The old mother wolf
vanished among the rocks and appeared again higher on the ridge, turning
her head uneasily to try every breeze and rustle and moving shadow. Then
she went questing into the spruce woods, feeling but not understanding
some subtle excitement in the air that was not there before, and only
the two Indian children were left keeping watch over the great wild
hillside.
For over an hour they lay there expectantly, but nothing stirred near
the den; then they too slipped away, silently as the little wild things,
and made their slow way down the brook, hand in hand in the deepening
shadows. Scarcely had they gone when the bushes stirred and the old
she-wolf, that had been ranging every ridge and valley since she
disappeared at the unknown alarm, glided over the spot where a moment
before Mooka and Noel had been watching. Swiftly, silently she followed
their steps; found the old trails coming up and the fresh trails
returning; then, sure at last that no danger threatened her own little
ones, she loped away up the hill and over the topmost ridge to the
caribou barrens and the thickets where young rabbits were already
stirring about in the twilight.
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