  The Killer had had an unsuccessful night. He had waited the long hours through at the mouth of the trail, but only the Little People—such as the rabbits and similar folk that hardly constituted a single bite in his great jaws—had come his way. Now it was morning and it looked as if he would have to go hungry. The thought didn't improve his already doubtful mood. He wanted to growl. The only thing that kept him from it was the realization that it would frighten away any living creature that might be approaching toward him up the trail. He started to stretch his great muscles, intending to leave his ambush. But all at once he froze again into a lifeless gray patch in the thickets. There were light steps on the trail. Again they were the steps of deer,—but not of the great, wary elk this time. Instead it was just a fawn, or a yearling doe at least, such a creature as had not yet learned to suspect every turn in the trail. The morning light was steadily growing, the stars were all dimmed or else entirely faded in the sky, and it would have been highly improbable that a full-grown buck in his wisdom would draw within leaping range without detecting him. But he hadn't the slightest doubt about the fawn. They were innocent people,—and their flesh was very tender. The forest gods had been good to him, after all. He peered through the thickets, and in a moment more he had a glimpse of the spotted skin. It was almost too easy. The fawn was stealing toward him with mincing steps—as graceful a creature as dwelt in all this wilderness world of grace—and its eyes were soft and tender as a girl's. It was evidently giving no thought to danger, only rejoicing that the fearful hours of night were done. The mountain lion had already sought its lair. The fawn didn't know that a worse terror still lingered at the mouth of the trail. But even as the Killer watched, the prize was simply taken out of his mouth. A gray wolf—a savage old male that also had just finished an unsuccessful hunt—had been stealing through the thickets in search of a lair, and he came out on the trail not fifty feet distant, halfway between the bear and the fawn. The one was almost as surprised as the other. The fawn turned with a frightened bleat and darted away; the wolf swung into pursuit. The bear lunged forward with a howl of rage. He leaped into the trail mouth, then ran as fast as he could in pursuit of the running wolf. He was too enraged to stop to think that a grizzly bear has never yet been able to overtake a wolf, once the trim legs got well into action. At first he couldn't think about anything; he had been cheated too many times. His first impulse was one of tremendous and overpowering wrath,—a fury that meant death to the first living creature that he met. But in a single second he realized that this wild chase was fairly good tactics, after all. The chances for a meal were still rather good. The fawn and the wolf were in the open now, and it was wholly evident that the gray hunter would overtake the quarry in another moment. It was true that the Killer would miss the pleasure of slaying his own game,—the ecstatic blow to the shoulder and the bite to the throat that followed it. In this case, the wolf would do that part of the work for him. It was just a simple matter of driving the creature away from his dead. The fawn reached the stream bank, then went bounding down the margin. The distance shortened between them. It was leaping wildly, already almost exhausted; the wolf raced easily, body close to the ground, in long, tireless strides. The grizzly bear sped behind him. But at that instant fate took a hand in this merry little chase. To the fawn, it was nothing but a sharp clang of metal behind him and an answering shriek of pain,—sounds that in its terror it heard but dimly. But it was an unlooked-for and tragic reality to the wolf. His leap was suddenly arrested in mid-air, and he was hurled to the ground with stunning force. Cruel metal teeth had seized his leg, and a strong chain held him when he tried to escape. He fought it with desperate savagery. The fawn leaped on to safety. But there was no need of the grizzly continuing its pursuit. Everything had turned out quite well for him, after all. A wolf is ever so much more filling than any kind of seasonal fawn; and the old gray pack leader was imprisoned and helpless in one of Hudson's traps. In the first gray of morning, Dave Turner started back toward his home. "I'll go with you to the forks in the trail," Hudson told him. "I want to take a look at some of my traps, anyhow." Turner had completed his business none too soon. At the same hour—as soon as it was light enough to see—Bruce was finishing his breakfast in preparation for the last lap of his journey. He had passed the night by a spring on a long ridge, almost in eye range of Hudson's camp. Now he was preparing to dip down into the Killer's glen. Turner and Hudson followed up the little creek, walking almost in silence. It is a habit all mountain men fall into, sooner or later,—not to waste words. The great silences of the wild places seem to forbid it. Hudson walked ahead, Turner possibly a dozen feet behind him. And because of the carpet of pine needles, the forest creatures could hardly hear them come. Occasionally they caught glimpses of the wild life that teemed about them, but they experienced none of the delight that had made the two-day tramp such a pleasure to Bruce. Hudson thought in terms of pelts only; no creature that did not wear a marketable hide was worth a glance. Turner did not feel even this interest. The first of Hudson's sets proved empty. The second was about a turn in the creek, and a wall of brush made it impossible for him to tell at a distance whether or not he had made a catch. But when still a quarter of a mile distant, Hudson heard a sound that he thought he recognized. It was a high, sharp, agonized bark that dimmed into a low whine. "I believe I've got a coyote or a wolf up there," he said. They hastened their steps. "And you use that little pea-gun for wolves?" Dave Turner asked. He pointed to the short-barreled, twenty-two caliber rifle that was slung on the trapper's back. "It doesn't look like it would kill a mosquito." "A killer gun," Hudson explained. "For polishin' 'em off when they are alive in the traps. Of course, it wouldn't be no good more'n ten feet away, and then you have to aim at a vital spot. But I've heard tell of animals I wouldn't want to meet with that thirty-thirty of yours." This was true enough. Dave had heard of them also. A thirty-thirty is a powerful weapon, but it isn't an elephant gun. They hurried on, Dave very anxious to watch the execution that would shortly ensue if whatever animal had cried from the trap was still alive. Such things were only the day's work to Hudson, but Dave felt a little tingle of anticipation. And the thought damned him beyond redemption. But instead of the joy of killing a cowering, terror-stricken animal, helpless in the trap, the wilderness had made other plans for Hudson and Dave. They hastened about the impenetrable wall of brush, and in one glance they knew that more urgent business awaited them. The whole picture loomed suddenly before their eyes. There was no wolf in the trap. The steel had sprung, certainly, but only a hideous fragment of a foot remained between the jaws. The bone had been broken sharply off, as a man might break a match in his fingers. There was no living wolf for Hudson to execute with his killer gun. Life had gone out of the gray body many minutes before. The two men saw all these things as a background only,—dim details about the central figure. But the thing that froze them in their tracks with terror was the great, gray form of the Killer, not twenty feet distant, beside the mangled body of the wolf. The events that followed thereafter came in such quick succession as to seem simultaneous. For one fraction of an instant all three figures stood motionless, the two men staring, the grizzly half-leaning over his prey, his head turned, his little red eyes full of hatred. Too many times this night he had missed his game. It was the same intrusion that had angered him before,—slight figures to break to pieces with one blow. Perhaps—for no man may trace fully the mental processes of animals—his fury fully transcended the fear that he must have instinctively felt; at least, he did not even attempt to flee. He uttered one hoarse, savage note, a sound in which all his hatred and his fury and his savage power were made manifest, whirled with incredible speed, and charged. The lunge seemed only a swift passing of gray light. No eye could believe that the vast form could move with such swiftness. There was little impression of an actual leap. Rather it was just a blow; the great form, huddled over the dead wolf, had simply reached the full distance to Hudson. The man did not even have time to turn. There was no defense; his killer-gun was strapped on his back, and even if it had been in his hands, its little bullet would not have mattered the sting of a bee in honey-robbing. The only possible chance of breaking that deadly charge lay in the thirty-thirty deer rifle in Dave's arms; but the craven who held it did not even fire. He was standing just below the outstretched limb of a tree, and the weapon fell from his hands as he swung up into the limb. The fact that Hudson stood weaponless, ten feet away in the clearing, did not deter him in the least. No human flesh could stand against that charge. The vast paw fell with resistless force; and no need arose for a second blow. The trapper's body was struck down as if felled by a meteor, and the power of the impact forced it deep into the carpet of pine needles. The savage creature turned, the white fangs caught the light in the open mouth. The head lunged toward the man's shoulder. No man may say what agony Hudson would have endured in the last few seconds of his life if the Killer had been given time and opportunity. His usual way was to linger long, sharp fangs closing again and again, until all living likeness was destroyed. The blood-lust was upon him; there would have been no mercy to the dying creature in the pine needles. Yet it transpired that Hudson's flesh was not to know those rending fangs a second time. Although it is an unfamiliar thing in the wilderness, the end of Hudson's trail was peaceful, after all. On the hillside above, a stranger to this land had dropped to his knee in the shrubbery, his rifle lifted to the level of his eyes. It was Bruce, who had come in time to see the charge through a rift in the trees. |
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