forth unusual exertions. His hunters had killed four fat caribou. In the
clearing there were great piles of dry logs, and in the center of all
there rose eight ten-foot tree-butts crotched at the top; and from
crotch to crotch there rested a stout sapling stripped of bark, and on
each sapling was spitted the carcass of a caribou, to be roasted whole
by the heat of the fire beneath. The fires were lighted at dusk, and
Williams himself started the first of those wild songs of the
Northland--the song of the caribou, as the flames leaped up into the
dark night.

"Oh, ze cariboo-oo-oo, ze cariboo-oo-oo,
He roas' on high,
Jes' under ze sky.
air-holes beeg white cariboo-oo-oo!"

"Now!" he yelled. "Now--all together!" And carried away by his
enthusiasm, the forest people awakened from their silence of months,
and the song burst forth in a savage frenzy that reached to the skies.

* * * * *

Two miles to the south and west that first thunder of human voice
reached the ears of Kazan and Gray Wolf and the masterless huskies. And
with the voices of men they heard now the excited howlings of dogs. The
huskies faced the direction of the sounds, moving restlessly and
whining. For a few moments Kazan stood as though carven of rock. Then he
turned his head, and his first look was to Gray Wolf. She had slunk back
a dozen feet and lay crouched under the thick cover of a balsam shrub.
Her body, legs and neck were flattened in the snow. She made no sound,
but her lips were drawn back and her teeth shone white.