LITMIR.BIZ

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so well did he face it, that at the end of half an hour the wolves drew back discomfited. The tongues of all were out and lolling, the white fangs showing cruelly white in the moonlight. Some were lying down with heads raised and ears pricked forward; others stood on their feet, watching him; and still others were lapping water from the pool. One wolf, long and lean and gray, advanced cautiously, in a friendly manner, and Buck recognized the wild brother with whom he had run for a night and a day. He was whining softly, and, as Buck whined, they touched noses.

      Then an old wolf, gaunt and battle-scarred, came forward. Buck writhed his lips into the preliminary of a snarl, but sniffed noses with him, Whereupon the old wolf sat down, pointed nose at the moon, and broke out the long wolf howl. The others sat down and howled. And now the call came to Buck in unmistakable accents. He, too, sat down and howled. This over, he came out of his angle and the pack crowded around him, sniffing in half-friendly, half-savage manner. The leaders lifted the yelp of the pack and sprang away into the woods. The wolves swung in behind, yelping in chorus. And Buck ran with them, side by side with the wild brother, yelping as he ran.

      And here may well end the story of Buck. The years were not many when the Yeehats noted a change in the breed of timber wolves; for some were seen with splashes of brown on head and muzzle, and with a rift of white centring down the chest. But more remarkable than this, the Yeehats tell of a Ghost Dog that runs at the head of the pack. They are afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has cunning greater than they, stealing from their camps in fierce winters, robbing their traps, slaying their dogs, and defying their bravest hunters.

      Nay, the tale grows worse. Hunters there are who fail to return to the camp, and hunters there have been whom their tribesmen found with throats slashed cruelly open and with wolf prints about them in the snow greater than the prints of any wolf. Each fall, when the Yeehats follow the movement of the moose, there is a certain valley which they never enter. And women there are who become sad when the word goes over the fire of how the Evil Spirit came to select that valley for an abiding-place.

      In the summers there is one visitor, however, to that valley, of which the Yeehats do not know. It is a great, gloriously coated wolf, like, and yet unlike, all other wolves. He crosses alone from the smiling timber land and comes down into an open space among the trees. Here a yellow stream flows from rotted moose-hide sacks and sinks into the ground, with long grasses growing through it and vegetable mould overrunning it and hiding its yellow from the sun; and here he muses for a time, howling once, long and mournfully, ere he departs.

      But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.

      The Kempton-Wace Letters

       Table of Contents

       I. From Dane Kempton to Herbert Wace

       II. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton

       III. From Dane Kempton to Herbert Wace

       IV. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton

       V. From Dane Kempton to Herbert Wace

       VI. From the Same to the Same

       VII. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton

       VIII. From the Same to the Same

       IX. From Dane Kempton to Herbert Wace

       X. From the Same to the Same

       XI. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton

       XII. From Dane Kempton to Herbert Wace

       XIII. From the Same to the Same

       XIV. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton

       XV. From Dane Kempton to Herbert Wace

       XVI. From the Same to the Same

       XVII. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton

       XVIII. From the Same to the Same

       XIX. From Dane Kempton to Herbert Wace

       XX. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton

       XXI. From the Same to the Same

       XXII. From Dane Kempton to Herbert Wace

       XXIII. From the Same to the Same

       XXIV. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton

       XXV. From the Same to the Same

       XXVI. From Dane Kempton to Herbert Wace

       XXVII. From the Same to the Same

       XXVIII. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton

       XXIX. From Dane Kempton to Herbert Wace

       XXX. From Herbert Wace to Dane Kempton

       XXXI. From Dane Kempton to Herbert Wace

       XXXII. From the Same to the Same

       XXXIII. From the Same to the Same

       XXXIV. From the Same to the Same

       XXXV. From the Same to the Same

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