s hands. They seem to share the spoil as
intelligently as they catch it, the wolf that lies beside the runway and
pulls down the game giving up a portion gladly to the companion that
beats the bush, and rarely indeed is there any trace of quarreling
between them.

Like the eagles--which have long since learned the advantage of hunting
in pairs and of scouting for game in single file--the wolves, when
hunting deer on the open barrens where it is difficult to conceal their
advance, always travel in files, one following close behind the other;
so that, seen from in front where the game is watching, two or three
wolves will appear like a lone animal trotting across the plain. That
alarms the game far less at first; and not until the deer starts away
does the second wolf appear, shooting out from behind the leader. The
sight of another wolf appearing suddenly on his flank throws a young
deer into a panic, in which he is apt to lose his head and be caught by
the cunning hunters.

Curiously enough, the plains Indians, who travel in the same way when
hunting or scouting for enemies, first learned the trick--so an old
chief told me, and it is one of the traditions of his people--from
watching the timber wolves in their stealthy advance over the open
places.

The wolves were stealing through the woods all together, one late summer
afternoon, having beaten a cover without taking anything, when the
puzzled cubs suddenly found themselves alone. A moment before they had
been trotting along with the old wolves, nosing every cranny and knot
hole for mice and grubs, and stopping often for a roll and frolic, as
young cubs do in the gladness of life; now they pressed close together,
looking, listening, while a subtle excitement filled all the woods. For
the old wolves had disappeared, shooting ahead in great, silent bounds,
while the cubs waited with ears cocked and noses quivering, as if a
silent command had been understood.

The silence was intense; not a sound, not a stir in the quiet woods,
which seemed to be listening with the cubs and to be filled with the
same thrilling expectation. Suddenly the silence was broken by heavy
plunges far ahead, _crash! bump! bump!_ and there broke forth such an
uproar of yaps and howls as the cubs had never heard before. Instantly
they broke away on the trail, joining their shrill yelpings to the
clamor, so different from the ordinary stealthy wolf hunt, and filled
with a nameless excitement whic