tried to snap at Jones was nearly crushed
by the giant's grip. The last, a surly brute, broke out into mad
ravings the moment he felt the touch of Jones's hands, and writhing,
frothing, he snapped Jones's sleeve. Rea jerked him loose and held him
in the air with one arm, while with the other he swung the bowie. They
hauled the dead dogs out on the snow, and returning to the fire sat
down to await the cry they expected.

Presently, as darkness fastened down tight, it came--the same cry,
wild, haunting, mourning. But for hours it was not repeated.

"Better rest some," said Rea; "I'll call you if they come."

Jones dropped to sleep as he touched his blankets. Morning dawned for
him, to find the great, dark, shadowy figure of the giant nodding over
the fire.

"How's this? Why didn't you call me?" demanded Jones.

"The wolves only fought a little over the dead dogs."

On the instant Jones saw a wolf skulking up the bank. Throwing up his
rifle, which he had carried out of the tepee, he took a snap-shot at
the beast. It ran off on three legs, to go out of sight over the hank.
Jones scrambled up the steep, slippery place, and upon arriving at the
ridge, which took several moments of hard work, he looked everywhere
for the wolf. In a moment he saw the animal, standing still some
hundred or more paces down a hollow. With the quick report of Jones's
second shot, the wolf fell and rolled over. The hunter ran to the spot
to find the wolf was dead. Taking hold of a front paw, he dragged the
animal over the snow to camp. Rea began to skin the animal, when
suddenly he exclaimed:

"This fellow's hind foot is gone!"

"That's strange. I saw it hanging by the skin as the wolf ran up the
bank. I'll look for it."

By the bloody trail on the snow he returned to the place where the wolf
had fallen, and thence back to the spot where its leg had been broken
by the bullet. He discovered no sign of the foot.

"Didn't find it, did you?" said Rea.

"No, and it appears odd to me. The snow is so hard the foot could not
have sunk."

"Well, the wolf ate his foot, thet's what," returned Rea. "Look at them
teeth marks!"

"Is it possible?" Jones stared at the leg Rea held up.

"Yes, it is. These wolves are crazy at times. You've seen thet. An' the
smell of blood, an' nothin' else, mind you, in my opinion, made him eat
his own' foot. We'll cut him open."

Impossible as the thing seemed to Jones--and he could not but believe
further evid