336 BIG GAME FIELDS 



"Mebbe he snow to-night," said Mac dryly, as 

 he took another helping of rice: then added, "I 

 no like weather, he look bad ; if snow not too beeg 

 to-morrow we hunt beeg bull you see at sunset. 



He no trabbel to-night. Unless Mac 



stopped short in the middle of his sentence. 

 There was a long pause the fire flickered and 

 seemed to shrink into the very earth ; the air was 

 tense and still. Something moved between us and 

 the moon something shot past like a drifting 

 cloud shadow, or a puff of smoke. Or did I just 

 imagine it? Mac was as still as a stone. His 

 eyes kindled; surely he had seen it too. Two 

 more, and then five vague forms swept by in the 

 strange unreal light, with that unmistakable glid- 

 ing, slouching trot of the wolf. I had counted 

 eight, almost as many wolves as I had seen alto- 

 gether in twenty years of roaming in remote 

 wilderness lands. 



How many more there were I never knew. 

 Soon what apparently was the leader showed 

 again against the half light of the moon on the 

 top of an up-thrust fang of rock in dim out- 

 line. Then with his sensitive muzzle raised to- 

 ward the sky, sounded the hunt cry to his fellow 

 kinsmen. They seemed to answer from the top 

 of every jutting rock. The long chorus deepened 



