succeeded, and snapped up a
rabbit before the surprised creature had time to gather headway, he
dropped behind with his catch, while the rest went slowly, carefully, on
through the cover. If he failed, as was generally the case at first, a
curious bit of wolf intelligence and wolf training came out at once.

As the wolves advanced the father and mother would steal gradually ahead
at either end of the line, rarely hunting themselves, but drawing the
nearest cub's attention to any game they had discovered, and then moving
silently to one side and a little ahead to watch the result. When the
cub rushed and missed, and the startled rabbit went flying away,
whirling to left or right as rabbits always do, there would be a
lightning change at the end of the line. A terrific rush, a snap of the
long jaws like a steel trap,--then the old wolf would toss back the
rabbit with a broken back, for the cub to finish him. Not till the cubs
first, and then the mother, had satisfied their hunger would the old
he-wolf hunt for himself. Then he would disappear, and they would not
see him for days at a time, until food was scarce and they needed him
once more.

One day, when the cubs were hungry and food scarce because of their
persistent hunting near the den, the mother brought them to the edge of
a dense thicket where rabbits were plentiful enough, but where the cover
was so thick that they could not follow the frightened game for an
instant. The old he-wolf had appeared at a distance and then vanished;
and the cubs, trotting along behind the mother, knew nothing of what was
coming or what was expected of them. They lay in hiding on the lee side
of the thicket, each one crouching under a bush or root, with the mother
off at one side perfectly hidden as usual.

Presently a rabbit appeared, hopping along in a crazy way, and ran plump
into the jaws of a wolf cub, which leaped up as if out of the ground,
and pulled down his game from the very top of the high jump which
Moktaques always gives when he is suddenly startled. Another and another
rabbit appeared mysteriously, and doubled back into the cover before
they could be caught. The cubs were filled with wonder. Such hunting was
never seen before; for rabbits stirred abroad by day, and ran right into
the hungry mouths instead of running away. Then, slinking along like a
shadow and stopping to look back and sniff the wind, appeared a big red
fox that had been sleeping away the afternoon on