and he pitched into the snow. This time, from the direction of the
wolf-pack, there came the ringing report of a rifle! It might have been
a mile or two miles away, but distance did not lessen the fear it
brought to the dying king of the North. That day he had heard the same
sound, and it had brought mysterious and weakening pain in his vitals.
With a supreme effort he brought himself to his feet, once more sniffed
into the north, the east, and the west, then turned and buried himself
in the black and frozen wilderness of tamarack.

Stillness fell again with the sound of the rifle-shot. It might have
lasted five minutes or ten, when a long, solitary howl floated from
across the lake. It ended in the sharp, quick yelp of a wolf on the
trail, and an instant later was taken up by others, until the pack was
once more in full cry. Almost simultaneously a figure darted out upon
the ice from the edge of the forest. A dozen paces and it paused and
turned back toward the black wall of spruce.

"Are you coming, Wabi?"

A voice answered from the woods. "Yes. Hurry up--run!"

Thus urged, the other turned his face once more across the lake. He was
a youth of not more than eighteen. In his right hand he carried a club.
His left arm, as if badly injured, was done up in a sling improvised
from a lumberman's heavy scarf. His face was scratched and bleeding, and
his whole appearance showed that he was nearing complete exhaustion. For
a few moments he ran through the snow, then halted to a staggering walk.
His breath came in painful gasps. The club slipped from his nerveless
fingers, and conscious of the deathly weakness that was overcoming him
he did not attempt to regain it. Foot by foot he struggled on, until