ad
uneasily towards the sound. It seemed to make the immense water more
vast and lovely than before. He dreaded the lake now: it was a horror he
would never forget. And because he sat there, still surrounded by the
horror, and because the loneliness and longing that was in his heart for
the little brother, swept over him all at once, he suddenly lifted his
nose to the sky, and poured forth a wild, despairing howl, followed by
another, and yet another.

Those desolate notes sent a message and a thrill far through the
neighbourhood, till they died among the whispering reeds on the furthest
shore. In the secret gloom of the forest, the startled creatures paused
upon the trails. If Kiopo had wanted a good hunting, it was the worst
mistake he could have made; for now every lesser animal within earshot
would have warning of his presence, and know that a strange wolf was in
a dangerous condition of unhappiness in the neighbourhood of the lake.
Those who had intended feeding there, moved uneasily to safer pasture,
and those who were hunters sought out more distant trails. So it
happened that when, at last, Kiopo had finished his sorrow-making, and
had entered the forest, he found it, to all appearances, emptied of its
life.

He walked a little stiffly at first, but, by degrees, as his muscles
worked, his body regained its suppleness, and very soon he was moving
with the free swing which is particularly a wolf's.

The thought still uppermost in his mind was that of Dusty Star; but now
he was utterly at a loss to know in which direction the Little Brother
had gone. His long swim in those cold waters where he had so nearly met
his death, seemed to have confused his wits. He roamed up and down, now
along the lake shore, now back into the woods with a vague hope that
somewhere or other he would come upon something that should set him on
the trail. Yet although his nose worked incessantly, he smelt nothing
but the darkness filled with vague scents of invisible things, and the
old smell of the trees. As he wandered about, his forces came slowly
back to him, and, with his strength, his anger. If he had now recovered
the trail of those who had stolen the Little Brother from him, he would
have followed it furiously to the death. The anger that was in him
burned like a dull fire. It needed only a very small thing to fan it to
a blaze.

Nosing the ground as he went, he came suddenly upon a plain scent. It
was one which he detested. It