stones, the Indians determined to continue in pursuit of the wolf. Its
tracks at last led them to a solitary lodge that stood in the shelter
of a thicket of spruce. There the hunters were greeted by an Indian
who was living in the tepee with his wife and baby. After having a cup
of tea, a smoke, and then a little chat, the hunters enquired about the
tracks of the great wolf that had brought them to the lodge. The
Indian told them that during the night before last, while he and his
wife were asleep with the baby between them, they had been awakened by
a great uproar among the dogs. They had no sooner sat up than the dogs
had rushed into the tepee followed by an enormous wolf. Leaping up,
the hunter had seized his axe and attacked the beast, while his wife
had grabbed the baby, wrapped it in a blanket, and rushing outside, had
rammed the child out of sight in a snowdrift, and returned to help her
husband to fight the brute. The wolf had already killed one of the
dogs, and the Indian in his excitement had tripped upon the bedding,
fallen, and lost his grip upon his axe. When he rose, he found the
wolf between himself and his weapon. His wife, however, had seized a
piece of firewood and, being unobserved by the wolf, had used it as a
club and dealt the beast so powerful a blow upon the small of the back
that it had been seriously weakened and had given the Indian an
opportunity to recover his axe, with which at last he had managed to
kill the wolf.

It was Mr. King's belief, however, that such unusual behaviour of a
wolf was caused by distemper, for the brute seemed to display no more
fear of man than would a mad dog. And he added that the behaviour of
the wolf in question was no more typical of wolves in general than was
the behaviour of a mad dog typical of dogs.