that's good for a
fellow who wants to live and grow."

Henry laughed with genuine enjoyment. Paul was getting back his sense of
humor, and the change meant that his comrade was once more strong and
alert. Then the larger boy looked down at their besiegers, who were
sitting in a solemn circle, gazing now at the two lads and now at the
venison, hanging from the boughs of another tree very near. In the dusk
and the shadows they were a terrible company, gaunt and ghostly, gray
and grim.

For a long time the wolves neither moved nor uttered a sound; they
merely sat on their haunches and stared upward at the living prey that
they felt would surely be theirs. The clouds, caught by wandering
breezes, were stripped from the face of the sky, and the moonlight came
out again, clear, and full, sheathing the scorched trunks once more in
silver armor, and stretching great blankets of light on the burned and
ashy earth. It fell too on the gaunt figures of the gray wolves, but the
silent and deadly circle did not stir. In the moonlight they grew more
terrible, the red eyes became more inflamed and angry, because they had
to wait so long for what they considered theirs by right, the snarling
lips were drawn back a little farther, and the sharp white teeth gleamed
more cruelly.

Time passed again, dragging slowly and heavily for the besieged boys in
the tree, but the wolves, though hungry, were patient. Strong in union
they were lords of the forest, and they felt no fear. A shambling black
bear, lumbering through the woods, suddenly threw up his nose in the
wind, and catching the strong pungent odor, wheeled abruptly, lumbering
off on another course. The wild cat did not come back, but crouched
lower in his tree top; the timid things remained hidden deep in their
nests and burrows.

It was a new kind of game that the wolves had scented and driven to the
boughs, something that they had never seen before, but the odor was very
sweet and pleasant in their nostrils. It was a tidbit that they must
have, and, red-eyed, they stared at the two strange, toothsome
creatures, who stirred now and then in the tree, and who made queer
sounds to each other. When they heard these occasional noises the pack
would reply with a long ferocious whine that seemed to double on itself
and give back echoes from every point of the compass. In the still night
it went far, and the timid things, when they heard it, trembled all over
in their nests and burrows.