That evening the setting sun shone down upon a solitary camp-fire on the Northland trail, and beside it sat a large man crouching for warmth. He was smoking; and as he smoked he thought much. All the days he had lived he had never known a woman’s love. He muttered as he kicked the sticks of his fire together, and spat into the blaze as it leapt up.
“Maybe it’s a fine thing. Maybe they’re queer critturs. Mostly saft an’ gentle an’–um–I wonder–”
The sun sank abruptly, and the brief twilight gave place to a night that was little less than day. The northern lights danced their mystic measure in the starlit vault to the piping of the Spirit of the North. The hush of the Silent Land was only broken by the cries which came up from the dark valleys and darker forests. And the lonely giant, Jean Leblaude, slept the light slumber of the journeyer in the wild; the slumber that sees and hears when danger is abroad, and yet rests the body. He dreamed not, though all his schemes had gone awry, for he was weary.
CHAPTER XV.
THE TRAGEDY OF THE WILD
“Aim-sa! Aim-sa! I come!”
The cry rings against the mountainsides, shuddering and failing; then it is lost in the vastness, like the sound of a pebble pitched into rushing waters. The woodland chorus takes it up in its own wolfish tongue, and it plunges forth again, magnified by the din of a thousand echoes.
High up to the lair of the mountain lion it rises; where the mighty crags, throne-like, o’ershadow the lesser woods; where the royal beast, lording it over an inferior world, stealthily prowls and lashes its angry tail at the impudence of such a disturbance in its vast domain. Its basilisk stare looks out from its furtive, drooping head, and its commands ring out in a roar of magnificent displeasure.
Even to loftier heights still the cry goes up; and the mighty grey eagle ruffles its angry feathers, shakes out its vast wings, and screams invective in answer to this loud-voiced boast of wingless creatures. Then, in proud disdain, it launches itself out upon the air, and with a mighty swoop downwards, screaming defiance as its outstretched pinions brush the sleek coat of the mountain lion, it passes on over the creaking tree-tops to learn the real cause of the hubbub.
Down the valley, away to the east, the timid deer gather, snuffing at the breeze, fearful, protesting, yet fascinated. The caribou pauses in his headlong race to listen; only, a moment later, to speed on the faster.