rm; while the stupid cat sits in one spot
slowly perishing, and never thinks of running up and down the tree to
keep himself alive. The feet grow benumbed at last, powerless to hold on
any longer, and the lynx tumbles off into the wolves' jaws; or else,
knowing the danger, he leaps for the nearest wolf and dies fighting.

Spite of the killing cold, the problem of keeping warm was to the wolves
always a simple one. Moving along through the winter night, always on a
swift, silent trot, they picked up what game came in their way, and
scarcely felt the eager cold that nipped at their ears, or the wind,
keen as an icicle, that strove to penetrate the shaggy white coats that
covered them. When their hunger was satisfied, or when the late day came
and found them still hunting hopefully, they would push their way into
the thick scrub from one of the numerous paths and lie down on a nest of
leaves, which even in midwinter were dry as if no snow or rain had ever
fallen. There, where no wind or gale however strong could penetrate, and
with the snow filling the low branches overhead and piled over them in a
soft, warm blanket three feet thick, they would push their sensitive
noses into their own thick fur to keep them warm, and sleep comfortably
till the early twilight came and called them out again to the hunting.

At times, when not near the scrub, they would burrow deep into a great
drift of snow and sleep in the warmest kind of a nest,--a trick that the
husky dogs, which are but wolves of yesterday, still remember. Like all
wild animals, they felt the coming of a storm long before the first
white flakes began to whirl in the air; and when a great storm
threatened they would lie down to sleep in a cave, or a cranny of the
rocks, and let the drifts pile soft and warm over them. However long the
storm, they never stirred abroad; partly for their own comfort, partly
because all game lies hid at such times and it is practically
impossible, even for a wolf, to find it. When a wolf has fed full he can
go a week without eating and suffer no great discomfort. So Wayeeses
would lie close and warm while the snow piled deep around him and the
gale raged over the sea and mountains, but passed unfelt and unheeded
over his head. Then, when the storm was over, he pawed his way up
through the drift and came out in a new, bright world, where the game,
with appetites sharpened by the long fast, was already stirring briskly
in every covert.

Whe