CHAPTER XXV—HEMMED IN BY WOLVES.
Panting, almost at the limit of his strength, with torn hands and rent garments, the lad clambered upward among the rocks. They had seemed large at a distance. Now they appeared to be veritable mountains of boulders. But they were rough and afforded a fair foothold, except where windblown snow had obscured their surfaces and made them slippery and treacherous.
After five minutes of climbing, Sandy rested for a time and paused to look down below him. The wolves were apparently taken aback by his successful evasion of their fangs. The leaders were seated on their gaunt haunches gazing hungrily up at him, while behind them the rest of the pack moved uneasily about. The boy could see the steam of their hot breaths as they panted, their red tongues lolling far out and their sharp, tiger-like teeth exposed.
Their wicked little yellow eyes were fixed steadfastly upon the boy, who looked down upon them from the shoulder of a great rock. He was safe for the time being, and Sandy took advantage of the respite to rally his faculties.
Although he was temporarily secure from the pack, his position was still about as bad as it could be. He was practically marooned on the rocky island in the snows until the pack should see fit to withdraw, or until some other game drew their attention from him.
Without letting his eyes stray from the wolves for more than a second at a time, Sandy took stock. He had his rifle, hunting knife and some twenty cartridges, besides those in the magazine of his rifle, twelve in number. Of his lunch there was left some baking powder bread, a small quantity of cold deer meat and some salt and pepper.
It was little enough for the protracted siege that he might have to stand on the rocky pile, but scanty though the provision was, he was glad of the foresight that had made him save it for a snack on his way home. Besides the articles mentioned, the boy had his matches and a compass, and that was all.
But the next minute he realized that even his matches were gone. In his frantic climb, the nickel, water-proof case in which the precious lucifers were carried had dropped from his pocket. Looking down after the discovery of his loss, he saw the glint of the little metal cylinder lying on the snow at the foot of his haven of refuge.
To recover it was out of the question. The wolves grimly stood guard over it as if fully understanding its value to the human creature on the rocks. As Sandy looked at the wolves, the great snow rangers stared straight back at him with an uncanny steadiness. He seemed to read their message in their flaming yellow orbs.
“There is no hurry. We can wait. As well to-morrow as now.”
Sandy clambered yet higher. At his first move the leaders, as if by concerted action, flung themselves tooth and nail at the rocky escarpment confronting them.
The pack, snarling and yapping with chagrin, were hurled back from the stony fortress like waves from a pier. Sandy observed this with satisfaction. His place of refuge appeared to be impregnable. The wolves’ only chance lay in starving him out. And with a bitter pang Sandy realized that unless help arrived or he was able to frighten them off, the creatures stood a good chance of accomplishing this.
It was odd that the emergency which might have unmanned much stronger minds than Sandy’s should not have had the effect of reducing him to despair. But this was not so. The Scotch lad possessed in him a strain of indomitable blood. Like his ancestors, who sought refuge in the rocks and caves of the highlands during the stormy periods of Scotland’s history, the boy, terrible though his position was and fraught with menace, yet kept up his sturdy courage.
In fact, the danger of his position appeared to lend him nerve which he might have lacked under less trying conditions. It is often so. Human nature has a habit of rising to emergencies. Dangers and difficulties are often the anvils upon which men and boys are tried to see if they be of the true metal.
The wolves, with supernatural patience, resumed their positions of waiting, following their futile attack on the rocky wall that faced them. But Sandy saw that although they appeared indifferent to him, they yet had an eye to his every movement.
He tried the experiment of raising an arm or swinging a leg as if he were about to move again. Instantly every sharp-nosed head was raised in an attitude of deep attention. To those wolves there was but one interesting object in the whole of that dreary expanse of snow, and that was Sandy McTavish.
“I’ve got to do something,” thought Sandy desperately. “Before long it will be getting dusk.”
He couldn’t help giving a shudder as he thought of this. The idea of spending a night in the freezing cold with those silent, tireless watchers below him shook his courage badly. He concluded to try the effect of a few shots among the pack. Possibly, if he could kill the leaders, the rest might become alarmed and leave him.
He raised his rifle and singled out the great, gray wolf that appeared to be commander-in-chief of the creatures. This was a huge animal with bristling hackles who was covered with wounds and scars received no doubt in defending his title of leader of the pack.
Sandy took careful aim between the wolf’s blazing yellow eyes that shone in the gathering dusk like signal lamps. He pulled the trigger and a blaze and a sharp crack followed. Mingled with them was the death cry of the big gray wolf.
He leaped fully four feet into the air and came down with a crash. Before the breath was out of his gaunt body the pack was upon him, tearing, rending and fighting. When the mass of struggling, famine-stricken wolves surged apart again, Sandy saw that a few bloodstains on the snow and some bones in the mouths of the stronger of the wolves were all that remained of the leader of the pack.
A king among them when alive, the dead wolf had been to his followers nothing more than so much meat. Their cannibal feast being disposed of, except that here and there a wolf crunched a bone, the animals resumed their vigil.
Twice, three times more, did Sandy fire; but each time with the same result.
He dared not waste more ammunition. He must conserve what he had left for emergencies, in case it came down to a fight for his very life.
For the first time since he had gained a place of comparative safety the boy gave way utterly. He sank his head in his hands and despair rushed over him like a wave.