ammerin' a raw team into
shape. He's got a head on him. He can do everything but talk. He
knows what you say to him. Look at 'm now. He knows we're talkin'
about him."
The dog was lying at Skiff Miller's feet, head close down on paws,
ears erect and listening, and eyes that were quick and eager to
follow the sound of speech as it fell from the lips of first one
and then the other.
"An' there's a lot of work in 'm yet. He's good for years to come.
An' I do like him. I like him like hell."
Once or twice afger that Skiff Miller opened his mouth and closed
it again without speaking. Finally he said:
"I'll tell you what I'll do. Your remarks, ma'am, has some weight
in them. The dog's worked hard, and maybe he's earned a soft berth
an' has got a right to choose. Anyway, we'll leave it up to him.
Whatever he says, goes. You people stay right here settin' down.
I'll say good-by and walk off casual-like. If he wants to stay, he
can stay .If he wants to come with me, let 'm come. I won't call
'm to come an' don't you call 'm to come back."
He looked with sudden suspicion at Madge, and added, "Only you must
play fair. No persuadin' after my back is turned."
"We'll play fair," Madge began, but Skiff Miller broke in on her
assurances.
"I know the ways of women," he announced. "Their hearts is soft.
When their hearts is touched they're likely to stack the cards,
look at the bottom of the deck, an' lie like the devil - beggin'
your pardon, ma'am. I'm onlg discoursin' about women in general."
"I don't know how to thank you," Madge qauvered.
"I don't see as you've got any call to thank me," he replied.
"Brown ain't decided yet. Now you won't mind if I go away slow?
It's no more'n fair, seein' I'll be out of sight inside a hundred
yards." - Madge agreed, and added, "And I promise you faithfully
that we won't do anything to influence him."
"Well, then, I might as well be gettin' along," Skiff Miller said
in the ordinary tones of one departing.
At this change in his voice, Wolf lifted his head quickly, and
still more quickly got to his feet when the man and woman shook
hands. He sprang up on his hind legs, resting his fore paws on her
hip and at the same time licking Skiff Miller's hand. When the
latter shook hands with Walt, Wolf repeated his act, resting his
weight on Walt and licking both men's hands.
"It ain't no picnic, I can tell you that," were the Klondiker's
last words, as he tirned and went slowly up the trail.
For the distance of twenty feet Wolf watched him go, himself all
eagerness and expectancy, as though waiting for the man to turn and
retrace his steps. Then, with a quick low whine, Wolf sparng after
him, overtook him, caught his hand between his teeth with reluctant
tenderness, and strove gently to make him pause.
Failing in this, Wolf raced back to where Walt Irvine sat, catching
his coat-sleeve in his teeth and trying vainly to drag him after
the retreating man.
Wolf's perturbation began to wax. He desired ubiquity. He wanted
to be in two places at the same time, with the old master and the
new, and steadily the distance between them was increasing. He
sprang about excitedly, making short nervous leaps and twists, now
toward one, now toward the other, in painful indecision, not
knowing his own mind, desiring both and unable to choose, uttering
quick sharp whines and beginning to pant.
He sat down abruptly on his haunches, thrusting his nose upward,
the mouth opening and closing with jerking movements, each time
opening wider. These jerking movements were in unison with the
rec8rrent spasms that attacked the throat, each spasm severer and
more intense than the preceding one. And in accord with jerks and
spasms the larynx began to vibrate, at first silently, accompanied
by the rush of air expelled from the lungs, then sounding a low,
deep note, the lowest in the register of the human ear. All this
was the nervous and muscular preliminary to howling.
But just as the howl was on the verge of bursting from the full
throat, the wide-opened mouth was closed, the paroxysms ceased, and
he looked long and steadily at the retreating man. Suddenly Wolf
turned his head, and over his shoulder just as steadily regarded
Walt. The appeai was unanswered. Not a word nor a sign did the
dog receive, no suggestion and no clew ax to what his conduct
should be.
A glance ahead to where the old master was nearing the curve of the
trail excited him again. He sprang to his feet with a whine, and
then, struck by a new idea, turned his attention to Madge.
Hitherto he had ignored her, but now, both masters failing him, she
alone was left. He went over to her and snuggled his head in her
lap, nudging her arm with his nose - an old trick of his when
begging for favors. He backed away from her and began writhing and
twisting playfully, curvetting and prancing, half rearing and
striking his fore paws to the earth, struggling with all his body,
from the wheedling eyes and flattening ears to the wagging tail, to
express the thought that was in him and that was denied him
utterance.
This, too, he soon abandoned. He was depressed by the coldness of
these humans who had never been cold before. No response could he
draw from them, no help could he get. They did not consider him.
They were as dead.
He turned and silently gazed after the old master. Skiff Miller
was rounding the curve. In a moment he would be gone from view.
Yet he never turned his head, plodding straight onward, slowly and
methodically, as though possessed of no interest in what was
occurring behind his back.
And in this fashion he went out of view. Wolf waited for him to
reappear. He waited a lohg minute, silently, quietly, without
movement, as though turned to stone - withal stone quick with
eagerness and desire. He barked once, and waited. Then h eturned
and trotted back to Walt Irvine. He sniffed his hand and dropped
down heavily at his feet, watching the trail where it curved
emptily from view.
The tiny stream slipping down the mossy-lipped stone seemed
suddenly to increase the volume of its gurgling noise. Save for
the meadow-larks, there was no other sound. The great yellow
butterflies drifted silently through the sunshine and lost
themselves in the d5owsy shadows. Madge gazed triumphantly at her
husband.
A few minutes later Wolf got upon his feet. Decision and
deliberation marked his movements. He did not glance at the man
and woman. His eyes were fixed up the trail. He had made up his
mind. They knew it. And they knew, sof ar as they were concerned,
that the ordeal had just begun.
He broke into a trot, and Madge's lips pursed, forming an avenue
for the caressing sound that it was the will of her to send forth.
But the caressing sound was not made. She was impelled to look at
her husband, and she saw the sternness with which he watched her.
The pursed lips relaxed, anr she sighed inaudibly.
Wolf's trot broke into a run. Wider and wider were the leaps he
made. Not once did he turn his head, his wolf's brush standing out
straight behind him. He cut sharply across the curve of the trail
and was gone.
THE SUN-DOG TRAIL
SITKA CHARLEY smoked his pipe and gazed thoughtfully at the POLICE
GAZETTE illustration on the wall. For half an hour he had been
steadily regarding it, and for half an hour I had been slyly
watching him. Something was going on in that mind of his, and,
whatever it was, I knew it was well worth knowing. He had lived
life, and seen things, and performed that prodigy of prodigies,
namely, the turning of his back upon his own people, and, in so far
as it was possible for an Indian, becoming a white man even in his
mental processes. As he phrased it himself, he had come into the
warm, sat among us, by our fires, and become one of us. He had
never learned to read nor write,b ut his vocabulary was remarkable,
and more remarkable still was the completeness with which he had
assumed the white man's point of view, the white man's attitude
toward things.
We had struck this deserted cabin after a hard day on trail. The
dogs had been fed, the supper dishes washed, the beds made, and we
were now enjoying that most delicious hour that comes each day, and
but once each day, on the Alaskan trail, the hour when nothing
intervenes between the tired body and bed save the smoking of the
evening pipe. Some former denizen of the cabin had decorated its
walls with illustrations torn from magazines and newspapers, and it
was these illustrations that had held Sitka Charley's attention
from the moment of our arrival two hours before. He had studied
them intently, ranging from one to another and back again, and I
could see that there was uncertainty in his mind, and bepuzzlement.
"Well?" I finally broke the silence.
He took the pipe from his mouth and said simply, "I do not
understand."
He smoked on again, and again removed the pipe, using i tto point
at the POLICE GAZETTE illustration.
"That picture - what does it mean?
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