ow upon the coming caribou, had
one ear bent sharply forward, like a leaf that has been creased between
the fingers.

Again Mooka broke the tense silence in a low whisper. "How many wolf
trails you see yesterday, little brother?"

"Seven," said Noel, whose eyes already had the cunning of Old Tomah's to
understand everything.

"Then where tother wolf? Only six here," breathed Mooka, looking timidly
all around, fearing to find the steady glare of green eyes fixed upon
them from the shadow of every thicket.

Noel stirred uneasily. Somewhere close at hand another huge wolf was
waiting; and a wholesome fear fell upon him, with a shiver at the
thought of how near he had come in his excitement to bringing the whole
savage pack snarling about his ears.

A snort of alarm cut short his thinking. There at the edge of the wood,
not twenty feet away, stood a caribou, pointing his ears at the children
whom he had almost stumbled over as he ran, thinking only of the wolves
behind. The long bow sprang back of itself; an arrow buzzed like a wasp
and buried itself deep in the white chest. Like a flash a second arrow
followed as the stag turned away, and with a jump or two he sank to his
knees, as if to rest awhile in the snow.

But Mooka scarcely saw these things. Her eyes were fastened on the great
white wolf which she had claimed for her own when he was a toddling cub.
He lay still as a stone under the tip of a bending spruce branch, his
eyes following every motion of a young bull caribou which three of the
wolves had singled out of the herd and were now guiding surely straight
to his hiding-place.

The snort and plunge of the smitten animal startled this young stag and
he turned aside from his course. Like a shadow the big wolf that Mooka
was watching changed his place so as to head the game, while two of the
pack on the open barrens slipped around the caribou and turned him back
again to the woods. At the edge of the cover the stag stopped for a last
look, pointing his ears first at Noel's caribou, which now lay very
still in the snow, then at the wolves, which with quick instinct had
singled him out of the herd, knowing in some subtle way he was watched
from beyond, and which gathered about him in a circle, sitting on their
tails and yawning. Slowly, silently Mooka's wolf crept forward, pushing
his great body through the snow. A terrific rush, a quick snap under the
stag's chest just behind the fore legs, where the heart lay