108 Northern Trails . Book I 
like shadows among the trees. So they moved on 
swiftly, silently, till the boy stopped with a startled 
exclamation, whipped out a long arrow with a barbed 
steel point, and laid it ready across his bow. For at his 
feet was another light trail, the trail of a wolf pack, that 
crossed his own, moving straight and swift across the 
barren toward the unseen caribou. 
Just in front, as the boy stopped, a slight motion 
broke the even white surface that stretched away silent 
and lifeless on every side, — a motion so faint and 
natural that Noel’s keen eyes, sweeping the plain and 
the edges of the distant woods, never noticed it. A 
vagrant wind, which had been wandering and moaning 
all morning as if lost, seemed to stir the snow T and settle 
to rest again. But now, where the plain seemed most 
empty and lifeless, seven great white wolves crouched 
down in the snow in a little hollow, their paws extended, 
their hind legs bent like powerful springs beneath them, 
their heads raised cautiously so that only their ears and 
eyes showed above the rim of the little hollow where 
they hid. So they lay, tense, alert, ready, watching 
with eager, inquisitive eyes the two children drawing 
steadily nearer, the only sign of life in the whole wide, 
desolate landscape. 
Follow the back trail of the snow-shoes now, while 
the wolves are waiting, and it leads you over the great 
