12 
Northern Trails. Book I 
Next a hind leg stretched out straight and tense as a 
bar, and was taken back again in nervous little jerks. 
At the same time she yawned mightily, wrinkling her 
nose and showing her red gums with the black fringes 
and the long white fangs that could reach a deer’s heart 
in a single snap. Then she leaped upon a great rock 
and sat up straight, with her bushy tail curled close 
about her fore paws, a savage, powerful, noble-looking 
beast, peering down gravely over the green mountains 
to the shining sea. 
A moment before the hillside had appeared utterly 
lifeless, so still and rugged and desolate that one must 
notice and welcome the stir of a mouse or ground 
squirrel in the moss, speaking of life that is glad and 
free and vigorous even in the deepest solitudes; yet 
now, so quietly did the old wolf appear, so perfectly did 
her rough gray coat blend with the rough gray rocks, 
that the hillside seemed just as tenantless as before. A 
stray wind seemed to move the mosses, that was all. 
Only where the mountains once slept now they seemed 
wide-awake. Keen eyes saw every moving thing, from 
the bees in the bluebells to the'slow fishing-boats far 
out at sea; sharp ears that were cocked like a collie’s 
heard every chirp and trill and rustle, and a nose that 
understood everything was holding up every vagrant 
breeze and searching it for its message. For the cubs 
were coming out for the first time to play in the big 
