like a pointed leaf that has been creased sharply between the fingers.
Mooka claimed that wolf instantly for her own, as if they were watching
the husky puppies, and by his broken ear said she should know him again
when he grew to be a big wolf, if he should ever follow her, as his
father perhaps had followed Old Tomah; but Noel, thinking of his bow and
his long arrow with the sharp point, thought of the winter night long
ago and hoped that his two wolves would know enough to keep away when
the pack came again, for he did not see any way to recognize and spare
them, especially in the moonlight. So they lay there making plans and
dreaming dreams, gentle or savage, for the little cubs that played with
the feathers and grasshoppers and cloud shadows, all unconscious that
any eyes but their mother's saw or cared for their wild, free playing.

[Illustration: "Watching her growing youngsters"]

Something bothered the old she-wolf in these days of watching. The den
was still secure, for no human foot had crossed the deep ravine or
ventured nearer than the opposite hilltop. Her nose told her that
unmistakably; but still she was uneasy, and whenever the cubs were
playing she felt, without knowing why, that she was being watched. When
she trailed over all the ridges in the twilight, seeking to know if
enemies had been near, she found always the scent of two human beings on
a flat rock under the dwarf spruces; and there were always the two
trails coming up and going down the brook. She followed once close
behind the two children, seeing them plainly all the way, till they came
in sight of the little cabin under the cliff, and from the door her
enemy man came out to meet them. For these two little ones, whose trail
she knew, the old she-wolf, like most mother animals in the presence of
children, felt no fear nor enmity whatever. But they watched her den and
her own little ones, that was sure enough; and why should any one watch