The Little Vermilion, placid river of the plains, has its source in an
ice-cold spring high up among the ledges of old Scarface where, after a
sheer drop of fifty feet, the young river goes on its way a brawling,
turbulent mountain stream. In a cave so close to the cataract that the
entrance was often screened by a curtain of mist, a pair of wolf cubs
first saw the light of day. It was a wild and savage spot for a home,
one that befitted the mate of Gray Wolf, leader of the pack.

In their early infancy the cubs were appealing balls of gray down,
rolling and tumbling about on the rocky floor of their cave much in the
manner of young animals the world over. And, like other young animals,
when they first essayed to walk, their legs had a treacherous way of
doubling up beneath them and, without warning, letting them down on the
hard floor of the cave. In a remarkably short time, however, they gained
control over these unruly members and were ready to begin the training
which would qualify them for membership in the pack.

From the first, one of the cubs gave promise of being no ordinary wolf.
Long white hairs appeared among the down upon his back and sides,
growing more and more numerous until, when the cub was half grown, they
made a coat of pure white. The first time his mother returned from her
hunting to see him standing in the sunlight at the mouth of the den, she
stopped several yards away, looking at him keenly and half suspiciously.
The moment he discovered her presence the cub ran to meet her with a
glad whine of recognition and her look changed. From that time on, she
accepted him without question.

The white cub grew fast, and as he grew, the wild and savage nature of
his surroundings seemed to creep into his blood and become a part of
him. His baby growl was drowned by the ceaseless roar of the falls, but
as his voice grew stronger and fuller it took on the deep note of the
cataract. Long before his brother, he learned to pounce upon the
luckless grasshopper or cricket which appeared near the cave and to hold
it down with his fore-paws while he crunched it with relish. From
grasshoppers he progressed to mice, and from mice to rabbits, until he
came to depend but little upon the spoils of the mother wolf's hunting.

One night, when he was little more than half grown, the cub awakened to
find his mother absent at her hunting. The moonlight at the entrance to
the cave called him and he trotted out. Save for