ointed away into the darkness.

Fenris followed the motion with his eyes; and presently his long body
stiffened. Ben watched him, fascinated. Then the wolf sniffed at the
paper again and trotted away into the night.

In one leap Ben was on his feet, following him. The wolf turned once,
saw that his master was at his heels, and sped on. They turned up a
slight draw, toward the hillside.

It became clear at once that Fenris was depending upon his marvelous
sense of smell. His nose would lower to the ground, and sometimes he
tacked back and forth, uncertainly. At such times Ben watched him with
bated breath. But always he caught the scent again.

Once more he paused, sniffing eagerly; then turned, whining. Just as
clearly as if they had possessed a mutual language Ben understood: the
animal had caught the clear scent at last. The wolf loped off, and his
fierce bay rang through the hushed forest.

It was a long-drawn, triumphant note; and the wild creatures paused in
their mysterious, hushed occupations to listen. It was also significant
that it made certain deadly inroads in the spirit of Ray Brent, sitting
in his distant cabin. He marked the direction of the sound, and he
cursed, half in awe, under his breath. He had always hated the gray
rangers. They were the uncanny demons of the forest.

Ben followed the running wolf as fast as he could; and in his eagerness
he had no opportunity for conjecture as to what he would find at the end
of the pursuit. Yet he did not believe for an instant this was a false
trail. The wolf's deep, full-ringing bays were ever more urgent and
excited, filling the forest with their uproar. But quite suddenly the
silence closed down again, seemingly more deep and mysterious than ever.

Ben's first sensation was one of icy terror that crept to the very
marrow of his bones. He knew instantly that there was a meaning of
dreadful portent in the abrupt cessation of the cries. He halted an
instant, listening, but at first could hear no more than the throb of
his heart in his breast and the whisper of his own troubled breathing.
But presently, at a distance of one hundred yards, he distinguished the
soft whining of the wolf.

Fenris was no longer running! He had halted at the edge of a distant
thicket. The cold sweat sprang out on Ben's forehead, and he broke into
a headlong run.

There was no later remembrance of traversing that last hundred yards.
The hillside seemed to whip under his feet.