not a tree
limb cracked. The creature that had pushed through the thickets to the
edge of the glade was evidently standing motionless, deciding on his
course.

Only the wild things seem to know what complete absence of motion means.
To stand like a form in rock, not a muscle quivering or a hair stirring,
is never a feat for ragged, over stretched human nerves; and it requires
a perfect muscle control that is generally only known to the beasts of
the forest. Only a few times in a lifetime in human beings are the
little, outward motions actually suspended; perhaps under the paralysis
of great terror or, with painstaking effort, before a photographer's
camera. But with the beasts it is an everyday accomplishment necessary
to their survival. The fawn that can not stand absolutely motionless,
his dappled skin blending perfectly with the background of shrubbery
shot with sunlight, comes to an end quickly in the fangs of some great
beast of prey. The panther that can not lurk, not a muscle quivering, in
his ambush beside the deer trail, never knows full feeding. The creature
on the opposite side of the glade seemed as bereft of motion as the
spruce trees in the moonlight, or the cliff above the cave.

"What is it?" Beatrice whispered. The man's eyes strained into the
gloom.

"I don't know. It may be just a moose, or maybe a caribou. But it may
be--"

He tiptoed to the door of the cave, and his eye fell to the crouching
form of Fenris. The creature outside was neither moose nor caribou. The
great wolf of the North does not stand at bay to the antlered people. He
was poised to spring, his fangs bared and his fierce eyes hot with fire,
but he was not hunting. Whatever moved in the darkness without, the wolf
had no desire to go forth and attack. Perhaps he would fight to the
death to protect the occupants of the cave; but surely an ancient and
devastating fear had hold of him. Evidently he recognized the intruder
as an ancestral enemy that held sovereignty over the forest.

At that instant Ben leaped through the cavern maw to reach his gun.
There was nothing to be gained by waiting further. This was a savage and
an uninhabited land; and the great beasts of prey that ranged the forest
had not yet learned the restraint born of the fear of man. And he knew
one breathless instant of panic when his eye failed to locate the weapon
in the faint light of the fire.

Holding hard, he tried to remember where he had left it. The form