IT must not be imagined that Silversheene went back to the wild at a single bound, or without regret. For it was a rather slow process, but when he pointed his nose north ward and crossed the Yukon he had started in that direction.
On the further side of the great river Silversheene found heavily wooded bluffs. They were covered with pines with an occasional aspen. The dog was glad to escape into their dark depths for it gave him a sense of security. After searching around for several hours he found just the spot that he wanted. A large pine had come crashing down the autumn before. Its plumy top had fallen over a deep depression in the sidehill and made a natural house under the green plumes. Silversheene ran along the trunk of the tree to the top and finally found his way down between the limbs to this sheltered spot under the friendly green. Here out of the way of the wind and the cold he made a bed and was soon sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion.
For two days he slept and then came forth. He had made up his mind as to how he would sustain life between naps. So he made his way across the Yukon to where the gee pole of his master's sled still showed above the snowdrift. Here he began digging along the side of the sled. In fifteen minutes he found what he wanted. It was a hundred-pound sack of dried salmon. He selected a five-pound fish and trotted back across the Yukon.
Close to the bag of fish he had also discovered the stiff frozen body of his master. His dead team mates were still further down in the snowbank, but he gave them no thought. The scent of François filled him with disgust. Once back in his den he ate the dried fish leisurely, not all at once, but I am afraid that he allowed himself much more than the usual pound a day rations. Strange dreams came to Silversheene as he slept under his pine top away from the wind and the cold. He was living on the borderland half-way between civilization and the wild, so he oscillated and vibrated between the two states.
The wind, the snow, the cold, the deep woods, the lakes and the streams to the north were all calling to him, with all their primitive sounds and smells. The pull of the pack he also felt. That coordinating passion which sways birds to flock and animals to go in herds and packs. But even more than all these the mating instinct was tugging at his heart. That natural instinct which is so strong in midwinter.
But it must not be imagined that the pull was all in one direction, for it was not. The southland with its sunny valleys and its pleasant places was also calling. Often he would lie with a far-away look in his sad brown eyes while he dreamed of Forest Edge farm, of the green meadows and the pleasant pasture and the deep cool woods. But still more ardently and with a longing that sometimes made him whimper he recalled Hilda Converse. It sometimes seemed to Silversheene that he could feel her light hand on his head and hear her pleasant voice talking to him. She had liked best of all to sit upon the grass under one of the tall maples near the house with his head upon her shoulder and her arms about his neck. Then she would whisper in his ear those words of endearment which he so much loved.
Nor were Oregon friends forgotten. Between naps in his long sleep under the pine top he dreamed of Dick. The one man whom he had worshipped. He remembered their long tramps in the Oregon mountains and of how Dick had found him with the lost sheep. Dick loved him and he worshipped Dick.
But these were Silversheene's waking dreams. In sleep also he was a dog divided between two opinions. Here also two forces were tearing at his heart, almost rending it asunder. For in his sleep he often harked back to dim distant ages when his ancestors had lived in the wilderness with the man who was little more civilized than himself. In sleep he would often seem to be sitting on his tail on the outer rim of light that encircled the man's campfire. The man who was not like Dick or any other man that he had ever seen. But a man with short legs and long arms, who was partly covered with hair, who uttered strange sounds for speech and who like the wild animals was afraid of the dark. Silversheene knew in his dream that the man was afraid of the dark for he often turned and looked over his shoulder at the gray wolf who gazed fearfully back at him.
Often in his sleep Silversheene harked back to those primitive days when he and his ancestors had run in a pack. He heard in his sleep the hunting cry of the gray pack and knew it for a sound of menace. In his dreams he helped run down the fleet buck, pursuing him day after day and finally pulling him down in a terrible battle. With the other members of the gray pack he often trailed the man creature and even killed him and drank of his blood and picked his bones.
Then it was that a strange feeling of belonging to two worlds would seize Silversheene. He was not a wolf to kill man. He wasadog. The dog who was man's best friend. But then the thought would filter through his dreams. Man had whipped and cursed him and driven him back to the wild. He would always love Dick and Hilda and Mr. Henderson. He would fight for them just as he had fought in the good old days, but he never could forget Pedro Garcia, nor the man who had subdued him with the club, or worst of all François Dupret. These men had turned the scale in favor of the wilderness. If his dreams of men had all been pleasant he might have gone back to man, but half of them were very bad, and they helped swell the influences that drove him steadily back to the primitive life.
Thus it happened, as the winter months went by, that the dreams and the pictures of civilization grew fainter and fainter, and the hold of Dick and Hilda weaker and weaker upon him, while the call of the wilderness grew louder and louder.
Often he would spring up from his sleep and scramble out of his place of hiding under the old pine to see what it was that had called him, but he would find nothing. He knew that there were wolves about, for just as he had finished the last of the dry salmon a pack had descended upon the scene of the disaster to François and his team and picked their bones clean. So it happened that the gray wolf finished the retribution that the dog team had begun. When spring at last came there was nothing left of the outfit but the sled and the bones of the dogs and their driver.
After the fish was gone Silversheene set to hunting snowshoe rabbits and so kept himself well nourished.
One morning in early March Silversheene was awakened from his sleep by a much more insistent call from the wilderness than any he had yet heard. So with an angry snarl he rushed from hiding. He had changed in one particular in the last few weeks. Now he was always on guard. His attitude now was always belligerent.
He found fresh tracks close to his lair and followed them at his best pace. The trail led further and further into the north country. Finally it led into a deep dark gulch where the pines were very thick and here it ended in a little open space like an amphitheater in the middle of the deep gloom. Here suddenly Silversheene came face to face with a gray wolf. He stood in the middle of the opening challenging him. Silversheene looked hurriedly about and saw that four other large gray shapes were with him. His first thought was that they had surrounded him and were about to kill him. But none seemed belligerent but the one. The champion at the center of the open spot.
Then Silversheene remembered a score of dog fights that he had seen, and he knew that the rest of the pack were only spectators. He had been challenged. He was to fight the great gray leader. The rest would look on until one was down. Then, be it friend or foe, they would all sweep over the spot and finish the under animal. The wolf looked very formidable, but Silversheene was not afraid. He remembered the desperate fight with a wolf. Silversheene had both the cunning of the wild animal and also much cunning which he had learned from dogs and men, yet he knew it would be a terrible fight. For a second Silversheene stood uncertain whether it was up to him te start the fight or not, but the old leader soon settled that point, for with a movement like lightning he sprang in and slashed the dog in his face. This was enough for Silversheene. He needed no further goad, but attacked his formidable adversary with a whirlwind attack that made the circle of watching wolves draw back to give them room.
There was seemingly not much difference in the struggling animals. Silversheene was perhaps ten pounds heavier and he was much better nourished, due to the fact that he had been eating so freely of the dried fish for the past few weeks. If he had been a southland bred dog, the wolf would have killed him in short order, but he was not. He was arctic bred, just as much so as a wolf. In addition to that he had all the cunning of the civilized dogs and also much wisdom which he had picked up from men. The wolf was lean and as hard as hickory, but so was Silversheene.
For five minutes they sprang and slashed and sprang away again, and neither seemed to have any advantage. Each was so fully on guard that neither could get by the gleaming fangs. So it was just a long series of bare fangs meeting with little result save that they gashed and tore lips and noses, but neither could get by to the shoulder, much less get at the throat, that vulnerable spot where life is most easily destroyed.
If the wolf could spring and retreat so rapidly that he looked like two wolves, so could Silversheene. He was everywhere at once. Once he sprang over the wolf, slashing at his neck as he sprang, but the wolf narrowly missed getting him by the fore leg and this taught him a lesson. He could not take any chances with this old fighter. Finally, seeing that he could not break down his adversary's guard, Silversheene resorted to new tactics. When he sprang he would lower his head and strike the wolf at the shoulder with his own shoulder, and as his weight was greater than the wolf's, he nearly upset him at the first blow. But this exposed his own shoulder to the wolf's attack.
Had it not been for his long thick coat the wolf would have punished him savagely. As it was, he was wounded rather badly after three attempts to bowl over his adversary. Seeing that it was to be a test of endurance Silversheene again resorted to his whirlwind attack. He could now see that the wolf was getting tired, although they had been fighting only about ten minutes.
If he could keep up the pace he could wear him out, though a wolf is supposed to be tireless. Back and forth they sprang. Every few seconds they changed places in the arena. At first Silversheene was afraid that the other wolves would help their leader when the battle got too furious, but they did not. It was evidently to be a fair fight to the finish.
Finally after ten minutes more of whirlwind fighting with little advantage on either side, Silversheene again resorted to his tactics of trying to bowl his adversary over with the stiff shoulder. This time, due to the fact that the wolf was getting tired, he succeeded. As the old wolf went over, the dog with great luck caught his fore leg and completely turned him over so that he landed fairly upon his back with his throat exposed. Like a flash Silversheene sprang upon him and his powerful jaws closed on the wolf's throat. Another wolf would have let go. The ordinary Eskimo dog, or Husky would have slashed and then sprung back, but not so Silversheene. Not to let go when he had the death grip was a trick that he had learned from an old bull dog away back in Oregon. So instead of letting go he gripped the wolf's throat even more tightly with his powerful jaws and sunk his white fangs deeper and deeper into the grizzled fighter's throat.
The wolf struggled frantically to free himself for a few seconds. There was a gurgling sound from his throat, and he finally ceased his struggles. When Silversheene released him and backed slowly away from his vanquished enemy his brothers of the gray pack were upon him like hunger-frenzied furies. Silversheene sat upon his haunches and watched them devour their vanquished leader. He did not run away as he had a good chance to do. He knew that his place was now secure with the pack. This was a primitive wisdom. Something that had been handed down to him from the wolf days of his ancestors.
Finally when nothing was left of the old leader but bones, the wolves resumed their expectant circle and looked at Silversheene. For several minutes they sat in perfect silence, neither side making any advances. Then one of the wolves came slowly towards the waiting dog.
At first Silversheene raised his hackles and growled softly as though he would fight. But finally he thought better of it.
A dog smile seemed to overspread his countenance, and he wagged his tail and cocked his ears in a friendly way. Then the gray wolf trotted slowly up to him and licked his face. For several seconds they stood with their noses together and then they trotted away through the pines side by side.
One watching them as they stood together would have said that the gray wolf was whispering to the dog, that they were communing and talking in dog language, and the friendly retreat would seem to bear out this contention. I am not sure whether it was the dog language that they used or whether it was telepathic, but they certainly understood each other. If they had talked in words, this was what the listener would have heard.
"You are our brother. You belong with us. Men stole your ancestors and they have kept you and stolen away your freedom. You are a wolf and you belong with the gray pack.
"You have killed our leader. You area great wolf. We want you to lead us. He was my mate, but now you will be my mate and lead the gray pack."
From the confident manner in which Silversheene had trotted away with her it was evident that he had accepted not only the leadership of the gray pack, but he was henceforth also to be the mate of the gray wolf. He had indeed gone back to the wild, and civilization had lost him.