Bill grunted his disagreement with the diagnosis, and lapsed into silence. The day was like all the days. Light came at nine o’clock. At twelve o’clock the southern horizon was warmed by the unseen sun; and then began the cold gray of afternoon that would merge, three hours later, into night.

It was just after the sun’s futile effort to appear, that Bill slipped the rifle from under the sled-lashings and said:

“You keep right on, Henry, I’m goin’ to see what I can see.”

“You’d better stick by the sled,” his partner protested. “You’ve only got three cartridges, an’ there’s no tellin’ what might happen.”

“Who’s croakin’ now?” Bill demanded triumphantly.

Henry made no reply, and plodded on alone, though often he cast anxious glances back into the gray solitude where his partner had disappeared. An hour later, taking advantage of the cut-offs around which the sled had to go, Bill arrived.

“They’re scattered an’ rangin’ along wide,” he said; “keepin’ up with us an’ lookin’ for game at the same time. You see, they’re sure of us, only they know they’ve go to wait to get us. In the meantime they’re willin’ to pick up anythin’ eatable that comes handy.”

“You mean they think they’re sure of us,” Henry objected pointedly.

But Bill ignored him. “I seen some of them. They’re pretty thin. They ain’t had a bite in weeks, I reckon, outside of Fatty an’ Frog an’ Spanker; an’ there’s so many of ’em that that didn’t go far. They’re remarkable thin. Their ribs is like washboards, an’ their stomachs is right up against their backbones. They’re pretty desperate, I can tell you. They’ll be goin’ mad yet, an’ then watch out.”

A few minutes later, Henry, who was now traveling behind the sled, emitted a low, warning whistle. Bill turned and looked, then quietly stopped the dogs To the rear, from around the last bend and plainly into view, on the very trail they had just covered, trotted a furry, slinking form. Its nose was to the trail, and it trotted with a peculiar, sliding, effortless gait. When they halted, it halted, throwing up its head and regarding them steadily with nostrils that twitched as it caught and studied the scent of them.

“It’s the she-wolf,” Bill whispered.

The dogs had lain down in the snow, and he walked past them to join his partner at the sled. Together they watched the strange animal that had pursued them for days and that had already accomplished the destruction of half their dogteam.

After a searching scrutiny, the animal trotted forward a few steps. This it repeated several times, till it was a short hundred yards away. It paused, head up, close by a clump of spruce trees, and with sight and scent studied the outfit of the watching men. It looked at them in a strangely wistful way, after the manner of a dog; but in its wistfulness there was none of the dog affection. It was a wistfulness bred of hunger, as cruel as its own fangs, as merciless as the frost itself.

It was large for a wolf, its gaunt frame advertising the lines of an animal that was among the largest of its kind.

“Stands pretty close to two feet an’ a half at the shoulders,” Henry commented. “An’ I’ll bet it ain’t far from five feet long.”

“Kind of strange color for a wolf,” was Bill’s criticism. “I never seen a red wolf before. Looks almost cinnamon to me.”