esolutely ignoring the polluted
meat, they ranged themselves in a circle around the tree at a safe
distance, and snapped their long jaws vengefully at their adversary.
They seemed prepared to stay there indefinitely, in the hope of
starving out the carcajou and tearing her to pieces. Perceiving this,
the carcajou turned her back upon them, climbed farther up the tree to
a comfortable crotch, and settled herself indifferently for a nap. For
all her voracious appetite, she knew she could go hungry longer than
any wolf, and quite wear out the pack in a waiting game. Then the
trapper, indignant at seeing so much good meat spoiled, but his
sporting instincts stirred to sympathy by the triumph of one beast
like the carcajou over a whole wolf-pack, turned his back upon the
scene and resumed his tramp. The wolves had lost prestige in his
eyes, and he now felt ready to fight them all with his single axe.

III

From that day on the wolf-pack cherished a sleepless grudge against
the carcajou, and wasted precious hours, from time to time, striving
to catch her off her guard. The wolf's memory is a long one, and the
feud lost nothing in its bitterness as the winter weeks, loud with
storm or still with deadly cold, dragged by. For a time the crafty old
carcajou fed fat on the flesh which none but she could touch, while
all the other beasts but the bear, safe asleep in his den, and the
porcupine, browsing contentedly on hemlock and spruce, went lean with
famine. During this period, since she had all that even her great
appetite could dispose of, the carcajou robbed neither the hunter's
traps nor the scant stores of the other animals. But at last her
larder was bare. Then, turning her attention to the traps again, she
speedily drew upon her the trapper's wrath, and found herself obliged
to keep watch against two foes at once, and they the most powerful in
the wilderness--namely, the man and the wolf-pack. Even the magnitude
of this feud, however, did not daunt her greedy but fearless spirit,
and she continued to rob the traps, elude the wolves, and evade the
hunter's craftiest efforts, till the approach of spring not only eased
the famine of the forest but put an end to the man's trapping. When
the furs of the wild kindred began to lose their gloss and vitality,
the trapper loaded his pelts upon a big hand-sledge, sealed up his
cabin securely, and set out for the settlements before the snow should
all be gone. Once assured of his a