ad made for himself behind there, and he did not stay
to let the snow cover him. He traveled as if he were a machine and
knew no fatigue; and the end of that journey was a hole in a hollow
among rocks.

Dawn was throwing a wan light upon all things when he thrust his short,
sharp muzzle inside that hole, to be met by a positively hair-raising
volley of rasping, vicious growls.

He promptly ripped out a string of ferocious, dry, harsh growls in
return, and for half-a-minute the air became full of growls, horrible
and blood-curdling, each answering each.

Then he lurched in over the threshold, and coolly dodged a thick paw,
with tearing white claws, that whipped at him with a round-arm stroke
out of the pitch-darkness. The stroke was repeated, scraping, but in
nowise hurting his matted coat, as he rose on his hindlegs and threw
himself upon the striker.

Followed a hectic thirty seconds of simply diabolical noises, while the
two rolled upon the ground, grappling fiendishly in the darkness. Then
they parted, got up, growled one final roll of fury at each other, fang
to fang, and, curling up, went to sleep. But it was nothing, only the
quite usual greeting between Gulo and his wife. They were a sweet
couple.

There appeared to be no movement, or any least sign of awakening, on
the part of either of the couple between that moment and sometime in
the afternoon, when, so far as one could see, Gulo suddenly rolled
straight from deep sleep out on to the snow, and away without a sound,
at his indescribable shamble and at top speed.

Mrs. Gulo executed precisely the same amazing maneuver, and at exactly
the same moment, as far as could be seen, on the other side, and
shuffled off into the forest. They gave no explanation for so doing.
They said never a word--nothing. One moment they were curled up,
asleep; the next they had gone, scampered, apparently into the land of
the spirits, and were no more. Nor did there seem to be any reason for
this extraordinary conduct except--except---- Well, it is true that a
willow-grouse, white as the snowy branch he sat upon, _did_ start
clucking somewhere in the dim tree regiments, a snipe did come
whistling sadly over the tree-tops, and a raven, jet against the white,
did flap up, barking sharply, above the pointed pine-tops; but that was
nothing--to us. To the wolverines it was everything, a whole wireless
message in the universal code of the wild, and they had read it _in
the