Wood-folk comedies

by William J. Long

So the pleasant trail ran on through the big woods, wonderfully white and still, and suddenly headed for a sheltered spot on a ridge overlooking a wide stretch of country. My heart jumped when I saw that spot, and the trail turning to its cover. It was an ideal place for wolves to “lie up” for the day; after testing the air, I approached the nest from leeward as stealthily as a hunting fox. It was empty; worse than that, it had not been occupied even for a moment’s halt. No sooner did the wolves enter the perfect cover than all the imps of uneasiness flew to their backs and drove them on. The trail was cold, showing no sign of alarm; but it said that the pack had shaken off laziness and was going somewhere without delay.

No more easy trailing now, and no more side excursions to learn what the cubs had been doing. The wolves headed into rough country northward; for miles I followed them where never a man went before, I think, and where no sensible man would go again. Only once have I experienced anything to compare with it and that was when I followed a bear that was making for his winter den through a foot of new-fallen snow. The bear had seen me, and took to rough country, knowing that I was hot on his trail; but all these cold signs said that the wolves were making medicine here while I was making coffee far away. In some uncanny way they seemed to have received a “tip” that they would be followed on this one day of all the year, and had laid out a trail that must break an enemy’s wind or heart. “Oh, that’s the loup-garou, all right,” I thought; “and some cunning devil is surely his master, as old books say. What else would lead this gorged pack to forsake its way of easy traveling and go through a breakneck country like this?”

For hours the trail held to broken ground, telling its lively tale. When the wolves drew near a steep hill or a stiff cobble, instead of rounding it by an easy runway they would corkscrew up one side and tumble down the other. In one place they would climb a sharp pitch like goats; in another, with discouraging ease, they would crouch under a ledge and take it with a catlike spring. When they topped ridge or hill, the leader would pick out a smooth pitch, sit on his tail, and slide down the other side, leaving a chute in the snow which might be ten or thirty feet long, and steep as a church roof. Here a few of the wolves might select individual slides; as a rule, they sat on their tails and tobogganed down after the leader.

To follow them in such places (warily, because the pack might be jumped at any moment) you had to rise on tiptoe, driving moccasins down through toe-holes in the snowshoe webs for a grip on the slippery incline, and make use of every bush or root to give yourself a helpful upward pull. When you reached the top and made cautious survey, you had to take off snowshoes and slide or scramble down the wolf chute. Meanwhile the thermometer was near zero, and you wished it were lower, for a little of this kind of work left you hot as a haymaker. Your wind-proof coat was tied in a snug bundle at your back; you were gloveless, in shirt-sleeves, and still too warmly dressed. When you stopped to breathe after a tough climb, the keen air promptly chilled you to the bone.

What between laborious ups and breathless downs, the afternoon passed all too quickly away; the last precious hour of daylight struck, and still there was no sign to indicate how far ahead the wolves might be resting. The trail was still cold, calling for haste if one expected to run into the pack; yet calling also for alertness, since the next step might bring one into sense range of the keenest of wild animals. A wolf may sleep, but never his ears or his nose; that is the fascination of trailing him to his day bed.

I was resting on the crest of a ridge, the trail stretching northward along the summit, when a gloom swept over the woods, as if they had been brushed by a cloud. Then a breeze stirred, making moan in the evergreens, and a snowstorm came creeping up from the south. In a moment my good luck was changed; the wind had turned behind me while the game was still ahead, and one might as well climb after a squirrel as to stalk a wolf pack from windward.

“No use! this loup-garou is too much for you,” I told myself, almost ready to acknowledge his superior medicine or magic. Ordinarily I might have been homeward bound with a wolf skin on my back at this hour; but now, empty handed, I must find a sheltered spot, build a “Commoosie” and gather wood for a night’s fire. Somewhere to the westward was a snowshoe trail; but a storm was coming, the country was strange, and to find the trail or retrace my course before dark was out of the question. Yes, I must spend the night here; but first, as a man waits another hopeful minute after a poor day’s fishing, I would run the trail a little farther.

That was a fortunate last-minute decision. I had followed the ridge only a few steps when I saw the face of a pond far below on my left, and recognized it as one I had crossed when a wolf pack led me a long chase hither from a different direction. No cheerless night for me now, and no more climbing every heartbreak hill between here and camp! The trail had borne more to the westward than I thought; the pond below was near a chain of lakes, and from it I could quickly reach my snowshoe trail and easy traveling.

The wooded ridge on which I stood had a sharp drop of twenty yards toward the pond. Along the foot of this drop grew clumps of bushes (of the dwarf-laurel family, I think), bearing shiny green leaves that appeared very beautiful when all other leaves were dead under the snow; and below that was an immense hillside stretching down to the valley. The wolves had slid down the first pitch, and turned sharp to the north again, still keeping to the heights, seeking even rougher country before calling halt for the day. So I judged, my eyes following the tireless trail, which went weaving in and out of the laurel bushes. That thicket yonder was a good wolf nest, excellent; but so were twenty others I had found empty that day; and see, a trail going out on the farther side!

As I stole along the summit, scanning the cover below in lingering hope, a snowflake touched my cheek with unmistakable warning. Others came whirling among the trees, like little white birds seeking a place to light; the great valley at my feet began to fill and darken. “No time to lose,” I thought; “not a minute, if I am to reach camp before this storm gets too thick to see through it. So, till next time, loup-garou! You have given me a great hunt; but I wish I could have seen your eyes.” Then I took off my snowshoes, picked a smooth pitch with a snowdrift below, and went down like a shot.