Wabi stopped with a suddenness that spoke volumes, and the supporting
arm that he had thrown around Rod's waist tightened until it caused the
wounded youth to flinch. Both boys stared in rigid silence. The wolves
were crowding around a spot in the snow half-way between the tamarack
refuge and the scene of the recent feast. The starved animals betrayed
unusual excitement. They had struck the pool of blood and red trail made
by the dying moose!

"What is it, Wabi?" whispered Rod.

The Indian did not answer. His black eyes gleamed with a new fire, his
lips were parted in anxious anticipation, and he seemed hardly to
breathe in his tense interest. The wounded boy repeated his question,
and as if in reply the pack swerved to the west and in a black silent
mass swept in a direction that would bring them into the tamaracks a
hundred yards from the young hunters.

"A new trail!" breathed Wabi. "A new trail, and a hot one! Listen! They
make no sound. It is always that way when they are close to a kill!"

As they looked the last of the wolves disappeared in the forest. For a
few moments there was silence, then a chorus of howls came from deep in
the woods behind them.

"Now is our chance," cried the Indian. "They've broken again, and their
game--"

He had partly slipped from his limb, withdrawing his supporting arm from
Rod's waist, and was about to descend to the ground when the pack again