hen you opened fire that you
wouldn't be able to bag more than one or two. And I don't suppose the
same trick could be worked twice."

They discussed the matter all that evening and grew so enthusiastic
over it that they determined to try it the next night. There was no
hope now of diamonds, and the expedition had cost them nearly two
hundred dollars. A few wolf bounties and pelts, together with the furs
found in the cabin, would cover this and perhaps leave a little profit.

It was cold and cloudy the next day, and they waited impatiently for
evening. The moon would not rise till nearly midnight, and it was
necessary to wait in order to have light enough for the proposed
ambush. They sallied out toward eleven o'clock, and shot three
rabbits, which Peter attached to a deerskin thong. Selecting an open
glade, Maurice and Fred established themselves in ambush under the
thickets, while Peter started on a wide circle through the woods,
trailing his bait, in the hope of attracting the wolves.

Fred and Maurice waited for more than two hours, nearly frozen,
stamping and beating their arms, listening for the hunting cry of the
wolf pack. At the end of that time Peter reappeared, tired and
disgusted. The wolves had failed to do their part, and had not picked
up the trail.

Still he was not discouraged, and insisted on trying it again the next
evening. This time Fred and Maurice stayed in the cabin to keep warm,
listening intently. At the first, distant howl they were to rush out
and ensconce themselves in a prearranged spot, a quarter of a mile up
the river, which Peter was to pass. They kept the two repeating
rifles, while Mac carried the double-barreled gun, loaded with
buckshot, which they had found in the cabin.

Half a mile from the shanty Peter shot a swamp hare that was nibbling a
spruce trunk, and a little way farther he secured another. These
carcasses he tied together with a deerskin thong as before, and trailed
them in the wake of his snowshoes. This time he intended to make a
longer circuit than on the preceding night.

He dragged this bait across a hardwood ridge and down into a great
cedar swamp on the other side. In hard weather all the wild life of
the woods resorts to such places for shelter, and here the wolves would
be hunting if there was a pack in the neighborhood. But he found few
tracks and no sign at all of wolves.

After traveling slowly for two or three miles, Mac sat down on a l