And then the thing happened-the amazing thing which, to the latest day of his life, he would never forget!
Just as Kiopo appeared to be pushed to his last foothold, with his hind quarters doubled under him beneath the fatal pressure of his all-but victorious foe, he gathered himself together for a last supreme effort, and the powerful sinews of those compressed hind legs did the work he relied on them to do.
In spite of appearances to the contrary, he had deliberately allowed himself to be pushed to the precipice. There was cunning in him, as well as courage. The breadth between the eyes was beginning to tell. If Dusty Star had been able to guess this, he might have been spared some, at least, of the terror of the last few eventful moments. What he actually saw was this—a violent movement throughout the whole of Kiopo's body; a mighty upward urge that lifted his enemy clean off his feet; then, a swift sideways wrench of his powerful neck and shoulders; and the heave of a dark body over the precipice edge.
With a thrill of unutterable relief, Dusty Star realized that the body which went crashing to its doom was not Kiopo's!
He sprang down from his rock, wild with exultant joy, Kiopo was safe! Kiopo had won! The great fight was over, and Kiopo was the victor.
He rushed to the wolf, but in the very moment of throwing his arms about him, stopped. For, in spite of his overwhelming delight, his wilderness wisdom did not forsake him. He realized that Kiopo was too badly wounded to be touched.
The wolf lay on his side, bleeding from a dozen wounds. He took his breath in panting gasps that were almost sobs. It went to the boy's heart to hear the struggle for air, for life itself; yet for the moment he was helpless. If he had had a wound himself, he possessed sufficient Indian medical knowledge to treat it with healing herbs and bind it up. But with the wolf it was altogether different. Kiopo could not have borne bandages, even if Dusty Star had had them to apply. The only remedies possible were three: rest, Nature, and his own wolfish tongue. This Dusty Star knew quite well. All he dared to do was to kneel on the ground beside Kiopo while he gazed into his eyes, and made a murmuring medicine-talk with his mouth. And it needed no explanation to tell the wolf that all the love in the Little Brother's heart was flooding out through his eyes and mouth. He could not have borne the Little Brother's hand just then, tender though its touch would have been. But he was grateful for the medicine-talk of the Little Brother's Mouth; and the Little Brother's eyes comforted him: they seemed to lick him like soothing tongues.
For the rest of that night, and far into the next morning Kiopo lay where he was, licking his wounds. When the sun began to beat down upon the promontory, he dragged himself painfully into the shadows of the rocks, and remained there for the rest of the day. Dusty Star went in search of water and found a spring half-way down the gorge. By making a cup of a broad leaf of skunk cabbage, he was able to carry back a little water, which Kiopo eagerly drank. He had to make the journey many times, because no matter how cunningly he twisted the leaf, the pitcher would find a way of leaking; and although he always started with it as full as it would hold, it was more than half empty by the time it reached Kiopo's parched tongue.
There was another thing which Dusty Star found besides the spring. Down at the precipice foot, not far from the spot where the skunk cabbage grew, he came upon a large grey body which had broken its neck upon the rocks. And he knew for a certainty that the Terror of the Carboona would hunt on his range no more.
Nature, the great Mother of Healing, did her work. With her help, two nights and a day of rest and licking, and the cool water the Little Brother brought, enabled Kiopo gradually to regain his strength. Great was Dusty Star's joy, when, on the second morning after the fight, he saw Kiopo struggle to his feet and move slowly towards the forest.