CHAPTER XVI—THE WOLF RING
The howling of the lone wolf, however, did not take the boys’ appetites away. Fresh venison is rather tough until it has hung awhile; but the parts of the kill Chet and Dig ate that night were tender and succulent. The steaks they would not try until the next day.
“There’s a whole lot more than we can eat ourselves,” said Chet. “But some other party may come along and be glad of a haunch.”
“Ugh!” grunted Dig. “There’s that party talking up in the hills. He’ll be around for his share,” as the long-drawn wail of the wolf shuddered again across the gathering night.
The cry of the wolf made the horses nervous, too; they kept stepping around instead of grazing at the end of their tethers. As for the yearling, he tried to answer bawl for bawl—and so led the wolf on.
“I never did realise before how big a fool a calf can be,” said Dig, reviewing his strenuous day. “But say! let’s smoke one of the hams.”
“How?” demanded Chet.
“Hang it over the fire, of course,” returned the sanguine Digby.
“And who’s going to find the proper kind of wood to smoke it without merely blackening the meat with soot? And who’s going to sit up all night and watch the fire? Besides, it would take three or four nights to smoke a ham properly. I hope we’ll shoot other game before we get to Grub Stake.”
“Oh, well, I only threw it out as a hint,” sighed Dig. “Nothing I say goes.”
“Not even your maverick, eh?” chuckled Chet.
They cleared up after supper and then Chet advised Dig to get into his blanket and get two hours’ sleep.
“Don’t believe that wolf will be down here,” Dig mumbled. “No need to keep wa-wa-watch—Waugh!” and he stretched his jaws in a mighty gape.
“All right,” returned Chet. “You’re welcome to your belief. But I’ll keep first watch, and if I hear nothing alarming, I won’t wake you up.”
He was satisfied at first to go to the horses and see that they were picketed all right. He did not want either of them to get entangled in the rope and so get a burn. For that might lame them, and a lame horse on the trail is no happy chance.
The howling of the wolf up in the hill made the horses restless; but the maverick finally got tired and lay down again, Chet returned to the fire. His chum was already breathing heavily. The activities of the day had tired him out. Dig wasn’t exactly “soft,” but he was not innured to an out-of-door life as Chet was. Besides, he had several pounds of superfluous flesh to carry around.
His sleep was healthful, however; in the flickering firelight his bronzed face was calm.
“Good old scout!” thought Chet, watching him. “And heaps of fun! But he’s as obstinate as a toad—one of those whom he says were chased out of Ireland! I don’t know what I’d do without Dig.”
The evening had shut down now, damp and still. Frogs complained somewhere along the edge of the narrow stream. Sleepy birds croaked now and then. Night insects sang.
Then came the long, haunting howl of the wolf from the heights. Every other sound seemed to hush while the howl endured.
A reply came from far out on the prairie; then a third wolf took up the cry from another direction. The pack was gathering.
Chet drew his heavy rifle closer and examined the hammer. It was well greased and the mechanism was working perfectly. But he put the rifle aside. He was not going to waste expensive ammunition on such useless creatures as wolves—if he could help it.
It was on his pistol that he depended to drive off marauders. He spun the cylinder and then tucked in the sixth cartridge. It was fully loaded now and he laid the gun down upon his dry blanket. It was as dangerous as a loaded bomb, for the plainsman never carried a gun fully loaded unless in time of stress or peril.
The horses stamped, and Poke nickered. But Dig slept on. His chum got up, pistol in hand, and slowly patrolled the camp again. Of course the wolves were not near as yet; nor were they giving tongue.
Chet had had some experience on the trail; and he had listened to many stories related by old plainsmen, but he did not know much about wolves, after all. He expected the pack to try to rush the camp, and to come up yelling like a band of wild Indians.
When the animals, which seemed to be gathering from all sides of the camp, ceased howling, he was puzzled. He wondered what had become of the wolves. Perhaps they had gone off on some other scent. Perhaps they had crossed the track of a deer and it had drawn them away from the camp.
The horses were still uneasy, and now Stone Fence scrambled up and leaped at the end of his rope, bawling pitifully. Something near at hand disturbed the animals, whose instinct and sense of smell were far superior to the boy’s sight and hearing.
Chet could see nothing; nor could he hear anything. Yet the restlessness of the horses and the calf kept him alert. He went around the camp again, and afterwards replenished the fire. He wished he had prepared more fuel. It was warm and they did not really need the fire; but at night a blaze in the open is company.
He went to Hero and quieted him, petting him and talking to him. Poke still stamped. Out on the open prairie, beyond the fringe of willows, Chet thought he saw something moving. He was tempted to send a shot in that direction.
“But that will wake Dig. And it’s only nervousness,” thought the boy. “Huh! I must be afraid of the dark.”
He went back to the fire and sat down. There was the bole of a small tree at his back. The position was tempting.
But the restlessness of the yearling precluded sleep. The little beast strained at the end of its tether, headed toward the fire, and blatted plaintively.
“My goodness! but you are a scared calf,” Chet muttered, rising again.
And then, just over the line of the calf’s straining back, he saw the gleam of two eyes in the edge of the thicket.
Chet Havens sprang up on the instant, and as he sprang he fired. He didn’t have to aim, for those eyes looked as big as saucers to him!
There was a shrill howl from the stricken beast. Chet’s ball had punctured its breast as it threw up its head. Answering howls came from all about the camp. It was ringed with the savage brutes that had gathered silently in expectation of the killing.
The pistol shot, the wolf’s howl, and the maverick’s bawling awoke Dig. He scrambled up, confused and dreaming.
“Don’t kill him! don’t kill him, Chet!” he begged. “The poor thing hasn’t bucked you into the brook.”
“You bet I killed him,” returned his chum, and the next instant fired again.
“But, Chet,” squealed his chum. “You don’t need to shoot him after he’s dead. Save your powder and lead—
“Whew! what’s happened? Stone Fence seems to be all right.”
“And if I hadn’t shot Mr. Wolf just in the nick of time, Stone Fence would have been slaughtered to make a lupine holiday,” chuckled Chet. “They’ve run, the cowardly scoundrels.”
“Thought you said they weren’t cowards?” yawned Dig.
“They’re not hungry enough to be brave yet. In the dead of winter, however, they’d have come right in to the fire and fought for the calf. Shorten the tether on him, Dig. And I’ll bring the horses nearer. I don’t like these beasts. They sneak in too close for comfort.”
“Say! you’ve waked me up now,” grumbled Dig. “Might as well stay awake. I’ll keep watch. What time is it?”
“Wake me at midnight,” Chet said, not at all loath to give his partner a bit of work.
He rolled up in his blanket; but he did not sleep at first, although he closed his eyes. Dig did not make any particular noise, but he kept stirring around the camp. The horses and the yearling remained quiet for a long time.
Dig was getting tired of his vigil. He slumped down with his back to the same tree against which Chet had rested. Then—one, two, three, and he was off! A long snore, and he was in the Land of Nod.
Save for the boys’ breathing the camp was still. Stone Fence probably dozed as he lay at the end of his tether. The horses were grazing again.
But if nothing else, the smell of their brother’s blood would have brought the wolves back. They skulked along the watercourse and at the edge of the thicket. The flickering firelight did not frighten them.
They gave the horses a wide berth, for they feared their heels. The yearling was lying within the radiance of the firelight. The wolves surrounded the camp once more; but they drew near only at one point.
The beasts are not averse to licking the bones of their own kind. The dead wolf, that Chet had shot, drew them. And nearby hung the venison in the tops of the saplings.
Silently at first; then with muffled growls and the snapping of slavering jaws, the wolves fought over their comrade. There were a dozen and more of them. The horses moved uneasily, and the yearling struggled up again; but the boys slept.
One lank and hungry brute smelled the hanging deer flesh and slunk away to the spot. He leaped for it—again and yet again.
Chet had no idea how high a wolf could jump. He thought he had hung the meat out of reach of every marauder; but Mr. Wolf did not think so.
The horses and Stone Fence became quiet again. The chums sunk together into a deeper sleep. The fire burned down to mere embers.
Perhaps something occurred to make the wolves beat a silent retreat; at least, they left the vicinity of the encampment without raising another alarm. If the horses were now and then uneasy, their stamping did not awake Chet and Dig.
The day’s activities had exhausted the chums. Once asleep, Chet slept as heavily as Digby. Nothing occurred to arouse them until daybreak; then Chet awoke suddenly, sat up, threw off his blanket, and looked about in surprise.
“Say, you sleepy-headed coot!” he roared, flinging an empty milk-can at the still sleeping Dig. “What d’ye mean—sleeping like this? You never woke me up.”
“Ugh! Huh?” demanded Dig. “You ought to thank me for that, then.”
“You’d make a nice soldier!”
“Never claimed to be a soldier, and didn’t expect to go soldiering when I came out on the trail with you,” declared Dig belligerently. “I guess you’ll find everything all right. And you slept just as hard as I did.”
“Sha’n’t trust you to keep watch again,” said Chet.
“Well, that’s a good thing! By the last hoptoad that was chased out of Ireland! I don’t want to keep watch.”
But Chet was serious. He saw that the horses and the calf were safe. But when he went into the thicket, he saw that the dead wolf had been dragged away to a distance and there torn to bits. Only red bones and bits of fur remained.
Then he remembered the haunches of venison left hanging to cool. He ran to the spot. Only a single ham hung in the top of a sapling. The others had been torn down. The tops of the saplings were broken, supposedly by the wolves as they leaped for the meat.
At Chet’s first cry Dig came running.
“Now you can see what was done while you slept,” said young Havens, with disgust.
“Whew! The miserable, thieving beasts!” burst out Dig. “Wish I’d caught ’em at it—”
“You were snoozing your head off,” was his chum’s accusation. “That’s when this happened.”
He suddenly became silent, however. He bent over and examined the disturbed ground underneath the spot where the lost meat had hung. Then he glanced keenly all about.
“Hold on, Dig,” he said softly, waving his chum back. “Don’t step in any nearer.”
“What’s the matter?” queried his surprised friend. “See a wolf print that you know? An old friend, for instance?”
“Wait,” begged Chet again. “I see something besides wolf-paw prints.”
“What, for goodness’ sake?” demanded the other, startled.
“The print of boots—men’s boots.”
“Get out!”
“I tell you at least one man has been here.”
“Pshaw! our own footprints! You gave me a scare, Chet.”
“No,” Chet said earnestly. “I see our marks. But a person with a much bigger foot has been here. See that? and that? Some stranger. I—I’m not sure that we have been robbed by wolves, after all, Dig.”
“By the last hoptoad that was chased out of Ireland” gasped the other boy. “What do you mean? Who could have robbed us? I don’t understand, Chet.”
“Neither do I,” returned young Havens. “Don’t come this way and foul the marks any more. Let’s see where this fellow came from, and where he went to.”