The Way of the Wild

could have accounted for his character; that came straight from the Devil, his master. Gulo, however, was not a cross. He was himself, Gulo, the wolverine, alias glutton, alias carcajou,

ave seen his face. If he had, he would have looked for his double among the fiends on the top of Notr

had no soul. God alone knows if love, which softens most creatures, had ever come to Gulo; his behav

rly to those parts-and the north-east wind cut like several razors. But Gulo did not seem to care. Wrapped up in his ragged, long, untidy, uncleanly-looking, brown-black cloak-just his gray-sided, black fiend's face poking ou

rn chain-mail and dared to measure him-no beast, I say, to handle with white-kid ball gloves. Things

leep there. And an army was-of wood-pigeons. Thousands upon thousands of wood-pigeons wer

ked his way to it-walking flat-footed, like a bear or a railway porter-it was dead. Slain in a breath! Without a flutter, killed! By what? By disease-diphtheria. But not here would the terrible drama be worked out. This was

he wolverine. As he sniffed it he found that out. The thing was wasted to the bon

mless sort of way, coming from and going now hither, as if the breeze itself were

ted him more. He became a beast cast in old, old bronze, and as hard as

week. Therefore I do not know exactly how long that wolverine was encircling that scent, and pinning it down to a certain spot-himself unseen. All animals, almost

gain now-that a man-a hunter, a trapper, one after fur-had made himself here a cache, a sto

th-Country miner, with swiftness and precision, stopping every now and again to sit back on his h

and was floating about. Once a fox, somewhere in the utter silence of the forest depths, barked a hoarse, sharp, malicious sound; and once, hoarser still and very hollowly, a great horned owl hooted with disconcerting suddenness. (The scream of a rabbit followed these two, but whether fox or owl had been in at that killing the wolverine never knew.) Twice a wood-

ver be overlooked in the wild. He dug on, and in digging came right to the cache, roofed and anchored all down, safe beyond any invasion, with tree-trunks. And-and, mark you, not

see why I said he had more brains tha

He got his head inside. He felt about purposefully, and backed out, dragging a tra

nd backed out. It was another trap, and with it he vanished also; and it,

unch of venison, off which he dined. The seventh showed another haunch, and this he buried somewhere unseen in the shades. The eighth overhaul gave up some rope, in which he nea

not an orderly cache, but a third-rate débacle, he sauntered, always slouching, always grossly untidy, hump-backed, stoopin

if he never had been-a memory, no

aring. He was sitting up, almost bolt-upright, and he was shading his eyes with his forepaws. A man could not have d

appearance; and two willow-grouse were clucking at him from some hazel-tops; whilst a raven, bla

ly down the ranked, narrowing perspective of the buttressed forest glade to where it faded in the blue-gray mist, southward, as if he expected something to co

ckles alift, alternately loping and pivoting, to listen and look back, a wild reindeer, trotting heavily, but far more quickly than he seemed to be-all these passed, now on one side, now on the other, often

e glade runs a wait

spreads and wide

on thy brow, for

Little Hunte

by. The pool was spring-fed, and covered, as to every dead leaf and stone, with fine green moss of incomparable softness. He drank swift

thickets before he realized, and one saw, the fact. He broke his trot. He began to plunge. Nevertheless, he got along. There was pace, of a sort. Certainly there

could have run easily along the hard crust of it; but it was as it was, only about two feet, just enough to retard him, and no more. And it is then, when the snow is like that, j

woods-rising. It was only a whisper, almost indistinguishable to our ears, but enough, quite enough, for him. Taken in conjunction with the mysterious shifting of the elk and the red

enance to look at him he cursed it fluently, with a sudden savage growl, envious, perhaps, of its long, springing

stency that was part of his character. Nothing had passed him for quite a while, and he was all alone in the ut

hing, except in the west, where the sky held a faint, luminous, pinky tinge that foretold frost. It was very cold, and the s

wn on all fours, and sent him away again at a gallop with a strange new light burning in his little, wide-set eyes. It was the unmistakable sound of a horse sneezing

are with eyes that glinted-dancing past. The moon came and hung itself up in the heavens, mocking him with a pitiless, stark glare. (He would have given his right forepaw for a black night a

ly and less easily now with every mile, Gulo stuck to the job of putting the

little, like a sea, a dead sea, of spotless white, with nothing alive upon it-only his hunched, slouching, untidy, squa

less plain of snow, something which appeared to be no more than crawling, ant-like, but was really traveling very fast. It looked like a smudged dot, nothing more; but it was a horse, really, galloping hard, with a light s

wed. Then it had started to gallop, and, with ears back and teeth showing, had never ceased to gallop. This, apparently, was not the first wolverin

usly was nothing to that which he showed now-uselessly. And, far behind him, the man in the sleigh dre

though the feat seemed impossible, for the trees had been so very far away. Got in among the trees-yes, but dead-beat, and-to what end? To be "treed" igno

ind Gulo. In spite of the muffling effect of snow, his expectan

ff! Grrrrrr! Grr-ur

urling sideways, and rolling over and over, snarling, to prevent the crowning disaster of collision with this terrible portent! A blow, two blows, with enormous paws whose claws gleamed like skewers, whistling half-an-inc

hidden tree-root, rolled over again twice, and up, and hurled, literally with his last gasp and effort, headlong through the air behind a

her crack; an awful, hoarse growl; the furious thudding of horse's hoofs stampeding and growing fainter and fainter; and an appalling series

racks there, and blood; and the tracks were the biggest footprints of a bear-a brown bear-

d gone straight away in the track of horse and man, anyway, and-he had saved the wolverine's life, after, with p

in the east than it had been, and the gaunt tree-trunks were standing out a fraction from the ge

it was about time for him to get himself out of sight. He had a pass

out and dug up a gro

nged to a fox the night before, and that red worthy returned soon after dawn. He thrust an inquiring sharp muzzle inside, took one sniff, and, with ev

part of the way, and he viewed a still and silent, white world, under a sky like the lid of a lead box, very low down. He stood higher against the tree-trunks than he had done the nig

at clearing was as empty as a swept room. To Gulo's nose it was not, and he was just about to crouch and execute a stalk, when half the snow seemed to get up and run away. The runners were wood-hares. They had "frozen" stiff on the alarm from their sentries. But it was not Gulo who had caused

ed, tail low, a most dejected-looking,

ound and clean, in the snow. All the tunnels smelt of grouse, but devil a grouse could he find. He had come a bit early. It was as yet barely night, and he should have waited till later, when they would be more asleep. However, he dug on along the tunnels, driving the grouse before him. And then a strange thing happened.

g angry-not even a wild animal likes failure-he was seeking a sacrifice; but he had crossed the plain,

as. It was sufficient for him that they were reindeer, and that they had traveled in the general direction that he wanted to go. For the rest-he had the patience, perhaps more than the patience,

ad dug up one lemming-a sort of square-ended relation of the rat, with an abbreviated tail-and pounced upon one pigmy owl, scarce as large as a thrush, which he did not seem to rel

ng then. When he woke up it was almost dark, and snowin

ng outside the den, you understand. And if there had been any enemy in hiding, waiting for him outside, he would have discovered the fact then. He had many enemies, and no fr

l of snow for the purpose, and was half a mile away, still on the track of the reindeer, before he showed him

ence, and the snow falling softly over everything; but Gulo was as certain that there was the herd close ahead as he was that he was

he surroundings almost to a yard. Nothing could have escaped him. No detail of risk and danger, of the chance of being seen even, had been overlooked; for he was a master at his craft, the greatest master

. This belly-creep, hugging always every available inch of cover, he kept up till he came to a big clearing, and-there were the reindeer. At least, there was one reindeer, a doe, standing with her

fter Gulo had got as close as he cou

nd. But Gulo had covered half the intervening space before she

floundering deer all round and about the clearing-a fearful mix-up, somewhere in the midst

and his immense strength seemed wrong somehow, and out of all proportion to his size. This remarkable power of his jaws had that

new light smoldered in his eyes now as he lifted his carmine snout, and one saw that, for the

slow, helpless, plunging progress necessary in the deep snow. Wherefore panic took them all over again, and they dashed, often colliding, generally hindering

the limelight in her grisly moods. Suffice it to say that Gulo seemed to stop at length, simply because even he could not "see red" forever, and with exhaustio

re the world, and he was not a beast sweet to look upon

good reasons, and he was no fool. He knew quite well the kind of little hell he had made for himself behind there, and he did not stay to let

st his short, sharp muzzle inside that hole, to be met by

owls in return, and for half-a-minute the air became full o

whipped at him with a round-arm stroke out of the pitch-darkness. The stroke was repeated, scraping,

y in the darkness. Then they parted, got up, growled one final roll of fury at each other, fang to fang, and, curling u

en that moment and sometime in the afternoon, when, so far as one could see, Gulo suddenly rolled straight

were no more. Nor did there seem to be any reason for this extraordinary conduct except-except-- Well, it is true that a willow-grouse, white as the snowy branch he sat upon, did start clucking somewhere in the dim tree regiments, a snipe did come whistling sadly over the tree-tops, and a raven, jet against the white, did flap up, barking sharply, above

y, relentless, dogged-the chase o

e with a whir and a bluster like an aeroplane, showing their course, and it was noted. An eagle climbed heavily and ponderously over the low curtain of the snow mist, poin

men, side by side, deadly dumb, with set faces, the pale sun glinting coldly cruel upon the snaky, lean barrels of their slung rifles, moving with steady, fleet, giant strides on their immense spidery ski that were eleven feet long, which whispered ghostily among the silent aisles of Nature's cathedral of a thousand columns. The Brothers

between his teeth and seconds beca

olled along in Indian file, except for

tly side by side over the glittering white carpet,

-bound; and save for the occasional crash of a collapsing snow-laden branch, so

the two fell apart silently and instantly, gradually getting farther and farther from each other on a diverging course, till his wife faded out among the trees. But never for

promptly separated without a word, gradually increasing the distance between them on the widening fork till they were lost to each other among the marshaled tr

general direction over the endless wastes of snow, and upon their faces was beginning to creep the look of that pain that

e wolverines, now miles apart, but still heading in the same general line, and upon their faces began to se

dimly, interspersed with aching blanks of dazzling white that blinded the starting eyes, and man an

th him, far away, the valley lay like a white tablecloth, all dotted with green pawns, and the pawns were trees. But he was not lookin

tery sun with his forepaws, watching as perh

in the valley, and then at length, slowly, so slowly that at first the movement was not percept

k, dotted blur that was woods. Then he dropped on all fours, and breathed one great,

mming a swift and ice-choked river. She was standing on the bank, watching another

were safe. Safe? Bah! Wild creatures are never safe. Nature

ll, and for the first time in his life-perhaps because he was tired, fagged-Gulo failed to take it. And y

fur, through skin, deep down through flesh, right into his back, clutching, gripping vise-like. Another stiletto, hooked, too, worse than the first one, beat at his skull,

nd never again do I want to see such a fight as the one between Gu

him at that moment, and he fought as they fight who go down to hell. It was frightful. It was terrifying. Heaven alone knows wh

not stop those vast vans from flapping; and as they flapped they rose, the eagle rose, he-though it was like t

t no higher. That was the limit of his lift, the utmost of his strength; and at that height parallel with

on the open ridge in stark daylight; another mistake for the eagle

ng Gulo's jaws clashed shut upon it, his claws gripped, and-he thought his back was going to come off whole. But he stuck it. H

ke, gave way, and, before either seemed to know quite what was happ

ated of all the beasts. He rose up, half-blind, almost senseless, but mad with rage

mist, out of which a great pinion, a clawing paw, a snapping beak, a flash of fangs, a skinny leg and clutching, talons, a ci

l clutching brown-black, rusty fur and red skin; at the unmistakable flat-footed trail of Gulo, the wolverine, leading away to the frowning, threatening blackness of the woods. He could understand it all, that wolf. Indeed, it w