The Way of the Wolf 63 
little ones, only to find that all the other wolves, as if 
frightened by her furious charge, had drawn farther 
back from the cranny in the rocks. 
Again the old she-wolf approached cautiously, and 
again the caribou plunged at her and followed her lame 
retreat with headlong fury. An electric shock seemed 
suddenly to touch the huge he-wolf. Like a flash he 
leaped in on the fawns. One quick snap of the long 
jaws with the terrible fangs; then, as if the whole thing 
were a bit of play, he loped away easily with the cubs, 
circling to join the mother wolf, which strangely enough 
did not return to the attack as the caribou charged 
back, driving the cubs and the old he-wolf away like a 
flock of sheep. The coast was now clear, not an enemy 
in the way; and the mother caribou, with a triumphant 
bleat to her fawns to follow, plunged back into the 
woods whence she had come. 
One fawn only followed her. The other took a step 
or two, sank to his knees, and rolled over on his side. 
When the wolves drew near quietly, without a trace of 
the ferocity or the howling clamor with which such 
scenes are usually pictured, the game was quite dead, 
one quick snap of the old wolf’s teeth just behind the 
fore legs having pierced the heart more surely than 
a hunter’s bullet. And the mother caribou, plunging 
wildly away through the brush with the startled fawn 
jumping at her heels, could not know that her mad flight 
