Vampire Books Online / The Wolf Woman

Bassett Morgan  |  1927  |  34 minutes

"The great white hounds streaked down the glacier, led by the flying Huntress."

BEATEN back by fogs and blizzards of the heights, the Stamwell party was camped in a sun-warmed valley at the base of Mount Logan, which lifts its ice-capped head in eternal solitude and awful silence above the most intensely glaciated region of the world. Three years before, in an attempt to follow MacCarthy, who first ascended Logan, the intrepid mountain-climber Morsey had fallen into a crevasse; and Professor Stamwell was now attempting to recover his body from the glacier and by a process of his own experimentation restore it to life.

His assistant, Lieutenant Cressey, who had been more intrigued by the adventure of the climb than by Stamwell's sanguinary hope of resuscitating flesh entombed and even perfectly preserved in the ice, was reluctant to admit failure. Nevertheless, he enjoyed the sun-warmth of the valley after the terrific frost-fangs and ice-claws of the heights. Along the shores of a little river whose source lay in the glaciers, the dogs romped, catching fish with the dexterity of the husky breed and gorging themselves.

Baptiste, the big half-breed Canadian guide who looked after the comforts of the men, had been roving all day. At supper time he returned, tossing his cap in the air and yelling excitedly.

"M'sieurs," he shouted, "I have find wan funny mans what makes t'ings of ivory. You come an' see. You lak heem ver' much."

Nothing loth to leave the discussion of their defeat, Stamwell and Cressey followed the exuberant Baptiste for a mile or two along the river to a stoutly timbered cabin beside which an old man watched his supper cooking over a fire outside. At sight of him, Cressey laughed, while Baptiste explained his new acquaintance.

"Hees name ees Jo. He ees half Indian, half Eskimo. An' I savvy hees talk ver' fine."

While Baptiste talked in tribal jargon, Cressey's amusement mounted. The old man was toothless and wrinkled. A beaded band kept the lank hair from obscuring his sight, and as his jaw wagged constantly on a quid of chewing tobacco, two knobbed knucklebones of seals thrust through slits in his cheeks gave the appearance of tusks. Ragged wolf-skin trousers and elk-hide moccasins completed his attire, but he smiled grotesquely as he led the way inside the cabin.

There he lighted a wick floating on a dish of oil, threw wide a window-shutter and let in sunlight, which revealed a collection of carved ivory objects on shelves about the walls.

Baptiste was even more eager than the carver to display his skill. He handed Stamwell a figure copied from comic supplements of newspapers and familiar in homes from the Arctic Circle to the Florida Keys. A moment later he brought forth its mate. Stamwell held in his hands cleverly chiselled likenesses of Mutt and Jeff. Flattered by the interest of these white men, Jo showed them the source of his inspiration, a sheaf of old newspapers from the pages of which he took his ivory models.

Baptiste, convulsed with mirth, laid in Cressey's hand a figure which brought a responsive laugh.

"She got bellyache!" he shouted.

Even Professor Stamwell chuckled at his description of a lovely little "September Morn."

They spent a good deal of time with the contents of the shelf before Jo took up the oil dish and threw a flickering light on a recumbent figure in the cabin corner. Stamwell went on his knees, and Cressey gasped at the beauty of a woman, carved in ivory, lying as if asleep with one arm under her head and her long hair draped over her shoulder. The figure was almost life-size, and the ivory block showed no seam or joint. Stamwell touched the slender leg with gentle fingers, then looked at Cressey.

"Cressey, this ivory is of different texture from the small figurines. I should say it was fossilized, but where on earth would the old fellow obtain such a huge block of material?"

"And the woman-model!" exclaimed Cressey. "A white woman, undoubtedly. Look at the sensitive nostrils and straight nose, and the rounded cheeks. No Kogmolley or Indian squaw posed for this. The old fellow didn't create her, either. He couldn't. You can see he has only a great skill in imitating and copying. Baptiste, ask Jo where he saw such a woman, asleep."

Baptiste's conversation with the old man occupied some time, and before it ended the big guide was fingering his scapular.

"Jo, he say dees woman froze een ice. He git dees big chunk ivory from ver' beeg land-whale, also froze een ice."

"A land-whale! Cressey, he means a mammoth. We've come across real treasure. Baptiste, tell Jo we would like to see this land-whale."

Baptiste interpreted. The ivory-carver nodded good-naturedly and started at once to lead them to the source of his art-material.

"Jo, he say," offered Baptiste when the dogs were harnessed and food on the sled in case of an overnight trip, "he say des woman she froze een ice long tam. Maybe dis summer fetch her out. She come down ver' fast. Long tam ago Jo see her ver' high up. Jo say more as hundred snows when he first see her."

"Frozen in the glacier more than hundred years ago! Preposterous! The old fellow exaggerates." Stamwell waved aside Jo's veracity. "We've evidently stumbled on a tragedy. Snow madness makes its victims strip naked, usually, which would account for her nudity, and Jo looks aged, but I don't credit his hundred-year memory."

"Her hair must have touched the ground, Professor. That dates her pretty far back."

For some hours the ice-trail, steep though not perilous, claimed their attention. The sun swung down to the horizon for the brief moments of northern midnight, then began its upward arc. They found that Jo had cut steps on the glacier which wound down from the grim sides of Mount Logan. Mounting steadily, they reached a tumbled traverse which led to lofty pinnacles of ice so clearly blue it was like a fairy palace, where steps led to an outstanding archway and natural grotto of rock that had been broken from its base and carried down.

Inside the grotto the light was weirdly blue, the ice underfoot clear as glass. Jo pointed and Cressey knelt, and a moment later his cry echoed from the grotto walls. Under the crystal shell lay the carver's model, more beautiful than they dreamed, ivory, a woman, young, lovely, golden hair half robing her form, tawny eyelashes on her rounded cheeks. Near by, as if she had lain down to sleep in the warmth of her furry robe, her body was curled in that pellucid covering. Around and above her, white as moonlight, long-furred white hounds were frozen, their jaws agape, their limbs arrested in their leaping. Farther back in the ice-grotto was something monstrous, the mountainous hairy bulk of its body carved into the blue gloom.

"Mon Dieu!" Baptiste whispered. "Eet ees de Chasse du Diable—de hounds of hell dat hunt de souls of de dead! M'sieu, Jo have carve woman een dees devil-pack! No, no, we not take her from de ice-grave of le bon Dieu. She ees for hell-fire. We leave her, M'sieu."

In superstitious agitation he backed toward the low archway and the sunlight beyond.

"Baptiste, come back!" commanded Cressey. "Professor, this is amazing—the woman, those great dogs, and that mammoth! They must have been overcome by an avalanche and frozen before they died. I wonder how long ago this happened."

"The mammoth would indicate thousands of years," replied Stamwell. "Yet the woman is unquestionably Caucasian. What do you make of it? Of course, mammoths existed in Siberia only a few thousand years ago and were hunted by man. But this is North America, and mammoths have been extinct here for—well, how many thousands of years, we don't know."

"Fascinating!" Cressey knelt again to gaze at the woman's face. "She's very young and beautiful. Look, Professor, there's a curious bracelet on her wrist—ivory, too, carved into the likeness of those white hounds."

Stamwell examined the bracelet through the ice. "The whole thing is utterly incredible. But here she is, and we must get her out. The ice around her is melting rapidly in this summer heat. Another month and she'll be freed naturally. But we can't wait that long. Jo, can you get us axes and ropes?"

The old carver nodded and departed, while Baptiste muttered dire prophecies. Before nightfall, working carefully to avoid shattering the ice near the bodies, they had freed the woman and two of the hounds from their frozen tomb. The bodies were wrapped in skins and lashed to the sled. Baptiste refused to touch them, making signs to ward off evil.

Down the ice-trail they went in the ghostly half-light of the Arctic summer night, and reached the cabin as the sun, which had barely dipped below the horizon, began its new ascent. They laid the woman on furs in a corner of the cabin and covered her with more furs to let the thawing continue slowly. The hounds they left outside.

Stamwell was jubilant. Here was the opportunity to test his theories of restoration in far better conditions than they had hoped. The glacier-woman was perfect, her flesh showing no sign of deterioration. If his electrical treatments, his careful warming and his chemical stimulants could restore her, what a triumph it would be!

But Cressey found himself strangely disturbed. The woman's beauty haunted him. Even frozen, there was something compelling about her, something wild and free. He found himself returning again and again to look at her as she lay thawing, her golden hair spreading like a mantle, her face peaceful in its frozen sleep.

"Professor," he said uneasily, "do you really think we should do this? Suppose we do restore her—what then? She'll be completely alone in a world she never knew. Everyone and everything of her time is gone. It would be cruel."

"Nonsense!" Stamwell was setting up his electrical apparatus. "If we can restore her, we'll have accomplished the greatest scientific feat of the age. As for her adjustment—well, we'll face that when the time comes. We'll teach her, help her adapt. Think of what she could tell us about her world!"

Baptiste alone seemed to share Cressey's misgivings. "M'sieu," he said darkly, "de old Jo, he say dat woman, she ees devil-hunter. She hunt wit' de ghost-wolves. You bring her back, you bring de whole Chasse du Diable wit' her. Better we put her back een de ice where le bon Dieu leave her."

But Stamwell would not be dissuaded. For three days he worked over the woman, applying his treatments, monitoring her gradual warming, injecting his carefully prepared chemicals. And on the fourth day, as the sun reached its zenith, the woman's eyelids fluttered.

Cressey, who had been watching alone while Stamwell slept, leaned forward in excitement. "Professor! Professor, wake up! She's alive!"

Stamwell sprang to his feet and rushed to the woman's side. Her eyes opened slowly, and Cressey gasped. They were golden, like a wolf's eyes, and in them burned a fierce wild light that was not quite human. She looked at them without fear, without surprise, with only a kind of predatory interest, as a huntress might regard her quarry.

Then she smiled, and it was the smile of the ivory carving—beautiful, inscrutable, and somehow terrible. She sat up slowly, the furs falling away from her white shoulders, and looked around the cabin. Her gaze fell on the window, where sunlight streamed in, and she rose in one fluid motion and went to it, moving with an animal grace that was mesmerizing.

She spoke then, her voice low and musical, in a language neither man had ever heard. Stamwell attempted to communicate, first in English, then in French, then in the few words of Eskimo he had learned. She listened to each attempt with that strange smile, then shook her head and returned to the window, staring out at the glaciers beyond.

"We'll have to teach her modern languages," said Stamwell. "But first, we need to give her clothing and food. Baptiste! Where's Baptiste?"

The guide appeared reluctantly in the doorway, crossed himself at the sight of the woman, and backed away. "Non, M'sieu! I not come near dat one! She have de eyes of de loup-garou—de werewolf! She ees not natural woman!"

The woman turned at the sound of Baptiste's voice, and her golden eyes fixed on him with sudden intensity. She took a step toward him, and he fled. She laughed then, a sound like wind chimes, but with an edge that made Cressey shiver.

Over the following days, they attempted to clothe and civilize their guest. She accepted the garments they offered—Baptiste's suggestions brought by a reluctant Jo—but wore them indifferently, often casting them aside to stand naked at the window, staring out at the ice and sky. She ate the food they prepared, but without enthusiasm, and they noticed she showed particular interest when the dogs were fed their raw fish.

She learned quickly, picking up words in English with surprising speed, but she spoke little, seeming content to watch and wait. Cressey found himself increasingly drawn to her, despite Baptiste's warnings and his own unease. There was something magnificent about her, something untamed and powerful. She was like a caged eagle, beautiful but dangerous, and he could not look away.

Stamwell was delighted with his success. He made extensive notes, took photographs, and planned his triumphant return to civilization with this living proof of his theories. He seemed oblivious to the growing tension in the cabin, to the way Baptiste refused to remain inside when the woman was present, to the way the sled dogs howled uneasily at night.

It was on the seventh night after her revival that the change came. Cressey woke from uneasy sleep to find moonlight flooding the cabin. The woman's bed of furs was empty. He rose quickly and saw her standing at the open door, naked in the moonlight, her head thrown back, her golden hair flowing down her back like molten metal.

As he watched, she raised her arms to the moon and uttered a long, wild cry that was neither human nor animal, but something between—a sound that raised the hair on the back of his neck and set his heart pounding. And from far off in the glaciers came an answering sound, the baying of hounds, deep and terrible.

"Professor!" Cressey's shout woke Stamwell. "The dogs—something's wrong with the dogs!"

But Stamwell, coming to the door, saw not the sled dogs, which huddled whimpering in their traces, but something else. Down the glacier, clearly visible in the bright moonlight, came a pack of great white hounds, and they ran as the dogs in the ice had been frozen—in full cry, in full leap, their long fur streaming behind them like smoke.

"Impossible," breathed Stamwell. "Those dogs have been dead for thousands of years."

The woman heard him and turned, and her smile was triumphant. She spoke then, in clear English with only a trace of accent. "Not dead. Never dead. Only sleeping, as I slept. You woke me, and now they wake too. The Hunt begins again."

She stepped out into the moonlight, and the great hounds surrounded her, leaping and fawning, and she laughed and ran her hands through their fur. Then she looked back at the men in the cabin doorway, and her eyes were wild with joy and hunger.

"You freed me from the ice," she said. "For that, I give you one night to run. When next the moon rises, the Hunt begins. Run far, little man-things. Run fast. It will make the chase sweeter."

She turned and raced away up the glacier, the white hounds streaming after her, and their baying echoed from the ice-cliffs like the laughter of demons.

Stamwell stood frozen in shock, but Cressey acted. He grabbed the professor's arm and pulled him inside, barring the door. "We have to leave," he said urgently. "Now, tonight. We'll take the sled and the dogs and head for the valley as fast as we can."

"But the woman—my experiment—"

"Your experiment is a nightmare, Professor! She's not human, or not anymore. We have to get away before she comes back."

Baptiste, who had slept outside and come running at the commotion, was already harnessing the terrified dogs. "I tell you!" he shouted. "I tell you she ees devil! We go now, vite, vite!"

They fled through the night, the dogs running in terror-driven speed, the sled bouncing dangerously over the ice. Behind them, the baying of the white hounds echoed through the glaciers, sometimes near, sometimes far, but never silent. And sometimes, cutting through the baying, came that wild cry, the huntress calling to her pack.

They reached Jo's cabin as dawn was breaking. The old carver stood outside, and he nodded as if he had expected them. "She wake," he said simply. "I feel it. The devil-dogs wake too. You bring her from ice, you bring whole Chasse du Diable."

"We're leaving the valley," said Stamwell, his scientific confidence shattered. "We'll build rafts and take the river to civilization. Will you come with us?"

Jo shook his head. "This my home. I make treaty with her long ago. I carve her in ivory, keep her memory alive, she not hunt me. You break treaty, not me. You go."

They worked frantically through the day, felling trees and lashing them into rafts. The sun was warm, and no sign of the huntress or her hounds appeared, but an oppressive dread hung over them. The sled dogs refused to eat and howled mournfully, pulling at their traces.

As sunset approached, they heard it—a distant rumbling, like thunder, but constant and growing louder. Baptiste crossed himself. "Le mammoth," he whispered. "She wake him too."

And out of the glacial valley came the mammoth, impossibly alive, impossibly huge, the very ice seeming to shudder under its tread. On its broad head stood the woman, golden and terrible in the dying light, her hair streaming like a banner, and around her ran the white hounds.

They completed the rafts by moonrise, working in desperate haste, and Jo helped them, his gnarled hands moving with surprising strength. They set crosses around the cabin—crosses made from driftwood tied with leather thongs—and Baptiste blessed each one with muttered prayers. Jo watched approvingly.

"The crosses, they hold her," he said. "She ees devil, she no cross them. But you must not cross them either, not at night, or she take you."

That night, the Hunt came in earnest. The white hounds ranged around the cabin, their eyes glowing red in the darkness, their baying continuous and maddening. The mammoth trumpeted challenges that shook the ground. And the huntress danced before them, just beyond the line of crosses, her naked beauty made terrible by the wild hunger in her eyes.

She called to them, her voice seductive and commanding. "Come out, little man-things. Come dance with me in the moonlight. Come run with my hounds. It will be glorious, I promise you. The Hunt is joy, the Hunt is freedom. Come!"

Stamwell, huddled inside the cabin, covered his ears and moaned. But Cressey found himself drawn to the door, found himself wanting to answer that call, to cast aside the crosses and run to her. Only Baptiste's strong hand on his shoulder kept him from stepping outside.

"She have you in her power, M'sieu," the guide said. "I see her in your eyes. You mus' fight her, M'sieu. You mus' not look at her!"

But Cressey could not help looking. The huntress was magnificent in her wildness, and some deep part of him responded to her call, yearned to join the Hunt, to run forever through the moonlight with the white hounds. He felt Baptiste pressing something into his hand—a crude cross made of twigs—and he clutched it desperately, using the pain of its rough edges to focus his mind.

Dawn came slowly, and with the light the Hunt withdrew. The hounds faded like mist, the mammoth lumbered back into the glaciers, and the huntress stood for a moment at the edge of the clearing, looking at Cressey with those golden eyes. She smiled, and it was a promise and a threat.

"Tonight," she said. "Tomorrow night. The next night. I can wait. The Hunt is eternal. Eventually, you will come to me. They always do."

Then she was gone, and the men sagged with relief.

"We launch the rafts today," said Stamwell, his voice shaking. "We can't endure another night of this."

But it was not to be that simple. Cressey found he could not concentrate on the work. His thoughts were filled with the huntress, with her wild beauty, with the promise of freedom in her call. His hands shook and his mind wandered, and Baptiste watched him with growing concern.

Jo took Cressey aside. "You need strong medicine," he said. "She drink your blood—not with teeth, but with eyes, with soul. You need protection or you lost."

He went into his cabin and emerged with something he had been working on through the night—a figure carved from the same mammoth ivory, a figure of the huntress herself, so perfectly rendered that Cressey gasped. It was as if the woman had been frozen again in ivory, every detail of her wild beauty captured.

"This hold her," Jo said. "This my power against her. You take this, you have protection."

But even as he spoke, Cressey knew he could not take it. To possess that figure would be to possess the huntress herself, and he feared what that might do to him. He shook his head and turned away, and Jo nodded sadly.

The second night was worse. The Hunt came earlier, and the huntress was more aggressive, calling specifically to Cressey, promising him glory and joy and eternal youth. The white hounds pressed against the barrier of crosses, and the mammoth circled the cabin, its trumpeting growing more urgent.

And Cressey felt his resistance crumbling. The crosses seemed like prison bars, keeping him from freedom. The cabin seemed like a tomb. The huntress was life and joy and wild beauty, and he wanted more than anything to go to her.

It was Baptiste who saved him, forcing him to labor throughout the day that followed, working to finish the rafts, the hard physical work grounding him, bringing him back to himself. By evening, the rafts were complete and provisioned, tied to shore trees and ready to launch at first light.

But Stamwell had succumbed. The professor, driven to madness by guilt and fear, had conceived a desperate plan. If he could reanimate the mammoth that had been frozen with the woman, if he could control it somehow, they might have a weapon against the Hunt.

Cressey, emerging from his own obsession, realized what Stamwell intended when he found the professor's equipment missing from the cabin. He raced up the ice-trail with Baptiste and found Stamwell at the grotto, working frantically with his electrical apparatus, applying his techniques to the frozen mammoth.

"Professor, no! You'll doom us all!"

But Stamwell was beyond reason, and his experiment was already underway. The ice around the mammoth was melting rapidly under the heat of his equipment, and the massive body was thawing. Cressey and Baptiste could only watch in horror as Stamwell applied his treatments, his chemicals, his electrical stimulation.

And impossibly, terribly, it worked. The mammoth stirred. Its trunk moved. Its eyes opened, gleaming with a dim, ancient intelligence. It struggled to its feet, ice cascading from its fur, and it trumpeted—a sound of confusion and rage that echoed through the glaciers.

Stamwell tried to control it, shouting commands, waving his arms. But the mammoth, maddened by its resurrection, saw only tiny beings to be crushed. Its trunk lashed out, catching Stamwell and flinging him against the ice wall. The professor fell and did not rise.

The mammoth, freed from its icy tomb, lumbered down toward the valley, crushing everything in its path. Cressey and Baptiste, dragging Stamwell's broken body, fled before it. They reached Jo's cabin as the sun set, and laid the professor on a bed of furs, but he was beyond help. He died as the moon rose, whispering about his great experiment, his triumph and his doom.

That night, the Hunt came with renewed fury. The huntress had her mammoth steed restored to her, had all the pieces of her ancient power returned. She was complete again, and she was terrible in her joy. The white hounds bayed with redoubled intensity, and the mammoth's trumpeting shook the very foundations of the cabin.

But Cressey, exhausted by labor and grief, no longer felt her call. The death of Stamwell had shocked him back to sanity, and he saw the huntress now for what she was—a thing of ancient evil, beautiful but deadly, a remnant of a time when humans were prey and the Hunt was everything.

He helped Jo strengthen the barrier of crosses, and he wore the crude cross Baptiste had given him on a thong around his neck. And when the huntress called to him by name, he did not answer.

She raged at his resistance, sending her hounds to tear at the barriers, urging the mammoth to crush the cabin, but the crosses held. Jo had placed them with the wisdom of one who had lived long with this evil, and they formed a web of protection that even the huntress could not break.

Dawn came, and the Hunt withdrew, but not far. They could see the white hounds lying in the shadows of the trees, panting, their red eyes gleaming. They could see the mammoth grazing on the edge of the clearing, tearing up whole trees to feed its massive hunger. And they could see the huntress, sitting on a rock by the river, combing her golden hair and singing a wild song in her ancient language.

"Tonight we launch the rafts," said Cressey. "At sunset, before the Hunt begins. We'll take our chances on the river. It's our only hope."

Jo nodded. "I stay," he said again. "This my home. She and I, we have old understanding. But you, you mus' go. She will never stop hunting you if you stay."

They prepared through the day, loading the rafts with supplies, ensuring everything was secure. Baptiste fashioned crosses to mount on the rafts, hoping they would provide protection on the water. Cressey checked and rechecked the lashings, knowing their lives would depend on the rafts holding together in the glacial rapids.

As the sun lowered toward the horizon, they made ready to leave. The plan was to dash from the cabin to the rafts at the last possible moment, launch quickly, and trust the current to carry them beyond the huntress's reach before nightfall.

But there was one they had forgotten about—Johnson, the geologist who had joined them from another expedition, who had been silent and withdrawn since Stamwell's death, who had spent his days huddled in the corner of the cabin, staring at nothing.

As Cressey and Baptiste prepared to make their dash to the rafts, Johnson suddenly spoke. "She's so beautiful," he whispered. "I've been watching her all day. She's singing for me. Can't you hear it? She wants me to come to her."

"Johnson, no!" Cressey grabbed his arm, but the geologist pulled away with surprising strength.

"She promised me eternal youth, eternal joy. The Hunt goes on forever, she says. Never growing old, never dying, just running free under the moon with the white hounds. Why should I refuse such a gift?"

"It's a lie, Johnson! She's a devil, a thing of evil!"

But Johnson was beyond reason. He had spent too many nights listening to the huntress's call, and his mind was gone. He rushed to the shelf where Jo kept his ivory carvings and seized the perfect figure of the huntress that the old man had completed. "I'll bring her a gift," he said with a mad smile. "I'll bring her herself, and she'll love me for it."

Before anyone could stop him, Johnson burst from the cabin, clutching the ivory figure, and ran toward the river where the huntress sat singing. Baptiste lunged after him but was too late. Johnson crossed the barrier of crosses, and the huntress looked up.

Her smile was dazzling. She rose and moved toward him with her predatory grace, and the white hounds came slinking from the shadows, their hackles raised, their eyes burning red. The mammoth lifted its head from its feeding and turned toward this new prey.

Cressey watched in horror as Johnson reached the huntress and held out the ivory figure. She took it, examined it, and laughed—that chilling, beautiful laugh. Then she handed it back to him and opened her arms.

Johnson dropped the figure and rushed into her embrace. She caught him, her golden hair enveloping them both, and for a moment they stood in what looked like a lover's embrace. Then the huntress threw back her head and called to her hounds, and they came leaping and snarling, and the mammoth charged forward with ground-shaking fury.

What happened next was almost too horrible to watch. The white hounds surrounded Johnson and the huntress, their baying reaching a crescendo of bloodlust. The mammoth lowered its tusks to gore and trample. And in the midst of it all stood the huntress, holding Johnson in her arms, her mouth pressed to his throat, drinking.

The mammoth, in its frenzy, did not distinguish between the huntress and her prey. Its great foot came down on the ivory figure Johnson had dropped, and there was a loud crack as the carving shattered.

And in that instant, everything changed. The hounds froze in mid-leap, and from them rose a white mist, glowing in the twilight. The mammoth stopped, its massive body beginning to dissolve, becoming translucent, insubstantial. And the huntress released Johnson and staggered back, her body also becoming mist, her solid form wavering like smoke.

She screamed—a sound of rage and despair that echoed from the mountains. She tried to maintain her form, reaching toward the shattered ivory, but it was too late. The figure had been her anchor, the thing that tied her to the physical world, and with it destroyed, she could no longer hold herself together.

The watchers at the cabin saw her beautiful form dissolve into a glowing cloud that drifted upward on the evening breeze, saw the white hounds become wisps of mist that faded into the darkening air, saw the mammoth collapse into a mountain of flesh that immediately began to decay with impossible speed.

By the time they reached the riverbank, there was nothing left but bones—the ancient skeleton of a mammoth, the bones of great white wolves, and the crumpled body of Johnson, drained of blood, his face locked in an expression of terrible ecstasy.

They buried Johnson beside Stamwell, marking both graves with crosses. The bones of the mammoth and the hounds they left where they lay, already being covered by the drifting glacial silt. Of the ivory figure, only fragments remained, and these Jo collected carefully, placing them in a leather pouch.

"The head," he said, showing them. "The head, it not break. Still have power, but not enough to bring her back, I think. I keep it, to remember. To warn."

He carved a new figure from the head fragment, working through the night, and by morning he had fashioned a representation of the huntress's face, with her enigmatic smile and her predatory beauty perfectly captured. This he hung above his cabin door, and there it remains to this day, a warning to those who would disturb the ancient ice.

Cressey and Baptiste left the valley the next day, taking the rafts down the glacial river to civilization. Cressey never returned, though he sometimes dreamed of the huntress, of her wild beauty and her terrible joy. He wore the crude cross Baptiste had given him for the rest of his life, a reminder of how close he had come to joining the eternal Hunt.

And Baptiste, who had seen the devil-woman drink the blood of two men, who had seen the ancient evil rise from the ice and claim its victims, made Cressey promise never to return to that cursed valley.

"M'sieu," said Baptiste, "dat devil-woman have dreenk your blood wan time, an' eet some day she come back, she catch you again, because all womans ees jealous, an' ees of womans jealous eet open doors of 'er bad hells. You do what Baptiste say, you wear a li'l crucifix all time."

And though not a religious man, Cressey has never since been without that symbol.