THE SWIMMING OF KIOPO
When Kiopo had leaped upon the Indian, and had fallen with him over the precipice edge, he had, like his foe, crashed down to almost certain death. The Indian, indeed, had been killed instantly, with a broken neck; but the wolf, instead of falling straight upon the boulders at the bottom of the gorge, had turned a somersault in mid-air, and had landed in a thick clump of junipers growing on a slope some thirty feet above the creek bed.
Probably it was the passionate instinct of self-preservation, when all hope seemed gone, which had made him give his body that violent contortion. Apart from that, he owed his life to a miracle which must always remain a mystery unexplained.
In spite of the break in his fall, he lay half-stunned among the bushes for some time. And when at length his senses came to him again, he felt sore in every limb.
There is an unfailing law among the wild peoples that, when an individual is injured, it creeps into the most secret place it can find, and there rests till it recovers sufficiently to face the world. Kiopo had no need to look for a place more secret than the one he had fallen into, so he stayed where he was, and let nature do the rest. For fully two days, he remained in hiding. On the third, he crawled out into the open; on the fourth, was sufficiently recovered to make a kill in the shape of a fat buck rabbit; and, on the evening of the fifth, made his way back to camp.
Instantly he returned, he knew that something was wrong. He ran anxiously this way and that, scenting and looking. Eyes and nose told him the same story. Dusty Star had gone, and he had not gone alone. Kiopo soon found the trail, and immediately started off. The scent was getting a little stale, but, faint though it was, it was sufficient for the wolf's unerring nose. It was the well known Indian smell that he had learned to distrust, and as he ran, his hackles rose. He ran on swiftly, growing angrier as he ran, and eating up the distance with his long, loping stride. Here the scent was a little fainter, there a little stronger; but always the trail kept going on in the same direction to the south. Kiopo knew that he was getting beyond his usual range. He had never penetrated so far into the southern forest country before. He was uneasy, as well as angry. There was a bad smell in the trail. It meant mischief. And mischief towards his beloved little brother was the thing in all the world which Kiopo would not stand.
Under the solemn shadow of the trees the great wolf sped on soundless pads that carried his body like a phantom through the silence of the woods. Now and then he would come to a cross trail, where some other animal had lately passed, or the trail itself would be obscured. But Kiopo had far too serious a business on hand to waste time upon the cross trails, and when the double trail divided, he followed the fainter, and the human one, as before. Of other hunters who, like himself, were abroad in the woods, he saw little, for his eyes rarely wandered from the ground under his nose. And those of the forest-dwellers who caught sight of the great grey shape that went floating through the trees, gave it a wide berth, with that curious forest etiquette which is deeper than politeness, and is close in touch with death.
When he emerged from the forest into the open country, Kiopo paused to reconnoitre. His eyes became of the utmost importance now, because the world was widening. In the forest you could only see where the trees permitted, but now its place was taken by long grassy swells that rippled under the wind. Into it, Kiopo swung his nose. It came in a series of soft surges from the south. Many faint odours were travelling down it now; scents that were the body of the wilderness lifted into the air. They were subtly mixed, it would take the very finest nose to disentangle them. With his eyes narrowed, and his head raised, Kiopo searched the wind. His sensitive nostrils gave little quivers and rapid twists that were like a play of fingers that dabbled delicately in the air. The scents that came were chiefly those of the growing things, grass, flowers and trees. But running through them, in fine streams of odours, there were other scents that were like the flowing souls of birds and beasts, spilt, in spite of themselves, into the wandering world.
Was some tiny drop of Dusty Star's body-scent mixed among them—sending out its wordless message through the enormous space? For all the keen searching of Kiopo's nostrils, the drop, if it were there, escaped them. But if the trails of the air were lost in the wilderness of the wind, the trails of the earth remained, and still the one he had hitherto followed went plainly through the grass. Once again Kiopo took it up, following it steadily till at length he came to the spot where the Indians had taken to the canoe. In the marshy ground under the willows, he lost it completely. It was as if it was sucked into the marsh. In vain he searched the whole neighbourhood, and ran backwards and forwards in a desperate effort to find some vestige of the broken trail, always returning with the same result to the roots of the willows among the black ooze.
Now Kiopo's faultless wood-craft taught him, without the slightest uncertainty, that there had been no back trail. If, therefore, the trail ended at the water, those who had made it must have gone through the water. There was no other way. Once he had made up his mind, Kiopo did not hesitate. He plunged into the lake.
When once in the water, Kiopo, like all wolves, was a powerful swimmer; but he had never before had any experience of such an immense expanse of it. The further he went out, the wider it seemed to become. He swam on and on. As he swam, the shores receded further and further on either side. He found himself out in that whispering vastness, alone in a world of waters, with no sign of any human being, nor the faintest trace of a trail. After a while, he grew disheartened. The great water gave him a sense of loneliness and fear which he had never felt before. In the dark silences of the woods, you could smell the good smells of the travelling folk, hunting or being hunted, which you could not even see. But here there was no hunting, nor good smells; only a wet, uneasy movement, and a watery smell which his growing fear made hateful to his nose. And the sound of its wetness beat unceasingly on his ears like a din of unintelligible voices bewildering his brain. The only living things that he could see were two fish-hawks sailing overhead. In their annoyance at his appearance, they gave piercing cries of disapproval; for they knew well that no fish was likely to come to the surface while this great hulk of wolfishness went churning up the water in that unwieldy way. And if they had only dared, they would have swooped down to strike at him savagely with the terrible talons which made their feet such formidable weapons.
At last Kiopo grew tired of battling against that vast wetness, with its loneliness, and voices that rang against his head; and so he turned and swam straight towards the shore.
The distance was much further than he expected. He found himself swimming more and more slowly. In spite of all his efforts the shore seemed still very far away, while always that great weight of water seemed to push itself continually in between him and the trees, as if it were a living thing which had determined that he should never land. His strength and power of endurance were enormous, even after they had been weakened by his recent injuries; yet for the most powerful wild creature there is a limit to its strength. And now Kiopo knew that his capacity was being taxed to the utmost. Gradually, but surely, his great strength was ebbing. But he also knew that, unless he could reach the shore before his force gave out, all hope of once more joining the little brother would be for ever lost. His strong fore paws worked valiantly, beating down the water which seemed rising and rising in spite of all his efforts. The trees were nearer now. He could see that, even though his eyes were dimmed by the splashing of the ripples. And yet they seemed so terribly far away for the effort he knew he must put forth, if he were to reach them before his strength was done. He swam more and more slowly, his breath coming in short gasping sobs that quivered through him from head to tail. The fish-hawks, circling above him, came sloping down, with triumph in their shining eyes. They needed no explanation of the tragedy that was taking place beneath them. They knew that the hated intruder was slowly but surely being dragged down to a watery death, and their wild hawk-hearts approved.
Slowly, and still more slowly! Kiopo felt now as if the heavy wetness of the water had developed long tentacles that seized him and sucked him down. His head was becoming too heavy to hold above the water. There were moments of terror when it swirled about his nose, and when the fish-hawks, screaming with excitement, would hover, as if about to swoop. And then, once again, the big head would force itself up and, choking, spluttering, gasping, the struggle would continue.
When at length, Kiopo, beating his last desperate strokes, felt his feet touch ground, he could scarcely stand. Fortunately for him, a sandy spit of land at this very point thrust itself out for some distance into the lake. The sensation of ground under his feet gave him courage. With a last supreme effort, he dragged himself above the water-line, and sank exhausted on the sand.
If any watchful enemy had attacked him now, the big wolf would have offered an all but resistless prey. Even the fish-hawks, in their exultation might have safely swooped upon him and threatened his eyes; but now that the detested intruder had shown sufficient strength to drag himself out of the lake, they became more wary, and as they knew that a wolf ashore was a far more formidable foe than a wolf afloat, they thought better of their rashness, and once more climbed up the steep afternoon to sit again in the wind.
Other eyes besides the fish-hawks' noted the dark shape that lay on the sand-spit, motionless as a log. Log-like though it appeared, there was something about its dusky bulk that, to their wary gaze, looked remarkably like a wolf asleep, or possibly even dead. But even a dead wolf is not beloved by the wilderness folk; and a buck who had pushed his way warily through the willow shoots to drink, when he saw the sinister form on the sand-spit, stopped, threw up his head suspiciously, and blew his breath angrily from his nostrils. The wolf never stirred. The buck looked longingly at the water, looked again at the shape on the sand-spit, drew back softly into the shelter of the willows, and went to quench his thirst elsewhere.
The buck had scarcely disappeared, when a fox, also thirsty, came down the trail, placing his slender feet delicately one after the other so as not to disturb the slumber of the afternoon. When he caught sight of the sand-spit, he stopped instantly, and wrinkled his nose to feel the wind. As the wind did not help him, he advanced a few steps further with extreme caution, ready at the slightest warning to leap back upon his trail. He observed that the great body was stretched out flat as if lifeless; the head resting between the paws. But there is flatness and flatness. The fox noted with disapproval that this particular flatness breathed! Drawing back his lips, he disclosed his teeth in a low snarl of hatred against the hereditary foe of his tribe. Then he doubled his flexible body till his nose nearly touched his brush, and slunk back into the woods.
Totally unconscious of all these happenings, Kiopo took his rest. The forest-folk might come and go as they pleased. Hour after hour he slept that heavy sleep of sheer exhaustion through which no messages pass from the outer world. The sun blazed down upon the sand-spit, drying his coat; and sleep, that marvellous medicine to which all the wild things turn, brought his strength slowly back to him in the waning afternoon.