h they did not at all understand till the
reek of caribou poured into their hungry nostrils; whereupon they yelped
louder than ever. But they did not begin to understand the matter till
they caught glimpses of gray backs bounding hither and yon in the
underbrush, while the two great wolves raced easily on either side,
yapping sharply to increase the excitement, and guiding the startled,
foolish deer as surely, as intelligently, as a pair of collies herd a
flock of frightened sheep.

When the cubs broke out of the dense cover at last they found the two
old wolves sitting quietly on their tails before a rugged wall of rocks
that stretched away on either hand at the base of a great bare hill. In
front of them was a young cow caribou, threatening savagely with horns
and hoofs, while behind her cowered two half-grown fawns crowded into a
crevice of the rocks. Anger, rather than fear, blazed out in the
mother's mild eyes. Now she turned swiftly to press her excited young
ones back against the sheltering wall; now she whirled with a savage
grunt and charged headlong at the wolves, which merely leaped aside and
sat down silently again to watch the game, till the cubs raced out and
hovered uneasily about with a thousand questions in every eye and ear
and twitching nostril.

The reason for the hunt was now plain enough. Up to this time the
caribou had been let severely alone, though they were very numerous,
scattered through the dense coverts in every valley and on every
hillside. For Wayeeses is no wanton killer, as he is so often
represented to be, but sticks to small game whenever he can find it, and
leaves the deer unmolested. As for his motive in the matter, who shall
say, since no one understands the half of what a wolf does every day?
Perhaps it is a mere matter of taste, a preference for the smaller and
more juicy tidbits; more likely it is a combination of instinct and
judgment, with a possible outlook for the future unusual with beasts of
prey. The moment the young wolves take to harrying the deer--as they
invariably do if the mother wolf be not with them--the caribou leave the
country. The herds become, moreover, so wild and suspicious after a very
little wolf hunting that they are exceedingly difficult of approach; and
there is no living thing on earth, not even a white wolf or a trained
greyhound, that can tire or overtake a startled caribou. The swinging
rack of these big white wanderers looks easy enough when you