They Who Walk in the Wilds/Mixed Breed
Ghostly white under the flooding spring moonlight, the sheep lay contentedly ruminating amid the old stumps and close-bitten hillocks of the upland pasture. A huge black-and-tan dog—long-limbed, deep-chested, with longish, slightly waving coat and richly feathered tail, like a collie's—came trotting up towards them with a business-like air. At a distance of some ten paces he paused, and, contemplatively waving his tail, cast a keen glance over the flock.
The nearest ewes stopped chewing and eyed him with a mild disfavour, prepared to rise and move in among their fellows if he should come any closer. The rest of the flock appeared to ignore him. They did not fear him. In fact, his presence gave them a sense of added security, there in this wide, naked pasture field with the blackness of the ancient, untamed forest crowding close along the frail barrier of zigzag rail fence. In a dim way they realized that he was responsible for their safety—that he was their protector from the perils which prowled or lurked in the forest shades.
Of his powers as a protector they had a keen appreciation; but in those very powers their deeper instincts recognized something from which they shrank uneasily. Ancestral memories, formless and infinitely remote, kept them on their guard, and their noncommittal eyes, lazily half closed, followed his every movement as long as he was near them.
Apparently satisfied with his inspection the big dog skirted the flock at a brisk trot and ran on to the fence. Here he sniffed along the rails for perhaps a couple of hundred yards in each direction, occasionally thrusting his muzzle through them between the roughly split poles, and sampling the forest smells with his discriminating nostrils.
The soft night wind drew outwards from the forest, across the pasture, and brought him a mixture of savours, all of which his delicate sense sorted out unerringly. He smelled the balsamy tang of spruce and fir, the faint wintergreen breath of the birches, the harsh, chill earthiness from a near-by patch of alder swamp. He caught the almost imperceptible scent of a hare, passing at some distance behind the trees, and cocked an ear with interest as it was followed, almost immediately, by the pungent musk of a fox. Then his nose wrinkled at the taint of a passing weasel.
There was no sign or hint anywhere of danger to the flock. He was not anticipating danger, indeed; for the bears and lynxes, at this season of plenty and good hunting, were not hanging about the neighbourhood of the settlements and courting trouble with the quick-shooting backwoods farmers.
Having thus fulfilled his duty towards his master's flocks, Bran—for that was the big dog's name—continued on along the fence, absorbed in his own private affairs. He was smelling for rabbits, or weasels, or ground squirrels, or any creature alive and active—skunks and porcupines alone strictly barred—which might afford him some sport and ease a certain restless craving that was tormenting him.
He had gone but a few yards when he picked up the fresh trail of a rabbit. Bounding forwards eagerly, he dashed around a dense clump of juniper—and almost collided with a ewe who was standing over her new-born lamb.
On the instant, the dauntless mother charged at him furiously, with lowered head—so swiftly that, as he sprang aside, she caught him a savage butt on the hind-quarters, nearly knocking him over. With a snarl of surprise and wrath he leaped out of reach; and the ewe, returning to her little one, fell to licking it anxiously. It was just old enough to stand upon its awkward, trembling legs; and she stood over it, alternately coaxing it to nurse and stamping defiantly at Bran.
As for Bran, his first impulse had been to spring upon his assailant; but his deepest instinct forbade him. To harm her was unlawful. She was part of his master's property, and, as such, sacred. At a discreet distance—the rabbit trail forgotten—he sat up on his haunches and regarded her.
In themselves, the ewe and her ridiculous offspring were of less than no concern to him; but his deep sense of responsibility for his master's property made him uneasy at seeing her so close to the fence and the forest. He knew that sheep were fools, of course; but she might have had sense enough to establish her nursery somewhere behind a big stump well down in the pasture, where her helpless young would not be a temptation to every forest marauder.
He would have liked to drive them both back to the flock, or at least to a safe distance from the fence; but he knew that the foolish and excited mother was in no mood to take a hint. Further, it was obvious that the lamb was as yet too feeble to walk. Unable to make up his mind what to do, he turned his back upon the problem, and sat watching the flock, his fine tail spread, slack and dejected, upon the dewy turf.
Obviously a mongrel, Bran was, like many mongrels, an altogether magnificent specimen of doghood. Fine breeds had gone to his making. His mother had been a big Yukon sledge dog, part Husky, part Newfoundland, with a strong strain of the wolf quite near the surface. His father had been a cross between collie and Airedale; and an expert might have picked out marks of all these strong strains in his physical make-up, although the blend was perfect, unless, perhaps, for some contrast between the intelligent, benevolent breadth of his skull above the eyes and the wolfish rake of his long, powerful jaws.
Heredity plays some queer tricks, no less in dogs than in men; and in Bran's temperament the distinctive traits of his varied ancestry lay in tangled and often sharply conflicting strands, instead of being wrought into a harmonious whole.
Now, balked in his hunting and in a distinctly bad humour, he revealed by the expression in his eyes as he sat watching the peaceful flock among the moonlit hillocks and stumps, a mood that grew to be something far from benevolent. Little by little his lips drew back, disclosing his long, white fangs.
Stealthily, almost imperceptibly to himself, a savage impulse hegan to creep up, itching, into his brain. He felt presently a fierce craving to dash down among the silly, comfortable flock, and scatter them—to see them fleeing in wild terror before him—to slash at their tender, woolly throats—to feel the gush of their hot sweet blood upon his tongue. Even so would that ancestral timber wolf have felt, watching, from behind a bush in the Yukon wilds, the approach of an unsuspecting little herd of caribou.
But Bran never moved. A more dominant strain in his temperament woke up, and called him sharply to his senses. His fangs vanished from view. The greenish fire faded from his eyes. A sense of shame chilled his spirit. With a guilty air he rose and turned to trot back to the farm-yard, his impulse to slaughter even rabbits quite extinguished for the moment.
He had not gone far, however, on his homeward journey, when he was surprised to hear from behind him that dull, pattering rush which is the unmistakable sound of a flock of sheep stampeding. His flock, so quiet but a half minute before, were tearing across the pasture in wild panic, now scattering hither and thither in small bunches, now closing again into a huddled mob as they ran, only to be scattered apart again instantly, as if by an explosion in their midst.
In the trail of the flight he saw two sheep down on their sides, kicking feebly. In the broad white flood of the moonlight he saw clearly that their throats were torn out. He ran towards them, but, for the moment, he ran slowly, in bewilderment and indecision. The scene was just his own savage dream of five minutes back come true, and his conscience shook him.
Then he saw the slayer—a tall, slender, bluish grey dog, a half-breed greyhound from the next settlement, miles away on the other side of the ridge. The stranger was just emerging from the confusion, having succeeded in cutting out an unhappy ewe and heading off her frantic efforts to rejoin her fellows.
On the instant Bran's perceptions cleared. The thick mane along his neck lifted with rage, and a deep growl rumbled in his throat, as he launched himself at top speed across the hillocks. The grey marauder was too much engrossed to see the approaching peril. He was delaying his victim's fate, heading her off ever farther from the flock, playing with her anguish of terror as a cat plays with a mouse.
At length, tiring of this play, and fearful lest the rest of the flock should escape him, he sprang in, with the sure aim of the practised killer. The helpless ewe gave one shrill bleat of despair. Then her throat was torn open, and she went down beneath her slayer—just as Bran landed upon them like a thunderbolt.
The black-and-tan dog felt a gush of hot blood in his face and nostrils; and then his long jaws closed inexorably upon the side of the grey beast's throat as he jerked him off his prey.
It was in no sense a fight, this that followed. Bran, the heavier and stronger as well as the more savage, had secured the one perfect, absolutely fatal grip. His opponent could do nothing but struggle impotently, with choked gasping and gurglings, striving to keep his feet while Bran worried him like a rat. In half a minute he was down, all four feet in the air, curled together and pawing convulsively; and then in a few seconds his body straightened out and fell slack.
For a little while, with fiercer growls, Bran continued to worry the unresisting form. Then, scornfully dropping it from his jaws, he lifted his blood-stained head and glanced about him keenly. Except for the three slaughtered ewes, the flock was all together, huddled in a compact, trembling white mass at the farther side of the pasture, as far as possible from the forest and its terrors.
Feeling that he had fulfilled his duty to the utmost, Bran turned about and with his hind paws contemptuously kicked a few scraps of turf over his victim. Then he trotted home to the farm-yard, crept into his kennel, and settled himself to sleep.
It was not out of love for his master, by any means, that Bran was so careful to guard that master's property. It was simply a fundamental article of the code which he inherited from the Newfoundland and collie side of his ancestry. Ben Parsons, the big, red-faced, hard-eyed farmer, was his master. To Ben Parsons he owed his food, his shelter and therefore his loyal service. That was enough for Bran.
There was no question of love, or even of the most temperate liking. Ben Parsons was not one to inspire, or to desire, anything approaching affection in man or beast. All the stock on his farm feared and distrusted him, in spite of the fact that they were in the main well treated. He had too clear an understanding of his own interests not to know that good treatment secured him good value. From his hired help he got fair service, for which he gave fair pay in wage and keep, and so he prospered; but no one ever stayed long in his employ.
From Bran he got obedience, but no servility. To him the great inscrutable-eyed, huge-eating dog was well worth his rations and the ten dollars that Ben had paid for him as a puppy, for the protection which he afforded to the farm.
It was towards noon when Parsons tramped up to the sheep pasture to see if all was well with his flock, a bunch of high-grade southdowns in which he took much pride. Bran accompanied him, not trotting at his heels, but ranging about with an air of responsibility.
The flock was pasturing—contentedly, for sheep have short memories—near the home fence of the pasture. The ewe which had given birth to her lamb the night before had rejoined the flock with her gawky offspring; but the owner's eye was quick to notice that three were missing. He glanced about the field.
"Seek 'em!" he said sharply.
Bran pricked up his ears, eyed Parsons inquiringly for a moment, then led him straight to the little hollow behind a big grey stump where one of the victims was lying.
To Parsons the sight of the torn throat was instant evidence that here was the work of that most hated of marauders, a sheep-killing dog. There could be no doubt as to who was the culprit. Bran was the only big dog in the whole settlement, the only dog with dangerous blood in his veins.
He turned and looked at Bran, a deadly rage seething in his heart and gleaming from his steelhard eyes. Bran, on the other side of the carcass, sniffed at it for a moment, and growled and bared his fangs as he thought of the other dog.
Had Ben Parsons had his gun with him, Bran's fate would have been settled on the spot; but he had not even a stick. His big fingers clenched viciously, but he was no fool. He was not going to tackle a mighty beast like Bran naked-handed. He controlled himself, and planned vengeance later—a safe vengeance. Bran should be disabled by a well-placed shot, and then beaten to death, without haste. The matter could wait.
Bran looked up and met his master's eyes with the confident gaze of a commending conscience; but as he sensed the hate, the deadly purpose, in those cold blue eyes, his own underwent a change, and an angry green light flickered in their depths.
But habit, training, the master instinct, conquered him. He turned and trotted straight to the other victim. Parsons followed, and gave but one look, icy now with the rage that was forced to bide its time. Hardly pausing, Bran led him on to the third victim, with the torn grey body of his slayer lying stretched out beside it. With a gesture of unutterable scorn, Bran kicked some dirt upon the corpse, then moved off a few paces, sat up on his haunches and glared at his master with an expression of smouldering hostility.
Ben Parsons stared down upon that gaunt and long-jawed corpse, so terribly mauled, and understood the whole situation. There was no spark of generous warmth in his make-up. Even while congratulating himself that he had not perpetrated the folly of killing such a valuable dog as Bran, he nursed a certain grudge against him for not having intervened more promptly. He dwelt more on the three sheep slain than on the rest of the flock saved.
He set off for the stables, to get a horse and drag, in order to haul the carcasses home—the sheep to be skinned, the dog as evidence in his claim for damages. As he went, he whistled Bran to follow him; but the black-and-tan, apparently, failed to hear the summons. He was already far up the pasture, sniffing along beside the fence for the scent of a rabbit. He had no use for Ben Parsons at the moment.
That same night just before moonrise, Bran came forth from his kennel and stood surveying the wide, shadowy farm-yard, the two big, square barns black against the glimmering sky; the long, low, open-fronted shed for wood and carts; the lean, white-painted frame house; the lamp-lit kitchen window close shut against the sweet and mild spring air.
Conflicting impulses warred sharply in his blood. For all the comfortable scene he felt a warm affection—a certain sense of proprietorship, almost, because he was there to guard it from the unknown perils of the night. He heard the two heavy bay draft horses pawing gently as they nosed the fodder in their mangers. They were Bran's friends, and his heart went out to them. He heard the soft lowing of one of the cows in the home pasture behind the shed. He liked the cattle—dull, to be sure, but rather amiable!
In his veins, however, there was stirring a fever that would not be quenched. Into his mouth came again the thrilling taste of that gush of hot blood from the ewe's torn throat as he had closed with her slayer. He licked his lips and gave an uneasy whine.
At that moment the heavy figure of Ben Parsons, pipe in mouth, appeared between the window and the lamp, gazing out into the dusk. Bran growled softly, with sudden aversion, at the sight; and the wolf strain triumphed. He trotted off towards the forest, athirst to hunt something, to kill something, if only a rabbit. In reality he craved a quarry that would struggle, that would resist, that he could slake his blood lust upon. If only he might strike the trail of one of those splendid red deer which he had occasionally seen staring over the pasture fence!
His way to the forest led him up through the sheep pasture. The moon was just rising, red and distorted, through the jagged black tops of the fir trees on the ridge, casting long, sinister shadows across the hillocks. The sheep were lying down. He merely glanced at them in passing, for just now he had no mind to look after their protection.
In that moment the picture of the long-limbed grey slayer, as he scattered and tore the flock in the ecstasy of the chase, flashed across Bran's memory. His jaws slavered with a gust of horrid sympathy and understanding. He realized at last that it was sheep he wanted to kill; but not, assuredly not, these sheep! These sheep he had fought for. They were his own. Let any intruder touch them at his peril!
He trotted straight on, then broke into a run, leaped the fence, and plunged into the forest. His purpose was now clear to him, and nothing should turn him from it!
In the woods it was dark, except where the low moon sent long fingers of elfish radiancy between the black trunks and down the silent glades. To Bran, going swiftly and without any thought of secrecy or stealth, the solitude seemed empty of all life; for all the furtive creatures of the wild, the savage and the timorous alike, hid themselves or froze into invisibility at the approach of this redoubtable intruder, who carried with him the added prestige of his alliance with man.
From time to time the scent of some tempting quarry would catch Bran's nostrils, but he was too fixed upon his purpose to be tempted. He raced on steadily, swishing through the young green brakes, crashing over the low blueberry bushes, skirting the denser thickets, threading the ancient trunks, leaping the occasional windfalls—his long and tireless gallop eating up the miles without effort. He topped the naked granite crest of the divide, spectral white in the pour of the new highfloating moon; and swept on down, through whispering groves of young birch and silver poplar, into the bosom of the white Ottanoonsis Valley.
Bran knew of a spacious sheep pasture on the lower slopes, where dwelt a white-fleeced flock which had lately been guarded by a certain tall, grey-blue dog, very swift of foot but fatally lacking in judgment. That dog had trespassed, and murdered, and met his deserts. To Bran it seemed that there would be a measure of justice, of retaliatory vengeance, in visiting the slayer's crime upon the slayer's own charges.
But Bran was prudent, for all the deadly lust in his veins. The old guardian was dead, indeed, but already a new one might have been appointed; and he did not wish to be disturbed in the orgy he was promising himself. The new guardian of the flock, if there were one, must first be settled with. And then—and then—the ecstasy of the chase, the slaughter, and the slaking of his fiery thirst!
Through the rough rail fence he scrutinized, long and warily, the empty, bright expanse of the pasture, and the flock huddled, peacefully ruminating, beneath the glassy radiance in a remote corner of the field. Warily keeping ever in the shadows, he made a complete circuit of the field, a systematic reconnaissance.
It was about three o'clock in the morning. All was clear. All was quiet. The farmhouse and the farm-yard, hidden behind a windbreak of dense fir trees, gave no sign of life. In the single straggling street of the settlement village, half a mile below, not a window was lighted. There was not a sound on the air but the soft rush of the Ottanoonsis against the two piers of its wooden bridge.
With savage exultation Bran leaped the fence and dashed upon the flock.
For the moment he did no killing. He was not yet quite worked up to it. He craved the fierce excitement of the chase; and for a few seconds the flock, too astonished to be really frightened, merely scattered sluggishly to avoid him. Two or three he nipped severely. Their sudden, piteous bleats were not to be misunderstood. Then swift panic seized the flock, and they ran, frantically.
The young lambs, left sprawling and bleating behind, Bran ignored. They were too petty game for him. Moreover, he would not have touched them in any case. His murder lust could not carry him so low as that. He pranced among them wildly for a moment, just to give the quarry a start, and then, with bared fangs and eyes flaming green, he tore in pursuit.
The first that he overtook, a heavy ewe, he sprang upon like a wolf. Her knees gave way beneath her, her outstretched muzzle buried itself in the damp turf—and Bran tore her throat out as he had seen the grey dog do.
Then a strange thing happened to him. With none of the ecstasy of gratifying a mad craving, the taste of his victim's blood shocked him back to sanity. It was like a douche of iced water in his face. He stqod rigid, frozen, and stared about him like one awaking from a tremendous dream. That old wolf forbear of his had at last been glutted. The mad fire faded from his eyes. His fine tail drooped slowly, and at last went fairly between his legs, as a sense of intolerable and unpardonable guilt swept over him.
With that sense of guilt came fear, which he had never known before. He had cut himself off from man. Retribution would await him everywhere. Never again could he return to the old farm. He whipped about and fled as if a pack of devils were at his heels.
Just at this moment, from behind the fir grove, appeared the farmer, the owner of the flock. Aroused, too late, by the vague but prolonged commotion in the sheep pasture, he had seized his gun—which hung ready loaded, on the kitchen wall—and run out to see what was the matter. Grasping the whole situation at a glance in that revealing white light, he took a hasty shot at the fleeing Bran.
It was not a good shot, fortunately. One of the big scattering pellets alone caught Bran, with a sting like a hot iron, on the side of the rump, just as he disappeared, with a startled yelp, over the top of the fence.
Speechless with indignation, the farmer strode across the field and surveyed the torn victim and the panic-stricken flock. The backwoods vocabulary is rich in varied and biting expletives; but words, here, were futile. He had recognized Bran, of course. He had already received an energetic demand from Ben Parsons for the price of three valuable sheep, their value being by no means understated in the claim.
"But I'll git even with Ben for this," he muttered at last; "him an' his dawg too, by God!"
Into the heart of the densest thicket he could find, trembling with shame and smarting from his surface wound, Bran slunk and hid himself. The spirit of two thousand generations of his ancestors—faithful friends of man since the dim ages of flint spearhead and cave-mouth fire—whispered scathingly in his conscience, upbraiding him for his crime.
He rolled and rooted in the wet moss and moist earth, striving to cleanse himself of the blood taint which now he loathed. The smart of his wound he hardly troubled to assuage, though from time to time he would lick at it despondently. What to do, or where to go, he had for the time no notion whatever. He had become that saddest and most aimless of four-foot creatures, a masterless dog.
At about half past eleven that same morning, in the shade of a wide-branched maple which overhung the river bank, Dave Stonor sat on a log smoking, and reading a shabby volume, while he waited for his kettle to boil. His compact little woodsman's fire was built between two stones close by, well in the shadow, that it might burn the better.
At the edge of the water, some twenty-five yards away—for the river had fallen, and there was a strip of gravelly beach between the wooded bank and the dimpling current—the prow of his loaded canoe was drawn up. Halting at the settlement that morning to buy milk and fresh bread, he had heard all about Bran's raid on the sheep pasture. Both Bran and Bran's owner, Ben Parsons, he had long known by reputation, though his house was nearly forty miles farther up the Ottanoonsis; for in the backwoods the minutest affairs of everyone are known and discussed for leagues about. It is almost as if each man's—and woman's—hairs were all numbered.
When, therefore, Dave Stonor saw a huge black-and-tan dog, with a splendid head, emerge cautiously from the bushes a little farther upstream, and slink, wtih a slight limp, down to the water's edge, he understood a great deal at once, and thought rapidly. He loved dogs. He knew Bran's pedigree. He had no liking for Ben Parsons. He had never owned a sheep. Bran's crime was more or less venial in his eyes.
The great dog drank greedily. Then he stood gazing across towards the opposite bank, as if making up his mind to swim over.
At this moment Dave Stonor intervened.
"Bran!" said he. "Come here!"
Bran jumped as if shot, turned his head to stare at the speaker, and seemed uncertain whether to plunge into the stream or dash back into the cover of the woods. He stared inquiringly at the smallish, motionless figure seated on the log. He met a pair of greyish brown eyes, kindly but very masterful, very compelling, fixed steadily upon him.
"Come here, Bran! Come here, I tell you!" repeated Stonor, more sharply.
There was something in that voice of authority, so assured, yet so subtly sympathetic, that poured balm upon Bran's sick and desolate spirit. It gave him confidence. It seemed to restore him to his forfeited fellowship with man. He had never heard a voice like that before.
He came slowly towards Stonor, but he came very humbly, his ears drooping, his fine tail between his legs. He expected punishment, but he came gladly.
As he approached, Stonor tossed him a lump of cold meat. With an apologetic glance, Bran bolted it gratefully. Then he crept to the man's knees.
"Lay down, you bloody murderer!" commanded Stonor.
The dog obeyed at once, comforted to feel that he had acquired a master. That master placed a moccasined foot gently on his back, rubbed his broad, intelligent head, and pulled his ears with a decisive roughness. Then, dropping his eyes to some lines in the well-thumbed volume that he had been reading, he remarked with the backwoods drawl:
"Must 'a' took a damn big conscience to make a coward of a dawg like you!"
In reply, Bran gave a small whimper of gratitude. He had been pardoned, and accepted.
By this time the kettle was boiling, but Dave Stonor paid no attention to it. He was thinking hard. He had tired of the backwoods. He had made some money by his work in the lumber camps, and saved it. He was on his way down to the city, a hundred and fifty miles away. There he intended to take train across the continent, and go north into the vast Yukon Territory prospecting for gold.
Bran's life was forfeit. It would be absurd to regard him any longer as the property of Ben Parsons—who was no good anyhow. Bran should not die. He should go to the Yukon with Stonor. What a leader for his dog team! And what a friend and companion in the great solitudes!
Dave Stonor got up briskly, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, emptied the kettle, and scattered and beat out the fire.
"We're a mite too nigh the settlement here," he remarked to Bran, who hung close at his heels. "We'll git right on, an' stop fur grub a few miles farther down."
Rearranging the dunnage in the canoe to make place for his unlooked-for passenger, he made Bran get in and lie down; and he took the precaution to throw a blanket over him. Then he stepped delicately into the stern, seated himself, picked up his broad-bladed paddle, and started off downstream with mighty strokes.
"Lay still an' keep quiet!" he commanded sharply. "I'm taking you where there ain't no sheep, an' where there ain't going to be no temptation to backsliding!"