and the shrunken stub, depending
from a withered shoulder, dragged over the surface of the snow, leaving
a curious mark like the trail of a snake.

The remaining foreleg was strong and thick and, from redistribution of
balance, slanted inward from the massive shoulder, which was developed
out of all proportion to its mate, giving the great white brute a
repulsive, lopsided appearance.

The long, stiff hair stood out upon her neck in a great ruff, which
accentuated the fiendish ferocity of her, adding a hyena-like slope to
her ungainly body. But it was in the expression of her face that she
reached the climax of hideous malevolence.

One pointed ear stood erect upon her head, while the other, mangled and
torn into a serried red excrescence, formed the termination of a broad,
ragged scar which began at the corner of her mouth, giving her face the
expression of a fiendish grin that belied the green glare of her
venomous, opalescent eyes.

The loss of the leg seemed in nowise to hamper her freedom of action.
She moved ceaselessly among the pack with a peculiar bounding gallop,
fawning in subtle cajolery upon those in the forefront, slashing right
and left among the laggards with vicious clicks of her long, white
fangs; and always she watched the tiring man who found his own gaze
fixed upon her in horrid fascination.

There was something sinister in the wolf-pack's noiseless pursuit. The
brutes drew nearer as the man's pace slowed to the wearying of his
muscles.

Instinctively he knew that at the last there would be no waiting--no
delay. The very minute he sank exhausted into the snow they would be
upon him--the great white leader and her rapacious horde--and in his
imagination he could feel the viselike clench of iron jaws and the
tearing rip with which the quivering flesh would be stripped from his
bones.

At midday the man placed the sheath-knife in his belt and threw away
the pack. Relieved of the burden, his shoulders felt strangely light.
There was a new buoyancy in his stride.

But the relief was temporary, and as the sun sank early behind the
pines his brain was again driving his wearied muscles to their work.

The wolves were following close in now, and the silence of their
relentless persistence filled the man with a dumb terror which no
pandemonium of howling could have inspired.

His advance was halting. Each step was a separate and conscious
undertaking, and it was with difficulty that he lifted his