et, after
having confined themselves all the rest of the year to fish and
seal-flesh. The voyageurs said that there were many bulbous roots
growing in those low meadows of which the bears are very fond; and also
_larvae_ of certain insects, found in heaps, like anthills--which by
Bruin are esteemed a delicacy of the rarest kind.

For this reason our hunters were regarding the land on both sides of the
stream, occasionally standing up in the canoe to reconnoitre over the
tops of the willows, or peering through them where they grew thinly.
While passing opposite one of the breaks in the willow-grove, a
spectacle came before their eyes that caused them to order the canoe to
be stopped, and the voyageurs to rest on their oars.

Alexis, who had been upon the lookout, at first did not know what to
make of the spectacle: so odd was the grouping of the figures that
composed it. He could see a large number of animals of _quadrupedal_
form, but of different colours. Some were nearly white, others brown or
reddish-brown, and several were quite black. All appeared to have long
shaggy hair, cocked ears, and large bushy tails. They were not standing
at rest, but moving about--now running rapidly from point to point, now
leaping up in the air, while some were rushing round in circles! In all
there appeared to be thirty or forty of them; and they covered a space
of ground about as large as a drawing-room floor.

There was a slight haze or mist hanging over the meadow, which hindered
Alexis from having a clear view of these animals; and, through the
magnifying influence of this sort of atmosphere, they appeared as large
as young oxen. Their form, however, was very different from these; and
from their pointed ears, long muzzles, and full bunching tails, Alexis
could think of nothing else to compare them to but wolves. Their varied
colours signified nothing: since in these northern lands there are
wolves of many varieties from white to black; and wolves they really
were--only magnified by the mist into gigantic proportions.

Alexis had not viewed them long before perceiving that they were not
_all_ wolves. In their midst was an animal of a very different kind--
much larger than any of them; but what sort of a creature it was the
young hunter could not make out.

Ivan, who had risen to his feet, was equally puzzled to tell.

It appeared as large as half a dozen of the wolves rolled up into one,
and was whiter than the whites