The sound of blown paper was from the kittens—that was clear enough. Yet the hissing continued and this was the mystery of it all—that there appeared to be no movement besides. If this sound came from the tigress, at least, she had not stirred to meet him.
The hiss sunk to a low guttural grating. No cub had a cavernous profundity of sound such as that. Still there was not the stir of a muscle, so far as his senses had detected.
Skag was puzzled. Big game before him, possibly nerved to spring, and yet the tensity was not like that. The man stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness—waiting for the mystery to clear. Then to the right, like a little constellation suddenly pricking through the twilight, Skag saw a cluster of young stars. His heart warmed—kittens hunched there in a bundle and watching him. Their pricked ears presently shadowed somewhat from the blacker background; then he saw the little party suddenly swept and overturned, as if a long thin arm had brushed them back out of reach of the intruder.
Now his eyes turned slightly to the left and began to get the rest—the great levelled creature upon the darkened floor. Skag kept his imagination down until his optic nerves actually brought him the picture. The long thin sweep was the mother's tail, yet she was not crouched. Skag saw her sprawled paws extended toward him. She lay upon her side.
Thus it was that he was rounded back to the original proposition. He had found the lair of the wounded tigress and her young. For fully two minutes Skag stood quiet before her, working softly—her hiss changing at slow intervals to the cavernous growl. The kittens were too young to organise attack—the tigress was too maimed for resistance, even though at bay in lair with her kittens to defend.
Now the man saw the gleam of her eyes. She had followed his movements and was holding him now, but half vacantly. The pity of it all touched him; the rest of the story cleared. Her tongue was like a blown bag, the blackness of it apparent even in the dark. She was dying of thirst, the bullet wound in the shoulder turned up to him. The little ones were still active, for the tigress had fed them until her whole body was drained. He saw how her breast had been torn by the thirsty little ones—the open sores against the soft grey of her nether parts. Skag backed out. Nels pressed him—half lifted his great body in silent welcome.
"Oh, yes," Skag was saying, "we got the call, all right, my son. Four little duds in there eating their mother alive, and she full of fever from a wound—no water for days. I'm just after the canteen, Nels."
Skag entered again. His movements were deliberate, but not stealthy. He spoke softly to the creature on the floor—his voice lower than the usual pitch, yet sinking often deeper still. The words were mere nothings, but they carried the man's purpose of kindness—carried it steadily, tirelessly. The great beast tried to rise as he stepped closer. Skag waited, still talking. He had uncorked the canteen and held it forward—his idea being not only that she would smell the water but become accustomed to the thing in his hand. Each time he pressed a bit nearer she struggled to rise toward him—Skag standing just out of reach, tirelessly working with his mind and voice. He keenly registered her pain and helplessness in his own consciousness and was unwilling to prolong it, yet at the same time he had a very clear understanding of the patience required to bring help to her.
It was fully a quarter of an hour before he bent close, without starting a convulsion of fear and revolt in the huge fevered body upon the rocky floor. Skag poured a gurgle of water upon the swollen tongue, watching the single baleful tortured eye that held his face. The water was not wasted, though not drunk, for it washed away some of the poison formed of the fever and the thirst. Skag poured again and for a second the great holding eye was lost to him and the tongue moved.
Thus he worked, permitting her fear and rage to rouse no answer in kind from himself; talking to her softly, luring her out of fury into the enveloping madness of her own great need.