BROWN WOLF
She had delayed, because of the dew-wet grass, in order to put on herovershoes, and when she emerged from the house found her waiting husbandabsorbed in the wonder of a bursting almond-bud. She sent a questingglance across the tall grass and in and out among the orchard trees.
"Where's Wolf?" she asked.
"He was here a moment ago." Walt Irvine drew himself away with a jerkfrom the metaphysics and poetry of the organic miracle of blossom, andsurveyed the landscape. "He was running a rabbit the last I saw of him."
"Wolf! Wolf! Here Wolf!" she called, as they left the clearing and tookthe trail that led down through the waxen-belled manzanita jungle to thecounty road.
Irvine thrust between his lips the little finger of each hand and lent toher efforts a shrill whistling.
She covered her ears hastily and made a wry grimace.
"My! for a poet, delicately attuned and all the rest of it, you can makeunlovely noises. My ear-drums are pierced. You outwhistle--"
"Orpheus."
"I was about to say a street-arab," she concluded severely.
"Poesy does not prevent one from being practical--at least it doesn'tprevent _me_. Mine is no futility of genius that can't sell gems to themagazines."
He assumed a mock extravagance, and went on:
"I am no attic singer, no ballroom warbler. And why? Because I ampractical. Mine is no squalor of song that cannot transmute itself, withproper exchange value, into a flower-crowned cottage, a sweet mountain-meadow, a grove of redwoods, an orchard of thirty-seven trees, one longrow of blackberries and two short rows of strawberries, to say nothing ofa quarter of a mile of gurgling brook. I am a beauty-merchant, a traderin song, and I pursue utility, dear Madge. I sing a song, and thanks tothe magazine editors I transmute my song into a waft of the west windsighing through our redwoods, into a murmur of waters over mossy stonesthat sings back to me another song than the one I sang and yet the samesong wonderfully--er--transmuted."
"O that all your song-transmutations were as successful!" she laughed.
"Name one that wasn't."
"Those two beautiful sonnets that you transmuted into the cow that wasaccounted the worst milker in the township."
"She was beautiful--" he began,
"But she didn't give milk," Madge interrupted.
"But she _was_ beautiful, now, wasn't she?" he insisted.
"And here's where beauty and utility fall out," was her reply. "Andthere's the Wolf!"
From the thicket-covered hillside came a crashing of underbrush, andthen, forty feet above them, on the edge of the sheer wall of rock,appeared a wolf's head and shoulders. His braced fore paws dislodged apebble, and with sharp-pricked ears and peering eyes he watched the fallof the pebble till it struck at their feet. Then he transferred his gazeand with open mouth laughed down at them.
"You Wolf, you!" and "You blessed Wolf!" the man and woman called out tohim.
The ears flattened back and down at the sound, and the head seemed tosnuggle under the caress of an invisible hand.
They watched him scramble backward into the thicket, then proceeded ontheir way. Several minutes later, rounding a turn in the trail where thedescent was less precipitous, he joined them in the midst of a miniatureavalanche of pebbles and loose soil. He was not demonstrative. A patand a rub around the ears from the man, and a more prolonged caressingfrom the woman, and he was away down the trail in front of them, glidingeffortlessly over the ground in true wolf fashion.
In build and coat and brush he was a huge timber-wolf; but the lie wasgiven to his wolfhood by his color and marking. There the dogunmistakably advertised itself. No wolf was ever colored like him. Hewas brown, deep brown, red-brown, an orgy of browns. Back and shoulderswere a warm brown that paled on the sides and underneath to a yellow thatwas dingy because of the brown that lingered in it. The white of thethroat and paws and the spots over the eyes was dirty because of thepersistent and ineradicable brown, while the eyes themselves were twintopazes, golden and brown.
The man and woman loved the dog very much; perhaps this was because ithad been such a task to win his love. It had been no easy matter when hefirst drifted in mysteriously out of nowhere to their little mountaincottage. Footsore and famished, he had killed a rabbit under their verynoses and under their very windows, and then crawled away and slept bythe spring at the foot of the blackberry bushes. When Walt Irvine wentdown to inspect the intruder, he was snarled at for his pains, and Madgelikewise was snarled at when she went down to present, as apeace-offering, a large pan of bread and milk.
A most unsociable dog he proved to be, resenting all their advances,refusing to let them lay hands on him, menacing them with bared fangs andbristling hair. Nevertheless he remained, sleeping and resting by thespring, and eating the food they gave him after they set it down at asafe distance and retreated. His wretched physical condition explainedwhy he lingered; and when he had recuperated, after several days'sojourn, he disappeared.
And this would have been the end of him, so far as Irvine and his wifewere concerned, had not Irvine at that particular time been called awayinto the northern part of the state. Riding along on the train, near tothe line between California and Oregon, he chanced to look out of thewindow and saw his unsociable guest sliding along the wagon road, brownand wolfish, tired yet tireless, dust-covered and soiled with two hundredmiles of travel.
Now Irvine was a man of impulse, a poet. He got off the train at thenext station, bought a piece of meat at a butcher shop, and captured thevagrant on the outskirts of the town. The return trip was made in thebaggage car, and so Wolf came a second time to the mountain cottage. Herehe was tied up for a week and made love to by the man and woman. But itwas very circumspect love-making. Remote and alien as a traveller fromanother planet, he snarled down their soft-spoken love-words. He neverbarked. In all the time they had him he was never known to bark.
To win him became a problem. Irvine liked problems. He had a metalplate made, on which was stamped: RETURN TO WALT IRVINE, GLEN ELLEN,SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. This was riveted to a collar and strappedabout the dog's neck. Then he was turned loose, and promptly hedisappeared. A day later came a telegram from Mendocino County. Intwenty hours he had made over a hundred miles to the north, and was stillgoing when captured.
He came back by Wells Fargo Express, was tied up three days, and wasloosed on the fourth and lost. This time he gained southern Oregonbefore he was caught and returned. Always, as soon as he received hisliberty, he fled away, and always he fled north. He was possessed of anobsession that drove him north. The homing instinct, Irvine called it,after he had expended the selling price of a sonnet in getting the animalback from northern Oregon.
Another time the brown wanderer succeeded in traversing half the lengthof California, all of Oregon, and most of Washington, before he waspicked up and returned "Collect." A remarkable thing was the speed withwhich he travelled. Fed up and rested, as soon as he was loosed hedevoted all his energy to getting over the ground. On the first day'srun he was known to cover as high as a hundred and fifty miles, and afterthat he would average a hundred miles a day until caught. He alwaysarrived back lean and hungry and savage, and always departed fresh andvigorous, cleaving his way northward in response to some prompting of hisbeing that no one could understand.
But at last, after a futile year of flight, he accepted the inevitableand elected to remain at the cottage where first he had killed the rabbitand slept by the spring. Even after that, a long time elapsed before theman and woman succeeded in patting him. It was a great victory, for theyalone were allowed to put hands on him. He was fastidiously exclusive,and no guest at the cottage ever succeeded in making up to him. A lowgrowl greeted such approach; if any one had the hardihood to come nearer,the lips lifted, the naked fangs appeared, and the growl became a snarl--asnarl so terrible and malignant that it awed the stoutest of them, as itlikewise awed the farmers' dogs that knew ordinar
y dog-snarling, but hadnever seen wolf-snarling before.
He was without antecedents. His history began with Walt and Madge. Hehad come up from the south, but never a clew did they get of the ownerfrom whom he had evidently fled. Mrs. Johnson, their nearest neighborand the one who supplied them with milk, proclaimed him a Klondike dog.Her brother was burrowing for frozen pay-streaks in that far country, andso she constituted herself an authority on the subject.
But they did not dispute her. There were the tips of Wolf's ears,obviously so severely frozen at some time that they would never quiteheal again. Besides, he looked like the photographs of the Alaskan dogsthey saw published in magazines and newspapers. They often speculatedover his past, and tried to conjure up (from what they had read andheard) what his northland life had been. That the northland still drewhim, they knew; for at night they sometimes heard him crying softly; andwhen the north wind blew and the bite of frost was in the air, a greatrestlessness would come upon him and he would lift a mournful lamentwhich they knew to be the long wolf-howl. Yet he never barked. Noprovocation was great enough to draw from him that canine cry.
Long discussion they had, during the time of winning him, as to whose doghe was. Each claimed him, and each proclaimed loudly any expression ofaffection made by him. But the man had the better of it at first,chiefly because he was a man. It was patent that Wolf had had noexperience with women. He did not understand women. Madge's skirts weresomething he never quite accepted. The swish of them was enough to sethim a-bristle with suspicion, and on a windy day she could not approachhim at all.
On the other hand, it was Madge who fed him; also it was she who ruledthe kitchen, and it was by her favor, and her favor alone, that he waspermitted to come within that sacred precinct. It was because of thesethings that she bade fair to overcome the handicap of her garments. Thenit was that Walt put forth special effort, making it a practice to haveWolf lie at his feet while he wrote, and, between petting and talking,losing much time from his work. Walt won in the end, and his victory wasmost probably due to the fact that he was a man, though Madge averredthat they would have had another quarter of a mile of gurgling brook, andat least two west winds sighing through their redwoods, had Wait properlydevoted his energies to song-transmutation and left Wolf alone toexercise a natural taste and an unbiassed judgment.
"It's about time I heard from those triolets," Walt said, after a silenceof five minutes, during which they had swung steadily down the trail."There'll be a check at the post-office, I know, and we'll transmute itinto beautiful buckwheat flour, a gallon of maple syrup, and a new pairof overshoes for you."
"And into beautiful milk from Mrs. Johnson's beautiful cow," Madge added."To-morrow's the first of the month, you know."
Walt scowled unconsciously; then his face brightened, and he clapped hishand to his breast pocket.
"Never mind. I have here a nice beautiful new cow, the best milker inCalifornia."
"When did you write it?" she demanded eagerly. Then, reproachfully, "Andyou never showed it to me."
"I saved it to read to you on the way to the post-office, in a spotremarkably like this one," he answered, indicating, with a wave of hishand, a dry log on which to sit.
A tiny stream flowed out of a dense fern-brake, slipped down amossy-lipped stone, and ran across the path at their feet. From thevalley arose the mellow song of meadow-larks, while about them, in andout, through sunshine and shadow, fluttered great yellow butterflies.
Up from below came another sound that broke in upon Walt reading softlyfrom his manuscript. It was a crunching of heavy feet, punctuated nowand again by the clattering of a displaced stone. As Walt finished andlooked to his wife for approval, a man came into view around the turn ofthe trail. He was bare-headed and sweaty. With a handkerchief in onehand he mopped his face, while in the other hand he carried a new hat anda wilted starched collar which he had removed from his neck. He was awell-built man, and his muscles seemed on the point of bursting out ofthe painfully new and ready-made black clothes he wore.
"Warm day," Walt greeted him. Walt believed in country democracy, andnever missed an opportunity to practise it.
The man paused and nodded.
"I guess I ain't used much to the warm," he vouchsafed halfapologetically. "I'm more accustomed to zero weather."
"You don't find any of that in this country," Walt laughed.
"Should say not," the man answered. "An' I ain't here a-lookin' for itneither. I'm tryin' to find my sister. Mebbe you know where she lives.Her name's Johnson, Mrs. William Johnson."
"You're not her Klondike brother!" Madge cried, her eyes bright withinterest, "about whom we've heard so much?"
"Yes'm, that's me," he answered modestly. "My name's Miller, SkiffMiller. I just thought I'd s'prise her."
"You are on the right track then. Only you've come by the foot-path."Madge stood up to direct him, pointing up the canyon a quarter of a mile."You see that blasted redwood? Take the little trail turning off to theright. It's the short cut to her house. You can't miss it."
"Yes'm, thank you, ma'am," he said. He made tentative efforts to go, butseemed awkwardly rooted to the spot. He was gazing at her with an openadmiration of which he was quite unconscious, and which was drowning,along with him, in the rising sea of embarrassment in which hefloundered.
"We'd like to hear you tell about the Klondike," Madge said. "Mayn't wecome over some day while you are at your sister's? Or, better yet, won'tyou come over and have dinner with us?"
"Yes'm, thank you, ma'am," he mumbled mechanically. Then he caughthimself up and added: "I ain't stoppin' long. I got to be pullin' northagain. I go out on to-night's train. You see, I've got a mail contractwith the government."
When Madge had said that it was too bad, he made another futile effort togo. But he could not take his eyes from her face. He forgot hisembarrassment in his admiration, and it was her turn to flush and feeluncomfortable.
It was at this juncture, when Walt had just decided it was time for himto be saying something to relieve the strain, that Wolf, who had beenaway nosing through the brush, trotted wolf-like into view.
Skiff Miller's abstraction disappeared. The pretty woman before himpassed out of his field of vision. He had eyes only for the dog, and agreat wonder came into his face.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he enunciated slowly and solemnly.
He sat down ponderingly on the log, leaving Madge standing. At the soundof his voice, Wolf's ears had flattened down, then his mouth had openedin a laugh. He trotted slowly up to the stranger and first smelled hishands, then licked them with his tongue.
Skiff Miller patted the dog's head, and slowly and solemnly repeated,"Well, I'll be damned!"
"Excuse me, ma'am," he said the next moment "I was just s'prised some,that was all."
"We're surprised, too," she answered lightly. "We never saw Wolf make upto a stranger before."
"Is that what you call him--Wolf?" the man asked.
Madge nodded. "But I can't understand his friendliness toward you--unlessit's because you're from the Klondike. He's a Klondike dog, you know."
"Yes'm," Miller said absently. He lifted one of Wolf's fore legs andexamined the foot-pads, pressing them and denting them with his thumb."Kind of soft," he remarked. "He ain't been on trail for a long time."
"I say," Walt broke in, "it is remarkable the way he lets you handlehim."
Skiff Miller arose, no longer awkward with admiration of Madge, and in asharp, businesslike manner asked, "How long have you had him?"
But just then the dog, squirming and rubbing against the newcomer's legs,opened his mouth and barked. It was an explosive bark, brief and joyous,but a bark.
"That's a new one on me," Skiff Miller remarked.
Walt and Madge stared at each other. The miracle had happened. Wolf hadbarked.
"It's the first time he ever barked," Madge said.
"First time I ever heard him, too," Miller volunt
eered.
Madge smiled at him. The man was evidently a humorist.
"Of course," she said, "since you have only seen him for five minutes."
Skiff Miller looked at her sharply, seeking in her face the guile herwords had led him to suspect.
"I thought you understood," he said slowly. "I thought you'd tumbled toit from his makin' up to me. He's my dog. His name ain't Wolf. It'sBrown."
"Oh, Walt!" was Madge's instinctive cry to her husband.
Walt was on the defensive at once.
"How do you know he's your dog?" he demanded.
"Because he is," was the reply.
"Mere assertion," Walt said sharply.
In his slow and pondering way, Skiff Miller looked at him, then asked,with a nod of his head toward Madge:
"How d'you know she's your wife? You just say, 'Because she is,' andI'll say it's mere assertion. The dog's mine. I bred 'm an' raised 'm,an' I guess I ought to know. Look here. I'll prove it to you."
Skiff Miller turned to the dog. "Brown!" His voice rang out sharply,and at the sound the dog's ears flattened down as to a caress. "Gee!"The dog made a swinging turn to the right. "Now mush-on!" And the dogceased his swing abruptly and started straight ahead, halting obedientlyat command.
"I can do it with whistles," Skiff Miller said proudly. "He was my leaddog."
"But you are not going to take him away with you?" Madge askedtremulously.
The man nodded.
"Back into that awful Klondike world of suffering?"
He nodded and added: "Oh, it ain't so bad as all that. Look at me.Pretty healthy specimen, ain't I?"
"But the dogs! The terrible hardship, the heart-breaking toil, thestarvation, the frost! Oh, I've read about it and I know."
"I nearly ate him once, over on Little Fish River," Miller volunteeredgrimly. "If I hadn't got a moose that day was all that saved 'm."
"I'd have died first!" Madge cried.
"Things is different down here," Miller explained. "You don't have toeat dogs. You think different just about the time you're all in. You'venever ben all in, so you don't know anything about it."
"That's the very point," she argued warmly. "Dogs are not eaten inCalifornia. Why not leave him here? He is happy. He'll never want forfood--you know that. He'll never suffer from cold and hardship. Hereall is softness and gentleness. Neither the human nor nature is savage.He will never know a whip-lash again. And as for the weather--why, itnever snows here."
"But it's all-fired hot in summer, beggin' your pardon," Skiff Millerlaughed.
"But you do not answer," Madge continued passionately. "What have you tooffer him in that northland life?"
"Grub, when I've got it, and that's most of the time," came the answer.
"And the rest of the time?"
"No grub."
"And the work?"
"Yes, plenty of work," Miller blurted out impatiently. "Work withoutend, an' famine, an' frost, an all the rest of the miseries--that's whathe'll get when he comes with me. But he likes it. He is used to it. Heknows that life. He was born to it an' brought up to it. An' you don'tknow anything about it. You don't know what you're talking about. That'swhere the dog belongs, and that's where he'll be happiest."
"The dog doesn't go," Walt announced in a determined voice. "So there isno need of further discussion."
"What's that?" Skiff Miller demanded, his brows lowering and an obstinateflush of blood reddening his forehead.
"I said the dog doesn't go, and that settles it. I don't believe he'syour dog. You may have seen him sometime. You may even sometime havedriven him for his owner. But his obeying the ordinary driving commandsof the Alaskan trail is no demonstration that he is yours. Any dog inAlaska would obey you as he obeyed. Besides, he is undoubtedly avaluable dog, as dogs go in Alaska, and that is sufficient explanation ofyour desire to get possession of him. Anyway, you've got to proveproperty."
Skiff Miller, cool and collected, the obstinate flush a trifle deeper onhis forehead, his huge muscles bulging under the black cloth of his coat,carefully looked the poet up and down as though measuring the strength ofhis slenderness.
The Klondiker's face took on a contemptuous expression as he saidfinally, "I reckon there's nothin' in sight to prevent me takin' the dogright here an' now."
Walt's face reddened, and the striking-muscles of his arms and shouldersseemed to stiffen and grow tense. His wife fluttered apprehensively intothe breach.
"Maybe Mr. Miller is right," she said. "I am afraid that he is. Wolfdoes seem to know him, and certainly he answers to the name of 'Brown.'He made friends with him instantly, and you know that's something henever did with anybody before. Besides, look at the way he barked. Hewas just bursting with joy. Joy over what? Without doubt at finding Mr.Miller."
Walt's striking-muscles relaxed, and his shoulders seemed to droop withhopelessness.
"I guess you're right, Madge," he said. "Wolf isn't Wolf, but Brown, andhe must belong to Mr. Miller."
"Perhaps Mr. Miller will sell him," she suggested. "We can buy him."
Skiff Miller shook his head, no longer belligerent, but kindly, quick tobe generous in response to generousness.
"I had five dogs," he said, casting about for the easiest way to temperhis refusal. "He was the leader. They was the crack team of Alaska.Nothin' could touch 'em. In 1898 I refused five thousand dollars for thebunch. Dogs was high, then, anyway; but that wasn't what made the fancyprice. It was the team itself. Brown was the best in the team. Thatwinter I refused twelve hundred for 'm. I didn't sell 'm then, an' Iain't a-sellin' 'm now. Besides, I think a mighty lot of that dog. I'veben lookin' for 'm for three years. It made me fair sick when I foundhe'd ben stole--not the value of him, but the--well, I liked 'm likehell, that's all, beggin' your pardon. I couldn't believe my eyes when Iseen 'm just now. I thought I was dreamin'. It was too good to be true.Why, I was his wet-nurse. I put 'm to bed, snug every night. His motherdied, and I brought 'm up on condensed milk at two dollars a can when Icouldn't afford it in my own coffee. He never knew any mother but me. Heused to suck my finger regular, the darn little cuss--that finger rightthere!"
And Skiff Miller, too overwrought for speech, held up a fore finger forthem to see.
"That very finger," he managed to articulate, as though it somehowclinched the proof of ownership and the bond of affection.
He was still gazing at his extended finger when Madge began to speak.
"But the dog," she said. "You haven't considered the dog."
Skiff Miller looked puzzled.
"Have you thought about him?" she asked.
"Don't know what you're drivin' at," was the response.
"Maybe the dog has some choice in the matter," Madge went on. "Maybe hehas his likes and desires. You have not considered him. You give him nochoice. It has never entered your mind that possibly he might preferCalifornia to Alaska. You consider only what you like. You do with himas you would with a sack of potatoes or a bale of hay."
This was a new way of looking at it, and Miller was visibly impressed ashe debated it in his mind. Madge took advantage of his indecision.
"If you really love him, what would be happiness to him would be yourhappiness also," she urged.
Skiff Miller continued to debate with himself, and Madge stole a glanceof exultation to her husband, who looked back warm approval.
"What do you think?" the Klondiker suddenly demanded.
It was her turn to be puzzled. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"D'ye think he'd sooner stay in California?"
She nodded her head with positiveness. "I am sure of it."
Skiff Miller again debated with himself, though this time aloud, at thesame time running his gaze in a judicial way over the mooted animal.
"He was a good worker. He's done a heap of work for me. He never loafedon me, an' he was a joe-dandy at hammerin' a raw team into shape. He'sgot a head on him.
He can do everything but talk. He knows what you sayto him. Look at 'm now. He knows we're talkin' about him."
The dog was lying at Skiff Miller's feet, head close down on paws, earserect and listening, and eyes that were quick and eager to follow thesound of speech as it fell from the lips of first one and then the other.
"An' there's a lot of work in 'm yet. He's good for years to come. An'I do like him. I like him like hell."
Once or twice after that Skiff Miller opened his mouth and closed itagain without speaking. Finally he said:
"I'll tell you what I'll do. Your remarks, ma'am, has some weight inthem. The dog's worked hard, and maybe he's earned a soft berth an' hasgot a right to choose. Anyway, we'll leave it up to him. Whatever hesays, goes. You people stay right here settin' down. I'll say good-byand walk off casual-like. If he wants to stay, he can stay. If he wantsto come with me, let 'm come. I won't call 'm to come an' don't you call'm to come back."
He looked with sudden suspicion at Madge, and added, "Only you must playfair. No persuadin' after my back is turned."
"We'll play fair," Madge began, but Skiff Miller broke in on herassurances.
"I know the ways of women," he announced. "Their hearts is soft. Whentheir hearts is touched they're likely to stack the cards, look at thebottom of the deck, an' lie like the devil--beggin' your pardon, ma'am.I'm only discoursin' about women in general."
"I don't know how to thank you," Madge quavered.
"I don't see as you've got any call to thank me," he replied. "Brownain't decided yet. Now you won't mind if I go away slow? It's no more'nfair, seein' I'll be out of sight inside a hundred yards."--Madge agreed,and added, "And I promise you faithfully that we won't do anything toinfluence him."
"Well, then, I might as well be gettin' along," Skiff Miller said in theordinary tones of one departing.
At this change in his voice, Wolf lifted his head quickly, and still morequickly got to his feet when the man and woman shook hands. He sprang upon his hind legs, resting his fore paws on her hip and at the same timelicking Skiff Miller's hand. When the latter shook hands with Walt, Wolfrepeated his act, resting his weight on Walt and licking both men'shands.
"It ain't no picnic, I can tell you that," were the Klondiker's lastwords, as he turned and went slowly up the trail.
For the distance of twenty feet Wolf watched him go, himself alleagerness and expectancy, as though waiting for the man to turn andretrace his steps. Then, with a quick low whine, Wolf sprang after him,overtook him, caught his hand between his teeth with reluctanttenderness, and strove gently to make him pause.
Failing in this, Wolf raced back to where Walt Irvine sat, catching hiscoat-sleeve in his teeth and trying vainly to drag him after theretreating man.
Wolf's perturbation began to wax. He desired ubiquity. He wanted to bein two places at the same time, with the old master and the new, andsteadily the distance between them was increasing. He sprang aboutexcitedly, making short nervous leaps and twists, now toward one, nowtoward the other, in painful indecision, not knowing his own mind,desiring both and unable to choose, uttering quick sharp whines andbeginning to pant.
He sat down abruptly on his haunches, thrusting his nose upward, themouth opening and closing with jerking movements, each time openingwider. These jerking movements were in unison with the recurrent spasmsthat attacked the throat, each spasm severer and more intense than thepreceding one. And in accord with jerks and spasms the larynx began tovibrate, at first silently, accompanied by the rush of air expelled fromthe lungs, then sounding a low, deep note, the lowest in the register ofthe human ear. All this was the nervous and muscular preliminary tohowling.
But just as the howl was on the verge of bursting from the full throat,the wide-opened mouth was closed, the paroxysms ceased, and he lookedlong and steadily at the retreating man. Suddenly Wolf turned his head,and over his shoulder just as steadily regarded Walt. The appeal wasunanswered. Not a word nor a sign did the dog receive, no suggestion andno clew as to what his conduct should be.
A glance ahead to where the old master was nearing the curve of the trailexcited him again. He sprang to his feet with a whine, and then, struckby a new idea, turned his attention to Madge. Hitherto he had ignoredher, but now, both masters failing him, she alone was left. He went overto her and snuggled his head in her lap, nudging her arm with his nose--anold trick of his when begging for favors. He backed away from her andbegan writhing and twisting playfully, curvetting and prancing, halfrearing and striking his fore paws to the earth, struggling with all hisbody, from the wheedling eyes and flattening ears to the wagging tail, toexpress the thought that was in him and that was denied him utterance.
This, too, he soon abandoned. He was depressed by the coldness of thesehumans who had never been cold before. No response could he draw fromthem, no help could he get. They did not consider him. They were asdead.
He turned and silently gazed after the old master. Skiff Miller wasrounding the curve. In a moment he would be gone from view. Yet henever turned his head, plodding straight onward, slowly and methodically,as though possessed of no interest in what was occurring behind his back.
And in this fashion he went out of view. Wolf waited for him toreappear. He waited a long minute, silently, quietly, without movement,as though turned to stone--withal stone quick with eagerness and desire.He barked once, and waited. Then he turned and trotted back to WaltIrvine. He sniffed his hand and dropped down heavily at his feet,watching the trail where it curved emptily from view.
The tiny stream slipping down the mossy-lipped stone seemed suddenly toincrease the volume of its gurgling noise. Save for the meadow-larks,there was no other sound. The great yellow butterflies drifted silentlythrough the sunshine and lost themselves in the drowsy shadows. Madgegazed triumphantly at her husband.
A few minutes later Wolf got upon his feet. Decision and deliberationmarked his movements. He did not glance at the man and woman. His eyeswere fixed up the trail. He had made up his mind. They knew it. Andthey knew, so far as they were concerned, that the ordeal had just begun.
He broke into a trot, and Madge's lips pursed, forming an avenue for thecaressing sound that it was the will of her to send forth. But thecaressing sound was not made. She was impelled to look at her husband,and she saw the sternness with which he watched her. The pursed lipsrelaxed, and she sighed inaudibly.
Wolf's trot broke into a run. Wider and wider were the leaps he made.Not once did he turn his head, his wolf's brush standing out straightbehind him. He cut sharply across the curve of the trail and was gone.