He dreamed. It seemed to him that he was in Fort McGurry. It was warm and comfortable, and he was playing cards with the Factor. Also, it seemed to him that the fort was besieged by wolves. They were howling at the gates, and sometimes he and the Factor paused from the game to listen and laugh at them. And suddenly the door was burst open. He could see the wolves coming into the big living-room. They were leaping straight for him and the Factor. Their howling now followed him everywhere.
And then he awoke to find the howling real. The wolves were all about him and upon him. The teeth of one had closed upon his arm. Instinctively he leaped into the fire, and as he leaped, he felt the sharp teeth that tore through the flesh of his leg. Then there began a fire fight. His mittens temporarily protected his hands, and he threw burning coals into the air in all directions, until the campfire looked like a volcano. But it could not last long. The heat was becoming unbearable to his feet. With a burning brand in each hand, he sprang to the edge of the fire. The wolves had been driven back, and many of them stepped on the fallen coals, crying with pain.
The man thrust his brands at the nearest of his enemies, then thrust his mittens and legs into the snow to cool them. His two dogs were missing, and he well knew that they had served as a course in the meal which had begun days before with Fatty, and the last course of which would likely be himself in the days to follow.
“You haven’t got me yet!” he cried, shaking his fist at the hungry beasts; and at the sound of his voice the whole circle was agitated, and the she-wolf came close to him and watched him with hungry wistfulness.
Henry extended the fire into a large circle and crouched inside it. The whole pack came closer to see what had become of him. They could not cross the fire, and they now settled down in a close-drawn circle, like dogs, blinking and yawning and stretching their lean bodies in the warmth. Then the she-wolf sat down, pointed her nose at a star, and began to howl. One by one the wolves joined her, till the whole pack was howling.
Dawn came, and daylight. The fire was burning low. The fuel had run out, and there was need to get more. The man could not step out of the circle of fire or drive the wolves back. As he gave up and sat inside his circle, a wolf leaped for him, missed, and landed with all four feet in the coals. It cried out with terror, at the same time snarling, and jumped back to cool its paws in the snow.
The man sat down on his blankets. His shoulders relaxed and drooped, his head was on his knees: he had given up the struggle. Now and again he raised his head and watched the fire dying. The circle of flame and coals was breaking into segments with openings in between.
“I guess you can come and get me any time,” he said. “Anyway, I’m going to sleep.”
Once he awakened, and in an opening in the circle, he saw the she-wolf gazing at him.
Again he awakened, a little later, though it seemed hours to him. A mysterious change had taken place. He could not understand at first. Then he discovered it. The wolves were gone. Only the traces on the snow showed how closely they had come.
There were cries of men and sounds of sleds and harnesses, and the whimpering of dogs. Four sleds with half a dozen men approached the man who crouched in the centre of the dying fire. They were shaking him into consciousness. He looked at them like a drunken man and said sleepily:
“Red she-wolf… Come in with the dogs at feeding time… First she ate the dog-food… Then she ate the dogs… And after that she ate Bill…”
“Where’s Lord Alfred?” one of the men shouted in his ear, shaking him roughly.
He shook his head slowly. “No, she didn’t eat him… He’s in a tree at the last camp.”
“Dead?”
“And in a box,” Henry jerked his shoulder away from the grip of his questioner. “Leave alone… Good night, everybody.”
His eyes closed. And even as they put him down upon the blankets his snores sounded in the frosty air.
But there was another sound: a far and faint cry of the hungry wolf-pack as it took the trail of other meat.
Part II
Chapter I. The Battle of the Fangs
It was the she-wolf who had first caught the sound of men’s voices and the whining of the sled-dogs; and it was the she-wolf who was first to spring away from the man in his circle of dying fire. The pack followed her.
A large grey wolf – one of the pack’s several leaders – directed the wolves’ course on the heels[14] of the she-wolf. She went near him, as though it were her appointed position. He did not snarl at her, nor show his teeth, although he snarled at the younger wolves. On the contrary, when he ran too near it was she who snarled and showed her teeth. She could even slash his shoulder sharply on occasion. He showed no anger.
On the other side of the she-wolf ran an old wolf, marked with the scars of many battles. He ran always on her right side – perhaps because he had only one eye, and that was the left eye. Sometimes he and the grey wolf on the left showed their teeth and snarled across at each other. They might have fought, but now they were too hungry.
Also there was a young three-year-old that ran on the right side of the one-eyed wolf. When he dared to run abreast, a snarl sent him back. Sometimes he even edged in between the old leader and the she-wolf, but was stopped by three sets of savage teeth (the leader’s, the one-eyed wolf’s, and the she-wolf’s).
The situation of the pack was desperate. It was lean with hunger. It ran slower than usual. The weak members, the very young and the very old, ran behind. At the front were the strongest. Yet all were more like skeletons than wolves.
They ran night and day, over the surface of the frozen and dead world. They alone were alive there, and they looked for other things that were alive to eat them and continue living.
Finally they came upon a moose. It was a short and fierce fight. And after that there was plenty of food. The moose weighed over eight hundred pounds[15] – fully twenty pounds of meat per mouth for more than forty wolves of the pack.
There was now much resting and sleeping. The hunger was over. The wolves were in the country of game.[16]
There came a day when the pack divided and went in different directions. The she-wolf, the young leader on her left, and the one-eyed elder on her right, led their half of the pack down to the Mackenzie River and across into the lake country to the east. Each day this remnant of the pack became smaller. Two by two, male and female, the wolves were leaving.
In the end there remained only four: the she-wolf, the young leader, the one-eyed one, and the ambitious three-year-old. The she-wolf had by now developed a fierce temper. Her three suitors all had the marks of her teeth. But they never defended themselves against her.
The three-year-old grew too ambitious. He caught the one-eyed elder on his blind side and ripped his ear into ribbons.[17] The third wolf joined the elder, and together, old leader and young leader, they attacked the ambitious three-year-old and wanted to destroy him. Forgotten were the days when they had hunted together. The business of love was at hand – a crueller business than food-getting. And the three-year-old yielded up his life for it.
In the meanwhile, the she-wolf, the cause of it all, sat down on her haunches[18] and watched. She was even pleased. This was her day.
The younger leader turned his head to lick a wound on his shoulder. With his one eye the elder saw the opportunity. He jumped low and closed his fangs on the other’s neck. His teeth tore the great vein of the throat.
The young leader snarled terribly, but his snarl broke into a cough. Bleeding and coughing, he sprang at the elder and fought until life left him and the light of day dulled on his eyes.