Three times the woman came with him. In the firelight Kazan could see
her shining hair streaming about her, as he had seen it in the tent,
when he had leaped up and killed the other man. In her blue eyes there
was the same wild terror, and her face was white as the snow. And the
second and third time, she too called, "Kazan--Kazan--Kazan!"--and all
that part of him that was dog, and not wolf, trembled joyously at the
sound of her voice, and he almost crept in to take his beating. But fear
of the club was the greater, and he held back, hour after hour, until
now it was silent again in the tent, and he could no longer see their
shadows, and the fire was dying down.
Cautiously he crept out from the thick gloom, working his way on his
belly toward the packed sledge, and what remained of the burned logs.
Beyond that sledge, hidden in the darkness of the trees, was the body of
the man he had killed, covered with a blanket. Thorpe, his master, had
dragged it there.
He lay down, with his nose to the warm coals and his eyes leveled
between his forepaws, straight at the closed tent-flap. He meant to
keep awake, to watch, to be ready to slink off into the forest at the
first movement there. But a warmth was rising from out of the gray ash
of the fire-bed, and his eyes closed. Twice--three times--he fought
himself back into watchfulness; but the last time his eyes came only
half open, and closed heavily again.
And now, in his sleep, he whined softly, and the splendid muscles of his
legs and shoulders twitched, and sudden shuddering ripples ran along his
tawny spine. Thorpe, who was in the tent, if he had seen him, would have
known that he was dreaming. And Thorpe's wife, whose golden head lay
close against his breast, and who shuddered and trembled now and then
even as Kazan was doing, would have known what he was dreaming about.
In his sleep he was leaping again at the end of his chain. His jaws
snapped like castanets of steel,--and the sound awakened him, and he
sprang to his feet, his spine as stiff as a brush, and his snarling
fangs bared like ivory knives. He had awakened just in time. There was
movement in the tent. His master was awake, and if he did not escape--
He sped swiftly into the thick spruce, and paused, flat and hidden, with
only his head showing from behind a tree. He knew that his master would
not spare him. Three times Thorpe had beaten him for snapping at
McCready. The last time he would have shot him if the girl had not saved
him. And now he had torn McCready's throat. He had taken the life from
him, and his master would not spare him. Even the woman could not save
him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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