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- Herausgeber: Musaicum Books
- Kategorie: Lebensstil
- Sprache: Englisch
James Oliver Curwood's novel 'Kazan, The Wolf Dog' is a gripping tale set in the rugged wilderness of the Canadian North. The story follows the journey of Kazan, a magnificent wolf-dog hybrid, as he navigates the harsh landscape and struggles to find his place in the world. Curwood's vivid descriptions and keen eye for detail immerse the reader in the beauty and danger of the untamed wilderness, making it a classic of outdoor adventure literature. The novel is rich in themes of loyalty, survival, and the bond between humans and animals, making it a timeless and engaging read for all ages. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
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KAZAN, THE WOLF DOG
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Table of Contents
Introduction
At the frozen crossroads where freedom pulls like the dark spruce and loyalty tugs like a worn leather trace, Kazan’s life unfolds as a relentless test of instinct and attachment, a tale in which a wolf-blooded sled runner must weigh the call of the wilderness against the shelter of the fire, the solitude of the trail against the fragile warmth of partnership, while storms, hunger, and human designs close in across ice-rimmed rivers and moonlit barrens, and each choice ripples outward through lives entwined with his, asking not only what it means to endure, but what it means to belong.
James Oliver Curwood’s Kazan, the Wolf Dog is an early twentieth‑century wilderness adventure with an animal protagonist, set largely in the northern forests and barrens of Canada and shaped by the realities of sled travel, traplines, and seasonal extremes. First published in the early 1910s by the American novelist best known for Northland romances, the book joins a tradition of turn‑of‑the‑century narratives that place readers inside the harsh beauty of the North while exploring the uneasy border between the wild and the domestic. Its world is one of frozen rivers, timberline camps, and vast distances measured by paw, trail, and endurance.
At the center stands Kazan, a wolf‑dog hybrid whose path carries him between human camps and the open wild, where food, shelter, and allegiance are never guaranteed. Curwood writes in vigorous, image‑rich prose that keeps close to animal perception without losing narrative clarity, balancing bursts of chase and confrontation with still moments of watchfulness, scent, and sound. The tone is earnest and suspenseful rather than ironic, with a steady undercurrent of tenderness for the creature’s courage and for the land’s fierce order. Episodes unfold with clean momentum, offering hazards, rescues, and narrow escapes that test stamina, memory, trust, and cunning.
Running through the story is a sustained inquiry into nature and nurture: how instinct shapes behavior, how experience scars and trains, and how bonds form across the species line under pressure. The book probes the doubleness of being not fully domestic and not entirely wild, revealing both the freedoms and liabilities of that liminal state. It considers the ethics of human claims on animal labor and companionship, juxtaposing exploitation with care, discipline with respect. Violence exists, but it is framed within a larger rhythm of necessity and restraint, and the narrative continually asks whether belonging is chosen, earned, or simply remembered.
Place functions as a character, and Curwood lingers on skies, frost, and silence in ways that shape the action. Snow, ice breakup, and darkness are not backdrops but active pressures that bend decisions, reroute journeys, and expose loyalties. The sled trail imposes a social order as strict as any town, and yet its distances invite a contemplative cadence; the novel alternates tense pursuit with intervals of recovery that sharpen the senses. Language tends toward the lyrical within a plainspoken frame, producing a readability that feels elemental, even cinematic, while the focus on physical detail grounds each scene in tactile credibility.
For contemporary readers, the book resonates as more than a period adventure; it is a meditation on responsibility amid power. In an age debating conservation, animal welfare, and the boundaries of domestication, Kazan’s oscillation between hearth and horizon foregrounds questions about what we owe the creatures who work beside us and the landscapes that sustain us. The hybrid’s divided identity also mirrors modern conversations about belonging across multiple worlds, from culture to community to vocation. Readers interested in animal cognition will note how the narrative grants agency without sentimentality, inviting empathy while reminding us that respect begins with careful, unsentimental attention.
Approached on its own terms as a northern animal adventure from the early 1910s, Kazan, the Wolf Dog offers swift storytelling, vivid land lore, and an elemental moral curve that trusts readers to feel the pull of opposite goods. It is welcoming to newcomers to wilderness fiction and rewarding for those who enjoy close observation of behavior and place. Without telegraphing later turns, it is fair to say that the book’s satisfactions arise less from surprise than from earned inevitability; its lasting power lies in how it makes the cold bright, the stakes clear, and the question of belonging urgent.
Synopsis
James Oliver Curwood’s Kazan, the Wolf Dog is an early twentieth-century northern adventure that centers on a powerful animal of mixed blood—part dog, part wolf—whose life unfolds along the snowbound trails and timberlines of the Canadian North. Curwood frames the tale from the animal’s point of view, emphasizing instinct, sensation, and the stark logic of survival. From the outset, the narrative poses a central tension: whether the creature’s future lies with humans and their fires, commands, and comforts, or with the wilderness and its merciless, compelling freedoms. This conflict shapes every turn of the story, defining both character and setting as mutually inseparable forces.
At first, the hybrid lives among men, running in a sled team where mastery, hunger, and the whip are ordinary facts. Curwood shows how the traces of domestication take hold—discipline, recognizable signals, fleeting warmth—while the wild in him never fully submits. The social order of the dog team, the harsh rhythms of long winter journeys, and the unpredictable temper of their handlers all mold the animal’s reactions. An explosive incident on the trail exposes the limits of human control and makes clear the cost of belonging. What follows is the creature’s break from the lash into a more dangerous liberty.
Once free of the traces, the wolf-dog learns the uncompromising rules of the wild. He keeps to river ice and muskeg, measures distance by scent and sound, and fights for meat under the cold stars. Curwood details a landscape where snow, wind, and silence judge every mistake. In this phase, the animal finds a mate among the wolves and shares the hunt, yet remains unlike the full-blooded pack. The pull of old camp-smells, the memory of human voices, and the practical ease of fireside scraps make his allegiance unstable, and his wanderings trace an invisible border between two worlds.
The story’s middle movements complicate that border when he encounters a gentle human presence—especially a woman whose patience and quiet insistence stir memories of care rather than coercion. The wolf-dog’s guarded approaches, tentative enduring, and sudden retreats show how fear and trust war within him. Curwood sets this fragile bond against the ambitions of rougher men who see value in his strength for the trail or the stake. The animal’s choices in these encounters are shaped less by words than by tone, smell, and movement, revealing how kindness can be felt even where language fails.
External trials echo the inner conflict. Winter storms, thinning ice, and long hunger measure endurance; the threat of traps and rifles tests cunning; challenges from other beasts gauge courage. At times he runs again before a sled, driven to feats that blend skill with suffering; at others he vanishes into the timber, answering the night wind. Curwood avoids sentimentality by keeping consequences tangible: wounds that ache in the cold, the weight of distance, and the arithmetic of meat gained or lost. Each ordeal narrows to a question of belonging, and each survival deepens the dilemma rather than resolving it.
As the narrative tightens, identity and loyalty converge into decisive moments where instinct and memory collide. The wolf-dog must weigh the shelter of human companionship against the fierce autonomy of the wild, and measure the obligations of mating and territory against the call of the campfire. Curwood sustains suspense by letting concrete dangers—pursuit, scarcity, sudden violence—press the choice, while preserving the mystery of how the creature’s mixed nature will finally balance. The outcome of these pressures remains carefully poised, but the direction of growth is clear: understanding comes through ordeal, and character is proven at the edge of survival.
Kazan, the Wolf Dog endures for its vivid northern setting, close attention to animal perception, and nuanced portrayal of the line between civilization and wilderness. Curwood’s treatment neither condemns the wild nor romanticizes the camp; instead, it examines how strength, gentleness, and necessity shape lives on both sides of the firelight. The book helped define a tradition of Northland animal narratives and invites reflection on human responsibility toward the creatures we command and the landscapes we cross. Its restraint near the finish preserves the story’s tension while underscoring a broader, lasting theme: belonging may be a path rather than a destination.
Historical Context
Kazan, the Wolf Dog, first published in 1914, emerges from North America’s fascination with the Canadian subarctic. James Oliver Curwood, an American writer who traveled repeatedly in northern Canada, set the novel amid boreal forests, river systems, and winter trails tied to the fur economy. Trading posts of the Hudson’s Bay Company and patrols of the North-West Mounted Police—renamed the Royal North-West Mounted Police in 1904—formed key institutions shaping movement and law in the region. Sled teams hauled freight and mail between isolated settlements, and trappers, prospectors, and missionaries relied on dog power across terrain that seasonal freeze and thaw could alternately bind or flood.
Before mechanized transport, northern travel depended on snowshoes, toboggans, and dog teams adapted from Indigenous practices. Cree, Dene, and Inuit communities developed sled dog breeding and handling suited to long distances and extreme cold; European and Canadian newcomers adopted those systems for hauling furs, supplies, and mail. The RNWMP and postal services used teams on established winter routes, and disasters such as the 1910 “Lost Patrol” underscored the hazards of overland travel. In this context, the novel’s focus on a powerful lead dog intersects with documented realities of freighting, patrol work, and survival techniques in the subarctic environment.
The book belongs to an early-twentieth-century “Northland” vogue in American and Canadian letters that followed the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896–1899. Readers drawn by Jack London’s The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906), Ernest Thompson Seton’s animal studies, and Robert Service’s Yukon verse sustained demand for wilderness tales. Curwood published widely with major houses and magazines, and Kazan appeared in 1914, followed by a sequel, Baree, Son of Kazan (1917). Circulating through lending libraries and popular periodicals, such narratives promised vivid regional color and adventure while reinforcing a broader market for northern settings across North American print culture.
The novel appeared soon after the “nature fakers” debate (1903–1909), in which naturalist John Burroughs and President Theodore Roosevelt criticized animal stories for inaccurate anthropomorphism. Writers responded by emphasizing observed behavior, field experience, or plausible animal psychology. Curwood’s northern travels lent authority to detailed observations of weather, trails, and animal habits, even as his narrative grants the canine protagonist a perspective recognizable to readers. This balance—between descriptive realism and selective interiority—reflects evolving expectations for wildlife literature in the Progressive Era, which valued both scientific credibility and moral narratives about endurance, instinct, and adaptation in demanding environments.
Its milieu also overlaps with the rise of conservation policy. Canada established the Dominion Parks Branch in 1911 to administer national parks, and the United States created the National Park Service in 1916. At the same time, provincial and state bounties targeted wolves and other predators, reflecting widespread campaigns to protect game and livestock by lethal control. Curwood, who began as a big‑game hunter, increasingly advocated wildlife protection in the 1910s and 1920s. A narrative centered on a wolf‑dog navigating human and wild domains inherently engages debates about predator character, utility, and persecution that animated North American wildlife management of the period.
The setting intersects with territories covered by late nineteenth- and early twentieth‑century treaties, notably Treaty 8 (1899) and Treaty 10 (1906), which framed Crown–Indigenous relations across large parts of the subarctic. Fur‑trade posts such as Fort Chipewyan and mission stations operated as regional hubs where Cree, Dene, and Métis families exchanged furs, sought supplies, and hired on as freighters or guides. Northern adventure fiction of the era commonly portrayed Indigenous expertise in travel and trapping while filtering it through settler expectations. When Kazan depicts trails, camps, and dog handling, it reflects practices rooted in Indigenous knowledge that structured daily life in the region.
Life along boreal rivers and lakes was precarious: sudden thaws broke ice roads, midwinter blizzards erased trails, and summer insects, isolation, and injury threatened small encampments. Patrols by the RNWMP, itinerant traders, and seasonal mail carriers mitigated risk but could not eliminate it across immense distances. In this environment, well‑trained teams and capable lead dogs were assets as critical as firearms or provisions. The novel’s emphasis on partnership, discipline, and the tenuous boundary between habitation and wilderness mirrors practices documented in diaries, patrol reports, and travel narratives from the period, where human survival often hinged on the judgment of animals and drivers.
Kazan’s popularity in the 1910s and its multiple silent‑film adaptations in the early 1920s carried Curwood’s northern vision to wider audiences, reinforcing a transnational image of the Canadian wilds as a proving ground for character. Its narrative of a working dog shaped by harsh climates, human ambitions, and competing instincts aligns with Progressive Era ideals of vigor and self‑reliance while questioning practices that brutalized animals for profit or control. In this balance of admiration and unease, the book reflects and gently critiques its era—celebrating skill and endurance yet registering the costs of frontier economies that made such qualities indispensable.
KAZAN, THE WOLF DOG
Chapter I. The Miracle
Kazan lay mute and motionless, his gray nose between his forepaws, his eyes half closed. A rock could have appeared scarcely less lifeless than he; not a muscle twitched; not a hair moved; not an eyelid quivered. Yet every drop of the wild blood in his splendid body was racing in a ferment of excitement that Kazan had never before experienced; every nerve and fiber of his wonderful muscles was tense as steel wire. Quarter-strain wolf, three-quarters "husky," he had lived the four years of his life in the wilderness. He had felt the pangs of starvation. He knew what it meant to freeze. He had listened to the wailing winds of the long Arctic night over the barrens. He had heard the thunder of the torrent and the cataract, and had cowered under the mighty crash of the storm. His throat and sides were scarred by battle, and his eyes were red with the blister of the snows. He was called Kazan, the Wild Dog, because he was a giant among his kind and as fearless, even, as the men who drove him through the perils of a frozen world.
He had never known fear—until now. He had never felt in him before the desire to run—not even on that terrible day in the forest when he had fought and killed the big gray lynx. He did not know what it was that frightened him, but he knew that he was in another world, and that many things in it startled and alarmed him. It was his first glimpse of civilization. He wished that his master would come back into the strange room where he had left him. It was a room filled with hideous things. There were great human faces on the wall, but they did not move or speak, but stared at him in a way he had never seen people look before. He remembered having looked on a master who lay very quiet and very cold in the snow, and he had sat back on his haunches and wailed forth the death song; but these people on the walls looked alive, and yet seemed dead.
Suddenly Kazan lifted his ears a little. He heard steps, then low voices. One of them was his master's voice. But the other—it sent a little tremor through him! Once, so long ago that it must have been in his puppyhood days, he seemed to have had a dream of a laugh that was like the girl's laugh—a laugh that was all at once filled with a wonderful happiness, the thrill of a wonderful love, and a sweetness that made Kazan lift his head as they came in. He looked straight at them, his red eyes gleaming. At once he knew that she must be dear to his master, for his master's arm was about her. In the glow of the light he saw that her hair was very bright, and that there was the color of the crimson bakneesh[1] vine in her face and the blue of the bakneesh flower in her shining eyes. Suddenly she saw him, and with a little cry darted toward him.
"Stop!" shouted the man. "He's dangerous! Kazan—"
She was on her knees beside him, all fluffy and sweet and beautiful, her eyes shining wonderfully, her hands about to touch him. Should he cringe back? Should he snap? Was she one of the things on the wall, and his enemy? Should he leap at her white throat? He saw the man running forward, pale as death. Then her hand fell upon his head and the touch sent a thrill through him that quivered in every nerve of his body. With both hands she turned up his head. Her face was very close, and he heard her say, almost sobbingly:
"And you are Kazan—dear old Kazan, my Kazan, my hero dog—who brought him home to me when all the others had died! My Kazan—my hero!"
And then, miracle of miracles, her face was crushed down against him, and he felt her sweet warm touch.
In those moments Kazan did not move. He scarcely breathed. It seemed a long time before the girl lifted her face from him. And when she did, there were tears in her blue eyes, and the man was standing above them, his hands gripped tight, his jaws set.
"I never knew him to let any one touch him—with their naked hand," he said in a tense wondering voice. "Move back quietly, Isobel. Good heaven—look at that!"
Kazan whined softly, his bloodshot eyes on the girl's face. He wanted to feel her hand again; he wanted to touch her face. Would they beat him with a club, he wondered, if he dared! He meant no harm now. He would kill for her. He cringed toward her, inch by inch, his eyes never faltering. He heard what the man said—"Good heaven! Look at that!"—and he shuddered. But no blow fell to drive him back. His cold muzzle touched her filmy dress, and she looked at him, without moving, her wet eyes blazing like stars.
"See!" she whispered. "See!"
Half an inch more—an inch, two inches, and he gave his big gray body a hunch toward her. Now his muzzle traveled slowly upward—over her foot, to her lap, and at last touched the warm little hand that lay there. His eyes were still on her face: he saw a queer throbbing in her bare white throat, and then a trembling of her lips as she looked up at the man with a wonderful look. He, too, knelt down beside them, and put his arm about the girl again, and patted the dog on his head. Kazan did not like the man's touch. He mistrusted it, as nature had taught him to mistrust the touch of all men's hands, but he permitted it because he saw that it in some way pleased the girl.
"Kazan, old boy, you wouldn't hurt her, would you?" said his master softly. "We both love her, don't we, boy? Can't help it, can we? And she's ours, Kazan, all ours! She belongs to you and to me, and we're going to take care of her all our lives, and if we ever have to we'll fight for her like hell—won't we? Eh, Kazan, old boy?"
For a long time after they left him where he was lying on the rug, Kazan's eyes did not leave the girl. He watched and listened—and all the time there grew more and more in him the craving to creep up to them and touch the girl's hand, or her dress, or her foot. After a time his master said something, and with a little laugh the girl jumped up and ran to a big, square, shining thing that stood crosswise in a corner, and which had a row of white teeth longer than his own body. He had wondered what those teeth were for. The girl's fingers touched them now, and all the whispering of winds that he had ever heard, all the music of the waterfalls and the rapids and the trilling of birds in spring-time, could not equal the sounds they made. It was his first music. For a moment it startled and frightened him, and then he felt the fright pass away and a strange tingling in his body. He wanted to sit back on his haunches and howl, as he had howled at the billion stars in the skies on cold winter nights. But something kept him from doing that. It was the girl. Slowly he began slinking toward her. He felt the eyes of the man upon him, and stopped. Then a little more—inches at a time, with his throat and jaw straight out along the floor! He was half-way to her—half-way across the room—when the wonderful sounds grew very soft and very low.
"Go on!" he heard the man urge in a low quick voice. "Go on! Don't stop!"
The girl turned her head, saw Kazan cringing there on the floor, and continued to play. The man was still looking, but his eyes could not keep Kazan back now. He went nearer, still nearer, until at last his outreaching muzzle touched her dress where it lay piled on the floor. And then—he lay trembling, for she had begun to sing. He had heard a Cree woman crooning in front of her tepee; he had heard the wild chant of the caribou song—but he had never heard anything like this wonderful sweetness that fell from the lips of the girl. He forgot his master's presence now. Quietly, cringingly, so that she would not know, he lifted his head. He saw her looking at him; there was something in her wonderful eyes that gave him confidence, and he laid his head in her lap. For the second time he felt the touch of a woman's hand, and he closed his eyes with a long sighing breath. The music stopped. There came a little fluttering sound above him, like a laugh and a sob in one. He heard his master cough.
"I've always loved the old rascal—but I never thought he'd do that," he said; and his voice sounded queer to Kazan.
Chapter II. Into The North
Wonderful days followed for Kazan. He missed the forests and deep snows[1q]. He missed the daily strife of keeping his team-mates in trace, the yapping at his heels, the straight long pull over the open spaces and the barrens. He missed the "Koosh—koosh—Hoo-yah!" of the driver, the spiteful snap of his twenty-foot caribou-gut whip, and that yelping and straining behind him that told him he had his followers in line. But something had come to take the place of that which he missed. It was in the room, in the air all about him, even when the girl or his master was not near. Wherever she had been, he found the presence of that strange thing that took away his loneliness. It was the woman scent, and sometimes it made him whine softly when the girl herself was actually with him. He was not lonely, nights, when he should have been out howling at the stars. He was not lonely, because one night he prowled about until he found a certain door, and when the girl opened that door in the morning she found him curled up tight against it. She had reached down and hugged him, the thick smother of her long hair falling all over him in a delightful perfume; thereafter she placed a rug before the door for him to sleep on. All through the long nights he knew that she was just beyond the door, and he was content. Each day he thought less and less of the wild places, and more of her.
Then there came the beginning of the change. There was a strange hurry and excitement around him, and the girl paid less attention to him. He grew uneasy. He sniffed the change in the air, and he began to study his master's face. Then there came the morning, very early, when the babiche collar[2] and the iron chain were fastened to him again. Not until he had followed his master out through the door and into the street did he begin to understand. They were sending him away! He sat suddenly back on his haunches and refused to budge.
"Come, Kazan," coaxed the man. "Come on, boy."
He hung back and showed his white fangs. He expected the lash of a whip or the blow of a club, but neither came. His master laughed and took him back to the house. When they left it again, the girl was with them and walked with her hand touching his head. It was she who persuaded him to leap up through a big dark hole into the still darker interior of a car, and it was she who lured him to the darkest corner of all, where his master fastened his chain. Then they went out, laughing like two children. For hours after that, Kazan lay still and tense, listening to the queer rumble of wheels under him. Several times those wheels stopped, and he heard voices outside. At last he was sure that he heard a familiar voice, and he strained at his chain and whined. The closed door slid back. A man with a lantern climbed in, followed by his master. He paid no attention to them, but glared out through the opening into the gloom of night. He almost broke loose when he leaped down upon the white snow, but when he saw no one there, he stood rigid, sniffing the air. Over him were the stars he had howled at all his life, and about him were the forests, black and silent, shutting them in like a wall. Vainly he sought for that one scent that was missing, and Thorpe heard the low note of grief in his shaggy throat. He took the lantern and held it above his head, at the same time loosening his hold on the leash. At that signal there came a voice from out of the night. It came from behind them, and Kazan whirled so suddenly that the loosely held chain slipped from the man's hand. He saw the glow of other lanterns. And then, once more, the voice—
"Kaa-aa-zan!"
He was off like a bolt. Thorpe laughed to himself as he followed.
"The old pirate!" he chuckled.
When he came to the lantern-lighted space back of the caboose, Thorpe found Kazan crouching down at a woman's feet. It was Thorpe's wife. She smiled triumphantly at him as he came up out of the gloom.
"You've won!" he laughed, not unhappily. "I'd have wagered my last dollar he wouldn't do that for any voice on earth. You've won! Kazan, you brute, I've lost you!"
His face suddenly sobered as Isobel stooped to pick up the end of the chain.
"He's yours, Issy," he added quickly, "but you must let me care for him until—we know. Give me the chain. I won't trust him even now. He's a wolf. I've seen him take an Indian's hand off at a single snap. I've seen him tear out another dog's jugular in one leap. He's an outlaw—a bad dog—in spite of the fact that he hung to me like a hero and brought me out alive. I can't trust him. Give me the chain—"
He did not finish. With the snarl of a wild beast Kazan had leaped to his feet. His lips drew up and bared his long fangs. His spine stiffened, and with a sudden cry of warning, Thorpe dropped a hand to the revolver at his belt.
Kazan paid no attention to him. Another form had approached out of the night, and stood now in the circle of illumination made by the lanterns. It was McCready, who was to accompany Thorpe and his young wife back to the Red River camp, where Thorpe was in charge of the building of the new Trans-continental. The man was straight, powerfully built and clean shaven. His jaw was so square that it was brutal, and there was a glow in his eyes that was almost like the passion in Kazan's as he looked at Isobel.
Her red and white stocking-cap had slipped free of her head and was hanging over her shoulder. The dull blaze of the lanterns shone in the warm glow of her hair. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes, suddenly turned to him, were as blue as the bluest bakneesh flower and glowed like diamonds. McCready shifted his gaze, and instantly her hand fell on Kazan's head. For the first time the dog did not seem to feel her touch. He still snarled at McCready, the rumbling menace in his throat growing deeper. Thorpe's wife tugged at the chain.
"Down, Kazan—down!" she commanded.
At the sound of her voice he relaxed.
"Down!" she repeated, and her free hand fell on his head again. He slunk to her feet. But his lips were still drawn back. Thorpe was watching him. He wondered at the deadly venom that shot from the wolfish eyes, and looked at McCready. The big guide had uncoiled his long dog-whip. A strange look had come into his face. He was staring hard at Kazan. Suddenly he leaned forward, with both hands on his knees, and for a tense moment or two he seemed to forget that Isobel Thorpe's wonderful blue eyes were looking at him.
"Hoo-koosh, Pedro—charge!"
That one word—charge—was taught only to the dogs in the service of the Northwest Mounted Police. Kazan did not move. McCready straightened, and quick as a shot sent the long lash of his whip curling out into the night with a crack like a pistol report.
"Charge, Pedro—charge!"
The rumble in Kazan's throat deepened to a snarling growl, but not a muscle of his body moved. McCready turned to Thorpe.
"I could have sworn that I knew that dog," he said. "If it's Pedro, he's bad!"
Thorpe was taking the chain. Only the girl saw the look that came for an instant into McCready's face. It made her shiver. A few minutes before, when the train had first stopped at Les Pas, she had offered her hand to this man and she had seen the same thing then. But even as she shuddered she recalled the many things her husband had told her of the forest people. She had grown to love them, to admire their big rough manhood and loyal hearts, before he had brought her among them; and suddenly she smiled at McCready, struggling to overcome that thrill of fear and dislike.
"He doesn't like you," she laughed at him softly. "Won't you make friends with him?"
She drew Kazan toward him, with Thorpe holding the end of the chain. McCready came to her side as she bent over the dog. His back was to Thorpe as he hunched down. Isobel's bowed head was within a foot of his face. He could see the glow in her cheek and the pouting curve of her mouth as she quieted the low rumbling in Kazan's throat. Thorpe stood ready to pull back on the chain, but for a moment McCready was between him and his wife, and he could not see McCready's face. The man's eyes were not on Kazan. He was staring at the girl.
"You're brave," he said. "I don't dare do that. He would take off my hand!"
He took the lantern from Thorpe and led the way to a narrow snow-path branching off, from the track. Hidden back in the thick spruce was the camp that Thorpe had left a fortnight before. There were two tents there now in place of the one that he and his guide had used. A big fire was burning in front of them. Close to the fire was a long sledge, and fastened to trees just within the outer circle of firelight Kazan saw the shadowy forms and gleaming eyes of his team-mates. He stood stiff and motionless while Thorpe fastened him to a sledge. Once more he was back in his forests—and in command. His mistress was laughing and clapping her hands delightedly in the excitement of the strange and wonderful life of which she had now become a part. Thorpe had thrown back the flap of their tent, and she was entering ahead of him. She did not look back. She spoke no word to him. He whined, and turned his red eyes on McCready.
In the tent Thorpe was saying:
"I'm sorry old Jackpine wouldn't go back with us, Issy. He drove me down, but for love or money I couldn't get him to return. He's a Mission Indian, and I'd give a month's salary to have you see him handle the dogs. I'm not sure about this man McCready. He's a queer chap, the Company's agent here tells me, and knows the woods like a book. But dogs don't like a stranger. Kazan isn't going to take to him worth a cent!"
Kazan heard the girl's voice, and stood rigid and motionless listening to it. He did not hear or see McCready when he came up stealthily behind him. The man's voice came as suddenly as a shot at his heels.
"Pedro!"
In an instant Kazan cringed as if touched by a lash.
"Got you that time—didn't I, you old devil!" whispered McCready, his face strangely pale in the firelight. "Changed your name, eh? But I got you—didn't I?"
Chapter III. McCready Pays The Debt
For a long time after he had uttered those words McCready sat in silence beside the fire. Only for a moment or two at a time did his eyes leave Kazan. After a little, when he was sure that Thorpe and Isobel had retired for the night, he went into his own tent and returned with a flask of whisky. During the next half-hour he drank frequently. Then he went over and sat on the end of the sledge, just beyond the reach of Kazan's chain.
"Got you, didn't I?" he repeated, the effect of the liquor beginning to show in the glitter of his eyes. "Wonder who changed your name, Pedro. And how the devil did he come by you? Ho, ho, if you could only talk—"
They heard Thorpe's voice inside the tent. It was followed by a low girlish peal of laughter, and McCready jerked himself erect. His face blazed suddenly red, and he rose to his feet, dropping the flask in his coat pocket. Walking around the fire, he tiptoed cautiously to the shadow of a tree close to the tent and stood there for many minutes listening. His eyes burned with a fiery madness when he returned to the sledge and Kazan. It was midnight before he went into his own tent.
In the warmth of the fire, Kazan's eyes slowly closed. He slumbered uneasily, and his brain was filled with troubled pictures. At times he was fighting, and his jaws snapped. At others he was straining at the end of his chain, with McCready or his mistress just out of reach. He felt the gentle touch of the girl's hand again and heard the wonderful sweetness of her voice as she sang to him and his master, and his body trembled and twitched with the thrills that had filled him that night. And then the picture changed. He was running at the head of a splendid team—six dogs of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police[3]—and his master was calling him Pedro! The scene shifted. They were in camp. His master was young and smooth-faced and he helped from the sledge another man whose hands were fastened in front of him by curious black rings. Again it was later—and he was lying before a great fire. His master was sitting opposite him, with his back to a tent, and as he looked, there came out of the tent the man with the black rings—only now the rings were gone and his hands were free, and in one of them he carried a heavy club. He heard the terrible blow of the club as it fell on his master's head—and the sound of it aroused him from his restless sleep.
He sprang to his feet, his spine stiffening and a snarl in his throat. The fire had died down and the camp was in the darker gloom that precedes dawn. Through that gloom Kazan saw McCready. Again he was standing close to the tent of his mistress, and he knew now that this was the man who had worn the black iron rings, and that it was he who had beaten him with whip and club for many long days after he had killed his master. McCready heard the menace in his throat and came back quickly to the fire. He began to whistle and draw the half-burned logs together, and as the fire blazed up afresh he shouted to awaken Thorp and Isobel. In a few minutes Thorpe appeared at the tent-flap and his wife followed him out. Her loose hair rippled in billows of gold about her shoulders and she sat down on the sledge, close to Kazan, and began brushing it. McCready came up behind her and fumbled among the packages on the sledge. As if by accident one of his hands buried itself for an instant in the rich tresses that flowed down her back. She did not at first feel the caressing touch of his fingers, and Thorpe's back was toward them.
Only Kazan saw the stealthy movement of the hand, the fondling clutch of the fingers in her hair, and the mad passion burning in the eyes of the man. Quicker than a lynx, the dog had leaped the length of his chain across the sledge. McCready sprang back just in time, and as Kazan reached the end of his chain he was jerked back so that his body struck sidewise against the girl. Thorpe had turned in time to see the end of the leap. He believed that Kazan had sprung at Isobel, and in his horror no word or cry escaped his lips as he dragged her from where she had half fallen over the sledge. He saw that she was not hurt, and he reached for his revolver. It was in his holster in the tent. At his feet was McCready's whip, and in the passion of the moment he seized it and sprang upon Kazan. The dog crouched in the snow. He made no move to escape or to attack. Only once in his life could he remember having received a beating like that which Thorpe inflicted upon him now. But not a whimper or a growl escaped him. And then, suddenly, his mistress ran forward and caught the whip poised above Thorpe's head.
"Not another blow!" she cried, and something in her voice held him from striking. McCready did not hear what she said then, but a strange look came into Thorpe's eyes, and without a word he followed his wife into their tent.
"Kazan did not leap at me," she whispered, and she was trembling with a sudden excitement. Her face was deathly white. "That man was behind me," she went on, clutching her husband by the arm. "I felt him touch me—and then Kazan sprang. He wouldn't bite me. It's the man! There's something—wrong—"
She was almost sobbing, and Thorpe drew her close in his arms.
"I hadn't thought before—but it's strange," he said. "Didn't McCready say something about knowing the dog? It's possible. Perhaps he's had Kazan before and abused him in a way that the dog has not forgotten. To-morrow I'll find out. But until I know—will you promise to keep away from Kazan?"
Isobel gave the promise. When they came out from the tent Kazan lifted his great head. The stinging lash had closed one of his eyes and his mouth was dripping blood. Isobel gave a low sob, but did not go near him. Half blinded, he knew that his mistress had stopped his punishment, and he whined softly, and wagged his thick tail in the snow.
Never had he felt so miserable as through the long hard hours of the day that followed, when he broke the trail for his team-mates into the North. One of his eyes was closed and filled with stinging fire, and his body was sore from the blows of the caribou lash. But it was not physical pain that gave the sullen droop to his head and robbed his body of that keen quick alertness of the lead-dog—the commander of his mates. It was his spirit. For the first time in his life, it was broken[2q]. McCready had beaten him—long ago; his master had beaten him; and during all this day their voices were fierce and vengeful in his ears. But it was his mistress who hurt him most. She held aloof from him, always beyond they reach of his leash; and when they stopped to rest, and again in camp, she looked at him with strange and wondering eyes, and did not speak. She, too, was ready to beat him. He believed that, and so slunk away from her and crouched on his belly in the snow. With him, a broken spirit meant a broken heart, and that night he lurked in one of the deepest shadows about the camp-fire and grieved alone. None knew that it was grief—unless it was the girl. She did not move toward him. She did not speak to him. But she watched him closely—and studied him hardest when he was looking at McCready.
