150 THE DRAMA OF THE FORESTS 



investigate, first hand, the very same yarn; for he, too, had 

 been traihng wolf stories all his hfe. 



It so happened that Le Heup's work had taken him through 

 the timber country north of Lake Temiscamingue. While 

 stopping one day at a lumber camp to have a snack, three men 

 entered the cookery where he was eating. One of them was 

 the foreman, and he was in a perfect rage. He had discharged 

 the other two men, and now he was warning them that if they 



didn't get something to eat pretty quick and leave the 



camp in a — — of a hurry, he would kick them out. Then, just 

 before he slammed the door and disappeared, he roared out at 



them that not for one moment would he stand for such 



rot, as their being chased and treed all night by wolves. 



When quiet was restored and the two men had sat down 

 beside Le Heup at the dining table, he had questioned them 

 and they had told him a graphic story of how they had been 

 chased by a great pack of wolves and how they had managed 

 to escape with their hves by climbing a tree only just in the 

 nick of time; and, moreover, how the ferocious brutes had kept 

 them there all night long, and how, consequently, they had 

 been nearly frozen to death. 



It was a thrilling story and so full of detail that even "old- 

 timer" Le Heup grew quite interested and congratulated him- 

 self on having at last actually heard, first hand, a true story of 

 how Canadian timber-wolves, though improvoked, had pur- 

 sued, attacked, and treed two men. Indeed, he was so im- 

 pressed that he decided to back-track the heroes' trail and 

 coimt for himself just how many wolves the pack had numbered. 

 So he got the would-be lumber-jacks — for they were greenliorns 

 from the city — to point out for him their incoming trail, which 

 he at once set out to back-track. After a tramp of three or 

 four miles he came to the very tree which from all signs they 

 had climbed and in which they had spent the night. Then 

 desiring to count the wolf tracks in the snow, he looked around, 



