nts. In this policy she was backed by the sagacity
and strength of her mate, under whose wide-arched skull was a clear
perception of the truth that man is the one master animal. But the
hybrid whelps, by some perversion of inherited instinct, hated man
savagely, and had less dread of him than either of their parents. More
than once was the authority of the leaders sharply strained to prevent
a disastrous attack upon some unsuspecting pair of lumbermen, with
their ox-team and their axes.

[Illustration: "THEY PROWLED AND HOWLED ABOUT THE DOOR."]

The second winter of the wolves in the Chiputneticook country proved a
very hard one--game scarce and hunting difficult; and toward the
end of February the pack drew in toward the settlements, in the hope
of more abundant foraging. Fate promptly favoured the move. Some
sheep, and a heifer or two, were easily killed, with no calamitous
result; and the authority of the leaders was somewhat discredited.
Three of the young wolves even went so far as to besiege a solitary
cabin, where a woman and some trembling children awaited the return of
the man. For two hideous moonlit hours they prowled and howled about
the door, sniffing at the sill, and grinning in through the low
window; and when the sound of bells came near they withdrew sullenly,
half-minded to attack the man and horse.

A few nights after this, when the pack was following together the
discouraging trail of a long-winded and wily buck, they crossed the
trail of a man on snow-shoes. This trail was fresher, and to the young
wolves it seemed to promise easier hunting. The leaders were
overruled, and the new trail was taken up with heat.

The trail was that of a gaunt, tan-faced backwoodsman, on his way to a
lumber camp a few miles down the other side of the lake. He was
packing a supply of light needfuls, of which the lumbermen had
unexpectedly run short, and he was pressing forward in haste to avoid
a second night on the trail. The pack was carried high on his powerful
shoulders, in a manner to interfere as little as possible with his
long, snow-shoeing stride. In one hand he carried his axe. From under
the brim of his coonskin cap his piercing gray eyes kept watch with a
quiet alertness--expecting no danger, indeed, and fearing none, but
trained to cool readiness for every vicissitude of the wild.

He was travelling through a stretch of heavy timber, where the
moonlight came down in such scant streaks that he had troub