Carolina watchman. [volume] (Salisbury, N.C.) 1871-1937, 1917-04-18

ClCu WIN LIZ SiSNlllS ClCl Sy VI Ill
and action. He travelled north and
west. 1t was the call of early days
the days away up on the Mackenzie.
The Mackenzie was a thousand miles
away.
He came upon many trails in the
snow that day, and shifted the scents
left by the hoofs Of moose and caribou,
and the fur-padded feet of a lynx. He
followed a fox, and the trail led him to
a place shut in by tall spruce, where
the snow was beaten down and red
dened with blood. There was an OWLS
head, feathers, wings and entrails lying
here, and he knew that there We're
other hunters abroad besides himself.
Toward evening he came upon tracks
in the snow that were very much like
his OWL. They were quite fresh, and
there was a warm scent about them
that made him whine, and filed him
again with that desire to fall back up-
on his launches and send forth the
wolf-cry. This desire grew stronger
in him as the shadows of night deep
ened in the forest. He had Travelled
all day, but he vas not tired. There
was something about night, now that
there were no men neal that exhilarat-
ed him strangely. The wolf blood in
him ran Swifter and swifter. Tonight
it was clear. The sky was filled with
stars. The moon rose. And at last
he settled back in the snow and turned
! his hp06 STRAIGHT I'm tn tho rI1o +o,,r
and the wolf came out of him in a long
m%ournful cry which quivered through
the still night for miles.
FOr a long time he sat and listened
after that howl. He had found voice
a voice with a strange new note in it,
He had expected an answer, but none
came. He had Travelled in the face of
the wind, and as he howled, a bull
moose crashed through the scrub tim
Der ahead of him, his horns rafting
against the trees like the tattoo of q
tween himself and that cry.
Twice kaZan howled before he went
on, and he found joy in the practice of
that new note. He came then to the
foot of a rough ridge, and turned up
u of the swamp to the top of it. The
stars and h moon were nearer to him
there, and on the other side of the
ridge he looked down upon a great
sweeping plain, with a frozen lake glis-
tening in the moonlight, and a white
river leading from it off into timber
that was neither so thick nor so black
as that in the swamp.
And then every muscle in his body
grew tense. and his blood leaped. From
far off in the plain there came a cry.
1t was his cry-the wolf-cry. His jaws
snapped. His white fangs cleaned,
and he growled deep in his throat. He
wanted to reply, but some strange in
stinct urged him not to. That instinct
of h wild was already becoming mas
ter OF him. In the air, in the whisper
ing of the spruce tops, in the moon and
the stars themselves, there breathed
a spirit which told him that what he
had heard was the wolf-cry, but that it
was not the wolf call.
The other came an hour later, clear
n distinct, that same wailing howl at
the beginning-but ending in a staccato
of quick sharp yelps that stirred his
blood at once into a fiery excitement
that it had never known before. The
same instinct told him that his was
the call-the hunt-cry. 1t urged him to
come quickly. A few moments later it
came again, and this time there was a
reply from close down along the foot
of the ridge, and another from so far
away that Kazan could scarcely heal
it. The hunt-pack was gathering for
the night chase; but Kazan sat quiet
and trembling.
He was not afraid, but he was not
ready to go. The ridge seemed to split
the world for him. Down there it was
new, and strange, and without men.
From the other side something seemed
pulling him back, and suddenly he
turned his head and gazed back
through the moonlit space behind him,
and whined. 1t was the dog-whine now.
The woman vas back there. He could
near her voice. He could feel the
touch of her soft hand. He could see
the laughter in her face and eyes, the
laughter that had made him warm and
happy. She was calling to him through
the forests, and he was torn between
desire to answer that call, and desire
to go down into the plain. For he
could also see many men waiting for
him with clubs, and he could hear the
cracking of whips, and feel the sting of
their lashes.
For a long time he remained on the
top of the ridge that divided his world.
And then, at last, he turned and went
down into the plain.
CHAPTER v.