Shepherds of the Wild

The mouth of the canyon was darkened with shadows when the bull elk came stealing down the brown trail through the dusky thicket. In all this mountain realm, a land where the wild things of the forest still held sway, there was no creature of more majestic bearing or noble beauty. He was full-grown; his great antlers swept back over his powerful shoulders; and it was evident from his carriage that he had no fear of such enemies as might be lurking in the gloomy canyon. For it was known far through the forest that even the great puma or the terrible grizzly, unless they had the advantage of ambush, treated Spread Horn with considerable respect.

Signs of July were everywhere: signs that were large print and clear to the eyes of the wild creatures, but which would have been mostly unintelligible to men. The huckleberries were just beginning to ripen in the thickets as always, in the seventh month. The fledglings, the little weasel noticed as he climbed here and there through the branches, were just the July size⁠—still soft with the fat of squabhood but yet big enough to make a pleasing lump in the stomach. The pines are a wonderful calendar in themselves; and only to the eyes of human beings, badly in need of spectacles, do they seem never to change. They go from a deep, rich green to a strange dusky blue, and now they were just about halfway between. This fact, as well as the size and developments of their cones, indicated as clearly as a printed calendar that the month was July.

Hugh’s hand fell on the shaggy neck, but the animal didn’t start. And the hair stood stiff like quills at the shoulders.

“What is it, boy?” Hugh asked.

The dog made no answer. Instead, a strange and terrible reply came from the wilderness. It was a dreadful, a commanding voice, and it seemed to freeze the whole forest world with horror. It obliterated the wind and silenced all the little voices to which Hugh had listened with such delight a moment before. It was a long, wild scream, beginning low in the scale and rising to an incredible height.

For innumerable seconds, it seemed to Hugh, the same crescendo note was maintained. The air seemed to shudder. Then, with great soaring leaps, the scream dropped away into a long, singsong whine. Slowly this faded, growing dim and more dim, until it was just a dying whimper in the air. Hugh couldn’t tell exactly when the voice ceased. He had a strange impression that it still continued, only so dim and fine that human ears were not tuned to receive it. Then the wilderness silence closed down again.

The dog leaped forward, barking, and Hugh found himself erect, with his rifle in his hands. In his own heart he knew this wilderness voice. If he did not know the breed that uttered it, at least he realized its savagery, its age-old menace. There is no utterance that pen can describe more wild and weird than some of the twilight cries of the coyotes; yet Hugh was inclined to think that another, more deadly animal had spoken in this case.

It seemed to him that two strange, sinister lights suddenly glowed from the thickets on the opposite bank; then went out. They were close together, and they were round, and they were just alike. They were not twinkling lights: but rather were a strange blue-green like the flame that plays about an alcohol burner. No human being could have seen those dreadful blue disks and ignored them: their terror went too deep for that. Man knows the terror of lightning, the dread (as well as the love) of fire, the fear of flooding waters, but he knows those two twin circles best of all. They carry him back to the first great Terror; they waken memories from the depths of the germ plasm; they recall the sight of other such fiery spheres, gleaming in the darkness at the mouth of the cave. Hugh’s heart seemed to pump an icy stream through his veins.

But he forced his growing terror from him and made a swift study of the currents. The lamb seemed doomed. There was no wading that frightful stream. A log sloped down into the water from the opposite bank, but there was no way to cross. The only hope lay in hurling himself into the torrent, fighting his way to the middle of the stream, seizing the lamb, and swimming with it to safety.

The dog could not give aid. The river was a succession of great rocks and treacherous whirlpools, the water was icy cold, and in the darkness a swimmer might easily be swept downstream to his death.

He had always been a strong swimmer, and he needed that strength now. The water was icy cold; it gripped him with resistless strength. He fought it with powerful strokes, but it seemed to him that he was tossed about like a straw. Even he headed upstream and out, not hoping to make headway but only to offset, in some degree, the incredible power of the current. He had never done such swimming as this before. Silver Creek was not at all like the swimming tank in his athletic club. He gave his whole strength; and it seemed to him that he was fighting for his life.

His plan was to seize the log that extended down into the water, brace himself while he rescued the lamb, and either climb up the log or be carried on down and swim to the bank. He didn’t know that the log was already occupied: that a great forest creature had come down to contest the lamb’s life with him. He was full in the middle of the current, by now; and then, with a powerful lunge of his body, his arms swept about the log.

He braced himself, then turned in order to reach the lamb. He reached for a hold higher on the log. Something brown, with extended talons, rested upon the rough bark within a few inches of his hand, and at first he did not understand. Then the spray cleared from his eyes, and he knew the truth.

It was not a thing to forget: that wilderness scene in midstream in which Broken Fang and this man of cities came face to face for the first time.

And all at once he paused in the middle of a sentence, staring curiously at the ground. The shadow of their figures in the sunlight was no longer to be seen.

“Good Lord, Alice,” he exclaimed. “What’s happened to the sun?”

They both looked up at once. And they found it without difficulty. But it was not that potent orb that the long summer days had taught them to respect. It was a feeble sun, a mere red disk in the strange, gray-blue sky.

“Clouds?” Hugh asked. A queer little stir went over his body. It was as if instinct⁠—not yet dead but only blunted in human beings⁠—had spoken within his being, giving him knowledge that his conscious self had not yet grasped. He was angry with himself for the tone. He had tried to keep all urgency out of it, and yet it seemed so breathless, so charged with dread.

“No,” the girl answered clearly. “It’s smoke.”

They were silent a breath. Both of them were testing the direction of the wind. Both of them knew at the same instant that their whole world depended largely upon this. It was not blowing hard at present, yet there was wind enough to sweep the fire through the treetops. And, more than anything, they remembered the parched and inflammable condition of the woods and brush.

Both of them discovered the truth the same instant. “We’re right in its track,” Hugh said.