i5 
Where the Trail Begins 
were the billowing hills and so impassable the ravines 
that no human foot ever trod the place, not even in 
autumn when the fishermen left their boats at anchor in 
Harbor Weal and camped inland on the paths of the 
big caribou herds. 
Whether or not the father wolf ever knew where his 
cubs were hidden only he himself could tell. He was an 
enormous brute, powerful and cunning beyond measure, 
that haunted the lonely thickets and ponds bordering 
the great caribou barrens over the ridge, and that kept 
a silent watch, within howling distance, over the den 
which he never saw. Sometimes the mother wolf met 
him on her wanderings and they hunted together. Often 
he brought the game he had caught, a fox or a young 
goose; and sometimes when she had hunted in vain 
he met her, as if he had understood her need from a 
distance, and led her to where he had buried two or 
three of the rabbits that swarmed in the thickets. But 
spite of the attention and the indifferent watch which he 
kept, he never ventured near the den, which he could 
have found easily enough by following the mother’s 
track. The old she-wolf would have flown at his throat 
like a fury had he showed his head over the top of 
the ridge. 
The reason for this was simple enough to the savage 
old mother, though there are some things about it that 
men do not yet understand. Wolves, like cats and foxes, 
