number of reindeer bleeding upon the ground. Some of them were dead.

In an hour dawn would be conspiring to show him up before the world,
and he was not a beast sweet to look upon at that moment--indeed, at
any moment, but less so now.

Now, it is surprising how far a wolverine can shift his clumsy-looking
body over snow in an hour, especially if he has reasons. This one had
good reasons, and he was no fool. He knew quite well the kind of
little hell he had made for himself behind there, and he did not stay
to let the snow cover him. He traveled as if he were a machine and
knew no fatigue; and the end of that journey was a hole in a hollow
among rocks.

Dawn was throwing a wan light upon all things when he thrust his short,
sharp muzzle inside that hole, to be met by a positively hair-raising
volley of rasping, vicious growls.

He promptly ripped out a string of ferocious, dry, harsh growls in
return, and for half-a-minute the air became full of growls, horrible
and blood-curdling, each answering each.

Then he lurched in over the threshold, and coolly dodged a thick paw,
with tearing white claws, that whipped at him with a round-arm stroke
out of the pitch-darkness. The stroke was repeated, scraping, but in
nowise hurting his matted coat, as he rose on his hindlegs and threw
himself upon the striker.

Followed a hectic thirty seconds of simply diabolical noises, while the
two rolled upon the ground, grappling fiendishly in the darkness. Then