"Quick--higher up!" he warned excitedly. "They're coming out here--right
under us! If we can get up so that they can't see us, or smell us--"

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when a huge shadowy bulk rushed
past them not more than fifty feet from the spruce in which they had
sought refuge. Both of the boys recognized it as a bull moose, though it
did not occur to either of them that it was the same animal at which
Wabi had taken a long shot that same day a couple of miles back. In
close pursuit came the ravenous pack. Their heads hung close to the
bloody trail, hungry, snarling cries coming from between their gaping
jaws, they swept across the little opening almost at the young hunters'
feet. It was a sight which Rod had never expected to see, and one which
held even the more experienced Wabi fascinated. Not a sound fell from
either of the youths' lips as they stared down upon the fierce, hungry
outlaws of the wilderness. To Wabi this near view of the pack told a
fateful story; to Rod it meant nothing more than the tragedy about to be
enacted before his eyes. The Indian's keen vision saw in the white
moonlight long, thin bodies, starved almost to skin and bone; to his
companion the onrushing pack seemed filled only with agile, powerful
beasts, maddened to almost fiendish exertions by the nearness of their
prey.

In a flash they were gone, but in that moment of their passing there was
painted a picture to endure a lifetime in the memory of Roderick Drew.
And it was to be followed by one even more tragic, even more thrilling.
To the dazed, half-fainting young hunter it seemed but another instant
before the pack overhauled the old bull. He saw the doomed monster turn,
in the stillness heard the snapping of jaws, the snarling of
hunger-crazed animals, and a sound that might have been a great, heaving
moan or a dying bellow. In Wabi's veins the blood danced with the
excitement that stirred his forefathers to battle. Not a line of the
tragedy that was being enacted before his eyes escaped this native son
of the wilderness. It was a magnificent fight! He knew that the old bull
would die by inches in the one-sided duel, and that when it was over
there would be more than one carcass for the survivors to gorge
themselves upon. Quietly he reached up and touched his companion.

"Now is our time," he said. "Come on--still--and on this side of the
tree!"

He slipped down, foot by foot, assisting Rod as he did so, and wh