his tail, and set off at a rolling, clumsy, shuffling shamble.

At ordinary times that deceiving gait would have left nearly everything
behind, but this afternoon it was different. Gulo had barely shed the
shelter of the dotted thickets before he realized, and one saw, the
fact. He broke his trot. He began to plunge. Nevertheless, he got
along. There was pace, of a sort. Certainly there was much effort.
He would have outdistanced you or me easily in no time, but it was not
you or I that came, and who could tell how fast that something might
travel?

The trouble was the snow--that was the rub, and a very big and serious
rub, too, for him. Now, if the snow had been a little less it would
not have mattered--a little more, and he could have run easily along
the hard crust of it; but it was as it was, only about two feet, just
enough to retard him, and no more. And it is then, when the snow is
like that, just above a couple of feet deep, that man can overtake
friend wolverine--if he knows the way. Most men don't. On that he
trusted. At any other time--but this was not any other time.

Sound carries a long way in those still parts, and as he hurried Gulo
heard, far, far behind in the forest, the faint, distant whir of a
cock-capercailzie--the feathered giant of the woods--rising. It was
only a whisper, almost indistinguishable to our ears, but enough, quite
enough, for him. Taken in conjunction with the mysterious shifting of
the elk and the red deer and the reindeer and the wolf, it was more
than enough. He increased his pace, and for the first time fear shone
in his eyes--it was for the first time, too, in his life, I think.

A lynx passed him, bounding along on enormous, furry legs. It looked