CHAPTER SEVEN

The Hearing of the Call

When Buck made sixteen hundred dollars in five minutes for John Thorton, he made possible for his master to pay back some money that he had borrowed before. He also made it possible for Thorton and his partners to make a trip into the eastern part of the Northland. According to a story heard among gold miners, a lost mine was there. Only a few people ever made it back from this area; more than a few had died trying to reach it. This lost mine was covered in mystery. No one knew of the first man to find it. It seemed like the story had been there since the beginning of time. Men swore their lives to it, holding tightly to their pieces of gold that were unlike any quality of gold in the Northland.

But no living man in John Thorton's time had come back with gold from this mine. The dead were dead. Such was the way when Thorton, Pete, and Hans, with Buck and half a dozen other dogs, faced into the East on an unknown trail to achieve where men and dogs as good as themselves had failed. They rode seventy miles, up the Yukon, turned to the left into the Stewart River, passed the Mayo and the McQueston, and kept on until the Stewart became a little stream, leading into the huge mountains that marked the backbone of the continent.

John Thorton asked little of man or nature. He was unafraid of the wild. With a handful of salt and a gun he could go into the wilderness and do whatever he pleased, for as long as he pleased. Not being in a hurry, like an Indian, he hunted for his dinner while traveling in the daytime. If he failed to find any food, like the Indian, he kept on traveling, safe in the knowledge that sooner or later he would come to it. So, on this great journey into the East, meat was the only food to be had. Guns, bullets, and mining tools made up most of the load on the sled. In this way, their time was extended into a limitless future.

To Buck it was complete happiness, this hunting, fishing, and wandering through strange places without a time limit. For weeks at a time they would travel every day, and for weeks at a time they would stop and camp. When they did this, the dogs would rest and play while the men would burn holes on the edge of frozen streams and rivers. Here they would wash countless pans of dirt, hoping to find a few pieces of gold that would lead them to the famous mine in the East. Sometimes they went hungry, sometimes they ate more than they could ever imagine, all according to nature and the luck of their hunting. Summer arrived, and dogs and men packed on their backs, rode on boats, across blue mountain lakes, and went up and down unknown rivers.

The months came and went, and back and forth they moved through the unmapped area, where no men were and yet where men had been if the Lost Mine was true. They traveled through summer snowstorms, cold under the midnight sun, dropped into summer valleys where the insects were everywhere, and in the shadows of the mountains picked wild fruit and flowers as sweet and beautiful as any that the Southland had. In the fall of the year they entered an area full of lakes that was sad and silent. There they found no signs of life only the cold winds and beginnings of ice.

And through another winter they wandered on the old trails of men that had gone before them. Once, they came upon an old path that went clear through the forest, an ancient path, and it seemed that the Lost Mine was very near. But the path began nowhere and ended nowhere, and it remained a mystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made it remained a mystery. Another time they came upon the remains of an old hunting camp, and among the half-rotted blankets, John Thorton found an old gun. He knew that it was a Hudson Bay Company gun of the days when the Northland was hardly explored, when such a gun was worth its weight in gold. And that as all—nothing to tell them about the man who in earlier days had made the camp and left the gun among the blankets.

Spring came and went once more, and at the end of their wanderings they found, not the Lost Mine, but a place in a wide valley where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the river. They looked no further. Each day they worked they earned thousands of dollars in dust and gold rocks, and they worked every day. They stored the gold in bags, fifty pounds to each bag, and it began to pile up like firewood outside the small house they had built. Like giants they worked, days coming and going like dreams as they built up their fiches.

There was nothing for the dogs to do except pull in the meat that John Thorton killed, and Buck spent long hours sitting in front of the fire, thinking and dreaming. The dream of the hairy man with short legs came to him more often, now that there was little work to be done. And often, looking into the fire, Buck wandered with him in that other world which he remembered.

The main feeling in this other world seemed to be fear. When he watched the hairy man sleeping by the fire, head between his knees and hands held above, Buck saw that he slept restlessly, with many jumps and noises, at which time he would look fearfully into the darkness and then put more wood on the fire. Who was this hairy man? When they walked by the beach and the hairy man gathered food and ate it as he gathered, it was with eyes that looked everywhere for hidden danger and with legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance. Through the forest they moved soundlessly, Buck near the man's feet, and they were alert and watchful, the pair of them, with eyes moving and noses shaking, for the man heard and smelled as well as Buck. The hairy man could jump into the trees and travel ahead as fast as on the ground. He would swing his arms from branch to branch, sometimes a dozen feet apart, letting go and catching. He never fell, never missed the next branch. In fact, he seemed as much at home among the trees as on the ground; and Buck had memories of nights spent beneath trees where the hairy man held tightly to a branch while he slept.

Close in feeling to the dream of the hairy man was the call that Buck heard that seemed to come from the depths of the forest. It filled him with a great unrest and strange wants. It caused him to feel a sweet gladness and he was aware of wild longings and stirrings for something he did not know. Sometimes he chased after the call into the forest, looking for it as if it was a solid thing, growling softly. Or he would push his nose into the black dirt where the long grass grew, and smell with joy the fat, earthy smells. Or he would lay low for hours, as if trying to hide, behind fallen trees, wide-eyed with ears ready to listen to all that moved and made noise around him. It might be that lying in this way he hoped to surprise this call he could not understand. But he did not know why he did these many things. He was made to do them, and did not reason about them at all.

Strange feelings came upon him that he could not resist. He would be lying in camp, sleeping lazily in the heat of the day, when suddenly his head would lift and his ears stand up, listening, and he would jump to his feet and run away, on and on, hour after hour, through the forest and across open spaces of grass. He loved to run down dry rivers, and to look at the bird life in the woods. For a day at a time he would lie under some bushes, watching fat northern birds move up and down, showing their feathers to each other. But especially he loved to run in the low light of the summer midnights, listening to the softened sounds of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man might read a book. Looking for that mysterious something that called—called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.

One night he all of a sudden jumped up from his sleep, looking wildly about with his nose smelling the air, his hair standing up along his back. From the forest came the call (or at least one note of the call, for the call had many notes), stronger than it ever had before. It was a long howl, the same and yet not the same, as the howls made by a husky dog. And he knew it, in the old familiar way, as a sound heard before. He ran through the forest as quick as lightning and as silent as snow. As he came closer to the cry he went more slowly, being careful in every movement, till he came to an open place among the trees. Looking out he saw, sitting high on its legs, with nose pointed to the sky, a long, thin, timber wolf.

He had made no noise, but the wolf stopped its howling, trying to sense Buck's presence. Buck went in to the open, moving low to the ground, body gathered tightly together, tail straight and high, feet falling with great care. Every movement showed both danger and friendliness. It was the mix of fear and peace that marks the meeting of wild animals that hunt. But the wolf ran away at the sight of Buck. He followed, with wild leaps, hoping to catch up. And Back ran the wolf up the dry river, into an area where fallen trees blocked the path. The wolf turned on its hind legs, just the way that other husky dogs did when backed into a corner, hair standing on end and teeth continuously snapping together as if ready to attack.

But Buck did not attack. Instead he circled him and moved toward him with friendly advances. The wolf was careful and afraid; for Buck was three times his size in weight, while his head barely reached Buck's shoulder. Looking for his chance, the wolf ran away, and the chase began again. Time and again he was cornered scene was repeated, though the wolf was in poor condition. He would run until Buck's head was almost at his legs, when he would turn around and begin snapping his teeth again, only to run away again at the first opportunity.

But in the end Buck's efforts were rewarded, for the wolf, finding that Buck did not mean to harm him, finally stuffed noses with him. Then they became friendly, and played with each other in a half-nervous, half-shy way that wild beast show their friendliness. After some time the wolf started off again in a slow run that plainly showed he was going somewhere. He made it clear that he wanted Buck to come, and they ran side by side through the midnight light, straight up the river, into the hills where it began, and higher, heading straight for the mountains.

On the opposite side of a great hill they came into a flat country where great areas of forests continued on, and through these forests they ran steadily, hour after hour, the sun rising higher and the day growing warmer. Buck was wildly glad. He knew he was at last answering the call, running by the side of his wood brother toward the place where the call surely came. Old memories were coming upon him fast, and he was moving to them as surely as if they were realities, not shadows of the past. He had done this thing before, somewhere in that other, dark remembered world, and he was doing it now again, running freely in the open, the ground underneath and the wide sky above.

They stopped by a stream to drink, and, stopping, Buck remembered John Thorton. He sat down. The wolf started on toward the place from where the call surely came and then returned to him, sniffing noses and making actions for Buck to follow him. But Buck turned around and slowly started back the way they came. For the better part of an hour the wild brother ran by his side, crying softly. Then he sat down, and with nose pointing to the Sky, howled. It was a sad howl, and as Buck held to the path back to camp, he heard it grow softer and softer until it was lost in the distance.

John Thorton was eating dinner when Buck ran into camp and jumped upon him, full of love, knocking him over from his chair, licking his face and biting his hand. Thorton responded by shaking him back and forth and calling him names lovingly.

For two days and nights Buck never left camp, never let John Thorton out of his sight. He followed him about at his work, watched him while he ate, saw him into his blankets at night and out of them again in the morning. But after two days he began to hear the call of the forest again, and this time it sounded with more importance. He had to obey. Buck's restlessness came back to him, and he was haunted by memories of his wild brother, and of the smiling land beyond the hill where they ran side by side through forests. Once again he took to wandering among the woods, but the wild brother came no more, and though he listened day and night, the howl was never raised.

He began to sleep out at night, staying away from camp for days at a time; and once he traveled over the hills and up the river until he reached that land of forests and streams. There he wandered around for a week, searching for fresh signs of his lost wild brother. He didn't find any. He killed his meat and traveled, traveling with the long, easy speed that animals in the wild have—one that never tires easily. He fished in the wide stream that emptied into the sea, and by this stream he killed a large, black bear who was also fishing. The bear was a hard fight, and this fight raised the last remaining qualities of wildness that were still hidden in Buck. And two days later, when he returned to the spot where he had killed the bear, he found a dozen small dogs eating his kill. They ran quickly away as he surprised them, all except two, whom he killed with the same skill he used on the bear.

His longing for blood became stronger than ever. He was a killer, a thing that hunted other animals, living on the things that lived. He lived alone and without help, using his strength and power, surviving in a hard and unfriendly environment where only the strong survived. Because of this, he had a great pride in himself, which showed itself in his physical body. It was found in all his movements, seen in the muscles themselves, spoken plainly as words in the way he carried himself, and made his beautiful fur coat if anything more beautiful. Except for the brown fur on his mouth and above his eyes, and for the spot of white hair that ran down the middle of his chest, he might well have been mistaken for a gigantic wolf, larger than the largest, of wolves. From his St. Bernard father he had inherited size and weight, but it was his German Shepard mother who had given shape to his size and weight. His nose was a long wolf nose, except that it was larger than the nose of any wolf; and his head, somewhat wider, was the wolf head on a huge scale.

His cleverness was wolf cleverness, and it was wild; his intelligence, Shepard intelligence and St. Bernard. All this, plus an education gained in the wildest and hardest of schools, made him a horrible wide animal. He was as dangerous as those animals that lived in the wild, the ones that killed their food and lived on a straight meat diet. He was at the height of his life, in full flower, and it seemed that power spilled off him all along his body. When Thorton passed a caring hand along his back, it seemed that his hair snapped with hidden power and electricity. Every part, brain and body, was at the highest point, and between all these parts there was perfect balance and equality. To sights and sounds that required action, he responded with lightning speed. Quickly as a husky dog would jump to defend from attack or to attack, he could jump twice as quickly. He saw the movement, or heard sound, and responded in less time than another dog required. He saw, decided, and responded all at the same instant. His muscles, in which total power ran, snapped sharply into action, as if they were made of steel springs. Life streamed through him in a splendid flood, glad and wildly, until it seemed that it would split him open, and pour forth through the world in sheer joy.

"Never was there such a dog," said John Thorton one day, as his partners watched Buck marching out of camp.

"When he was made, he broke God's model for dogs," said Pete.

"I think so myself," Hans agreed.

They saw him marching out of camp, but they did not see the instant and terrible change which took place as soon as he was within the cover of the forest. Here, in secret, he no longer marched. At once he became a thing of the wild, moving along softly, like a cat, a passing shadow that appeared and disappeared among the other shadows. He knew how to take advantage of every cover, to crawl on his stomach like a snake, and to jump and strike like a snake. He could take a bird from its nest, kill a rabbit as it slept, and snap in mid air at little squirrels who tried to run away a second too late. Fish, in open lakes and rivers, were not quick enough to escape him. He killed to eat, never because he was bored, and he liked to eat what he killed. So often there was a play in his actions. It was his delight to sneak upon squirrels, and when he all but had them, let them go, crying in fear to the tree-tops.

As the fall of the year came on, the moose appeared in larger numbers, moving slowly down to meet the winter in the lower and warmer valleys. Buck had already killed a half-grown baby moose that had wandered away too far from the safety of the others, but he wished for the fight of stronger and larger animals. And he came upon it one day as he neared the river. A band of about twenty moose had crossed over from beyond the hills of forests and streams, and top among them was a great male moose. He was in a bad temper, and, standing over six feet tall from the ground, was as great a fighter as Buck could ever wish for. Back and forth the moose tossed the horns on his head, which branched out to fourteen points and measured almost seven feet in width. His small eyes burned with a wild and bitter light, and the sight of Buck made him roar in warning and anger.

From the moose's side, just behind his front leg, an Indian feathered arrow-end stuck out. This explained his bad temper. Guided by the instinct of the hunting animals which came from the primitive world, Buck knew that the wounded were easy to kill. He started to cut the moose away from the rest of the band. It was no easy job. He would bark and dance about in front of the moose, just out of reach of the great horns and the terrible strong legs which could kick the life out of him in one movement. Unable to turn his back on danger, the moose would become angrier and angrier. At such moments he charged toward Buck, who would retreat, pulling the moose further away from the others. But whenever the moose became separated from the band, two or three younger males would arrive to defend him, allowing the wounded moose to rejoin the others.

There is patience among animals in the wild—stubborn, tireless, and never-ending as life itself—that holds motionless for hours the spider in its web, the tiger in the bushes. This patience belongs only to life when it hunts for its living food. It belonged to Buck as he kept behind the group of moose, slowing its march, bothering the younger moose, worrying the mothers with their half-grown babies, and driving the wounded moose crazy with anger. For half a day this continued. Buck made his presence even larger by attacking from all sides, surrounding the group in a circle of danger, cutting away the wounded moose before it could rejoin the others. Most importantly, he was wearing down the patience of the other moose, and theirs was the patience of the hunted, which is always shorter than the hunter's.

As the day wore along and the sun dropped to its bed in the northwest (the darkness had come back and the fall nights were six hours long), the young moose became less willing to come to the aid of the wounded one. The soon-approaching winter was hurrying them down into the safety of the valley, and it seemed that they could never shake off this tireless animal that held them back. Besides, it was not the life of the group or of the young babies that was in danger. The life of only one member was demanded, and in the end they were happy to pay the price.

As twilight came on the old moose stood with lowered head, watching his mates—the cows he had known, the babies he was a father to, the other moose he had mastered—as they moved on at a fast speed through the fading light. He could not follow, for before his nose was the long-toothed animal that would not let him go. The moose weighed more than half a ton, and he had lived a long, strong life, full of fight and struggle, and at the end he faced death at the teeth of an animal that did not reach beyond his great knees.

From then on, day and night, Buck never left the moose, never gave it a moment's rest, never allowed it to stop and eat the leaves of trees or the new grass that grew. Nor did he allow the wounded moose opportunity to lessen his thirst in the cool streams they crossed. Often, as a last attempt, the moose would burst into a run. At such times Buck did not stop him, but ran easily behind him, satisfied with the way the game was played., lying down when-the moose stood still, and attacking him when he tried to eat or drink.

The great head fell lower and lower under the weight of the great horns, and the moose's run became weaker and weaker. He took to standing for a long time, with nose to the ground and ears dropping. Buck found more time in which to get water and to rest. At such moments, breathing with his red tongue hanging out, it appeared to Buck that a change was coming over the face of things. He could feel a new wind in the air. As the moose were coming into the land, other kinds of, life were coming in. Forest and stream and air seemed filled with their presence. The news of it came in upon him, not by sight or sound, or smell, but by some other, softer sense. He heard nothing, saw nothing, but knew that the land was different. He knew that strange things were happening, and he decided to check on things after he had finished with his present business.

At last, at the end of his fourth day, he pulled the great moose down. For one day and one night he stayed by his kill, eating and sleeping, turning away and then back again. Then, rested and strong, he turned his face toward camp and John Thorton. He broke into an easy run, and went on, hour after hour, never losing his direction, heading straight for home through strange country with certain knowledge of where to go that man did not have.

As he continued to travel he became more and more aware of the new change in the land. There was life throughout it that was different from the life he had known during the summer. No longer was this information carried to him in a mysterious, quiet way. The birds sang of it, the animals talked about it, and the very wind whispered it to him. Several times he stopped and breathed in the fresh air in great breaths, reading a message in it that made him increase his speed toward home. A sense of danger and something gone wrong weighed upon him, and as he crossed the last river and dropped into the valley toward camp, he went ahead with great care.

Three miles away he came upon a fresh trail that sent the hair on his neck straight up. It led straight toward camp and John Thorton. Buck hurried on, quickly and quietly, every nerve alert to the many details which told a story all but the end. His nose gave him a description of the passage of life on the trail he was traveling. He noticed that the forest was silent. The bird life had all flown away. The rabbits were hiding. He saw only one squirrel, which flattened itself against a grey branch as if trying to become part of the tree.

As Buck continued with the presence of a moving shadow, his nose was suddenly jerked by a strong smell as if it had been grabbed. He followed the new scent into the bushes and there he found Nig. He was lying on his side, dead where he had dragged himself, an arrow sticking out of both sides of his body.

A hundred yards farther on, Buck came upon one of the sled-dogs that John Thorton had bought in Dawson. This dog was still weakly moving, rolling about as if trying to escape death, and Buck passed around him without stopping. From the camp came the distant sound of many voices, rising and falling as if singing. Moving low on his stomach to the edge of a clearing, he found Hans, lying on his face, covered with arrows. At the same instant Buck looked to where their house had been and what he saw made all his muscles harden, sending a shock through his body. A wave of great anger came over him. He did not know that he growled, but he growled out loud with a terrible sound. For the last time in his life he allowed his feeling to win over his cleverness and reason, and it was because of his great love for John Thorton that he lost his head.

The Yeehat Indians were dancing about the ruins of the camp when they heard a fearful roaring and saw rushing upon them an animal the like of which they had never seen. It was Buck, a live storm of anger and revenge, throwing himself upon them with the purpose to destroy. He sprang at the first man (it was the leader of the Yeehats), ripping the throat wide open until a fountain of blood burst out. He did not pause to worry about the leader, but attacked in passing, with the next jump tearing wide the throat of a second man. There was no stopping him. He threw himself among them, tearing and ripping, destroying in constant and terrific motion. Their arrows were powerless against him. In fact, so fast were his movements, and so closely together were the Indians that they shot one another with their arrows. And one young hunter, throwing a knife at Buck, accidentally threw it into the chest of another hunter with such power that the point broke through the skin of the back and stood out beyond. Then fear and panic took hold of the Yeehats, and they ran in terror to the woods, shouting as they ran about an Evil Spirit.

And truly was Buck a devil, chasing after them and dragging them down, one by one, as they raced through the trees. It was a sad day for the Yeehats. They ran far and wide over the country, and it was not till a week later that the last of their survivors gathered together in a lower valley to count how many men they had lost. As for Buck, growing tired of the chase, he returned to the empty, mined camp. He found Pete where he had been killed in his blankets. He had been surprised during his sleep. Thorton's fight was written all over the ground, and Buck smelled everything that happened, down to the edge of a deep water pool. By the edge, head and front feet in the water, lay Skeet, faithful to the last. The pool itself, muddy and colored, hid what it contained, and it contained John Thorton, for Buck followed the smell into the water, and no smell, led away from there.

All day Buck sat by the pool crying or sadly walked around the now empty camp. He knew that John Thorton was dead, and he understood death. He had seen it many times and knew that it was the passing out and away from the lives of the living. But he had never felt the pain of empty space that he felt now. There was a great emptiness in him, a little like hunger, except it ached and ached, and he knew that food could not fill it. At times, when he came across the dead bodies of the Yeehat. Indians that he had killed, he forgot the pain of it. And at such times he was aware of a great pride in himself—a pride greater than any he had yet experienced. He had killed man, the highest of animals, and he had killed according to the law of club and tooth. He sniffed their bodies with interest. They had died so easily. It was harder to kill a husky dog than man. They were no match at all, except that they had arrows and knives and clubs. From then on he would not be afraid of man except when they carried in their hands their arrows, knives, and clubs.

Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into the sky. It lit up the land like a ghostly lamp. And with the coming of night, crying and sitting by the pool, Buck became aware of a new presence and movement in the forest. He knew that what he sensed was not the Yeehat Indians. He stood up, listening and smelling the air. From far away came a soft, sharp howl, followed by many short, similar howls. As the moments passed these howls became closer. Again Buck knew them as things heard in that other world, forever held in his memory. He walked to the center of the open space and listened. It was the call, the many-noted call, sounding more attractive and forceful than ever before. And, as never before, he was ready to obey. John Thorton was dead. The last tie was broken. Man and the claims of men no longer held him.

Hunting their living meat, as the Yeehats were hunting it, on the trail of the wandering moose, the wolf pack had crossed over from the land of forest and rivers and entered Buck's valley. Into the clear space lit by the moonlight they came, pouring in like a silver flood. And in the center stood Buck, motionless as a statue, waiting for their coming. They were struck with wonder at the sight of him, so large and still he stood. They did not move for one moment. Then the bravest one leaped straight for him. Like lightning Buck struck, breaking the wolf's neck. Then he stood without movement as before, the wounded wolf rolling in pain beside him. Three others tried to strike at Buck, one after the other, and one after the other they had to draw back, blood flowing from wounds on their throats and shoulders.

This was enough to push the whole pack forward, crowding them together, blocked and confused by their readiness to pull down the new animal they saw before them. But Buck was not frightened by their numbers. His wonderful quickness and movement gave him a great advantage. Turning on his back legs, and snap-ping and cutting with his teeth, he was everywhere at once. To the pack, it seemed as if he was a solid, unbroken line of many dogs, so quickly did he move. They could not break through this line. But he had to stop the pack from getting behind him, so he slowly moved backwards down past the pool until he had his back against a high dirty wall shaped like a corner. This dirt wall had been made during the man's camp, and here Buck stood, defending himself on three sides.

And so well did he defend himself that at the end of half an hour the wolves had drawn back, disappointed and wounded. The tongues of all, because of heavy breathing, were rolling outside of their mouths, and their white teeth glowed cruelly in the white moonlight. Some were lying down with heads and ears pushed forward; others stood on their feet, watching him; and still others were drinking water from the pool. One wolf, long and lean and grey, came forward in a friendly manner with great caution. Buck recognized the wild brother with whom he had run for a day and a night. He was whining softly, and as Buck whined in return, they touched noses.

Then an old grey wolf, thin and with many scars of numerous battles, came forward. At first Buck's lips drew back from his teeth, but in the end he decided to sniff noses with him. Immediately, the old wolf sat down, pointed his nose at the moon, and broke out the long wolf howl. The others sat down and howled. And now the call came to Buck in unmistakable notes. He, too, sat down and howled. This over, he came out of his corner and the pack crowded around him, sniffing in a half-friendly, haft-wild manner. The leaders of the pack lifted up the bark of the pack and away they sprang into the woods. The wolves followed behind them, barking in rhythm. And Buck ran with them, side by side with the wild brother, barking as he ran.

And here may well end the story of Buck. Not many years had passed before the Yeehat Indians, who, lived in that area, noticed a change in the appearance of the wolves. Some were seen with splashes of brown on head and nose, and with a line of white that ran down the center of the chest. But more amazing than this, the Yeehats tell of a Ghost Dog that runs at the head of the pack. They are afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has more cleverness than they do. It can steal food from their camps in the hardest of winters, take animals caught in their traps, kill their dogs, and hide from their best hunters.

But the story also grows worse. Many hunters, who fail to return to camp, are found by their Indian brothers with throats ripped cruelly open and with wolf prints all around them, prints larger than the prints of other wolf feet. Each fall, when the Yeehats follow the movements of the moose, there is a certain valley which they never enter. And many women suddenly, became sad when the story begins around the night fire about how the Evil Spirit came to choose that valley for its resting place.

In the summers there is one visitor, however, to that valley, of which the Yeehats do not know. It is a great, beautiful wolf, like and yet unlike all the other wolves. He crosses alone from the smiling forestland and comes down into an open space among the trees. Here the river turns yellow, flowing out from old sacks and pieces of wood; through the sacks long grass grows and other forms of plants, hiding what is underneath from sight and the sun. Here he sits and thinks for a while. Then he points his nose to the stars and howls once, long and sadly, before he leaves again.

But he is not always alone. When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the soft moonlight or the shining northern lights, leaping huge among his mates. His great throat is full as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack.

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