aked point, not a
hundred yards away, and staring, not at him, but at the moon.

In spite of himself, Kane felt a pricking in his cheeks, a creeping of
the skin under his hair. The apparition was so sudden, and, above all,
the cool ignoring of his presence was so disconcerting. Moreover,
through that half-sinister light, his long muzzle upstretched towards
the moon, and raised as he was a little above the level on which Kane
was standing, the wolf looked unnaturally and impossibly tall. Kane
had never heard of a wolf acting in this cool, self-possessed,
arrogantly confident fashion, and his mind reverted obstinately to the
outworn superstitions of his _habitants_ friends. But, after all, it
was this wolf, not an ordinary brush-fence wolf, that he was so
anxious to study; and the unexpected was just what he had most reason
to expect! He was getting what he came for.

Kane knew that the way to study the wild creatures was to keep still
and make no noise. So be stiffened into instant immobility, and
regretted that he had brought the dog with him. But he need not have
worried about the dog, for that intelligent animal showed no desire to
attract the Gray Master's notice. He was crouched behind Kane's legs,
and motionless except for his shuddering.

For several minutes no one stirred--nothing stirred in all that frozen
world. Then, feeling the cold begin to creep in upon him in the
stillness, Kane had to lift his thick-gloved hands to chafe his ears.
He did it cautiously, but the caution was superfluous. The great wolf
apparently had no objection to his moving as much as he liked. Once,
indeed, those green, lambent eyes flamed over him, but casually, in
making a swift circuit of the shores of the lake and the black fringe
of the firs; but for all the interest which their owner vouchsafed
him, Kane might as well have been a juniper bush.

Knowing very well, however, that this elaborate indifference could not
be other than feigned, Kane was patient, determined to find out what
the game was. At the same time, he could not help the strain beginning
to tell on him. Where was the rest of the pack? From time to time he
glanced searchingly over his shoulder towards the all-concealing fir
woods.

At last, as if considering himself utterly alone, the great wolf
opened his jaws, stretched back his neck, and began howling his
shrill, terrible serenade to the moon. As soon as he paused, came
far-off nervous barkings and yelpings fr