MESMERISING WOLF PACK

Evening Star, Issue 21054, 17 March 1932, Page 13

MESMERISING WOLF PACK

YOUNG WOWS BRAVE DANCE OF DEATH Wolves are found in Canada in great numbers. There are two Icindsj the coyote or prairie wolf and the timber wolf, which is much larger and is more dangerous than the wolf of the open plains, writes H. J. G. Esmonde. The largest and the most dangerous of the timber wolves are found in the Yukon territory of Canada. Usually they hesitate to attack a human being, unless made bold by hunger, or unless their instinct tells them that the person is injured or is too exhausted to drive them away. Then the wolves close in upon the unhappy traveller and the pack kills and eats him. When travelling along the winter trails of the Yukon you pitch your camp for the night, you often see these giant timber wolves slink from the shadows of the timber and approach to within a few yards of the camp tire. A burning stick thrown at them makes them retreat hastily. The Indians who inhabit the northern sections of the Yukon territory believe that the wolves are easily affected by the influence of rhythm; they declare that i* a person dances before a pack of wolves he will exert an hypnotic influence upon the pack and will prevent it from attacking him. About 150 miles north of the Royal North-west Mounted I’olice post, at which I was stationed at the time, lived an elderly Englishman and his daughter. Their home was a small log cabin built upon the slopes of the foothills of the Davidson Range in the Upper Yukon.- The man made a living by trapping and a little prospecting; his daughter, as well as discharging the domestic duties of the small home, frequently accompanied her father upon his rounds of his traplines. The trapper was aged about sixty years. His daughter was aged about twentyfive. One day in mid-winter the trapper injured his leg severely in an Indian game trap. The daughter attended to the injured leg as well as she knew how. Then, realising that her father needed skilled attention if he was to save his log and perhaps his life, she determined to take her father into the police post, at which there was a doctor. So with her team of eight racing huskies (sledge dogs) harnessed to the sledge, and her father well wrapped in buffalo robes, she set out upon the journey. THE DOGS ARE LOST.

It was bitterly cold, the temperature being 50deg. below zero. Happily no wind was blowing. At such low temperatures it is almost impossible to travel if there is much wind. For a great part of the journey the trail ran over the frozen surface of a river. This was an advantage, because it made the going much easier for the dogs. The journey proved to be uneventful until the third day, when the travellers encountered a blizzard and were forced to swing off from the trail and make to the shelter of som§ timber a short distance away. Arrived at a thick clump of mountain spruce they decided to camp until the blizzard blew over. Lighting a fire and attending to the wants of her father, the young woman unharnessed the dogs and fed them upon their customary diet of smoked salmon. The custom when camping for the night is to tie up the dogs in pairs, a stick about a yard long being attached to the collars of each pair of dogs to prevent them from fighting, for the husky dearly loves a fight. The girl omitted to tie up her dogs and loft them loose so that they might lie within the warmth of the fire. Supper oyer, and her father snugly wrapped in his sleeping bag of reindeer skin, tired by the arduous journey, she lost no time in getting into her bag. Just as she was about to go to sleep she was startled to hear the long-drawn, dismal howl

of the wolf pack. The wolf pack has three distinct types of howls; that given upon picking up the scent of game, that given when it is about to make a kill, and the most blood-curdling of all, the howl given after the kill has been eaten. The third is a sort of howl of victory. Upon hearing the cry of the pack the girl arose hastily and threw more wood upon the fire. ' Then she went to secure her dogs. They were nowhere to be seen. Anxiously she followed their tracks for some distance, but she was compelled to return to the camp lest she should be lost in the storm. With the coming of morning the storm passed, yet there was no sign of any of the dogs. It would have been waste of time and energy to attempt to look for them, for her knowledge of the North told her that the dogs had been killed and eaten by the wolves. So she was faced by the almost impossible task of hauling'. both the sledge and her injured father the remainder of the distance to the police post. THE RIFLE GOES. She wrapped her father in the fur robes, strapped him on the sledge, and selected only those articles which were absolutely necessary for the trip. With the father holding the rifle in his hands ready should the pack pursue them, the couple set off to cover the remaining fortv miles. Leaving the shelter of the timber, they regained the, trail, which now ran across a frozen lake. This was fortunate, for it tended to ease the strain of pulling the loaded sledge. They had arrived at the opposite side of the lake, and the woman had just succeeded in hauling the front half of the sledge to the shore of the lake, when the ice under the back runners gave way. The sudden pull which she gave the hauling rope in order to prevent the sledge from slipping back caused the father to lose his grip of the rifle. Their only weapon slipped from his hand and sank through the hole in the ice. Unnerved by her efforts to prevent the sledge from falling through the hole, the girl was almost exhausted. The father decided that they must rest to permit her to regain a little of her strength. Worn out, she slept while her father lay helpless upon the sledge and cursed his injured leg. The spot at which they had halted was not far from the margin of the lake. It was untimbered, so the camp was fireless. The trapper resolved to keep awake and to watch while his ha lighter had her much-needed sleep. The cold and his injuries made him doze from time to time till he, too, was sound asleep. Before long the travellers were awakened by the iiowl of the wolf pack. The girl, sitting up in her sleeping bag, was horrified to see forty to fifty wolves squatting upon their haunches, their open mouths revealing their cruel fangs. What a terrible position for these two people I With no fire or weapons and a* helpless father, the girl felt that nothing could save them.

Suddenly there Hashed across her mind a memory of the old Indian belief that wolves could bo mesmerised by rhythm of movement. Seizing upon this slender hope, she began to dance—slowly at first, then gradually increasing speed. Meanwhile her father lay helpless on the sledge, not daring to make a single sound that would break the spell. On and on she danced until she felt that her senses would leave her. THE RESCUE. I was out patrolling my district. 1 had set out the day before from the police post. I had pulled up my team of dogs in the shelter of a clump of small timber that lay between me and a lake, which was just visible in the distance down the slope. I had Just set about gathering wood for a lire when I noticed that my dogs were uneasy. Perhaps, 1 thought, they had scented a caribou. Then I heard the howl of the wolf pack, and 1 knew at once from the tone of the howl that it was preparing to make a kill. The sound came from the direction of the lake. Snatching my coffee pot from the fire, I turned the sledge right side up. It is the custom when you halt to turn the sledge over upon its side to prevent the dogs from running away with it. In case some lone trapper was in difficulties 1 raced my dogs toward the lake in the distance, which was not great; although the dim light of the snow-laden sky made it seem so. In a semi-circle was a large pack of about twenty wolves. They crouched upon their stomachs, and they were obviously watching intently some prospective victim. Then I saw a sledge and the figure of a human being, who seemed to be just staggering about, as if snow blind. Throwing up my rifle 1 fired at the pack again and again. I fired until the magazine of my nflo was empty. The pack scattered, leaving three wolves dead. I hastened forward to the staggering figure, which collapsed in m3 7 arms, i recognised the trapper’s daughter. A faint hail from the sledge, and I found the father almost on the point of collapse. When the two travellers had revived 1 put . the girl on the police sledge, and, towing the sledge containing her injured father, I headed back to the police post. The old trapper’s leg mended speedily, but tho daughter s mind had been so strained and her nerv-

ous strength so impaired that it was months before she was well enough to leave the post and to travel with her father to civilisation in the south. For three hours she had danced and held the pack. Only when her strength began to fail, and their instinct told them that a kill was near, did the wolves escape from the spell.