Ben Cory followed his brother in slowly deepening weariness. The time must be not far from dawn. The moon rode high and lonely, dimmed by new cloud battalions from the west. Ben groped at the thought of sleep; but Reuben, who was wise about everything tonight, might tell him it was not yet time. Ben suffered a passing resentment, that the boy could walk on ahead so untiringly, so unconcerned.
In this more open part of the woods they were not attempting to disguise their tracks. Reuben said it was no longer worth it, and Reuben knew best. Ben tried to step in his brother's prints, nowhere else. This seemed a clever thing to do—when he could remember to do it, and forget the pain in his knee, and ignore certain soft dark waves that now and then approached him from nowhere and flowed away independently of any shadow on the moon.
Back there under the crowded hemlocks, a very long time ago, it had not appeared necessary after all to search for the panther's prints and follow them. All the way down that slope, and far beyond it where the land rose again and the hemlocks continued, many patches of snowless ground allowed them to progress without leaving marks. For an hour, or two or three hours perhaps, they had worked their way along these areas. Glimpses of the moon held them to a general easterly direction. In several places—Ben recalled this with solemn pride in Reuben's wisdom—Reuben had spread his jacket across a patch of snow too wide to jump, so that they might step on it and leave a vague blur nothing like a footprint, rather like the impress of some animal's body lying down. At the least, their efforts would provide a most confusing trail unless the searchers brought dogs; they reassured each other of this from time to time. Advance by this method had been tormentingly slow, yet after a while Reuben, who knew everything, announced that they must have covered another mile.
The road and the sled-tracks were things forgotten. The eastward direction was still a certainty: the moon had said so, until it climbed too high to be a fair guide. The trees had thinned out, the snow lay continuous on the ground; Reuben who knew everything said they might as well walk naturally again, since there was no help for it anyway, and to blur the tracks here would be a waste of effort. Ben had a confused sense of walking on higher ground where a light wind was blowing.
Once, back in the darker woods, he had heard the wail of a mountain cat, so thin and far away that hills and hollows must have intervened. Their friend, maybe, lamenting at snowballs. Reuben had laughed at it. Later Ben caught another sound, a remote tenor howling, lonely at first but answered by another and another. Reuben who knew everything had not laughed at that. Ben thought or imagined that he heard it still.
No wolves had come.
Or if they have come, he thought, I can't see them. They slip along fogfooted behind the larger trees—that tree or that one—maybe. If they are truly come, my brother Reuben will know and tell me. In time for me to draw my knife. Wolves do understand cold steel, they say....
"Ru——"
The boy turned quickly and came back to him. Ben saw his face fade and brighten; the eyes, improbably large, watched him from a mighty depth. Now that, Ben thought, that is certainly an effect of the new cloud-wrack passing over the moon. How warm it is! he thought—nay, damn the thing, how cold! Nothing's truly warm since Mother died, therefore I was deluded.... "Ru, what's the time?"
"Can't be far from dawn."
"How do you know?"
"I can feel it.... Some kind of shack over there—see it? A hunter's lean-to, that's what it is."
"Looks more like a beast."
"Can't you see the poles? Come on—it's not far."
"Ru, listen!"
"Yes, I hear them. They're a long way off. Come!"
"Wait, Ru!" The waves of darkness, each time they advanced on him, were climbing higher, toward his eyes. "Listen to me, Reuben, and not to the wolves." Perhaps the next one would go over his head, and he could be quiet. "Listen to me—in my father's house are many mansions."
"Ben, save thy breath. Lean on me. It's not far."
Nothing came in search of them that night. For another hour Reuben heard the wolves, unable to guess in what region of the secret night they were crying. The shrill desolation of the noise wavered from every quarter of the dark, ceasing at times; then the mind could propose that it had never sounded, until it started up afresh, as pain will.
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