Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 159: what you’re looking at

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

idence of heem! W'en I don’ want heem, hyar he is! W’en I want heem, _ The two had tramped up and down _ through the swamp thicket making deep, _ fatrow paths in the snow. They had __ walked astride tall, slender birch saplings, and, having borne down the tops, had eaten the long switch branches. They had not waxed fat, but they had lived well, com- pared to some of the gaunt varded beasts he had seen in other parts of his trapping land. There, within a few acres, French Louey and the two moose occupied a common shetter of forest canopy. The two brutes did not welcome him. Far from it! They plowed away with snorts and heavy blow- ings; but the trapper Knew their tracks, and did not need to see the moose to recog- nize them. He sat that night by his little stove, with its chunks of good body-wood, warming his hands while the white frost lining of the cabin slowly blackened as the heat melted the tiny crystals, leaving instead drips of water which dried, and the wonder of a warm room in the terrific cold was enjoyed by the old bones of the man. He had at last so hot a fire that his red stove drove him to the near wall, and when he tried his breath, for the first time in weeks he could not see it. “ Hi-i!” he chirred, like a red squirrel. “ Hi-i!” 7 When he turned in on his bunk, which he had covered a foot deep with shingled palsam boughs, he enjoyed the luxury of an open blanket, with full warmth. Three times, at intervals of a bit more than an hour, he filled his stove. When he awak- sned the next time it was with a start and . bound that brought him suddenly to an stened, cocking his head. He shiv- a drew on his heavy shirt before ear through an open doorway. 1 clearly, he reached to pick , : “ Wolves! the arctic cold, a fi ee ° 5 3 2 ] Sui ‘oo a ‘eis ceased sneaking a green timber, and the were packed together now while racing in the open, the voices of their hunger whin | ing as they howled in the star-lit night ““ Der!” he whispered. ‘ Behin’ de black streak ridge—through the gap, now Garry —dey’re comin’! Now down to boiling. water creek—up—up! Shu-u!” He knew the ledges from which the voices echoed; he knew the deeps of the valley gorges where the pack’s course was muffled; he stiffened as he heard the full. throated yelling when on a height the pack gave wide voice to open range. “ Dey go by!” French Louey assured himself. “Dey go on down, maybe, to Pukaso, to Pilot Harbor, prob’ly to Dog River! Dey go off der!” That was his wish, his hope. But sud- denly he heard them utter an outburst of lust of blood in eager discovery. “Wate Wat?” the trapper gasped. “'W’at dat?” For a minute he could not guess the an- swer. The pack had found a trail, full of promise, which made them thirst the noisier with famine hope. At first he tried to be- lieve he was mistaken; then ‘he thought it was his own trail—but he knew his trail was somewhere north of east of the starved chorus. ‘By Gar!” he muttered. ‘ Old Hang- Nose—hees femme, eh? Parbleaxu!" French Louey stepped into the open, all clear, listening the harder. He heard the fearsome thing of that dread wilderness. He heard the wolf pack. a numerous and hungry one, coming squealing and yapping along the track of some victim — French Louey rose on his tiptoes as he saw in his imagination the thing that was soon to take place. Old Hang-Nose was coming. plowing through the snow, the sharp crust cutting him. ‘The belled cow was coming, too, heavy and slow in that deep tanglefoot. Driven by such hunger the wolves could not easily be held off by even the quick blows of the long, slender legs of the big bull. The cow, his mate, was in dire need. The trapper blinked, staring at the snow beyond the shadows of his cabin in t ne O