But this gate to mercy was closed before they reached it. A sudden flaring of the fire revealed them--the gleam of the blade and Ben"s stretching hand--and Ray left his log in a swift, catlike leap.
If Ben had possessed full use of both hands there still might have been time to send home the two crucial blows, or at least to dispatch Beatrice out of Ray"s power to harm. But his injured arm impeded him, and his hand fumbled as he tried to seize the hilt. With a sharp oath Ray crushed the blade into the ground with his heel; then kicked viciously at the p.r.o.ne body of his enemy.
And at that first base blow his rage and blood-l.u.s.t that had been gathering was swiftly freed. It was all that was needed to set him at the work of torture. For an instant he stood almost motionless except for the spasmodic twitching--now almost continuous--at his lips and for the slow turning of his head as he looked about for a weapon with which he could more quickly satiate the murder-madness in his veins. The knife appealed to him not at all; but his eye fell on a long, heavy club of spruce that had been cut for fuel. He bent and his strong hands seized it.
As he swung it high the girl leaped between--with a last, frantic effort, wholly instinctive--to shield Ben"s body with her own. But it was only an instant"s reprieve. Chan had followed Ben, and sharing Ray"s fiendish mood, jerked her aside. Ben raised himself up as far as he could at a final impulse to thrust the girl out of harm"s way.
Yet it was to be that Ray"s murderous blow was never to go home. A mighty and terrible ally had come to Ben"s aid. He came pouncing from the darkness, a gaunt and dreadful avenger whose code of death was as remorseless as Ray"s own.
It was Fenris the wolf, and he had found his master at last. Missing him at the accustomed place in the cave, he had trailed him to the lake margin: a smell on the wind had led him the rest of the way. He was not one to announce his coming by an audible footfall in the thicket. Like a ghost he had glided almost to the edge of the firelight, lingering there--with a caution learned in these last wild weeks of running with his brethren--until he had made up his brute mind in regard to the strangers in the camp. But he had waited only until he saw Ray kick the helpless form before him,--that of the G.o.d that Fenris, for all the wild had claimed him, still worshipped in his inmost heart. With fiendish, maniacal fury he had sprung to avenge the blow.
And his three followers, trained by the pack laws to follow where he led, and keyed to the highest pitch by their leader"s fury, leaped like gray demons of the Pit in his wake.
XLII
As a young tree breaks and goes down in the gale Ray Brent went down before the combined attack of the wolves. What desperate struggle he made only seemed to increase their fury and shatter him the faster.
Utterly futile were all his blows: his frantic, piercing screams of fear and agony raised to heaven, but were answered with no greater mercy than that he would have shown to Ben a moment before.
Seemingly in an instant he was on his back and the ravening pack were about him in a ring. In that lurid firelight their fangs gleamed like ivory as they flashed, here and there, over his body and throat, and their fierce eyes blazed with pale-blue fire,--the mark and sign of the blood madness of the beasts of prey.
Seemingly in a single instant the life had been torn from him, leaving only a strange, huddled, ghastly thing beside the dying fire. But the pack leaped from him at once. Fenris had caught sight of Chan"s figure as he ran for the nearest tree and seemingly with one leap he was upon him. He sprang at him from the side; and his fangs gleamed once.
He had struck true, his fangs went home, and the life went out of Chan Heminway in a single, neighing scream. He pitched forward, shuddered once in the soft gra.s.s, and lay still. The pack surged around his body, struck at it once or twice, then stood growling as if waiting for their leader"s command.
Before ever Ray fell, Ben had taken what measures of self-defense he could in case the pack, forgetting its master"s master, might turn on himself and the girl. He had reached the knife hilt and severed the ropes about the girl"s wrists. "Stay behind me," he cautioned. "Don"t move a muscle."
He knew that any attempt to reach and climb a tree would attract the attention of the pack and send them ravening about her. Again he knew that her life as well as his own depended on his control of the pack leader. He saw Chan go down, seemingly in a single instant, and he braced himself against attack. "Down, Fenris!" he shouted. "Down--get down!"
The great wolf started at the voice, then stood beside the fallen, gazing at Ben with fierce, luminous eyes. "Down, down, boy," Ben cautioned, in a softer voice. "There, old fellow--down--down."
Then Fenris whined in answer, and Ben knew that he was no longer to be feared. The three lesser wolves seemed startled, standing in a nervous group, yet growling savagely and eyeing him across the dying fire. For a moment Fenris"s fury had pa.s.sed to them, but now that his rage was dead, all they had left was an inborn fear of such a breed as this,--these tall forms that died so easily in their fangs. Fenris trotted slowly toward Ben, but with the true instincts of the wild his followers knew that this was no affair of fangs and death. He came in love, in a remembered comradeship, just as often he had led them to the mouth of the cavern, and they did not understand. They slowly backed away into the shadows, fading like ghosts.
Ben"s arms, in unspeakable grat.i.tude, went about the shoulders of the wolf. Beatrice, sobbing uncontrollably yet swept with that infinite thankfulness of the redeemed, crept to his side. Fenris whined and shivered in the arms of his G.o.d.
Quietude came at last to that camp beside the lake, in the far, hidden heart of Back There. Once more the blood moved with sweet, normal tranquillity in the veins, the thrill and stir died in the air, and the moonlight was beautiful on the spruce.
The wolves had gone. Fenris"s three brethren had slipped away, perhaps wholly mystified and deeply awed by their madness of a moment before; and from the ridge top they had called for their leader to join them. He had done his work, he had avenged the base blow that had seemed to strike at his own wild heart, he had received the caress he had craved,--and there was no law for him to stay. The female called enticingly; the wild game was running for his pleasure on the trails.
Ben had watched the struggle in his fierce breast, and Beatrice"s eyes were soft and wonderfully l.u.s.trous in the subdued light as she gave the wolf a parting caress. But he could not stay with them. The primal laws of his being bade otherwise. His was the way of the open trails, the nights of madness and the rapture of hunting--and these were folk of the caves! They were not his people, although his love for them burned like fire in his heart.
He could not deny the call of his followers on the ridge. It was like a chain, drawing him remorselessly to them. Whining, he had sped away into the darkness.
The fire had been built up, Beatrice had rallied her spent strength by full feeding of the rich, dried meat, and had done what she could for Neilson"s injury. Ben, exhausted, had lain down in some of the blankets of his enemy"s outfit. Neilson was not, however, mortally hurt. The bullet had coursed through the region of his shoulder, missing his heart and lungs, and although he was all but unconscious, they had every reason to believe that a few weeks of rest would see him well again.
Beatrice bathed the wound, bandaged it the best she could, then covered him up warmly and let him go to sleep. And the time came at last, long past the midnight hour, that she crept once more to Ben"s side.
There was little indeed for them to say. The stress of the night had taken from them almost all desire to talk. But Ben took her hand in his feebly, and held it against his lips.
"We"re safe now," Beatrice told him, her eye"s still bright with tears.
"We"ve seen it through, and we"re safe."
Ben nodded happily. It was true: there was nothing further for them to fear. With the aid of the rifles of the three fallen, they could procure meat in plenty for their remaining time at Back There; besides, the store of jerked caribou and moose was enough to hold them over. When the rains came again, the three of them--Neilson and Ben and Beatrice--could glide on down to the Indian encampments in the canoe. Thence they could reach the white settlements beyond the mountains.
Her glance into the future went still farther, because she knew certain news that as yet Ben had not heard. She had heard from Ray"s lips that night that Ben"s claim had been legally filed; he had only to return and take possession. It straightened out the future, promised success in the battle of life, gave him an interest to hold him in these northern forests. But she would not tell him to-night. It could wait for a more quiet hour.
Presently she saw that he was trying to speak to her, whispering; trying to draw her ear down to his lips. She smiled, with an infinite tenderness. Dimly though he spoke, she heard him every word.
"I love you," he told her simply. He watched her face, as intently as the three Wise Men watched the East, for a sign. And he saw it, clear and ineffably wonderful, in the stars that came into her eyes.
"I love you," she answered, with equal simplicity. They lay a while in silence, blissful in this wonder each had for the other, wholly content just that their hands and lips should touch.
The same miracle was upon them both; and the girl"s thought, ranging far, seized upon a deep and moving discovery. "All this belongs to us,"
she told him, indicating with one movement of her arm the boundless solitudes about them. "This is our own country, isn"t it, Ben? We can"t ever--go away."
It was true: they could never leave the forest for long. They were its children, bred in the bone. Their strong thews would waste in a gentler land. It was their heritage. They must not go where they could not behold the dark line of the forest against the sky.
The fire burned down. The moon wheeled through the sky. The tall spruce saw the dawn afar and beckoned.
THE END.