CHAPTER XVII
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.