more easily than a caribou, never thought of 

 questioning the order. m 



It was certainly time to follow the caribou 2W**®^# 

 — that was probably the one definite pur- """"' 



pose that came upon the wolves, sitting in a 

 silent, questioning circle in the moonlight, 

 with only the deep snows and the empty 

 woods around them. For a week they had 

 not touched food; for thrice that time they 

 had not fed full, and a few days more would 

 leave them unable to cope with the big car- 

 ibou, which are always full fed and strong, 

 thanks to nature's abundance of deer moss 

 on the barrens. So they started as by a sin- 

 gle impulse, and the mother wolf led them 

 swiftly southward, hour after hour at a tire- 

 less pace, till the great he-wolf weakened 

 and turned aside to nurse his wounded fore 

 leg. The lop-eared cub drew out of the race 

 at the same time. His own wound now 

 required the soft massage of his tongue to 

 allay the fever ; and besides, the fear that 

 was born in him, one night long ago, and 

 that had slept ever since, was now awake 

 again, and for the first time he was afraid to s -^^% 



