hunters.

On the way he smelt out and dug up a grouse beneath the snow.

Dawn found him, or, rather, failed to find him, hidden under a tangled
mass that was part windfall, part brush-wood, and part snow. The place
had belonged to a fox the night before, and that red worthy returned
soon after dawn. He thrust an inquiring sharp muzzle inside, took one
sniff, and, with every hair alift, retired in haste, without waiting to
hear the villainous growl that followed him. The smell was enough for
him--a most calamitous stink.

It snowed all that day, and things grew quieter and quieter, except in
the tree-tops, where the wind spoke viciously between its teeth. When
Gulo came out that evening, he had to dig part of the way, and he
viewed a still and silent, white world, under a sky like the lid of a
lead box, very low down. He stood higher against the tree-trunks than
he had done the night before, and, though he did not know it, was safe
from any horse, for the snow was quite deep. The cold was awful, but
it did not seem to trouble him, as he slouched slowly southward.

There appeared to be nothing alive at all throughout this white land,
but you must never trust to that in the wild. Things there are very
rarely what they seem. For instance, Gulo came into a clearing, dim
under the night sky, though it would never be dark that night. To the
ear and the eye that clearing was as empty as a swept room. To Gulo's
nose it was not, and he was just about to crouch and execute a stalk,
when half the snow seemed to get up and run away. The runners were
wood-hares. They had "frozen" stiff on the alarm from their sentries.
But it was not Gulo who had caused them to depart. Him, behind a tree,
they had not spotted. Something remained--something that moved. And
Gulo saw it when it moved--not before. It was an ermine, a stoat in
winter dress, white as driven snow. Then it caught sight of Gulo, or,
more likely, the gleam of his eyes, and departed also.

Gulo slouched on, head down, back humped, tail low, a most
dejected-looking, out-at-heels tramp of the wilderness.

Once he came upon a wild cat laying scientific siege to a party of
grouse. The grouse were nowhere to be seen; nor was the wild cat,
after Gulo announced his intention to break his neutrality. Gulo knew
where the grouse were. He dug down into the snow, and came upon a
tunnel. He dug farther, and came upon other tunnels, round and clean,
in the snow.