone back to the ways of her kind—and the man was an alien.

II

THE LOOK IN THE FACE

IT was after one of the Saturday night feasts at No-Teeth Lodge that I drew my old friend, Half-a-Day, to one side where the shadows were not broken by the firelight.

“Tell me another story, Half-a-Day,” I said.

He grunted and puffed at his pipe in silence.

“Have I not given much cow meat to the feast and did I not throw silver on the drums?”

“Ah,” he assented.

“Then I wish to hear a story.”

“You are my friend,” he began with majestic deliberation, speaking in his own tongue; “for we have eaten meat together from the same kettle and looked upon each other through the pipe smoke. It will therefore make me glad to tell you a story about buffalo meat——”

“Ah, about a hunt?”

“And a _me-zhinga_ [girl]——”

“Oh, a love story!”

“And a man whom I wished to kill.”

“Good! And did you kill him?”

“My brother is like all his white brothers, who leap at things. Never will they wait. If I said yes or no, then would I have no story.”

“Then give me a puff at the pipe, Half-a-Day, and I will be patient.”

Half-a-Day gave me the pipe and began, with eyes staring through the fire and far away down the long trail that leads back to youth.

“Many winters and summers ago I was a young man; now I am slow when I walk and my head looks much to the ground. But I remember, and now again I am young for a little while. I can smell the fires in the evening that roared upward then, even tho’ they are cold these many moons and their ashes scattered. And I can see the face of Paezha [flower], the one daughter of Douba Mona, for my eyes are young too. And Douba Mona was a great man.

“Paezha was not so big as the other squaws, and could never be so big, because she was not made for building tepees and bringing wood and water. She was little and thin and good to see like some of your white sisters, and there was no face in the village of my people like her face. Her feet touched the ground with a light touch like a little wind from the south; her body bent easily like a willow; I think her eyes were like stars.”

I smiled here, because the simile has become so trite among us white lovers. But Half-a-Day saw me not; he looked down the long trail that leads back to youth, leading through and beyond the fire.

“And I looked upon her face until I could see nothing else—not the sunrise nor the sunset nor the moon and stars. Her face became a medicine face to me; because I was a young man and it was good to see her. And also, I was a poor young man; my father had few ponies, and her father had as many as one could see with a big look.

“But I was strong and proud and in the long nights I dreamed of Paezha, till one day I said: ‘I will have her and I will fight all the braves in all the villages before I will give her up. Then afterwards I will get many ponies like her father.’

“So one evening when the meat boiled over the fires, I went down to the big spring and hid in the grass, for it was the habit of Paezha to bring cold water to her father in the evenings, carrying it in a little kettle no bigger than your head covering, for she was not big.

“And I lay waiting. I could not hear the bugs nor the running of the spring water nor the wind in the willows, because my heart sang so loud.

“And I heard a step—and it was Paezha. She leaned over the spring, and looked down; then there were two Paezhas, so my wish for her was doubled and had the strength of two wishes.

“I arose from the grass. She looked upon me and fear came into her eyes; for there was that in my face which wished to conquer, and I was very strong. Like the _tae-chuga_ [antelope] she leaped and ran with wind-feet down the valley. I was without breath when I caught her, and I lifted her with arms too strong, for she cried.”

Half-a-Day reached toward me for the pipe and puffed strongly. His eyes were masterful, with the world-old spirit of the conquering male in them.

“Then as I held her, I looked upon her face and saw what I had never seen before: a look in the face that was sad and weak and frightened, begging for pity. Only it was not all that; it was shining like the sun through a cloud, and it was stronger than I, for I became weak and could hold her no longer. A little while she looked with wide eyes upon me; and then I saw what makes the squaws break their backs carrying wood and water and _zhinga zhingas_ [babies]; also what makes men fight and do great deeds that are not selfish.

“Then she ran from me and I fell upon my face and cried like a _zhinga zhinga_ at the back of a squaw—I know not why.”

Half-a-Day puffed hard at his pipe, then sighing handed it to me.

“Have you seen that look in the face, White Brother?” he said, staring upon me with eyes that mastered me.

“I am very young,” I answered.

“But when you see it, it will make you old,” continued Half-a-Day; “for when I arose and went back to the village I was old and nothing was the same. From that time I could look into the eyes of the biggest brave without trembling, for I was a man and I had seen the look.

“And it was in the time when the sunflowers die, the time for the hunting of bison. So the whole tribe made ready for the hunt. One morning we rode out of the village on the bison trail; and we were so many that the foremost were lost in the hills when the last left the village. And we all sang, but the ponies neighed at the lonesome lodges, for they were leaving home.

“Many days we travelled toward the evenings, and there was song in me even when I did not sing; for always I rode near Paezha, who rode in a blanket swung on poles between two ponies, for she was the daughter of a rich man. And I spoke gentle words to her, and she smiled—because she had seen my weakness in the valley of the big spring. Also I picked flowers for her, and she took them.

“But one day Black Dog rode on the other side of her and spoke soft words. And a strange look was on the face of Paezha, but not the look I had seen. So I drove away the bitterness of my heart and spoke good words to Black Dog. But he was sullen, and also he was better to look upon than I. I can say this now, for I have felt the winds of many winters.

“Many sleeps we rode toward the places of the evening. The moon was thin and small and bent like a child’s bow when we started, and it hung low above the sunset. And as we travelled it grew bigger, ever farther toward the place of morning, until it was like a white sun. Then at last it came forth no more, but rested in its black tepee after its steep trail.

“And all the while we strained our eyes from many lonesome hilltops, but saw no bison. Scarcer and scarcer became the food, for the summer had been a summer of fighting; we had conquered and feasted much, hunted little.

“So it happened that we who were strong took less meat that the weaker might live until we found the bison. And all the time the strength of Paezha’s face grew upon me, so that I divided my meat with her. It made me sing to see her eat.

“One day she said to me: ‘Why do you sing, Half-a-Day, when the people are sad?’ And I said: ‘I sing because I am empty.’ And Black Dog, who rode upon the other side, he did not sing. So she said to him: ‘Why do you not sing, Black Dog? Is it because we do not find the bison?’ And Black Dog said: ‘I do not sing because I am empty.’

“All day I was afraid that Paezha had judged between us, seeing me so light of thought and deed.

“One evening we stopped for the night and there was not enough meat left to keep us three sleeps longer. The squaws did not sing as they pitched the tepees. They were empty, the braves were empty, and the _zhinga zhingas_ whined like little baby wolves at their mothers’ backs, for the milk they drank was thin milk. No one spoke. The fires boomed up and made the hills sound as with the bellowing of bulls, and the sound mocked us. The dark came down; we sat about the fires but we did not speak. We groaned, for we were very empty, and we could not eat until we had slept. Once every sleep we ate, and we had eaten once.

“That night the wise old men gathered together in the tepee of the chiefs and sang medicine songs that Wakunda [God] might hear and see our suffering; then might he send us the bison.

“I heard the songs and I felt a great strength grow up out of my emptiness. Then I said: ‘I will go to the fathers and they will send me in search of the bison; and I will find the bison for Paezha that she may not starve.’ I had forgotten myself and my people. I knew only Paezha, for that day I had heard her moan, having nothing more to give.

“And I went to the big tepee. I stood amongst the fathers and lifted a strong voice in spite of my emptiness: ‘Give me a swift pony and a little meat and I will find the bison!’

“And the old men sighed as they looked upon me. And Douba Mona, her father, being one of the wise men, said: ‘I see a light in his eye and hear a strength in his voice. Give him the swift pony and the little meat. If he finds the bison, then shall he have Paezha, for well I see that there is something between them. Also he shall have many ponies; I have many.’

“And these words made me full as though I had sat at a feast.

“So the next morning I took the swift pony and the little meat and galloped toward the evening. The people did not take the trail that day, for toil makes hunger.

“Two sleeps I rode, singing songs and dreaming dreams of Paezha. And on the evening of the third sunlight I stopped upon a hill, and turned my pony loose to feed. I was sick and weak because my emptiness had come back upon me and I had not yet found the bison. I fell upon my face and moaned, and my emptiness sent me to sleep.

“When I awoke, someone sat beside me—and it was Black Dog. He breathed soft words. ‘I have come to watch over Half-a-Day,’ he said, ‘because I am older and a bigger man.’

“I spoke not a word, but my heart was warm toward Black Dog, for my dreams of Paezha had made me kind.

“‘Well I know,’ he said, and his voice was soft as a woman’s; ‘well I know what Half-a-Day dreams about. And I have come to watch over him that his dream may come true.’

“Then being a young man and full of kindness, I told Black Dog of the look I had seen in the face of Paezha. And he bit his lips and made a sound far down in his throat that was not pleasant to hear. And I fell to sleep wondering much.

“When I awoke, the ponies were gone, the meat was gone, Black Dog was gone. I grew strong as a bear. I shrieked into the stillness! I shook my fists at the sun! I cursed Black Dog! I stumbled on over the hills and valleys, shouting, singing, hurling big words of little meaning into the yellow day.

“Before night came I found the body of a dead wolf, and I fell upon it like a crow. I tore its flesh with my teeth. I called it Black Dog. I ate much. It smelled bad. I found a little stream and drank much. It was almost lost in the mud. I slept and dreamed of Paezha. I awoke, and it was day again. I found the dead wolf again. I ate. Then I was stronger and I went on into the empty yellow prairie.

“Toward evening I heard a thundering, yet saw no cloud. It was the dry time. Still it thundered, thundered—yet no cloud. I ran to the top of a hill and gazed.

“Bison! Bison! The prairie was full of bison, and they were feeding slowly toward the camp of my people.

“I turned, I ran! I did not make a sound, tho’ I wished to cry out. I needed all my strength for running, for I had no pony. I ran, ran, ran. I fell, I got up, I fell. Night came; I walked. Morning came; still I walked. Night came; I stumbled. And in the morning I was creeping.

“I do not know when I reached the camp of my people, I remember only a shouting and a sudden moving of the tribe. And then, after many bad dreams, I was awake again and the people were feasting. They had found the bison.

“Then, when we were on the home trail, I learned of the treachery of Black Dog. He had told my people how he had found Half-a-Day dead upon the prairie, but was too weak to bring him back. And the people believed for a time. And Black Dog spoke soft words to Paezha, brave words to Douba Mona, until I was almost forgotten.

“But now I was a great man among my people, and Black Dog could not raise his head, for he had seen hate in the people’s eyes.

“And in the time of the first frosts we reached our village and Paezha became my squaw. Also I got the ponies.”

Here Half-a-Day paused to fill his pipe.

“It is a good story, Half-a-Day,” I said. Half-a-Day lit his pipe, stared long into the glow of the embers, for the fires had fallen, and sighed.

“I have not spoken yet,” he said; “for one day in the time of the first snow, Paezha lay dead in my lodge, and my breast ached. Black Dog had killed her at the big spring. At the same place where I had first seen the look, there he killed her.

“I remember that I sat beside her two sleeps and cried like a _zhinga zhinga_. And my friends came to me, whispering bitter words into my ears. ‘Kill Black Dog,’ they said. And I said: ‘Bring him here to me, and I will kill him; my legs will not carry me.’

“But the fathers of the council would not have it so. And when they had buried her on the hill above the village, I awoke as from a long sleep, a very long sleep, and I was full of hate. They kept me in my lodge. They would not let me kill. I wished to kill! I wished to tear him as I tore the stinking wolf with my teeth! _I wished to kill!_”

Half-a-Day had arisen to his feet, his fists clenched, his eyes shining with a cold light. He made a tragic figure in the dull, blue glow of the embers.

“Come, Half-a-Day,” I said, “it is long passed, and now it is only a story.”

“It is more than a story!” he said. “I lived it. I wished to kill!”

He sat down again, and a softer light came into his eyes.

“And the time came,” he went on with a weary voice, “when Black Dog should be cast forth from the tribe, according to the old custom. I said, ‘I will follow Black Dog, and I will see him die.’ And he was cast forth. I followed, and it was very cold. The snow whined under my feet, and I followed in the night.

“But Black Dog did not know I followed. I was ever near him like a shadow. I did not sleep; I watched Black Dog. I meant to see him die.

“In his first sleep I crept upon him. I stole his meat; I stole his weapons. Now he would die, and I would be there to see. I would laugh, I would sing while he died.

“In the cold, pale morning I lay huddled in a clump of sage and I saw him get up, look for his meat and weapons, then stagger away into the lonesome places of the snow. And I sang a low song to myself. The time would come when I would see Black Dog die. I did not feel the cold; I did not grow weary; I was never hungry. And in the evenings I was ever near enough to hear him groan as he wrapped himself in his blankets. Often I crept up to him and looked upon his face in the light of the stars, and I saw my time coming, for his face was thinner and not so good to look upon as in the time when the sunflowers died.

“I could have killed him, but then he could not have heard me sing, he could not have heard me laugh. So I waited and followed and watched. I ate my meat raw that Black Dog might not see my fire. Also I watched to see that he found nothing to eat; and he found nothing.

“One day I lay upon the summit of a hill and saw him totter in the valley. Then I could be quiet no longer. I raised my voice and shouted: ‘Fall, Black Dog! Even so Half-a-Day fell when Black Dog stole his meat and his pony!’

“And I saw him get up and stare about, for I was hidden. Then his voice came up to me over the snow; it was a thin voice: ‘I know you, Half-a-Day! Come and kill me!’

“‘Half-a-Day never killed a sick man nor a squaw,’ I shouted, and then I laughed—a cold, bitter laugh. Then Black Dog shook his fists at the four corners of the sky and stumbled off into the hills, and I followed. Now my time was very near, for Black Dog felt my nearness and he knew that he would die and I would see him.