learning the method of robbing
snares--a knowledge destined to stand him in good stead in the days to
come.

CHAPTER II--THE LAIR

For two days the she-wolf and One Eye hung about the Indian camp. He was
worried and apprehensive, yet the camp lured his mate and she was loath
to depart. But when, one morning, the air was rent with the report of a
rifle close at hand, and a bullet smashed against a tree trunk several
inches from One Eye's head, they hesitated no more, but went off on a
long, swinging lope that put quick miles between them and the danger.

They did not go far--a couple of days' journey. The she-wolf's need to
find the thing for which she searched had now become imperative. She was
getting very heavy, and could run but slowly. Once, in the pursuit of a
rabbit, which she ordinarily would have caught with ease, she gave over
and lay down and rested. One Eye came to her; but when he touched her
neck gently with his muzzle she snapped at him with such quick fierceness
that he tumbled over backward and cut a ridiculous figure in his effort
to escape her teeth. Her temper was now shorter than ever; but he had
become more patient than ever and more solicitous.

And then she found the thing for which she sought. It was a few miles up
a small stream that in the summer time flowed into the Mackenzie, but
that then was frozen over and frozen down to its rocky bottom--a dead
stream of solid white from source to mouth. The she-wolf was trotting
wearily along, her mate well in advance, when she came upon the
overhanging, high clay-bank. She turned aside and trotted over to it.
The wear and tear of spring storms and melting snows had underwashed the
bank and in one place had made a small cave out of a narrow fissure.

She paused at the mouth of the cave and looked the wall over carefully.
Then, on one side and the other, she ran along the base of the wall to
where its abrupt bulk merged from the softer-lined landscape. Returning
to the cave, she entered its narrow mouth. For a short three feet she
was compelled to crouch, then the walls widened and rose higher in a
little round chamber nearly six feet in diameter. The roof barely
cleared her head. It was dry and cosey. She inspected it with
painstaking care, while One Eye, who had returned, stood in the entrance
and patiently watched her. She dropped her head, with her nose to the
ground and directed toward a point near to her closely bunched fe