Shasta of the Wolves

by Olaf Baker

The upper ledge brought them to the summit of the mountain. Here a wide caribou barren stretched away in an unbroken extent to the north and east. There was good hunting here, as the wolves knew. Many and many a fat caribou cow might be cut out of the herd and pulled down when the right season came, but they were not for hunting now. Something quite as strong as the hunting cry was calling to them, and they would obey it in spite of everything else.

On the summit of the mountain the cry Shasta had heard before came again. Only this time it was loud and clear, filling all the spaces of the night with echoes that sounded hollowly from far away. And now Shasta was aware that the wolves were not alone. Other dusky forms were flitting silently on ahead, and to the right and left. As they went on the number of these shadowy forms increased. They were all going in the same direction, and evidently with the same purpose, whatever that might be.

Soon Shasta saw the great rocks rise up ahead. They had passed over the summit of the mountain now, and were descending the brow. The rocks, jagged and torn into all sorts of peculiar shapes, formed a fringe to the downward slope. Beyond, the country fell away sheer to the prairies below. As Shasta approached the rocks he saw that they were alive. On all their ledges and pinnacles wolves were crowded. There were many hundreds of them. He could not have believed that there were so many wolves in all the world! And they were all howling together in a wild, uncanny chorus that, to Shasta's ears, was like a swinging song, very beautiful to hear. Only it was terrible also, and sent shivers down his back. And his heart beat wildly, and he felt as if he had not eaten food for many days.

He could not tell how or why, but suddenly he found himself sitting upon a rock, surrounded by the wolves. And then, as he watched them with their heads thrown back, and their long noses pointed to the stars, he felt something which he could not understand taking hold of him. He could see the wolves plainly now, for the moon was rising. She was behind the mountain yet, but the light of her coming was abroad in the sky.

Shasta looked round to see if Nitka or Shoomoo was close to him. At first he could not distinguish them among the number of the other wolves. Then he caught sight of the great bulk of Shoomoo at the summit of a rock, cut out blackly, like granite, against the rising of the moon. There were many other big wolves there, for it was a gathering of all the packs, but none was as mighty as Shoomoo, towering there, like a king, upon his rock. Once he had found Shoomoo he did not search for Nitka or the foster-brothers. He was simply content to know that they were there. It was upon Shoomoo that his eyes were fixed, for he felt dimly as if, somehow or other, he was the centre of the mystery and the wild heart of the song. And then, immediately behind Shoomoo's giant form, a disc of silver showed suddenly, and the first gleam of the moon-rising shone down upon the wolves.

The singing had been wild before, but now in the moonlight it grew wilder still. It was enough to make even an Indian's flesh creep to hear this uncanny chorus from hundreds of wolfish throats, rising and falling in the stillness of the night. And for miles and miles, through the endless spruce forests, down the black-throated canyons, along the dreary barrens of the caribou, the wild song went sobbing in a passion of despair. Not an animal, winged or four-footed, in all that savage region but was awake and shivering to the sobbing of the wolves. Kennebec, the mighty eagle, caught it, dreaming far away upon his midnight crags. Gomposh, the old wise one, heard it, sitting in the mouth of his cave on the blue pine hill; and, as he listened, he rumbled a reply—a low, deep growl that seemed to roll about inside him and never got farther than his chest. And far away over the prairies, on the lonely ridges where the Indians bury their dead, the coyotes caught the chorus and, howling dismally, flung it back. Now and then, on the outskirts of the wolf-ring, a fox would appear from nowhere, sit down on his tail, and lift his snout and sing. For though, in the usual course of things, the wolves and foxes are sworn enemies, on the nights when the great chorus is sung the foxes are allowed to give themselves to music, and have no cause to fear.

But it was not alone the creatures of the wild who responded to the cry. Far down at the foot of the mountain where the country of the plains began, Shasta heard an answering chorus in the pauses when the wolves seemed to listen for the echoes of their song. And the chorus, too, was wolfish and utterly despairing, as if the prairie wolves were gathering down below. Yet, though Shasta did not know it, the answer was not a wolf one, but belonged to the Indian huskies, those gaunt starved creatures, part wolf, part dog, which the Indians have bred for long years, and of which the camps are full.

In every pause between the challenge of the wolves, the answer of the huskies was still wilder and fuller of despair. As the moon rose, and the light became stronger, Shasta could see more and more plainly what was going on down there at the mountain's foot. He saw peculiar pointed things different from anything he had ever seen before. They were arranged in a circle round something which was very red and bright. He did not know, because there was nobody to tell him, that this bright red thing was an Indian camp fire, and that the pointed things about it were the wigwams of the braves. Beyond the wigwams he could see a row of dark objects. These were the huskies sitting on their tails, and sobbing out their sorrow to the wolves. Sometimes the row would break and the huskies would rush wildly about, yelping and snapping at each other as if they had suddenly gone mad. And then they would gather together again, and sit in a long row, and lift their sorrow to the moon.

Presently Shasta saw something else. He saw forms leave the wigwams and come out into the circle between them and the fire. They were like wolves, but seemed to be clothed with loose skins that covered their bodies and fore-legs. The thing which he noticed most particularly was that they did not go on all fours in the true wolf fashion, but walked upon their hind legs only, with their bodies straight in the air. As far as he could tell, they had come out of the wigwams to listen to the wolves. Yet they made no sound, and continued to listen silently, not letting any voice which might be in them wail forth into the night.

The sight of these dumb creatures on their hind legs made Shasta strangely restless. He wanted to lift his arms and loose his heart out in a cry. And as he watched the figures, the feeling grew. He could not tell—poor little wild soul that he was—that these odd and silent forms were those of his own people; that he belonged to them in his blood and in his brain; and that here, in the wolf-world, he was an outcast from his kin. And the Indians, gazing up at those black wolf-shapes cut out against the stars, little guessed that, among that dusky throng, crouched one of their own tribe, kidnapped long ago by an enemy and left in the forest to die of starvation or be torn in pieces by the beasts.