99 
The White Wolf's Hunting 
back to where the big leader was lying, his head on his 
paws, his eyes turned aside. Slowly, warily the cub 
approached, with a friendly twist of his ears and head, 
till he laid the squirrel at the big wolf’s very nose, then 
drew back a step and lay with paws extended and tail 
thumping the leaves, watching till the tidbit was seized 
ravenously and crushed and bolted in a single mouthful. 
Next instant both wolves sprang to their feet and made 
their way out of the scrub together. 
They took up the trail of the pack where they had 
left it, and followed it ten hours, the cub at a swift trot, 
the old wolf loping along on three legs. Then a rest, 
and forward again, slower and slower, night after day in 
ever-failing strength, till on the edge of a great barren 
they stopped as if struck, trembling all over as the reek 
of game poured into their starving nostrils. 
Too weak now to kill or to follow the fleet caribou, 
they lay down in the snow waiting, their ears cocked, 
their noses questioning every breeze for its good news. 
Left to themselves the trail must end here, for they 
could go no farther; but somewhere ahead in the vast 
silent barren the cubs were trailing, and somewhere 
beyond them the old mother wolf was laying her am¬ 
bush.— Hark! from a spur of the valley, far below on 
their left, rang out the food cry, singing its way in the 
frosty air over woods and plains, and hurrying back 
over the trail to tell those who had fallen by the way 
