“That’s in our favor,” the latter was whispering—“the wind, what little there happens to be ablowin’ is comin’ right in our face, so the pesky beasts ain’t agoin’ to scent us right away. I kinder guess they’s so crazy worked up over gitin’ a breakfast they ain’t so cunnin’ as usual. Wow! they’re sure closin’ in on the dick, that’s flat—I c’n notice a change in the yelpin’ that tells the story. Steady now, ol’ hoss, for here they come aswoopin’!”
Jack crouched low, with staring eyes—there was something that bordered on the thrilling about this dramatic panorama of the wilderness which a freak of good fortune was bringing under their observation—he even felt his heart beating as fast as a throbbing rivetting machine, such as he remembered once hearing at work on a skyscraper in the building in New York City—in fact, Jack rather fancied this was as close an approach to the real “buck ague” as he had ever experienced, for while “some hunter” he did not claim to be a veteran in the chase.
Suddenly some large object broke out from the scrub on the other side of the open glade—it was a bull caribou, all right, and extremely winded, the chase having evidently been a long and thrilling one. Gone was much of the spring to its gait, usually as swift as the wind—the pertinacity of its four-footed pursuers had completely worn the caribou out, and all that was left was for him to turn on the pack, and battle until they dragged him down by the weight of numbers, backed by ferocious hunger. There in the centre the gallant old fellow whirled around and stood at bay, just as Jack had seen in a celebrated engraving. One sweep of his half-developed antlers and a daring wolf was flung ruthlessly aside, to come back limping, but as eager as ever.
It was a spectacle Jack would not have missed for anything; and yet all his sympathies were for the poor stag, so sorely beset by those ravenous foes. Again and again did he strike out and scatter his enemies; but his condition this early in the season was not as hardened as would have been the case along toward late in the Fall months, so that his blows failed to cripple those he sent flying right and left.
Perk was on one knee, and with his machine-gun lifted halfway to his shoulder, as though the inclination to mix in the scrimmage had begun to grip him too powerfully to be long resisted.
The crisis came with lightning-like rapidity, and it turned out just about as Jack had anticipated would be the case. One of the half-dozen wolves made a bold leap just when the caribou, having sent another flying, was caught off his guard. He landed on the stag’s quarter, and fastened his teeth in his flank. That served to disconcert the doomed animal, so that a second of his persecutors was enabled to fasten on his neck, and weight him down. That hastened the inevitable end to the woods tragedy. There was no longer heard the yelps of the triumphant wolves—only a terrible snapping sound, and a mad scrambling, as the gallant caribou stag kept up the unequal fight, evidently determined to resist “to the last ditch.”
Perk had reached the end of his rope; he could no longer resist the temptation to throw his glove into the arena, and take up the cause of the weaker one of the contenders.
Jack heard the sudden crash of the machine-gun close to his ear. One of the maddened wolves fell at the report, to get up no more. A second bit the dust almost immediately afterwards, for Perk had only to swing his gun in a small section of a half-circle to spray the carnivora in succession.
Panic gripped those still remaining—possibly for the first time they whiffed the scent of human foes; so, too, they may have known what that crash of firearms, those spitting flashes of flame signified. Waiting not upon the order of their going they abandoned all hopes of a well earned meal, and made off like so many streaks.
Perk ceased firing—he also gave a little whoop, as if triumph filled his veins with exaltation that must find some sort of vent. “Hot ziggetty dig! jest see the cowardly critter lope out o’ here, will you, partner?” was the burden of his shout, as the remainder of the lupine pack disappeared among the tree-trunks well beyond; “but what a danged shame the poor caribou’s so bad hurt he jest can’t move off—there, by the great horn spoon if he ain’t laid down on the job; I kinder guess I hit in a little bit too late to help him any.”