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The canoe sped out into the gloom.
THE GOLD HUNTERS
A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds
BYJAMES OLIVER CURWOOD
1909
To the sweet-voiced, dark-eyed little half-Cree maidenat Lac-Bain, who is the Minnetaki of this story; and to "Teddy" Brown,guide and trapper, and loyal comrade of the author in many of hisadventures, this book is affectionately dedicated.
CHAPTER I
THE PURSUIT OF THE HUDSON BAY MAIL
The deep hush of noon hovered over the vast solitude of Canadianforest. The moose and caribou had fed since early dawn, and wereresting quietly in the warmth of the February sun; the lynx was curledaway in his niche between the great rocks, waiting for the sun tosink farther into the north and west before resuming his maraudingadventures; the fox was taking his midday slumber and the restlessmoose-birds were fluffing themselves lazily in the warm glow that wasbeginning to melt the snows of late winter.
It was that hour when the old hunter on the trail takes off his pack,silently gathers wood for a fire, eats his dinner and smokes his pipe,eyes and ears alert;—that hour when, if you speak above a whisper, hewill say to you,
"Sh-h-h-h! Be quiet! You can't tell how near we are to game.Everything has had its morning feed and is lying low. The game won'tbe moving again for an hour or two, and there may be moose or cariboua gunshot ahead. We couldn't hear them—now!"
And yet, after a time one thing detached itself from this lifelesssolitude. At first it was nothing more than a spot on the sunny sideof a snow-covered ridge. Then it moved, stretched itself like a dog,with its forefeet extended far to the front and its shoulders hunchedlow—and was a wolf.
A wolf is a heavy sleeper after a feast. A hunter would have said thatthis wolf had gorged itself the night before. Still, something hadalarmed it. Faintly there came to this wilderness outlaw that mostthrilling of all things to the denizens of the forest—the scent ofman. He came down the ridge with the slow indifference of a full-fedanimal, and with only a half of his old cunning; trotted across thesoftening snow of an opening and stopped where the man-scent was sostrong that he lifted his head straight up to the sky and sent out tohis comrades in forest and plain the warning signal that he had strucka human trail. A wolf will do this, and no more, in broad day. Atnight he might follow, and others would join him in the chase; butwith daylight about him he gives the warning and after a little slinksaway from the trail.
But something held this wolf. There was a mystery in the air whichpuzzled him. Straight ahead there ran the broad, smooth trail of asled and the footprints of many dogs. Sometime within the last hourthe "dog mail" from Wabinosh House had passed that way on its longtrip to civilization. But it was not the swift passage of man anddog that held the wolf rigidly alert, ready for flight—and yethesitating. It was something from the opposite direction, from theNorth, out of which the wind was coming. First it was sound; then itwas scent—then both,