00-KOO-HOO PLAYS THE GAME 153 



snow where he had been cutting brush. From the snow the 

 Indians read the story of the long-drawn fight. Here it told 

 how the great wolf had leaped upon the back of the unsuspect- 

 ing man while he was carrying an armful of brush, and had 

 knocked him down. There it showed that the man had grap- 

 pled with the brute and rolled it over upon its back. Here the 

 signs showed that the wolf had broken free; there, that the two 

 had grappled again, and in their struggle had rolled over and 

 over. The snow was now strewn with wolf-hair, and dyed with 

 blood. While the dreadful encounter had raged, the battle- 

 ground had kept steadily shifting nearer the gun. Just a couple 

 of yards away from it lay the frozen body of poor old Pot- 

 fighter's-father. His deerskin clothing was slit to tatters; 

 his scalp was torn away; his fingers were chewed off, but his 

 bloody mouth was filled with hair and flesh of the wolf. 



After burying the body of old Pot-fighter's-father in a 

 mound of stones, the Indians determined to continue in pur- 

 suit of the wolf. Its tracks at last led them to a solitary lodge 

 that stood in the shelter of a thicket of spruce. There the 

 hunters were greeted by an Indian who was hving in the tepee 

 with his wife and baby. After having a cup of tea, a smoke, 

 and then a little chat, the hunters enquired about the tracks 

 of the great wolf that had brought them to the lodge. The 

 Indian told them that during the night before last, while he 

 and his wife were asleep with the baby between them, they had 

 been awakened by a great uproar among the dogs. They had 

 no sooner sat up than the dogs had rushed into the tepee fol- 

 lowed by an enormous wolf. Leaping up, the hunter had 

 seized his axe and attacked the beast, while his wife had grab- 

 bed the baby, wrapped it in a blanket, and rushing outside, 

 had rammed the child out of sight in a snowdrift, and returned 

 to help her husband to fight the brute. The wolf had already 

 killed one of the dogs, and the Indian in his excitement had 

 tripped upon the bedding, faUen, and lost his grip upon his 



