8o 
Northern Trails. Book I 
Meeting the wolves now, as they roamed wild and 
free over the great range, one would hardly have recog¬ 
nized the little brown creatures that he saw playing 
about the den where the trail began. The cubs were 
already noble-looking brutes, larger than the largest 
husky dog; and the parents were taller, with longer 
legs and more massive heads and powerful jaws, than 
any great timber-wolf. A tremendous vitality thrilled 
in them from nose to paw tips. Their great bodies, as 
they lay quiet in the snow with heads raised and hind 
legs bent under them, were like powerful engines, tran¬ 
quil under enormous pressure; and when they rose the 
movement was like the quick snap of a steel spring. 
Indeed, half the ordinary movements of Wayeeses are 
so quick that the eye cannot follow them. One instant 
a wolf would be lying flat on his side, his long legs out¬ 
stretched on the moss, his eyes closed in the sleepy 
sunshine, his body limp as a hound’s after a fox chase; 
the next instant, like the click and blink of a camera 
shutter, he would be standing alert on all four feet, 
questioning the passing breeze or looking intently into 
your eyes; and you could not imagine, much less follow, 
the recoil of twenty big electric muscles that at some 
subtle warning had snapped him automatically from one 
position to the other. They were all snow-white, with 
long thick hair and a heavy mane that added enor¬ 
mously to their imposing appearance; and they carried 
