54 
Northern Trails . Book I 
were hidden deep under the winter snows, safe at 
last for a little season from all their enemies. Here 
for the first time the father wolf appeared, coming in 
quietly one late afternoon, as if he knew, as he prob¬ 
ably did, just when he was needed. Beyond a glance he 
paid no attention whatever to the cubs, only taking his 
place opposite the mother as -the wolves started abreast 
in a long line to beat the thicket. 
By night the cubs had already caught several rabbits, 
snapping them up as they played heedlessly in the 
moonlight, just as they had done with the wood-mice. 
By day, however, the hunting was entirely different. 
Then the hares and rabbits are resting in their hidden 
forms under the ferns, or in a hollow between the roots 
of a brown stump. Like game birds, whether on the 
nest or sitting quiet in hiding, the rabbits give out far 
less scent at such times than when they are active; and 
the cubs, stealing through the dense cover like shadows 
in imitation of the old wolves, and always hunting up¬ 
wind, would use their keen noses to locate Moktaques 
before alarming him. If a cub succeeded, and snapped 
up a rabbit before the surprised creature had time to 
gather headway, he dropped behind with his catch, 
while the rest went slowly, carefully, on through the 
cover. If he failed, as was generally the case at first, 
a curious bit of wolf intelligence and wolf training came 
out at once. 
