guided sometimes by a rumor--a hunter's story or a postman's fright,
caught far inland in winter and huddling close by his fire with his dogs
through the long winter night--and again by a track on the shore of some
lonely, unnamed pond, or the sight of a herd of caribou flying wildly
from some unseen danger. Here is the white wolf's story, learned partly
from much watching and following his tracks alone, but more from Noel
the Indian hunter, in endless tramps over the hills and caribou marshes
and in long quiet talks in the firelight beside the salmon rivers.



_Where the Trail Begins_

From a cave in the rocks, on the unnamed mountains that tower over
Harbor Weal on the north and east, a huge mother wolf appeared,
stealthily, as all wolves come out of their dens. A pair of green eyes
glowed steadily like coals deep within the dark entrance; a massive gray
head rested unseen against the lichens of a gray rock; then the whole
gaunt body glided like a passing cloud shadow into the June sunshine and
was lost in a cleft of the rocks.

There, in the deep shadow where no eye might notice the movement, the
old wolf shook off the delicious sleepiness that still lingered in all
her big muscles. First she spread her slender fore paws, working the
toes till they were all wide-awake, and bent her body at the shoulders
till her deep chest touched the earth. Next a hind leg stretched out
straight and tense as a bar, and was taken back again in nervous little
jerks. At the same time she yawned mightily, wrinkling her nose and
showing her red gums with the black fringes and the long white fangs
that could reach a deer's heart in a single snap. Then she leaped upon a