But to return to my narrative:
By the time I had finished my business with Peru, it had begun to grow quite dark and the surrounding hills seemed to be closing in on me. I had as yet seen no sign of wolves; but they were understandably very much on my mind, and when I glimpsed a flicker of distant movement near the valley mouth, I became even more wolf-conscious.
By straining my hearing I detected a faint but electrifying sound—one that I instantly recognized, for, though I had never before heard it in the wild, I had heard it several times in cowboy films. It was unmistakably the howling of a wolf pack in full cry, and, equally unmistakably, the pack was crying full in my direction. At least one of my problems appeared to have been solved. I was about to establish contact with the study species.
The solution of this problem led directly to the discovery of several new ones, not the least of which was that there were only six rounds in my pistol and I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember where I had stowed the reserve ammunition. This was a matter of some moment, since I knew from my extensive reading on the subject that the number of individuals in a wolf pack can vary from four to forty. Furthermore, judging from the volume of sounds being made by the approaching animals, I suspected that this pack numbered closer to four hundred.
The subarctic night was now hard upon me, and the wolves soon would be too. It was already so dark that I could not see them clearly enough to estimate their actual numbers or gauge their probable behavior pattern. I therefore decided I should retire underneath the upturned canoe, so that the presence of a human being would not be readily apparent, with its consequent tendency to induce atypical behavior in the beasts.
Now one of the cardinal tenets of biology is that the observer must never allow his attention to be distracted; but honesty compels me to admit that under the present circumstances I found it difficult to maintain an attitude of correct scientific concentration. I was particularly worried about my canoe. Being lightly built of canvas over thin cedar staves, it might, I suspected, be easily damaged by rough usage, in which case I would be completely immobilized in the future. The second thing which was bothering me was so unusual that I must give it special emphasis, if only because it demonstrates the basic illogicality of the human mind when not under proper disciplinary control. I found myself fervently wishing I was a pregnant Eskimo.
Since I could no longer see what was happening, I had to rely upon my other senses. My ears kept me informed as the pack swept up at full speed, circled my pile of equipment once, and then rushed straight for the canoe.
A terrific chorus of howls, barks and yelps very nearly deafened me, and so confusing was the noise that I began to experience hallucinations, imagining I could hear the deep-throated roar of an almost human voice above the general tumult. The roar sounded rather like:
FURCRISAKESTOPYOUGODAMNSONSABITCHES!
At this point there was much scuffling, an outburst of pained yelping, and then, miraculously, total silence.
I had been trained for years to make accurate deductions from natural phenomena, but this situation was beyond me. I needed more data. Very cautiously I put one eye to the narrow slit between the gunwale of the canoe and the ice below. At first I could see nothing but wolf feet—scores of them; but then my glance fastened on another pair of feet—a single pair—which could have belonged to no wolf. My deductive abilities returned all of a rush. I lifted the side of the canoe, stuck out my head, and peered upward into the bewildered and rather apprehensive face of a young man clad all in caribou furs.
Scattered around him, and staring at me with deep suspicion, were the fourteen large and formidable Huskies which made up his team. But of bona fide wolves…there was not one in sight.
5
Contact!
NATURALLY I WAS disappointed that my first encounter with wolves should have turned out to be an encounter with nonwolves; but there were compensations.
The young man who owned the dogs was, so it developed, a trapper of mixed Eskimo and white parentage who possessed a cabin a few miles away. It was ideally suited to serve me as a permanent base camp. Apart from a small band of Eskimos including his mother’s family, living seventy miles away to the north, this young man, whose name was Mike, was the only human inhabitant in an area of some ten thousand square miles. This was excellent news, for it ensured that my study of the wolves would not be adversely affected by human intrusions.
Mike was at first inclined to treat me with some reserve—not to say suspicion. During his eighteen years of life he had never known an aircraft to land in his part of the Barren Lands, and indeed had only seen two or three planes before, and these had been passing high overhead. It was therefore difficult for him to absorb the fact that an aircraft which he had neither seen nor heard had landed me and my immense pile of equipment on the middle of his lake. In the beginning of our relationship he leaned more toward a supernatural explanation of my presence; for he had learned enough about Christianity from his white trader father to be on his guard against the devil. Consequently he took no chances. During the first few days he carried his 30–30 rifle in his hands and kept his distance; but soon after I introduced him to wolf-juice he put the rifle away, having apparently decided that if I was the devil, my blandishments were too powerful to be resisted.
Probably because he could not think what else to do with me, Mike led me off to his cabin that first night. Although it was hardly a palatial affair, being built of poles and roofed with decaying caribou hides, I saw at once that it would serve my purposes.
Having been empowered by the Department to hire native assistance, so long as the consequent expenditure did not exceed three dollars a month, I promptly made a deal with Mike, giving him an official I. O. U. for ten dollars to cover three months’ accommodation in his cabin, as well as his services as guide and general factotum. I was aware that it was a generous payment in the light of the prevailing rates which Government agencies, missions and the trading companies paid the arctic natives, but I felt my extravagance would be tolerated by the Treasury Department in view of the fact that, without Mike’s help, my own Department stood to lose about four thousand dollars’ worth of equipment as soon as the lake ice melted.
I suspect, from the nature of subsequent events, that the bargain I struck with Mike was rather one-sided and that he may not have fully grasped its implications; but in any event he provided the services of his dog team to help me move my supplies and equipment to his cabin.
During the next several days I was extremely busy unpacking my equipment and setting up my field laboratory—being obliged to usurp most of the limited space in the tiny cabin in the process. I had little time to spare for Mike, but I did notice that he seemed deeply preoccupied. However, since he had so far seemed to be naturally taciturn—except with his dogs—and because I did not feel it right, on such short acquaintance, to intrude into his personal affairs, I made no attempt to discover the nature of his distress. Nevertheless I did occasionally try to divert him by offering demonstrations of some of my scientific equipment.
These demonstrations seemed to fascinate him, although they did not have the desired effect of easing his distrait attitude which, if anything, got worse. Shortly after I showed him the cyanide “wolf getters” and explained that not only were they instantly fatal, but almost impossible to detect, he began to display definite signs of irrational behavior. He took to carrying a long stick about with him, and before he would even sit down at the crude table for a meal, he would poke the chair, and sometimes even the plate of food, in a most peculiar way. He would also poke at his boots and clothing before picking them up in the morning when he was getting dressed.