Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1915-11-02
copv-ssAe, The Bobbs. Merrill Company.

/ flank. And Kazan went on. Gray Wolf
followed him to the edge of the clear
ing in which Lofts cabin stood, and
then she sat back on her launches,
raised her blind face to the gray sky,
and gave a long and wailing cry. In
that moment the bristles began to rise
along Kazan's spine. Once, long ago,
he had howled before the tepee of a
master who was newly dead, and he
settled back on his launches and gave
the death cry with Gray Wolf. He, too
scented 1t now. Death was in the cab
in, and over the cabin there stood a
saplir pole, and at the end OF the pole
there nuttered strip of red cotton rag
the warning flag of the plague from
Athabasca to the bay. This man, like
hundred other heroes of the North,
had run up the warning before he laid
himself down to die. And that same
night. in the cold light of the moon,
Kazan and Gray Wolf swung north
ward into the country of the Fond du
Lac
There preceded them messenger
from the post on Reindeer Lake, who
was passing up the warning that had
come from Nelson House and the coun-
try to the southeast.
There's smallpox on the Nelson"
the messenger informed Williams at
Fond du Lac, ''and it has struck the
Crees on Wollaston Lake. God only
knows what it is doing to the Bay In
dams, but we hear it is wiping out the
Chippewas between the Albany and
! the Churchill." He left the same day
with his winded dogs. I'm off to carry
word to the Reveillon people to the
, west" he explained.
| Three days later, word came from
Churchill that all of the company S
servants and his majestys subjects
west of the bay should prepare them
selves for the coming of the Red Ter.
ror. Williams thin face turned as
white as the paper he held, as he read
the words of the Churchill factor.
1T means dig graves" he said. That's
the only preparation We can make
He read the paper aloud to the men
at Fond du Lac, and every available
man was detailed to spread the warn
ing throughout the posts territory.
There was quick Harvesting of dogs.
and on each sledge that went out was
roll of red cotton cloth - rolls that
were omnibus Of death, lurid signals
Of pestilence and horror, whose touch
sent shuddering chills through the
men who were about to scatter them
among the forest people. Kazan and
Gray Wolf struck the trail of one of
these sledges on the Gray Beaver. and
followed it for half mile. The next
day. farther to the west. they struck
another, and on the fourth day still. a
third. The last trail was fresh, and
Gray Wolf drew back from it as II
stung, her fangs snarling. On the wind
there came to them the pungent odor
of smoke. They cut at right angles to
the trail Gray Wolf leaping clear Of
a ridge. TO windward of them, and
down in the plain, cabin was burning.
A team of huskies and man were dis
appearing in the spruce forest. Deep
down in his throat Kazan gave rumb-
ling whine. Gray Wolf stood as rigid
as rock. In the cabin plaguedead
man was burning. 1t was the law Of
the North. And the mystery Of the
funeral Dyre came again to Kazan and
Gray Wolf, This time they did not
howl but skunk down into the farther
plain. and did not stop that day until
they had buried themselves deem in a
DRY and sheltered swamp ten miles to
the north.
After this thew followed the days
and weeks which marked the winter
Of nineteen hundred and ten as one
of the most terrible in all the history
Of the Northand single month in
which wild life as well as human
hung in the balance, and when cold
starYaticn and plague wrote chapter
in the lives Of the forest people which
will not be forgotten for generations
to come. a..... ..
In the swamp Kazan and Gray Wolf