Now came the keeper with four more huge Dogs. They turned these
loose, and the men armed with clubs and lassos were closing to
help in finishing the Wolf, when a small boy came charging over
the plain on a Pony. He leaped to the ground and wriggling
through the ring flung his arms around the Wolf's neck. He called
him his "Wolfie pet," his "dear Wolfie"--the Wolf licked his face
and wagged its tail--then the child turned on the crowd and
through his streaming tears, he--Well it would not do to print
what he said. He was only nine, but he was very old-fashioned, as
well as a rude little boy. He had been brought up in a low
saloon, and had been an apt pupil at picking up the vile talk of
the place. He cursed them one and all and for generations back;
he did not spare even his own father.

If a man had used such shocking and insulting language he might
have been lynched, but coming from a baby, the hunters did not
know what to do, so finally did the best thing. They laughed
aloud--not at themselves, that is not considered good form--but
they all laughed at the German whose wonderful Dogs had been
worsted by a half-grown Wolf.

Jimmie now thrust his dirty, tear-stained little fist down into
his   very-much-of-a-boy's pocket, and from among marbles and
chewing-gum, as well as tobacco, matches, pistol cartridges, and
other contraband, he fished out a flimsy bit of grocer's twine
and fastened it around the Wolf's neck. Then, still blubbering a
little, he set out for home on the Pony, leading the Wolf and
hurling a final threat and anathema at the German nobleman: "Fur
two cents I'd sic him on you, gol darn ye."


IV

Early that winter Jimmie was taken down with a fever. The Wolf
howled miserably in the yard when he missed his little friend,
and finally on the boy's demand was admitted to the sick-room,
and there this great wild Dog--for that is all a Wolf
is--continued faithfully watching by his friend's bedside.

The fever had seemed slight at first, so that every one was
shocked when there came suddenly a turn for the worse, and three
days before Christmas Jimmie died. He had no more sincere mourner
than his "Wolfie." The great gray creature howled in miserable
answer to the church-bell tolling when he followed the body on
Christmas Eve to the graveyard at St. Boniface. He soon came back
to the premises behind the saloon, but when an attempt was made
to chain him again, he leaped a board fence and was finally lost
sight of.

Later that same winter old Renaud, the trapper, with his pretty
half-breed daughter, Ninette, came to live in a little log-cabin
on the river bank. He knew nothing about Jimmie Hogan, and he was
not a little puzzled to find Wolf tracks and signs along the
river on both sides between St. Boniface and Fort Garry. He
listened with interest and doubt to tales that the Hudson Bay
Company's men told of a great Gray-wolf that had come to live in
the region about, and even to enter the town at night, and that
was in particular attached to the woods about St. Boniface
Church.

On Christmas Eve of that year when the bell tolled again as it
had done for Jimmie, a lone and melancholy howling from the woods
almost convinced Renaud that the stories were true. He knew the
wolf-cries--the howl for help, the love song, the lonely wail,
and the sharp defiance of the Wolves. This was the lonely wail.

The trapper went to the riverside and gave an answering howl. A
shadowy form left the far woods and crossed on the ice to where
the man sat, log-still, on a log. It came up near him, circled
past and sniffed, then its eye glowed; it growled like a Dog that
is a little angry, and glided back into the night.

Thus Renaud knew, and before long many townfolk began to learn,
that a huge Gray-wolf was living in their streets, "a Wolf three
times as big as the one that used to be chained at Hogan's
gin-mill." He was the terror of Dogs, killing them on all
possible occasions, and some said, though it was never proven,
that he had devoured more than one half-breed who was out on a
spree.

And this was the Winnipeg Wolf that I had seen that day in the
wintry woods. I had longed to go to his help, thinking the odds
so hopelessly against him, but later knowledge changed the
thought. I do not know how that fight ended, but I do know that
he was seen many times afterward and some of the Dogs were not.

Thus his was the strangest life that ever his kind had known.
Free of all the woods and plains, he elected rather to lead a
life of daily hazard in the town--each week at least some close
escape, and every day a day of daring deeds; finding momentary
shelter at times under the very boardwalk crossings. Hating the
men and despising the Dogs, he fought his daily way and held the
hordes of Curs at bay or slew them when he found them few or
single; harried the drunkard, evaded men with guns, learned
traps--learned poison, too--just how, we cannot tell, but learn
it he did, for he passed it again and again, or served it only
with a Wolf's contempt.

Not a street in Winnipeg that he did not know; not a policeman in
Winnipeg that had not seen his swift and shadowy form in the gray
dawn as he passed where he would; not a Dog in Winnipeg that did
not cower and bristle when the telltale wind brought proof that
old Garou was crouching near. His only path was the warpath, and
all the world his foes. But throughout this lurid, semi-mythic
record there was one recurring pleasant thought--Garou never was
known to harm a child.


V

Ninette was a desert-born beauty like her Indian mother, but
gray-eyed like her Normandy father, a sweet girl of sixteen, the
belle of her set. She might have married any one of the richest
and steadiest young men of the country, but of course, in
feminine perversity her heart was set on that ne'er-do-well, Paul
des Roches. A handsome fellow, a good dancer and a fair
violinist, Fiddler Paul was in demand at all festivities, but he
was a shiftless drunkard and it was even whispered that he had a
wife already in Lower Canada. Renaud very properly dismissed him
when he came to urge his suit, but dismissed him in vain.
Ninette, obedient in all else, would not give up her lover. The
very day after her father had ordered him away she promised to
meet him in the woods just across the river. It was easy to
arrange this, for she was a good Catholic, and across the ice to
the church was shorter than going around by the bridge. As she
went through the snowy wood to the tryst she noticed that a large
gray Dog was following. It seemed quite friendly, and the child
(for she was still that) had no fear, but when she came to the
place where Paul was waiting, the gray Dog went forward rumbling
in its chest. Paul gave one look, knew it for a huge Wolf, then
fled like the coward he was. He afterward said he ran for his
gun. He must have forgotten where it was, as he climbed the
nearest tree to find it. Meanwhile Ninette ran home across the
ice to tell Paul's friends of his danger. Not finding any
firearms up the tree, the valiant lover made a spear by fastening
his knife to a branch and succeeded in giving Garou a painful
wound on the head. The savage, creature growled horribly but
thenceforth kept at a safe distance, though plainly showing his
intention to wait till the man came down. But the approach of a
band of rescuers changed his mind, and he went away.

Fiddler Paul found it easier to explain matters to Ninette than
he would to any one else. He still stood first in her affections,
but so hopelessly ill with her father that they decided on an
elopement, as soon as he should return from Fort Alexander,
whither he was to go for the Company, as dog-driver. The Factor
was very proud of his train Dogs--three great Huskies with curly,
bushy tails, big and strong as Calves, but fierce and lawless as
pirates. With these the Fiddler Paul was to drive to Fort
Alexander from Fort Garry--the bearer of several important
packets. He was an expert Dog-driver, which usually means
relentlessly cruel. He set off blithely down the river in the
morning, after the several necessary drinks of whiskey. He
expected to be gone a week, and would then come back with twenty
dollars in his pocket, and having thus provided the sinews of
war, would carry out the plan of elopement. Away they went down
the river on the ice. The big Dogs pulled swiftly but sulkily as
he cracked the long whip and shouted, "Allez, allez, marchez."
They passed at speed by Renaud's shanty on the bank, and Paul,
cracking his whip and running behind the train, waved his hand to
Ninette as she stood by the door. Speedily the cariole with the
sulky Dogs and drunken driver disappeared around the bend--and
that was the last ever seen of Fiddler Paul.

That evening the Huskies came back singly to Fort Garry. They
were spattered with frozen blood, and were gashed in several
places. But strange to tell they were quite "unhungry."

Runners went on the back trail and recovered the packages. They
were lying on the ice unharmed. Fragments of the sled were strewn
for a mile or more up the river; not far from the packages were
shreds of clothing that had belonged to the Fiddler.

It was quite clear, the Dogs had murdered and eaten their driver.

The Factor was terribly wrought up over the matter. It might cost
him his Dogs. He refused to believe the report and set off to
sift the evidence for himself. Renaud was chosen to go with him,
and before they were within three miles of the fatal place Renaud
pointed to a very large track crossing from the east to the west
bank of the river, just after the Dog sled. He ran it backward
for a mile or more on the eastern bank, noted how it had walked
when the Dogs walked and run when they ran, before he turned to
the Factor and said: "A beeg Voolf--he come after ze cariole all
ze time."

Now they followed the track where it had crossed to the west
shore. Two miles above Kildonan woods the Wolf had stopped his
gallop to walk over to the sled trail, had followed it a few
yards, then had returned to the woods.

"Paul he drop somesin' here, ze packet maybe; ze Voolf he come
for smell. He follow so--now he know zat eez ze drunken Paul vot
slash heem on ze head."

A mile farther the Wolf track came galloping on the ice behind
the cariole. The man track disappeared now, for the driver had
leaped on the sled and lashed the Dogs. Here is where he cut
adrift the bundles. That is why things were scattered over the
ice. See how the Dogs were bounding under the lash. Here was the
Fiddler's knife in the snow. He must have dropped it in trying to
use it on the Wolf. And here-what! the Wolf track disappears, but
the sled track speeds along. The Wolf has leaped on the sled. The
Dogs, in terror, added to their speed; but on the sleigh behind
them there is a deed of vengeance done. In a moment it is over;
both roll off the sled; the Wolf track reappears on the east side
to seek the woods. The sled swerves to the west bank, where,
after half a mile, it is caught and wrecked on a root.

The snow also told Renaud how the Dogs, entangled in the harness,
had fought with each other, had cut themselves loose, and
trotting homeward by various ways up the river, had gathered at
the body of their late tyrant and devoured him at a meal.

Bad enough for the Dogs, still they were cleared of the murder.
That certainly was done by the Wolf, and Renaud, after the shock
of horror was past, gave a sigh of relief and added, "Eet is le
Garou. He hab save my leel girl from zat Paul. He always was good
to children."


VI

This was the cause of the great final hunt that they fixed for
Christmas Day just two years after the scene at the grave of
Little Jim. It seemed as though all the Dogs in the country were
brought together. The three Huskies were   there--the Factor
considered them essential--there were Danes and trailers and a
rabble of farm Dogs and nondescripts. They spent the morning
beating all the woods east of St. Boniface and had no success.
But a telephone message came that the trail they sought had been
seen near the Assiniboine woods west of the city, and an hour
later the hunt was yelling on the hot scent of the Winnipeg Wolf.

Away they went, a rabble of Dogs, a motley rout of horsemen, a
mob of men and boys on foot. Garou had no fear of the Dogs, but
men he knew had guns and were dangerous. He led off for the dark
timber line of the Assiniboine, but the horsemen had open country
and they headed him back. He coursed along the Colony Creek
hollow and so eluded the bullets already flying. He made for a
barb-wire fence, and passing that he got rid of the horsemen for
a time, but still must keep the hollow that baffled the bullets.
The Dogs were now closing on him. All he might have asked would
probably have been to be left alone with them--forty or fifty to
one as they were--he would have taken the odds. The Dogs were all
around him now, but none dared to close in, A lanky Hound,
trusting to his speed, ran alongside at length and got a side
chop from Garou that laid him low. The horsemen were forced to
take a distant way around, but now the chase was toward the town,
and more men and Dogs came running out to join the fray.

The Wolf turned toward the slaughter-house, a familiar resort,
and the shooting ceased on account of the houses, as well as the
Dogs, being so near. These were indeed now close enough to
encircle him and hinder all further flight. He looked for a place
to guard his rear for a final stand, and seeing a wooden
foot-bridge over a gutter he sprang in, there faced about and
held the pack at bay. The men got bars and demolished the bridge.
He leaped out, knowing now that he had to die, but ready, wishing
only to make a worthy fight, and then for the first time in broad
day view of all his foes he stood--the shadowy Dog-killer, the
disembodied voice of St. Boniface woods, the wonderful Winnipeg
Wolf.


VII

At last after three long years of fight he stood before them
alone, confronting twoscore Dogs, and men with guns to back
them--but facing them just as resolutely as I saw him that day in
the wintry woods. The same old curl was on his lips--the
hard-knit flanks heaved just a little, but his green and yellow
eye glowed steadily. The Dogs closed in, led not by the huge
Huskies from the woods--they evidently knew too much for
that--but by a Bulldog from the town; there was scuffling of many
feet; a low rumbling for a time replaced the yapping of the pack;
a flashing of those red and grizzled jaws, a momentary hurl back
of the onset, and again he stood alone and braced, the grim and
grand old bandit that he was. Three times they tried and
suffered. Their boldest were lying about him. The first to go
down was the Bulldog. Learning wisdom now, the Dogs held back,
less sure; but his square-built chest showed never a sign of
weakness yet, and after waiting impatiently he advanced a few
steps, and thus, alas! gave to the gunners their long-expected
chance. Three rifles rang, and in the snow Garou went down at
last, his life of combat done.

He had made his choice. His days were short and crammed with
quick events. His tale of many peaceful years was spent in three
of daily brunt. He picked his trail, a new trail, high and short.
He chose to drink his cup at a single gulp, and break the
glass-but he left a deathless name.

Who can look into the mind of the Wolf? Who can show us his
wellspring of motive? Why should he still cling to a place of
endless tribulation? It could not be because he knew no other
country, for the region is limitless, food is everywhere, and he
was known at least as far as Selkirk. Nor could his motive be
revenge. No animal will give up its whole life to seeking
revenge; that evil kind of mind is found in man alone. The brute
creation seeks for peace.

There is then but one remaining bond to chain him, and that the
strongest claim that anything can own--the mightiest force on
earth.

The Wolf is gone. The last relic of him was lost in the burning
Grammar School, but to this day the sexton of St. Boniface Church
avers that the tolling bell on Christmas Eve never fails to
provoke that weird and melancholy Wolf-cry from the wooded
graveyard a hundred steps away, where they laid his Little Jim,
the only being on earth that ever met him with the touch of love.


THE LEGEND OF THE WHITE REINDEER


Skoal! Skoal! For Norway Skoal!
Sing ye the song of the Vand-dam troll.
When I am hiding
Norway's luck
On a White Storbuk
Comes riding, riding.

Bleak, black, deep, and cold is Utrovand, a long pocket of
glacial water, a crack in the globe, a wrinkle in the high
Norwegian mountains, blocked with another mountain, and flooded
with a frigid flood, three thousand feet above its
Mother Sea, and yet no closer to its Father Sun.

Around its cheerless shore is a belt of stunted trees, that sends
a long tail up the high valley, till it dwindles away to sticks
and moss, as it also does some half-way up the granite hills that
rise a thousand feet, encompassing the lake. This is the limit of
trees, the end of the growth of wood. The birch and willow are
the last to drop out of the long fight with frost. Their
miniature thickets are noisy with the cries of Fieldfare, Pipit,
and Ptarmigan, but these are left behind on nearing the upper
plateau, where shade of rock and sough of wind are all that take
their place. The chilly Hoifjeld rolls away, a rugged, rocky
plain, with great patches of snow in all the deeper hollows, and
the distance blocked by snowy peaks that rise and roll and whiter
gleam, till, dim and dazzling in the north, uplifts the
Jotunheim, the home of spirits, of glaciers, and of the lasting
snow.

The treeless stretch is one vast attest to the force of heat.
Each failure of the sun by one degree is marked by a lower realm
of life. The northern slope of each hollow is less boreal than
its southern side. The pine and spruce have given out long ago;
the mountain-ash went next; the birch and willow climbed up half
the slope. Here, nothing grows but creeping plants and moss. The
plain itself is pale grayish green, one vast expanse of
reindeer-moss, but warmed at spots into orange by great beds of
polytrichum, and, in sunnier nooks, deepened to a herbal green.
The rocks that are scattered everywhere are of a delicate lilac,
but each is variegated with spreading frill-edged plasters of
gray-green lichen or orange powder-streaks and beauty-spots of
black. These rocks have great power to hold the heat, so that
each of them is surrounded by a little belt of heat-loving plants
that could not otherwise live so high. Dwarfed representatives of
the birch and willow both are here, hugging the genial rock, as
an old French habitant hugs his stove in winter-time, spreading
their branches over it, instead of in the frigid air. A foot away
is seen a chillier belt of heath, and farther off, colder, where
none else can grow, is the omnipresent gray-green reindeer-moss
that gives its color to the upland. The hollows are still filled
with snow, though now it is June. But each of these white
expanses is shrinking, spending itself in ice-cold streams that
somehow reach the lake. These snö-flaks show no sign of life, not
even the 'red-snow' tinge, and around each is a belt of barren
earth, to testify that life and warmth can never be divorced.

Birdless and lifeless, the gray-green snow-pied waste extends
over all the stretch that is here between the timber-line and the
snow-line, above which winter never quits its hold. Farther north
both come lower, till the timber-line is at the level of the sea;
and all the land is in that treeless belt called Tundra in the
Old World, and Barrens in the New, and that everywhere is the
Home of the Reindeer--the Realm of the Reindeer-moss.


I

In and out it flew, in and out, over the water and under, as the
Varsimle', the leader doe of the Reindeer herd, walked past on
the vernal banks, and it sang:--

"Skoal! Skoal! Gamle Norge Skoal!" and more about "a White
Reindeer and Norway's good luck," as though the singer were
gifted with special insight.

When old Sveggum built the Vand-dam on the Lower Hoifjeld, just
above the Utrovand, and set his ribesten a-going, he supposed
that he was the owner of it all. But some one was there before
him. And in and out of the spouting stream this some one dashed,
and sang songs that he made up to fit the place and the time. He
skipped from skjaeke to skjaeke of the wheel, and did many things
which Sveggum could set down only to luck--whatever that is; and
some said that Sveggum's luck was a Wheel-troll, a Water-fairy,
with a brown coat and a white beard, one that lived on land or in
water, as he pleased.

But most of Sveggum's neighbors saw only a Fossekal, the little
Waterfall Bird that came each year and danced in the stream, or
dived where the pool is deep. And maybe both were right, for some
of the very oldest peasants will tell you that a Fairy-troll may
take the form of a man or the form of a bird. Only this bird
lived a life no bird can live, and sang songs that men never had
sung in Norway. Wonderful vision had he, and sights he saw that
man never saw. For the Fieldfare would build before him, and the
Lemming fed its brood under his very eyes. Eyes were they to see;
for the dark speck on Suletind that man could barely glimpse was
a Reindeer, with half-shed coat, to him and the green slime on
the Vandren was beautiful green pasture with a banquet spread.

Oh, Man is so blind, and makes himself so hated! But Fossekal
harmed none, so none were afraid of him. Only he sang, and his
songs were sometimes mixed with fun and prophecy, or perhaps a
little scorn.

From the top of the tassel-birch he could mark the course of the
Vand-dam stream past the Nystuen hamlet to lose itself in the
gloomy waters of Utrovand or by a higher flight he could see
across the barren upland that rolled to Jotunheim in the north.

The great awakening was on now. The springtime had already
reached the woods; the valleys were a-throb with life; new birds
coming from the south, winter sleepers reappearing, and the
Reindeer that had wintered in the lower woods should soon again
be seen on the uplands.

Not without a fight do the Frost Giants give up the place so long
their own; a great battle was in progress; but the Sun was
slowly, surely winning, and driving them back to their Jotunheim.
At every hollow and shady place they made another stand, or
sneaked back by night, only to suffer another defeat. Hard
hitters these, as they are stubborn fighters; many a granite rock
was split and shattered by their blows in reckless fight, so that
its inner fleshy tints were shown and warmly gleamed among the
gray-green rocks that dotted the plain, like the countless flocks
of Thor. More or less of these may be found at every place of
battle-brunt, and straggled along the slope of Suletind was a
host that reached for half a mile. But stay! these moved. Not
rocks were they, but living creatures.

They drifted along erratically, yet one way, all up the wind.
They swept out of sight in a hollow, to reappear on a ridge much
nearer, and serried there against the sky, we marked their
branching horns, and knew them for the Reindeer in their home.

The band came drifting our way, feeding like Sheep, grunting like
only themselves. Each one found a grazing-spot, stood there till
it was cleared off, then trotted on crackling hoofs to the front
in search of another. So the band was ever changing in rank and
form. But one there was that was always at or near the van--a
large and well-favored Simle', or Hind. However much the band
might change and spread, she was in the forefront, and the
observant would soon have seen signs that she had an influence
over the general movement--that she, indeed, was the leader. Even
the big Bucks, in their huge velvet-clad antlers, admitted this
untitular control; and if one, in a spirit of independence,
evinced a disposition to lead elsewhere, he soon found himself
uncomfortably alone.

The Varsimle', or leading Hind, had kept the band hovering, for
the last week or two, along the timber-line, going higher each
day to the baring uplands, where the snow was clearing and the
deer-flies were blown away. As the pasture zone had climbed she
had followed in her daily foraging, returning to the sheltered
woods at sundown, for the wild things fear the cold night wind
even as man does. But now the deer-flies were rife in the woods,
and the rocky hillside nooks warm enough for the nightly bivouac,
so the woodland was deserted.

Probably the leader of a band of animals does not consciously
pride itself on leadership, yet has an uncomfortable sensation
when not followed. But there are times with all when solitude is
sought. The Varsimle' had been fat and well through the winter,
yet now was listless, and lingered with drooping head as the
grazing herd moved past her.

Sometimes she stood gazing blankly while the unchewed bunch of
moss hung from her mouth, then roused to go on to the front as
before; but the spells of vacant stare and the hankering to be
alone grew stronger. She turned downward to seek the birch woods,
but the whole band turned with her. She stood stock-still, with
head down. They grazed and grunted past, leaving her like a
statue against the hillside. When all had gone on, she slunk
quietly away; walked a few steps, looked about, made a pretense
of grazing, snuffed the ground, looked after the herd, and
scanned the hills; then downward fared toward the sheltering
woods.

Once as she peered over a bank she sighted another Simle', a doe
Reindeer, uneasily wandering by itself. But the Varsimle' wished
not for company. She did not know why, but she felt that she must
hide away somewhere.

She stood still until the other had passed on, then turned aside,
and went with faster steps and less wavering, till she came in
view of Utrovand, away down by the little stream that turns old
Sveggum's ribesten. Up above the dam she waded across the limpid
stream, for deep-laid and sure is the instinct of a wild animal
to put running water between itself and those it shuns. Then, on
the farther bank, now bare and slightly green, she turned, and
passing in and out among the twisted trunks, she left the noisy
Vand-dam. On the higher ground beyond she paused, looked this way
and that, went on a little, but returned; and here, completely
shut in by softly painted rocks, and birches wearing little
springtime hangers, she seemed inclined to rest; yet not to rest,
for she stood uneasily this way and that, driving away the flies
that settled on her legs, heeding not at all the growing grass,
and thinking she was hid from all the world.

But nothing escapes the Fossekal. He had seen her leave the herd,
and now he sat on a gorgeous rock that overhung, and sang as
though he had waited for this and knew that the fate of the
nation might turn on what passed in this far glen. He sang:

Skoal! Skoal! For Norway Skoal!
Sing ye the song of the Vand-dam troll.
When I am hiding
Norway's luck
On a White Storbuk
Comes riding, riding.


There are no Storks in Norway, and yet an hour later there was a
wonderful little Reindeer lying beside the Varsimle'. She was
brushing his coat, licking and mothering him, proud and happy as
though this was the first little Renskalv ever born. There might
be hundreds born in the herd that month, but probably no more
like this one, for he was snowy white, and the song of the singer
on the painted rock was about

Good luck, good luck,
And a White Storbuk,

as though he foresaw clearly the part that the White Calf was to
play when he grew to be a Storbuk.

But another wonder now came to pass. Before an hour, there was a
second little Calf--a brown one this time. Strange things happen,
and hard things are done when they needs must. Two hours later,
when the Varsimle' led the White Calf away from the place, there
was no Brown Calf, only some flattened rags with calf-hair on
them.

The mother was wise: better one strongling than two weaklings.
Within a few days the Simle' once more led the band, and running
by her side was the White Calf. The Varsimle' considered him in
all things, so that he really set the pace for the band, which
suited very well all the mothers that now had Calves with them.
Big, strong, and wise was the Varsimle', in the pride of her
strength, and this White Calf was the flower of her prime. He
often ran ahead of his mother as she led the herd, and Rol,
coming on them one day, laughed aloud at the sight as they
passed, old and young, fat Simle' and antlered Storbuk, a great
brown herd, all led, as it seemed, by a little White Calf.

So they drifted away to the high mountains, to be gone all
summer. "Gone to be taught by the spirits who dwell where the
Black  Loon laughs on the ice," said Lief of the Lower Dale; but
Sveggum, who had always been among the Reindeer, said: "Their
mothers are the teachers, even as ours are."

When the autumn came, old Sveggum saw a moving sno-flack far off
on the brown moor-land; but the Troll saw a white yearling, a
Nekbuk; and when they ranged alongside of Utrovand to drink, the
still sheet seemed fully to reflect the White One, though it
barely sketched in the others, with the dark hills behind.

Many a little Calf had come that spring, and had drifted away on
the moss-barrens, to come back no more; for some were weaklings
and some were fools; some fell by the way, for that is law; and
some would not learn the rules, and so died. But the White Calf
was strongest of them all, and he was wise, so he learned of his
mother, who was wisest of them all. He learned that the grass on
the sun side of a rock is sweet, and though it looks the same in
the dark hollows, it is there worthless. He learned that when his
mother's hoofs crackled he must be up and moving, and when all
the herd's hoofs crackled there was danger, and he must keep by
his mother's side. For this crackling is like the whistling of a
Whistler Duck's wings: it is to keep the kinds together. He
learned that where the little Bomuldblomster hangs its Cotton
tufts is dangerous bog; that the harsh cackle of the Ptarmigan
means that close at hand are Eagles, as dangerous for Fawn as for
Bird. He learned that the little troll-berries are deadly, that
when the verra-flies come stinging he must take refuge on a   
snow-patch, and that of all animal smells only that of his mother
was to be fully trusted. He learned that he was growing. His flat
calf sides and big joints were changing to the full barrel and
clean limbs of the Yearling, and the little bumps which began to
show on his head when he was only a fortnight old were now sharp,
hard spikes that could win in fight.

More than once they had smelt that dreaded destroyer of the north
that men call the Gjerv or Wolverene; and one day, as this
danger-scent came suddenly and in great strength, a huge blot of
dark brown sprang rumbling from a rocky ledge, and straight for
the foremost--the White Calf. His eye caught the flash of a
whirling, shaggy mass, with gleaming teeth and eyes, hot-breathed
and ferocious. Blank horror set his hair on end; his nostrils
flared in fear: but before he fled there rose within another
feeling--one of anger at the breaker of his peace, a sense that
swept all fear away, braced his legs, and set his horns at
charge. The brown brute landed with a deep-chested growl, to be
received on the young one's spikes. They pierced him deeply, but
the shock was overmuch; it bore the White One down, and he might
yet have been killed but that his mother, alert and ever near,
now charged the attacking monster, and heavier, better armed, she
hurled and speared him to the ground. And the White Calf, with a
very demon glare in his once mild eyes, charged too; and even
after the Wolverene was a mere hairy mass, and his mother had
retired to feed, he came, snorting out his rage, to drive his
spikes into the hateful thing, till his snowy head was stained
with his adversary's blood.

Thus he showed that below the ox-like calm exterior was the
fighting beast; that he was like the men of the north, rugged,
square-built, calm, slow to wrath, but when aroused "seeing red."

When they ranked together by the lake that fall, the Fossekal
sang his old song:

When I am hiding
Norway's luck
On a White Storbuk
Comes riding, riding,

as though this was something he had awaited, then disappeared no
one knew where. Old Sveggum had seen it flying through the
stream, as birds fly through the air, walking in the bottom of a
deep pond as a Ptarmigan walks on the rocks, living as no bird
can live; and now the old man said it had simply gone southward
for the winter. But old Sveggum could neither read nor write: how
should he know?


II

Each springtime when the Reindeer passed over Sveggum's mill-run,
as they moved from the lowland woods to the bleaker shore of
Utrovand, the Fossekal was there to sing about the White Storbuk,
which each year became more truly the leader.

That first spring he stood little higher than a Hare. When he
came to drink in the autumn, his back was above the rock where
Sveggum's stream enters Utrovand. Next year he barely passed
under the stunted birch, and the third year the Fossekal on the
painted rock was looking up, not down, at him as he passed. This
was the autumn when Rol and Sveggum sought the Hoifjeld to round
up their   half-wild herd and select some of the strongest for
the sled. There was but one opinion about the Storbuk. Higher
than the others, heavier, white as snow, with a mane that swept
the shallow drifts, breasted like a Horse and with horns like a
storm-grown oak, he was king of the herd, and might easily be
king of the road.

There are two kinds of deer-breakers, as there are two kinds of
horse-breakers: one that tames and teaches the animal, and gets a
spirited, friendly helper; one that aims to break its spirit, and
gets only a sullen slave, ever ready to rebel and wreak its hate.
Many a Lapp and many a Norsk has paid with his life for brutality
to his Reindeer, and Rol's days were shortened by his own
pulk-Ren. But Sveggum was of gentler sort. To him fell the
training of the White Storbuk. It was slow, for the Buck resented
all liberties from man, as he did from his brothers; but
kindness, not fear, was the power that tamed him, and when he had
learned to obey and glory in the sled race, it was a noble sight
to see the great white mild-eyed beast striding down the long
snow-stretch of Utrovand, the steam jetting from his nostrils,
the snow swirling up before like the curling waves on a steamer's
bow, sled, driver, and Deer all dim in flying white.

Then came the Yule-tide Fair, with the races on the ice, and
Utrovand for once was gay. The sullen hills about reechoed with
merry shouting. The Reindeer races were first, with many a mad
mischance for laughter. Rol himself was there with his swiftest
sled Deer, a tall, dark, five-year-old, in his primest prime. But
over-eager, over-brutal, he harried the sullen, splendid slave
till in mid-race--just when in a way to win--it turned at a cruel
blow, and Rol took refuge under the upturned sled until it had
vented its rage against the wood; and so he lost the race, and
the winner was the young White Storbuk. Then he won the  
five-mile race around the lake; and for each triumph Sveggum hung
a little silver bell on his harness, so that now he ran and won
to merry music.

Then came the Horse races,--running races these; the Reindeer
only trots,--and when Balder, the victor Horse, received his
ribbon and his owner the purse, came Sveggum with all his
winnings in his hand, and said: "Ho, Lars, thine is a fine Horse,
but mine is a better Storbuk; let us put our winnings together
and race, each his beast, for all."

A Ren against a Race-horse--such a race was never seen till now.
Off at the pistol-crack they flew. "Ho, Balder! (cluck!) Ho, hi,
Balder!" Away shot the beautiful Racer, and the Storbuk, striding
at a slower trot, was left behind.

"Ho, Balder!" "Hi, Storbuk!" How the people cheered as the Horse
went bounding and gaining! But he had left the line at his top
speed; the Storbuk's rose as he flew--faster--faster. The Pony
ceased to gain. A mile whirled by; the gap began to close. The
Pony had over-spurted at the start, but the Storbuk was warming
to his work--striding evenly, swiftly, faster yet, as Sveggum
cried in encouragement: "Ho, Storbuk! good Storbuk!" or talked to
him only with a gentle rein. At the turning-point the pair were
neck and neck; then the Pony--though well driven and well
shod-slipped on the ice, and thenceforth held back as though in
fear, so the Storbuk steamed away. The Pony and his driver were
far behind when a roar from every human throat in Filefjeld told
that the Storbuk had passed the wire and won the race. And yet
all this was before the White Ren had reached the years of his
full strength and speed.

Once that day Rol essayed to drive the Storbuk. They set off at a
good pace, the White Buk ready, responsive to the single rein,
and his mild eyes veiled by his drooping lashes. But, without any
reason other than the habit of brutality, Rol struck him. In a
moment there was a change. The Racer's speed was checked, all
four legs braced forward till he stood; the drooping lids were
raised, the eyes rolled--there was a green light in them now.
Three puffs of steam were jetted from each nostril. Rol shouted,
then, scenting danger, quickly upset the sled and hid beneath.
The Storbuk turned to charge the sled, sniffing and tossing the
snow with his foot; but little Knute, Sveggum's son, ran forward
and put his arms around the Storbuk's neck; then the fierce look
left the Reindeer's eye, and he suffered the child to lead him
quietly back to the starting-point. Beware, O driver! the
Reindeer, too, "sees red."

This was the coming of the White Storbuk for the folk of
Filefjeld.

In the two years that followed he became famous throughout that
country as Sveggum's Storbuk, and many a strange exploit was told
of him. In twenty minutes he could carry old Sveggum round the
six-mile rim of Utrovand. When the snow-slide buried all the
village of Holaker, it was the Storbuk that brought the word for
help to Opdalstole and returned again over the forty miles of
deep snow in seven hours, to carry brandy, food, and promise of
speedy aid.

When over-venturesome young Knute Sveggumsen broke through the
new thin ice of Utrovand, his cry for help brought the Storbuk to
the rescue; for he was the gentlest of his kind and always ready
to come at call.

He brought the drowning boy in triumph to the shore, and as they
crossed the Vand-dam stream, there was the Troll-bird to sing:

Good luck, good luck,
With the White Storbuk.

After which he disappeared for months--doubtless dived into some
subaqueous cave to feast and revel all winter; although Sveggum
did not believe it was so.


III

How often is the fate of kingdoms given into child hands, or even
committed to the care of Bird or Beast! A She-wolf nursed the
Roman Empire. A Wren pecking crumbs on a drum-head aroused the
Orange army, it is said, and ended the Stuart reign in Britain.
Little wonder, then, that to a noble Reindeer Buk should be
committed the fate of Norway: that the Troll on the wheel should
have reason in his rhyme.

These were troublous times in Scandinavia. Evil men, traitors at
heart, were sowing dissension between the brothers Norway and
Sweden. "Down with the Union!" was becoming the popular cry.

Oh, unwise peoples! If only you could have been by Sveggum's
wheel to hear the
Troll when he sang:

The Raven and the Lion
They held the Bear at bay;
But he picked the bones of both
When they quarrelled by the way.

Threats of civil war, of a fight for independence, were heard
throughout Norway. Meetings were held more or less secretly, and
at each of them was some one with well-filled pockets and glib
tongue, to enlarge on the country's wrongs, and promise
assistance from an outside irresistible power as soon as they
showed that they meant to strike for freedom. No one openly named
the power. That was not necessary; it was everywhere felt and
understood. Men who were real patriots began to believe in it.
Their country was wronged. Here was one to set her right. Men
whose honor was beyond question became secret agents of this
power. The state was honeycombed and mined; society was a tangle
of plots. The king was helpless, though his only wish was for the
people's welfare. Honest and straightforward, what could he do
against this far-reaching machination? The very advisers by his
side were corrupted through mistaken patriotism. The idea that
they were playing into the hands of the foreigner certainly never
entered into the minds of these dupes--at least, not those of the
rank and file. One or two, tried, selected, and bought by the
arch-enemy, knew the real object in view, and the chief of these
was Borgrevinck, a former lansman of Nordlands. A man of unusual
gifts, a member of the Storthing, a born leader, he might have
been prime minister long ago, but for the distrust inspired by
several unprincipled dealings. Soured by what he considered want
of appreciation, balked in his ambition, he was a ready tool when
the foreign agent sounded him. At first his patriotism had to be
sopped, but that necessity disappeared as the game went on, and
perhaps he alone, of the whole far-reaching conspiracy, was
prepared to strike at the Union for the benefit of the foreigner.

Plans were being perfected,--army officers being secretly misled
and won over by the specious talk of "their country's wrongs,"
and each move made Borgrevinck more surely the head of it
all,--when a quarrel between himself and the "deliverer" occurred
over the question of recompense. Wealth untold they were willing
to furnish; but regal power, never. The quarrel became more
acute. Borgrevinck continued to attend all meetings, but was ever
more careful to centre all power in himself, and even prepared to
turn round to the king's party if necessary to further his
ambition. The betrayal of his followers would purchase his own
safety. But proofs he must have, and he set about getting
signatures to a declaration of rights which was simply a veiled
confession of treason. Many of the leaders he had deluded into
signing this before the meeting at Laersdalsoren. Here they met
in the early winter, some twenty of the patriots, some of them
men of position, all of them men of brains and power. Here, in
the close and stifling parlor, they planned, discussed, and
questioned. Great hopes were expressed, great deeds were
forecast, in that stove-hot room.

Outside, against the fence, in the winter night, was a Great
White Reindeer, harnessed to a sled, but lying down with his head
doubled back on his side as he slept, calm, unthoughtful,
ox-like. Which seemed likelier to decide the nation's fate, the
earnest thinkers indoors, or the ox-like sleeper without? Which
seemed more vital to Israel, the bearded council in King Saul's
tent, or the light-hearted shepherd-boy hurling stones across the
brook at Bethlehem? At Laersdalsoren it was as before: deluded by
Borgrevinck's eloquent plausibility, all put their heads in the
noose, their lives and country in his hands, seeing in this
treacherous monster a very angel of self-sacrificing patriotism.
All? No, not all. Old Sveggum was there. He could neither read
nor write. That was his excuse for not signing. He could not read
a letter in a book, but he could read something of the hearts of
men. As the meeting broke up he whispered to Axel Tanberg: "Is
his own name on that paper?" And Axel, starting at the thought,
said: "No." Then said Sveggum: "I don't trust that man. They
ought to know of this at Nystuen." For there was to be the really
important meeting. But how to let them know was the riddle.
Borgrevinck was going there at once with his fast Horses.

Sveggum's eye twinkled as he nodded toward the Storbuk, standing
tied to the fence. Borgrevinck leaped into his sleigh and went
off at speed, for he was a man of energy. Sveggum took the bells
from the harness, untied the Reindeer, stepped into the pulk. He
swung the single rein, clucked to the Storbuk, and also turned
his head toward Nystuen. The fast Horses had a long start, but
before they had climbed the eastward hill Sveggum needs must
slack, so as not to overtake them. He held back till they came to
the turn above the woods at Maristuen; then he quit the road, and
up the river flat he sped the Buk, a farther way, but the only
way to bring them there ahead.

Squeak, crack-squeak, crack-squeak, crack--at regular intervals
from the great spreading snow-shoes of the Storbuk, and the
steady sough of his breath was like the Nordland as she passes up
the Hardanger Fjord. High up, on the smooth road to the left,
they could hear the jingle of the horse-bells and the shouting of
Borgrevinck's driver, who, under orders, was speeding hard for
Nystuen.

The highway was a short road and smooth, and the river valley was
long and rough; but when, in four hours, Borgrevinck got to
Nystuen, there in the throng was a face that he had just left at
Laersdalsoren. He appeared not to notice, though nothing ever
escaped him.

At Nystuen none of the men would sign. Some one had warned them.
This was serious; might be fatal at such a critical point. As he
thought it over, his suspicions turned more and more to Sveggum,
the old fool that could not write his name at Laersdalsoren. But
how did he get there before himself with his speedy Horses?

There was a dance at Nystuen that night; the dance was necessary
to mask the meeting; and during that Borgrevinck learned of the
swift White Ren.

The Nystuen trip had failed, thanks to the speed of the White
Buk. Borgrevinck must get to Bergen before word of this, or all
would be lost. There was only one way, to be sure of getting
there before any one else. Possibly word had already gone from
Laersdalsoren. But even at that, Borgrevinck could get there and
save himself, at the price of all Norway, if need be, provided he
went with the White Storbuk. He would not be denied. He was not
the man to give up a point, though it took all the influence he
could bring to bear, this time, to get old Sveggum's leave.

The Storbuk was quietly sleeping in the corral when Sveggum came
to bring him. He rose leisurely, hind legs first, stretched one,
then the other, curling his tail tight on his back as he did so,
shook the hay from the great antlers as though they were a bunch
of twigs, and slowly followed Sveggum at the end of the tight
halter. He was so sleepy and slow that Borgrevinck impatiently
gave him a kick, and got for response a short snort from the Buk,
and from Sveggum an earnest warning, both of which were somewhat
scornfully received. The tinkling bells on the harness had been
replaced, but Borgrevinck wanted them removed. He wished to go in
silence. Sveggum would not be left behind when his favorite Ren
went forth, so he was given a seat in the horse-sleigh which was
to follow, and the driver thereof received from his master a
secret hint to delay.

Then, with papers on his person to death-doom a multitude of
misguided men, with fiendish intentions in his heart as well as
the power to carry them out, and with the fate of Norway in his
hands, Borgrevinck was made secure in the sled, behind the White
Storbuk, and sped at dawn on his errand of desolation.

At the word from Sveggum the White Ren set off with a couple of
bounds that threw Borgrevinck back in the pulk. This angered him,
but he swallowed his wrath on seeing that it left the
horse-sleigh behind. He shook the line, shouted, and the Buk
settled down to a long, swinging trot. His broad hoofs clicked
double at every stride. His nostrils, out level, puffed steady
blasts of steam in the frosty morning as he settled to his pace.
The pulk's prow cut two long shears of snow, that swirled up over
man and sled till all were white. And the great ox-eyes of the
King Ren blazed joyously in the delight of motion, and of 
conquest too, as the sound of the horse-bells faded far behind.

Even masterful Borgrevinck could not but mark with pleasure the
noble creature that had balked him last night and now was lending
its speed to his purpose; for it was his intention to arrive
hours before the horse-sleigh, if possible.

Up the rising road they sped as though downhill, and the driver's
spirits rose with the exhilarating speed. The snow groaned
ceaselessly under the prow of the pulk, and the frosty creaking
under the hoofs of the flying Ren was like the gritting of mighty
teeth. Then came the level stretch from Nystuen's hill to
Dalecarl's, and as they whirled by in the early day, little Carl
chanced to peep from a window, and got sight of the Great White
Ren in a white pulk with a white driver, just as it is in the
stories of the Giants, and clapped his hands, and cried, "Good,
good!"

But his grandfather, when he caught a glimpse of the white wonder
that went without even sound of bells, felt a cold chill in his
scalp, and went back to light a candle that he kept at the window
till the sun was high, for surely this was the Storbuk of
Jotunheim.

But the Ren whirled on, and the driver shook the reins and
thought only of Bergen. He struck the White Steed with the loose
end of the rope. The Buk gave three great snorts and three great
bounds, then faster went, and as they passed by Dyrskaur, where
the Giant sits on the edge, his head was muffled in scud, which
means that a storm is coming. The Storbuk knew it. He sniffed,
and eyed the sky with anxious look, and even slacked a little;
but Borgrevinck yelled at the speeding beast, though going yet as
none but he could go, and struck him once, twice, and thrice, and
harder yet. So the pulk was whirled along like a skiff in a
steamer's wake; but there was blood in the Storbuk's eye now; and
Borgrevinck was hard put to balance the sled. The miles flashed
by like roods till Sveggum's bridge appeared. The storm-wind now
was blowing, but there was the Troll. Whence came he now, none
knew, but there he was, hopping on the keystone and singing of