d into
a great silent wood, sheltered on every side by the encircling hills.
Here the tilts were built with double walls, filled in between with
leaves and moss, to help the little stoves that struggled bravely with
the terrible cold; and the roofs were covered over with poles and bark,
or with the brown sails that had once driven the fishing-boats out and
in on the wings of the gale. The high mountains on the west stood
between them and the icy winds that swept down over the sea from the
Labrador and the Arctic wastes; wood in abundance was at their doors,
and the trout-stream that sang all day long under its bridges of snow
and ice was always ready to brim their kettles out of its abundance.

So the new life began pleasantly enough; but as the winter wore away and
provisions grew scarce and game vanished from the coverts, they all felt
the fearful pinch of famine. Every morning now a confused circle of
tracks in the snow showed where the wild prowlers of the woods had come
and sniffed at the very doors of the tilts in their ravening hunger.

Noel's father and Old Tomah were far away, trapping, in the interior;
and to Noel with his snares and his bow and arrows fell the pleasant
task of supplying the family's need when the stock of dried fish melted
away. On this March morning he had started with Mooka at daylight to
cross the mountains to some great barrens where he had found tracks and
knew that a few herds of caribou were still feeding. The sun was dimmed
as it rose, and the sun-dogs gave mute warning of the coming storm; but
the cupboard was empty at home, and even a little hunter thinks first of
the game he is following and lets the storm take care of itself. So they
hurried on unheeding,--Noel with his bow and arrows, Mooka with a little
bag containing a loaf and a few dried caplin,--peering under every brush
pile for the shining eyes of a rabbit, and picking up one big grouse and
a few ptarmigan among the bowlders of a great bare hillside. On the
edges of the great barren under the Top Gallants they found the fresh
tracks of feeding caribou, and were following eagerly when they ran
plump into the wolf trail.

Now by every law of the chase the game belonged to these earlier
hunters; and by every power in their gaunt, famished bodies the wolves
meant to have it. So said the trail. Every stealthy advance in single
file across, the open, every swift rush over the hollows that might hide
them from eyes watching bac