All that night, he watched in the edges of the forest, roaming to and fro uneasily, and did not finally leave the neighbourhood till just before dawn.
CHAPTER XXI
HOW DUSTY STAR MET THE TERROR
Midsummer—the Moon of Roses—had melted into the Thunder Moon, and the Moon when the blueberries ripen drew nigh. Now if there was one thing above another which Goshmeelee loved in all the world, it was a good feed of berries. So that when the early tang of the Fall began to tickle her nose, the blueberry feeling made itself felt also, and she made up her mind to appease it. By this time, the cubs had long passed out of babyhood, and were growing into good-sized little bears, quite able to take care of themselves. But as it was a long climb to the berry patches, and Goshmeelee couldn't be sure that they would be ripe, even if she found them, she decided not to cumber herself with the family, but to leave it at home. So, making her wishes more than clear by a good-natured cuff apiece when the little bears wanted to follow her, she lumbered contentedly off upon her quest.
Now on the very morning on which Goshmeelee started to find her berries, Dusty Star was also climbing up Carboona, after having waited until he had seen Kiopo trot off in the opposite direction after game. Of late, Kiopo had developed a strange uneasiness. He was continually leaving the camp and returning to it at short intervals. When in the camp he was always on the alert, watching the forest with a wary eye. By his behaviour, Dusty Star was convinced that his finer wolf-sense had detected some threatening danger which he himself could not perceive. Kiopo told him nothing directly, but the two were by this time in such complete sympathy that the boy learned half the danger, merely by feeling as the wolf felt. He also watched the forest, wondering from what quarter the danger threatened. Yet never had the great woods appeared to hold themselves in such deep untroubled peace. Nothing broke their stillness save the occasional sharp chirr of a chipmunk, or the tapp, tapp of the little black-and-white wood-peckers on some hollow limb. Night came, and the stillness only deepened,—night—and the soundless glitter of the stars.
Once only Dusty Star saw, or fancied he saw, a wolf stand in a clear space in the glimmer of the coming dawn. And at first, thinking it was Kiopo, he had not moved. But when at last, he had gone forward to see, he found the place where it had stood empty.
Slowly, day by day, the sense of danger passed. Kiopo went off hunting for longer and longer distances. But he avoided the upper slopes of the Carboona, and followed trails that led him well away. And not again, either in late twilight, or early dawn, did Dusty Star catch the shadows at their old illusive game. Only one thing remained, and that was the very plain objection which Kiopo had to Dusty Star going up into Carboona at any time of the day. Now when Kiopo objected to anything strongly, his ways of expressing himself were perfectly clear. Not only his eyes, his ears and his mouth, but his whole body said No in the plainest possible way. Dusty Star had no excuse for not understanding that Kiopo objected to his going up Carboona. Yet the more definitely Kiopo objected, the more Dusty Star wanted to go.
He was moving very quickly now, because he was anxious to get as far as possible, in case Kiopo discovered where he had gone, and came to fetch him back. Kiopo was doubtless very wise, and knew the forest better than any one else; yet Dusty Star was quite sure that he had a wisdom of his own, and he liked sometimes to set the Indian "Yes" against the wolf "No." Now, as he mounted higher and higher into an unexplored world, he enjoyed the feeling of having asserted his right to decide things for himself. And every time he stopped to look back, he could see a vaster tract of forest and hills, lying out and out to a distance that had no end.
He was above the forest now, and had entered the borders of the great barren where the waterfowl had their homes along the solitary pools. He pushed on rapidly. Except the flocks of wildfowl, he saw no other life. Here and there, in patches on the rising grounds, he came upon the blueberries, beginning to be ripe. But the bears had not visited them yet, and there were no signs of other large game. It was a little lonely here on the high barren. He wondered, all at once, what he should do if he came upon a grizzly. It was a long, long way from camp, and Kiopo's protection. He began to be conscious that he was very much alone. Something made him look suddenly behind.