the
forest Kazan first saw the caribou run out on the lake a third of a mile
away. The pack was about a dozen strong, and had already split into the
fatal horseshoe formation, the two leaders running almost abreast of the
kill, and slowly closing in.

With a sharp yelp Kazan darted out into the moonlight. He was directly
in the path of the fleeing doe, and bore down upon her with lightning
speed. Two hundred yards away the doe saw him, and swerved to the right,
and the leader on that side met her with open jaws. Kazan was in with
the second leader, and leaped at the doe's soft throat. In a snarling
mass the pack closed in from behind, and the doe went down, with Kazan
half under her body, his fangs sunk deep in her jugular. She lay heavily
on him, but he did not lose his hold. It was his first big kill. His
blood ran like fire. He snarled between his clamped teeth.

Not until the last quiver had left the body over him did he pull himself
out from under her chest and forelegs. He had killed a rabbit that day
and was not hungry. So he sat back in the snow and waited, while the
ravenous pack tore at the dead doe. After a little he came nearer, nosed
in between two of them, and was nipped for his intrusion.

As Kazan drew back, still hesitating to mix with his wild brothers, a
big gray form leaped out of the pack and drove straight for his throat.
He had just time to throw his shoulder to the attack, and for a moment
the two rolled over and over in the snow. They were up before the
excitement of sudden battle had drawn the pack from the feast. Slowly
they circled about each other, their white fangs bare, their yellowish
backs bristling like brushes. The fatal ring of wolves drew about the
fighters.

It was not new to Kazan. A dozen times he had sat in rings like this,
waiting for the final moment. More than once he had fought for his life
within the circle. It was the sledge-dog way of fighting. Unless man
interrupted with a club or a whip it always ended in death. Only one
fighter could come out alive. Sometimes both died. And there was no man
here--only that fatal cordon of waiting white-fanged demons, ready to
leap upon and tear to pieces the first of the fighters who was thrown
upon his side or back. Kazan was a stranger, but he did not fear those
that hemmed him in. The one great law of the pack would compel them to
be fair.

He kept his eyes only on the big gray leader who had challenged him.
Shoulder to should