There was a
rush, swift and sudden as the swoop of an eagle; a sharp call to follow
as the mother's long jaws closed over the small of the back, just as the
fox turned to leap away. Then she flung the paralyzed animal back like a
flash; the young wolves tumbled in upon him; and before he knew what had
happened Eleemos the Sly One was stretched out straight, with one cub at
his tail and another at his throat, tugging and worrying and grumbling
deep in their chests as the lust of their first fighting swept over
them. Then in vague, vanishing glimpses the old he-wolf appeared,
quartering swiftly, silently, back and forth through the thicket,
driving every living thing down-wind to where the cubs and the mother
were waiting to receive it.
[Illustration: "As the mother's long jaws closed over the small of the
back"]
That one lesson was enough for the cubs, though years would pass before
they could learn all the fine points of this beating the bush: to know
almost at a glance where the game, whether grouse or hare or fox or
lucivee, was hiding in the cover, and then for one wolf to drive it,
slowly or swiftly as the case might require, while the other hid beside
the most likely path of escape.
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