ment thus, and
instinctively their glance turned toward the lake. The wolf-pack was in
plain view. It was the biggest pack that Wabi, in all his life in the
wilderness, had ever seen, and he mentally figured that there were at
least half a hundred animals in it. Like ravenous dogs after having a
few scraps of meat flung among them, the wolves were running about,
nosing here and there, as if hoping to find a morsel that might have
escaped discovery. Then one of them stopped on the trail and, throwing
himself half on his haunches, with his head turned to the sky like a
baying hound, started the hunt-cry.

"There's two packs. I thought it was too big for one," exclaimed the
Indian. "See! Part of them are taking up the trail and the others are
lagging behind gnawing the bones of the dead wolf. Now if we only had
our ammunition and the other gun those murderers got away from us, we'd
make a fortune. What--"

Wabi stopped with a suddenness that spoke volumes, and the supporting
arm that he had thrown around Rod's waist tightened until it caused the
wounded youth to flinch. Both boys stared in rigid silence. The wolves
were crowding around a spot in the snow half-way between the tamarack
refuge and the scene of the recent feast. The starved animals betrayed
unusual excitement. They had struck the pool of blood and red trail made
by the dying moose!

"What is it, Wabi?" whispered Rod.

The Indian did not answer. His black eyes gleamed with a new fire, his
lips were parted in anxious anticipation, and he seemed hardly to
breathe in his tense interest. The wounded boy repeated his question,
and as if in reply the pack swerved to the west and in a black silent
mass swept in a direction that would bring them into the tamaracks a
hundred yards from the young hunters.

"A new trail!" breathed Wabi. "A new trail, and a hot one! Listen! They
make no sound. It is always that way when they are close to a kill!"

As they looked the last of the wolves disappeared in the forest. For a
few moments there was silence, then a chorus of howls came from deep in
the woods behind them.

"Now is our chance," cried the Indian. "They've broken again, and their
game--"

He had partly slipped from his limb, withdrawing his supporting arm from
Rod's waist, and was about to descend to the ground when the pack again
turned in their direction. A heavy crashing in the underbrush not a
dozen rods away sent Wabi in a hurried scramble for his perch.