"We'd make a nice pot-shot just at this moment," volunteered Rod,
looking across to the dense blackness on the opposite side of the river,
where the moonlight seemed to make even more impenetrable the wall of
gloom.

As he spoke there came a slight sound from behind him, the commotion of
a body moving softly beyond the wall of spruce boughs, then a curious,
suspicious sniffing, and after that a low whine.

"Listen!"

Wabi's command came in a tense whisper. He leaned close against the
boughs, stealthily parted them, and slowly thrust his head through the
aperture.

"Hello, Wolf!" he whispered. "What's up?"

An arm's length away, tied before a smaller shelter of spruce, a gaunt,
dog-like animal stood in a rigid listening attitude. An instant's
glance, however, would have assured one that it was not a dog, but a
full-grown wolf. From the days of its puppyhood Wabi had taught it in
the ways of dogdom, yet had the animal perversely clung to its wild
instincts. A weakness in that thong, a slip of the collar, and Wolf
would have bounded joyously into the forests to seek for ever the packs
of his fathers. Now the babeesh rope was taut, Wolf's muzzle was turned
half to the sky, his ears were alert, half-sounding notes rattled in his
throat.

"There is something near our camp!" announced the Indian boy, drawing
himself back quickly. "Muky--"