“THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE” 13 
the trees. Winter followed, the game grew 
scarce. The great horned owls and the goshawks 
got most of the rabbits before Swiftfoot and his 
pack could round them up. The pack grew lean. 
They closed in around the trail over which the 
two-legged animals came, driving dog sleds. 
When the dogs smelled the wolf pack they barked 
and snarled and became ridiculously excited, and 
the men animals got out their black sticks. 
Swiftfoot remembered how old Whitefang, the 
leader of the pack, grew cautious, and tried to 
hold the other eight back, but they were lean with 
hunger, and the dog meat smelled good, and even 
the queer-smelling meat of the two-legged crea- 
tures. So the pack followed, one mile, two miles, 
three miles, just in the fringe of the evergreens 
by the trail, waiting to close in when the whipped 
and straining dogs should be too tired to fight, 
and the queer creatures too tired to make those 
strange noises. 
At last Whitefang could hold them no longer. 
With a snarl and a bark, they closed in out of the 
dark woods, into the starlight of the snowy trail. 
Instantly there were half a dozen flashes, half a 
