The rocks, the ridges and the valleys were taking on a warmer glow. The
poplar buds were ready to burst. The scent of balsam and of spruce grew
heavier in the air each day, and all through the wilderness, in plain
and forest, there was the rippling murmur of the spring floods finding
their way to Hudson's Bay. In that great bay there was the rumble and
crash of the ice fields thundering down in the early break-up through
the Roes Welcome--the doorway to the Arctic, and for that reason there
still came with the April wind an occasional sharp breath of winter.

Kazan had sheltered himself against that wind. Not a breath of air
stirred in the sunny spot the wolf-dog had chosen for himself. He was
more comfortable than he had been at any time during the six months of
terrible winter--and as he slept he dreamed.

Gray Wolf, his wild mate, lay near him, flat on her belly, her forepaws
reaching out, her eyes and nostrils as keen and alert as the smell of
man could make them. For there was that smell of man, as well as of
balsam and spruce, in the warm spring air. She gazed anxiously and
sometimes steadily, at Kazan as he slept. Her own gray spine stiffened
when she saw the tawny hair along Kazan's back bristle at some dream
vision. She whined softly as his upper lip snarled back, showing his
long white fangs. But for the most part Kazan lay quiet, save for the
muscular twitchings of legs, shoulders and muzzle, which always tell
when a dog is dreaming; and as he dreamed there came to the door of the
cabin out on the plain a blue-eyed girl-woman, with a big brown braid
over her shoulder, who called through the cup of her hands, "Kazan,
Kazan, Kazan!"

The voice reached faintly to the top of the Sun Rock, and Gray Wolf