that its location was hardly discernible. In like manner the chain,
which was attached to the root of a scrubby spruce tree, was also
concealed. From a carefully wrapped package on his flatsled Skipper Zeb
produced some ill-smelling meat, and this he scattered upon the snow
over and around the trap.

"They likes meat that smells bad," he explained, "and I'm thinkin' that
smells bad enough for un."

Evening was falling when suddenly through the forest there glinted the
waters of a lake, and here on its shores Skipper Zeb told them they were
to camp for the night. A home-made cotton tent, small but amply large
enough for the three, was quickly pitched and a tent stove set up. Then
while Toby and Charley gathered boughs and laid the bed, Skipper Zeb cut
a supply of wood for the night, and before the boys had finished the bed
he was frying in the pan a delicious supper of partridges, which he and
Toby had shot during the afternoon.

Charley was sure he had never been so tired in his life. It had been a
long day of steady walking, save for the brief stops when Skipper Zeb
halted to set a trap, and the snow and turns at hauling the flatsled had
made it the harder. He lay back upon his sleeping bag chatting with Toby
and watching Skipper Zeb prepare supper. How cozy and luxurious the tent
was! The pleasant fragrance of spruce and balsam would have put him to
sleep at once, had it not been for the pleasanter fragrance of the
frying partridges and a hunger that increased with every minute.

When the meal was eaten Charley's eyes were so heavy that it was little
short of torture to keep them open, and he slipped into his sleeping
bag, and in an instant had fallen into dreamless, restful sleep.

How long he had been sleeping he did not know, when suddenly he found
himself awake and alert. Something had aroused him, and he sat up and
listened. For a time he heard nothing, save the heavy breathing of
Skipper Zeb and Toby, and he was about to lie down again when there came
the sound of footsteps in the slightly crusted snow outside. Some animal
was prowling cautiously about the tent sniffing at its side. The moon
was shining, and suddenly he saw the shadowy outline, against the
canvas, of a great beast that he knew to be a timber wolf.

He was about to reach over to Skipper Zeb to wake him, when all at once
the stillness was broken by a terrifying, heartrending howl, rising and
falling in mournful cadence, and echoing through th