Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1915-11-04
CHAPTER XII (Continued.)

But Kazan was hungry He began
! to hunt in the face of the wind, travel
ing toward the burned plain. He nosed
about every windfall that he came to,
and Investigated the thickets. A thin,
shot-like snow had fallen, and in this
from the windfall to the burn - he
found but a single trail, and that was
the trail of an ermine. Under a wind
fallthe caught the warm scent Of rab-
bit, but the rabbit was as safe from
him there as were the cartridges in
the trees, and after an hour Of futile
digging and gnawing he gave up his eff
tort to reach it. For three hours he
had hunted when he returned to Gray
Wolf. He was exhausted. While Gray
Wolf, with the instinct Of the wild,
had saved her strength and energy, Ka-
zan had been burning up his reserve
forces, and was hungrier than ever.
The moon rose clear and brilliant in
the sky again that night, and kazan
set out once more on the hunt. He
urged Gray Wolf to accompany him,
whining for her outside the windfall
returning for her twice - but Gray
WOLF laid her ears aslant and refused
to move. The temperature had now
.allen to sixty-fve or seventy degrees
below zero, and with it there came
from the north an increasing wind,
making the night one In which human
life could not have existed for an hour.
BY midnight Kazan was back under
the windfaH. The wind grew stronger
1T began to wall in mournful dirges
over the swamp, and then it burst in
fierce shrieking volleys, with intervals
iof quiet between. These were the first
warnings from the great barrens that
slay, between the last lines of timber
and the Arctic. With morning the
storm burst in all it's fury from out Of
the north and Gray Wolf and Kazan
lay close together and shivered as they
listened to the roar of it over the wind
fall. Once Kazan thrust his head and
shoulders out from the shelter of the
FALLEN trees, but the storm drove him
back Everything that possessed life
had sought shelter, according to its
way and instinct. The furred creatures
like the mink and the ermine were
safest, for during the warmer hunting
days they were of the kind that each
I'D meat. The wolves and the foxes
had sought out the windfalls and the
rocks. Winged things, with the excep'
ton Of the owls, who were a tenth part
body and nine-tenths feathers, burrow
ed under snowdrifts or found shelter
N thick spruce. To the hoofed and
horned animals the storm meant great
the moose cold not crawl under the
windfalls or creep between rocks. The
best they could do was to lie down in
the lee Of drift; and allow themselves
to be covered deep with the protecting
snow. Even then they could not keep
their shelter long, for they had to eat.
For eighteen hours out of the twenty
four the moose had to feed to keep
himself alive during the winter His
big stomach demanded quantity, and it
took him most OF his time to nibble
from the tops Of bushes the two Or
three bushels he needed a day. The
caribou required almost az much - the !!
deer least OF the three.
And the storm kept up that day, and
the next, and still a third three days !
and three nights and the third day |
and night there came with it sting ,
ing, shotlike snow that fell two feet ;
deep on the level, and in drifts of eight |
and ten. It was the "heavy snow of /
the Indians - the snow that lay like
lead on the earth, 1nd under which
part,idges and rabbits were smothered |
in thousands.
On the fourth day after the begin
ing Of the storm Kazan and Gray Wolf .
issued forth from the windfall. There
was no longer wind = no more fall
ing snow. The whole world lay under
p blanket Of unbroken white, and it
was intensely cold.
The plague had worked it's havoc
with men. Now had come the days OF