ome subtle
warning had snapped him automatically from one position to the other.
They were all snow-white, with long thick hair and a heavy mane that
added enormously to their imposing appearance; and they carried their
bushy tails almost straight out as they trotted along, with a slight
crook near the body,--the true wolf sign that still reappears in many
collies to tell a degenerate race of a noble ancestry.

After the first deep snows the family separated, led by their growing
hunger and by the difficulty of finding enough game in one cover to
supply all their needs. The mother and the smallest cub remained
together; the two larger cubs ranged on the other side of the mountain,
beating the bush and hunting into each other's mouth, as they had been
trained to do; while the big he-wolf hunted successfully by himself, as
he had done for years. Scattered as they were, they still kept track of
each other faithfully, and in a casual way looked after one another's
needs. Wherever he was, a wolf seemed to know by instinct where his
fellows were hunting many miles away. When in doubt he had only to mount
the highest hill and give the rallying cry, which carried an enormous
distance in the still cold air, to bring the pack swiftly and silently
about him.

At times, when the cubs were hungry after a two-days fast, they would
hear, faint and far away, the food cry, _yap-yap-yooo! yap-yap-yoooooo!_
quivering under the stars in the tense early-morning air, and would dart
away to find game freshly killed by one of the old wolves awaiting them.
Again, at nightfall, a cub's hunting cry, _ooooo, ow-ow! ooooo, ow-ow!_
a deep, almost musical hoot with two short barks at the end, would come
singing down from the uplands; and the wolves, leaving instantly the
game they were following, would hasten up to find the two cubs herding a
caribou in a cleft of the rocks,--a young caribou that had lost his
mother at the hands of the hunters, and that did not know how to take
care of himself. And one of the cubs would hold him there, sitting on
his tail in front of the caribou to prevent his escape, while the other
cub called the wolves away from their own hunting to come and join the
feast.

Whether this were a conscious attempt to spare the game, or to alarm it
as little as need be, it is impossible to say. Certainly the wolves
know, better apparently than men, that persistent hunting destroys its
own object, and that caribou especially, when