their noses to the distant, wolf-topped pinnacles and joined
in the wailing answer. Then the wolves would sit very still, listening
with cocked ears to the cry of their captive kinsmen, till the dismal
howling died away into silence, when they would start the clamor into
life again by giving the wolf's challenge.

Why they did it, what they felt there in the strange unreality of the
moonlight, and what hushed their profound enmity, none can tell.
Ordinarily the wolf hates both fox and dog, and kills them whenever they
cross his path; but to-night the foxes were yapping an answer all around
them, and sometimes a few adventurous dogs would scale the mountains
silently to sit on the rocks and join in the wild wolf chorus, and not a
wolf stirred to molest them. All were more or less lunatic, and knew not
what they were doing.

For hours the uncanny comedy would drag itself on into the tense
midnight silence, the wailing cry growing more demented and heartrending
as the spell of ancient days fell again upon the degenerate huskies. Up
on the lonely mountain tops the moon looked down, still and cold, and
saw upon every pinnacle a dog or a wolf, each with his head turned up at
the sky, howling his heart out. Down in the hamlet, scattered for miles
along Deep Arm and the harbor shore, sleepers stirred uneasily at the
clamor, the women clutching their babies close, the men cursing the
crazy brutes and vowing all sorts of vengeance on the morrow. Then the
wolves would slip away like shadows into the vast upland barrens, and
the dogs, restless as witches with some unknown excitement, would run
back to whine and scratch at the doors of their masters' cabins.

Soon the big snowflakes were whirling in the air, busily weaving a soft
white winding-sheet for the autumn which was passing away. And truly it
had been a good time for the wolf cubs, as for most wild animals; and
they had grown large and strong with their fat feeding, and wise with
their many experiences. The ducks and geese vanished, driving southward
ahead of the fierce autumn gales, and only the late broods of hardy
eiders were left for a little season. Herring and caplin had long since
drifted away into unknown depths, where the tides flowed endlessly over
them and brought never a one ashore. Hares and ptarmigans turned white
to hide on the snow, so that wolf and fox would pass close by without
seeing them. Wood-mice pushed their winding tunnels and made their
vaulted pl