As he darted into it, something shot past it in the opposite direction—something that leaped in the air with a noise that would have sounded more like the snarl of a mad dog—if Shasta had ever heard a mad dog—than any voice of wolf!
Far away in the lonely places of the great barren, Shoomoo had caught the long-drawn hunting cry of Nitka, and had answered it on feet that swept the distance like the wind. With every hair on end, with eyes that shone like green fires, with his chops wrinkled to show the gleaming fangs, Shoomoo hurled himself downwards full in the path of the advancing bear.
The Grizzly saw his coming just in time, and raised himself suddenly to give the wolf the blow which would have been his certain death. Swift as a streak of light, Shoomoo swerved as if he actually turned himself in the air. The Grizzly missed his stroke by a hair's breadth. Before he could strike again, both wolves were upon him. They sprang as with one accord, slashing mercilessly; then, in the wolf fashion, leaping away before the enemy could close.
The fight now became a sort of game. As far as mere strength went the Grizzly was far more than a match for the wolves; but their marvellous quickness put him at a disadvantage. Directly he turned to meet the onset of one, the other sprang at him from the opposite direction. They kept circling round him in a ring. It was a ring that flew and snarled and gleamed and bristled; a ring of wild wolf-bodies that seemed never to pause for a single second. Sometimes it widened, sometimes it narrowed, hemming the great bear in; but always it was a live, quivering, flying ring of shadowy bodies and gleaming teeth.
More and more the bear felt that he was no match for his opponents. Hitherto he had had no fear of wolves: he had held them almost in contempt. But these things that leaped and snapped and leaped again seemed scarcely wolves. They were wolfish Furies to which you could not give a name.
Slowly, step by step, he retreated down the slope. He had given up all thought of the strange wolf-cub now. His one idea was to defend himself from these terrible foes, the like of which he had never encountered before. Deep in his grizzly heart he knew that he was being beaten. It was a new feeling, and he did not relish it. Till now he had been monarch of his range, and other animals had respected his undisputed right. Now the tables were being turned, and a couple of wolves larger than he had even seen were driving him steadily back. Yet he would not turn and run. Something in his little pig-like eyes told the wolves that, whatever happened, he would never take safety in flight. That is one of the ideas belonging to a king. When his back is up against a wall, he must fight to the last. And that is exactly what the bear was looking for—something against which he could place his back. To the left, about fifty yards away, a great spur of rock broke from the mountainside. If he could once reach that, he knew that he could keep his foes at bay. He knew also, that in order to reach it, he would have to fight every yard of the way.
And up above on the slope, a little wild face peered out from the shelter of the rocks, and watched and watched with shining eyes.
CHAPTER IV
THE END OF THE FIGHT
It was a running fight that went on as the great grizzly retreated. The one object of the wolves was to keep him on the move. The bear made furious rushes this way and that whenever he thought he had one of his enemies within striking distance. But as sure as ever he attacked one wolf, it leapt clear with marvellous agility, while the other, like a flash of grey lightning, had snatched at his flank and was off before he could turn. Yet in spite of Shoomoo's greater bulk, it was the onset of Nitka which punished the bear most severely. For the time, Nitka was like a thing gone mad. Her eyes blazed like green jewels, her teeth flashed in a grin of rage. The long suppleness that was her body, bent, twisted, turned and doubled on itself, in a series of acrobatic leaps which bewildered her foe, and baffled even Shasta's eyes to see how it was done. She was not fighting for any mere purpose of hatred or revenge; it was not that she, as Nitka, wanted to conquer the bear. The thing that was in her, the fierce unutterable thing that flamed in her eyes and stabbed nakedly in her teeth, was her wild, strange love for the man-cub she had so curiously made her own. She did not know why she loved him. How should she, since the Great Spirit of the Wild had not told her? It was enough that the Spirit had put the thing into her heart and made it to remain. Her own wolf-cubs would come, and would as certainly go out into the wolf world that is so wide beneath the stars. But the little man-cub stayed, winter and summer, autumn and spring, only growing larger very slowly, because it is the habit of men-cubs and other gods to grow slowly, and you cannot build them quickly with never so much rabbit's flesh nor caribou meat, swallowed and pre-digested, and brought up again as food. So Nitka waged this desperate battle for the life of something she held very dear, and in her blind devotion would have sacrificed even her own life sooner than that one morsel of Shasta's hairy little body should suffer harm.