turned about and began to creep away--creep, creep, creep away by the
trail it had come.

Gulo watched it till it was out of sight, fading round a bend of the
hills into a dark, dotted blur that was woods. Then he dropped on all
fours, and breathed one great, big, long, deep breath. That dot was
the one of the Brothers that had been hunting him.

And almost at the same moment, five miles away, his wife had just
succeeded in swimming a swift and ice-choked river. She was standing
on the bank, watching another dot emerge into the lone landscape, and
that dot was the other one of the Brothers.

They had failed to avenge the reindeer, and the wolverines were safe.
Safe? Bah! Wild creatures are never safe. Nature knows better than
that, since by safety comes degeneration.

There was a warning--an instant's rustling hissing in the air
above--less than an instant's. But that was all, and for the first
time in his life--perhaps because he was tired, fagged--Gulo failed to
take it. And you must never fail to take a warning if you are a wild
creature, you know! There are no excuses in Nature.

Retribution was swift. Gulo yelled aloud--and he was a dumb beast,
too, as a rule, but I guess the pain was excruciating--as a hooked
stiletto, it appeared, stabbed through fur, through skin, deep down
through flesh, right into his back, clutching, gripping vise-like.
Another stiletto, hooked, too, worse than the first one, beat at his
skull, tore at his scalp, madly tried to rip out his eyes. Vast
overshadowing pinions--as if they were the wings of Azrael--hammered in