wildly to get help. The moon was high and full, and the lifeless
backwoods road was a narrow, bright, white thread between the silent
black masses of the spruce forest. Now and then, as he remembered
afterwards, his ear caught a sound of light feet following him in the
dark beyond the roadside. But his plucky little heart was too full of
panic grief about his mother to have any room for fear as to himself.
Only the excited amazement of his neighbors, over the fact that he had
made the journey in safety, opened his eyes to the hideous peril he
had come through. Willing helpers hurried back with him to his
mother's bedside. And on the way one of them, a keen huntsman who had
more than once pitted his woodcraft in vain against that of the Gray
Master, had the curiosity to step off the road and examine the snow
under the thick spruces. Perhaps imagination misled him, when he
thought he caught a glimpse of savage eyes, points of green flame,
fading off into the black depths. But there could be no doubt as to
the fresh tracks he found in the snow. There they were,--the
footprints of the pack, like those of so many big dogs,--and among
them the huge trail of the great, far-striding leader. All the way,
almost from his threshold, these sinister steps had paralleled those
of the hurrying child. Close to the edge of the darkness they
ran,--close, within the distance of one swift leap,--yet never any
closer!

Why had the great gray wolf, who faced and pulled down the bull moose,
and from whose voice the biggest dogs in the settlements ran like
whipped curs--why had he and his stealthy pack spared this easy prey?
It was inexplicable, though many had theories good enough to be
laughed to scorn by those who had none. The _habitants_, of course,
had all their superstitions confirmed, and with a certain respect and
refinement of horror added: Here was a _loup-garou_ so crafty as to
spare, on occasion! He must be conciliated, at all costs. They would
hunt him no more, his motives being so inexplicable. Let him take a
few sheep, or a steer, now and then, and remember that _they_, at
least, were not troubling him. As for the English-speaking settlers,
their enmity cooled down to the point where they could no longer get
together any concentrated bitterness. It was only a big rascal of a
wolf, anyway, scared to touch a white man's child, and certainly
nothing for a lot of grown men to organize about. Some of the women
jumped to the concl