Wilderness Babies

by Julia Augusta Schwartz

Through the late summer and early fall the young wolves hunted with their parents. During the day they stayed up in the mountains and slept in sheltered places. Sometimes they were scattered miles apart. At nightfall they called to one another with piercing howls, till they finally gathered about the old father wolf. Then they all set out to hunt together.

Sometimes they moved single file, stepping in one another’s tracks. They swam across the river and stole noiselessly through the woods. The timid sheep were easiest to kill because they could not fight. When they found a calf or sick old buffalo one sprang at his head while the others attacked from behind and bit his hind-legs. If the wolves went too near a herd the old buffaloes tried to hook them. Once a cub started to catch a young elk, but he was chased away by the old mother elk. They butted at him with their heads and struck at him with their sharp hoofs, while he ran with his tail tucked under him.

Autumn was pleasant enough with its bright days and frosty nights. The busy little creatures of the woods were gathering in their winter stores. Buffaloes and deer were fat from their summer’s feeding, and could not always run fast to get out of the way when chased by the wolves. Plump rabbits and prairie-hens were everywhere for the catching. Many a night the cruel wolves killed more than they could eat.

But soon winter came with its shortening days and gray storms lowering above the horizon. Snow fell, and icy winds blew across the frozen land. The deer and elk and antelope gathered in sheltered valleys. The wolves wandered down from the mountains, and roamed far and wide, hunting for food.

So long as the fresh snow lay soft and powdery in the gullies they could not run fast enough to catch anything, but when the snow packed hard, and an icy crust formed over the drifts, their spreading feet did not sink in deeply. Then they could go out and hunt the elk and the deer, whose small hoofs cut through the crust at every bound.

The young wolves felt hungry all the time. Sometimes, when a blinding storm shut them into their den among the rocks, they went without eating day after day. The fine snow sifted down upon their glossy winter coats as they lay close together, snuggling their cold noses into one another’s fur. Many a night they dreamed of eating, and snapped and swallowed greedily in their short, uneasy sleep. Once, in nosing about hungrily, the strongest little wolf happened to find a bone that he had hidden and forgotten weeks before. With a spring and a snarl he crunched it between his white teeth and gulped it down in a hurry.

One winter evening the four cubs, with their parents and five or six others, were following a herd of buffaloes. On galloped the buffaloes over the frozen plain. Behind and around them the dark forms of the wolves seemed to rise from the bushes and follow noiselessly. There was not a sound of a snap or a snarl. Now on this side, now on that, now lost in the shadows, the wolves galloped tirelessly on and on.

Here and there two eyes gleamed in the dim circle of a head, or bared white teeth glittered for an instant. Then again lost in the dusk, without the patter of a footfall on the snow, they edged nearer and nearer. Finally there was a sound of snarling and yelping. The wolves were fighting together over a dead buffalo. They ate him, and then broke away over the plain at a full jump, howling as they went.

Winter was over at last. The wolves were thin and fiercer than ever. Their grim black lips were always ready to curl back over their teeth at the smell of food. They felt such a dreadful gnawing emptiness inside that they were frantic to eat anything. When they began to grow weaker and weaker from hunger the welcome spring brought them new life.