scattering of tawny shapes. Singly, and in groups of
two or three, crowding each other in their mad haste, they fled into the
open and ranging themselves in a semicircle, waited expectantly.
Presently another wolf emerged from the thicket, dragging himself on his
belly, ploughing the snow. As Connie watched curiously he noticed that
the wide, flat trail left by the slowly crawling wolf showed broad, dark
streaks and blotches. The waiting wolves knew the meaning of that
darkened trail and the next moment they were upon him. Connie shifted
his position for a better view of this midnight tragedy of the wild,
when his foot caught under a root concealed by the snow and he pitched
heavily forward. To save himself he grasped the dead branch of a stunted
tree. The branch snapped with a report that rang through the silence of
the night like an explosion and the boy pitched headforemost into the
snow. The great grey leader shot from the scrub, and with the pack at
his heels disappeared in the thicker timber at the base of the ridge.

CHAPTER II

'MERICAN JOE

When Connie regained his feet Spur Mountain was silent as the tomb, and
for several moments he stood motionless gazing at the tawny shape that
lay still at the end of the stained trail, and at the patch of scrub
from which the shape had emerged. What was in that dark patch of brush?
Why had the wolves burst from it in terror? Why had the great leader
stayed until the snapping of the limb had frightened him away? And what
had happened to the wolf that lay dead in the snow? Slowly the boy
returned to his hiding place, picked up his rifle, and descended the
slope toward the patch of scrub. He stooped to examine the body of the
wolf. As he rolled it over his thoughts leaped to the great grey leader.
"Maybe his heart's all wolf," he muttered thoughtfully, as he stared at
the long slash that extended from the bottom of the flank upward almost
to the backbone--a slash as clean as if executed with a sharp knife,
and through which the animal's entrails had protruded and his life blood
had gushed to discolour the snow. "What did he do it for?" wondered
Connie as he turned from the carcass and proceeded cautiously into the
scrub.

Ten yards in he stumbled over a snow-covered object. It was a sledge of
curious design. "That's no Alaska sled," he muttered, as he stared about
him, his eyes seeking to pierce the darker gloom of the scrub. A few
feet from him was a curious whit