BY OLAF BAKER ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1952 COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AMERICAN BOOK-STRATFORD PRESS, INC., NEW YORK CONTENTS CHAPTER I   The Wolf-Child II   The Coming of Shoomoo III   Shasta Comes Very Near Being Eaten by a Bear IV   The End of the Fight V   Gomposh, the Wise One VI   Shasta Sings the Wolf Chorus VII   Shasta Joins the Wolf Pack VIII   The Voice that Was Goohooperay IX 

It was the old she-wolf Nitka that came running lightly along the dusk. Though she had a great and powerful body, with a weight heavy enough to bear down a grown man, her feet made no sound as they came padding through the trees. She had been a long way, travelling for a kill, because at home the wolf-babies were very hungry and gave her no peace. They were not well-behaved babies at all. Whatever mischief there was in the world seemed to be packed tight into their little furry bodies. They play

Now the first great day in little Shasta's wolf life was the day when he left the cave for the first time and came out into the open world. He didn't know why he was to go out, nor what going out really meant. All he knew was that, suddenly, there was a movement of all the cubs towards the place where the light came from, and that it seemed natural for him to follow the movement. When he crawled outside, the sunlight hit him smack in the face like a hot white hand, and then, when he got over tha

The weeks and the months went by. Only Shasta did not know anything about time, and if the months ticked themselves off into years, he took no account of them. Each month he became more and more wolf-like, and less and less like a human child. And because he wore no clothes, hair began to grow over his naked body, so that soon there was a soft brown silky covering all over him, and the hair of his head fell upon his shoulders like a mane. And as he grew older much knowledge came to him, which is

It was a running fight that went on as the great grizzly retreated. The one object of the wolves was to keep him on the move. The bear made furious rushes this way and that whenever he thought he had one of his enemies within striking distance. But as sure as ever he attacked one wolf, it leapt clear with marvellous agility, while the other, like a flash of grey lightning, had snatched at his flank and was off before he could turn. Yet in spite of Shoomoo's greater bulk, it was the onset of Nitk

The moons went by and the moons went by. The slow moons slipped into each other and were tied into bundles, a summer and a winter to each bundle, and so made up the years. Shasta did not know anything about that measuring of time, nor that people talked of growing older out there in the world. All he knew was that there were day and night, and that the great lights came and went in the heavens, stepping very slowly upon gold and silver feet. But he knew when the loon, the great northern diver, c

It was one night not long after his conversation with Gomposh that Nitka made it plain to Shasta that he was to accompany her and Shoomoo for some unknown purpose. Shasta had grown used to the appearing and disappearing of foster-brothers every year, and so the four half-grown wolves that trotted by his side on the eventful night were quite familiar to him, and did not perplex him in the least. It was a very clear night, with the stars shining down through the tall tops of the pines and a faint

In that terrible silence when Shasta trembled with the fear that was in him, and did not dare to move, the great thing happened. The stillness of the wolves, which was in itself so horrible a thing, as if the whole pack was only waiting for some signal to hurl itself upon him—began to show signs of breaking up. Here and there a head would wag, and a lolling tongue show between white fangs. A she-wolf would snap at her neighbour. A half-grown cub would lick his chops, growling softly in his throa

Two days after the chorus night Shasta was out for a prowl by himself. The prowling instinct was strong within him now. He loved to creep into the forest alone and climb a tree above some run-way to see who was abroad. The deer drifted past like dreams, lifting their feet delicately and wrinkling their noses upwind; or a fox would sneak along, ears, eyes, and nose on the alert, but never seeing Shasta above him on his perch. And sometimes the wolves would come, two or three in single file, and S

The wolf-brothers were playing in the sun. There were four little brown cubs, very fat and puppy-like, and full of fun. They chased each other up and down, and had wrestling matches and biting competitions, and all sorts of rough-and-tumble games. Shasta sat in the mouth of the cave watching them and laughing softly to himself. He had known many a lot of wolf-brothers, and they were always the same funny, fat, frolicsome little rascals until they grew too old to frolic, and began to get their fi

That fierce approach of Kennebec, sweeping up as from the remote ends of the hollow world, was a terrible thing to see. Also, when the sound of it reached Shasta's ears, it was terrible to hear. He knew that there was only one thing to do, and that he must do it without an instant's delay—to find some hiding-place where he would be safe from those awful claws and beak; for Kennebec's anger would have no bounds when he discovered that the eaglets had been destroyed. To descend the cliff as he had

After Shasta's exploit against Kennebec, he became doubly marked as a person among the forest folk. Along the Wild news flies quickly. It is carried not only by swift feet and keen noses: it seems to travel as well by mysterious carriers, who spread it through the length and breadth of the land. What these carriers are, and what is the manner and meaning of their coming and going, only the wild creatures know. They see them with their large eyes which deepen with the dusk! They hear the soft whi

Not more than a couple of minutes had passed before the news of the capture had gone through the camp. The Indians, old and young, men, women and children, came crowding round to see this strange monster which Looking-All-Ways had found. Shasta, sitting hunched upon his calves, glared round at the company with his beady eyes shining through the masses of his hair. The Indians, seeing the glitter of them, thought it wiser not to come too close, and every time Shasta threw back his head to shake t

Gomposh's lair was in the black heart of the cedar swamp. Old though the cedars were, Gomposh had the feeling of being even older. He liked the ancientness of the place; its dankness and darkness, and, above all, its silence—the silence of green decaying things. It was so silent that he could almost hear himself thinking, and his thoughts seemed to make more noise even than his great padded feet. Under the grey twisted trunks, the ground oozed with moisture, which fed the pits of black water tha

The days and weeks went by. By the time the dark blue flower of the camass had faded, and the yellow wild parsley had begun to look tired, Shasta began to feel again the same strange restlessness creeping over him which he had felt before. And whenever he turned his face towards the southeast, the remembrance of the Indian village would sit down thickly upon him, and he would stop to think. When he remembered the raw-hide lariat and the husky dogs, he hated the camp; but when he remembered with

So that was how it came to pass that Shasta was received by the Indians into their tribe, and was called by his own name, which he had never known. The moons went by, and by degrees he left off his wolf-ways and took on Indian ways instead. He learnt to walk upright, to eat cooked food and to talk the Indian tongue. To learn the last took him a long time. At first he could only make wolf noises, and would growl when he was angry, bark when he was excited, and howl when it was necessary to say th

It was the old medicine-man, Shoshawnee, and he was making medicine to himself on the high lookout butte that commanded the prairies to the south. The sunset was beginning to be crimson in the west. It struck full in Shoshawnee's face, turning it blood-red. But Shoshawnee had no thought for the colour of his face. He had another thought inside him—a thought of such tremendous importance that there was no room for anything besides. And this was that a danger lay there ambushed in the south. No on

When Shasta had given the warning and knew that the tribe was fully roused, he crept out of camp. He went so secretly that no one saw him go. Why he went he could hardly have told himself in the shape of a thought. If the cries had not been wolf-cries, it is probable he would not have gone. He was certain that they were not the genuine wolf-calls, yet they came so very close to them that an uneasy feeling inside him made him want to find out what sort of throat could make so exact an imitation.

Presently, at a given sign, the procession started. It was led by an old medicine-man, who moved slowly forward, singing a medicine-chant as he walked. He was extremely old and shrivelled and was smothered in paint and feathers. And he had a husky voice that cut the air like a saw. Behind him rode the chief on horseback, a splendid figure of a man, upright as a dart, and magnificently dressed. Immediately after him came Shasta on the travois. The braves followed in a long line. Shasta's heart wa