Hoof and Claw

by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

"The gaunt, tirelessly patrolling shape of his white sentinel."

The brief meal done, Wind-in-the-Night lighted his pipe and smoked stolidly, crouching over the small fire. In spite of the terrific cold, he was warm enough here, with the rock close at his back, the snow banked up at either side, and his blankets about him. From time to time he fed the fire frugally, and calculated that at this rate he could make his fuel last the whole night through. But sleep was not to be thought of. His small, unflinching eyes looked out across the meager flames, through the thin reek of the smoke, and met calmly the scores of cruel, narrowed eyes glaring upon him grimly from the edges of the timber. But the eyes of the tireless sentinel he did not meet, for they were kept always turned away from him. How long, he wondered, would the sentinel remain tireless? Or how long would those ravening watchers remain obedient to the authority that denied their hunger relief? No, decidedly he must not sleep.

Smoking endlessly, feeding the little fire and crouching over it, thinking of the wigwam on the lone white shore of the Michikamaw, and watching ever that dread half-circle of hungry eyes, and the gaunt, tirelessly patrolling shape of his white sentinel, he began to see strange visions. The waiting wolves vanished. In their place, emerging like mists from the forest and taking form in the firelight, came the spirits of the totems of his ancestors—white bears and black with eyes of men, eagles that walked stridingly, gray lynxes with a stare that seemed to pierce him through the bone, and towering black moose bulls with the storm-drift whirling in their antlers. They filled him with awe and wonder, but he had no fear of them, for he knew that he had done no trespass against the traditions. Then, without surprise, he saw his white guardian, the living presentment of his own totem, grow at once to the stature of a caribou, and come and sit down opposite him just across the fire, and look meaningly into his eyes. Wind-in-the-Night strove desperately to interpret that grave meaning. As his brain groped after it, suddenly a long, thin howling filled his ears, whether the voice of the wind or the voice of a wolf he could not tell.

The sound grew louder, louder, more penetrating and insistent, and then he came out of his vision with a start. He lifted his head, which had fallen on his breast. A late and aged moon hung distorted just over the line of the treetops before him. He was deadly cold, and the fire had burned down to a little heap of red embers. The dreadful waiting hordes had all vanished from the skirts of the timber, whirling off, doubtless, on the trail of some unprohibited quarry. Only the white sentinel remained, and he had shrunk back to his former stature, which was beyond that of his fellows, indeed, but not altogether incredible. He was sitting on his haunches just the other side of the dying fire. His long muzzle was lifted straight in the air, and he was howling to the decrepit moon.

As Wind-in-the-Night lifted his head the white wolf stopped howling, dropped his nose, and stared earnestly into the man's eyes. Hurriedly but carefully, the man thrust some dry sticks into the embers and fanned them into flame. Then he stood up. He knew that the white wolf's howling had awakened him and saved him from being frozen to death.

"Thank you, white brother," he said simply, with firm confidence that the mystical beast could understand human speech in the tongue of the Nasquapees.

The great wolf cocked his ears at the sound, and gazed at the man inquiringly for a second or two. Then he arose slowly and sauntered off into the forest.

Wind-in-the-Night knew that the peril had passed. He heaped wood on the fire with what was, for an Indian, lavish recklessness. When he was well warmed he went and dragged up the tree which he had felled, then he cooked himself a liberal meal—a strong stew of pemmican and flour—and, having eaten it, felt mightily refreshed. Having no more inclination for sleep, he resumed his journey, resolving to snatch at the midday halt what sleep he should find himself needing.

Now, it had chanced, some days earlier than this, that in one of the lodges by the Michikamaw a child had fallen sick. There was bitter famine in the lodges, but that was plainly not what ailed the little one. None of the wise men of the tribe could diagnose the sickness, and the child was near to death. Then an old brave, the child's uncle, who had been much about the posts of the Hudson Bay Company, which are scattered over Labrador, said that the white man's medicine was a magic to cure all disease, and that, if the little one could but come to one of the posts, his life would surely be saved. The old brave was himself hungering for an excuse to get away to the warmth which was to be found in the dwellings of the white man, and he said that he would take the little one out to North West River to be healed. And the mother, dry-eyed, but with despair at her heart, had let him go. It was only a chance, but it seemed the only chance; and she greatly feared to meet the child's father if it should die in his absence.