evenly, with
fanged muzzles a little low, and ample, cloudy tails a little high,
that one might have almost covered the whole deadly pack with a
table-cloth. Their tongues were hanging out, and their eyes shot green
fire. They were fiercely hungry, for game was scarce and cunning that
winter on their much ravaged range, and this chase was already a long
one. When the trail of the buck wheeled at the river-brink, the leader
of the pack gave one short howl as he turned, barely escaping the
abyss. It seemed to him that the buck must have been nearly winded, or
he would not, even for an instant, have contemplated taking to such
mad water. With the renewed vigour of encouragement, he swept his
pack along up the edge of the bluff.

On the pack-leader's right flank ran a sturdy wolf of a darker colour
than his fellows--nearly black, indeed, on the top of his head, over
his shoulders, and along his stiff-haired backbone. Not quite so tall
or so long-flanked as the leader, he had that greater breadth of skull
between the eyes which betokens the stronger intelligence, the more
individualized resourcefulness. He had a look in his deep-set, fierce
eye which seemed to prophesy that unless the unforeseen should happen
he would ere long seize the leadership to himself.

But--the unforeseen did happen, at that moment. The trail, just there,
led across a little dip wherein the snow still lingered. Thinly
covered by the snow lay a young pine-tree, lightning shivered and long
dead. Thrust up from the trunk was a slim, sharp-pointed stub, keen
and hard and preserved by its resin. Upon this hidden dagger-point, as
he ran, the dark wolf planted his right fore foot--planted it fair and
with a mighty push. Between the spreading toes, between the fine bones
and sinews and the cringing nerves of the foot, and out by the first
joint of the leg it thrust its rending way.

At the suddenness of the anguish the dark wolf yelped, falling
forward upon his muzzle as he did so, and dropping from his place as
the pack sped on. But as he wrenched his foot free and took one
stumbling stride forward, the pack stopped, and turned. Their long
white fangs snapped, and the fire in their eyes took a different hue.

Very well the dark wolf knew the meaning of the halt, the turn, the
change in his fellows' eyes. He knew the stern law of the pack--the
instant and inevitable doom of its hurt member. The average gray wolf
knows how to accept the inevitable. Fate i