“No. Him Kloot-la-ku-ka. Tanana so” (pointing to the way they had come). “You go so way” (pointing up-stream), “get lose; mebbe no fin’; plenty bad. Yaas!”
So, all on account of keeping Christmas and trying to bring a little of its joy into the hearts of those children of the wilderness, Phil’s mistake was discovered before its consequences became disastrous, and he was once more enabled to place his little party on the right road to Sitka.
[CHAPTER XIX]
A BATTLE WITH WOLVES
The remainder of the journey up the Tanana was uneventful, but so long that the new year was well begun ere the sledge party left it and turned up the Gheesah branch, which flows in from the east. An Indian guide, procured at the last village by the promise of a pound of tobacco for his services, accompanied them on their four days’ journey up this river, and to the summit of the bleak, wind-swept divide, five hundred feet above timber-line. This gave the dogs a hard pull, though Jalap Coombs insisted upon lightening their load by walking; nor from this time on would he again consent to be treated as an invalid.
The summit once passed, they plunged rapidly down its farther side, and into the welcome shelter of timber fringing a tiny stream whose course they were now to follow. Their guide called it the Tukh-loo-ga-ne-lukh-nough, which, after vain attempts to remember, Phil shortened to “Tough Enough.” Jalap Coombs, however, declared that this was not a “sarcumstance” to the names of certain down-East streams among which he was born, and to prove his assertion began to talk glibly of the Misquabenish, the Keejimkoopic, the Kashagawigamog, the Kahwahcambejewagamog, and others of like brevity, until Phil begged him to take a rest.
That night, while the camp was buried in the profound slumber that followed a day of unusually hard work, and the fire had burned to a bed of coals, the single, long-drawn howl of a wolf was borne to it with startling distinctness by the night wind. As though it were a signal, it was answered from a dozen different directions at once. The alert dogs sprang from their snowy beds with bristling crests, and hurled back a challenge of fierce barkings; but this, being an incident of nightly occurrence, failed to arouse the tired sleepers.
Within a few minutes the dread howlings had so increased in volume that they seemed to issue from scores of savage throats, and to completely encircle the little camp. It was as if all the wolves of the forest, rendered desperate by famine, had combined for a raid on the supply of provisions so kindly placed within their reach. Nearer and nearer they came, until their dark forms could be seen like shadows of evil omen flitting among the trees and across the open moonlit spaces.
The dogs, at first eager to meet their mortal foes, now huddled together, terrified by overwhelming numbers. Still the occupants of the camp slept, unconscious of their danger. Suddenly there came a rush, an unearthly clamor of savage outcry, and the sleepers were roused to a fearful wakening by a confused struggle within the very limits of the camp, and over their recumbent forms. They sprang up with yells of terror, and at the sound of human voices the invaders drew back, snapping and snarling with rage.