96 
Northern Trails. Book I 
vanished in five different directions; yet so subtle, so 
perfect is the instinct which holds a wolf family together 
that the old mother had scarcely entered the glade alone 
and sat down to wait and listen when the other wolves 
joined her silently. Malsunsis, the big cub, scarcely felt 
his wound at first, for the arrow had but glanced through 
the thick skin and flesh, and he had torn it out without 
difficulty; but the old he-wolf limped painfully and held 
up one fore leg, pierced by a seal shot, as he loped away 
over the snow. 
It was their first rough experience with men, and 
probably the one feeling in every shaggy head was of 
puzzled wonder as to how and why it had all happened. 
Hitherto they had avoided men with a certain awe, or 
watched them curiously at a distance, trying to under¬ 
stand their superior ways; and never a hostile feeling 
for the masters of the woods had found place in a wolf’s 
breast. Now man had spoken at last; his voice was a 
brutal command to be gone, and curiously enough these 
powerful big brutes, any one of which could have pulled 
down a man more easily than a caribou, never thought 
of questioning the order. 
It was certainly time to follow the caribou — that was 
probably the one definite purpose that came upon the 
wolves, sitting in a silent, questioning circle in the 
moonlight, with only the deep snows and the empty 
woods around them. For a week they had not touched 
