64 
Northern Trails. Book I 
was needless; that the terrible enemy which had spared 
her and let her go free had no need nor desire to follow. 
The fat autumn had now come with its abundant fare, 
and the caribou were not again molested. Flocks of 
grouse and ptarmigan came out of the thick coverts, in 
which they had been hiding all summer, and began to 
pluck the berries of the open plains, where they could 
easily be waylaid and caught by the growing wolf cubs. 
Plover came in hordes, sweeping over the Straits from 
the Labrador; and when the wolves surrounded a flock 
of the queer birds and hitched nearer and nearer, sink¬ 
ing their gray bodies in the yielding gray moss till they 
looked like weather-worn logs, the hunting was full of 
tense excitement, though the juicy mouthfuls were few 
and far between. Fox cubs roamed abroad away from 
their mothers, self-willed and reveling in the abundance; 
and it was now easy for two of the young waives to 
drive a fox out of his daytime cover and catch him as 
he stole away. 
After the plover came the ducks in myriads, filling 
the ponds and flashets of the vast barrens with tumul¬ 
tuous quacking; and the young wolves learned, like the 
foxes, to decoy the silly birds by rousing their curiosity. 
They would hide in the grass, while one played and 
rolled about on the open shore, till the ducks saw 
him and began to stretch their necks and gabble their 
