ed where Gray Wolf had fallen, and
examined the snow. Then he came on.

Kazan urged Gray Wolf to her feet, and they made for the thick swamp
close to the lake. All that day they kept in the face of the wind, and
when Gray Wolf lay down Kazan stole back over their trail, watching and
sniffing the air.

For days after that Gray Wolf ran lame, and when once they came upon the
remains of an old camp, Kazan's teeth were bared in snarling hatred of
the man-scent that had been left behind. Growing in him there was a
desire for vengeance--vengeance for his own hurts, and for Gray Wolf's.
He tried to nose out the man-trail under the cover of fresh snow, and
Gray Wolf circled around him anxiously, and tried to lure him deeper
into the forest. At last he followed her sullenly. There was a savage
redness in his eyes.

Three days later the new moon came. And on the fifth night Kazan struck
a trail. It was fresh--so fresh that he stopped as suddenly as though
struck by a bullet when he ran upon it, and stood with every muscle in
his body quivering, and his hair on end. It was a man-trail. There were
the marks of the sledge, the dogs' feet, and the snow-shoeprints of his
enemy.

Then he threw up his head to the stars, and from his throat there rolled
out over the wide plains the hunt-cry--the wild and savage call for the
pack. Never had he put the savagery in it that was there to-night. Again
and again he sent forth that call, and then there came an answer and
another and still another, until Gray Wolf herself sat back on her
haunches and added her voice to Kazan's, and far out on the plain a
white and haggard-faced man halted his exhausted dogs to listen, while a
voice said faintly from the sledge:

"The wolves, father. Are they coming--after us?"

The man was silent. He was not young. The moon shone in his long white
beard, and added grotesquely to the height of his tall gaunt figure. A
girl had raised her head from a bearskin pillow on the sleigh. Her dark
eyes were filled beautifully with the starlight. She was pale. Her hair
fell in a thick shining braid over her shoulder, and she was hugging
something tightly to her breast.

"They're on the trail of something--probably a deer," said the man,
looking at the breech of his rifle. "Don't worry, Jo. We'll stop at the
next bit of scrub and see if we can't find enough dry stuff for a
fire.--Wee-ah-h-h-h, boys! Koosh--koosh--" and he snapped his whip over
the backs of his team.