Cowboy Short Stories, November 1939 — page 48: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE BLOODY-HANDED ONE the back of the point from its shelter. The Sliding-One will meet his fate! When I fire two shots in rapid succession, bring the dogs across the lake.” It seemed a perfect plan. Maskepeton’s face shone with excitement. “We will catch the Sliding-One in his own trap!” he exclaimed. Okatotan crawled across the snow to the toboggan for his snowshoes, and returned to the bush, his movements hidden from the opposite shore by the scattered rocks on the point. And as he set off up through the bush to gain the island’s protection, the snap and crack of Maskepeton’s rifle echoed in his ears. Half an hour later, after a considerable silence from the point, Maskepeton heard two shots in rapid succession. And he saw Okatotan emerge from the bush and signal. ‘He has fooled us,’ snarled Okatotan angrily. “He was gone when I got here. Look at his marks.” | Maskepeton examined two grooves in the snow made by skis. “The Sliding-One is as snaky as the marks he makes in the snow,” he said. “And we shall track him!” Okatotan bit the words off, and they zipped into the air venomously. “I shall go ahead. You follow with the dogs. Watch them closely. We go into the wind and they will get his scent first.” Okatotan, the Bloody-Handed-One, was skilled in all the wiles of the chase, and when the quarry was a whiteman, detested as such and detested doubly as the marauder of his trapline, his nostrils quivered with the eagerness of a wolf closing in upon prey. For an hour they followed swiftly but stealthily the ski tracks of the Swede, which led off along a bush trail. The only sounds on the still winter air were the sugary crunch-crunch of snowshoes, the soft patter of dogs’ feet, the whine of the toboggan gtinding in the dry snow, and the soft “quees-quees” of a wandering whiskey jack. Okatotan’s eyes were alert and questing, ranging ahead when the trail was clear, and continually darting along the Swede’s ski tracks reading the signs of his flight. But Okatotan’s mind was dark and brooding; it was filled with murderous thoughts; and he no longer saw the Swede as a man, a human being like himself, but as the in- carnate cause of all his own tribulations. Life had become a burden, a heavy load parallel that made his feet sink deeper and deeper into the soft trail. Let the Swede die, and 49 his difficulties would become resolved. Okatotan held up his hand and Maske- peton drew the dogs to a halt. “The Sliding-One is traveling fast,” he called back to his companion. “Twice he stopped to rest. And we gained a little. But not much.” : He tested the little heaps of snow at the edge of the ski trail. They were beginning to stiffen with the frost. ‘He is at least two miles ahead of us,’ he added. “We shall be close with him in half an hour. Perhaps when we come to this side of Pine Bay. He will slow up soon because he 1s nearing home.” HADOWS from the descending sun ‘9 lengthened across the trail, and pat- terned it like a black and white goose’s wing. But Okatotan had no eye for the PENNE beauty of his native country. His egs sent his snowshoes crunching forward, carrying him ever nearer his prey. Suddenly in consternation and amaze- ment, and looked at the Sliding-One’s tracks. They were no longer clear and distinct, but smudged and broken by the paws of ani- mals, Okatotan ran forward again, his face blazing with astonishment. Pad-marks, as large as saucers, wove in and out through the bush, and finally concentrated into a single grim file—following the ski trail! Once more Okatotan stopped Maskepeton and the dogs, And he was not surprised to see the dogs cringing and whining. ‘““Wolves!"’ he cried, and a short blast of keen-edged laughter broke from his lips. “Eight gray timber wolves are following the Sliding-One! They are thin and hungry and they travel swiftly! “Come! Perhaps we can see their kill!” Okatotan smiled, and his dark face was long and fiendish with the vindictive pleas- ure of his smile. This day the ancient gods were indeed favorable to Okatotan, the Bloody-Handed-One! He swung off along the trail, at an in- creased speed, his eyes questing and his gun alert. The wind carried no scent to his nos- trils, but it did to the dogs, and they hung back in their harness, until Maskepeton plied his whip upon their flanks and flung angry words at them in an intense hissing voice. But they could not keep up with Okatotan’s long-strided eager pace. And as he ran, his mind swung from the Sliding-One to the wolves, and back from the beasts of prey to their quarry. It flashed on hin, znat he and Maskepeton CoOnniclooo S (C@