The Tales of the Wild North (39 Novels & Stories in One Volume). James Oliver Curwood

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СКАЧАТЬ played with him, cared for him, and taught him in the ways of the wild in early childhood, and it was he who had missed him most, with little Minnetaki, when he went away to school. All the love in the grim old redskin's heart was for the Indian youth and his sister, and to them Mukoki was a second father, a silent, watchful guardian and comrade. This one loving touch of Wabi's hand was ample reward for the long night's duty, and his pleasure expressed itself in two or three low chuckling grunts.

      "Had heap bad day," he replied. "Very much tired. Me feel good—better than sleep!" He rose to his feet and handed Wabi the long fork with which he manipulated the meat on the spits. "You can tend to that," he added. "I go see traps."

      Rod, who had awakened and overheard these last remarks, called out from the shack:

      "Wait a minute, Mukoki. I'm going with you. If you've got a wolf, I want to see him."

      "Got one sure 'nuff," grinned the old Indian.

      In a few minutes Rod came out, fully dressed and with a much healthier color in his face than when he went to bed the preceding night. He stood before the fire, stretched one arm then the other, gave a slight grimace of pain, and informed his anxious comrades that he seemed to be as well as ever, except that his arm and side were very sore.

      Walking slowly, that Rod might "find himself," as Wabi expressed it, the two went up the river. It was a dull gray morning and occasionally large flakes of snow fell, giving evidence that before the day was far advanced another storm would set in. Mukoki's traps were not more than an eighth of a mile from camp, and as the two rounded a certain bend in the river the old hunter suddenly stopped with a huge grant of satisfaction. Following the direction in which he pointed Rod saw a dark object lying in the snow a short distance away.

      "That's heem!" exclaimed the Indian.

      As they approached, the object became animate, pulling and tearing in the snow as though in the agonies of death. A few moments more and they were close up to the captive.

      "She wolf!" explained Mukoki.

      He gripped the ax he had brought with him and approached within a few feet of the crouching animal. Rod could see that one of the big steel traps had caught the wolf on the forward leg and that the other had buried its teeth in one of the hind legs. Thus held the doomed animal could make little effort to protect itself and crouched in sullen quiet, its white fangs gleaming in a noiseless, defiant snarl, its eyes shining with pain and anger, and with only its thin starved body, which jerked and trembled as the Indian came nearer, betraying signs of fear. To Rod it might have been a pitiful sight had not there come to him a thought of the preceding night and of his own and Wabi's narrow escape from the pack.

      Two or three quick blows of the ax and the wolf was dead. With a skill which can only be found among those of his own race, Mukoki drew his knife, cut deftly around the wolf's head just below the ears, and with one downward, one upward, and two sidewise jerks tore off the scalp.

      Suddenly, without giving a thought to his speech, there shot from Rod,

      "Is that the way you scalp people?"

      Mukoki looked up, his jaw fell—and then he gave the nearest thing to a real laugh that Rod ever heard come from between his lips. When Mukoki laughed it was usually in a half-chuckle, a half-gurgle—something that neither Rod nor Wabi could have imitated if they had tried steadily for a month.

      "Never scalped white people," the old Indian shot back. "Father did when—young man. Did great scalp business!"

      Mukoki had not done chuckling to himself even when they reached camp.

      Scarcely ten minutes were taken in eating breakfast. Snow was already beginning to fall, and if the hunters took up their trail at once their tracks would undoubtedly be entirely obliterated by midday, which was the best possible thing that could happen for them in the Woonga country. On the other hand, Wabi was anxious to follow back over the wolf-trail before the snow shut it in. There was no danger of their becoming separated and lost, for it was agreed that Rod and Mukoki should travel straight up the frozen river. Wabi would overtake them before nightfall.

      Arming himself with his rifle, revolver, knife, and a keen-edged belt-ax, the Indian boy lost no time in leaving camp. A quarter of an hour later Wabi came out cautiously on the end of the lake where had occurred the unequal duel between the old bull moose and the wolves. A single glance told him what the outcome of that duel had been. Twenty rods out upon the snow he saw parts of a great skeleton, and a huge pair of antlers.

      As he stood on the arena of the mighty battle, Wabi would have given a great deal if Rod could have been with him. There lay the heroic old moose, now nothing more than a skeleton. But the magnificent head and horns still remained—the largest head that the Indian youth, in all his wilderness life, had ever seen—and it occurred to him that if this head could be preserved and taken back to civilization it would be worth a hundred dollars or more. That the old bull had put up a magnificent fight was easily discernible. Fifty feet away were the bones of a wolf, and almost under the skeleton of the moose were those of another. The heads of both still remained, and Wabi, after taking their scalps, hurried on over the trail.

      Half-way across the lake, where he had taken his last two shots, were the skeletons of two more wolves, and in the edge of the spruce forest he found another. This animal had evidently been wounded farther back and had later been set upon by some of the pack and killed. Half a mile deeper in the forest he came upon a spot where he had emptied five shells into the pack and here he found the bones of two more wolves. He had seven scalps in his possession when he turned back over the home trail.

      Beside the remains of the old bull Wabi paused again. He knew that the Indians frequently preserved moose and caribou heads through the winter by keeping them frozen, and the head at his feet was a prize worth some thought. But how could he keep it preserved until their return, months later? He could not suspend it from the limb of a tree, as was the custom when in camp, for it would either be stolen by some passing hunter or spoiled by the first warm days of spring. Suddenly an idea came to him. Why could it not be preserved in what white hunters called an "Indian ice-box"? In an instant he was acting upon this inspiration. It was not a small task to drag the huge head to the shelter of the tamaracks, where, safely hidden from view, he made a closer examination. The head was gnawed considerably by the wolves, but Wabi had seen worse ones skillfully repaired by the Indians at the Post.

      Under a dense growth of spruce, where the rays of the sun seldom penetrated, the Indian boy set to work with his belt-ax. For an hour and a half he worked steadily, and at the end of that time had dug a hole in the frozen earth three feet deep and four feet square. This hole he now lined with about two inches of snow, packed as tight as he could jam it with the butt of his gun. Then placing in the head he packed snow closely about it and afterward filled in the earth, stamping upon the hard chunks with his feet. When all was done he concealed the signs of his work under a covering of snow, blazed two trees with his ax, and resumed his journey.

      "There is thirty dollars for each of us if there's a cent," he mused softly, as he hurried toward the Ombabika. "That ground won't thaw out until June. A moose-head and eight scalps at fifteen dollars each isn't bad for one day's work, Rod, old boy!"

      He had been absent for three hours. It had been snowing steadily and by the time he reached their old camp the trail left by Rod and Mukoki was already partly obliterated, showing that they had secured an early start up the river.

      Bowing his head in the white clouds falling silently about him, Wabi started in swift pursuit. He could not see ten rods ahead of him, so dense was the storm, and at times one side or the other of the river was lost to view. Conditions could not have been better for their flight out of the Woonga СКАЧАТЬ