34 
Northern Trails. Book I 
Day after day they returned to their watch-tower on 
the flat rock, under the dwarf spruce at the head of the 
brook, and lying there side by side they watched the 
play of the young wolf cubs. Every day they grew 
more interested as the spirit of play entered into them¬ 
selves, understanding the gladness of the wild rough- 
and-tumble when one of the cubs lay in wait for another 
and leaped upon him from ambush; understanding also 
something of the feeling of the gaunt old she-wolf as she 
looked down gravely from her gray rock watching her 
growing youngsters. Once they brought an old spy¬ 
glass which they had borrowed from a fisherman, and 
through its sea-dimmed lenses they made out that one of 
the cubs was larger than the other two, with a droop at 
the tip of his right ear, like a pointed leaf that has been 
creased sharply between the fingers. Mooka claimed 
that wolf instantly for her own, as if they were watch¬ 
ing the husky puppies, and by his broken ear said she 
should know him again when he grew to be a big wolf, 
if he should ever follow her, as his father perhaps had 
followed Old Tomah; but Noel, thinking of his bow and 
his long arrow with the sharp point, thought of the 
winter night long ago and hoped that his two wolves 
would know enough to keep away when the pack came 
again, for he did not see any way to recognize and spare 
them, especially in the moonlight. So they lay there 
making plans and dreaming dreams, gentle or savage, 
